Pelosi Floor Speech in Opposition to the GOP Tax Scam 2.0

Contact: Ashley Etienne/Henry Connelly, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks of the Floor of the House of Representatives opposition to H.R. 6760, the GOP tax scam for the wealthy 2.0.  Below are the Leader’s remarks: 
 
Leader Pelosi.  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.  I thank the gentleman [Congressman Richie Neal] for yielding and thank him for his extraordinary leadership in representing the House Democrats as the Ranking Member on the Ways and Means Committee.  He brings to that position the values shared by the American people of fairness: fairness, transparency, openness in what goes on here in Congress, and doing so in a way that's accountable to the American people.  So I thank him for his leadership. 

And I sadly come to the Floor again to talk about, yet again, another Republican Tax Scam.  The gentleman who just spoke talked about how we should be filled with joy.  Filled with joy?  If we're talk about emotion, let us talk about Saint Augustine.  17 centuries ago – Saint Augustine – 17 centuries ago, 1,700 years ago.  He said, ‘A state which is not governed according to justice is just a bunch of thieves.’  

Pope Benedict who quoted Augustine, ‘The state must inevitably be faced with the question of how justice can be achieved here and now.’  Benedict cautioned against the danger of certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests.  That’s what they talked about. 

This is about justice.  Justice for our country in terms of economic justice.  Justice in our society in terms of everyone participating in the prosperity of America.  Not yet again the warmed-over stew of trickle-down economics.  If you give 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent, glory hallelujah, it may trickle down on you.  If it does not, ‘So be it,’ that's what the former Speaker said. 

So here we are again, at a time, so be it, well, let me just say, I’ll quote some of the Republicans reinforcing what I said earlier.  Who are these tax scams for?  Congressman Chris Collins said, ‘My donors are basically saying get it done or don't ever call me again.’  Senator Lindsey Graham said, ‘The financial contributions will stop if’ – and I say, if this tax scam fails. 

Here we are again.  Here we're again at a time on this last day of the session, as this body prepares to pack its bags and return home for the next six weeks.  The GOP’s priorities have been laid bare as we waste our final moments debating a version of the Republicans' same old tax scam with no accountability, no transparency and no fairness for the American people. 

The first GOP tax scam for the rich added $2 trillion to the national debt, when you talk about the tax cut plus the interest on the debt.  Sticking our children with the bill for massive tax breaks for big Pharma, big banks, big corporations, enabling them, making it more profitable for them to ship jobs overseas and the wealthiest 1 percent.  

People across America have raised their voices to condemn the Republicans' plan to spend trillions on tax cuts for the wealthy.  What’s so sad about it is in their first tax scam they decided that they would set up a thing where the individual mandate was repealed and therefore the benefit of a pre-existing condition, no longer barring you from having access to health insurance.  

The first tax scam was an assault on the pre-existing condition benefit in the Affordable Care Act.  Not only that – that was not good enough for them, the President went further in his budget and said, ‘We have a tax – we have increased the debt.  Now we have to pay for it.’  Because contrary to the illusion that our Republicans like to present, these tax breaks do not ever pay for themselves. 

Don’t take it from me.  Those who have worked even with Jack Kemp have said, ‘Anybody who tells you that these tax breaks pay for themselves is selling you something that is not true, is nonsense and is BS’ except said the whole word in our testimony. 

Here they are now, they have to pay for it.  Where they are going to get the money?  Just give 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent, big tax breaks for corporations enabling them to send jobs overseas.  Well, who is going to pay for it?  In the President’s budget, to make up for the $2 trillion plus, they cut $500 billion from Medicare, $1.4 trillion from Medicaid, legislation not just for poor children, but for middle-income seniors, a benefit for middle income seniors, $214 billion from food stamps, a benefit needed by our seniors, by our veterans, by our poor children in America.  All of this to pay for tax cuts for the rich. 

So here we are again: imagine what the Republicans will try to do after adding trillions more to the deficit.  Their intentions are clear.  Whatever the President's advisor, whatever his title is, Larry Kudlow, his top economic chief said, if Republicans control Congress, they will immediately move to cut ‘the larger entitlements… probably next year.’ 

In budget after budget, Republicans have made their plan perfectly clear: add trillions to the deficit with their GOP tax scam for the rich and then use those deficits to justify slashing Medicare, Medicaid and actually disability benefits for people on Social Security.  Adding $2 trillion to the debt with their first tax scam, putting forth a budget that would again cut millions of dollars back from seniors and hard-working Americans.  They want to do it again.  

Don't take it from me.  The AARP wrote a letter to Congress yesterday to warn against the grievous damage that would be done by the second phase of Republicans' deficit exploding tax scam.  They wrote, ‘We have grave concerns about H.R. 6760… AARP is troubled by the further negative effect of this bill will have on the nation's ability to fund critical priorities,’ they said. 

And they then said the ‘Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that H.R. 6760 will reduce federal revenue by approximately $631 billion over the 10-year budget window.  This is in addition to the 1.5 trillion reduction in revenue over the 10-year budget window.’  Revenue.  Revenue that can be used for investment.  

Think of what we could have done with those resources to build the infrastructure of America. To a small piece of it, address the pension crisis in America.  The recognition that investments in education are the best investments we can make because nothing brings more to the Treasury than investments in education.  And instead we have the AARP going on to say, ‘Additional increases of this magnitude will lead to calls for great spending cuts which are likely to include cuts for Medicare, Medicaid and other important programs serving older Americans.’ The letter concludes, ‘AARP cannot support H.R. 6760.’  

Here we are.  They give this big tax break.  They said that people are going to get bonuses and raises. Some people got bonuses, that's good if you worked there a long time, you got a bonus, but it didn't add to your base salary which would have been the important increase for people to make.  

One estimate by Goldman Sachs was that there would be, following this former tax bill, $1 trillion in buybacks.  In other words, corporations buying back their stock, not investing in their workforce, not recognizing that their success depends on the productivity of the workforce.  And that any increase in productivity should also include an increase in the wages of the workers, but instead – increase the compensation for the CEO.  It's shameful. 

To conclude on that point, there is a better way to do this, there could have been, instead of as they did with the first tax scam, now this one, the first one, in the dark you of night in the speed of light, putting forth a bill that they almost didn't even know what they were voting for.  It did a grave injustice to our nation for what it deprives us by giving us these tax breaks at the high end. 

There is a way to do it.  Mr. Neal has suggested over and over again, let's see what we have done before.  Ronald Reagan, Tip O’Neill, 1986, almost a year of hearings and transparency and openness for the public could see and people could understand what it meant to them in their lives.  Instead, they just go into those rooms, say how can we, how can we, how can we milk the public?  How can we exploit the taxpayer by adding to it to wealth of the wealthiest one percent?  It’s shameful.  Like Saint Augustine said, ‘Unless a government is formed to promote justice, it's just a bunch of thieves.’ 

We are robbing from our children's future with this national debt.  We are robbing from the participation in the full benefits of our prosperity, of our workers in our country.  We are robbing our nation's ability to be itself, to make America good again.  In doing so, to again have people have financial stability in their lives so that they can be entrepreneurial, so that they can take risks, so that they can invest in their children's future.  It’s not only good for the individual taxpayer or person in our country.  It’s good for our country because it makes us competitive in the world with our values and with our economy.  With that I urge a ‘no’ vote and yield back the balance of my time.
 

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