[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 156 (Thursday, September 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6215-S6216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to take some time this afternoon 
to respond to the remarks of the President's top economic adviser, Mr. 
Gary Cohn, with respect to this administration's approach to taxes.
  Let me be clear right at the outset. The President and his parade of 
millionaires are executing a middle-class con job. I am going to be 
very specific in saying why I reached that judgment with respect to 
what they are saying about taxes.
  The President said: ``I don't benefit. Very, very strongly I think 
there's very little benefit for people of wealth.'' Those are the 
President's exact words. ``It's not good for me, believe me,'' the 
President said in his speech unveiling the tax reform blueprint on 
Wednesday.
  Unless the President paid zero tax, the President is going to benefit 
enormously from his tax plan. His family would save billions if the 
estate tax is eliminated, as he has proposed. His more than 500 
passthroughs will be able to take advantage of the new Grand Canyon-
sized passthrough loophole that his plan proposes. Based on his 2005 
tax return--that is the only one available--the President would save 
millions each year if the alternative minimum tax is eliminated.
  Today, the President's top adviser, Gary Cohn, said: ``We've also 
said that wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut.'' They expect 
you to believe them and not your lying eyes.
  I want to take a few minutes and describe exactly what the well-to-do 
are getting in this bill.
  The plan outlined by the Trump administration would cost upwards of 
$5 trillion, and it is overwhelmingly skewed toward the wealthy and the 
biggest corporations. It lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 20, and 
much of that goes to wealthy shareholders.
  The new passthrough, which would give this big gift to high-flyers, 
hedge funds, basically would let them start calling ordinary income 
business income, so it could be taxed at a much lower rate, and they 
would in the process harm Social Security and Medicare because they 
aren't paying those payroll taxes.
  I mentioned the estate tax. This is for just a few thousand people. 
The exemption for a couple is already $11 million. This break would 
cost the American people between $250 to $270 billion. That is an awful 
lot of money to parcel out to a few thousand families.
  They would lower the individual top rate from 39.6 to 35 percent. 
Let's make no mistake about it--the President of the United States and 
his top economic adviser have said they are not going to give tax cuts 
to the wealthy. That is not what they said yesterday. They said that 
the top rate was going to go down from 39.6 to 35 percent. And to add 
insult to injury, for those at the bottom of the economic system who 
pay 10 percent now, theirs would go up to 12 percent. So this is just 
making a mockery out of the President's pledge that this was going to 
be about working families and not about the wealthy. The fact is, with 
respect to the middle class, the Trump team is running a sleight-of-
hand shell game. What they give with one hand, they just take away with 
the other.

  They touted yesterday that they were going to be helping middle-class 
folks by doubling the standard deduction. First of all, that is walking 
back the bipartisan proposal we had here in the Senate--written by 
myself and my colleague Dan Coats, now a member of the Trump 
administration--that would triple the standard deduction.
  What is particularly outrageous is that the Trump people aren't 
leveling with those middle-class families. Basically, they are saying: 
Oh, you are really going to do well. You are going to double the 
standard deduction. What they don't tell them is that they are going to 
eliminate the personal exemption that large middle-class families rely 
on. In effect, those large middle-class families--I think a lot of 
working-class families who may have supported the President--are going 
to see a tax increase under the President's tax outline that we heard 
about yesterday, even with this larger standard deduction.
  The President's team also took a big pass on the opportunity to 
expand the child tax credit to make sure more working families would 
benefit from it. There are no specifics about the child tax credit in 
this plan.
  The Treasury Secretary went on FOX News and said that the tax plan is 
going to cut the deficit by a trillion dollars. Mr. Mnuchin is doubling 
down on the failed experiment--the idea that the tax cuts, in effect, 
pay for themselves through economic growth. History shows that just is 
not true.
  The tax cuts don't pay for themselves. The 2001 and 2003 Bush tax 
cuts were billed as tax relief for the middle class to spark economic 
growth. Instead, the benefits skewed to those at the very top, and they 
added trillions of dollars to America's debt. Middle-class wages fell. 
Unemployment increased. This is a pattern that working families, 
middle-class families, cannot afford to have repeated.
  Now the Secretary of Treasury's claim is: Well, the Trump tax cuts 
will not just pay for themselves; they are going to bring in an 
additional $1 trillion in revenue atop their own cost. William Peter 
Wyden, age 9, my son, would say: That is just a bunch of whoppers. It 
couldn't be further from the truth.
  As even Republican-appointed Budget Office Director Keith Hall has 
said and made clear, the tax cuts do not pay for themselves: ``No, the 
evidence is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves.'' Those are the 
words of the Budget Director appointed by the Republicans.
  That Budget Director, Mr. Keith Hall, went on to say that the models 
they are doing--the macroeconomic effects, the fancy kind of economic 
lingo for the big picture in the long term--show it.
  The other comment that was noteworthy from Mr. Gary Cohn is that the 
President remains committed to ending the carried interest deduction. 
Despite his campaign promise that won him bouquets from political 
commentators and typical middle-class voters, once again, the 
President's plan doesn't close the carried interest loophole. This is 
the second big occasion on which the President has failed to follow 
through on his campaign promise.
  A few months ago, in the spring, they had a one-page outline. They 
said that was where they were going on taxes. They said that one-page 
outline was shorter than a typical Fred Meyer receipt. Fred Meyer is 
kind of an iconic store in our State. They had one page then and didn't 
do anything about following through on the President's promise to get 
rid of the carried interest loophole.
  Yesterday--again, we didn't get a bill, but at least when you kind of 
eliminate all the white space, they put out close to five pages. Once 
again, they didn't close the carried interest loophole.
  In fact, the plan gives such massive tax cuts to those at the top, 
investment managers will not be the only

[[Page S6216]]

people who can get away with paying less than their fair share. Many of 
the megawealthy are going to be able to do so. It is all going to be 
legal under the President's plan.
  What is the one question on which the Trump team doesn't bend the 
truth? Whether their plan will protect the middle class from a tax 
hike. On ABC, the Trump adviser, Mr. Cohn, said that he couldn't 
guarantee taxes will not go up for middle-class folks. On ABC, the 
Treasury Secretary said that he couldn't guarantee middle-class folks 
would not pay more under the tax plan.
  What is really striking about this, and it is quite a contrast, is 
that what people at the very top are going to get is spelled out in 
detail--in detail. They are going to see the abolition of the estate 
tax, an incredible windfall to a few thousand families.
  Middle-class folks--can't guarantee you will not pay more. Mr. Cohn 
said: We are aiming to help the middle class. But then he was asked: 
Would you commit to it? His answer: Well, I don't know. There might be 
somebody somewhere.
  Then there are State and local taxes. He just wouldn't stand behind 
the middle class the way that this administration stands foursquare 
behind those at the top. It is why I have said that the President and 
his parade of millionaires are executing a middle-class con job, and we 
sure saw it today.
  The President's ultrawealthy, out-of-touch advisers clearly fail to 
understand that the time is now to deliver tax relief to middle-class 
folks who need it most. It is time to go back to the drawing board and 
come up with a plan that doesn't threaten middle-class Americans, 
particularly those with larger families, and doesn't hit them with a 
tax increase they can't afford.
  I want to close by way of saying that on our side, we have repeatedly 
said we share the view that the tax system is a dysfunctional, broken-
down mess filled with loopholes. Then you have the inversion virus. 
Often my wife says: Why don't you stop there? Any more is going to 
frighten the children.
  We share the view that the tax system is broken. I have been very 
proud over the years to join two senior Republicans, close allies--the 
majority leader, Mitch McConnell--in a tax reform proposal that is 
bipartisan that really puts the focus on the middle class and on red, 
white, and blue jobs.
  Our proposal--the outline laid out by Democrats--was that there had 
to be fiscal responsibility, it had to focus on the middle class, and 
the tax relief couldn't go to the 1 percent. The bill I wrote that had 
Republican support, the outline led by the distinguished Democratic 
leader, Senator Schumer, doesn't even go as far as Ronald Reagan and 
the Democrats went in 1986.
  President Reagan, whom no one would call a flaming liberal, entered 
into an agreement with Democrats in 1986 that said there would be equal 
treatment of income earned by a cop or a nurse with that earned by 
someone from a hedge fund or an investment shop.
  In effect, Ronald Reagan said that a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. 
Everything ought to be treated fairly. That was important then, and it 
is even more important now because, in reality, there are two tax 
systems in America. There is one for the cop and the nurse. They have 
their taxes taken out every paycheck. That taxation is compulsory--no 
Cayman Island deal for them.
  Then there is another tax system for the kind of people who benefit 
from what the President outlined yesterday. Those are the high-fliers. 
They get to pay what they want when they want to. I think it is very 
unfortunate that what the President has described is another gift to 
that group I just described, who pay what they want when they want to. 
To quote the President, it is really sad to hear that this 
administration and the President are pretending that they are doing 
something else and putting the focus on the middle class when what they 
really are doing is advancing the cause of the parade of millionaires, 
a number of whom are part of this administration.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blunt). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________