[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 183 (Thursday, November 9, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7135-S7136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Republican Tax Plan

  I come to the floor to speak right now because I know our colleagues 
are trying to move forward next week on some various proposals that are 
part of the tax package. I am very concerned and remain very concerned 
about the measures within the policy that raise taxes on middle-class 
families because I don't think we should be passing a tax bill that 
raises taxes on middle-class families. For me, in Washington, 
obviously, it is a big concern. We don't have an income tax. They are 
getting rid of our local deductions that are so meaningful to us.
  Literally, we have done calculations--and I know there will be 
calculations in other States--that show you are literally raising taxes 
on middle-class families to give a tax break to corporations that, in 
some cases, aren't asking for them or certainly are not paying that 
corporate rate today.
  I think we can do better than these policies. I certainly think we 
can do better than the policies that are going to be before the Energy 
Committee next week, if the information we are hearing now or getting 
word of is that my colleague on the Energy Committee, the Senator from 
Alaska, is going to propose literally getting rid of

[[Page S7136]]

the wildlife refuge as a refuge and basically the purposes for the 
refuge and instead saying that drilling would happen and thereby 
destroy the refuge.
  I know today there are going to be scientists from across the country 
who are going to give word and testament to the fact that it is too 
dangerous to have drilling in the same place as a wildlife refuge, that 
they cannot coexist, that it will destroy the refuge. Apparently, that 
is what my colleague from Alaska already believes because she is now 
going to say that to do drilling, you have to change the status of the 
refuge.
  I definitely believe there are much better ways in America to get 
revenue than basically destroying the wildlife habitat of caribou and 
of Arctic wildlife that is so treasured in the United States of 
America.
  I certainly think there are better ways to do it than raising taxes 
on middle-class families, in both my State and your State that don't 
have an income tax and would rather continue to have the deductibility. 
I hope our colleagues will look at both of these ideas and go back to 
the drawing board. It is not where we need to be. We need to be 
protecting things that are so near and dear to us.
  We definitely don't need to fund tax breaks for millionaires by 
destroying wildlife habitat. Instead, we should be going back to the 
drawing board on things that are going to help our economy grow in the 
future.
  I hope the public is well aware that this is kind of dark-of-night 
tactics, where they want us to leave town on Thursday night only to 
come back on Monday and start in on a tax policy we haven't even seen. 
We haven't even seen the language yet.
  I think we can do better than to have a rush-rush approach to give 
tax breaks to corporations and certainly not do it on the backs of 
working-class families in America--taking away from them viable 
deductions for education, for housing, for property taxes, for 
expenditures that they make. We can do better than to leave here and 
come back on Monday to rush-rush a tax break for corporations while 
raising taxes on middle-class families and destroying a wildlife refuge 
that scientists say is so important to our ecology to keep.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________