[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 99 (Thursday, June 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S3454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 TAXES

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on taxes, a year and a half ago, as the 
Senate debated the Republican tax bill, the Democrats predicted that 
giving enormous tax breaks to big corporations and the superrich would 
not trickle down to working Americans. We predicted then, as usual, 
that corporations would find a way to direct those newfound profits to 
themselves, not to their workers, not to their communities, and not for 
the good of the country.
  Our Republican colleagues protested. They said trickle-down works. 
They talked about tax cuts. They tried to deliberately avoid who they 
were designing the tax cuts to benefit, but it was largely the very 
wealthy and the very powerful corporations. They said it was going to 
benefit everybody.
  Well, here we go. The analyses keep pouring in of what a sham--a 
disgrace--this tax bill was, especially for middle-class, average 
Americans.
  An analysis by JUST Capital showed yesterday that 56 percent of the 
tax savings from the Trump tax bill have gone to shareholders in the 
form of stock buybacks and direct distributions--56 percent, a 
majority. Do you know how much workers got? While the shareholders--
most of them wealthy--got 56 percent, workers got 6 percent of the 
whole benefit of the tax bill. This was by JUST Capital, which is not a 
leftwing group; it is a group that is composed of people who know all 
about and participate in corporations and finance.
  If you don't believe that one, this morning, the Business Roundtable, 
which is made up of the 200 largest CEOs in America--hardly a leftwing, 
radical group--reported that America's CEOs expect to spend less on 
capital investments now than before the tax bill was passed.
  So this idea of giving these companies big tax breaks so they will 
reinvest them is not happening. They are going to buybacks. This is not 
dealing with the No. 1 problem that America faces--the maldistribution 
of wealth and income as it agglomerates to the top and the middle class 
and those trying to get into the middle class being left out.
  I remember when President Trump promised his tax bill would be a 
``middle class miracle''--his words--and that the average American 
family would see a $4,000 raise. I remember when many of my Republican 
friends came to the floor to tout workers' bonuses in the wake of their 
tax bill even though many of them were merely your typical annual 
bonuses. It turns out, as to yesterday's report, that 2 percent--just 2 
percent--of the tax bill's overall windfall went to workers' bonuses, 
which is an average of a measly $28 per worker, while their corporate 
parents and their larger shareholders got hundreds of thousands and 
millions.
  Several of my Republican colleagues still laud the tax bill. They try 
to link it to positive economic news, but you will never hear them 
mention that most of the bill's benefits flowed to multinational 
corporations and to the top 1 percent of America. You won't hear them 
mention that it did very little to raise wages for average Americans. 
Alas, the Republicans are giving themselves credit for building a theme 
park for everyone when all they have done is renovate the exclusive 
country club.
  As many Democrats predicted, a year and a half after its passage, the 
Republican tax bill has overwhelmingly benefited shareholders and 
corporate executives but not workers and their families.

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