[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 124 (Thursday, July 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4918-S4920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, Members of the Senate were all home 
last week for 2 weeks during their State work period. It was a good 
time to get back--to get back to reality, as I call it, because we all 
know here in Washington, people aren't always operating in reality. If 
we were, we wouldn't be seeing some of the policies that are coming out 
as we speak.
  These State work periods are a great time to hear directly from the 
people we represent, and that is who we work for--what they care about 
and how they are affected by what is happening here in our Nation's 
Capital.
  This is what folks back in Alabama were talking about. They were 
talking about small businesses that can't find people to work because 
the government is paying more in unemployment benefits than folks make 
on the job. And that is understandable. We have to understand that, and 
we have to understand the problem and how we rectify

[[Page S4919]]

that problem. We need workers in the State of Alabama in the worst way, 
almost in every business and in manufacturing.
  They were talking about an economy that is hurting--really hurting--
for hard-working Americans. They were talking about the real costs of 
rising inflation--rising prices on goods and services that the average 
family possesses.
  While driving around, I fill my truck up with gas. The cost was 
double what I spent just a few months ago, and that affects every 
American in this country.
  By the way, in June, consumer prices increased 5.4 percent. I got an 
earful from people about bread, eggs, and milk, all across the State of 
Alabama. I am sure that the people of Alabama are not alone in their 
concerns.
  This didn't happen by accident. This is the direct result of us up 
here spending way too much money, flooding the country with money that 
is out--I call it invisible money--out there just going into people's 
pockets that either they are saving, putting in the stock market, or 
spending on goods.
  This makes the timing of the President's proposed tax increases even 
worse. Simply put, President Biden's proposal is launching an all-out 
assault on the working Americans in this country, people who work hard 
for the money they put in their pocket to pay for the things that their 
family needs.
  Altogether, President Biden has called for 30--let me repeat that--30 
different tax increases on the American people that total over $3 
trillion.
  This is the worst time--the worst time--that we could be pushing a 
new tax increase, especially during this pandemic, which we thought was 
coming to a close, but it looks like we are not even close to that. So 
this would be the worst time for us to be raising taxes. Businesses and 
families have worked very hard to make progress after a very, very 
tough year and a half, and it has been tough. Higher taxes would set 
most, if not all, back even further.
  The President's budget laid down a marker. It lays out straight the 
priorities of the administration. It spotlights areas where the 
American public can expect a political emphasis. Well, with his budget, 
President Biden has telegraphed the types of tax increases that 
Congress can deploy to pay for his progressive policies. We are sure to 
see a few of them in the new reconciliation package. I am not going to 
talk about all 30 proposals, but let's take a look at some of the big 
tax increases that President Biden is going to propose.
  President Biden wants to raise the corporate rate from 21 to 28 
percent, which was lowered just a couple of years ago and put money in 
people's pockets all across the country. Now we are going to raise it 
from 21 to 28 percent on corporations. That is not a tax on 
corporations; that is a tax on the people who work across this country, 
especially for these corporations.
  If our Democratic colleagues get their way, Communist China will have 
a lower corporate tax rate than the United States. Let me repeat that. 
If our colleagues pass this tax, we will have a higher corporate tax 
rate than China. Take a moment to think about that.
  The Biden budget targets certain industries that our Democratic 
colleagues don't like, such as the oil and gas industry, which supports 
more than 10 million good-paying jobs in this country. It would face 
nearly $150 billion in industry-specific tax increases. That is in 
addition to the already massive corporate tax increase.
  Once again, the President is undoing the progress made over the last 
few years. The United States became fully--and I mean fully--energy 
independent for the first time in decades. As a net exporter, we 
exported oil and natural gas. What are we doing now? We are buying it. 
Since Biden has come into office, we have become increasingly dependent 
on Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and Russia for oil and gas.
  Colleagues on the left want the government to subsidize expensive and 
inefficient energy, like wind and solar, so we can put oil and gas out 
of business. We are all for natural energy, but you can't do it all at 
one time. You cannot do it all at one time. Just look at the people 
with the Keystone Pipeline who are out of work. They were told they 
would get shovel-ready jobs. I hear from them every day. There are no 
jobs out there for them like they had when they worked on the Keystone 
Pipeline.
  Many other preferred green energy sources require critical minerals 
that only China produces. In enforcing their Green New Deal policies on 
Americans, our Democratic colleagues are forcing us to be more 
dependent on China for key resources.
  I want to say one thing about what is going on in China. They are 
getting ready to use a molten salt reactor that we invented years and 
years ago that we decided not to use. Now, they are starting to build 
it, and we are helping them. We are helping China to become energy 
independent off of coal in the future because of these nuclear 
reactors. We invented it and shut it down, and now, we are going to 
help China with the progress of putting these in all over their 
country.
  All of this will effectively be a tax on regular working- and middle-
class Americans since their energy bills will go sky high as a result 
of this all-out assault on our oil and gas. It makes no sense.
  Not content with raising taxes at home, our President wants to 
implement a 21-percent global minimum tax on income that U.S. 
businesses earn overseas. Now, they are going to pay taxes overseas 
already, and we are going to turn around and tax them 21 percent more. 
Again, this is basically a double tax on the companies with 
international operations. Since they already have to pay taxes 
overseas, too, this tax would destroy American competitiveness. It 
would incentivize U.S. firms to headquarters overseas and move 
production offshore. We have got to rethink that. We have got to 
rethink it. Again, we are working for the American people, not for us 
here.
  President Biden is also calling for a 15-percent global corporate 
minimum tax based on the misguided assumption that other world powers 
will play fair. Well, I can guarantee you one thing: Russia and China 
are not going to play fair. We cannot count on anybody other than our 
allies. Everybody else is on their own. Even for the countries that do 
play fair, this international rate is lower than the 28-percent rate 
that companies headquartered in the United States would have to pay.
  So what does that mean? It means inversions are going to spread like 
wildfire, and large business corporations are going to move their 
headquarters overseas. We cannot allow that to happen. We are going to 
lose jobs.
  What is more, the President's budget calls to increase the IRS's 
budget by $80 billion over the next decade and add thousands of new 
agents. The President wants even more tax collectors to knock on your 
door and shake you down for all you are worth. I don't know if you have 
ever been audited. I have been several times, and it ain't a lot of 
fun. So what we are going to do is add even more people. If you get a 
tax refund, you are going to be audited. If you get some kind of 
refund, they are coming.
  We are talking about the same Agency that aggressively targeted 
conservative groups and individuals during the Obama administration. 
Now that there is another Democrat in the White House, the IRS is up to 
its old tactics again. We cannot politicize the IRS again.
  In just the past few months, the IRS has leaked the tax returns of 
American taxpayers to other groups. Now, to me, that really needs to be 
investigated. It has all gone down in the wash. For some reason, nobody 
is looking at this.

  Even more outrageously, news recently broke that a Christian 
organization based in Texas was denied tax-exempt status by the IRS. 
They were denied. Why? Because the IRS, for some reason, thinks the 
Bible is too closely associated with the Republican Party. That is 
ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It is sad commentary on where 
America is today. What is next? Is the IRS going to start pulling the 
tax-exempt status from churches? I hope not, but if we are adding all 
of these other agents, we are going to run into more and more problems.
  Before Congress even thinks about giving the IRS a dime more, the 
Agency must demonstrate that it treats all Americans--and I repeat, all 
Americans--equally and protects our personal tax information. 
Individuals responsible for the most recent leak must be prosecuted. We 
have to get control of the IRS. For some reason, they are out of 
control.

[[Page S4920]]

  Sadly, there is more. The President's administration also has its 
sights on small business owners--this is huge in my State and in a lot 
of other small States in this country, especially in farming 
communities--family farmers, middle-class Americans who would like to 
pass on to their children what they have worked so hard to build. By 
ending the longstanding step-up in basis rule, the President would 
force anyone who inherits something to pay capital gains tax on that 
asset at the time of inheritance.
  I want you to think about what that is going to do to millions of 
people, to millions of family members. This doesn't just apply to folks 
who inherit millions in wealth, and I know, as we all know, that is 
probably what this is aimed at; it would slam middle-class folks who 
inherit family farmland or a house or a small business.
  I am going to say this: After campaigning for 2 years and in going 
throughout my State of Alabama and talking to our farmers, if we lose 
our family farms in this country to big corporations, we are going to 
be in huge trouble. This is exactly what this is going to do. If we tax 
them at the time of inheritance, we are going to have huge problems. 
Many would have to sell their businesses just to pay the taxes, and it 
would destroy American jobs in the process. We need to give incentives 
to small businesses, farmers, and the like to make sure they understand 
and know that they can work hard and pass it down from generation to 
generation.
  Opposition to this particular tax increase is bipartisan. Congressman 
  David Scott of Georgia, a Democrat and chairman of the House 
Agriculture Committee, wrote to President Biden:

       Step-up in basis is a critical tool enabling family farming 
     operations to continue from generation to generation. The 
     potential for capital gains to be imposed on heirs at death 
     of the landowner would impose a significant financial burden 
     on these operations.

  This is a terrible--I mean a terrible--tax on small business and the 
American people. I agree with the Congressman.
  The American dream is about working hard so that your kids can have a 
better life than you did. That is why my parents worked so hard to give 
me and my brother and sister a chance. My dad never made over $15,000 a 
year, and we thought we were rich. We were actually poor, but they 
never let on to that. They worked hard to give us the opportunity to go 
to school, to get an education, and to try to make something of 
ourselves. I know that millions of mothers and fathers across the 
country feel the same way.
  When you boil it down, the tax plan is really just a tax on the 
American dream. We cannot take away the American dream from the 
American people. That is what we have lived off of. That is what we 
believe in.
  So why do we need to raise taxes so badly? It is in order to, 
obviously, finance all of the money that, in the last year and a half 
or 2 years, we have pushed out onto the public and for what we are 
going to do in the future. We have to tax.
  I keep hearing people say: Well, we are not going to raise taxes.
  Let me tell you that money doesn't grow on trees, so we had better 
find some way to understand that in the very near future or we are 
going to lose the future of our kids in this country. We can't let any 
of these tax proposals creep into the legislation that we are seeing. 
We can't let them do that. We can't let our policies overtake the 
things that will overcome our kids' future--and not just that of our 
kids. I used to say our kids and grandkids. Heck, it is us too. We are 
getting to the point now of no return, but we are looking at a package 
here in the next few weeks that is going to be $3.5 trillion, possibly 
even more. That is unfathomable. It is hard to understand.
  We have got to get this country back going again after the pandemic. 
Let the American people do it. We don't need to do it in this building. 
That is not our obligation. Our obligation is to give the people of 
this country the opportunity to get a job because growth and prosperity 
are what have made this country great, and that is what we need to 
continue to do.
  The root of the problem, I believe, is that a lot of people think 
that they can spend the hard-working people's money better than they 
can. They say: Trust us because Big Government knows best. Folks, Big 
Government is going to put us under--6 feet under. Governments have 
been making that argument to people for centuries.
  I would say this: In our growing up, look at the things that we as 
the government have taken control of, and you name me one thing that 
has been prosperous. I have thought long and hard about that. We try to 
put people to work through the Federal Government, and it doesn't work. 
We have got to allow it to happen through small businesses and 
corporations.
  Kings and Queens would demand more money from the people, but the 
monarchy felt that they were entitled to it. That was normal throughout 
the world until the United States was formed.
  We formed this country because of Kings and Queens saying: We know 
how to spend your money. We know how to spend your money more than you 
do.
  So the Founders wanted a country that was of and by and for the 
people, and that is why the United States of America was formed--
because the people built this country, not government.
  Thankfully, they set up a system that allows us to voice our 
opposition to taxes through democratic means. When the government tries 
to raise taxes, the American people have the opportunity to let their 
voices be heard at the ballot box.
  Just remember that when you earn, grow, and work hard to preserve 
your money, it is your money, not the government's.
  Our President would do well to remember that he serves at the will of 
the American people and not the other way around.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.