[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
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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.
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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.