[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 163 (Tuesday, September 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S6559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 TAXES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the senior House Democrat told us back 
in March of 2020 that COVID presented ``a tremendous opportunity to 
restructure things to fit our vision.''
  President Biden said last week that ``while this pandemic has been 
godawful for so many reasons . . . it does present us with an 
opportunity.''
  The reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Washington Democrats are 
assembling behind closed doors would put more debt, more borrowing, and 
more inflation on the shoulders of American families. It would make 
Washington, DC, dramatically more involved in families' childcare, 
their health coverage, their local energy utilities, and on and on.
  There are so many controversial changes being crammed into one mega 
bill that it must be a deliberate strategy: try to achieve everything 
the far left has wanted for 20 years in one fell swoop before the 
country has time to realize what hit it.
  So today, I am going to focus on just one example. Let's look at the 
tax hikes, a staggering historic set of tax hikes; tax hikes on small 
business, tax hikes on family farms, tax hikes on Americans that would 
shatter the pledge to spare people earning less than $400,000 a year, 
tax hikes that would put even more Americans into unfair double 
taxation of the death tax, massive taxes on the U.S. economy that would 
give us one of the least competitive tax structures in the developed 
world.
  For example, even Communist China taxes their own businesses 
significantly less than President Biden and his allies want America to 
tax ours.
  Tax hike after tax hike after tax hike--a smothering wet blanket 
thrown onto an economy that is already struggling to fully recover 
because of the inflation and worker shortages that Democrats' policies 
have already unleashed.
  So when you add it all up, Democrats want to ram through one of the 
largest peacetime tax hikes on record, if not the single largest. So 
let me say that again. Behind closed doors, Washington Democrats are 
drafting what may very well be the largest peacetime tax hike that our 
country has literally ever seen.
  But this isn't to say that nobody gets a leg up in this bill. So 
listen to this. Somehow, mysteriously, many of the Democrats' favorite 
groups and special interests come out just fine. Isn't that 
fascinating?
  For example, their legislation would allow ordinary Americans' 
charitable deduction on top of the standard deduction to expire. Ah, 
but they would replace it with a brandnew tax break of almost exactly 
the same dollar amount for union dues that go to Big Labor. So you take 
out a charitable deduction for regular Americans, put in a new one for 
union dues that would benefit Big Labor. They are scrapping Americans' 
extra deduction for donating to charity and replacing it with a special 
subsidy for union dues for Big Labor.
  Really, you can't make this stuff up. Sorry, Red Cross. Sorry, local 
churches and houses of worship. Sorry, soup kitchens. Democrats think 
the Teamsters and the SEIU need the money more than you do.
  And they aren't the only group that Democrats favor, who literally 
make out like bandits. Look at high-income earners in coastal blue 
States. The bill that raises taxes on everything that moves somehow--
somehow--makes room for a special, gigantic tax cut for wealthy people 
who choose to live in high-tax States. More than half the benefit of 
the so-called SALT policy would go to the top 1 percent of households.
  There is also a special tax break for people who choose to purchase 
expensive electric cars. You get the picture: make U.S. industry less 
competitive than China in order to massively subsidize the coastal 
cosmopolitan lifestyle. That is what the Democrats want.
  This bill would also create a new national dragnet for ordinary 
Americans' banking information. Community banks and credit unions would 
be hammered with new requirements to report to the feds whenever 
citizens make transactions--listen to this--in excess of $600. 
Community banks and credit unions would have new requirements to report 
to the Federal Government whenever citizens make transactions in excess 
of $600.
  Big Brother wants to peer into America's bank accounts. Here is how 
one local Kentucky lender described this concept to me: a ``flagrant 
violation of privacy and offense to liberty.''
  That pretty well sums it up. So, huge tax hikes on Americans, 
expensive giveaways for coastal elites, and new government snooping--
snooping--into families' finances.
  So that is just one corner of this reckless taxing-and-spending spree 
that should never see the light of day.

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