[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 114 (Wednesday, July 10, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H4534-H4535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TAXING BILLIONAIRES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I want you to take a look at this graph. 
There are two lines. The dark blue line is the effective tax rate paid 
by the 400 highest income earners in America, and the light blue line 
is the effective tax rate paid by the bottom half of income earners in 
our country.
  In the 1960s, the people at the very top, the richest 400 Americans, 
paid about twice the tax rate that the average middle-class family did, 
but in 2018 during the Donald Trump Presidency and for the first time 
in our history, the billionaires started paying a lower tax rate than 
nurses, teachers, firefighters, and most other middle-class Americans 
who put in an honest day's work and make our economy run.
  It is unfair, it is absurd, and it is wrong.
  How did we get here? For years, corrupt rightwing politicians gave 
tax break after tax break to the billionaires and big corporations who 
funded their campaigns. When the billionaires and big corporations 
don't pay their fair share in taxes, you know who has to carry the 
load? Working people carry the load--working people who can't afford to 
pay thousands of dollars to go to Mar-a-Lago or Trump Hotel, working 
people who don't get to move their money overseas or hire an Army of 
accountants to find them tax loopholes or hire an Army of lobbyists to 
create new loopholes for them, working people who have their healthcare 
cut and their veterans benefits cut, working people who have to send 
their kids to crumbling schools all because the politicians tell them 
there isn't enough money left.
  But there is always money when those billionaires come asking for 
more tax cuts, isn't there?
  When Donald Trump and the Republicans were in charge, they passed a 
$2 trillion tax cut that went almost entirely to the wealthy, and then 
they turned around and tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick 
16 million Americans off their health insurance. We know what their 
priorities are, and we know what they will do if they return to power 
in this election.
  Already, Donald Trump and House Republicans are meeting with industry 
lobbyists and billionaire donors to scheme how they can give away even 
more tax breaks to the people at the very top and cut the programs that 
working people depend on to get by.
  Look at Project 2025, their policy plan for what they will do if they 
take control. That plan calls for cutting Social Security by raising 
the retirement age. It calls for repealing the Affordable Care Act, 
eliminating Head Start programs that provide preschool for 1 million 
children, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the 
National Weather Service. Republicans

[[Page H4535]]

propose cuts, cuts, cuts to programs that help working people, and at 
the same time they propose giving even more tax cuts to the people at 
the top who don't need it.
  It doesn't have to be this way.
  We can go back to a system where the tax code is fair, and working 
people aren't asked to pay an unfair burden. By asking the people at 
the top to pay their fair share again like they used to, we can do 
incredible things in this country.
  We can ensure that Social Security benefits keep up with the cost of 
living and that the program's life is extended indefinitely. We can cut 
the cost of healthcare. We can ensure that every child receives a 
world-class education. We can provide tax relief to working people who 
actually need it.
  The possibilities are right there in front of us, but we need to 
reverse this dangerous trend. We need to stop the corruption. We need 
to start working for working people, not the big donors and the 
lobbyists, and we need to put people over politics.

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