[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13623-13624]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              DONALD TRUMP

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, last night the Republican nominee for 
President failed to give any assurance of any kind or a coherent 
explanation as to why he refuses to release his tax returns--because 
there is no coherent reason. It is hard to give one when there isn't 
one.
  He said he couldn't release his tax information because the Internal 
Revenue Service hasn't certified it. Everyone debunks that--everyone, 
except Donald Trump. But even as Trump tried to say nothing about his 
tax returns, he revealed at least one shocking truth: Donald Trump 
thinks that paying taxes is a fool's errand. People shouldn't pay 
taxes. He said--and it was reported at least five times in three 
decades--that he paid nothing in Federal income taxes, and Secretary 
Clinton alluded to that fact in last night's debate. Donald Trump's 
response was this: ``That makes me smart.'' So what does that make the 
rest of us--suckers, unintelligent, dumb? He is smart; so does that 
make us dumb because we pay our taxes? He knows that refusing to pay 
taxes makes him, as we have come to learn, a scam artist. He is good at 
that. Every day that he refuses to release his tax returns is another 
slap in the face to the American people. People running for office for 
scores of decades have released their income taxes. That may be

[[Page 13624]]

a little bit of an exaggeration, but let's say that for the last 70 
years, they have released their income tax returns. So why won't he 
release his? Why doesn't he do this? Because the tax returns would show 
that he is not the rich guy he thinks he is. Tax returns would show he 
is a spoiled, rich brat who inherited his daddy's money and hasn't done 
so well with it. After $14 million, he hasn't done that well with how 
much his dad gave him. Trump's tax returns would show he isn't as 
generous as he claims to be and that he uses charities as his personal 
slush fund. Did you see this morning's news? He had an appearance on a 
TV show, and they owed him money. They paid that into his charity so he 
can then say that he gave this away. Trump's tax returns would show 
that, in spite of getting over $1 billion of assistance from New York, 
in New York City alone Donald Trump is a failed businessman who is 
buried under a mountain of debt. They would show that he refuses to pay 
his Federal income taxes.
  So I would hope that Donald Trump would release those tax returns the 
way Hillary Clinton has released 40 years of hers and her husband's.
  Mr. President, I ask the Chair to announce the business of the day.

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