[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13939-13940]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               TAX REFORM

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I would like to spend a minute this 
morning talking about tax reform.
  We Democrats want to actually achieve tax reform in this country, but 
in a way that gives some relief to middle-class families. We don't want 
to give big tax breaks to those at the very top while working families 
are struggling to make ends meet, and we don't want a reform to balloon 
the debt because we know down the road many Republicans will use the 
debt as an excuse to come after Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid. Our caucus is united on that front.
  But the President this morning tweeted, ``With Irma and Harvey 
devastation, Tax Cuts and Tax Reform is needed more than ever before.'' 
With all due respect to the President, a tax cut--particularly one for 
the very wealthy--is not going to help Florida or Texas rebuild from 
these storms. The President has it exactly backward in another way. We 
are about to add billions to the deficit to rebuild parts of our 
country, something we absolutely should do because it is an emergency, 
but that makes it even more important that tax reform be fiscally 
responsible and deficit neutral--not ``Tax Cuts'' as the President 
tweeted.
  We would be wise to remember the Bush era when Congress passed a 
massive tax cut and put two wars on the national credit card. It 
exploded the deficit and debt. Ever since, many Republicans have been 
pointing to the size of the debt as a reason to cut back on earned 
benefits, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
  So, particularly after all of this emergency spending for Harvey and 
Irma, which we absolutely must do, we should not pile hundreds of 
billions, maybe trillions more on top of the debt. Tax reform should be 
deficit neutral.
  We are willing to work with our Republican colleagues on tax reform 
insofar as they are working on tax reform that is deficit neutral and 
provides middle-class tax relief. I think that point was made by my 
Democratic colleagues who went to the White House last night. We will 
not go along with the tax scheme to lavish the wealthy with lower rates 
or even more carve-outs or a plan that explodes the debt and the 
deficit. Unfortunately, what we have heard of the Republican plan so 
far reveals that they are designing a tax plan that does exactly that--
helps the wealthy above all. Case in point: Last week, President Trump 
said that the estate tax was a ``tremendous burden for the family 
farmer'' and that it was crushing the American dream.
  Does everyone here know what the estate tax is? It is a tax cut. It 
has been reformed. It was changed several years ago. It is now a tax 
cut for about the 5,000 richest families in America--approximately 0.2 
percent of all of the estate owners in the country. The estate tax only 
kicks in when couples with estates of nearly $11 million transfer their 
wealth to their families. For families who have less than $11 million--
they do not pay a penny.
  This is a tax cut that would primarily benefit people like the 
President and members of his Cabinet, several of whom have net worths 
in the millions and billions. My friend Senator Sanders has pointed out 
that the estate tax could potentially give a $53 billion tax break to 
the Walton family--the heirs to the Walmart fortune. They are hardly 
family farmers. To boot, the estate tax would cost $269 billion over 10 
years and would go to a very rarified, small number of very wealthy 
people and not to anybody else. It is not exactly the deficit-reducing 
kind of policy Republicans have been talking about for years.
  Yet Chairman Brady of the House Ways and Means Committee said 
yesterday that we Democrats should not jump the gun and criticize the 
estate

[[Page 13940]]

tax. He implied that nothing is decided and that maybe the estate tax 
will not be a part of the tax discussions. I hope he is right, but I 
would remind him that Republicans have been in lockstep on estate tax 
repeal for years and that he himself carried legislation in the House 
to repeal the estate tax as recently as in 2015. As recently as August 
11 of this year, Chairman Brady was asked on FOX Business news if he 
were looking to get rid of the estate tax. He replied, ``I am.'' So 
this idea that we should not criticize this idea because Republicans 
are not for it is just ridiculous.
  Here is what Chairman Brady did yesterday. He did not even call it 
``estate tax repeal''; he said ``job creating.'' This is a game we are 
going to hear a lot about over the next few months. Our Republican 
colleagues are afraid to talk about exactly what they are going to be 
doing when it comes to tax reform. I would like them to be honest and 
say that they believe tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans are what 
create jobs. Most Americans do not believe that, so they hide it by 
saying they are job-creating. ``We are doing job-creating taxes.'' This 
is the same problem they had with healthcare. They talked about one 
thing, but it was really another. The American people caught on, and 
that is why healthcare did not succeed. The same thing will happen with 
tax reform if they persist in--and are actually embarrassed by--what 
they are doing so that they cannot talk about it frankly, so they 
cannot talk about it freely.
  Our Republican friends want to hide the fact that they are giving a 
massive tax cut to the rich by calling it job-creating or pro-growth. 
If they want to argue explicitly that tax cuts for the wealthiest 
Americans are the best way to grow America, I welcome the argument, but 
say what you are doing. Don't just hide it under sort of false talk. To 
say that the estate tax is about family farmers is a statement that is 
just flat, plain wrong, deceptive. The estate tax shows how ridiculous 
and how egregious the canard is. Cutting the estate tax is not going to 
create jobs.
  If Chairman Brady has a detailed discussion of how cutting the 
Waltons' $53 billion is going to create jobs or create jobs better than 
will training people, building infrastructure, or giving tax breaks to 
the middle class, I welcome it, but let's hear the discussion.
  We are not going to let Republicans hide their agenda--tax cuts for 
the rich--by shrouding it in terms like ``pro-growth'' and ``job-
creating.'' If they believe that giving a massive tax cut to the 5,000 
wealthiest estates in America is going to create jobs, they have to 
show us how.
  Another point. This morning, I was in the gym trying to exercise, as 
I try to do, and I saw my dear friend Senator Toomey say on television: 
Well, it is clear Democrats do not want to work with us.
  Well, I walked faster on that treadmill--I spun the bike faster--when 
I heard that. There were 45 or 48 Democrats who signed a letter that 
said: Do not do reconciliation. Work with us on tax reform.
  Is Mr. Toomey saying that we do not want to work with him because 
part of that letter said that we do not want to give tax cuts to the 
top 1 percent? If that is what he wants to do, it will be hard to work 
together, but we want to work with him--we want to work with you--but 
we want to have tax cuts for the middle class, not for the wealthy. 
When 45 Democrats have signed a letter that said ``Do not do 
reconciliation. Work with us,'' please do not say that we do not want 
to work with you. It is not fair. It does not set the bipartisan tone 
we are trying to set here. We have our strong views. We are willing to 
debate your strong views, but we want to work together.

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