06.14.23

Sen. Whitehouse: “So much for their fabled concerns about the deficit”

With their new budget-busting tax package, Republicans’ deficit hypocrisy is on full display

Washington, D.C.— Today, Senator Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following remarks after the House Ways & Means Committee began marking up Republicans’ new tax package, which would increase the deficit, undo climate progress, and deliver tax cuts that would primarily benefit large corporations and the wealthy.

 

Watch: Video of Senator Whitehouse’s remarks available here

 

Chairman Whitehouse’s remarks, as prepared for delivery:

So, we are just emerging from the shadow of the MAGA default crisis, a completely fabricated and unnecessary crisis that, thankfully, President Biden was able to defuse. 

And just a quick word back at that: remember the Republican proposal to kill 700,000 jobs and likely provoke a recession?  That was what the bill that came out of the House, that was their alternative to a default, promised the American people.  Note also that in that bill, 275 out of 315 pages were for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry, their overlords.  

So now, they come forward with a tax program, and, no surprise, it benefits their overlords: the big mega-donors and the fossil fuel industry.  

It adds to the deficit.  So much for their fabled concerns about the deficit.  

It rolls back the IRA’s clean energy provisions that are already working.  We have the quotes from the Republican members of Congress attending the events in their own districts.  

It would repeal, believe it or not, polluters’ Superfund taxes.  

And it would encourage companies, big companies that can do this, to hide their profits overseas, to dodge taxes so they can compete against small businesses more effectively.  

We've got a very different idea, which is restore the Child Tax Credit. It really worked.  

Make billionaires pay higher tax rates than teachers and firefighters.  That's just basic fairness. 

And prevent big American corporations from offshoring their revenues and dodging their tax responsibilities, so that there are no longer American corporations that pay zero in federal income taxes.  

And I'll close by saying, if you want to have a little fun about the Trump tax cuts never having trickled down,  go watch Senator Van Hollen’s examination of our witnesses in the Budget Committee hearing on this subject.  It has run up pretty hot on YouTube because he did a masterful job. It's worth the look.