The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Tax Legislation (Executive Session)” mentioning Deb Fischer was published in the Senate section on pages S2205-S2206 on April 27.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Tax Legislation
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, President Biden introduced an infrastructure plan--or at least that is what the Democrats are calling it. In fact, a substantial portion of this bill goes to Democratic priorities that have nothing to do with infrastructure, from support for Big Labor to a new Civilian Climate Corps to advance
``environmental justice.'' President Biden's infrastructure proposal would cost a lot of money, well north of $2 trillion.
So how does the President plan to pay for this legislation? Unsurprisingly, the President is proposing tax hikes--notably, a substantial hike in the corporate tax rate.
There are two sources the Democrats like to go to when it comes to paying for their spending--corporations and prosperous Americans. In fact, the Democrats tend to speak about corporations and well-off Americans as if they are a bottomless source of funding for government programs and as if the Democrats can endlessly hike taxes on these individuals and businesses without consequences.
When the Republicans object to the prospect of major tax hikes, the Democrats cry that the Republicans are just protecting wealthy corporate cronies--a deeply ironic charge when you consider that the Democrats want to include a tax cut for wealthy Democratic donors and Hollywood types in this same infrastructure package.
The real reason for the Republicans' concern, of course, is quite different. The Republicans are concerned about substantial tax hikes on any individual or business because we know that taxation has economic consequences. It is something that the Democrats should know as well--
it is basic economics, after all--but they don't seem capable of grasping it. Taxation has consequences. Tax hikes have consequences, and big tax hikes have big consequences, usually negative ones.
The corporate tax hike the Democrats are talking about will have negative consequences for American businesses. That means it will have negative consequences for American workers, and that is a problem.
Three years ago, the Republicans passed major tax reform legislation. Along with substantial tax cuts for middle-class Americans, this legislation cut America's corporate tax rate. Why? Well, at the time we passed this legislation, the United States had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, plus an outdated international tax system. Both of those things put U.S. businesses at a major disadvantage next to their foreign counterparts, and they discouraged foreign companies from moving to and investing in the United States.
Our outdated tax system had also resulted in a wave of inversions. That is tax professional-speak for companies moving their headquarters overseas. According to Bloomberg, between 2004 and 2016, 36 American-
based companies inverted. Needless to say, those inversions resulted in a loss of American jobs and domestic investment. A piece in the Wall Street Journal reported that one accounting firm estimates that the United States lost $510 billion from cross-border mergers and acquisitions between 2004 and 2016.
The Republicans knew that if we wanted to boost job creation here at home and improve opportunities for American workers, we needed to address the high corporate tax rate and put American companies on a more competitive footing internationally, so we cut the corporate tax rate and brought the U.S. international tax system into the 21st century by replacing our outdated worldwide system with a modernized territorial tax system.
It didn't take long to see the results: Inversions ended. Economic growth outstripped predictions. The poverty rate dropped. Jobs increased. Incomes grew. In fact, income growth in 2019 was the highest ever recorded, and the real median household income for African-
American, Hispanic, and Asian-American workers hit record highs. In other words, tax reform worked, and, importantly, it worked for the very people the Republicans wanted to help--ordinary Americans. By improving the tax situation for American businesses, we improved the job and income situation for American workers, but now the Democrats want to undo all of that.
To pay for their preferred government programs, they want to substantially hike the tax rate on American corporations--once again, putting American businesses at a substantial disadvantage next to their foreign competitors. If the Democrats impose President Biden's suggested tax hike, the combined average top tax rate on corporations in the United States will be higher than that imposed by every one of our major trading partners and competitors, including China.
It is difficult to understand why the Democrats think it is a good idea to put American companies at a disadvantage next to Chinese companies and next to British companies, Japanese companies, French companies, German companies, and the list goes on and on. It is especially difficult to understand why the Democrats would do this now, at the very time our economy is trying to recover from the serious hit we took from the coronavirus.
Unfortunately, it has become clear that the Democrats are either incapable of grasping or don't care about the economic consequences of their proposed tax hikes. The Democrats are fixated on imposing a whole host of new government programs, and they are ready to tax Americans and American businesses to pay for them even if ordinary Americans suffer as a result. Presumably, they think that if ordinary Americans start suffering, they can just offer them some help through a new government program, but I am pretty confident that most Americans would exchange government assistance for the kinds of jobs and incomes that free them from having to depend on government programs.
Substantially increasing the corporate tax rate--and I am talking substantially; what is being talked about is a 33-percent increase, so it will be a one-third increase in the tax rate--and putting American businesses at a disadvantage on the global stage is not the best way to encourage the creation of those kinds of jobs. Hiking the corporate tax rate will have negative consequences for our economy and for hard-
working Americans.
It is easy to say ``Tax the corporations; tax the rich people,'' but those businesses hire American workers. If they have to pay more in taxes, they have to pay less in wages. What we saw, as I mentioned before, was the highest wage increases that we have seen in decades, particularly for lower income Americans.
But apparently what is being talked about with this tax hike is just the beginning. President Biden and his Democratic colleagues have a lot more government programs they want to push, and they have a whole raft of tax hikes waiting in the wings to fund them. There is a hike in the top individual income tax rate that would hit small businesses hard. Most businesses--99 percent of the businesses in my State of South Dakota--are organized as passthroughs. That means they pay taxes at the individual rate. Those are farmers and ranchers and small business people across my State. They are the people who create the jobs in South Dakota. A hike in the top individual income tax rate hits every one of those small businesses that has an income in excess of $400,000. That is money that could be used to hire more workers. There is a hike in the capital gains tax, which would discourage investment and decrease the value Americans can expect from their 401(k)s, a new death tax that would hit middle-class families and family farms and businesses, and so much more.
These tax hikes may help the Democrats usher in parts of the socialist fantasy they have been envisioning, but they will do nothing to help American families gain financial stability and secure good jobs and lasting, rewarding careers. Working Americans are the ones who will ultimately suffer the most from the Democrats' tax hike plans.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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