November 02,2017

Wyden Remarks on House Tax Bill

Wyden: Crumbs to the Middle Class to Distract from Multi-Trillion Dollar Giveaways to Corporations

WASHINGTON – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today delivered the following remarks at a news conference, after Republicans in the House of Representatives released their reconciliation tax bill.

Full remarks as prepared for delivery below:

Right at the outset, let’s be clear on one issue. The sponsors of this bill are working toward one objective.

This bill is about giving enough crumbs to the middle class to distract from the multi-trillion dollar giveaways to corporations that ship jobs overseas and the mega-wealthy.

The overwhelming winners of this Republican tax bill are the people who already have the most power, who can already afford the best advice, and who are already thriving in an economy that’s leaving too many Americans behind.

Second, the final price tag for this Republican bill is still a question mark. And there’s a lot of work still to be done crunching the numbers and figuring out what kind of impact this is going to have on the typical family.

But what’s not going to change is the fact that this plan is massively skewed toward those at the top.

This is the bill you write if you want to build a tax code around a double standard.

The corporate tax breaks in the Republican plan are permanent -- written in ink, set in stone, locked in place with the key thrown away. But families have to settle for temporary tax cuts.

Corporations will still get to deduct their state and local taxes, but individuals and families won’t.

A recent college grad who didn’t come from much and took on tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt will lose their deduction for student loan interest payments. But multi-nationals who ship jobs overseas will still get to deduct their interest payments. That’s what I mean by double standard.

This is an anti-senior bill. A senior who has an expensive health condition -- for example, a rare cancer or a dental problem that requires frequent treatment -- would lose the ability to deduct those medical expenses. But corporate tax breaks for expenses will get even bigger. President Trump didn’t tell seniors in America during this campaign that they would lose the ability to deduct health expenses.

Bottom line, this entire bill is about putting an economic double standard into black letter law.

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