Schumer Floor Remarks Responding to President Calling for Government Shutdown and President’s Plan to Give Tax Breaks to the Wealthy
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor responding to President Trump’s call for a government shutdown and the president’s tax outline. Below are his remarks:
First, Mr. President, I want to respond to the president’s latest tweets about the bipartisan, bicameral deal we just reached to fund the government through September. Now, members of both parties worked very hard to come to this agreement, and there was a real spirit of cooperation. I want to thank the Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan and Leader Pelosi, as well as Senators Cochran and Leahy, Congressmembers Frelinghuysen and Lowey. All worked until early hours of the morning, and I think we got a good outcome.
When the president threw cold water on this deal, and actually recommended a government shutdown – I was deeply disappointed. Here we saw Democrats and Republicans working together in the best traditions of the Senate, and the President disparages it in a way that’s destructive (essentially saying “let’s have a shutdown”).
The president has been complaining about the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. Well, this deal is exactly how Washington should work when it is bipartisan: both parties negotiated and came to an agreement on a piece of legislation that we can each support. It is truly a shame that the President is degrading it because he didn’t get 100% of what he wanted.
Bipartisanship is best summed up by the Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want.”
On tax, Mr. President, yesterday Secretary Mnuchin, in an appearance at the Milken Institute Conference, admitted that the Administration plans to go it alone on taxes.
He said they’re trying to design their proposal to fit within the rules of reconciliation so they’d only need Republican votes to pass their tax cut.
The message was clear as day. The president is not interested in working with Democrats to craft a proposal that both parties can support. He’s just going to pass his plan with Republicans or not pass it at all.
What that means is the Trump tax plan likely won’t have to change much from the 200-word outline they put out last week. And that means that the Trump tax plan will benefit the incredibly wealthy and the special interests, while leaving the middle class, working Americans with crumbs, at best.
We Democrats support tax relief, so long as it’s aimed at the middle class and those struggling to get there. Those are the folks who really need the help. College is getting ever more expensive. Take-home pay is being squeezed in so many different directions. The middle class and those working to get there should be able to keep more of what they make.
But the Trump tax plan seems designed to benefit his Cabinet and the incredibly wealthy on Wall Street, not Main Street and the middle class.
Now there are many wealthy people doing well in America. God bless them. Their lifestyles are getting better every year…their incomes are getting better every day…They don’t need the help, but the middle class does.
But in the Trump tax plan: taxes on the very wealthy and big corporations would go down, while tax deductions that benefit the middle class would go away.
For example, President Trump campaigned on getting rid of the carried interest loophole. Instead, his plan keeps the carried interest loophole and creates an even bigger loophole for the wealthiest by allowing so-called “pass-through entities” (which include wealthy businessmen like President Trump) to pay just 15%.
So with this 15% pass-through, hedge fund managers, corporate lawyers and big business CEOs who make millions of dollars a year would pay 15%, while their workers will pay 20, 25 and 30%.
To add insult to injury, the Trump tax plan would repeal the estate tax, a tax on estates only over $10 million – very wealthy people. How many of us have a $10 million estate? And it would result in the 5,200 wealthiest families in America each year – or estates in America – receiving an average $3 million windfall.
While the Trump tax plan eliminates taxes for the very wealthy it also eliminates tax breaks that are most beneficial to the middle class – like the state and local deduction. The loss of this deduction for those who use it would cost New Yorkers an average of $4,500 a year.
The middle class has seen rising expenses and virtually stagnant incomes. They need tax relief, not the loss of key tax deductions that help put a few more dollars in their pockets.
And the biggest danger for the middle class might be what happens after the Trump tax plan gets passed, if that happens.
A tax cut for the wealthy of the size President Trump is proposing would explode the deficit, costing between $5.5 and $7 trillion over ten years by some estimates.
Republicans might be willing to ignore the debt and deficit now in order to get their tax cut, but make no mistake about it, a few years down the line they’ll start howling about it again and say “oh, we have no choice but to cut Social Security and Medicare” to make up for the massive debt they created with their tax cut.
This has been the nefarious goal of the hard right for decades. In fact, the same story played out during the Bush years. President Bush passed a big tax break primarily for the wealthy, it racked up debt, and then he pursued deep cuts to the social safety net to try and balance the ledger. He might’ve gotten it but Democrats stood in his way.
This could be déjà vu all over again.
In sum, the very wealthy get a huge tax break, while the middle class gets very little, and down the road, programs like Social Security and Medicare (so critical to the middle class) would be endangered.
Now, if this Administration wants to pursue such a plan all on their own – that’s their choice. But as we saw with healthcare, the go-it-alone approach doesn’t guarantee success.
What it does guarantee is a very partisan bill that will benefit the very wealthy and the special interests… a bill which I predict will be very, very unpopular with the American people.
