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[Page S3454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TAXES
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on taxes, a year and a half ago, as the
Senate debated the Republican tax bill, the Democrats predicted that
giving enormous tax breaks to big corporations and the superrich would
not trickle down to working Americans. We predicted then, as usual,
that corporations would find a way to direct those newfound profits to
themselves, not to their workers, not to their communities, and not for
the good of the country.
Our Republican colleagues protested. They said trickle-down works.
They talked about tax cuts. They tried to deliberately avoid who they
were designing the tax cuts to benefit, but it was largely the very
wealthy and the very powerful corporations. They said it was going to
benefit everybody.
Well, here we go. The analyses keep pouring in of what a sham--a
disgrace--this tax bill was, especially for middle-class, average
Americans.
An analysis by JUST Capital showed yesterday that 56 percent of the
tax savings from the Trump tax bill have gone to shareholders in the
form of stock buybacks and direct distributions--56 percent, a
majority. Do you know how much workers got? While the shareholders--
most of them wealthy--got 56 percent, workers got 6 percent of the
whole benefit of the tax bill. This was by JUST Capital, which is not a
leftwing group; it is a group that is composed of people who know all
about and participate in corporations and finance.
If you don't believe that one, this morning, the Business Roundtable,
which is made up of the 200 largest CEOs in America--hardly a leftwing,
radical group--reported that America's CEOs expect to spend less on
capital investments now than before the tax bill was passed.
So this idea of giving these companies big tax breaks so they will
reinvest them is not happening. They are going to buybacks. This is not
dealing with the No. 1 problem that America faces--the maldistribution
of wealth and income as it agglomerates to the top and the middle class
and those trying to get into the middle class being left out.
I remember when President Trump promised his tax bill would be a
``middle class miracle''--his words--and that the average American
family would see a $4,000 raise. I remember when many of my Republican
friends came to the floor to tout workers' bonuses in the wake of their
tax bill even though many of them were merely your typical annual
bonuses. It turns out, as to yesterday's report, that 2 percent--just 2
percent--of the tax bill's overall windfall went to workers' bonuses,
which is an average of a measly $28 per worker, while their corporate
parents and their larger shareholders got hundreds of thousands and
millions.
Several of my Republican colleagues still laud the tax bill. They try
to link it to positive economic news, but you will never hear them
mention that most of the bill's benefits flowed to multinational
corporations and to the top 1 percent of America. You won't hear them
mention that it did very little to raise wages for average Americans.
Alas, the Republicans are giving themselves credit for building a theme
park for everyone when all they have done is renovate the exclusive
country club.
As many Democrats predicted, a year and a half after its passage, the
Republican tax bill has overwhelmingly benefited shareholders and
corporate executives but not workers and their families.
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