John Ensign: “I was aware of the new numbers coming out of Joint Tax. But the outside economists say this will probably mean $45…”

“I was aware of the new numbers coming out of Joint Tax. But the outside economists say this will probably mean $45 billion in direct revenues, not including revenues produced when you actually have people in jobs and people paying taxes who are earning the money in those jobs. We have some great examples of what businesses did with that. But let me quote Dr. Tyson, who was the chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. She recently wrote a report that said $565 billion would be repatriated. The money would be brought back to the United States. She believes it could raise $28 billion in investment in renewable energy projects alone, health care initiatives, and broadband deployment. We have bipartisan economists saying this is going to work. The only people who don't seem to think this is going to work are the people somehow inside the walls here in Washington, DC who don't seem to get that if you have to pay a 35-percent tax, it is better to keep the money overseas. One of the great American companies is Microsoft. Do you know that Microsoft has no exports from the United States. They have a lot of them from Ireland. Guess why. Ireland has a 12.5-percent corporate tax rate. If they pay that and they want to bring the profit back to the United States, they have to pay a lot of money, up to a 35-percent tax rate. So guess what they do. They keep the money in Ireland.”