Bill Nelson: “we do want to go far, and we need to travel together. We have been trying to make the case that, indeed, we do this in a…”

“we do want to go far, and we need to travel together. We have been trying to make the case that, indeed, we do this in a bipartisan way instead of being jammed through in a partisan way. I don't think there would be a Senator in this Chamber that would not want to help Puerto Rico, given the fact that Puerto Rico is going through the ravages of the aftermath of a hurricane, where still today just under half of the population in Puerto Rico does not have electricity, and it is 3 months after the hurricane. But we are going to send another hurricane to Puerto Rico if we pass this bill because of the provisions that are so punitive to Puerto Rico in this tax bill. In this tax bill, there is a 20-percent penalty on businesses doing business in Puerto Rico. It is just unbelievable, a 20-percent penalty on companies that invest in Puerto Rico, causing one of the daily newspapers on the island, El Nuevo Dia, to state that 250,000 jobs would leave the island just as a result of that provision. That is not something we want to do to Puerto Rico. We want to help Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, that is not all. The bill eliminates the section 199 manufacturing deduction for Puerto Rico, specifically in the law to encourage manufacturing in that island Commonwealth, a territory of our fellow U.S. citizens. The bill also eliminates the rum cover, which is how they get a rebate for paying those excise taxes on the production of Puerto Rican and U.S. Virgin Islands rum.…”