Dick Durbin: “This tax bill came about because we got into a fight with our trading partners over export subsidies. At the end of the…”

“This tax bill came about because we got into a fight with our trading partners over export subsidies. At the end of the fight, they won and we lost. An export subsidy that we had in the United States had to be taken off the books. So what was a minor facelift when it came to an export subsidy turned out, after our friends in the House and Senate got their hands on it, to be an extreme makeover of the Tax Code. Unfortunately, the American people, who could not afford the powerful lobbyists involved in writing this, ended up as the people with the sad faces. So when we take a close look at what this bill did, what was supposed to be a quick and minor fix of the Tax Code blossomed into a huge giveaway of tax benefits and made some policy changes we are going to regret.”