On the recordDecember 1, 2017
I thank Senator Nelson for his leadership on this motion. It is a very simple motion for a very simple proposition; that is, that the Tax Code should be simpler. That is true. We should make it more streamlined. That is true, but our focus should be helping the people of America. Our problem with the bill that is on the floor right now is that it is weighted much too heavily in terms of helping the wealthiest among us and not the middle class. Senator Nelson's amendment, which I am a proud cosponsor of, gets right to the meat of this, to the bread and butter, to helping the middle class with their groceries--since I used meat and bread and butter--but also with their mortgages, with paying for college, with everything they need to do. Our problem with the bill right now is that too much of it goes to the top. In fact, when you look at the numbers, it is quite startling. The first thing you notice for the middle class is that $1.4 trillion in additional debt comes out of this bill. Now, our colleagues were claiming until yesterday, well, that is going to be offset with all this economic growth we are going to see. What did we find out? Even when you consider that--and this is by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that looked at this. They are like the umpire. They do the scorecard. They looked at this, and they said: Yes, it is about 1.4, $1.5 trillion in debt. It does produce some economic growth, but guess what.…
