Angie Craig: “Several assertions have been made on the floor this morning that this is not a tax increase if we repeal this depletion…”

“Several assertions have been made on the floor this morning that this is not a tax increase if we repeal this depletion allowance. It was also suggested that mining companies don't pay taxes. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. The average mining company pays 32 percent tax with minimum alternative. This would increase it to over 42 percent. I would like to inform the Senator from New Hampshire that mining companies invest about $400 million in each mining operation. He is raising taxes on mining companies that employ thousands of people, in one of the highest paid wage industries in the Nation. He is also attacking the very industrial base of our country. When you come from a State where you have to pledge not to raise taxes, I guess you can raise them if there is some political advantage to do so. That appears to be the case here this morning. It is all politics, with no sensitivity toward the strength of the industrial base of this country and the opportunity to continue to provide strong high-paying jobs in the public land States of our Nation.”