Tina Smith: “I thank Senator Collins. Her amendment is important. She has been working on this issue since 2001. It does have a very…”

“I thank Senator Collins. Her amendment is important. She has been working on this issue since 2001. It does have a very real impact. I certainly support her adding it to my amendment. It is an important contribution to education, specifically to those who are educators. I will make a few remarks, but I do wish to point out that my friend from North Dakota was talking about the repatriation bill that he said was not for little folks, I suppose, or however he termed it. That bill that was passed, by my last count, has resulted in repatriations of $290 billion. These dollars have benefitted our economy and created new jobs. One of the reasons we have such low unemployment in this country today is because of that bill. It affects regular folks, working folks, and, yes, it does involve multinational companies, but these are American companies which do business all over the world. Some of them are in my State, like Nike. Some may even be from North Dakota. What we do relative to the Tax Code has real consequences. People respond to incentives. What that bill represents is truly $290 billion can either come back into our economy or it is $290 billion that will never come back into this economy. I am proud of that legislation because it has helped working people.”