Sheldon Whitehouse

Ramped-up enforcement is essential, but it is no substitute for addressing the fundamental injustice in the tax code.

My Republican colleagues and I may disagree on what makes a fair tax code, but we very much agree that everyone should pay what they owe.

So one thing I will note as I close out my questioning: we have heard testimony today that 36 percent of missing tax revenues of the tax gap, 36 percent of that comes from 1 percent of the taxpayers.

I am on the Budget Committee where we look at 10-year increments, and your testimony that there is a 10-year increment out there of taxes owed but not paid of $7.5 trillion is pretty stunning.

We should start with the multi-pronged approach of the Biden administration.

Is Inspector General George correct that the IRS--I am quoting him here--``has not developed a reliable estimate of the international tax gap''?

Let me thank all the witnesses. This has been really, really helpful.

I share the concerns of many of my colleagues who have heard from our constituents about a variety of problems that have followed from the transition to pandemic-safe remote work by Social Security.

I would encourage you to try to get an answer to us within the window that the chairman is going to provide for questions for the record.

Have you adapted that for Zoom? I mean, we are adapting everything for Zoom.

Well, you could, I think, help us if you could make a recommendation, again in the QFR window of this hearing.

Can we change that legislatively? Or is the clock going to run out as you come back to work?

I urge you not to overlook the why.

The Trump administration over and over again failed to follow science and tried to replace people who understood science with people who were shills for polluting industries.

If at the end of the day, nobody understands the cause of all of this, you haven't done your jobs.

The fossil fuel industry has known for decades about this problem. They have had every chance to deal responsibly with the pollution.

Yes, there is no single--it is silver buckshot, not silver bullet, I think is the way to describe it.

There is simply no real business pressure for carbon pricing at this point.

I think those of us who support carbon capture and removal as an essential way to safety in all of this need to think about it in those terms.

You cannot talk about natural gas emissions without talking about methane.

With a price on carbon, that would be consistent with global progress, you say, but it would also facilitate global progress through border adjustments.

They ran a big covert operation against their own country to try to prevent the action that we are trying to push for now.

There is a really solid commit from Joe Manchin right across the board to solving this.

The first is that we`ve got a good start on a big bill right now with a massive investment in electronic vehicles, electronic vehicle infrastructure, to turn the transportation sector around.

Yes, I think the rule has to be every bill has to be a climate bill, and there has to be a big climate bill.