John Cornyn: “my amendment is a motion to commit the reconciliation bill back to the Finance Committee to report the bill back without…”

“my amendment is a motion to commit the reconciliation bill back to the Finance Committee to report the bill back without a brandnew tax on savings and investment for certain taxpayers. This is an additional 3.8-percent tax on savings, which includes dividends, capital gains, ordinary savings for many consumers, many Americans who have not had to pay before but which this bill imposes. This is a $123 billion tax hike on those categories of income. This is a mistake for a lot of reasons. One, it will discourage the very thing we need to be doing more of, which is saving. It will reduce productivity, and it depresses wages and the standard of living for millions of Americans. Simply put, increasing taxes, particularly during a recession, on the very sectors of the economy that we want to invest and to create jobs is a terrible mistake. According to forecasts by the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, a 2.9-percent tax increase--not 3.8 percent but a 2.9- percent previously proposed--would depress economic growth by 1.3 percent and reduce capital formation by 3.4 percent. The damage to jobs and economic growth during a recession when unemployment is at 9.7 percent would be even greater under the current proposal because we are talking about a 3.8-percent tax, not a 2.9- percent tax, which was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article and this report from the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.”