Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I believe every worker, every business
deserves a fair shot to get ahead. A basic American principle is
creating opportunity. We all know our workers are the best in the
world, and when we have a fair fight we can work hard and we can win,
but part of that fair fight is making sure we can do something about
the broken Tax Code and the system we have. My amendment would address
that, the Bring Jobs Home amendment.

We all know there are companies that, unfortunately, are able to game
the system to avoid paying their taxes. They move on paper in order to
be able to register in another country while still having the benefits
of our country or they move overseas and, through the Tax Code, we as
communities and their workers pay the cost of the move.

It is important to recognize the revenue that is being given up helps
pay for our American way of life--our roads, airports, clean water,
clean air, opportunities for education, innovation, medical research,
science--all of the things that create the wonderful quality of life we
have in our country that everyone contributes toward, those things that
we need to do together.

Unfortunately, the Tax Code is rewarding too many companies to be
able to take advantage of not doing their fair share. That is what my
amendment addresses.

As I indicated, moving their business on paper around to different
countries to avoid contributing to our American way of life, our
American quality of life, they invert, costing Americans tens of
billions of dollars in revenue that could go to support our veterans,
our national defense, rebuilding America's roads and bridges, and water
and sewer systems.

I believe it is particularly offensive to Americans when people find
out that, in fact, a company can decide to pick up and move, and the
cost of the move--the cost of packing up and leaving our country--is a
cost they can write off on their taxes, which means we all pay the
price; the workers who are packing people up, the communities that are
losing the jobs, our country, in terms of the lost revenue, and we pay
for it.

Over the last 10 years, 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas, and
American taxpayers were asked to foot the bill. It makes no sense.
Surely, we can come together on a bipartisan basis and agree to stop
that--to stop that right off. That is what this amendment does.

Over 20 million more jobs are at risk of being shipped overseas
today. In fact, in Michigan we have lost more than 700,000 jobs to
offshoring. Now, I understand we are in a global economy. I understand
there are a lot of decisions being made around the globe as to where
companies will locate, but our Tax Code should not have loopholes in it
that incentivize companies to actually continue to either get the
benefits of America while pretending to be someplace else or moving and
having us help pay for it.

This is a very serious part of tax reform. As we debate a budget
resolution that has over $400 billion in cuts to Medicare for seniors
in it, that has over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid--80 percent of the
dollars in Medicaid going for low-income seniors and people in nursing
homes--when we look at the fact that we have been trying to pass a bill
to create millions of good-paying American jobs by rebuilding America,
by rebuilding our roads, by rebuilding our infrastructure, we can't get
support to do that. People say we can't afford to pay for it.

This is the opportunity to create the revenue to pay for it, to
create the revenue to lower the cost of student loans so more people
have a fair shot to go to college, have an opportunity for the American
dream, so they are not coming out of college being riddled with all
kinds of debt, mounds of debt. It means they can't buy a house, they
can't buy a car, they can't get started in life with a family because
they are buried in debt. When we raise these issues on the floor, we
hear we cannot afford, as a country, to fix those things that affect
every family--people struggling to get into the middle class and stay
in the middle class.

I think this budget ought to be about the middle class. I think we
ought to be saying this is a middle-class budget, and I think if we are
going to do that, we have to come together on fair ways to be able to
fund those things that benefit everyone, that grow the economy by
creating and expanding the middle class. We will not have an economy
unless we expand the middle class. That means good-paying jobs here--
here. I am all about export. I just want to export our products, not
our jobs, and we have a Tax Code that is encouraging the export of our
jobs.

So I hope we come together around the Bring Jobs Home amendment,
agree there is one area of the Tax Code that everybody ought to support
fixing; that is, where folks are using loopholes and games and
gimmicks, frankly, to avoid contributing to the quality of life in our
country.

We can create opportunities without adding one more dollar to the
costs of middle-class families or small businesses or those who stay in
our country and decide they want to continue to be a part of our great
American economy. This is about closing for the tax cheaters who are
avoiding stepping up and being a part of solving America's problems.

My amendment No. 523 will bring jobs home and invest in the middle
class of our country. I hope this is an area we can come together on,
and I urge support for my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

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Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I would hope we could all come together
and agree that we want to bring jobs back to America. This is about
saying if you are a business in America and you want to pretend to move
offshore on paper but have the benefits of clean air and clean water
and roads and all of the benefits of our American way of life, you
ought to be contributing to that way of life. So this closes tax
loopholes being used by companies right now to avoid paying their fair
share.

Small businesses are here paying their fair share; individuals are,
workers are. Yet we have a code where you can pack up and move overseas
and American taxpayers have to foot the bill for the move. The workers
losing their jobs have to foot the bill for the move. It makes no
sense.

We want to bring jobs back to America. This simply closes egregious
loopholes to make sure everybody is a part of America and that
everybody is contributing to our quality of life and our way of life in
America. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

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Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise to ask support for the Stabenow-
Cantwell amendment.

This addresses the cuts to the budget in Medicare. Medicare is a
universal health care program, as we know. It is a great American
success story. Everybody believes that.

It protects Americans from having their life savings wiped out by a
single illness. It guarantees important medical care and quality of
life for literally tens of millions of people across our country.

I was very disappointed yesterday that our Republican colleagues
voted against providing a point of order that would allow us to object
to efforts to privatize Medicare or cut benefits or raise out-of-pocket
costs for prescription drugs or preventive services. But as a result of
that, we now have in front of us a budget that calls for $435 billion
in cuts to Medicare.

We all know there are ways to work together to create savings through
efficiencies and quality measures and other things, but we should not
be telling a generation of seniors, and those coming beyond them--who
worked hard their whole lives and paid into the programs--that they
will not have the health care they need and deserve.

So I ask colleagues to join with us in rejecting the $435 billion in
Medicare cuts that are in this budget resolution.

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