Hearing of the Senate Finance Committee - Opening Statement by Sen. Wyden, Continuation of the Open Executive Session to Consider an Original Bill Entitled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Hearing

"When we left last night, we were told we would get the modified chairman's mark first thing this morning. That has not happened. So now we are on the second day, and we still don't have the full text of the bill we're actually supposed to be writing in this markup.

"The idea now is that Senators can ask questions about legislation that may not be relevant in 5 or 6 or maybe 10 hours. This is further evidence that the Finance Committee isn't ready to proceed with a bill that makes trillions of dollars of changes to the tax code. This does not resemble, no matter how much my colleagues on the other side say otherwise, the regular order in the Finance Committee. This is reckless haste.

"We've already heard about the evidence of how millions and millions of middle class families are going to pay higher taxes. This morning, the news was about how this proposal would open up a bonanza of new loopholes for multinational corporations and special interests. Members are going to have less time to actually work on the real legislation that is going to affect millions of middle-class families and remake the American economy in fundamental ways.

"This is not in the public interest and I will make the plea that I did yesterday, Mr. Chairman. We share your view that the tax code is a broken mess. We share your view that we would like a bipartisan bill. But given what has happened just in the last twelve hours, we're continuing to move in the wrong direction, and I hope that we'll see that change."

Source