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Floor Speech

I am the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and I gather that my colleague has just introduced this legislation--maybe as recently as today. I think it is appropriate that before we start making tax policy on the floor of the U.S. Senate, we have a chance to actually have the Senate look at some of the details.

For example, if we are going to talk about tax fairness, I will just say to the Senator from Ohio that I welcome that. I am the author of the bill to say that billionaires, who now, under the current Tax Code, can go for years and years paying little or no taxes--I am the author of the proposal that would change it. All you have to do is change three words: buy, borrow, and die. That is how they do it--buy, borrow, die, and pay little or nothing for years on end.

So what we ought to do is take the Senator's ideas and anybody else's, you know, ideas and bring them to the Senate Finance Committee. I will tell you I have not seen any evidence in the past about how, somehow, the kind of tax my colleague wants to levy is going to somehow make things better for students, which is what I want to do.

This tax legislation has not been considered by the Senate Finance Committee. That is the correct place to hold a robust discussion about fairness and affordability.

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