Tax Increase Prevention And Reconciliation Act Of 2005--Conference Report
TAX INCREASE PREVENTION AND RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - May 11, 2006)
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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, when I look at the distribution chart showing who benefits from the bill before the Senate, my question is, whose side are we on, anyway? I hope the answer to that question is, the majority of the American people.
When we look at this chart, what we find is we are on the side of not even 1 percent of the American people. We are on the side of those earning over $1 million a year. That is who gets the benefits of this bill.
According to The Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center, we see that the average tax cut of those over $1 million is $41,977 a year in this bill. The benefit of this tax break is essentially more than what some middle class Americans earn all year.
Then we have an additional number from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Their chart shows if you earn over $1.6 million, this Republican tax bill will get you back $82,000 each and every year. Well, what is someone who earns, say, $40,000 getting back? Forty-six dollars--not even enough in some cases to fill up a gas tank.
Whose side is this Republican Senate on? If this
were a time when we did not have deficits and we did not have debt, it would be one thing. I still would oppose this bill. I would rather give the benefits to those in the middle. I would rather give the benefits to those who were struggling with the high cost of gas. I would rather give the benefits to those who are struggling to send their children to college.
By the way, in this particular bill, the college tuition tax deduction, so popular with middle-class families, was not included. The Republicans took it out in order to help the wealthiest Americans and, by the way, big oil. Big oil gets big tax breaks in this bill, $5 billion strong.
Here we have a circumstance where the millionaires and the oil companies win and middle-class America and working-class America, 99 percent plus, lose.
No wonder there is change in the air. People are saying, Enough is enough. Colleagues, we can say enough is enough today by voting down this ill-conceived, unfair bill that punishes most Americans, except for big oil and the very wealthiest few.
Yes, there is a one-year fix to the alternative minimum tax in here. For that, I am grateful. Yet, still, that good fix is far outweighed when you look at the distribution tables. You can see who gets the benefits. Twenty dollars for regular working and middle-class American families is the average tax cut; $20 a year, while people making over $1.6 million get up to $82,000 a year.
This is America. This country is great because we believe in our middle class. We know our working people are the engine of our economy and the pride of our Nation, yet we have a table that shows that the middle class is not only forgotten, they are made fools of in this bill.
Yes, there is a fix to the AMT. Good. Outside of that, we have a situation where those who have, get more; those who have a lot, get even more; and the oil companies that have been manipulating supply and hurting the American people get a tremendous amount.
That is how the tax break for big oil works.
See if you can follow me. They set the rules governing oil company profits so that if an oil company buys a lot of oil at a low price, say, $40 a barrel, and then they sell that oil at $70 a barrel, they get to pretend that they bought the oil at $70 too. You would think the difference between $40 and $70 would be their profit and what they would owe taxes on.
But under this bill, no, no, no. Their profits, and tax liabilities, are calculated on the price of oil on the day they sell the oil. So if they buy oil at $40 a barrel and sell it at $70, they do not pay any taxes on it because they are allowed to claim their costs are the same as their revenues--$70 a barrel. It is a giveaway to big oil, which is having the most unbelievable record profits, which we believe are manipulating supply, and which gives their CEOs a $400 million bonus package. This is what this Republican bill does. How they can even bring it to the Senate with a straight face is beyond me. But they have brought it to the Senate. I ask those moderate Republicans to join us and send a message that it is time to change. It is time to look at our middle-class families in California and all across this country and stand on their side--those struggling with the gas crisis, those struggling with health care, those struggling with college tuition.
This is a day when we ask the question, Whose side are we on? I hope the answer is, we are not on the side of the winners in this chart. The winners are the wealthiest among us and the oil companies.
Again, if this were a different time, if we did not have raging deficits, which we have had since this President took office, if we did not have a debt that is going so high that this Senate has to vote in the dead of night to raise the debt ceiling, if we were not in a terrible war that is killing our soldiers, with no end in sight and no plan in sight, that would be a different story, and we could say a rising tide lifts all boats, and we will give everyone a break. But those are not the times in which we live.
At the end of the day, the gimmicks that are used to pay for the tax breaks are just so many gimmicks because we know by putting the wealthiest in the Roth IRAs, there is an initial flush of money coming in, but at the end of the day the earnings in the Roth accounts are not taxable and will cost us billions of dollars in lost revenues. This bill will drive up our debt and deficits.
In closing, a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll asked Americans their top concerns. Do you think that Americans said, I want to give tax breaks to the oil companies? I want to give tax breaks to those earning $1.6 million a year? No, they said their top concerns were rising gas prices, Iran's nuclear ambitions, immigration, civil disorder in Iraq, the Bush administration leaking national security information, and Enron-style corruption.
What do we give them today, the American people? We give them everything they do not want, rewarding big oil and rewarding those who have not asked to be helped. They are doing fine. The people earning over $1.6 million a year are doing just fine.
We are giving the American people more deficits. We are giving them more debt. We are not helping middle-class families solve the problems of the raging costs of college tuition and the raging costs of gas prices. I hope we vote no on this bill. It is a bad bill.
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