'A Huge Accomplishment': Ron Wyden Touts Pending Tax Plan To Help 'Struggling Families'

2 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) spoke in support of a new tax package.

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Transcript

00:00objection. Mr. President and colleagues, if I started the workday with the

00:07opportunity to help 16 million kids from low-income families, make America more

00:17competitive with China, build affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of

00:25Americans, and pay for it all by cracking down on fraud, I'd call that a

00:33hell of a good day at the office. Tomorrow we're gonna find out if Senate

00:41Republicans agree. The vote on the tax bill tomorrow has been more than six

00:47months in the making. In fact, I've been working on this in a completely

00:53bipartisan way for two full years. The only reason this didn't get done a long

00:59time ago is delay on the part of the Senate Republicans. So, no more delay. It's

01:10time to vote. Everybody is going to see where each senator stands. And over the

01:19next 45 minutes or so, I'm gonna have a number of my colleagues talk about why

01:24this bill is so important. So, I'm going to start with just a few key points. For

01:30starters, the bill was designed with balance in mind for every dollar in tax

01:38cuts for business. The Joint Committee on Taxation, which is the official

01:45scorekeeper of these matters, they have told us that an equal amount goes to

01:53children's and families as goes to business. Our focus on families is on

02:01those that are walking an economic tightrope. 16 million kids are going to

02:10benefit from the bill. Half a million lifted out of poverty. A huge

02:16accomplishment. And it's especially important for the families with modest

02:20incomes. Families with two, three, or four kids. Under the current rules, they get

02:26discriminated against because those big families get only a single child tax

02:32credit regardless of how many kids they have. Think about that. Federal law tells

02:38these struggling families that if you got a hard family, we'll try to figure

02:43out how to get by by splitting a single child tax credit and figure out how

02:50three or four kids can split a pair of shoes. Three or four kids can't do that

02:55and they can't split a single meal. This economic discrimination against large

03:02families in America ought to end. There's been a lot of talk about who's really

03:09looking out for the families. My view is that's going to become clear when the

03:14Senate votes tomorrow. We'll see who's actually on the side of the families

03:18that need a boost. The families who are facing that kind of economic

03:23discrimination I just outlined. I know that my colleagues on this side want to

03:30make sure that families can get the assistance they need and we want to end

03:35the discrimination against large families. There's so much in this bill

03:42that ought to bring the two sides together. That's certainly what happened

03:46in the House, 357 votes. For example, the bill

03:57builds 200,000 new affordable housing units. The lack of affordable housing is

04:03a nationwide crisis, not just blue states and cities, it's everywhere. In housing

04:09you can call me a supply-sider. We've got to build and build and build 200,000

04:15new units in a minute or two. We'll hear from my colleague from Washington State

04:19who has single-handedly led the effort to meet housing needs in America. The

04:26bill invests in research and development so we can out-compete China. Changes

04:32Republicans made to the tax code back in 2017 slashed the value of the tax

04:38incentives for research and development. It's worth only 20% of what it used to

04:42be. Republicans have said in 2018, in 2019, in 2020, in 2021, in 2022, in 2023, in

04:502024 they would fix the research and development tax credit mess that they

04:58single-handedly created. Tomorrow's going to be their chance. According to the

05:05Treasury Department, four million small businesses would benefit from this bill.

05:10Picture that, Mr. President, four million small businesses, startups, ones that

05:17depend so much on research and development to compete with China. Many

05:22of them are in fields that compete directly with China and other countries.

05:27They want to know why in the world, why would Congress put this off until 2025? A

05:36lot of them say, Ron, we're not going to be around in 2025 if you all don't act.

05:42The bill also provides help to families and businesses hit by megastorms and

05:47megawildfires. This is so important to the people in my state. I've told them at

05:53town hall meetings, I've had almost 1,100 of them, Mr. President, we're going to

05:58get this done because in Oregon and virtually everywhere in our country, so

06:04many of our communities have been devastated. As I touched on, 357 votes in

06:12the House, Mr. President, doesn't happen by osmosis. You, by and large, on a normal

06:18day, you can't get 357 House members to agree to order a piece of apple pie.

06:24But that's the kind of support this tax bill had. Left-leaning groups like it,

06:29right-leaning groups like it, family organizations like it, faith-based

06:33organizations like it, pro-life groups, pro-choice groups across the political

06:37spectrum. And in the next day or so, we're going to see if the Republicans who talk

06:46so much about these issues, help for small business, help for families,

06:51building housing, preventing fraud, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle

06:55talk about it constantly. Now we're going to find out if anybody wants to

07:02actually follow through on the rhetoric. I know we do. We believe with the Senate

07:07voting now, we've got a chance, as I touched on at the beginning, Mr. President,

07:14to have a real day at the office, a day when you help the kids, when you help the

07:19families and the small businesses and people who need housing and people who've

07:22been devastated with disasters. Get all that done tomorrow, Mr. President. That's

07:30one hell of a day at the office. I yield my time now to my colleague from Washington

07:35State, our leader on the housing issues and many others.

'A Huge Accomplishment': Ron Wyden Touts Pending Tax Plan To Help 'Struggling Families'

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