WASHINGTON, D.C. – In today’s Ways and Means Committee hearing with Secretary Yellen, top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) corrected the record on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and warned against the Biden Administration’s “American Jobs Plan” – which will destroy good-paying U.S. jobs and raise taxes on American families.
In defense of American workers’ gains since the passage of TCJA, Brady said:
“President Biden is sabotaging America’s jobs recovery with crippling tax increases and anti-business policies that hurt working families and Main Street businesses, and drive U.S. jobs overseas. These are some of the worst economic blunders in our lifetime, often justified with false narratives. […]
“The Treasury claim that GOP tax cuts ‘put America at a disadvantage with an incentive for U.S. companies to offshore their workers and investment’ was quickly debunked as well.
“The wave of American companies, jobs, research, and investment fleeing overseas during the Obama-Biden administration came to a dead stop after the passage of TCJA.”
Rep. Brady warned that Americans will see their wages slashed, prices skyrocket, and jobs shipped overseas as a result of President Biden’s crippling tax hikes:
“The bottom line is: America can’t tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity.
We won’t help people rebuild their lives with endless government checks.
America won’t recover with the largest tax hikes in generations on Main Street businesses, working families and family-owned farms.
And with the White House leading a global race to the bottom of growth and competitiveness – it’s our workers who lose with another wave of U.S. companies, jobs, research and investment moving overseas.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Republican Tax Reform Worked for American Workers:
- Republican tax reform led to the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.
- Unemployment reached all-time lows for African American workers, Hispanic workers, and workers without a high school degree.
- American workers also enjoyed the fastest wage growth in a decade.
READ: Debunking Biden’s Misleading Tax Claims—Yes, Republican Tax Reform Helped All Americans
The Last Thing America’s Working Families and Small Businesses Need is President Biden’s Crippling Tax Hikes:
- President Biden’s insistence on repealing the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act will cost 6 million U.S jobs over a decade.
- That means that a middle-class family of four making just $73,000 – will have their family budget robbed by $20,000 over time.
- The liberal Tax Policy Center found that President Biden’s overall tax plan will raise taxes on three-fourths of middle-class families in 2022 – rising to 95 percent of middle-class families in later years.
- Democrats’ supercharged second death tax on local farms and businesses will cost 1 million jobs over the next 12 years.
- That’s not all: President Biden’s Green New Deal attack on American-made energy, including cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, will destroy nearly a million-and-a-half good paying jobs.
READ: President Biden is Holding Back Our Jobs Recovery
While Hiking Taxes on Working Families, Democrats Are Pushing for a Tax Shelter for the Wealthy:
- Democrats are fighting to repeal the cap on state and local (SALT) deductions, creating a tax shelter for wealthy Americans that protects against President Biden’s higher income and capital gains taxes.
- The liberal Institute of Taxation on Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that 85 percent of the tax cuts from the repeal of the SALT cap would go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers, mostly in high-tax states like New York and California.
READ: Democrats’ Repeal of SALT Limit Would Widen Income Inequality
The Biden Administration’s Global Minimum Tax Is No Victory for America:
- A global minimum tax, coupled with Biden’s 28 percent rate for operating at home—will make America even less competitive and drive jobs, manufacturing, research, and investment overseas.
- The surrender of America’s taxing authority to foreign governments with a “global minimum tax” will send jobs overseas and make it better to be a foreign company or worker than an American one.
READ: Explainer: President Biden’s Global Tax Hike is Not a Victory for America, but a Surrender
CLICK HERE to watch Rep. Brady’s opening remarks.
Rep. Brady’s opening remarks as delivered appear below.
Thank you, Chairman Neal.
Welcome, Secretary Yellen. I had the pleasure of working with you when you led the Federal Reserve and I chaired the Joint Economic Committee.
I respected you then, and still very much do, although I disagree strongly with the damaging economic policies of the Biden Administration.
As we’ve discussed, I hope we can work together to improve retirement savings, make America medically independent from China, export American greenhouse gas reduction technology tariff-free to the world, protect the private taxpayer information of every American and find consensus on a true infrastructure plan that isn’t funded on the backs of working families.
When the Biden Administration promised to focus on climate change, I didn’t realize you meant changing the climate of the U.S. economy – by cooling off the jobs recovery.
But there you’ve succeeded.
President Biden inherited a strong recovery, life-saving vaccines, a reopening economy, and trillions of dollars in COVID stimulus.
Yet, through the first five months of this year the Biden Administration added 546,000 fewer jobs than the last five months of 2020 – some of which were during the height of COVID cases and deaths.
A half-million jobs short. And due to inflation, real wages have actually declined since President Biden took office.
America’s jobs recovery should be surging, but the April and May jobs reports are disastrous.
Main Street businesses are struggling to find workers.
Labor-force participation at the worst rate since the 1970’s.
Inflation has hit a 13-year high.
And many Americans fear the impact of high prices and a slow-growth economy when the sugar high from the Biden “stimulus” dissipates – which the Administration’s budget admits is true.
President Biden is sabotaging America’s jobs recovery with crippling tax increases and anti-business policies that hurt working families and Main Street businesses, and drive American jobs overseas.
These are some of the worst economic policies in our lifetime often justified with false narratives.
The biggest whopper is by President Bident himself: “All of the Republican tax cuts went to folks at the top andcorporations”.
This false claim earned “4 pinnochios” from The Washington Post, and similar claims are debunked by FactCheck.org, the New York Times and even the left-leaning Tax Policy Center.
The Treasury claim that GOP tax cuts “Put America at a disadvantage with an incentive for U.S. companies to offshore their workers and investment” was quickly debunked as well. The wave of American companies, jobs, research and investment fleeing overseas during the Obama-Biden administration came to a dead stop after passage of TCJA.
Actually, the biggest incentive to move U.S. jobs overseas is President Biden’s own reckless proposal to hike business tax rates by one-third, worse than China’s and dead last among our foreign competitors.
And virtually all of Treasury’s claims about the tax cuts have been easily debunked.
But here are real facts: American workers are hurt by President Biden’s crippling tax increases.
His insistence on rolling back the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act will cost 6 million U.S jobs over a decade, and for the middle-class family of four making just $73,000 – robs their family budget by $20,000 over time.
His Green New Deal attack on American-made energy, including cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, will destroy nearly a million and a half good paying jobs.
Repealing stepped-up basis for local farms and businesses will cost 1 million jobs over the next 12 years.
Poisoning infrastructure investment with crippling tax increases will make America a net economic loser.
While President Biden has repeatedly claimed he will only raise taxes on wealthy, that promise disappeared fast. The liberal Tax Policy Center recently released an analysis that President Biden’s overall tax plan means three-fourths of middle class families will face a tax increase in 2022 – rising to 95% in later years.
They also reveal that restoring the SALT deduction for wealthy Americans creates a tax shelter to protect them from higher income and capital gains taxes the President is proposing.
So, higher taxes on the middle class, a windfall for the wealthy.
The push for a global minimum tax is also an embarrassing admission by President Biden that his tax increases will make America uncompetitive and drive jobs overseas. In the Biden plan, it’s better to be a foreign company and a foreign worker than an American company and American worker.
Begging foreign countries for a global minimum tax isn’t a victory, it’s a surrender.
The bottom line is: America can’t tax, spend and borrow our way to prosperity.
We won’t help people rebuild their lives with endless government checks.
America won’t recover with the largest tax hikes in generations on Main Street businesses, working families and family-owned farms.
And with the White House leading a global race to the bottom of growth and competitiveness – it’s our workers who lose with another wave of U.S. companies, jobs, research and investment moving overseas.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.