WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ways and Means Republican Leader Kevin Brady (R-TX) opened Wednesday’s Ways and Means Committee Hearing highlighting the ways Democrats’ so-called infrastructure bill and tax hikes harm blue-collar workers, families, and Main Street businesses:

 

“As bad as the wasteful spending is, worse yet, it’s poisoned with crippling tax increases that sabotage America’s jobs recovery, hurts working families and Main Street businesses, and drives U.S. jobs overseas. We cannot fund infrastructure on the backs of American workers.”

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Only 7 percent of President Biden’s so-called “infrastructure” goes towards true infrastructure. The rest is wasteful spending that hurts America’s jobs recovery, working families, and Main Street businesses.
• America is a net loser with Democrats’ tax increases that slow hiring, slash paychecks, send jobs overseas, and weaken investment in U.S. infrastructure and communities.
• Republicans support spending on real infrastructure, not job-killing tax hikes that fund wasteful spending.

 

Watch Rep. Brady’s opening statement here.

 

Rep. Brady’s opening remarks as prepared appear below.

 

Thank you, Chairman Neal for holding this hearing and our witnesses for being here today.

Improving America’s infrastructure has always been achieved by both parties in Congress, working together. 

It’s a unifying, bipartisan issue that reflects our common belief that a growing nation deserves infrastructure that is growing with it – or ahead of it. 

So, why would that change now?

Regrettably, President Biden’s so-called “infrastructure” bill was crafted in secret with no input from Republicans. Not one word.

Not much of it is true infrastructure – only about 7 percent. The rest is billions of dollars of wasteful spending, the radical Green New Deal, or lavish green subsidies to millionaire owners of wind farms and wealthy buyers of electric BMWs.

As bad as the wasteful spending is, worse yet, it’s poisoned with crippling tax increases that sabotage America’s jobs recovery, hurts working families and Main Street businesses, and drives U.S. jobs overseas. 

We cannot fund infrastructure on the backs of American workers. 

Even assuming the best long term economic gain from infrastructure, America is a net loser with tax increases that slow hiring, hurt paychecks and take America backward to the bad old days of Obama-Biden.

Back then we regularly saw countless American businesses pack up and move overseas – leaving their communities and small businesses hurting.  

Coming out of a pandemic, that is the last thing we need right now. 

No president has ever raised taxes on businesses to recover from an economic crisis. The largest tax increase in half a century landing on job creators just as we are asking them to hire more – that makes no sense. 

Why should American businesses have the worst tax rates among our global competitors – worse than Communist China for heavens’ sake.

And now we’re told the Biden Administration will beg our global competitors to raise their taxes too because America is voluntarily becoming uncompetitive and “won’t you join us?” 

Seriously? 

In the end this isn’t about corporations.

It’s about the workers who bear the brunt of tax increases with lower paychecks, thinner benefits and the risk of their job moving overseas.

It’s about the families whose retirement hinges on the success of these businesses. It’s about the small businesses and the communities who won’t survive a second wave of American companies moving overseas. 

We cannot fund infrastructure on the backs of American workers. 

By contrast, in 2019 alone – thanks to Republican tax cuts – American households enjoyed the largest ever jump in income, more in one year than in all 8 years of the Obama-Biden White House.

The poverty rate fell to the lowest since the War on Poverty began, and income inequality began to shrink for the first time in half a century. 

And Hispanics, Blacks, Asian, women, the disabled and those without a high school degree saw job opportunities and higher paychecks. These are the people the old Obama-Biden tax code had left behind. 

Why risk those gains, especially as we saw the stunning economic setback America experienced in the shocking April jobs report?

Mr. Chairman, let’s not fund infrastructure on the backs of American workers when there are so many other ways to get this done.

We can redesign our current tax incentives to attract private business investment so taxpayers don’t have to shoulder the burden of infrastructure alone. 

I meant it when in March I told you we “look forward to working with you directly in a hearing format where collaboration will once again yield a meaningful benefit to all Americans.”

Today is that day. I believe we can find common ground on true infrastructure and make it truly bipartisan – which this country supports.

Our discussion will be meaningful and important, and I am glad to be here with all my Ways and Means colleagues, Democrat and Republican.

Thank you, and I yield back.