'Focused On Election Year Messaging': Mike Crapo Hammers Dems Over 'Doomed-To-Fail Show Votes'

last month

During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) spoke in opposition to the Democrats' bringing tax legislation to the floor for a vote.

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Transcript

00:00With election politics front of mind, doomed-to-fail show votes have become an

00:07all-too-frequent occurrence in this chamber. But there is no more obvious

00:12show vote than the one scheduled to happen today, immediately before the

00:17August recess. In today's attempt to score political points, the Democrats are

00:22moving to a bill, H.R. 7024, that has been languishing for six months in

00:30the hopes of fabricating a narrative that Republicans don't support small

00:34business, children, or alleviating poverty. However, if my Democrat colleagues were

00:41serious about delivering relief to small businesses and working families, they

00:46would have worked out a solution with Senate Republicans in earnest on a

00:50pathway that would gain broad support from our members. While there are plenty

00:56of provisions in this bill that my colleagues and I support, the proponents

01:01have known this since before it was released, that Senate Republicans would

01:06need to change the bill in order to gain substantial bipartisan support. It is now

01:12August, and it has been months since any real attempt at outreach or engagement

01:18has taken place, which suggests that my colleagues are not actually serious

01:23about passing a bill, but are instead focused on election year messaging. There

01:30is plenty of evidence that today's theatrics are clearly posturing. First,

01:36there are several components of the bill that are non-controversial and have

01:40overwhelming bipartisan support, like disaster tax relief and double tax

01:46relief provisions on activity between the United States and Taiwan. That some

01:51Democrats have chosen to block these bills, including providing needed tax

01:56relief to fire and hurricane victims, to prove a point, demonstrates true cynicism.

02:02In the same vein, Democrats claim that Republicans are abandoning small

02:07businesses by not passing this bill, but it is Democrats who have held the R&D

02:13expensing hostage for years. Republicans have shown time and again their desire

02:19to pass R&D expensing, including in an overwhelming 90-to-5 motion led by

02:27Senator Young back in 2022, yet Democrats continue to block efforts to pass it. If

02:34Democrats were serious about helping small businesses, they would stop using

02:39them as a political football. Members are also aware of the recent data on fraud

02:45in the Employee Retention Tax Credit, or ERTC, program. Senator Tillis requested

02:52unanimous consent to pass a bill that would end the fraud-ridden program back

02:57in February, but the bill was blocked by the Democrats. If someone is to blame for

03:03not ending the ERTC fraud, it is not the Senate Republicans. Democrats knew the

03:10bill couldn't pass the Senate in time for this tax filing season, but now they

03:14want to make changes long after tax filers have filed their 2023 tax returns

03:19and received their refunds. This bill would require the IRS to reprocess

03:24millions of 2023 taxpayer returns. This is an IRS that still has backlogs in the

03:32millions, including identity theft case delays that the National Taxpayer

03:36Advocate has described as making a mockery of the right to quality service

03:41in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. If Democrats were serious about providing

03:47taxpayer relief, they would not pile additional work on the IRS that still

03:52cannot carry out basic taxpayer services. For all my Democrat colleagues past

03:58calls for regular order in the Senate, one would think the Senate Republican

04:02request for a Finance Committee markup on this bill would have been well

04:06received. Instead, those requests, which began in January, have continued to go

04:13ignored. Instead of moving through regular order and engaging my colleagues

04:20and me, the bill's proponents have used the better part of this year on a public

04:25pressure campaign littered with misinformation. That is unfortunate

04:31because the bill does get a lot of things right. However, the critical flaw

04:37with the bill is that it fails to provide meaningful tax relief to working

04:42families and instead goes too far toward the Democrats' goal of turning the child

04:47tax credit into a subsidy untethered to work, which is fundamentally contrary to

04:54what the credit was created to do. For those who accuse Republicans of not

04:59caring about children, I would remind my colleagues that it was the Republicans

05:03who created the child tax credit. It was intended to provide tax relief to

05:10working families, yet more than 30 billion dollars of the cost to expand

05:15the child tax credit in this bill, about 91% of the money in this bill for the

05:22child tax credit, would go to individuals who pay no income tax. That

05:28isn't tax relief, it's a subsidy. And the bill's child tax credit provisions treat

05:34working family taxpayers as an afterthought. Not only do families with a

05:40federal income tax liability receive a mere 9% of the bill's child tax credit

05:46benefits, they also would be left waiting for that tax relief until two

05:51years after the benefits accrue to those with zero income tax liability. I've

05:59raised these concerns repeatedly before the bill was released. Unfortunately, by

06:04merely questioning the ratio skewed toward subsidies and asking whether

06:09working families should receive more tax relief, I and other Senate Republicans

06:14have been maligned for not caring about children and alleviating poverty. While

06:20Senate Republicans have also been accused of playing politics, the timing

06:24of today's vote, coupled with the lack of meaningful engagement since January to

06:29reach a compromise, confirms that the strategy was always a take-it-or-leave-

06:34it proposition in the Senate. If my Democrat colleagues want to show that

06:39they are serious about supporting small businesses, providing disaster tax relief,

06:45alleviating double taxation on activity between the United States and Taiwan, and

06:50eliminating fraud in the ERTC program, all bipartisan proposals, then I call on

06:58them to separately pass Senator Young and Senator Hassan's bipartisan American

07:04Innovation and Jobs Act that would reinstate R&D expensing, the bipartisan

07:10Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2024, the bipartisan and bicameral U.S.-Taiwan

07:17Expedited Double Tax Relief Act, and Senator Tillis's bill to end the ERTC

07:24program. On the child tax credit, it bears repeating that Republicans, the ones who

07:31I've already said created the child tax credit, doubled that child tax credit

07:36from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2017 for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and provided

07:44additional help to low-income families by lowering the phase-in floor and

07:48increasing the refundability of the credit. And that doubled child tax credit

07:54is still law. It has not expired. It is still in full force and effect. If the

08:03Democrats are serious about helping these working families, I'm ready to push

08:07for an extension of those changes beyond 2025. I've maintained a willingness to

08:14negotiate a bill that provides meaningful relief to Americans now, a

08:21that a majority of Republicans in this chamber can support. But today's senseless

08:26show vote further demonstrates that Democrats are not serious about doing so.

08:31For that reason, I will be voting no on cloture and urge my colleagues to do the

08:37same. Thank you, Mr. President.

'Focused On Election Year Messaging': Mike Crapo Hammers Dems Over 'Doomed-To-Fail Show Votes'

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