Page:Congressional Record - 2010-12-10.pdf/15
time we woke up and began investing in our infrastructure. So that is not only to improve the long-term strength of America, our economic prowess, but it is also to create jobs right now that we desperately need.
Unfortunately, in this bill, this tax agreement between the President and the Republican leadership, there are many billions of dollars going into tax breaks for corporations. But there is not a whole lot of money—in fact, zero dollars—going into rebuilding our infrastructure.
Similarly—and I know there has been debate since yesterday on this issue. There may be a small breakthrough. I don't have to tell Americans, least of all the people in Vermont, about what happens when the weather gets cold and you are forced to pay very high prices for heating oil. The time is long overdue for us to make the investments we need to transform our energy system away from coal, away from oil. We are spending as a nation—and everybody in America has to appreciate this—$350 billion every single year—$1 billion a day, roughly—importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries, in order to make our economy go and in order to keep people warm.
Let me be very clear. The royal family of Saudi Arabia, which is our major source of oil, is doing just fine. Don't worry about the royal family of Saudi Arabia. They have zillions and zillions of dollars. Maybe it is a good idea that we seek energy independence, that we break our dependence on fossil fuel, and become more energy efficient, which, by the way, investing in public transportation certainly will do, and we move to sustainable energy, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. Guess what. China is doing that. Many of the solar panels coming into this country are not made in the United States but are made in China. They are big into wind turbines. I think the time is now for us to rebuild our infrastructure and create the jobs we desperately need.
Again, unfortunately, despite the enormous infrastructure needs we have in this country, this agreement, signed by the President and the Republican leadership, does not do that. When we talk about transforming our energy system and moving away from fossil fuel and making our homes more energy efficient and building solar panels, moving toward solar thermal power, in the Southwest of this country—New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada—we have some of the best solar exposure in the entire world. There are estimates that just in the Southwest of this country, on Federal land, we can provide 30 percent of the electricity American homes need, if we move toward solar thermal. We need to invest in our transmission lines.
What we are talking about is massive investment to create jobs, make us energy independent, clean up the environment, and deal with the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions which are contributing to global warming. That is a win-win-win situation. Yet we are not seeing that in this bill.
I wish to tell you something, Mr. President. I will get into this at greater length later. When we talk about our good friends in the oil industry—and I am not here to make a long speech about BP and what they have done in Louisiana, et cetera. I want everybody to know this. I will get into this at greater length later. Last year, our friends at ExxonMobil—and ExxonMobil has historically been the most profitable corporation in the history of the world. Last year, ExxonMobil had, for them, a very bad year. They only made $19 billion in profit. Based on $19 billion, you might be surprised to know ExxonMobil not only paid nothing in taxes, they got a $156 million return from the IRS. How is that? For those of you who are working in an office, working in a factory, earning your $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year, you pay taxes. But if you are ExxonMobil, and you made $19 billion in profits last year, not only did you not pay any taxes this year, you got $156 million in return.
It is not just the large oil companies that do not pay their fair share of taxes. I am going to get into this a little bit later, but when we try to understand why we have such a huge national debt and a $1.3 or $1.4 trillion deficit, it is also important to understand that many large and profitable corporations avoid virtually all of their tax responsibility.
In August 2008, the General Accountability Office issued a report. According to this report, two out of every three corporations in the United States paid no Federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. We have a $13.7 trillion national debt, and according to a GAO report published in August of 2008 two out of every three corporations in the United States paid no Federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. Amazingly, these corporations had a combined $2.5 trillion in sales but paid no income taxes to the IRS.
Furthermore, according to a report from Citizens For Tax Justice, 82 Fortune 500 companies in America—I guess that is 82 out of 500—paid zero or less in Federal income taxes in at least 1 year from 2001 to 2003. That is a report from Citizens For Tax Justice. And the Citizens For Tax Justice report goes on to say:
In the years they paid no income tax, these companies earned $102 billion in U.S. profits. But instead of paying $35.6 billion in income taxes, as the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury totaling $12.6 billion.
That is from the Citizens For Tax Justice report.
So when we take a comprehensive look at what is going on in this country, why we have a $13.7 trillion national debt, it is terribly important to understand that while the middle class pays its share of taxes, there are many large corporations that not only are paying nothing in taxes, they are getting rebates from the Federal Government.
I will go into greater length later on, but as a member of the Budget Committee I can tell you we discuss quite often how every single year—every single year—corporate interests and wealthy individuals stash away huge amounts of money in tax savings in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other countries in order to avoid paying their taxes in the United States of America. These are American corporations turning their back on the American people, saying—as Mrs. Helmsley said so many years ago, many of you remember—only small people pay taxes. Only the working stiffs out there pay taxes.
If you are a large corporation and you have a good lawyer or a good accountant, you know what to do. You invest your money in the Cayman Islands and in Bermuda, and you don't have to pay American taxes. But, by the way, as the disclosure report last week indicated, no problem; you get bailed out. When things get bad, you will be bailed out by the American taxpayers. On and on and on it goes. The rich and large corporations get richer, the CEOs earn huge compensation packages, and when things get bad, don't worry; Uncle Sam and the American taxpayers are here to bail you out. But when you are in trouble, well, we just can't afford to help you, if you are in the working class or the middle class of this country.
I want to return for a moment to the agreement that the President and the Republican leadership negotiated because I think that is the issue that all of America is now talking about. The President and the Republican leadership say it is a good deal. Democrats in the House yesterday said: Wait a second. It doesn't look to us like it is a good deal. In fact, we don't even want to bring it up on the floor of the House. In the Senate, I can tell you there are a number of us—I don't know how many—who say: Wait a minute. This is not a good deal for the middle class, it is not a good deal for our kids, and it is not a good deal for our workers. We can negotiate a better deal. The reason we are trying to delay passage of this agreement—and I hope very much it doesn't have the votes here—is we want the American people to stand and say: Wait a second, it makes no sense to us to be giving huge tax breaks to the richest people in this country—literally millionaires and billionaires—and driving up the national debt so our kids can pay more in taxes in order to pay off that debt.
This is a transfer of wealth. It is Robin Hood in reverse. We are taking from the middle class and working families and we are giving it to the wealthiest people in this country. I believe the agreement struck between the President and the Republican leadership is a bad deal. There may be some