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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, there are ideas in Senator Braun's bill that Democrats and Republicans definitely could work together on, and I have always enjoyed working with Senator Braun. Unfortunately, there are two ideas in this proposal that are showstoppers. The first, in effect, deals with rigging America's tax system, and the second issue deals with rigging our political system.

As far as I am concerned, the tax laws on the books already make it too easy for the very wealthy, multinational corporations, and the politically powerful to avoid paying taxes already. To a great extent, those people can pretty much pay what they want, when they want to. And, unfortunately, the bill that Senator Braun has brought forward would rig this system even more.

Democrats, in the inflation reduction legislation, put a focus on coming down hard on tax cheating by the ultrawealthy. Republican budget cuts in the past have made it far too easy for the wealthy and the multinational corporations to get away with cheating on their taxes. So, in late 2022, Democrats said ``enough already'' and put special protections in place to ensure that the IRS would focus on cheating at the top, not on people earning under $400,000.

The way this proposal busts open a huge new tax loophole is it would, in effect, redefine what counts as income when it comes to deciding who gets audited, and it would encourage billionaires to disguise their wealth. The bill would give billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who, allegedly, reported less than $100,000 of adjusted gross income, a free pass. It would be a loophole.

The tax part of this would encourage tax cheating and be a huge gift to these scofflaw billionaires who are ripping off working Americans who do the right thing and follow the law.

The second aspect of this proposal that, regrettably, I have to oppose is that this proposal would lock in a Trump policy that opens the floodgates to more dark money influencing our elections and our laws. It codifies, in black letter law, rules to make it easier for illegal donations and foreign actors to intervene in our elections undetected, encouraging illegal campaign activity, and inviting Russia and China to undermine our democratic process.

I have just gone through seven open-to-all townhall meetings in counties in my State, in areas that were pretty darn red, and I don't recall anybody ever telling me they wanted to get hit with more nasty, shadowy political ads.

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