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Floor Speech

Last week, the Republicans passed a gigantic bill that was full of massive cuts to healthcare and food assistance as well as huge tax handouts to big corporations and the ultrawealthy. It also included a lot of smaller scale policies that didn't get a lot of notice. In a lot of cases, they were just half-baked, poorly written, and now I see Republican Senators walking all over the Capitol, saying they didn't even know anything about this policy and this process.

The Republican bill is full of special carve-outs for some groups and new taxes on others. The fact is, when you rush a process like this in this way and cram in all of these policies that you haven't really thought about, you risk some consequences for people back home, and that is what is going on here in this attempt by our colleague to pass this special tax carve-out for one institution--just one--in his home State.

The Finance Committee's Democratic staff already litigated this issue in bipartisan meetings with the Parliamentarian. We knocked this proposal out of the Republican bill specifically--specifically--for one reason: It is a special carve-out, and it is plain and simple that that is what is going on.

My own view is, if my Republican colleagues want to exempt their home State colleges and universities from the endowment tax, they shouldn't have passed this deeply flawed bill in the first place. So I strongly support our colleague from Nevada's efforts. I oppose the amendment proposed by our Finance Committee colleague Senator Young.

I close by way of saying: It is just not right to give a special home State tax carve-out a free ride on an entirely separate proposal.

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