Matt Rutherford's Solo Sail

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to join my fellow Senator from Rhode Island's effort to restore a basic level of fairness to our Tax Code. Senator Whitehouse has done an extraordinary job in fighting to return some sense of balance to a broken system.

Most Americans agree Senator Whitehouse's legislation is fundamentally fair and they want to see it become law because as we all know, the Tax Code is riddled with loopholes that benefit the wealthiest Americans. It is past time we take this first step towards fixing a system that allows millionaires and billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans. This is a defining vote--it is about who you stand for and with, working men and women or multimillionaires and billionaires. This legislation signals to middle-class Americans that the government should be focused on helping them, by ensuring that everyone pays their fair share to support essential government programs that invest in education, infrastructure and our nation's future.

The Tax Code stacks the deck for the wealthy at the expense of the middle-class. The middle-class has already been squeezed enough by stagnant wages and a complex tax system that does not work for them. The revenue raised through this measure is deficit reduction that is not taken out on the backs of seniors or working American families. This legislation will only impact 0.2 percent of Rhode Islanders that earn more than $1 million in income per year.

Senator Whitehouse's Paying a Fair Share Act would prevent millionaires and billionaires from using tax loopholes that allow them to pay a lower effective tax rate than a school teacher in Rhode Island.

Of millionaires in 2009, a full 22,000 households making more than $1 million annually paid less than a 15 percent income tax rate. Our Tax Code, riddled with loopholes and special giveaways, leads to lopsided and inequitable results. It is past time we correct these glaring loopholes and restore some fairness to our Tax Code.

The 400 highest-income households in 2008, who made on average $271 million--paid just an 18.1 percent rate. This is nearly half the 29.9 percent rate those households paid on average in 1995 under President Clinton.

According to the Center on Budget Policy Priorities analysis, the top 1 percent have seen their after tax income grow by 277% since 1979. The middle 60 percent of Americans have only seen a 38 percent increase and the bottom 20 percent have only seen an 18 percent increase. This is a result of a broken Tax Code that over the past several decades has been tilted to benefit the wealthiest Americans and not the middle-class.

The tax benefits for the wealthiest Americans have contributed to staggering deficits. These deficits have increased pressure on our budget and motivated Republicans to slash services that benefit middle-class Americans in the name of deficit reduction.

This is exactly why I opposed the reckless Bush tax cuts that skewed so heavily towards the wealthy, the segment of our society that needed the least help. In fact, it is estimated that the House Republican budget would give millionaires an additional $265,000 in tax cuts each year; unsurprisingly, Republicans want to double down on the misguided Bush tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthy.

We need comprehensive tax reform, but not reform that skews the Tax Code even more towards the wealthy while asking for more sacrifice from the middle-class. The Paying a Fair Share Act is a first step in reversing this trend and reforming the Tax Code by restoring fairness.

Making sure that millionaires and billionaires don't pay a lower tax rate than middle-class Americans will help make our Tax Code fairer while addressing our budget deficit. This is common sense and I hope Republicans will join us in taking the first step towards restoring fairness to our tax laws.

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