Outset, the president and hicksf millionaires are illustrating a middle class con job and im going to be very specific as to why i reach that judgment with respect to what theyre saying about taxes. Now the president said, i dont benefit, very, very strongly. I think theres very little benefit for people of wealth. Those are the president s exact words. He also said its not good for me, believe me, the president said in a speech unveiling the tax reform blueprint on wednesday. Now unless the president pays zero tax, the president is going to benefit enormously from his tax plan. His family would save billions if the estate tax is eliminated as hes proposed. His more than 500 passthroughs will be able to take advantage of the new grand canyonsized passthrough loophole that his plan proposes. Based on his 2005 tax return, thats the only one available, the president would save millions each year if the alternative minimum tax is eliminated. Now today the president and his the president s top advisor gary cohen said weve also said that wealthy americans arent getting a tax cut. They expect you to believe them and not your lyin eyes. And i want to just take a few minutes and describe exactly what the welltodo are getting in this bill. The plan outlined by the Trump Administration would cost upwards of 5 trillion, and it is overwhelmingly skewed towards the wealthy and the biggest corporations. It lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 20, and much of that goes to wealthy shareholders. The new passthrough which would give this big gift to high fliers, hedge funds, basically would let them start calling ordinary income, business income so it could be taxed at a much lower rate, and they would be in the process harming Social Security and medicare because they werent paying those payroll taxes. Now i mentioned the estate tax, and this is for just a few thousand people, the exemption for a couple is already 11 million. This break would cost the American People between 250 billion and 270 billion. Thats an awful lot of money to parcel out to a few thousand families. And then they would lower the individual top rate from 39. 6 to 35 . So lets make no mistake about it, mr. President. The president of the United States and his top Economic Advisor have said that theyre not going to give tax cuts to the wealthy. Thats not what they said yesterday. They said that the top rate was going to go down from 39. 6 to 35 . And to add insult to injury, for those at the bottom of the Economic System who pay 10 now, theirs would go up to 12 . So this is just making a mockery out of the president s pledge that this was going to be about working families and not about the wealthy. And the fact is, with respect to the middle class, mr. President , the trump team is running sleight of hand a sleight of hand shell game. What they give with one hand, they just take away with the other. So they touted yesterday that they were going to be helping middleclass folks by doubling the standard deduction. Now, first of all, that is walking back, mr. President , the bipartisan proposal that wed had here in the senate written by myself and my colleague, dan coats, now a member of the Trump Administration, that would triple the standard deduction. But what is particularly outrageous is that the trump people arent leveling with those middleclass families. Basically, theyre saying, oh, youre going to really do well. Youre going to get double the standard deduction. What they dont tell them is that theyre going to eliminate the personal exemption that large middleclass families rely on. In effect, those large middleclass families i have a lot of workingclass families who may have supported the president they are going to see a tax increase under the president s tax outline you heard about it yesterday even with this larger standard deduction. The president s team also took a big pass on the opportunity to expand the Child Tax Credit to make sure that more working families would benefit from them. There are no specifics about the Child Tax Credit in this plan. Now, the treasury secretary went on fox news and said the tax plan is going to cut down the deficit by 1 trillion. Now, mr. Mnuchin is doubling down on the failed experiment. The idea that tax cuts for themselves, in effect, paid for themselves through economic growth. History shows that just is not true. Tax cuts dont pay for themselves. The 2001 and 2003 bush tax cuts were billed as tax relief for the middle class that would spark economic growth. Instead, the benefits skewed to those at the very top and they added trillions of dollars to americas debt. Middleclass wages fell, unemployment increased. This is a pattern that working families, middleclass families cannot afford to have repeated except now the secretary of treasurys claim is that, well, the trump tax cuts wont just pay for themselves, theyre going to bring in an additional 1 trillion in revenue atop their own cost. Mr. President , William Peter wyden, age 9, my son, would say, thats just a bunch of whoppers and it couldnt be further from the truth, as even republica republicanappointed budget director steve holts said and made clear, the tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Quote, no, the evidence is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Those are the words of the budget director appointed by the republicans. And that budget director, mr. Mr. Keith hall, went on to say that the models that theyre doing, the macroeconomic effects, the fancy lingo for the big picture in the long term, show it. The other comment that was not noteworthy from mr. Gary cohn is that the president remains committed to ending the carried interest deduction. Despite his Campaign Promise tha,once again, the president sn doesnt close carried interest loophole. Now, this is the second big occasion on which the president has failed to follow through on his Campaign Promise. A few months ago in the spring they had a onepage outline that said that was where they were going on taxes. They said that onepage outline was shorter than a typical fred myer receipt fred my certificate sort of an iconic store in our state. So they had one page then, didnt do anything about following through on the president s promise to get rid of the carried interest loopho loophole. So yesterday again we didnt get a bill, but at least when you kind of eliminate all the white space, they put out close to five pages. But once again they didnt close the carried interest loophole. In fact, the plan gives such massive tax cuts to those at the top, Investment Managers wont be the only people who can get away with paying less than their fair share. Many of the megawealthy are going to be able to do so. Its all going to be legal under the president s plan. What is the one question on which the trump team doesnt bend the truth . Whether their plan will protect the middle class from a tax hike. On abc, the trump advisor, mr. Cohn, said he couldnt guarantee that taxes wont go up for middleclass folks. On abc, the treasury secretary said that he couldnt guarantee middleclass folks would pay more under the tax plan. So whats really striking about this and its quite a contrast people at the very top, mr. President , what theyre going to get is spelled out in detail, in detail. Theyre going to see the abolition of the estate tax, an incredible windfall to a few thousand families. Middleclass folks uh, cant guarantee you wont pay more. And, mr. Cohn said, well, were aiming to help the middle class. But then when he was asked, well, will you commit to it . Well, i dont know. The there might be somebody somewhere. And then theres state and local taxes. He just wouldnt stand behind the middle class, mr. President , the way that this Administration Stands foursquare behind those at the top, and it is why ive said that the president and his parade of millionaires are execute ago middleclass con job and we sure saw it today. The president s ultrawealthy, outoftouch advisors clearly failed to understand that the time is now to deliver tax relief to middleclass folks who need it most. Its time to go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan that doesnt threaten middleclass americans, particularly those with larger families, and dont hit them with a tax increase they cant afford. And i want to close by way of saying, mr. President , that on our side, we have repeatedly said we share the view that the tax system is a dysfunctional brokendown mess, filled with loopholes and then you have the inversion virus. And often my wife says, why dont you just stop there because any more is just going to frighten the children. We share the view that the tax system is broken, and i have been very proud over the years to join two senior republicans, close allies the majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell in a tax reform proposal that is bipartisan that really puts the focus on the middle class and on red, white, and blue jobs. And, mr. President , our propos proposal, number one, and the outline laid out by democrats that there had to be fiscal responsibility, it had to focus on the middle class, that the tax relief wouldnt go to the people of the 1 the bill i wrote that had republican support, the outline led by the distinguished democratic leader, senator schumer, it doesnt even go as far as Ronald Reagan and the democrats went in 1986. President reagan, who no one would call a flaming liberal, president reagan entered into an agreement with democrats in 1986 that said there would be equal treatment of income earned by a cop and a nurse with somebody from a hedge fund or an investment shop. In effect, Ronald Reagan said that a dollar is a dollar is a dollar and everything ought to be treated fairly. And that was important then, and its even more important now, mr. President. Because in reality, there are two tax systems in america there is one for the cop and the nurse, and they have their taxes taken out every paycheck, and that taxation is compulsory. No Cayman Islands deal for them, mr. President. Then theres another tax system the kind of people who benefit from what the president outlined yesterday. Those are the high flyers. They get to pay what they want when they want to. And i think it is very unfortunate that what the president has described is another gift to those group that group that i just described, pay what they want, when they want to. And that it is really, to quote the president , it is really sad to hear that this administration and the president is pretending that theyre doing Something Else and putting the focus on the middle class when what they really are doing is advancing the parade of millionaires the cause of the parade of millionaires, the number of which the number of those who are part of this administration. With that, mr. We will have more on the republican tax proposal plan shortly. If you missed any remarks, you can find them online at cspan. Org. Just type wyden in the search bar. In the morning, secretary of interior ryan zinke he will talk about the Trump Administrations Domestic Energy agenda. We will take you live to the Heritage Foundation for that. Then, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services committee will look at the president s approach to dealing with north korea, russia, and iran. We will bring you that live at 12 30 p. M. Eastern. The think people remember about him is his distinctive facial hair. Q a,nday night on journalist Scott Greenberger on his book, the unexpected resident, the life of chester a arthur. I think he recognized he wasnt all a fight for the job. He ended up on the ticket right accident, surprised to be there, never imagined he would be president of the United States and that he is on the threshold of office. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Fromw, we will hear congressman kevin brady. He outlines the key roles for his partys text. Tax proposal