Pelosi Remarks at Ways and Means Committee Democrats’ Forum on the #GOPTaxScam

Leader Pelosi.  Thank you very much, Ranking Member [Richard] Neal for your leadership.  Thank you and all the Members of the Ways and Means Committee on the Democratic side for fighting out there for the great middle class.

I thank, especially, [Congressman] Lloyd Doggett the Ranking Member of the Tax Policy Subcommittee and especially from the perspective of California, Mr. Thompson because he knows how damaging this bill is to our state.

I just left the meeting with the Governor of Puerto Rico [and he was] saying ‘on top of all the other damage, this tax bill is very devastating to any recovery there.'  So, from coast to coast and in the states and territories this is a very bad idea.

Today, we gather for the vital discussion that Republicans have simply refused to have – a discussion of the cold hard facts of their tax scam.

The GOP tax scam is the product of haste, carelessness and vast dishonesty toward the millions of middle class families it will hurt.

Every day, the cruel consequences of this bill are better understood and the overwhelming opposition of the American people grows louder.  But the GOP crawls deeper into denial.

When the Washington Post asked Edward Kleinbard, former chief of staff for the Joint Committee on Taxation, if the tax package in aggregate would mean a middle-class tax cut he said, ‘That's delusional or dishonest to say. It's factually untrue… The only group you can point to that wins year after year and wins in very large magnitude is the very highest incomes.'

The other issue it does is of course to the deficit.  In this very room, Bruce Bartlett told us, ‘anyone that says tax cuts pay for themselves – it's not true, it's nonsense' and he went further to use a crude expression that begins with B. S. to describe it.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, today has even said it doesn't pay for itself.  I mean he said it in a larger statement.

Republicans do not want to hear how their tax bill hurts children and seniors; students and teachers; firefighters, veterans and workers; the coasts, the rural heartland and Indian Country – or how it steals trillions from our future.

It robs from the future, it rewards the very rich and it rips off the middle class.  The GOP wants massive tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent, no matter the cost to anyone else.  And so, later today, they will go to conference on two monstrous versions of a GOP tax scam – intent on shutting out reality, and silencing the voices of the American people.

We are honored to be joined by a distinguished panel of experts on taxes, who will share their insight on the consequences of the GOP tax scam.  We're grateful for their leadership and honored by their presence today.  Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody's Analytics; Jason Furman, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; Brenda Salantes, PhD Candidate, University of Pennsylvania; Will Attig, Executive Director, Union Veterans Council – our Members are eager to hear your wisdom.

I yield back to our distinguished Ranking Member [Richard Neal].