Sen. Blumenthal Issues Statement on Train Crash in Tacoma, Republican Tax Plan
Mr. President, a tax bill is a fiscal document. It is a legal document. It is also a moral document. It involves choices, much as we make choices as families when we own a car that is unsafe or a house that has a front step that is about to collapse or when a college student needs money to pursue her education. A family can make choices. A parent can go to the casino and gamble and lose the money or spend it on luxuries that are unnecessary or unwise, and nations make those kinds of moral choices as well.
This tax document is a moral document. It involves choices. Will it make our country safer, rebuild our infrastructure and our national defense or, instead, in effect, squander resources of
I want to extend, first of all, my thoughts and prayers to those families and loved ones who have suffered losses. The three deaths and injuries have taken their toll emotionally as well as physically. In these dark days, we are demanding answers.
Unfortunately, the
I call on the
You may be forgiven for thinking it seems like deja vu. Didn't that happen also in Spuyten Duyvil, where four people were lost? Didn't it happen in
Three hundred people have been killed in these a ccidents since 1970, when the
Well, the costs of those 300 lives lost and of the crashes that have resulted from derailments and other kinds of very severe mishaps due to excessive speed are way in excess of the costs of installing positive train control since 1970, since 2015, and if it is postponed again, the costs will exceed the expenses that we saw in the system.
It is available now. It is fully ready for installation on railroads across the country. The resources aren't preventing its installation; it is the will and determination to do so.
The failure of Federal authorities to require and provide support for positive train control is a moral choice this Nation has made. It is not only about dollars and cents; it is about basic moral choices, and those choices are a factor in those three deaths outside of
The new deadline is now 1 year away. If we do nothing else in this
The dollars and cents required to install positive train control and to repair our aging and decrepit roads and bridges involve investment.
To show you what is happening in
Now, as a result of this so-called tax cut, a lot of people in
This legislation will put America in debt by
Lest you think the
I know this may seem to many of my colleagues like an oversimplification. Yes, it is, but it is an oversimplification with real facts that support it and with real consequences to the American people.
When the President of
It is a tax scam with moral consequences in terms of inequality in this Nation. It tilts the benefits in favor of corporations and the wealthiest who will receive permanent tax cuts. It will hurt working families, students, public schools, firefighters, police officers, local government, and sick people, who will receive nothing but crumbs by comparison.
It will desperately hurt States like
Yes, there are crumbs and sweeteners, and they are temporary. They pale in comparison to the tremendous benefits that will go to corporations and the wealthiest.
It narrows our tax base, shifting the burden, in fact, from corporations to individuals. It makes the Tax Code more complicated, not less so. It grossly increases inequality, and it steals
I am a member of the
The
So for my Republican colleagues to say that we need to rebuild, we need to invest in our national defense and in our military and in the skill training of our warriors is a fiction. It is blatant deception, and it is a disservice to the brave men and women who have enlisted and serve us in uniform now and others who will join them in the future. We cannot have the most advanced and strongest military in the world if we use the same tax code as the
This year, our country experienced a tragic loss of life--in fact, the loss of more than life, needlessly, preventably. Seventeen sailors perished on the USS John S. McCain and the USS Fitzgerald. Two of them were from
Our national security is more than just military spending in the face of Russian cyber attacks in our elections, horrific hurricanes hitting
This tax scam is morally reprehensible. It cuts taxes for the wealthiest while jeopardizing programs that are essential to the safety and security of many in our Nation who are most vulnerable.
Under current law, the
What corporations benefit the most? There is a very simple answer. The ones that benefit the most with foreign cash that will be distributed almost certainly to their shareholders and to their CEOs are listed right here. In the red is the foreign cash, and the total is listed as well. They are the ones who are going to benefit. Apple has been singled out as the single largest beneficiary, but many other corporations around the country will benefit as well.
The picture that I think was most powerful in assessing how these corporations will use this money occurred when the President's chief economic adviser asked a room of CEOs: How many of you will spend these additional resources on creating jobs? There were no more than a few hands raised in that room. This money will go to shareholders.
These corporations have zero incentive to provide new jobs if there is no increase in demand and sales. The failure to provide real tax cuts--real benefits to middle-class families and to our working families--means that sales and demand will not lead to more jobs because there will be no increase in demand with the crumbs and pittance tax cuts that are complicated.
So
Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words. Here is the "American Excess" tax scam card. It will not buy you much because it is debt. With sincere apologies to
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
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