At Hearing, Warren Makes Case for Using 2025 Tax Fight to Raise Taxes on Corporations and Billionaires, Lower Costs for American Families
Opening Remarks (YouTube) | Hearing Livestream
Washington, D.C. – At a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered opening remarks focused on the impact of potential tax reforms in 2025, when certain provisions of the 2017 Republican tax cuts expire. Senator Warren underscored that the 2025 tax fight brings an opportunity to make giant corporations pay their fair share and use that revenue to lower costs for ordinary Americans.
Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy
Hearing on the Macroeconomic Impact of Potential Tax Reform in 2025
September 18, 2024
As Delivered
Senator Elizabeth Warren: This hearing will come to order.
Good afternoon. I want to thank Ranking Member Kennedy, our other colleagues, and our witnesses who will be joining us today for this hearing.
Today, we are 48 days from the election. That is just 48 days until voters decide the direction our country will take next year on abortion, housing – and taxes. So today’s Economic Policy Subcommittee hearing on the Macroeconomic Impact of Potential Tax Reform in 2025 may sound a little wonky. But the reality is, Congress is going to confront big decisions on tax policy next year.
Whether we want to rewrite the tax code or not, 2025 will be a crucial year for setting tax policy because in 2017, Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans passed a $2 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthy and big businesses. The Republican tax giveaway was so big that they tried to hide the full cost. So they set up a bunch of pieces to expire at the end of 2025, and hoped that a subsequent Congress would just rubber stamp an extension without noticing how much money rich people and giant corporations would be getting.
Next year, Congress will answer the questions we are discussing today about what the tax code should look like? What we decide will affect every American and every part of the economy and every part of the country over the next few decades.
Whatever you care about, taxes matter. The tax code determines how much money our nation has for programs like Social Security and Medicare, roads and housing, health care and child care.
And the fine print of the tax code shapes our economy: will the tax code incentivize billionaires to hoard their money, corporations to grow into titanic monopolies, and multinationals to ship jobs overseas? Or will it create good jobs and new opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs right here in the United States?
Taxes reflect our values. They show what—and who—we value enough to collectively invest in.
For decades, particularly since the days of Ronald Reagan and his corporate-friendly advisers, the tax system has reflected the values of well-connected billionaires.
The 2017 Republican tax cuts centered on a $1.3 trillion tax cut for giant corporations. In the years since then, corporations have raked in record profits, including by price gouging consumers, but they have paid less in taxes.
In fact, over the past half-century, giant corporations have begun to dominate our economy. Corporate profits as a share of the economy have doubled since the 1950s; meanwhile, corporate federal income taxes as a share of GDP have fallen by half.
Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, things have got a little better. We raised taxes on billion-dollar corporations for the first time in 30 years – thanks to my 15% corporate minimum tax. We funded the IRS – which has since clawed back a billion dollars and counting from wealthy tax cheats.
But it has been an uphill battle. These improvements to the tax system came with the slimmest of majorities and were opposed by every single Republican member of Congress, House and Senate. And believe me – billionaires and big corporations have fought like hell to beat back bigger reforms.
Next year they will fight even harder. Lobbyists have already started calling 2025 the year of “tax Superbowl.” These lobbyists are salivating over the hours they can bill their corporate clients and the goodies they can win. But it’s not a game, and the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. In fact, I see 2025 as a big opportunity to fix our tax code.
So here is the choice that Congress will face, and that this subcommittee meets to discuss today:
Will we allow Donald Trump and the Republicans to implement their Project 2025 plan to cut taxes even more for billionaires and giant corporations, while raising taxes on everyone else? Or will we move the corporate tax rate back up, stitch up the tax loopholes that billionaires wiggle through, and then use that revenue to lower costs for ordinary Americans, from housing to child care?
And, just as importantly, will we finally say enough is enough—that the rich and powerful have already fed at the trough long enough and it’s time for them to pay a fair share? Will we have the courage to say that it is better to let all the Trump tax cuts expire than to sign on to another multi-trillion dollar giveaway to America’s billionaires?
I appreciate our panelists joining us for this hearing and sharing their expertise. We have big questions that will come before the Senate and the American public in the coming months, and I’m pleased to start the conversation today.
At this point, I would ordinarily turn to Ranking Member Kennedy, who was right behind you. He’s voting, and then he will be here for his opening remarks. So how about instead of doing that, we start with our witnesses. We have two great witnesses to share their views on the impact of tax reform on our economy, and I appreciate both of you being here today.
First, we have Ai-jen Poo, who is the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the executive director of Caring Across Generations. Ms. Poo is a tireless advocate for caregivers and a nationally recognized expert on elder and family care, the future of work, gender equality, and grassroots organizing.
And second, we have Kitty Richards, who is an expert in tax and fiscal policy, with ground work collaborative. She also served in the Treasury Department during the Biden-Harris administration, and as an economic policy advisor in the White House to then-Vice President Biden.
So thank you both for being here today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. Ms. Poo, how about if we start with you.
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