Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for calling today’s hearing. The Highway Trust Fund’s long-standing tradition has been based on a user-pays principle. We have long matched the cost, a gas tax, with the benefits of improved infrastructure. It is my hope that we will continue this long held position and once again not let the lure of repatriated earnings distract us.
This is not the first time that Congress has debated using repatriation as a cure to fix our economy. Back in 2004, we were promised that if we cut the tax for corporations’ foreign earnings, they would bring this money back and create thousands of new jobs.
Rather than invest the collective $362 billion these companies brought back, these companies reduced their American workforces, devoted less money for R&D and business investment. Instead, companies increased C-suite executives’ pay, purchased shares and paid dividends. Interesting that we are here again just eleven years later, discussing how this new and improved version of repatriation will fix our ailing infrastructure. If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
Perhaps lost in this entire debate about repatriation, and the reason companies have stuffed more than $2 trillion overseas, is that we have a broken tax code. Repatriation is the symptom of the larger disease that is our tax code, which remains outdated, uncompetitive and ill-suited for a modern world. Our tax code sets us back, and every day we do not work to fix it, our competitors win. While our competitors cut taxes and cut NATO defense spending, we are left to foot the bill. This is not sustainable.
Mr. Chairman I hope this hearing will be both illustrative and informative, while ultimately confirming what we all know: repatriation as a way to pay for our infrastructure takes us away from user-pays. This is very dangerous. It is the responsibility of the majority to govern, and propose solutions to our problems. I look forward to working with you in this capacity so we can invest in our infrastructure together. I close with a quote from Sir Isaac Newton that I believe is apropos: “we build too many walls and not enough bridges."
