Set to speak on the floor during morning business on Wednesday in honor of National Police Week, U.S. Senator Coons also responded to comments made moments earlier by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of “picking winners and losers” by attempting to repeal tax subsidies for the nation’s largest oil companies.
“We just heard a comment on the floor that we need to stop picking winners and losers and need to move forward in helping America end its dependence on foreign energy,” Senator Coons began. “I couldn’t agree more because the expenditures through our tax code — the billions and billions of dollars in needless expenditures through our tax code that continue to subsidize some of the most wildly profitable corporations in American history — is exactly that: picking winners. And the losers are the American people.”
At issue was a bill cosponsored by Senator Coons to end tax breaks for the nation’s five largest oil companies and instead use the savings that would be recouped to reduce the federal deficit. That Senate failed to invoke cloture on Tuesday night when all but two Republicans voted against the measure.
“This isn’t picking on one particular industry,” Senator Coons said. “This is rationally looking at our immense tax expenditures through the code and saying there is a time here for us to stop. We would save literally $21 billion by fiscal year 2021.”