[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6159-S6175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018--MOTION TO
PROCEED
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1519,
which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 165, S. 1519, a bill to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2018 for military
activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of
Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such
fiscal year, and for other purposes.
Recognition of the Majority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Measure Placed on the Calendar--H.R. 3354
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the
desk that is due for a second reading.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bill by
title for the second time.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 3354) making appropriations for the Department
of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and for other
purposes.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in order to place the bill on the
calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further
proceedings.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection having been heard, the
bill will be placed on the calendar.
Tax Reform
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today, I look forward to joining
members of the Senate Finance Committee, the House Ways and Means
Committee, and other congressional leaders in unveiling a unified
framework for fixing our Nation's broken Tax Code. It is an idea that
can bring much needed relief to middle-class families and small
businesses and help keep more jobs right here in America. It is the
result of a lot of hard work and input from Members, committees,
staffs, and the administration, to name a few, and I want to thank them
again for their continued diligence on behalf of our country.
This framework is focused on supporting American jobs, while making
taxes fairer, and on growing families' paychecks. It is a refreshing
change from our current outdated Tax Code, which for too long hasn't
worked for many Americans.
The current code forces individuals, families, and small businesses
to navigate a web of schedules, deductions, and penalties. Rates are
too high. Incentives often make little to no sense. Some actually
encourage companies to ship American jobs overseas. Moreover, for 8
years under the Obama administration, our economy grew at a sluggish
rate--never living up to its real potential. Too many Americans
struggled to get ahead, many living paycheck to paycheck. It is time
for a significant change in favor of families and jobs.
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This is our once-in-a-generation opportunity to fundamentally rethink
our Tax Code. We can unleash the economy--promoting growth, attracting
jobs, and improving American competitiveness in the global market.
Instead of sending jobs overseas, we can modernize our Tax Code to help
bring strong investment and good-paying jobs home and keep them here.
Through this framework, we can lower taxes for individuals and
families, so hard-working Americans are able to keep more of their
hard-earned money.
Later this afternoon, President Trump will bring our shared vision of
tax reform to the people of Indiana and to Americans more broadly. He
will explain his support for putting Americans across the country on a
more level playing field, because when they are, they can win.
I thank the President and his team for their efforts to develop the
framework. Together, we can continue that work to bring relief and
growth to the people of our States, such as the workers, small
businesses, and families of Kentucky, and promote economic growth in
America.
Using the framework we will release today as a roadmap, the Senate
Finance Committee, under Chairman Hatch's leadership, will continue to
hold a series of hearings to discuss how to make taxes lower, simpler,
and fairer for middle-class families and for small businesses. Like its
counterpart in the House, the Ways and Means Committee, the Senate
Finance Committee will continue working to provide much needed relief
to encourage jobs and investments to come back to the United States.
The work of these committees will help build a stronger country.
Many of our Democratic colleagues have voiced support for overhauling
our Tax Code. Throughout this process, I hope they will choose to work
with us in a serious way.
A fundamental overhaul of our Tax Code is a daunting task. We have a
lot of work ahead, but America deserves it--like the hard-working men
and women of the middle class saving for retirement and the small
businesses trying to expand and grow and the families hoping to send
their kids to a good college. These Americans deserve real tax reform.
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in working from this framework
to deliver for them.
Here is the point: It is time to take more money out of Washington's
pockets and put more of it in the pockets of Americans.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is
recognized.
Tax Reform
Mr. SCHUMER. Good morning, Mr. President. First, I would like to talk
about taxes.
Today, President Trump and Republican leaders will announce several
proposals as part of their tax plan. According to recent reports, that
plan will include proposals to repeal the estate tax, lower the rate on
passthrough entities, lower the top rate, and actually raise the bottom
tax rate. Each of these proposals would result in a massive windfall
for the wealthiest Americans and provide almost no relief to middle-
class taxpayers who need it most.
It seems that President Trump and Republicans have designed their
plan to be cheered in the country clubs and the corporate boardrooms.
How does repealing the estate tax help middle-class people?
Only 5,200 of the wealthiest families in America, couples whose
estates are worth $11 million, pay the estate tax. Are there any
middle-class families worth $11 million? Is that the President's
definition of the middle class?
The estate tax is skewed to the very wealthiest among us, and they
are going to repeal it. This is not going to fly with the American
people, let me tell you.
Our Republican colleagues tried to do something the public disliked
on healthcare--taking away benefits, reducing healthcare. Now they are
trying to do the same thing on taxes, helping the very wealthiest. They
are going to be in for a rude awakening because the American people are
going to rise up against this. Over 70 percent of Americans are against
tax breaks for wealthy Americans and wealthy corporations.
Lowering the rate on passthrough entities would create a huge
loophole, allowing very wealthy Americans, such as hedge fund managers,
to funnel their income through a business entity in order to avoid the
top bracket and pay a much lower rate. So the upper middle-class family
making $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 can pay 39 percent, but these
wealthy hedge fund managers, lawyers, and whoever, through a
passthrough, can pay no corporate tax and then a 25-percent rate on the
rest of their taxes. Does that help middle-class Americans? Absolutely
not. Does it help the wealthiest who have the lawyers to set up these
passthrough entities? Absolutely.
By lowering the individual top rate, the top 1 percent, who make
above $490,000 a year, would get a tax break because their rate would
be lowered. God bless them. They make a lot of money. Do they need a
tax break? I don't think so.
President Trump clearly believes, despite his rhetoric, that the
wealthy in this country deserve another tax cut while middle-class
families at best get crumbs. Amazingly, the Trump tax plan will even
include a proposal to increase the bottom tax rate--a punch to the gut
of working Americans.
The American people should be able to see the principle behind
President Trump's tax plan in this one fact. He proposes to cut taxes
on the highest income brackets and raise them on the lowest. He raises
the bottom rate and cuts the top rate. This is ``wealthfare''--
``wealthfare''--helping those of great wealth with more tax breaks.
The American people should be able to see the principle behind
President Trump's tax plan with little more than an across-the-board
tax cut for America's millionaires and billionaires. God bless them. I
am glad we have a lot of rich people in America. I don't begrudge them.
Many of them have worked very hard to get their money. Some of them get
it through an estate; so be it. But the wealthiest among us don't need
a tax break. They are doing great.
All of the statistics show that those at the highest end are making
more money than ever before and the middle class is flat or sinking.
Who needs the break? The Washington Post-ABC poll showed yesterday that
more than 70 percent of Americans say our tax system already tends to
favor wealth more than the middle class. This bill makes it much worse.
One more thing to watch today is whether the President and his
Republicans provide any details about how they intend to pay for these
massive cuts. Without these details, I suspect Republicans will turn
the age-old trick of promising that economic growth will make up for
the entire difference. Some of them call it dynamic scoring, but that
name obscures what dynamic scoring really is.
President Trump calls the media outlets fake news. Dynamic scoring is
fake math. It is just made-up, fake math to hide another deficit-
busting tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans.
No less of an authority than James Baker, a conservative Republican
and former Republican Treasury Secretary who led the last successful
tax reform effort under President Reagan, said:
We must not let tax revenues decline and worsen the
deficit. In other words, tax reform must be revenue neutral
and should be judged on its own merits.
Let's call it the Baker rule--the Jim Baker rule: Tax reform must be
revenue neutral, judged on its own merits, with no dynamic scoring and
no fake math.
I am amazed that President Trump, whenever he talks, says he wants to
help the middle class, and his plan at best throws crumbs at some
middle-class people. Some will get a tax increase, especially those in
high-tax States like New York, but his plan benefits the wealthy.
Has the President read this plan? Has he been involved in creating
this plan or is it the people around him--many
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of them from Wall Street--who came up with this plan, and the President
doesn't even know what it does?
I will tell you, if he goes to Indiana today and says that his plan
helps the middle class rather than the wealthy, he has it backward. It
helps the wealthy far more than it helps the middle class.
Healthcare
Mr. President, yesterday the majority announced it would not be
holding a vote this week on the latest healthcare bill, Graham-Cassidy.
Every American should breathe a deep sigh of relief.
The majority has vowed to revisit ACA repeal, maybe even with this
legislation. But President Trump and our Republican colleagues should
have learned from these failures that the American people do not want
to cut healthcare. If they try to do it a third time, they will fail
again for the simplest reason in politics: The public is against what
they want to do.
This administration, which campaigned it is for the people and
populist, on healthcare is doing what people don't want and on taxes is
doing what people don't want. What is going on?
I remind my Republican colleagues that continuing to threaten repeal
is like hanging a giant sword of Damocles above our Nation's healthcare
system. It causes great uncertainty in the healthcare market, and it
leads insurers to raise premiums on average Americans.
Now, I understand that for political purposes Republicans don't want
to ever admit that ACA repeal is off the table. They promised it to the
American people for 7 years but deluded them on what it really meant.
The average American thought that, if you took ACA off the table,
premiums would go down and coverage would go up. The bills the
Republicans have proposed do just the opposite, but I understand why
they do it. They promised it so often. But those promises have a real
human consequence in the form of higher costs for everybody. The
responsibility and the blame for the rate hikes, should they occur--and
they probably will--will fall squarely on the Republican shoulders.
President Trump and the Republicans are in charge. Saying, gee,
something in the past caused it, when they failed to correct it, is not
going to work.
My Republican friends, you are no longer in the minority. You are
running the show. It is your responsibility to help bring premiums
down. We want to do that and, in fact, there are good bipartisan
sprouts. Senators Alexander and Murray are very close to a bipartisan
agreement. Now, we hope out of pique or anger that our Republican
colleagues will not reject a good bipartisan compromise that helps the
American people, put together by the chair of the HELP Committee and
the ranking member.
I hope and expect the negotiations to pick up right where they left
off because we Democrats want to work with our Republican colleagues to
stabilize the markets and lower premiums for millions of Americans. We
hope our Republican colleagues will not just sit back, repeatedly
threaten repeal, and watch as millions of Americans pay higher
healthcare costs. That will be wrong substantively, and, politically,
it will fall right on their shoulders.
So I hope we can have the negotiations pick up between Senators
Murray and Alexander right where they left off. Each of them said they
were close to an agreement before Chairman Alexander was pulled away by
Republican leadership.
Insurers are about to set their rates for the next year, and whether
we can come together or not could be the difference between a stable
market and premiums that are hundreds of dollars more expensive. So for
the sake of the American people, for the sake of turning over a new
leaf on healthcare, let's work together in a bipartisan way to shore up
and improve our Nation's healthcare.
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Recovery Effort
Finally, Mr. President, on the crisis in Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands, Hurricanes Irma and Maria have left the islands--home
to well over 3 million American citizens--hanging on for dear life. You
have seen the pictures, and they are devastating. Water, food, diesel,
power, cell service, medicine, shelter, security, the basic needs of
human survival are limited and running out in Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands. Diabetic patients who require insulin shots are unable
to keep their lifesaving medicine refrigerated. Hospitals still lack
power and running water. This was a catastrophe on an epic scale. It
may have been one of the worst humanitarian crises within our borders.
Now, the President has a bully pulpit. More importantly, he is in
direct control of the vast resources of our Federal Government--the
military, the Department of Energy, FEMA, USDA, and much more. He can
direct the attention of all Americans to important issues. Previous
Presidents have used this platform to focus our attention on disasters
that strike our country. Barack Obama did it, George Bush did it, Bill
Clinton did it, George H.W. Bush did it, and Ronald Reagan did it. The
President can direct resources--boots on the ground and a structure to
coordinate it all. But a President needs to act aggressively,
comprehensively, and urgently, and some of that has been lacking with
this President unfortunately.
A cursory scroll of President Trump's Twitter feed and public
comments from the past few weeks does not show him using the power of
his office to focus our attention on the crisis in Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Virgin Islands. It has been a week since the storm hit and, as I
said, his Twitter feed and public comments don't show him using the
power of the office. When he mentions Puerto Rico, President Trump
promotes his own administration's efforts and implies that Puerto Rico
was partially at fault for the devastation they have been suffering.
The response from the administration needs to get a whole lot better
fast.
I spoke to the Governor of Puerto Rico yesterday, and he gave me
specific items that would provide immediate help. I spoke about them
yesterday, and I hope the administration acts on them quickly. But most
importantly, we need the administration to send us an emergency and
interim aid package to pass, just as we did in the wake of Hurricane
Harvey. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands shouldn't have to wait
a second longer for aid than any other American State or Territory. We
should take up and pass this package here in the Senate before the week
is over.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hoeven). The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, first I want to join the Democratic leader
in his comments about the devastation of these hurricanes. This has
been truly a malign visitation on our country over the last several
weeks. Florida, Texas, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico have really
suffered and are suffering. I know that the administration is working
hard on this, and I commend them for the efforts that they have made.
I think that now much of our attention is turning to Puerto Rico and
the Virgin Islands in order to mitigate what is really a humanitarian
disaster. One difference between those islands and Florida and Texas is
the fact that they are islands. It is harder to get there. It is harder
to get aid there. I understand that just this morning the San Juan
airport was open for the first time, and it has opened in a limited
way.
So this is clearly a responsibility that we have as Senators, as
Members of Congress, and as Americans to reach out to our neighbors in
a situation such as this. When a crisis hits, it often calls forth the
best of America, and I believe that is happening right now.
Opioid Epidemic
Mr. President, I want to talk about a different kind of hurricane, a
slow-motion hurricane. It is a slow-motion hurricane that is sweeping
our entire country, not just the Southeast. It is sweeping through our
small towns, our cities, our families, and our schools. It is taking
lives on a scale that is unprecedented and almost unthinkable.
I am talking about the hurricane epidemic of opioid abuse and
overdose deaths. Many of us this week are watching with rapt attention
Ken Burns' magnificent study of the Vietnam war. We are losing more
people per year to overdose deaths than were lost in the entire Vietnam
war. That is one way to think about the magnitude of this catastrophe
that is striking our country. The problem is that it strikes
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here and there. It strikes a family here and a family there, a
community here and a community there, but it doesn't strike all in one
place. So it is not so apparent.
If we were losing a small city in America of 63,000 people once a
year, we would be turning ourselves inside out to solve the problem
that was causing those deaths, and 63,000 people were killed last year
through overdose deaths. It was almost 400 in my State of Maine. That
is more than one a day. All indications are that it is increasing--one
a day. Now, 63,000 is about 7 people an hour--24 hours a day, 365 days
a year--who are succumbing to this plague. That is the right term for
it. It is a medieval plague that is afflicting people all over our
country.
Lives are lost, families torn apart, and our communities compromised.
It is a huge cost. I hesitate to talk about things like dollars when
you are also talking about lives, but it is a cost in both ways. Not
only are lives being lost and families being torn apart, but the
estimates are that it costs our society something over $400 billion a
year in everything from medical costs and criminal justice costs to
lost economic and lost productivity in our society and our economy.
But I am here today because all hope is not lost. Contrary to what
some people hear--and you hear sometimes that this is hopeless and that
there isn't anything we can do about it--there is ample evidence that
treatment can work. This is not a death sentence. Opioid abuse is
terrible, and from talking to people who have suffered from it, it
literally changes your brain, and it becomes almost impossible to
escape. But it can be escaped. The reason we know that is that there is
data from across the country, but the reason I know that is because of
my friends in Maine--Andrew, Matt, and Chris.
These are people whom I know, with whom I have interacted, and with
whom I have sat down. Andrew is a guy who is at the University of
Southern Maine. He was trapped in the throes of addiction. He went
through treatment, and now he is in recovery. Indeed, there are 25
million people in this country who are in recovery, and they will tell
you that they will always be in recovery because they can never shake
this disease, whether it is alcohol or the really destructive one that
we are focusing on right now, which is opioids.
Andrew has made a new life. He is at school. He is at the University
of Southern Maine. He has helped form a student-centered community to
help people who are in recovery or who are working on getting there.
Matthew is a young man who, in 2009, again was trapped by this
horrible scourge. Now he is hoping to go to medical school.
Chris is a guy who sat in my office. He worked in the White House. He
was in it up to his neck and above. He had criminal justice problems.
He was in jail. He was convicted. But now he is a member of the Maine
State Bar Association. He got himself through school, and he got
himself through law school.
There was an important moment that I think all of us should think
about when we think about people who are in this situation. When he
went to apply to law school, the people at the law school said: Well,
we don't know if we can take you because you have this record.
His question, which was brilliant and indicates to me that he is
going to be a pretty good lawyer, was this: What was my sentence when I
was convicted? The response was 3 years. He said: You are putting me in
for life. If you don't let me move forward with my life, you are making
that a life sentence, not a 3-year sentence. He was accepted to law
school. He graduated, and this year he passed and was accepted in the
Maine State Bar Association. He is making a contribution to his
community.
Treatment can work. It doesn't always work the first time. Anybody
that has been through this, whether it is alcohol or even quitting
smoking or anything else, will tell you that it doesn't work the first
time necessarily. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it will take multiple trips through the recovery and
treatment process, but it can work. We know it can work. I have 25
million reasons to tell you that it can work and 3 that I know.
I am going to be introducing a resolution later today--I hope the
Senate can take it up and pass it--designating next month as National
Recovery Month, honoring and recognizing the people who are in
recovery. So if it works, what is the problem? Why is this hurricane
still sweeping our country? Why does 2017 look like it is going to be
worse than 2016?
Well, the sad truth is that, out of all of those millions of people
who are addicted, who are stuck, who are trapped, only 1 in 10 has
access to treatment--only 1 in 10. Now, what do we have to do to deal
with this problem? Of course, it is like most other problems. There is
no single answer. It involves law enforcement. It involves
interdiction, and let me pause for a moment on interdiction. The
Presiding Officer and I are both on the Armed Services Committee, and
we have heard testimony in our committee that we only have the Coast
Guard and Navy resources to interdict one-fourth of the drug shipments
that we know of coming up from South and Central America by sea. In
other words, we have intelligence where we know of 100 boats, and we
can only stop 25. There is no excuse for that. So, yes, law
enforcement, at the source or along the way in our States, is an
absolutely essential part of this process, but it is not the whole
answer. We also have to work on prevention.
Frankly, I have been talking to groups around Maine and around the
country on this. We are all still trying to figure out how to make
prevention work. What will work? I haven't yet heard a really strong
answer to that question. I guess it varies from person to person, but
prevention has to be part of it. Treatment can work, but if only 1 in
10 people have treatment available to them or have access to treatment,
that means 9 are sentenced to life and maybe to death.
Last year, a year and a half ago, we passed CARA, the Comprehensive
Addiction Recovery Act. It is a great bill, with lots of good things in
it, but no money. That is like sending the fire department to the fire
and saying: Fight that fire, but we are not going to give you any
water. We know this costs money, and it is something we have to commit
to. It has to be part of it.
Whatever we do around here about healthcare and about budgets, we
have to realize we are losing our people, and these aren't bad people.
These aren't people over there. I sat at a roundtable in a small town
in South Paris, ME. Next to me was a deputy sheriff. He lost his
daughter. These aren't strangers. These are often middle-class people.
These are people whose kids or sometimes parents--this is not age
specific--are caught up in this scourge.
I guess I want to leave us today with two points. One is, treatment
works. The second is, we need more of it. If we know something works,
but only 1 in 10 people have access to it, shame on us for not
remedying that situation. To me, the most tragic case--and I have
talked to people in Maine about this--the saddest moment, the most
tragic case is when someone who is in the throes of opioid abuse is
ready to ask for help and they have to be put on a waiting list. That
is tragic and inexcusable. It is hard to get to that point. It is hard
to admit that you are trapped and that you are no longer in control of
your life. Once you are willing to do that and say, ``I need help,''
then it is up to us to be sure the help is there. That is what we are
talking about today.
So this is a different kind of hurricane, but it is a hurricane,
nonetheless, that is destroying our families, destroying our
communities, and wrecking the lives of our friends, but it is no act of
God. We can't stop the winds of Maria or Irma, but we can mitigate the
effects, ameliorate the effects, soften the effects. That is exactly
what we need to do for those who are victims of the hurricane of
opioids that is sweeping our country.
I hope and believe we will respond to this challenge as we have at
other times in our history, and, indeed, as we are this week to the
hurricanes of the Caribbean. I want to respond also to the hurricane
that is sweeping America that we can, indeed, ameliorate, mitigate, and
soften.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The clerk will call the roll.
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The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Nomination of Ajit Pai
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to strongly oppose the nomination
of Ajit Pai to serve a second term as Chairman of the FCC.
Since taking over the FCC leadership in January, Chairman Pai wasted
no time moving the agency away from its key mission to promote the use
and deployment of communications in the public interest. For example,
he has been involved in dismantling the rules that preserve the
diversity of content in media ownership, potentially negatively
impacting forever the number and variety of voices in the media market.
In addition, his confirmation to this important position will also
have a negative impact on one of the most important issues, I believe,
of our time; that is, preserving net neutrality. A strong and open
internet is key to an economy of the future--to promoting an
environment for innovation and facilitating the creative jobs that are
going to come along with an open internet architecture.
Chairman Pai is poised to undo the bedrock principles that are
already in place to protect an open internet. Even in the face of
evidence that these rules are important to an internet economy and
millions of jobs, he is determined to try to rewrite them.
On Monday, the Senate will vote on whether to confirm Ajit Pai for
another term as Chairman of the FCC. As I have said, I think his
leadership has shown that on net neutrality, he believes the rules
should be changed. As long as he continues to hold that position, I
cannot support his nomination.
As the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he has
demonstrated disdain for the important public interest principles he is
supposed to be upholding. He shows a disregard for the innovators in
America that are striving to build the economy of the future. The
public interest mission of the FCC is encoded in the agency's DNA. The
law that created the FCC clearly states that the agency's mission
includes promoting equal access to communications networks for all
people around the United States. This means the FCC has the
responsibility to promote the expansion of communications networks and
to ensure they have the incentive and ability to compete fairly with
one another in providing broadband services. The mission does not
include letting a big telecom company or cable company run over small
businesses or consumers and saying to them: Unless you pay me more, I
am not going to give you essential services. Imagine if that happened
to the telephone industry decades ago, if you couldn't get access
because someone had decided, ``I'm going to let the highest bidder rule
the roost.''
The President's nomination of Pai and his desire to have him continue
as Chair continues to show a desire to undermine the internet and the
internet economy. As soon as he was appointed, Chairman Pai announced
his intention, as Chairman, to go against the demands of American
consumers and reverse the rules that are already on the books to
protect consumers. Chairman Pai wants to make it possible for those big
telecom and cable companies to erect toll lanes that would further
burden the nature of the internet and innovation that its economy
supports. He plans to go against more than 10 million American
consumers and innovators who have told him to keep the internet open
and free.
Recent studies have shown that the internet economy is now over 7
percent of U.S. GDP, it employs 7 million people and is worth a
trillion dollars. Our strong, robust internet rules, without question,
have helped keep that economic growth. Our economy is in a massive
technological transformation. It is in an information age, and in an
information age, making sure you have an open internet is going to be
key to continuing to grow business.
Every business plan of every startup relies on the ability of
consumers to get equal access to content. Largely, as a result of the
innovations, the open internet has created hundreds of thousands of
tech jobs in the United States. The internet economy is almost a
trillion dollars, and at 7 percent of GDP, it is growing faster and
stronger than many other sectors, including construction, mining,
utilities, agriculture, education, and entertainment.
It is disturbing to me that Chairman Pai has made it clear he wants
to rewrite the rules that protect those businesses and create an
artificial fast and slow lane and ``if you want out of the slow lane,
you better pay me more money.'' We can't afford to do that for all the
internet applications and all the small businesses that are continuing
to work on growing our economy. We need to make sure that instead of
shedding jobs in the United States, as we did in the last economic
downturn, that we are creating jobs and creating power for consumers.
We have seen what has been termed the ``app economy,'' which consists
of everybody who makes money has a job thanks to a mobile app that was
also powered by the internet. Today, 1.7 million Americans have jobs
because of that economy. Nearly 92,000 of them are in the State of
Washington. Over the past 5 years, that app economy and those jobs have
grown at an annual rate of 30 percent. The average growth rate for all
other jobs is 1.6 percent. So, literally, Chairman Pai is trying to
clog the arteries of one of the fastest growing economic opportunities
in America.
By 2020, the app economy is estimated to grow to over $100 billion.
This demonstrates that the internet economy is a dynamic, supercharged,
job-creating engine, with economic growth that should not be
artificially slowed down because some industries believe they have the
right to do so.
These facts, and making sure we protect an open internet, are why we
should not support Chairman Pai.
The slow lanes and the fast lanes are not like a highway where a
consumer or business can take another route or plan another course.
Here, you are creating barriers that are wedges between businesses and
their consumers, between doctors and their patients, between industry
solution providers and the customers they are trying to serve.
The growth of the internet platform for economic activity is
something we do not want to see destroyed, and Chairman Pai's
dismantling of that robust internet architecture and the support it
gives to innovators is extremely troubling to me.
I think about all the internet applications that I have seen in my
State, whether it is a business like McKinstry that provides building
efficiencies to school districts all over our State and in Puget Sound.
Let's pretend now that McKinstry, which is trying to tell North Shore
School District that they are using too much power could reduce their
costs by just doing three simple things--but now, all of a sudden,
because the net neutrality rules go away, McKinstry has to charge that
school district more if they want to get that information to them on
time. A clogged artery will not get the information to that school
district when it is needed in time to make an adjustment.
Let's talk about a doctor in a rural area who receives information
about a patient who comes into their emergency room but wants a consult
with a doctor in Seattle, and all of a sudden, now their connectivity
is slowed down unless they pay more money.
I also think about this issue in the context of just some very
everyday ways we experience the impact of an open internet. Like people
going to get coffee. In my State, they will now preorder. They go
online, and then they show up to get their coffee--all so they can
avoid the long lines. But now, all of a sudden, if net neutrality goes
away, is that going to mean another charge or, an extra toll, just to
get consumers connected to the coffee shop so they can avoid a long
line? Are cable companies and internet service providers going to say
to the consumer: You have to pay more if you want a fast lane.
What Chairman Pai doesn't realize is that the internet is now a full-
blown ecosystem with many attachments; that the internet is like the
artery system that connects it all and connects it in so many ways
beyond even our imagination. Yet he is proposing to clog those
arteries, to hold us ransom if only we will tell a cable company it is
OK to charge the American consumer more.
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We cannot afford to ruin the internet economy by doing this. We need
to have an open internet architecture that allows everybody to access
this information at the same time and the same rate so that we can
continue to innovate.
There are ways to grow the internet and grow internet investment in
the delivery system. In fact, during the time period of the open
internet rules, we have seen just that--a continued investment. So we
do not now have to rewrite these rules. We do not now have to throw a
roadblock, a hurdle, a clogging of the arteries at the small business
and internet economy that is growing so rapidly with all its devices.
God forbid that one of our colleagues would be on the other side of
town and get a delayed message about when a vote started just because
we in the Senate hadn't bought a higher, faster speed lane, and maybe
they would miss a vote. It is hard to say what slowing down the
internet artificially would do because it is so connected to everything
we do today, and that is why we have to stop this from happening.
I would be happy to hear that Chairman Pai has decided to drop his
insistence on trying to change the rules of an open internet. If he did
that, I might think differently about his nomination. But until then I
will continue to fight for my State's economy, which depends so greatly
on net neutrality, and continue to fight for the millions of consumers
around the United States who are trying to grow what are smarter, more
intelligent, more cost-effective businesses.
Even the healthcare debate we just had is instructive on the issues
of net neutrality--I believe in home healthcare. I believe we can
implement it and drive down costs. But if you are telling a patient
that they might not get the information back from their doctor for days
because he can't afford a fast internet connection that the cable
companies are charging, then I guarantee my colleagues we are not going
to reduce our healthcare costs.
So, please, I say to my colleagues, you will not have another chance
at this. You will hear from your constituents about this issue, and you
will not be able to take back this vote. Please make sure you
understand that Chairman Pai is marching ahead on a very different
anti-consumer road, and because of that, I am not going to vote for
someone who is going to slow down and clog the internet.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on Chairman Pai's nomination.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Tax Reform
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today I would like to talk about a topic
that most of us don't want to discuss, and that is taxes, except today
is different. This time, you don't have to groan over spreadsheets and
calculations or worry about how much of your hard-earned pay you are
going to have to send to Uncle Sam. Today, leaders in the House and in
the Senate will unveil their core principles for tax reform. The
President will travel with our colleague Senator Young to announce his
support for these core principles.
Taxes can be confounding and complicated and painful to deliberate,
but for folks back home, what I believe describes our tax principles is
to say more take-home pay, and that works for everybody. In other
words, you actually reduce your living costs because Uncle Sam takes
less of your paycheck, meaning you get to keep more of it and take that
home and spend it on things that you would prefer to spend it on. So
more take-home pay is our bottom line.
I look forward to working with the chairman of the Finance Committee,
on which I have the privilege of serving, and Speaker Ryan and Chairman
Kevin Brady of the House Ways and Means Committee--another good Texan--
on their ideas, which I know were born from many long hours and tough
conversations.
But this is going to be a national conversation, starting with the
President kicking this off this afternoon in Indiana. He is going to
invite the American people to express their views on what tax reform
should look like.
For me, in addition to more take-home pay, I am looking for a tax
code which is shorter, simpler, and which makes us more competitive in
the global economy.
It is a great relief, believe me, to have a President who understands
how taxes and the uncertainty they place on job creators stifles
economic growth. The reason economic growth is so important is that
when the economy grows, more jobs are created, and for the jobs that
exist, the people who have them will actually earn more money and be
able to pursue their dreams.
Just as importantly, though, this President understands that the job
creator is not the enemy. A former colleague of ours, Gordon Smith from
Oregon, once told me that the problem with some of our Democratic
friends is that they claim to love the worker, but they hate the job
creator. To me, that sort of summarized it pretty well. I know he
didn't mean ``hate'' in the traditional sense, but he did mean
Congress--and particularly our folks on the Democratic side--likes to
implement additional burdens, such as higher taxes or more regulation,
more obstacles in the way of our job creators, when we should be
tearing down those walls, reducing that regulation, and lowering taxes
so that they can be successful, and in the process, we can all succeed.
Well, this President understands that our economy, too, is crucial but
extremely fragile, and he joins all of us in wanting to do everything
he can, and everything we can, to ensure that we continue to be the
strongest economy in the world.
Here is why tax reform is so important in the first place. In the
words of Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, the
American Founders promised not just happiness but the pursuit of
happiness. That is, of course, in the Declaration of Independence. I
think Arthur is onto something. I think that is a good way of putting
it. It means that all of us, based on our country's original vision,
should be free to follow our dreams without government getting in our
way or making our burdens heavy. We should be free to pursue happiness.
Average American citizens should not be numbed or stifled by
mandatory participation in a system that depletes their energy and
discourages them, and that is what our Tax Code does today. It exhausts
people when it comes to fully complying with our arcane and convoluted
and complex laws because they are so difficult. So many people simply
outsource that by hiring some lawyer or some accountant to prepare
their taxes because it is so complex. We can do better than that. We
can make it simpler and fairer and flatter.
Today, many of the obstacles that exist prevent the average American
from pursuing their dreams and reaching their full potential, which
ought to be what joins us all together. One of those is an outdated and
highly convoluted tax system that actually penalizes hard work, stymies
ingenuity, and enriches the lawyers and accountants that people have to
hire in order to just comply with all of its convoluted complexity--so-
called compliance costs. Call this the terrible tedium of taxes. It
zaps our energy rather than unleashing it. It erodes our work ethic,
because if you work harder and harder only to see more and more money
go to the Federal Government, what does that do to incentivize people
to work harder? It erodes our work ethic, as we see less reason to
labor for what ultimately gets taken from us.
The mission of the so-called Big 6 committee, which has been asked to
put together a blueprint for reform, has been to protect American jobs
and make the Tax Code simpler, fairer, and lower for average American
families. In a sense, it is all about putting families first. Families
build individuals, and families mold character. We have to give every
opportunity to families who need to thrive. We have to keep the
uninvited guest of government away from the front door, constantly
begging for more money, more time, and more attention, and constantly
throwing a wrench into their plans.
I also believe we should provide tax relief for small businesses
because small businesses are literally the engine of our economy. It is
not the Fortune 500 that creates the vast percentage of jobs in this
country. It is small businesses, which often face an unyielding
regulatory state. We should lower taxes for all American businesses so
they can compete with foreign ones.
As the so-called Big 6 committee has said, the goal of any new plan
should
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be, first and foremost, to reduce tax rates as much as possible. Let's
make sure this ``first cut is the deepest,'' as the song goes, but also
to place a priority on permanence, to create a system that encourages
American companies to bring jobs back from overseas, along with the
profits they will not bring back because they will be taxed twice, and
to put more money back in the pockets of all Americans.
As Ronald Reagan said, there is one simple fact you have to keep in
mind when it comes to taxes: ``The problem is not that the people are
taxed too little, the problem is that the Government spends too much.''
This is not just about sheer wealth we are after but about earned
success--the ability of mothers, fathers, and families to work a long
day and to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks to use as they
please--to save it for their retirement, to spend it on their house, or
even to dote on their children. When families get to keep more of the
money they earn, they are more inclined to take advantage of or to
create their own opportunities, including new businesses. Social
mobility increases and so does room for charity.
The United States is the most charitable and generous country in the
world. People don't just turn to government for help during times of
need. We saw that in Hurricane Harvey and in Hurricane Irma and now in
Hurricane Maria. Many, many Americans generously dip into their own
resources to help provide for their fellow human beings in need during
times of tragedy. It is our prosperity that comes from job creation--
getting to keep more of what you earn and pay the government less--that
makes that possible.
When Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States, shortly after
our country's founding, in his book ``Democracy in America,'' he
pointed out that one of the unique things about America--certainly much
different than Europe--was the organizing and voluntary associations.
These often are charitable organizations--whether they are churches or
synagogues or mosques or just community organizations--that as part of
their good work provide charitable benefits for our fellow man and
woman. We ought to encourage that.
Of course, none of us is an island. It is not that lower tax rates
translate to everyone looking out exclusively for No. 1. Oftentimes,
that is the way our friends across the aisle will depict lowering
taxes. They say: You are lowering taxes for the rich.
We want to lower taxes for everybody--not because it benefits an
individual but because it benefits the country and it benefits all
Americans. It makes us more competitive globally. It creates more jobs
and opportunities for Americans who are looking for those jobs and
opportunities. It creates incentives for investment so that the
entrepreneur can start a business, come up with a new idea, change the
world, and create jobs and opportunities for other people at the same
time.
We know that social obligations are still important. It is just that
there are many ways of meeting them other than just cutting a big
paycheck to the Federal Government every April. In fact, the higher
taxes we pay, the easier it is for citizens to assume that, well, I
have paid the Federal Government; so let the government take care of
it.
That is not who we are. That is not who we have been. That is
certainly not how we began. We began as a government that believed in
the individuality and the importance of all individuals, and we all
collectively benefit when each of us is free to pursue their dreams
because that increases the prosperity and the opportunities for all.
We will never become, I hope and pray, a country that says: It is the
government's job when it comes to taking care of a man or woman or a
family in need. Yes, government has a role to play, but I hope we will
always be the generous sort of country that we started out to be and
that we still are today, with neighbors helping neighbors.
Middle-class Americans have experienced a decade of higher taxes,
more regulation, and stagnant economic growth under the last
administration. It is time to break out of that cycle, and this is our
time to do that.
Every American knows we can do better. If you ask them: Are your
taxes hard to prepare, is it complicated, are you confused, or do you
feel like the Federal Government is getting a bigger bite out of your
paycheck than it should, I think you would get near unanimity that the
Tax Code is too complex, the Federal Government is too voracious when
it comes to taking a bite out of your paycheck, and people would
welcome the ability to keep more of what they earn.
It is time for us to show that we understand the plight of hard-
working American families and people of all economic levels, that we
are hearing them when they say they want to keep more of the paycheck
they earn and they want us to lower their cost of living by lowering
the tax bite out of the paycheck they do earn.
Americans are wondering what our tax reform policies will be. For me,
here are some nonnegotiable items. The Tax Code must be simplified. Job
creators must be incentivized to keep well-paying jobs here at home in
the United States. American competitiveness in a global economy must be
increased by lowering business tax rates.
The result should be a new, retooled system that will put more money
in the pockets of middle-class families and reenergize our economy. It
will benefit Americans in every State across the country. It will also
make it possible for us to meet our other priorities, as the Federal
Treasury also will benefit from more people working, earning better
wages, and helping to support their government. It will make it
possible for us to spend more money on our priorities, like national
defense, which right now is underfunded, or medical research or other
priorities that the American people may have.
By delivering on these principles, we can restore prosperity for this
generation and many generations to come, and we can keep the promise of
the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with
certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
Ultimately, that is what we are talking about when we talk about tax
reform. We shouldn't just be wearing green eyeshades, getting out our
spreadsheets, and counting the numbers. This is about keeping the
promise of the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our
Creator with an unalienable right to pursue happiness.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Healthcare
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, our Constitution begins with three simple
words: ``We the People.'' The Founders wrote that in supersized font to
remind us that this is what our Nation is all about. It is not about
power by the privileged. It is not the elite. It is not to make the
wealthy wealthier. It is not to add more to the abundance of those who
already have much. It is to establish government that reflects the will
of the people or, as President Lincoln put it, ``of the people, by the
people, for the people.''
In this age where vast sums are spent on campaigns by a few
billionaires to basically substitute government of, by, and for the
people with government of, by, and for the powerful, we have an
enormous challenge to maintain the integrity of the mission of our
Constitution and the responsibility of this Senate.
We probably haven't seen a challenge to ``we the people'' in years
like the equivalent of TrumpCare. Certainly, it is designed to plan for
massive tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans of hundreds of
billions of dollars and to rip healthcare away from 20 to 30 million
ordinary working families.
What a travesty that is of our responsibility under our Constitution.
What amazingly misguided effort to do damage, rather than to assist and
provide a foundation for families to thrive.
A few years ago, a woman came up to me at a fundraiser for multiple
sclerosis--a walk--and she said: Things are so different this year,
Senator, than they were last year.
I asked her: How so?
She said: A year ago, if our loved one was diagnosed with MS and they
had
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insurance, they were likely to have an annual cap or a lifetime cap and
run out of coverage.
That was a terrible situation to be in because MS is a mysterious and
expensive disease.
She said: If the individual didn't have insurance, they now had a
preexisting condition, and they wouldn't able to get insurance.
She said: Now, we have the peace of mind that if our loved one gets
an MS diagnosis, that individual will be able to get the care they
need.
Isn't that the summary of what we should be seeking in our healthcare
system--the peace of mind that if our child or our loved one becomes
ill, if our child or our loved one becomes injured, he or she will get
the care they need? Shouldn't that be what we are fighting for?
Instead, we had the opposite. We had the TrumpCare bill that was
designed to rip peace of mind away, destroy peace of mind, trample all
over peace of mind so the wealthy could have more giveaways from the
Federal Treasury.
We had that House bill, and it was estimated that 23 million people
would lose healthcare over 10 years and that our hospitals and our
clinics would have a lot less funding to be able to provide care to
everyone. Yet it passed the House. Then President Trump got briefed on
what was in the bill after he held a champagne party at the White House
and celebrated its passage. He said: Oh, wait. This bill is mean and
heartless.
Over here in the Senate, the Senate's secret 13 went to work to try
to produce a bill without holding any public hearings or having any
discussions with stakeholders. They were secreted away in a room, and
no one could find out where they were in order to be able to offer any
insights. They did not hold any townhalls back home, and they had no
meetings here. The public was totally blocked out. The secret 13,
amazingly, came up with an almost identical bill to the House bill. Oh,
the estimate was instead, maybe, of there being 23 million people who
would lose insurance, 22 million people would lose insurance.
Fortunately, the secret 13 bill was defeated--but just barely--here in
this Chamber.
Then came another version of this called the fake insurance bill.
This fake insurance version said: Hey, let's let the insurance
companies put out policies that are really, really cheap but that do
not actually cover anything. Won't that make us feel good that everyone
in America will be able to afford a policy that only costs $40 or $50 a
month.
Of course, fake insurance is fake; that is, when you go to the
emergency room, it does not cover the visit. When you get a blood test,
it does not cover the blood test. When you get an x ray or an MRI, it
does not pay for it. Oh, don't even begin to think about its covering
hospitalization or any other normal medical service because it is fake
insurance. The fake insurance bill failed by a few votes on the Senate
floor.
Then we had repeal without replacement, and that failed. Then we had
the skinny bill, and that failed by a single vote.
How is it possible that we came that close to passing a bill that is
completely the opposite of the vision of our Constitution--to legislate
for the foundation, for the American people, not the American
privileged and not the American powerful. Yet it came within a vote of
passing.
This week, we have the block grant version--the block grant version
that proceeds to destroy immediately the exchanges, the healthcare
marketplaces. Of course, the great irony is, that was the Republican
idea: Let's create a marketplace within which people can compare
individual policies, pick the ones best for their families, and get tax
credits to be able to buy them. So the Republicans came out against
their own plan.
In addition, it wiped out Medicaid expansion. In my home State of
Oregon, the exchange is responsible for roughly another 100,000 people
getting access to insurance, the marketplace, and 400,000 people
gaining access through Medicaid expansion. There are a half a million
Americans in just my State, my humble State of Oregon. Yet here was a
bill that said: We do not care. We are going to wipe out healthcare for
a half a million Oregonians and untold millions across the country--20
to 30 million across the country.
We owe a big thank-you to grassroots America. We owe a big thank-you
to ordinary citizens who believe in the vision of this country. They
proceeded to connect with Capitol Hill--to fill the streets and to
flood the phones and to overflow our inboxes--saying: What are you
doing? Please stop. Please stop trying to destroy the peace of mind of
Americans. They said: Make healthcare work better, not worse.
Is that really too much for us to ask?
As we ponder how to make healthcare work better, those in grassroots
America have expressed a lot of ideas. They have said: We have a really
complicated system that creates all kinds of obstacles for ordinary
families, for working families.
For example, consider whether you have a job that provides you with
insurance and your family with insurance but then the company changes
the policy and only covers you. How are you going to get your children
covered? Are you going to be able to get them signed up right away in
the Children's Health Insurance Program? How do you go about doing
that?
Then your employer says: By the way, you now have to start paying us
in order for us to provide you with healthcare.
You say: Wow. That is a huge chunk out of my check. Can I possibly
afford that and still pay my rent? Am I going to have to choose between
healthcare and homelessness? It is not a choice families should have to
make.
Then, perhaps, people are working several part-time jobs, and their
employers have no healthcare programs at all, so they sign up for the
Oregon Health Plan or the equivalent Medicaid plan across the country.
They might like that, but it is complicated to apply, and they have to
reapply periodically. What happens if their incomes go up just a
little, and now they are over the line for eligibility? As a result of
being over the line, they now have to go back into the individual
markets. How do you do that in the middle of the year when it is not an
open enrollment period?
There is such complexity, such difficulty. That is why it is so
appealing to think about the vision of a seamless, simple healthcare
program that you have that will provide quality healthcare when you
need it--portable healthcare--just by virtue of your being an American.
That is a beautiful vision, and it is not out of reach. Every other
developed country has found some version of that and made it a reality.
We need to ponder as to how to have that seamless, simple system down
the road, but right now we have a more immediate task.
That immediate task is to stop the sabotage of the healthcare system
we have. President Trump has engaged in many maneuvers to try to force
the collapse of the insurance markets. One is to withhold the cost-
sharing payments from insurers so they no longer have the funds they
were promised. That uncertainty has caused many companies to say: Do
not count on us to be in that market in the future if we cannot count
on you, the Federal Government, to honor your obligations.
Why isn't the Senate body demanding that the President honor the
obligations of those cost-sharing payments?
In addition, we have the President shutting down advertising during
the open period so people will not know they can sign up. We have
President Trump cutting the enrollment period in half. We have a plan
now from the administration to cut the funds for consumer outreach and
enrollment assistance, which enables folks who need to get healthcare
to find out how they can actually get through the complicated
application process.
Most recently, the administration announced it is actually going to
shut down the website periodically on weekends during the open
enrollment period, which is when people will have the time and effort
and ability to apply. They are going to shut down the website so people
will not be able to apply during portions of the weekend.
All of us should unite--100 Senators should unite--and tell President
Trump: Enough of this sabotage. If you want to drive up insurance
policies by 20 percent over any other increase they might otherwise
have and if you want
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to be responsible for millions of people not gaining access because of
your irresponsibility, then we are going to hold you accountable for
it. Everybody in grassroots America is going to hold you accountable
for it.
Fortunately, we have a bipartisan process that has been underway to
remedy these conditions. I, profoundly, thank Lamar Alexander, chair of
the HELP Committee, and Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the HELP
Committee, for saying: Let's have the normal, rational process that we
go through to try to understand how we can improve the healthcare
system.
They have held a series of hearings. They have brought in the
experts, and they have brought in the stakeholders. They have done it
in front of the public so the public can weigh in. They have consulted
constituents and encouraged all of us to consult with our constituents
and be part of that conversation. Pragmatic, experienced legislators
are gaining expertise from those on the frontline so they can make the
system work better. Isn't that the way the Senate is supposed to work?
Their work shows a lot of promise. There are some very
straightforward things they have heard from those experts.
They have heard we need to lock down the cost-sharing payments. No
insurance companies are going to be in the insurance markets if they do
not know they are going to get paid what they have been promised or
they are going to raise their premiums incredibly high to cover the
risk that they will not get paid. Then, of course, people will not be
able to afford that insurance.
They have heard from the experts that you have to have reinsurance.
If you want to have this private marketplace in which people can
compare policies and use tax credits to buy the policies, an insurance
company will not enter that market unless it has its own insurance
policy against getting the disproportionate share of the really sick
people. Of reinsurance, they have heard.
They have also heard we must not suppress outreach to those who need
insurance but increase outreach--outreach to younger, healthier people
to make sure they are part of the exchange as well as outreach to those
who are often working several part-time jobs and have little time to
focus on this question unless someone reaches out and says: Here is
your opportunity. We are now in the open period. Here is how you sign
up, and we can make sure you get that done.
In that set of hearings, they heard other things. They heard we need
to do more to take on the challenge of mental illness in America. They
heard we need to do more to take on drug addiction, the opioid epidemic
in America.
There it is--a list of a modest number of things we could do together
to make our healthcare work better. Wouldn't that be a beautiful
closing chapter to the nightmare, the repeated horror stories we have
been playing in the Senate that threaten to rip healthcare from
millions of people and simply awaken from that war over healthcare and
work together to address these fundamental questions.
We actually have had public hearings in the HELP Committee, which we
have not done before. We have actually listened to the experts, which
we have not done before. We have actually encouraged people to consult
with their constituents rather than to hide from their constituents.
The result would be a significant strengthening of what we have--lower
premiums as a result, more competition in the exchanges, more awareness
of how to sign up, more and healthier young people getting involved in
the exchanges, which means the premiums will come down.
I think, as we ponder the goal of our healthcare system--the question
of peace of mind--that is our best immediate step forward to provide
peace of mind, to end the sabotage of the system we have, and address
the shortcomings the healthcare experts and the people of America have
pointed out.
Let us be that mission statement under this vision of a ``we the
people'' government, in that we pursue healthcare that is designed for
the people of America in order to create peace of mind, so when their
loved ones become ill or when their loved ones are injured, they will
get the care they need, and they will not end up bankrupt. We should be
able to make that happen.
Thank you.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tax Reform
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, last week the Senate passed the
bipartisan Defense Authorization Act. The world is a very dangerous
place. This legislation is very important to keeping our country safe.
Another thing we need to do to keep America safe is to get the
economy going and growing. We need a strong and healthy economy in this
country, and we need it now. A strong economy means a strong country
with enough money to pay for the defense needs that we have at this
time.
Over the 8 years of the Obama administration, Washington doubled its
debt. Why? Because our economy grew so slowly and the administration
spent too much money. If this sort of thing continues, it is going to
leave America in a much more vulnerable position.
America needs a stronger economy that grows faster. To get the kind
of growth we need, we are going to have to provide real tax relief for
America, for hard-working families, and for the economy. That means
cutting tax rates, and it means simplifying taxes for everyone. If we
get this right, we are going to be able to produce more jobs, Americans
will have higher wages, more take-home pay, and we will have a stronger
economy.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, Americans spend about 6
billion hours a year on taxes, just trying to prepare their taxes.
Between businesses and individual families, we spend an average of 18
hours for every man, woman, and child in America, just trying to comply
with Washington's complicated Tax Code. The National Taxpayers Union
says that the total cost of all of this is $263 billion a year. That
works out to about $800 for every person in America. This is not
spending that does anything productive. It is just figuring out how
much tax to pay, and how to do it in a way to send it back to
Washington so that the IRS will not come knocking at your door--how to
get your numbers right.
The instructions for last year's standard 1040 tax form were 106
pages long. These are the instructions--15 different worksheets for
people to fill out just to try to fill out the forms. The people who
can deal with this level of complexity are the ones who basically can
afford to hire expensive accountants and lawyers, who then take full
advantage of a very complicated tax code. It penalizes hard-working
Americans who can't afford the high-priced help that helps them fill
out and take full advantage of a complicated tax code.
We hear a lot about people who talk about how millionaires and
billionaires are gaming the system so that they can pay less in taxes.
If that is their concern, then maybe we should try to make this system
simple enough that there is no system to game and everyone can
understand it.
Just think about how much we could save this country if we simplify
things even a little bit. All the time we could save, all the extra
money in the pockets of hard-working American families--that would
really help to grow the economy and do it quickly. It would also make
life a lot simpler for most Americans.
If we also, at the same time as simplifying the Tax Code, lower the
tax rates, that keeps even more money in people's pockets. It gives
them more money to decide what to save, what to spend, and what to
invest--money they can spend going out to dinner if they choose. They
can invest it if they want, and save for the future. If they actually
choose to spend the money by going out to dinner, that helps the
economy around the community where they live. People at the restaurants
have to hire additional servers, and they will then have money to pay
their own bills. That is how an economy grows. That is how providing
people with more money in their pockets
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helps an economy become stronger and healthier.
There is another important part of tax relief we need to remember. We
need to be sure we solve a big problem with the taxes that not just
individuals pay but that businesses pay. The reason we need to do that
is because many people think of businesses as big, faceless companies,
but the simple fact is that these businesses actually don't pay the
taxes personally. People have to pay the taxes. That is because
businesses pay taxes with money they get from their customers.
If the government says it is going to put a big tax on some company,
that basically gets passed on to the workers there and also to the
people who buy that product. The Congressional Budget Office looked
into this. Their office looked into it, and they found that more than
70 percent of the cost of corporate taxes actually comes from the
people who work for these businesses. Nearly 3 out of every 4 dollars
they spend in taxes would have ended up going back to the workers to
have that money--workers who are either buying products or workers
working within the company. Maybe it would have been higher wages or
better benefits or some other way that people would have gotten a
benefit from the money that otherwise just gets collected and sent to
the government.
Obviously, a big chunk of the money is from the workers, and another
big chunk is from the consumers. If a family buys something, part of
the price they are paying is to cover the taxes that business has to
pay. The higher taxes mean higher prices for people who go to buy
something.
The third way that people pay these business taxes is when they get
paid by the people who own a share of the business. If you take a look,
there are a lot of people on the other side of the aisle who like to
talk about taxing the rich who own stock in companies that are all
across our country. The only problem is, most of the people who
actually own shares in these companies are far from rich. More than
half of Americans actually own stocks in corporations that are paying
these high taxes. Maybe they have an IRA, a retirement plan, a 401(k)
through their work. Whatever it is, Americans who are investing for
their future are also being taxed.
Some of the biggest owners of these corporations are actually the
pension funds of public employees. That includes teachers, it includes
firefighters, it includes people in every community around America.
Taxes take away money that could make these pensions worth more. When
the government takes taxes away, there is less money in the pension
plans for our teachers, for our firefighters, for our first responders.
So it is a real problem that the corporate tax rates are so high
because high taxes hold back the entire economy and hold back the
entire country.
If you look at the most developed countries around the world, the
United States has the highest corporate tax rate of all of them. The
average tax rate of all of these major countries around the world--
across the globe--is 24 percent. In the United States, it is 39
percent. We are 15 percent higher in tax rates than the average of the
major countries around the world. So that is the top Federal rate, and
when you include the average for State and local taxes, it gets you to
39 percent--24 percent versus 39 percent. That is how far out of the
ordinary American taxes have become.
It is a huge disadvantage for American companies that are trying to
compete on the world stage. Frankly, the reason we are at such a
disadvantage is that other countries have been cutting their tax rates
over the years. There was actually a time when the U.S. tax rates were
fairly low, and other countries continued to cut theirs below ours. Now
we are at a point that the average for developed countries around the
world is at 24 percent, and the United States is at 39 percent. Places
like Germany, Japan, and Canada have all cut their rates going back
over the last 60, 70 years. We haven't done it here at all. Now it is
time to do it.
It is one of the reasons our economy has been stuck with the slow
growth rate that we had during the Obama administration. It is what we
have seen over the last 8 years--a very sluggish economy with very
little growth. If we can cut corporate tax rates, personal rates, that
is going to really help stimulate the economy.
People pay taxes. It is the individuals who pay the taxes that in
many ways run the government. Many people I talk to in Wyoming feel,
rightly so, that the problem isn't that they are taxed too little; it
is that the government takes too much.
We need to get the economy going, and we can do that by simplifying
and lowering the tax rates. It is true that, with taxes, people
actually struggle with trying to figure them out at the kitchen table.
I have talked to those folks at home. It is continually a problem--the
simplification, as well as how much money the government takes from
them. Taxes raise prices. Taxes chip away at retirement savings that
people have.
Tax relief and simplifying taxes makes sense for American families.
It means more jobs. It means higher wages. It means a safer America and
a stronger America. It is good for our economy, and it is good for all
hard-working taxpayers and the families those taxpayers support.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Healthcare
Mr. COONS. Madam President, yesterday we learned that, once again, my
Republican colleagues do not have the votes to pass their latest effort
to repeal the Affordable Care Act, even though the budget
reconciliation process we are currently under requires only 50 votes.
There are not 50 votes.
Many of my colleagues have spoken on this floor about the challenges,
the problems, or the issues with the latest iteration of the Graham-
Cassidy bill. We have also heard as a body from many organizations all
over the country that represent Americans in healthcare: the American
Medical Association, which speaks for America's doctors; the American
Hospital Association, which speaks for our hospitals; America's Health
Insurance Plans; the American Cancer Society; many other patient
advocacy groups; and the AARP, which advocates for seniors. All have
weighed in about the challenges with this legislation.
But rather than continuing to bear down on that point, I would like
to quote a colleague and hero of mine. Senator John McCain said on this
floor:
We should not be content to pass healthcare legislation on
a party-line basis. . . . The issue is too important, and too
many lives are at risk, for us to leave the American people
guessing from one election to the next whether and how they
will acquire health insurance. A bill of this impact requires
a bipartisan approach.
Senator McCain also said:
I hope that in the months ahead, we can join with
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to arrive at a
compromise solution that is acceptable to most of us, and
serves the interests of Americans as best we can.
Senator McCain is right. Fixing and improving our healthcare system
cannot be done on a partisan basis. When it has been attempted to turn
big bills into law on a narrow party-line basis, the results are often
not sustainable. That is why we have work to do together, because this
issue of providing for America's healthcare is too complex, too big,
and too important for us to do with only one wing or one party.
I was encouraged, as were many colleagues, Republican and Democratic,
when Senators Alexander and Murray, the Republican and Democratic
leaders of the Senate Health and Education Committee, held bipartisan
hearings. They brought in Governors, insurance commissioners,
healthcare experts, physicians, and hospital leaders from across the
country to talk about what we need to do short term and long term to
stabilize healthcare markets and to lay the foundation for improvements
to our healthcare system.
So let's listen to Senator McCain. Let's give that bipartisan effort
another chance. Let's work together and do this the right way.
I ride the train back and forth almost every day from Wilmington to
Washington, and the Delawareans I hear from on that train or at home in
the grocery store or around my State are simply tired of Congress
fighting endless partisan battles with their healthcare. And it is not
just frustrating to hear about on television; we
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know for a fact that uncertainty in the healthcare markets is causing
premiums to go up for Americans all over the country. The CEO of
Highmark, which is the sole provider of individual market health
insurance to the ACA market in Delaware now, conveyed to me that half
of the rate increase for this coming year was due to uncertainty about
whether the Trump administration would continue to enforce the
individual mandate, to make the CSR payments, and other things that are
part of the ACA.
So today, recognizing that the only way this gets fixed in such a
closely divided and partisan Senate is if we work together, I would
like to commit again to my constituents and colleagues that I am
willing to work to find bipartisan solutions to our healthcare
problems.
Let's sit down together, and let's bring in organizations like the
AMA, the AARP, the American Cancer Society, the American Hospital
Association, and let's listen. Let's listen to them, to healthcare
leaders, and to patient advocates, and frankly I think we should listen
to thousands of faith leaders from across the country as well. We have
received letters--all of us as a body--from leaders of the Christian,
Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Buddhist communities across our country. They
jointly wrote a letter to Congress urging us to reject the Graham-
Cassidy bill and to immediately address urgent matters that are right
in front of us.
The next one is CHIP reauthorization. CHIP--the Children's Health
Insurance Program--serves nearly 9 million American children, 17,000 in
Delaware alone, and it is going to expire. There are a lot of Federal
health programs that expire at the end of this week: the Children's
Health Insurance Program, the Community Health Center Fund, which
provides access to cost-effective primary and preventive care for 26
million patients throughout the country; the teaching health centers
funding; the special diabetes program. There is a whole list of
healthcare-related programs that expire at the end of this week. So I
think we need a sense of urgency. We need a sense of urgency to finding
ways to work together in the short term to stabilize the market, to
extend these programs, such as CHIP, that have long enjoyed bipartisan
support and to begin the steps needed to show flexibility and
compromise by both parties.
First, as I said, we have to stabilize the individual ACA
marketplace. Fortunately, we know how to do that. As I mentioned, there
have already been hearings in which testimony was received from
Governors, insurance commissioners, healthcare experts, and they said
the No. 1 priority was funding the ACA cost-sharing reduction
subsidies, or CSR payments. That is something the Trump administration
can do today. The administration can simply announce that they will
continue to meet the law and make those payments. At least in my State,
that will reduce the rate of increase of individual insurance premiums
by a significant percentage.
We can also work together to establish a reinsurance program, to
support enrollment outreach activities, and to enforce the individual
mandate. All of this would translate to lower premiums. As I said, the
President is already authorized under the ACA to take a few of these
steps and stabilize the marketplace.
From there, we are going to have to find bipartisan ways that we can
make this a more workable system. I have introduced legislation in the
past to make the ACA small business tax credits more appropriately
sized for the small businesses I have heard from in Delaware, many of
which can't afford the increased costs of the Affordable Care Act.
There are ways we can work together to reduce the reporting
requirements so they are less burdensome to employers. I introduced a
bill on that in the last Congress and would welcome a chance to work
with a Republican colleague to introduce and pass that legislation now.
We could also look at ways to make the tax credits--or the way that
subsidies are provided through the ACA--both more affordable and more
sustainable, so that families who qualify aren't caught in a situation
where they qualify for tax credits, but they are nowhere near enough to
afford comprehensive health insurance.
We also have to take a hard, bipartisan look at what is driving up
healthcare costs across this country. We aren't just challenged with
resolving issues around health insurance; we also have to find a
bipartisan path toward addressing healthcare costs.
The bottom line to all of this is that we must work together to
return to regular order and to give these programs the stability and
certainty they need to serve patients across the country and our
constituents at home.
In my view, the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of Americans
live healthier, safer, more secure lives. Repealing it and replacing it
with one of the proposals we have seen in recent months would have been
very harmful to millions of Americans. But that doesn't mean the ACA is
perfect. There is hard work to do. Compromise is needed on both sides.
And I think the call that Senator McCain has issued to this Chamber is
one we should hear.
So let's work together. Let's listen to our constituents. Let's
listen to faith leaders. Let's listen to doctors and healthcare
experts. Let's do the hard work and together improve, not tear down,
our healthcare system.
Thank you.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tribute to Emily Enderle
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, may I bid a public farewell to Emily
Enderle, who is here with me and who has served as the lead on my very
active and busy environment unit for quite some time now. She is going
on to another role in Washington and will continue to serve our cause.
She has done an amazing job, and I want to be sure to say that on what
will be her last appearance on the floor with me for one of our ``Time
to Wake Up'' speeches.
Climate Change
Mr. President, I have spoken before, as you know, about the fossil
fuel industry's persistent effort to undermine public understanding of
climate change and to confuse people about the actual effects of carbon
pollution on our atmosphere and oceans.
I have mentioned Drexel University Professor Robert Brulles' follow-
the-money analysis, which reveals the complex network of organizations
and funding--what we have called the web of denial--that is designed to
obscure the fossil fuel industry's fingerprints and to perpetuate the
fossil fuel industry's climate denial.
Dr. Brulle calls this ``a deliberate and organized effort to
misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding
of climate.'' That is what this industry is up to.
One front group for that industry is called the Heartland Institute.
It is a nice name, but they are not very nice people. For decades, the
Heartland Institute has played a prominent role disseminating
alternative facts and fake science at the behest of its industry
funders. They have a long history of doing the bidding of industry
funders. In the 1990s, it was teamed up with Philip Morris to challenge
the facts about the health risks of tobacco. Using the same tactics--
along with funding from the Koch Family Foundations, ExxonMobil, and
other fossil fuel interests--it undermines public confidence in the
established scientific consensus about climate change. Heartland is
quite shameless in its methods, once sponsoring a billboard comparing
those who accept the science of global warming to the Unabomber.
For my 180th ``Time to Wake Up'' speech, I would like to explore the
Heartland Institute's latest gambit, which is to airdrop climate denial
propaganda directly into children's classrooms.
This spring, Heartland delivered packages to hundreds of thousands of
K-12 and college-level science teachers across the country. These
materials were designed to have a veneer of credibility. Each one was
stamped with the headline ``Study: Science Teachers Giving Unbalanced
Education on Climate Change.'' This intriguing story was attributed to
something called Environment & Climate News.
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Inside the package, the teachers found a report titled ``Why
Scientists Disagree About Global Warming.'' It was issued by something
called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. As a
bonus, each teacher also received a DVD copy of the ``History of
Climate Change in Greenland,'' produced by Idea Channel.
A cover letter from Heartland's Center for Transforming Education--
transforming education into propaganda, I assume is how that sentence
gets finished--asks teachers to ``consider the possibility'' the
science of climate change isn't settled.
That is the package they got. Let's look behind that veneer. When you
do, the smell gets pretty rotten. It turns out that the Environment &
Climate News is not actually news. It is not a news outlet. It is the
monthly newsletter of, guess who, the Heartland Institute. They are
citing themselves, masquerading their newsletter as a news outlet. The
foolishness goes on.
Their featured article, ``Study: Science Teachers Giving Unbalanced
Education on Climate Change'' was written by a person named Bonner
Cohen, who is a featured expert--guess where--with the Heartland
Institute, who previously held senior positions in--believe it or not--
Philip Morris front groups.
Their Nongovernmental International Panel On Climate Change sounds
like a well-known actual authority: The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. The actual Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is
a United Nations-sanctioned, Nobel Prize-winning scientific body that
reports the findings of thousands of climate scientists from hundreds
of countries. The Heartland group--this so-called Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change--is a misleading decoy designed
to mimic the real entity.
The three experts who wrote the Nongovernmental International Panel
on Climate Change report Heartland pushed out do not have degrees in
climate change modeling, do not having degrees in climate science. All
are paid by Heartland. All their claims have been repeatedly debunked
by real science.
There is one faint hint of accuracy in this propaganda publication
Heartland put out. There actually is a PBS series called Idea Channel.
However, the Idea Channel DVD in the Heartland packet has nothing to do
with that series. It was actually produced by something called the Free
To Choose Network, whose funding, like Heartland's, is linked to the
fossil fuel industry. It is another masquerade designed to mislead.
One of the tricks of Heartland's little scheme was to dupe legitimate
scientists into participating. One of the experts interviewed, Rie
Oldenberg, the curator at Greenland's Narsaq Museum, was told she was
participating in a video on Norse history for the Discovery Channel.
When she found out what she had been duped into, she said: ``I am
somewhat horrified.''
Other participants are frequent fliers in the climate denial circus,
like Willie Soon, who received over a million dollars in funding since
2001 from the Koch brothers, the American Petroleum Institute,
ExxonMobil, and other fossil fuel interests. The year the video was
released, Willie Soon received nearly $20,000 from Free To Choose.
The Heartland cover letter asked teachers to ``consider the
possibility'' the science of climate change isn't settled. Even that is
not new. This echoes the infamous Big Tobacco declaration, ``Doubt is
our product.'' The heart of the fossil fuel industry's scheme is to
undermine legitimate science with false doubts. Because of the
financial stakes behind industry science denial and because of the
communications advantages propaganda has over real science--you don't
need to waste a lot of time in peer review, for instance, you go
straight to the networks--this scheme is a real problem for
institutions like our schools that cherish and support real science.
All this masquerade and subterfuge by Heartland Institute looked a
lot like fraud. Senators Schatz, Warren, Markey, and I wrote to
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to ask whether DeVos and her staff
at the Department of Education helped or coordinated with the Heartland
Institute on this scheme to pollute our classrooms with phony science.
That simple request drew quite the response from our friends at the
Heartland Institute. ``Your letter is a monumental misuse of your
office and a betrayal of the trust of your constituents,'' wrote
Heartland CEO Joseph Bast. He called our letter ``defamatory'' and
``despicable.'' ``Shame, shame, shame,'' he proclaimed in bold font--
this, unironically, from that same classy group that put up the
billboard comparing anyone who accepts climate science to the
Unabomber, just to give you an idea of their level of shame.
Even that little outburst is considerably nicer than in 2015 when
Bast called some of us ``fascists'' and ``ethically challenged . . .
mental midgets.''
Why is the Heartland Institute so very touchy? We obviously hit a
nerve. The lesson is, poke an imposter and the imposter gets very
agitated. Fortunately, teachers are smart people who follow real
science. Imposters like Heartland that pretend their stuff is coming
through an Idea Channel that it isn't, that mimic the name of real
organizations to try to fool people, that pretend their newsletter is
real news and package the whole thing up as if it is intended to be
helpful to teachers face an uphill battle against informed educators.
One example, Nebraska recently approved new State standards requiring
climate change to be taught in schools. According to the Omaha World-
Herald, Nebraska's new standards ``challenge kids to think and act like
scientists,'' which is exactly what our science classrooms ought to do.
One Omaha resident encouraged the school board to ``do the ethical
thing and tell the next generation what's going on with climate.'' A
science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said the
standards represented ``good solid science, good solid science
education.''
This is what we need in science education--real-life scientists from
real institutions of higher learning engaging and helping our children
learn. What we don't need are fossil fuel front groups pumping out more
phony science to pollute public education, just like they pollute our
oceans and atmosphere.
I have been pretty heartened to hear about this from teachers working
in classrooms in my home State of Rhode Island. Holly Emery teaches
science to seventh and eighth graders at Exeter-West Greenwich Junior
High School. Her students focus on solutions to climate change--
something we could use a bit more of around here. They examined
Germany's plan to significantly reduce its carbon emissions. Students
were so motivated by what they heard, they requested to share their
projects with other grades in the school. One of Miss Emery's students
said: ``This is important and the other kids need to know.''
Students in Jane Ramos's eighth grade science class at Gallagher
Middle School in Smithfield learn about climates around the world. They
read, research, and make slides about the human contributions to
climate change, including the carbon cycle, burning fossil fuels and
the greenhouse effect, deforestation, livestock practices, and the
production of methane. They discuss the effects of warmer oceans,
expansion of water, melting ice, and rising seawater levels. These are
important issues for Rhode Island, the Ocean State.
Science students from Brenda Dillmann's class at South Kingstown High
School planted grass on the Narrow River salt marsh as part of a major
unit on climate. During the lessons, the students learned about the
role that salt marshes play as carbon sinks--absorbent carbon from the
atmosphere. They went out and got dirty and planted by hand some 35,000
seedlings of 3 different types of salt marsh grasses.
Since 2007, more than 500 students have become climate experts in
Kara Ratigan and Renee Hadfield's fourth grade class at James H.
Eldredge Elementary School in East Greenwich. Ratigan and Hadfield have
developed a curriculum that integrates climate change across all
subject areas. For the kids, the year begins with a visit to a local
assisted living facility, where students pair up with a senior buddy.
The students interview their senior buddies, asking how the climate has
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changed over time and looking for lessons that can be applied today.
In their math class, students learn how to read charts and graphs and
how to frame a convincing argument through data. In social studies, the
students learn about the regions of the United States, about their
differing climates, and about how each is affected by climate change.
In science, the students learn about erosion and weather patterns and
the effects of human activity on rock, soils, and sediments. Students
make observations about climate change all around them and delve into
society's responses to the harms of climate change.
This past spring, the Norman Bird Sanctuary, in Middletown, hosted
seventh graders for a beach ecology lesson at nearby Third Beach. The
director of education, Rachel Holbert, and her staff led a discussion
with the students about the greenhouse effect associated with burning
fossil fuels. They explained how the excess heat trapped in the
atmosphere puts stress on the oceans, undermining the oceans' ability
to stabilize the global climate and, of course, leading, as we have
seen, to a higher frequency and strength of extreme weather events,
such as powerful hurricanes. The kids' lesson ended with a focus on
solutions. If the oceans are the heart and lungs of the climate, what
can prevent future damage?
Teachers like them play such an important and formative role in
helping the next generation understand the world we live in. They teach
our children to make observations, collect information, and use
evidence to formulate conclusions. They are honest and they are decent.
The fossil fuel industry, on the other hand, is neither honest nor
decent. The filthy hand of the fossil fuel industry has, regrettably, a
firm grip on this Congress. There is a reason that we never do anything
about climate change, and it does not involve the merits of the issue.
It involves the politics of the industry. We have, perhaps, not yet
plumbed the bottom of how low they are willing to go, but, surely, this
is a new low to reach with their game of phony science, masquerade, and
subterfuge into our children's classrooms, like Ms. Emery's, Ms.
Ramos's, Ms. Dillmann's, Ms. Ratigan's, and Ms. Hadfield's. These
honorable, decent teachers help their students gain a fact-based
understanding of the changing world around them and the issues facing
our society. Unfortunately, these Heartland Institute materials may
require those teachers to teach about politics and propaganda as well.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tax Reform
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, we are looking at an outline for tax reform
that helps working families in ways that those families haven't seen
for almost a decade now--a decade of buying power that didn't go up and
obligations that did, with more government requirements and less take-
home pay. So we are going to be here for the next few weeks talking
about what we can do to reverse that situation so that the opportunity
for those families is reversed and that eventually we also reverse our
competitiveness so that we create better jobs.
There are two ways to get more take-home pay. One is for the
government to take less out of it--and I am for that--and the other one
is to do things in the Tax Code to make us more competitive so that
there are better jobs with better pay to start with. If we combine
those two things--better jobs and better pay--with the government
taking less out of that higher paycheck, that is really where families
would like to be. We are going to be here talking about this in a way
that drives toward a result.
The Senator from West Virginia is here, and she is basically going to
start that effort today, as we really now have enough specifics on what
the Finance Committee is looking at in the Senate and the Ways and
Means Committee in the House and what the White House is looking at. We
can begin to explain to American working families why this is the right
course for them and for our country.
I am pleased to be joined here by Senator Capito.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Senator Blunt,
for your leadership.
I am excited about what we are talking about today. I am excited for
my State of West Virginia. The main thing that people in West Virginia
want is a good job. A good job, with more take-home pay and a higher
wage, is exceedingly important to the families I represent, so tax
reform and any other policies Congress could support will enhance
growth and create more job opportunities around the country.
Let me focus on my State of West Virginia. According to the Economic
Innovation Group, more than 34 percent of West Virginians are living in
distressed communities. Unfortunately, that number is the third highest
of any State in the country. At the same time, only 3.4 percent of West
Virginians are living in prosperous communities.
There are States that are prosperous and have done very well, but the
vast majority of our States have really struggled. Only two in five
communities have seen any job growth in the past 5 years during our so-
called recovery. That is not the definition of a recovery. Since 2010,
fully 50 percent of U.S. job growth has occurred in just 2 percent of
our country's counties. Think about that. Economic growth has only
occurred in 2 percent of the counties across this great country.
The truth is that most of our country has been mired in economic
stagnation. We have been standing still. I saw Lou Holtz give a speech
one time, and he said: If you are standing still, you are going
backward. If you are not moving forward, you are going backward. There
has been a slow recovery, but for many West Virginians, there has been
no recovery at all.
But it isn't all doom and gloom in our State because we have an
opportunity for change--the change we really need that helps our
struggling, working-class families, that changes and revitalizes our
distressed communities, changes that lead to economic growth and
creates opportunity for future generations.
In fact, West Virginia, in the first quarter, grew by 3 percent. We
were the second fastest in growth in the entire Nation. To be sure, one
quarter of growth is not a trend, but it does demonstrate the potential
that we have if we do it right here for our citizens. The potential of
capital growth is there, but one of the biggest drags on our economy in
recent years has been excessive regulations, which we have addressed
quite a bit here in the first 9 months of President Trump's term. We
have worked hard to bring reason into the regulatory environment and
also our burdensome Tax Code.
What can we do? We can reduce taxes that impede our growth. Let's
think about our small businesses. In many States, they are the major
economic driver of our economy. In my State of West Virginia, 95.6
percent of the businesses are small businesses. They employ nearly half
of the West Virginia private sector workforce, so nearly half of West
Virginians are working in what is defined as a small business. Yet they
can face a tax rate as high as 39.6 percent. Think about that. If you
own a bakery or an accounting firm, in a 5-day workweek, you have to
work Monday and Tuesday just to pay the government. It is no wonder
that small businesses have found it difficult to open, let alone
succeed, in many parts of our country.
The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed
world. A lot of people are asking, how does that influence me? It is
influencing the working American because the working American is
bearing the brunt of that tax. Because of our outdated Tax Code, real
wages for most workers have barely increased over the years. West
Virginians understand that, as hard as they work, the government is
taking more money from them. It costs them more money every time they
go to the grocery store, every time they buy clothing for their
children, every time they try to buy a new car. It is just more
expensive with no growth in their wages to be able to bear that
expense. It feels impossible to get ahead.
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We see that all around our States and localities. We see people
thinking, I can't get ahead, and I haven't been able to over the last 5
to 10 years. I am starting to think it is impossible.
But we can fix this. It is not impossible. We can create an
environment in which there is more opportunity available and wages are
higher by modifying our Tax Code. We can have a simpler system with
lower rates, and families can see relief from the complexity of our Tax
Code. I have seen it stacked up before. If you haven't, I am 5 feet 3
inches, and I think it is taller than I am when stacked up page to
page.
Along with the complexities, people need to keep more of their hard-
earned money. It will help our companies grow. When our companies grow,
what happens? We have more jobs, fairer taxes, and best of all, besides
more jobs, we have higher paychecks. With more earnings, companies can
hire new workers, increase wages, and invest in new developments. These
are changes that I think West Virginians are hungry for.
The time is now. The stagnation we have felt over the last decade has
worn us down, has made us lose our optimism about being able to have a
better life than our parents had or our children thinking they could
have a better life than we had. You know, the American dream is sort of
fading for a lot of people, so comprehensive tax reform can provide
that kind of relief.
I am excited that we can create that environment of optimism, that
environment of confidence in not just our companies and our ability to
create more jobs and raise our paychecks, but that confidence that we
need as a country that, yes, we can live in our communities in rural
America, like West Virginia or North Carolina or Missouri, that we can
live in those communities, have a great chance to move ahead, have a
good retirement when we decide we are at the end of the line in terms
of our working career, and also pass on to the next generation a
competitive environment that can compete financially anywhere in the
world.
We know we can compete anywhere in the world in a lot of different
areas. Right now, we are on an uneven playing field. When we change
this and when we fix this--because we can fix this--that will change
the playing field for every single American who gets up in the morning
or goes to work in the evening, to have the confidence that things are
going to be better for them.
I thank the Senator from Missouri, and I look forward to talking
about this over the next several weeks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, when the Senator from West Virginia talked
about the 40 percent that can come out of your hard work, the 2 days a
week of a regular 5-day workweek--and many families are wishing they
could get back to a 5-day workweek because they have really been
stagnant in terms of the opportunities for their families for a long
time. It is a good way to think about how hard families work just so
the government can get more of their money.
This is a discussion about how the government can take less of your
money. For everybody listening who wonders, ``Well, if the government
is going to take less money--I thought the government already had a
deficit''--we need to work on that. One way to work on that and the
best way to work on that is to have more taxpayers--not higher tax
rates but more taxpayers. We are looking at some tax changes here that
would allow more taxpayers to share the burden, hopefully paying taxes,
as I said earlier this afternoon, on a bigger paycheck to start with.
You can take less money out of that paycheck, and the government gets
more money because we have more people paying those taxes and more
growth.
The 70-year average on growth since World War II is 3.4 percent.
Every year, the economy was that much bigger than the year before. That
ought to be achievable. For 70 years, we achieved that. We should be
able to get back to that again if we do the right things. But for the
last 8 to 9 years, that growth has been less than 2 percent.
Our problem is with jobs that aren't growing as they should in terms
of what they pay and the government is not having the money it needs to
defend the country and do other things. A lot of that could be solved
by an economy that is thriving again. There has been 10 years of not
seeing that happen.
We combine good tax policy with good regulatory policy, which means
the regulatory excesses of the last few years clearly are being brought
back under control. The Federal Government is beginning to look at
regulation and being sure it is commonsense regulation again. Consumer
confidence is growing. Every single month we look at those numbers, and
they generally have been better each month than the month before. They
certainly have been better the last 7 months than they were in any
previous 7-month period of time for some time now. When we have a good
tax policy and a good competitive policy, then before you know it,
things begin to happen.
On stagnant income, you can see a study here that says, well, maybe
the income hasn't gone up, but because things are a little less
expensive and inflation has been so low and so many of the things
families need are less expensive, they really have more money than they
used to have. Try to explain that to mothers and fathers who are trying
to buy five pairs of tennis shoes for five kids. You as a parent are
trying to do something for your family every week or so that is a
little bit extraordinary. If you don't have extra money, you cannot do
any of that.
Over 75 percent of full-time workers in America say, when asked, that
they are living paycheck to paycheck. Over 20 percent of Americans say
they have zero savings. A much higher number says they have less than
$400 or $500 in savings. These are people whose parents and
grandparents worked hard to save whatever they could and would like to
see that ability happen again.
We need lower taxes. We need better jobs. New jobs are impacted in
Missouri, where 97 percent of all our businesses are small businesses.
Most new job creation is created by small businesses. We ought to be
sure that no matter what we do in the Tax Code, we do it in a way that
allows small business to compete with big business in an effective way.
As for competitiveness, in the last 15 years, I think we are not as
competitive as we used to be. Our corporate taxes used to be right in
the middle. With corporations competing around the world, we were right
in the middle. The middle in 2003 was 30 percent; our tax rate was 35
percent. The middle in 2015 was 22 percent; our tax rate was 35
percent. If you are going to compete, if you are going to create jobs,
you are going to have to be sure you know how to compete.
Mr. President, you and I were able to see--at least I was able to
see--for the first time yesterday, not being on the Finance Committee,
the page that is generally agreed to as our starting point. There were
lower rates for families, in fact, doubling the individual exemption.
Today, if you are a couple, you start paying taxes after the first
$12,000 of income. Under this proposal that exemption doubles to
$12,000 each, so you would start paying taxes only after you have made
the first $24,000. It is sort of a new tax bracket here--the zero tax
bracket. It is the tax bracket in which you don't pay income taxes on
the first $24,000, and then you start paying in a simpler system after
that.
People would like the tax system to be simpler. People would like to
have that postcard filing opportunity, where you say: This is how much
money I made, here is my W-2 form that proves it, here is my standard
exemption, and here is whatever else I am going to be allowed to
exempt--my contributions to church, other charities, my mortgage
payment. Those appear to be exemptions that will be left in the Code,
but everyone would understand those. Suddenly, you have about three
lines, and maybe, by the time you get to those three lines, your tax
obligation goes away.
The amount of money people pay to get their taxes figured out in
America would be the gross national product of lots of countries. We
need a system that is simpler than that.
The death tax--you know, if you are a family farm or a small business
and someone has stayed on that farm with you from your family or stayed
in that business with you from your family, it is very hard to figure
out, when the mom or dad dies, who created what wealth as you work side
by side to create the wealth. By the way, you don't
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have any wealth that you haven't paid taxes on already. You don't have
anything you have accumulated that you haven't paid taxes on multiple
times. There is an opportunity here to say that we are no longer going
to go through that after trying to tax family farms and small
businesses. The death tax is exactly that, and it doesn't work.
We are going to work to make America more competitive, American jobs
more competitive. Again, one way to create more take-home pay--the best
way to create more take-home pay--is better jobs to start with. We can
have those better jobs if we work hard to be focused on competition, on
regulation that makes sense, on tax policy that not only is simple but
that everybody believes is fair. We have the greatest compliance of any
country, I believe, in the history of the world, but people are less
likely to comply if they don't think that the tax policy is fair and
easily understood and means the same to everyone else. You shouldn't
have to have the greatest accountants in the world to figure out what
your taxes are or, frankly, to figure out what somebody else's taxes
likely are. Fairness is important here, simplicity is important here,
and competition and better jobs are important here.
(The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore assumed the Chair.)
We need better jobs for working families. I think that should be the
flag that flies highest as we begin to look at how we reduce the tax
burden and increase the opportunity for more people to be paying taxes
because we have more people with better jobs.
I know two of the leaders here. That guy who just left the Chair, the
Senator from North Carolina, and the Senator from Georgia have been
real advocates for what we are trying to do now and also advocates for
getting it done. We not only need to have this debate; we need to get
this done.
In my view, this needs to be done this year. It needs to be impacting
our economy by the first quarter of next year. I would suggest that
nobody in this body understands the importance of competition more than
the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Perdue.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I would like to echo what my esteemed
colleague from Missouri has outlined in the last few minutes. His
leadership on this issue is pronounced, and his experience on this
floor is not to be underestimated. I appreciate his leadership on this,
and I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on this.
Before my remarks today on this historic opportunity before us right
now to finally, after 30 years, become competitive again with the rest
of the world, I would like to preface my remarks with a personal
comment. My mom and dad were schoolteachers. We were middle class. I
grew up working on our family farm. My mom and dad were really the
first two in their extended families who had ever been to college. All
of my relatives were farmers in the South.
I think the Tax Code that we have had for the last 100 years, since
it was instituted in our country, has created an imbalance. We can see
right now that we are losing competitiveness with the rest of the
world. We have a growing disparity among income levels in this country,
borne out somewhat by the derivative results of an archaic, out-of-
control, out-of-date, and inappropriate tax policy.
Today, we have two crises in America. I have spoken on this floor a
lot about this. We have a global security crisis that cannot be argued
against. It is deadly. It is serious. We also have a debt crisis, and
they are interwoven because of our inability to discipline ourselves on
this floor over the last 30 years, particularly the last 16 years. We
now have $20 trillion of debt, and that is the result of an explosion
in the size of our Federal Government.
In 2000, the size of our government--these are constant 2016 dollars.
The size of our government in 2000 was $2.4 trillion. ``Trillion'' is a
big number, and it gets a lot of zeros out there. I have a hard time
even digesting what that is. But 2.4--I can relate to the size that it
is today, and it was $4 trillion last year. So our Federal Government
has grown over 60 percent in 16 short years. There was one Republican
President and one Democratic President. My experience here in the last
2 years has been that there are no innocent parties in terms of this
out-of-control spending on the part of the Federal Government.
One of the solutions to this debt crisis is a growing economy.
President Trump, from day one, has said that growing the economy is job
one, but it was part of a bigger strategy in his first year.
There were four components to the strategy in the first year. One was
that we had to get Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court, and
that was done. Second, we had to roll back on some of the more onerous
regulations that were stifling the very life out of the free enterprise
system. To date, over 800 regulations have been removed from our
government. Third was healthcare. We are still trying to fix a
collapsing ObamaCare system that is hurting people back home. Lastly,
we had to reform our tax package so that we could become competitive
with the rest of the world and get our economy going again.
Job one this year was to get the economy going again. To some degree,
it is beginning to move. Consumer confidence is at a 16-year high. CEO
confidence is at a 20-year high. Why? Because they finally see rhetoric
in Washington talking about the things they have been asking for for
over 10 years, and that is relief from some of the pressure the Federal
Government has put on the free enterprise system that keeps us from
being competitive with the rest of the world.
I have lived around the world, and I have run businesses. I started
my career working for an hourly wage in construction. I understand that
America--and I can say this with some authority--has some of the best
workers anywhere in the world and in the history of the world. On the
back of that, we have innovation, capital formation, and the rule of
law. That is what has created this economic miracle over the last 7
years, but we have taken it for granted. What we have done is allow
other countries because of our immigration policy, because of our tax
policy, and because of our regulatory policy, particularly of late--we
have lost our competitive edge.
We believe that to get this economy going, President Trump is right.
I am absolutely committed to the strategy President Trump has laid out.
It really is only three things, and we have already started on two with
his leadership.
No. 1 is regulatory reform, which I talked about.
No. 2 is that we have to get this energy policy going. What the
President has already done with the Keystone Pipeline and the Clean
Power Plan has set the stage to allow us to become the energy czar, if
you will, of the next century right here in North America.
Lastly--and maybe most importantly--is to get this Tax Code so we can
be competitive with the rest of the world. Let's talk about what
competitive means. In 1986, the last time we actually made any real,
substantive change to the Tax Code, the United States, after those
changes, had the third lowest corporate tax rate in the world. What
that did is allow us to compete with the rest of the world and set the
stage for the next 10 to 15 years of economic boom that is now part of
history.
What has happened now, though, is that the rest of the world has
caught up. They have lowered their corporate tax rates. They have
simplified their regulatory environment and taken the burden off some
of their people. Today we have absolutely the highest corporate tax
rate in the world, and we are the last country of the major OECD
countries--the 39 countries--to actually still have a repatriation tax.
This is unbelievable. We have been so arrogant as a country that we
have let the rest of the world outrun us to the next stop, and they are
now outcompeting us.
How does this affect the average man and woman on the street? Well,
this I believe--the repatriation tax and indeed the lack of
competitiveness in our Tax Code--is an absolute tax on American
workers. Why? Because right now, twice as many companies in the United
States are being purchased by companies outside our country, as
compared to companies that our U.S. companies are buying outside the
United States. That is nothing but a reflection on the
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imbalance of our high tax environment here at home, and the people who
suffer from that are the people who buy products in the United States
and the people who work for companies that sell products in the United
States. By companies, I am talking about friends of mine who have small
businesses in South Georgia and have four employees. I am also talking
about friends who run large corporations, multinational corporations.
All of the above contribute to our economy.
We have unwanted acquisitions. Just look at recent history. Burger
King was bought by a Canadian firm, Timmy's. Look at the beer industry
in St. Louis. Today, most of those companies are owned by Brazilians
and Belgians. These are not mean CEOs who decided to move their
corporate headquarters, no. This is a reflection of a competitive
disadvantage in which someone outside the country has used our Tax Code
and our tax dollars to actually buy U.S. companies to the detriment of
U.S. workers. How can anyone be against lowering our corporate tax rate
and doing away with this repatriation tax?
The Business Roundtable in 2004 documents--and this is interesting--
that if our corporate rate today were just 20 percent, over 4,700
companies that have been purchased over the last couple of years would
still be in the United States. I think that is tantamount to a marching
order for us here in the Senate to make this change.
The way forward is very simple. This is what is talked about in this
tax package that we are beginning to talk about publicly, and this is
only after 9 months of regular order in committee with multiple
hearings. We heard in the healthcare debate: Oh, this is not regular
order. We didn't have the chance to talk about it and put amendments in
and all this.
Well, this time, in tax, it will be by regular order. There will be
amendments. There will be debates. There have already been multiple
hearings. We are looking for input from all corners.
This strategy has three parts: One, we have to lower this tax on our
American workers--lower the corporate tax rate to be competitive with
the rest of the world. Two, eliminate this repatriation tax as every
other country in the world has done. And, last, we have to simplify our
individual Tax Code.
My mom and dad were schoolteachers. They were proud of their ability
to pay their taxes, but they were burdened by that. Right now, we don't
need to do that. We have to find a way to make this Tax Code more
equitable for everyone.
Nearly 90 percent of Americans want the code changed. Over two-thirds
think taxes are too high. Almost two-thirds say that lowering the
corporate tax rate--again, they get the fact that this tax rate is
lower in the rest of the world and that it is a penalty on the workers
here in the United States.
Nearly every CEO surveyed by the BRT, Business Roundtable, said that
delays on tax would damage our economy. Here is why. We just heard the
Senator from Missouri talk about timing. We have to have a sense of
urgency on this for one reason; that is, if you want to affect the
economy next year, you have to get this done this year. Budgets are
being finalized for next year right now. Capital investments have
already been made in terms of determining how much and where and how
soon they will be making it. More importantly, during the back half of
next year, we will have the holiday season, which offers up a
significant portion of our retail sales for the year, and those
decisions are being made right now--before the purchases that are made
next spring.
We have major CEOs weighing in on this. Randall Stephenson, CEO at
AT&T, said that if we get the corporate tax rate lowered, ``We will
step it up''--meaning their capital investments. ``Every additional
billion dollars . . . is 7,000 hard-hat jobs putting fiber in the
ground, cell sites up, and antennas on cell sites.''
David Abney, CEO of UPS, said: ``We'd like to bring some of those
foreign earnings back, invest them into our network here.''
Finally, Mark Weinberger is the CEO of one of the major accounting
firms we have here in the United States. They are multinational, so
they have experience around the world in this with Ernst & Young.
Actually, through these tax changes, they will stand to lose revenue
because we are simplifying how people calculate what they owe in
taxes. His quote is this: ``I think it's truly a bipartisan issue''--I
agree--``something everybody can rally around . . . it's urgent for our
country.''
To get this done, we have to move past partisan politics and
Washington games. We saw how we disappointed the American people--both
sides. The Democrats in 2009 crammed ObamaCare down the throats of
America through a supermajority. We now know it has failed. Republicans
were not able to fix it this year, so far. So we all need to look at
this tax issue as a bipartisan issue to fix this once and for all for
the people back home.
We can't get bogged down in this scoring--this financial modeling
that is only done this way in Washington. People back home don't run
their small businesses this way. They don't run big businesses this
way. They sure don't run their personal finances this way. We can't get
bogged down in bad numbers and bad timing coming from the Congressional
Budget Office--not this time. It is too important. The only score that
matters to me is GDP growth and the jobs that it creates--the change of
lives that it can affect for the people back home.
I hear people talking all the time: I work part time; can you help me
get more hours? Wages at the low-income level have not grown at all in
the last 30 years. That is terrible in the United States. We can fix
that. It is a function of the thing I am talking about right now--
American companies that lost their competitiveness because of the rules
here in Washington. This is a 1-percent increase in our GDP. Say we
grow from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent. That alone is $3 trillion of
revenue over the next 10 years. That is doable. Everybody in this room
knows that.
But we have to change this Tax Code to put people back to work, to
get our economy going again, and to become competitive with the rest of
the world. The end result will be to address, finally, this debt
crisis.
The reason we want this Tax Code changed is to put people back to
work and to change lives here in America. But the long-term benefit of
this is that it gives us more flexibility and more capital with which
to solve this long-term debt crisis. Growing the economy alone will not
fix this debt crisis, but we will not fix the debt crisis unless and
until we fix this Tax Code.
We need to have a sense of urgency like never before in order to get
this done this year. I echo the comments of my colleagues, and I thank
you for this opportunity.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I was presiding when the colloquy started
with my colleagues here to talk about tax reform. I had not intended to
speak today, and I am sure my staffers are scrambling, wondering what
the boss will say. I want to weigh in with this discussion mainly
because of the personal perspective of a leader who has seen the
positive impacts of having the courage, focus, and discipline to
deliver on tax reform.
Back in 2011, I was in my third term. Republicans had the majority,
and I became speaker of the house. When I came in February of 2011, it
was reported to me that we had a $2.5 billion structural deficit. We
had the fourth highest unemployment rate in the Nation and we had 6
months to figure out how to balance the budget. So it was
counterintuitive to a lot of people that we would spend time on
regulatory reform and tax reform--particularly tax reform--reducing the
amount of revenue coming in at the same time we were in a deficit
ourselves. But in the first 6 months that we were in the majority, we
cut the sales tax. Then we went over a 2-year period, even with that
$2.5 billion structural deficit, to make the changes in the corporate
tax and the income tax. It took North Carolina from the 44th most taxed
State--in other words, there were only 5 States ahead of us for the
highest tax burden in the United States--now down to No. 12. It was one
of the worst growing economies, and it now ranks in the top five in the
Nation, and it is one of the fastest growing economies in the
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Nation. We created over 250,000 jobs and actually put North Carolina on
the map by all references--CEO measures and by independent
organizations. It is the State where businesses want to set up and do
business.
We took the corporate tax from 6.9 down to 2.5. We took personal
income tax rates from 7.75 down to 5.49. We got people back to work.
Along the way, we had our challenges. Everybody in Washington is for
tax reform. They are for tax relief. They will come into your office
and tell you: Let's get her going. Then on the side they will say:
except for that one righteous exemption I may need. We have to have
Members who have the courage to do tax reform that helps working
families, that creates jobs, and that silences the people who want to
take this exemption or that exemption away, so we do what is right for
the generation that is about to look for jobs and the people who need a
job today.
They want their businesses to grow. They want their economies to
thrive. They want the United States to be the strong, great economy
that it can be. It is going to take courage. It is going to take
discipline. It is going to take time--but only so much time.
I believe this Congress, this Senate, over the course of a few
months, if we focus on it and with the support of the President and in
collaboration with the House, can get this done. We have to get it
done. We promised the American people last year that if we had
majorities, we would do what we had to do to deliver on this promise.
It can be done. A lot of times, people ask me what keeps me up at
night. I tell them two things: coffee and the national debt. Coffee is
for the obvious reasons, but why the national debt? I will tell you
why. Because when I have people on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
service chiefs come into the Senate Armed Services Committee and say
the single greatest threat to our national security is our debt, we
should take notice. These are people who are skilled in warfare. They
are people who know how to take the fight to the enemy. When they think
the greatest threat to this Nation is our national debt, we had better
take that seriously.
How do you resolve the national debt? You grow the economy. How do
you grow the economy? You create jobs and help businesses throughout.
How do you do that? You do that through tax reform. You also take
criticism that is going to be waged by some people on the far left when
we talk about corporate tax reform. They are going to say: How could
you favor the big guy over the little guy? I don't know about you all,
but I worked for companies before in my life. When I was 19 and living
in a trailer park, I was working for a corporation. I was a little guy
working for that corporation. Fortunately, in the 1980s, we had a
President who had the wisdom to know that, if you reduced the tax
burden on corporations, more little guys like me--that 19-year-old
living in a trailer park--could get a job--a better-paying job--and,
ultimately, have enough money to put himself through school.
So when we get into this argument, don't take the bait by some people
who will say that because we are focusing on corporate taxes and
reducing the tax burden on businesses, that is somehow a guy in a suit
trying to help out a business. That is a guy who has worked his way
from that trailer park now into the U.S. Senate and benefited when
Congress had the courage to reduce taxes and get the economy back on
track. That is what we better do. That is what we promised. That is
what we are here to do today. The time is now to get it done.
The President has shown wisdom in the blueprint--and our leadership
here, in terms of the broad strokes about what tax reform needs to look
like. Now it is our job--each and every individual Member of the Senate
and the House--to deliver on the promise to produce tax reform to help
the little guy and to get this economy going to be the great economy
that it has been in the past, and I have every reason to believe that
it will be so in the future.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________