[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 158 (Tuesday, October 3, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6280-S6281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       The Budget and Tax Reform

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, we need tax reform that helps small 
businesses close these tax loopholes that are taking jobs overseas. 
Instead, we need to create those jobs at home. We need tax reform that 
puts money in the pockets of middle-class families in Michigan and all 
across the country, and we need an American budget that shows what we 
value as Americans.
  Too often, we think of budgets as sterile numbers on a spreadsheet. 
In reality, budgets are about people. They are about the middle-class 
Cass City parents who are sitting down to do their taxes and feeling as 
if it is they, not the wealthiest 1 percent, who are carrying the 
heaviest burden. They are about helping small business owners in 
Pontiac, MI, family farmers in Cadillac, and Michigan companies that 
are creating good-paying jobs. They are also about ensuring that the 
most vulnerable among us--our children, senior citizens, people with 
disabilities--are valued and protected.
  We cannot consider a budget without considering people. Will it help 
middle-class families thrive? Will it help small business owners grow? 
Will it help protect people who cannot protect themselves? 
Unfortunately, the Republican budget and tax plan suggest that we do 
not value people, plain and simple.
  There are 47 million Americans who depend on Medicare--seniors and 
people with disabilities. Yet the budget resolution we will be 
considering tomorrow in the Budget Committee will cut $473 billion from 
Medicare. For the low-income children, parents, seniors in nursing 
homes, and people with disabilities who depend on Medicaid, in that 
budget resolution, Medicaid would be cut by $1 trillion.
  We just went through this debate twice in efforts to gut healthcare, 
to gut Medicaid, which would take away healthcare from tens of millions 
of people. The American people said no, and the Senate said no--twice. 
Yet we are right back again. Here they go again on the budget 
resolution, putting forward huge--even bigger--cuts in Medicaid. This 
time, it is not just Medicaid, it is Medicare, which was not in the 
last two proposals that we rejected, because they hurt too many people 
by taking away their healthcare.
  Now we have a budget resolution that will be coming to the floor of 
the Senate. I am assuming they will have enough votes. They certainly 
will not have mine or those of my Democratic colleagues, but if every 
Republican in committee votes for it, we will have on the floor a 
budget resolution that will cut Medicare by $473 billion and Medicaid 
by $1 trillion.
  Why is that being done? It is being done to pay for tax cuts for the 
wealthiest among us. In fact, 80 percent of the tax cuts would go to 
the top 1 percent. It would be 80 percent who would receive a cut of 
about $200,000 a year--a cut. The majority of people in Michigan do not 
make $200,000 a year, but this would be a tax cut of $200,000 a year, 
on average. This is not what I was talking about before in our helping 
small businesses and middle-class families and closing tax loopholes 
that are taking jobs overseas. This is a straight-up, trickle-down tax 
cut that has not worked before in creating jobs. It creates a lot of 
deficits but not jobs, and people in my State are still waiting for it 
to trickle down to them.
  Republicans are asking seniors, people with disabilities, children, 
and families to give up healthcare in order to fund a huge tax cut for 
the richest 1 percent, which will cost more than $2 trillion. To me, 
that sounds like backwards budgeting for sure.
  I do not often quote my friend from Kentucky, but Senator Paul was 
absolutely right yesterday. He tweeted this:

       This is a GOP tax plan? Possibly 30 percent of middle-class 
     families get a tax hike? I hope the final details are better 
     than this.

  I do too. I hope that the final details are a lot better than this if 
it is going to be something that the people of Michigan will support 
and benefit from.
  Under the Republican plan, a senior citizen in Saginaw, MI, who is 
making $20,000 a year would get a tax increase; a married couple with 
two kids and an income of $70,000 in Gaylord, MI, would get a tax 
increase; and a single mom with three kids in Battle Creek, MI, who 
works really hard every day in juggling and caring for her kids and who 
earns $50,000 a year, which never seems to stretch far enough, would 
actually pay $1,000 more in taxes because, under the plan, if you have 
more than one child, you will actually see your taxes go up because the 
personal exemption for each child will be taken away.
  Senator Paul is right. This is just plain wrong. I do have to give 
Republicans credit, though. They keep upping the ante. It wasn't even a 
week ago when they were trying to take healthcare away from people in 
Michigan and across the country with a plan that would increase costs 
and reduce healthcare. Now they are trying to take healthcare away from 
people who need it most by raising taxes on middle-income families and 
cutting Medicare, as well as Medicaid.
  We do need tax reform. I would like very much to see the code 
simplified, but any tax proposal needs to meet three basic requirements 
to get my support. First, tax reform needs to be bipartisan, rather 
than coming up with this proposal in the budget resolution which, once 
again, just like healthcare, would be jamming something through on a 
partisan vote. It needs to be bipartisan. It needs to be thoughtful.
  Those of us on the Finance Committee are thoughtful people. We worked 
for 2 years in bipartisan working groups on each section of the Tax 
Code, getting ready to have a thoughtful discussion and negotiation on 
real tax reform that would help small businesses grow--by the way, they 
are creating a majority of the new jobs--as well as making sure 
families in America who are struggling would be able to have a 
simplified Tax Code and a tax cut. So I am all for doing a bipartisan 
approach, but that is not what is happening here. That is not what will 
be put into the budget resolution tomorrow, and, unfortunately, it 
doesn't appear that it is what is going to happen in the Finance 
Committee.
  The other reason for wanting to do this in a bipartisan way is that 
it is the only way to make sure it is permanent. If you use these 
truncated processes of reconciliation to try to jam something through, 
it is not permanent. I know from businesses in Michigan, large and 
small, as well as families, that to be able to plan, they want to see 
some permanent changes, and doing it this way is not permanent.
  Second, tax reform needs to help businesses create jobs right here at 
home. Over the last year, I visited more than 120 small businesses in 
Michigan, and I have seen for myself how they are driving my State's 
economy. I also know how challenging it can be for them to navigate the 
complex Tax Code. The owner of a small business shouldn't have to spend 
hours with an accountant instead of with her customers. We can fix 
that. At the same time, tax reform needs to preserve important 
incentives for manufacturers that are creating jobs here in Michigan 
and in our country.
  I don't believe we have an economy unless somebody makes something or 
somebody grows something. We need to make sure that the tax policy that 
supports capital intensive companies remains intact, and we need to 
close the gigantic loopholes that incentivize our jobs going overseas.
  I have one simple proposal. It is not everything, but it is a symbol 
of how bad the situation is. I have been trying to get it passed now 
for over 10 years here, and it keeps getting blocked and filibustered. 
It is called the Bring Jobs Home Act. It is very simple. The Tax Code 
right now allows a company moving overseas to write off all their 
moving costs. So the workers losing their jobs help pay for the move 
through their taxes. The community pays for the move through their 
taxes. It makes no sense to do that. My Bring Jobs Home Act would stop 
that and say that you don't get to write off the costs when you are 
leaving our country. However, if you want to come back, if you want to 
bring jobs home, we are happy to let you write off those costs, and we 
will give you an extra 20 percent tax credit to bring those jobs home. 
If you want to leave, you are on your own. That is what our Tax Code 
should say to businesses that are moving our jobs overseas.
  The third important measure in tax reform is that it needs to put 
money in the pockets of hard-working families. Michigan families are 
working hard every day to make ends meet. For too long, working-class 
and middle-class

[[Page S6281]]

families have watched as all of the benefits seem to flow to the 
wealthiest among us over and over and over. Middle-class families are 
stretched to the breaking point, and it is time they get a break.
  That is what the President originally said. This was going to be a 
middle-class tax cut. Yet, when we run the numbers, it is just not 
true. For too many, they are going to see a tax increase. As I said 
before, 80 percent of the Republican tax cuts go to the top 1 percent. 
You can even break that down more with 0.1 percent, and it is shocking 
that those individuals are going to get a million-dollar tax cut.
  When you look at the majority of people in Michigan who work hard 
every day and don't earn $200,000 or more, and you look at the fact 
that there would be a tax plan brought forward that would actually give 
a tax cut of $200,000 a year, and someone with three children or four 
children would actually see their taxes go up--wait a minute--what is 
wrong with that picture?
  Unfortunately, this budget and tax proposal falls short in a number 
of ways, beyond Medicare and Medicaid cuts and what is happening in 
terms of families. As I said before, it is far from bipartisan. As with 
healthcare, Democrats have been locked out of the process. Republicans 
have been meeting in secret--no Democrats allowed.
  The Republicans are having to use this reconciliation process to 
force something that will not be permanent. There is little reason to 
believe that this will help American workers. As I indicated before, it 
will not close loopholes that are taking jobs overseas.
  It doesn't benefit hard-working people and working families that are 
working really hard to make it every year, every week. It does not 
benefit them.
  The Republican budget and tax proposal targets the most vulnerable. 
It isn't bipartisan. It will not stop offshoring. It will not benefit 
the middle class. There is one thing that it will do. There is one 
thing that those who analyze this agree upon. It will explode the 
deficit. The independent analysis shows that these proposals would 
increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion. So there is $2.4 trillion in 
lost revenues that would go to increasing the deficit.
  Our friends across the aisle scoff at that. These tax cuts, they say, 
will pay for themselves. Although in our Finance Committee hearing 
today, when we asked both the Republican and Democratic experts who 
were testifying, no one said it would pay for the tax cuts--no one.
  President Trump said this huge tax cut will be rocket fuel for our 
economy. But when you look at the 2001 tax cuts, there was no rocket 
fuel there. In the 2003 tax cuts, there was no rocket fuel there. In 
2012, the State of Kansas had tax cuts that almost caused them to have 
to go to a 4-day school week for children because of the huge deficits. 
There was no rocket fuel there.
  There are two things to remember about rocket fuel. It is unstable, 
and, if you are not careful, you will get badly burned.
  Budgets aren't about numbers; they are about people. They are about 
middle-class parents wondering why the wealthiest get all the breaks 
and they get the bill. It is about a small business owner wondering why 
she can't run a bakery without hiring an accountant. It is about 
seniors on disability wondering if Medicare and Medicaid will be there 
for them while they watch the 0.1 percent get tax breaks and there are 
future generations being stuck with the bill for tax cuts that will not 
pay for themselves.
  Budgets are about people, and this budget fails them. It is time to 
work together across the aisle to do what is right, to make sure that 
the budget and tax proposals work for everybody, not just a privileged 
few, and that they help companies create jobs here at home and focus on 
policies to benefit our working families.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.