[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6298-S6299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, beginning today, the Senate Budget 
Committee will take the next step in our effort to enact pro-growth tax 
reform, this time by marking up a budget resolution.
  The committee's work follows the release last week of our unified 
framework--the tax blueprint on how to create jobs and how to put more 
money back in the pockets of the hard-working Americans who earn it.
  Even though the framework is just 1 week old, there are some who are 
imagining the worst-case scenario. Rumors are spreading like wildfire. 
Last week, the Tax Policy Center fanned the flames when it published a 
report analyzing the plan--which, I want to emphasize, hasn't been 
written yet. Let me say that again. The Tax Policy Center published a 
report criticizing a plan which hasn't been written yet.
  This alleged or so-called nonpartisan think tank has looked into its 
crystal ball and now claims to be able to see the future, and it said 
the future doesn't look very good. The tax plan, it says, will be a 
resounding flop. Well, give me a break. I, for one, am sick and tired 
of this sort of pessimism parading as expertise--people talking about 
things they know nothing about and claiming to be the experts. It is 
pretty common here, in Washington, DC, you might have noticed.
  It is not helpful to assume the worst prematurely and to condemn this 
important exercise before we are even starting, and it is irresponsible 
to masquerade biased, partisan analysis as somehow objective.
  As the Wall Street Journal wrote a couple of days ago, in response to 
the Tax Policy Center's economists, they made at least two baseless 
claims: first, that our proposal would ``reduce federal revenues by 
$2.4 trillion over the first ten years and $3.2 trillion over the 
subsequent decade''; second, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would 
``receive about 50 percent of the total tax benefit.''
  These statistics were pretty quotable and indeed raged like a prairie 
fire across the news media in our country, especially when the media is 
predisposed to believe the worst, without any question or semblance of 
skepticism. After all, the Tax Policy Center's report made for easy 
headlines, reciting the same tired refrains we have all heard before 
that are all too predictable; that, somehow, our tax plan is only 
designed to help the rich.
  Apparently, the temptation was just too great to resist, even though 
the report didn't have a real author since no self-respecting economist 
wanted his or her name attached to it. As the Wall Street Journal 
pointed out, however, last week's tax blueprint was just that--a 
starting place, a plan, a framework, and nothing more. It excluded many 
important data points which would be important to a real analysis.
  For example, the income ranges for the three consolidated tax 
brackets, those weren't in the blueprint. The value of the expanded 
child tax credit and when it would be phased out, that wasn't in the 
blueprint either, and you would need to know that information in order 
to make a reasoned, logical analysis. The blueprint also doesn't 
mention tax rates for small businesses and what deductions will be 
eliminated as part of the base broadening.

[[Page S6299]]

  As we all know, an army of lobbyists, lawyers, and other folks have, 
since 1986, larded the Tax Code with a wide variety of deductions, 
credits, and other special preferences. What we need to do is clear out 
some of that thicket so we can lower the rates for everybody, so 
everybody gets a tax cut, and I mean everybody.
  It is not going to be easy because we can imagine that army of 
lobbyists descending upon Capitol Hill trying to protect the special 
deals they were able to carve out of the Tax Code since 1986, but we 
have to do it.
  None of these facts that would be important in order to conduct a 
reasoned and objective analysis was included in the framework, but all 
of them would have great potential to greatly move the final numbers. 
These, and many other details, are essential for any honest fiscal 
assessment of changes in our Tax Code.
  When will we begin to see some of those numbers? We need to pass the 
budget resolution out of the Budget Committee this week--which we will. 
Then, after Columbus Day, we will come back and have a debate and a 
vote-arama to pass the budget resolution, which will equip us with the 
technical tools we need in order to pass a reconciliation bill.
  Then the real work is going to be occurring in the Finance Committee 
on this side of the Capitol, where we will take the chairman's mark--
the original bill which Senator Hatch will introduce at the committee--
which will fill in a lot of these details. I predict that will be 
sometime around the third or maybe fourth week of this month.
  Then we are going to have an amendment process. The real question in 
my mind is, Will our Democratic colleagues participate and make this a 
bipartisan bill? I hope they will.

  I also want to mention two other related points that deserve mention 
but which were left out of the Tax Policy's report. One is, the 
committees in Congress will actually have the ability to come up with 
the details I mentioned. That will happen in the Ways and Means 
Committee in the House and in the Finance Committee in the Senate. 
There will be, as there should be, discussion, deliberation, and 
compromise as the normal legislative process works out.
  There have been many around Capitol Hill who have said we don't have 
enough ``regular order.'' What that means is, we need to conduct the 
normal legislative process and have the committees actually do what 
they are designed to do--which is to have hearings and vote on 
amendments and pass the bill out so it is available to be heard on the 
floor of the Senate. Then the Senate has a chance to amend it, vote on 
it, and debate it.
  The second point I want to make is, any analysis of tax reform must 
consider what will be the impact on economic growth that will result 
from it. As the Journal stated, if the rate of GDP growth speeds up 
from the Obama administration's pace of 2 percent a year to 3 percent, 
incomes would rise and revenues would increase to the Treasury by some 
$2.5 trillion. That is what is most often underlooked, including by 
some of the people who score these bills.
  If we are successful in passing pro-growth tax reform and tax cuts 
and we can get this sleeping giant of an economy awake and roaring 
again just to get it to 3 percent--which is below the average growth of 
the economy over the last three decades--just at 3 percent, it would 
put $2.5 trillion more in the Treasury. That would be great because it 
would help us not only pay our bills, it would help us pay down the 
deficit and the debt.
  Obviously, these are important factors to acknowledge. The best way 
to accomplish meaningful tax reform is to lower rates and simplify 
provisions across the board, to give Americans more take-home pay and 
have to spend less time hiring somebody just to complete their tax 
return. We can't simply throw up our hands, do nothing, and accept the 
status quo because American workers and job creators can't afford the 
status quo.
  I am optimistic about the framework that has been released and look 
forward to working with my colleagues on the Finance Committee in the 
days and weeks ahead. What we have now is a useful starting point, and 
we need to fill in the blanks--and we will--so then we can have a 
debate based on the facts, not based on somebody's wild, fevered 
imagination about what the tax bill might look like.
  One last point on that. We have the highest tax rate in the world for 
corporations and businesses. This used to be something that even the 
President of the United States, Barack Obama, back in 2011 acknowledged 
and said we need to reduce that in order to be competitive globally. We 
know too many of our jobs are moving overseas.
  I mentioned yesterday that IBM, one of the largest businesses in the 
world, has more employees in India than they have in the United States. 
Now, there are probably varied reasons for that, including our Tax 
Code. Some of it is access to highly trained workers, lower costs of 
operation, and the like, but our Tax Code is a self-inflicted economic 
wound for our country, and the people who pay the price are the people 
whose wages are stagnant or people who are looking for a job and can't 
find one. We need to put more money back in their pocket, let them keep 
more of what they earn, and get this economy growing again.