[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6303-S6305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I would recommend to this body 
something that is obvious to all of us. Our economy is stuck. We are in 
a bad spot of just treading water. Over the last 11 years, our gross 
domestic product--that is how much our economy is growing--has been 1.9 
percent, and 1.9 percent is a tiny change.
  Just to give you a perspective, over the last 100 years, there has 
not been a single decade when we have not had a year without at least 3 
percent growth, until the last decade. Literally, our economy, is 
typically growing; that is, more jobs are being added, people are 
making more money, there is more happening, and we are selling more 
internationally. In America, over the last 100 years, it has just 
slowly grown and grown and grown until the last 10 years, and, then, it 
has flattened out. We are stuck.
  Now, when I was younger, we had a record player in the house. Now, 
for all of you under 40, I would explain that a record player is kind 
of like a CD player, only it was larger and made of vinyl. But if I say 
that, then, all the under-20 crowd will say: What is a CD player?
  Let me just say this. The big black pieces of vinyl that played music 
at my house occasionally would get stuck. The record needle would land 
in the same groove and play the same part of the song over and over. It 
was my job, as the youngest one in the house, to go over to the record 
and bump it and get it out of that. Our economy needs that.
  We need to be able to get over to our economy, which is stuck in the 
same groove at 1.9 percent in this incredibly low-growth rate, and give 
it a bump. Now, that bump can come in a lot of ways: increasing 
international trade would be a great help, engaging more 
internationally, keeping our regulations common sense and as 
nonintrusive as possible so that small businesses and medium-sized 
businesses aren't panicked all the time of what the Federal Government 
is going to do to them with a new regulation. Just keep them common 
sense and simple.
  How about making sure that there are fewer Federal forms and that the 
Federal forms that people have to fill out not only are simple to do 
but they don't duplicate over multiple different agencies. It would be 
good if people who worked in small, medium, and large businesses spent 
more time selling products than they did filling out a form for some 
Federal bureaucracy that is never going to read that form anyway.
  The obvious way to be able to bump the record needle in our economy 
right now is tax reform. It is not the main thing that is going to do 
everything, but it is a pretty big element. If we can get tax reform 
done, it actually gives our economy a little bit of a boost. Now, I 
have folks that will say: How does that make a difference? When you do 
tax reform, why does that actually increase economic activity?
  Well, quite frankly, people around the country and in my State of 
Oklahoma are struggling to be able to save money because their wages 
aren't growing at the same speed that everything else is going up in 
price. So people need to be able to save more money and to be able to 
have more money to be able to spend.
  Also, we need to create more jobs and we need to get companies going 
again and actually developing more jobs. If people can actually get a 
job, if people can make more money at that job, and if people actually 
have more take-home pay, they spend a little more, they save a little 
more, and the company expands a little more. If each

[[Page S6304]]

place does that a little bit, it dramatically increases our economy 
around the country, and we know it because we feel it.
  Making the Tax Code simpler for every person in every business means 
people don't have to pay as much to have their taxes done. Maybe you 
can do your own taxes because it would be simple enough to do it, and 
it wouldn't cost so much. Accountants who work for businesses could go 
back to working for their businesses to see how they can make their 
businesses more efficient rather than spending all of their time just 
on tax policy.

  I think we should follow the lead of the President on this. The 
President made a very clear statement. He said: Let's help our 
companies compete, but to do that we have to also knock down barriers 
that stand in the way of their success. For example, the President 
said:

       Over the years, a parade of lobbyists have rigged the tax 
     code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those 
     with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up 
     paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of 
     the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no 
     sense, and it has to change.
       So tonight, I'm asking Democrats and Republicans to 
     simplify the system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the 
     playing field. And use the savings to lower the corporate tax 
     rate for the first time in 25 years.

  Did I fail to mention that the President who said that is President 
Obama? President Obama did, right down the hallway, in 2011, in his 
State of the Union address. That is what he said we should do: simplify 
the system, lower the corporate tax rate, and be able to deal with all 
of the loopholes that are in the system.
  This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Everyone sees this, Republicans 
and Democrats alike.
  So my focus is this. How do we actually get this done and not make it 
into a partisan food fight here but actually do what is right for the 
American people and help bump the economy to be able to help get us 
going again?
  In my State--whether you live in Valliant, Gotebo, Healton, Sayre, 
Muskogee, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, or Lawton--this matters because 
everyone unfortunately pays taxes. Everyone knows it is a necessary 
thing, but we want to have it as simple as possible and to have it as 
low as possible, and we want to make sure it is as fair as possible.
  So the framework has been presented this past week. It is a simple 
framework for how we deal with tax policy. It talks about consolidating 
our rates. We have seven rates now. We would drop that down to four 
rates. There would be a 0-percent rate, a 12-percent, a 25-percent, and 
a 35-percent rate.
  Now, some folks have asked me about the 0-percent rate, because a lot 
of Americans say one simple thing: Every American is an American, and 
every American should pay a little bit in taxes. I would agree, by the 
way. But every American is paying some taxes. For those folks at the 
lowest end of the scale, I would propose dropping the rate to zero for 
them on income taxes, but they are paying their fair share in property 
tax, in gas tax, and in sales tax. They are helping their local fire 
department and their local police department. They are paying for the 
roads that are federally subsidized, based on their gas tax. They are 
paying taxes, but if they are not at a rate and at an income high 
enough to be able to survive at that rate, then let's drop theirs to 0 
percent for income tax. They will keep some of the other taxes so they 
can still contribute to society and still be a part of this great 
Nation.
  Dropping those rates down to the lowest bracket being 0 percent for 
income tax, then 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent is a pretty 
standard rate. Quite frankly, this is something that was proposed in 
the Simpson-Bowles proposal before, which was a bipartisan proposal, 
for it to be able to come out, on how we can reform the system.
  Eliminating the alternative minimum tax--do you want to talk about a 
complicated tax code? Basically, we have two Tax Codes. We have the 
standard Tax Code, and then we have the alternative minimum tax. 
Everyone who does their taxes has to do them twice to be able to 
evaluate which one of the codes they actually fit into. Now, if are 
using an electronic system, you lose track of it because the electronic 
system on the computer is doing that for you. But the AMT dramatically 
increases the complexity of the code. We should do away with that.

  If we want to be able to protect the folks who are in the lowest 
bracket, then let's double what is the standard deduction. Right now 
the standard deduction is about $12,000. Let's double that to about 
$24,000. That $24,000 amount for families would mean that the first 
$24,000 of income that you would make as a family would fall into that 
0-percent bracket. So you are paying zero income tax to the Federal 
Government until you make more than $24,000. That protects a lot of 
families in the lowest end of the bracket to make sure they are not 
falling into this.
  Quite frankly, in Oklahoma, most Oklahomans just use the standard 
deduction. They don't itemize. Doubling the standard deduction would 
mean that for a lot of those specialized deductions that everyone else 
gets, it actually flattens that out. It makes it fair. The No. 1 thing 
I hear from people when they fill out their taxes is not only that they 
filled them out and turned them in, but they say: I have no idea 
whether I did them right. It was so complicated, and I don't know if it 
is right. Then, the second thing they say, though, right behind that, 
is this: Why is it that, when I read through the hundred pages of 
instructions on the 1040 form, every deduction seems to be for someone 
else?
  So let's increase the standard deduction so everybody gets a flatter, 
simpler, and fairer system, and let's keep the biggest of the 
deductions that most Americans use, like the charitable deduction or 
the mortgage interest deduction. If there are any two deductions that 
most people use, it is those two. So let's protect those two in the 
system.
  As for reducing the corporate tax rate, I have folks say that it only 
benefits the biggest businesses. I always smile and say: Those are 
actually people who employ people. If you reduce the corporate rate, 
that means they are more competitive internationally and that means 
they are not having to move their corporate headquarters overseas.
  For years, as a nation we have used the carrot-and-stick approach on 
trying to keep businesses here in the United States; that is, if they 
go overseas, beat them with a stick and try to punish them for trying 
to move. Why don't we use the carrot approach? Why don't we find out 
why they are moving overseas and fix that? Many of these companies are 
moving overseas because of the very high corporate tax rate here in the 
United States. Let's fix that. Over the decades, many of our competing 
nations have done that. We should fix that. That increases the number 
of jobs, that increases economic activity, and that keeps American jobs 
in America.
  We should deal with the child tax credit and continue to be able to 
protect that for families.
  We can deal with how we do expensing. Now, if you don't run a 
business, that doesn't matter much to you. But if you are the one who 
owns the small business, you understand how expensing works. If you 
have a cost to your business this year and if you can't write it off in 
this year, you have to expand that out, and you know that slows you 
down.
  Here are the basics. If you are running a small business and you need 
to buy a new pickup for your business, if it takes you years to be able 
to depreciate that out, you are slower to do it. But if you know you 
can depreciate it out this year in your business, you are more likely 
to buy that. So that business buys a new truck this year. Well, that 
not only benefits that business in having new equipment, but it also 
benefits the Ford dealership down the street that actually sold them 
the truck, and it benefits all of the people in the area who helped 
supply that vehicle. So it trickles down through the rest of the 
economy.
  There are ways to be able to accomplish all of these things and to be 
able to be as simple as we possibly can be.
  There has been a lot of conversation about worldwide taxation as 
well. People seem to get confused on that area because most people 
don't live in that world. Here are the basics of it: Right now, if you 
are an American company and you are selling things overseas and

[[Page S6305]]

doing business overseas, when you make a profit overseas and you try to 
bring that money back, you get taxed overseas at their tax rate, which 
you should, in that country you are making the product and selling it, 
but you get taxed again when you bring it back to the United States. We 
are the only country that does it that way.
  If we will just simplify the system, it will actually encourage 
companies to be able to stay in America and then do business all over 
the world rather than moving their company out of America. It is a 
simple way to be able to do it, and it is a way that we can do and 
should do. You will hear the term ``repatriation,'' and that is really 
what it is about. It is Americans being able to move their money from 
overseas accounts back to the United States and get that money moving.
  There was a lot of conversation about the stimulus plan back in 2009 
trying to get almost a trillion dollars of government money--that is 
money from you and me--and to be able to move that around in a stimulus 
package. Let me give you the figure. Right now, it is estimated that 
American companies have about $2.5 trillion of private money parked 
overseas that they are not going to bring back to our economy because 
of the high cost of the tax coming back. If we were able to change that 
system, $2.5 trillion of private money would move from overseas back 
into the United States. What effect would that have on our economy? I 
would stipulate that it would be a pretty dramatic effect that it would 
have on our economy.
  We can fix this. We can resolve this. This shouldn't be as hard as we 
are making it, and it can be a bipartisan approach to be able to 
address some basic things--taking care of our families, making sure we 
are watching out for those who are in poverty, simplifying the code, 
making sure deductions aren't for a few but that they are spread out 
across the way that we handle it, protecting things like charitable 
giving and the mortgage interest deduction and things that most 
Americans use. These are the parameters we are trying to be able to 
work through over the next couple of weeks.

  Hopefully in the coming months, as we work through all the details in 
the committee process with amendments and coming to the floor and being 
able fight our way through the process, we will be able to actually get 
to a decision that will help us long term as a nation. This is 
something that can and should be resolved. It is one of the issues I 
have to raise to this body again.
  This body has had a hard time actually moving on the biggest issues 
we face as a nation because the rules of this body prohibit us from 
debating them. The rules haven't changed over the past multiple 
decades, but the way we operate has. The American people are ticked 
about it, and rightfully so. The Senators in this body are frustrated 
with it. May I remind us that the rules of the Senate are set by the 
Senate? So if we are frustrated with the rules, we should address them.
  Many of you have heard me speak about this in the past.
  There are three basic rule changes that I think will change 
dramatically how business gets done in the Senate. The biggest one is 
the filibuster rule. We have two filibusters for every single bill that 
comes up. There is one at the beginning. You have to get 60 votes to 
start debate; you have to get 60 votes to stop debate; then the bill 
passes with 51. That needs to change. We should take away the first 60 
votes at the beginning. We should be able to get onto a bill. 
Regardless of whether it is Republicans or Democrats in the majority, 
the majority party should be able to bring up a bill and debate it 
without being stopped. Let's bring up any issue and actually debate it. 
Let's not inhibit debate in this body. If we can't find agreement, keep 
the 60 votes at the end of it so we can keep the debate going until it 
gets resolved, but we should be able to debate the issues.
  The second big issue is that we have to deal with nominations in an 
appropriate time period. Currently, my Democratic colleagues are 
forcing the long periods of time in debate for every single nominee who 
comes up. I had folks say that is what Republicans did in the past. 
That is actually not true. This is the first time it has happened like 
this.
  This week, we are going to move four nominees for the President in 1 
week--four. Under the current structure, it will take 11 years for 
President Trump to get his staff. Let me give you a barometer of where 
things have been in the past. As of yesterday, President Trump had 153 
confirmations. At this same point, President Obama had 337 total. 
President Bush had 358 total at this same point. President Trump is not 
getting his nominees heard, and they are being slow-walked through the 
process.
  We have to fix that. A simple way to fix it is to allow only 2, 4, or 
8 hours of debate, not this protracted 30 hours of debate per nominee. 
It is already a resolved issue. Everybody knows it. These individuals 
have already gone through committee. They were already voted on in 
committee. By the time they get to the floor, it is resolved. The 30 
hours of debate time is purely delay tactics. We should be able to 
resolve that within 2, 4, or 8 hours total.
  Here is a radical idea: If we want to get the Senate going again, we 
can agree to a rule change that would allow for what is called dual-
tracking. We would do nominations in the morning and legislation in the 
afternoon. Right now, we can only do one thing at a time in the Senate, 
so while we are waiting on a nomination vote, everything waits until 
that is done. It slows down the process. Why can't we do nominations in 
the morning and legislation in the afternoon?
  There are basic rule changes that will help that are not partisan 
issues. They are designed to get the Senate moving regardless of who is 
in the majority. We have to resolve this long term. If we don't, the 
American people will continue to be frustrated, and we as Senators will 
continue to be frustrated.