[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 160 (Thursday, October 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6343-S6344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, here is what is happening with so-called 
``tax reform.'' Tonight, the Budget Committee is voting on a budget 
resolution that does two things.
  First, it sets the spending limits for everything in the government--
environment, energy, defense, healthcare, education, transportation, 
and so on.
  Second, it includes something called reconciliation instructions that 
basically direct all of the committees to report back with legislation 
that either increases or decreases the Federal deficit by a certain 
amount. This time around, here is what they are doing--asking the 
Senate Finance Committee to draft legislation to increase the deficit 
by $1.5 trillion. Again, this is going to pass on a party-line vote, 
with Republicans prevailing, to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. 
This is what will start the tax reform process.
  That is not all. Republicans still haven't given up on decimating our 
healthcare system. They are still trying to cut Medicaid and, this 
time, Medicare, and they are going to use this tax bill. They are going 
to cut $473 billion from Medicare at a time when our population is 
getting older and many seniors are already struggling. They are also 
going to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid. This is the program that pays 
for one out of every two births in this country. It helps millions of 
families who have loved ones in nursing home care.
  Last week, they tried to pass a healthcare bill that cut taxes. Now 
they are trying to pass a tax bill that will cut healthcare. Their 
proposal will, actually, increase the deficit by $4 trillion. That is 
12 zeros.
  Here is what we could do with $4 trillion. We could completely 
rebuild half of the airports in the United States. We could put 20 
million people through 4 years of college. We could pay off the debt 
for every student loan.
  Instead, the United States is going to be in the red by $4 trillion, 
but after they cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and one-half trillion 
dollars from Medicare, the party that has railed against the Federal 
debt and deficit will still add $2.5 trillion to the deficit.
  This is all so that they can give tax cuts to the richest people in 
the United States. I promise you, I understand that both parties are 
sometimes guilty of exaggerating and that sometimes both parties are 
guilty of relying on talking points and relying on caricatures of the 
other side, but you couldn't caricature this bill if you tried. This 
bill is already a caricature of what people say Republicans are all 
about, which is to shred the social safety net and provide tax cuts to 
the wealthiest Americans.
  They are going to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, 
and they are going to cut tax rates across the board, but the people 
who will actually benefit will be the people at the top. The Tax Policy 
Center, which is a nonpartisan, highly respected group, has crunched 
the numbers, and they found that within 10 years, 80 percent of the 
benefits of this $4 trillion tax bill will go to 1 percent of 
Americans.
  Remember what is happening. We are borrowing a huge chunk of this, 
and whatever is not borrowed comes out of Medicare and Medicaid. So the 
programs that pay for women to give birth in a hospital or for elderly 
people to get healthcare will be decimated, and the wealthiest 
Americans will pay less in taxes. This is bad policy, not just for the 
people who work hard but for the whole economy.
  I want to give you a specific example. Again, both parties rely on 
talking points, and both parties accuse each other of having the wrong 
set of ideas, but we have an example of what happens when you do this. 
This bill is actually modeled after what they did in the State of 
Kansas. The State government eliminated one of its business taxes, 
telling people that it would help the State's economy. Instead, the 
economy slowed down, which left them with even lower tax revenues. They 
had to cut government programs, like education, and now people do not 
want to send their kids to Kansas public schools anymore because they 
do not have the resources to educate their children.
  This is not a path that America should follow. Everyone needs to pay 
their fair share, and that includes big corporations and the people who 
are benefiting from the system and making millions of dollars every 
year, but in this proposal, they are the ones getting all of the tax 
breaks.
  Companies already have huge tax breaks. Some corporations end up 
paying zero in Federal income tax every April 15 even though they are 
making healthy profits. They have teams of lawyers and accountants who 
help them dodge paying even a penny to the Federal Government. That is 
why corporate income taxes make up less than 10 percent of all of the 
revenue to the Federal Treasury. Meanwhile, at least 30 percent of the 
middle class will actually pay more if the Republicans succeed with 
their tax reform package.
  Think about this.
  Thirty percent of the middle class is going to see tax increases in 
their tax bills. Why? It is because they have to find some money to 
subsidize the tax cuts for the richest people. Some of the money will 
be found by borrowing; some of the money will be found by making cuts 
to Medicare and Medicaid; and some of the money will be found by 
increasing taxes on the middle class. One out of every two households 
with children will see its taxes go up under this plan. Increasing 
taxes for these people while decreasing them for big corporations is 
not a plan for economic growth. We have heard over and over that 
Republicans do not want to add to the deficit--I don't either--but this 
is, literally, what they are voting to do tonight.
  Again, this is not a talking point. This is not a sort of rhetorical 
flourish. The bill, itself, provides for $1.5 trillion worth of deficit 
spending. Yet it is not deficit spending on the military; it is not 
deficit spending on disaster response; and it is not deficit spending 
on Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or any of the social safety 
net programs that they claim is the problem with the Federal budget. It 
is deficit spending for the purpose of a tax cut, 80 percent of which 
is going to 1 percent of the country. This is not conservative--
certainly not fiscally conservative--and it will not help us to grow 
the economy.
  It is no surprise that this policy is bad, because, again, the 
process has been so bad. With healthcare, they ignored regular order. 
They obliterated the committee process. They ignored Democrats. They 
ignored the way the U.S. Senate is supposed to work, and they failed. 
One Republican Senator says that he will not vote for anything that 
adds one penny to the deficit. Another Republican Senator said that he

[[Page S6344]]

will not do anything that does not cut taxes for everybody. It already 
does not meet that test. Members of Congress on both sides of the 
aisle--Republicans too--have promised not to cut Medicaid or Medicare. 
It violates all of those promises.
  If you did not like the ACA repeal because it cut Medicaid, guess 
what. This cuts Medicaid more. If you made a promise to your voters not 
to cut Medicare, you should be aware that this bill provides for one-
half trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare. If you are railing against 
debt and deficits, this is the biggest budget buster that I have ever 
seen in my short, 5-year career in the U.S. Senate.
  During the campaign, the President of the United States promised not 
to cut Medicare, and the senior Senator from Arizona has called for 
regular order. This violates every procedural and policy principle that 
has been articulated on this Senate floor since I have been here. I do 
not see a way forward on this legislation when it has been conceived in 
a purely partisan way. It will only take us deeper into dysfunction. 
For the sake of the Senate, let's stop going down this path. Let's 
restore regular order and work together on a bipartisan tax reform 
process.
  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. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.