[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 169 (Thursday, October 19, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6630-S6635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BANKRUPTCY JUDGESHIP ACT OF 2017
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the
Senate the message to accompany H.R. 2266.
The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message
from the House of Representatives:
Resolved, That the House agree to the amendment of the
Senate to the bill (H.R. 2266) entitled ``An Act to amend
title 28 of the United States Code to authorize the
appointment of additional bankruptcy judges; and for other
purposes.'', with an amendment.
Motion to Concur
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment
to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2266.
Cloture Motion
I send a cloture motion to the desk on the motion to concur.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R.
2266.
Mitch McConnell, Pat Roberts, Roy Blunt, Shelley Moore
Capito, Mike Rounds, John Thune, Orrin G. Hatch, Deb
Fischer, Cory Gardner, John Barrasso, Johnny Isakson,
John Boozman, Thom Tillis, Richard Burr, James M.
Inhofe, Roger F. Wicker, Lindsey Graham.
Motion to Concur With Amendment No. 1568
Mr. McCONNELL. I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate
amendment to H.R. 2266, with a further amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] moves to concur
in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2266,
with an amendment numbered 1568.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end add the following:
``This Act shall take effect 1 day after the date of
enactment.''
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to concur
with amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1569 to Amendment No. 1568
Mr. McCONNELL. I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an
amendment numbered 1569 to amendment No. 1568.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike ``1 day'' and insert ``2 days''
Motion to Refer With Amendment No. 1570
Mr. McCONNELL. I move to refer the House message on H.R. 2266 to the
Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report back forthwith
with an amendment numbered 1570.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] moves to refer
the message to accompany H.R. 2266 to the Committee on
Appropriations with instructions to report back forthwith
with an amendment numbered 1570.
The amendment is as follows:
At the end add the following.
``This Act shall take effect 3 days after the date of
enactment.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1571
Mr. McCONNELL. I have an amendment to the instructions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an
amendment numbered 1571 to the instructions of the motion to
refer.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike ``3 days'' and insert ``4 days''
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 1572 to Amendment No. 1571
Mr. McCONNELL. I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an
amendment numbered 1572 to amendment No. 1571.
The amendment is as follows:
Strike ``4'' and insert ``5''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Thanking Senator Enzi and the Budget Committee Members and Staff
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes following the
remarks of the majority leader to thank Chairman Enzi, the bill
manager, and the whole Budget Committee for the tremendous work that
has been done on this budget resolution.
I also want to express my gratitude and our collective gratitude to
the Budget Committee staff, who has done such heroic work to get us
this far. This might well be the best and most well-run budget
consideration process during my time in the Senate. Certainly, for the
fact that Senator Enzi has gotten us to this point at this time of
night, when typically this ends in the wee hours of the morning, I
think he is to be commended.
The resolution has gone through regular order from the start, working
its way through the Budget Committee where amendments were considered
and adopted from both sides. Chairman Enzi has been a very effective
floor manager as we have been considering the budget resolution,
obtaining consensus from both sides of the aisle to ensure that the
Senate has considered a number of amendments in a timely fashion. That
is something that is not always so common around here.
I want to take a moment to note the great job the chairman has done
in getting us to this point. As we all know, without a budget
resolution, there will be no tax reform. This is the first step to
getting us to pro-growth tax reform, which will unshackle the sleeping
giant of the American economy, something from which all Americans will
benefit.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
The Budget
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, having been away for a while from the
Senate, I am pretty amazed to come back today and see a budget that is
passed that throws away years of rhetoric about fiscal conservatism.
The Senate just passed a budget that adds $1.5 trillion to our national
debt, a budget that slashes seniors' healthcare by $473 billion. It
decimates the Medicaid Program for parents and grandparents in nursing
homes, those who are disabled, and those who are among the poorest,
with cuts of over $1 trillion over the next decade.
In total, the Republican budget would cut more than $5 trillion over
the next decade from education, healthcare, affordable housing,
childcare, nutrition assistance, transportation, and other programs
that all Americans rely on.
The question many New Jerseyans will be asking me is, Why? Why do
Republicans in Congress add $1.5 trillion
[[Page S6631]]
to our national debt while slashing the Medicare Program? The answer is
simple. We are on a pathway to provide massive tax breaks to corporate
interests, special interests, and the wealthiest 1 percent. This has
been a Republican agenda for as long as I can remember.
What I find most galling is that this budget plan is meant to set up
a special process that we know here as reconciliation to pass the Trump
tax plan--a plan, which, by which their own admission, will raise taxes
on middle-class families. Think about that. The Republican Party is
adding $1.5 billion to the debt to pay for massive tax breaks for the
wealthiest among us--I should say trillion, $1.5 trillion to the debt
to pay for massive tax breaks for the wealthiest among us. They aren't
even guaranteeing that middle-class taxes will not go up.
What the Republican budget fails to realize is that budgets are not
just about numbers. Budgets are about people, their hopes, their
dreams, their expectations for a better life for themselves and their
children.
My view is that this budget sells America short. It is not what the
American people believe our collective values would be. Hard-working
families want us to work together and pass a budget that addresses
their concerns. They want safe communities, not a budget that threatens
to cut the firefighter grants and stretches local budgets even thinner.
They want peace of mind when they reach their golden years, not a
budget that raises their healthcare costs. They want a tax proposal
that cuts taxes for the middle class and working people, not more tax
breaks for the folks that have been rigging the system against us.
People are willing to do their part if everyone is sharing in the
sacrifice. But this budget fails that test. It fails to recognize that
we are all in this together and should benefit together and sacrifice
together--each of us working for the betterment of all of us.
Mr. President, another area where it is critical that we come
together, not as 50 separate States but as the United States of
America, is to help the 3.5 million American citizens living in Puerto
Rico. I have serious concerns that the current disaster relief package
currently being considered by Congress falls far short of that.
Tomorrow will mark 1 month since Hurricane Maria devastated the
island of Puerto Rico, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction,
despair, and suffering. It is 1 month later, and still 88 percent of
our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico don't have power. It is 1 month
later, and still one-third of the island lacks access to clean, safe
drinking water.
Outside of the city of San Juan, the situation is even worse, as
nearly two-thirds of people still remain without water. Let me just
pause for a moment to think about that. Think about it: an entire month
without clean water, without water to bathe, to cook with, or simply to
drink. How many of us can even imagine such an existence? More than
half of the island's cell towers are down, which is not just an
inconvenience. It is a threat to safety. Imagine the sense of isolation
and desperation when your power is out, when you have run out of
potable water, with none on the way, and you can't even call for help.
As bad as it looks on TV, the situation on the ground, as I saw it,
is tragically worse. I am concerned that the package we are considering
now is both inadequate in scope and unfair in treatment--inadequate
because it is just a fraction of what Puerto Rico needs to recover,
unfair because it treats the people of Puerto Rico different than
Florida and Texas, even though they are U.S. citizens.
While all three areas have been devastated by natural disasters, only
Puerto Rico is being required to pay back natural disaster assistance.
That is right. Unlike Florida and Texas, the majority of Puerto Rico's
assistance is coming in the form of a loan. While there are a lot of
things that the people of Puerto Rico need from their Federal
Government, one thing they absolutely do not need and simply cannot
afford is billions of dollars of more debt.
This is not a normal disaster loan. No. Just like everything else
with Puerto Rico, this loan comes with a major stipulation. While
disaster loans are normally forgiven according to a standard formula
under the Stafford Act, this package overrules longstanding law and
leaves the decision entirely in the hands of the Secretaries of the
Treasury and Homeland Security.
While disaster loans are normally used to help people be safe and
start the recovery process, this legislation gives the Secretaries of
the Treasury and Homeland Security the authority to control how Puerto
Rico spends the money. If Secretary Mnuchin decides that some, most, or
even all of the loan should be used to pay off his friends on Wall
Street, there is nothing Puerto Rico can do to stop him. If he decides
that debt bondholders are more important than those who are suffering
in darkness, there is nothing they can do to stop him. Instead of being
treated like the rest of the country, Puerto Rico is left at the mercy
of Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. They are at the mercy of someone who
made his fortune off the backs of seniors and hard-working families who
lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis.
Do we really think that someone who callously rejected the pleas of
struggling families to save their homes and instead put them on the
fast track to foreclosure is going to suddenly change now for the 3.5
million American citizens in Puerto Rico? Does anyone really believe he
is going to put the people of Puerto Rico first? What a tragedy it
would be if, instead of helping our most vulnerable citizens, this loan
was used to pay off, in whole or in part, vulture funds. We need people
saved, not bondholders.
We need a response that answers Puerto Rico's call. Instead of
continuing to treat Puerto Rico like a foreign country and make them
start a tab at the U.S. Treasury while they are vulnerable and pleading
for help, we need to treat them just like their fellow American
citizens in Florida and Texas. We need to provide unconditional
assistance--real dollars to rebuild roads, the electrical grid, and to
put people back in their homes and businesses. We need to address the
massive Medicaid cliff that is forcing even more doctors and nurses off
the island and threatening the health of the people of Puerto Rico. We
need strong protections to make sure that the disaster relief stays
with the people of Puerto Rico, where it is needed the most.
Let me close by saying that I grew up believing the United States was
the greatest country the world had ever seen. I still believe that
today as strongly as ever. Ultimately, our response as it relates to
the people of Puerto Rico is not just about the people of Puerto Rico
but about all of us. It is about our values--who we are as a people,
who we are as a nation. How we respond to this crisis will test the
collective conscience of our Nation, and it will define us.
As I have said many times, I have never shied away from voting for
assistance for flooding in Mississippi, for wildfires in the West, for
hurricanes like Katrina, and any other natural disaster that has faced
our country with our fellow Americans. I was amazed when I had to
struggle and fight here on the Senate floor for the first time--I don't
know--in my lifetime to get assistance in the New York-New Jersey area
after Superstorm Sandy. It took a major fight, with people voting no,
even though I had always voted yes.
The people of Puerto Rico do not have a U.S. Senator to cast their
vote for them or to raise their voices for them. Yet, as long as I am a
Member of this Chamber, I am going to continue to prick the conscience
of the Senate to understand that when we walk to the Vietnam wall and
see those names, a disproportionate number of them are Americans of
Puerto Rican descent, who wore the uniform, gave their lives, and made
the ultimate sacrifice. They did not leave the conflict early; they
gave it their all. We cannot leave them early, nor should we leave them
short.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
The Budget
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I am going to contain my remarks to the
budget and its process.
For several days--in fact, for several weeks--I have been listening
to the same rhetoric of what this budget will do. This budget is a
special process. It
[[Page S6632]]
does outline a plan for what we can do over 10 years. That is a long
time. I don't know that we ever make it past the first year. In fact,
some budgets do not last more than 40 days before we waive the budget,
but we need to have a blueprint. This is a blueprint that covers 10
years in spite of some of the rhetoric that this bill will not do any
of the things that have been claimed. The reason that it will not do
any of the things that have been claimed is that everything in the
budget requires action by another committee before it can be done.
Maybe they will take what we have in the budget and do that. Usually,
they do not. If they were to, we could balance it, in this case, over a
10-year period. That is too long. Interest is going to eat us alive
before that time. We are going to have to do something else.
I remember, when President Obama came into office, he had an idea. He
said that the economy was too sluggish, so he was going to do a
stimulus bill. Here, they are complaining about this $1.5 trillion
that, perhaps, might be part of the flexibility for doing tax reform.
We did more than that in the stimulus, and it did not work and went
into the hands of a few people. Some of it never did get used. Some of
it went to very few people. It was supposed to go to shovel-ready
projects. Some of those projects have not been done yet, so that did
not work.
We have had a slow economy. In fact, it seemed to have been slowing
down, not speeding up, until last November. Last November, people
showed a sign of hope, and the economy started going the other way. It
is reflected in the stock market and some of the commodity prices
because they felt that those could be produced again.
We decided that we had to try a different approach, and the different
approach was to try to put the money in the hands of hard-working
Americans. That is the middle class that some of the people talk about,
and it is the poor that some of the people talk about. It is everybody.
When we do tax reform, it will affect everybody. In fact, there are
even some studies that show that when you do the corporate tax, it
increases money for individuals who are working because there will be
more competition for people, and that will drive up wages. Some
economists have pointed that out. Yet, rather than argue with the
Congressional Budget Office about how much the change is going to be,
we said: No. Go ahead. Do your static one just as though no change had
been made at all. We are willing to bet that there will be a very
slight increase that will cover what we are talking about as a possible
deficit and that that deficit will not develop if we increase just a
very small amount in productivity.
Just about every economist asked: How come you are picking such a low
number? Well, we try to be conservative and hope that the number goes 4
or 5 or 6 points higher than that. If it does, we will have money to
start paying back some of the debt. If it just stays at my estimated,
conservative amount, at the end of 10 years, we will have a surplus of
$197 billion.
We have a chance to put America on a different route, one that will
increase jobs, one that will get the money into the hands of the
people, realizing that they probably know better what to do for
themselves and their families than we do.
I do hear a lot when I go home about different government programs
that are not working. In my studies, I have found that we not only have
programs that are not working but that we have programs that nobody
ever takes a look at. We have programs that have a lot of duplication.
We have 160 housing programs. There are really only 5 things that those
160 programs do, so shouldn't we have just 5 of them and maybe have
them specifically and all under one agency and set some goals and see
if they meet those goals?
I was visiting with a lady from Africa who happens to be in charge of
finance in her country. She said: You know, we have performance
contracts in our country, and a performance contract means that
everybody, including the towns, does a list of what they are going to
get done during the year.
Because they are smaller than the United States, once a year they get
everybody together who has a performance contract, and everybody
reviews his performance contract. If you do not meet your performance
contract, there is a little bit of public embarrassment; whereas we do
not even check to see if they did anything. We do not even check to see
if they have plans. We have to change that, and some of the things in
this budget will allow that to happen.
I appreciate the way that we finished up in committee. I allowed the
other side to see the budget early. Normally, they get to see it after
opening statements are done. Imagine that--do the opening statement
about what you think is going to be in the budget. Although some of the
speakers I have heard around here act like they are still thinking that
something might be in the budget that is not, they got to see it 5 days
early in exchange for submitting their amendments, which is what every
other committee does. Submit the amendments early, and then we can look
through them and see how much duplication there is and some that can be
accepted from both sides. As a result, we started with over 150
amendments, and we voted on 25. We took five from the other side,
making it a bipartisan budget.
Nevertheless, after the committee process, we brought it to the
floor, and we had an open amendment process today. In fact, as for the
way the rules are on this, after we voted on the last amendment--of
course, before we voted on final passage--somebody could have said:
Wait a minute, I have one more, and he could have gone on all night.
Again, we had to think of a civil process today that would result in
our being able to finish at what would be considered an extremely early
hour.
There was a little different tone to the amendments than what I had
seen before--I think people will agree with that--which was that they
were focused on the actual items in the budget, not on ``gotcha''
amendments. Usually, they say: Well, that person is up, and he has this
little soft spot, so if I throw in this amendment, he will be on
record, probably, having to vote against it, or he will vote for it,
and that can be used against him. Either way, they would be able to use
it. I didn't see those amendments this time, and I appreciate that.
I appreciate my colleagues for their consideration, their
cooperation, and a lot of patience that has gotten us to this point.
I thank Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing the Senators to do their
jobs, to do them in committee, and to do them here on the Senate floor.
This commitment to an open, honest, and transparent legislative process
is crucial to helping Congress restore the trust of the American
people.
I also owe thanks to the outstanding members of the Senate Budget
Committee, who fought so hard and so tenaciously to outline a plan that
could balance the budget over the next 10 years while providing the
tools needed to reform our Tax Code and boost the economy. The
Presiding Officer was a part of that committee, and the Senator who
just finished presiding was a part of that committee. I appreciate the
careful and calculated way they looked at it, provided suggestions,
then asked good questions at hearings and helped to come up with that
budget.
Thanks are due, as well, to the many Members on this side who came
and spoke on the budget's behalf, who offered amendments to make it
better--well, almost always to make it better--and who worked with each
of us and each other to move through the resolution's debate and the
vote process together.
I would also like to focus for a moment on some of the staff who
helped to lead us here. I want to thank the Republican staff of the
Senate Budget Committee. That is Betsy McDonnell, my staff director,
who is relatively new to the position, but you would never know that in
the way she took ahold with her knowledge and friendship among people,
again, on both sides of the aisle. She has been able to work some
wonders to where we had the least votes in a vote-arama that, I think,
we have ever had. That came from her being able to combine some of them
but also in helping them redraft so that they were covering a different
area than somebody else might be covering, which eliminated some of the
repetition.
I want to thank my deputy staff director, Matt Giroux, and Paul
Vinovich, Becky Cole, Thomas Fuller,
[[Page S6633]]
Elizabeth Keys, Joe Brenckle, Jim Neill, Steve Robinson, Greg D'Angelo,
Tom Borck, Richard Berger, Jeremy Dalrymple, David Ditch, Susan
Eckerly, Alison McGuire, Will Morris, Steve Townsend, Kelsie
Wendelberger, and our interns Catherine Konieczny, Jake Whitaker, and
Matt Pfeiffer. They are quite a team that has been doing a lot of work,
both daytime and night and while the Senate has been out of session.
So I would also like to offer a special thank-you to Eric Ueland, who
previously served as my staff director. He has been nominated for a
post within the administration, and he is still waiting for his vote
here, which is being delayed a lot--not just on his but apparently on
all of them.
Eric has played an important role on this committee and throughout
his time in the Senate. Two years ago, Eric was instrumental in helping
Congress approve its first balanced 10-year budget since 2001, which
represented an important step toward putting our country on not just
another course but a better course. He is careful, precise, and dogged
in his work. He has a tremendous knowledge of the history of the Senate
and particularly the budget process. I especially appreciate his
understanding of the complex Senate rules and precedents, along with
the Budget Act. I wish him Godspeed in his next position in service to
our great Nation.
As well, thanks are due to my personal office staff who have to carry
a load because I am not there when I am working on the budget stuff,
but they keep me well informed so we are progressing on some of the
State stuff at the same time. I particularly have to thank my chief of
staff, Tara Shaw, who, because a new administration came in and liked
the employees I had working for me, hired many of them away and we had
to find replacements and she did an outstanding job with that. She has
helped to kind of hold me together during this whole process and gives
me outstanding advice so that I know not only what I am doing but why I
am doing it, and, again, she has a tremendous history of what I have
done before, which helps me as a good reminder. She is an outstanding
chief of staff.
I also want to include my legislative director, Landon Stropko. When
you are the budget chairman and you are worried about some of the
numbers, you can give the legislative director a heart attack because
as budget director you have to vote against some things that have some
unusual numbers to it, but it might be something people in Wyoming are
interested in. We were able to resolve some of those conflicts. I
always support Wyoming, as I mentioned. For anything that happens in
the budget process, there is another process that will actually require
some votes to finish up anything that is in there, and we will see that
everything in there comes out in Wyoming's favor as well as for the
rest of the Nation. I am not trying to do anything partial just to our
part of the country, although a lot of things I work on have to do with
very rural places. We are the least populated State in the Nation, but
we are also the biggest State in the Nation so we have a lot of open
space to invite people to.
I also want to thank Bart Massey, Liz Schwartz, Natalia Riggin,
Aniela Butler, Charlie Carroll, Shawna Newsome, Garnett Decosimo, Chris
Lydon, Aron Wehr, and Dylan Mitchell. I want to thank my Communications
Director, Coy Knobel, our press team, Max D'Onofrio and Rachel Vliem,
and the rest of the Wyoming team.
I have a bunch of people in Wyoming who primarily work on casework
and do an outstanding job doing that.
I also want to thank the Budget Committee's bipartisan staff: Kim
Proctor, Katie Smith, George Woodall, Grace Bruno, and Kevin Walsh, as
well as Celina Inman, who has been on loan to us from the Government
Publishing Office. You can tell around here it takes a lot of
government printing.
We have also been supported by the great work of our leadership, the
floor and cloak room staff. I thank them for their continued good work
and dedication to this institution and the country as a whole.
In particular, I want to thank Sharon Soderstrom, Hazen Marshall,
Jane Lee, and Brendan Dunn in the leader's office; Monica Popp, John
Chapuis, and Emily Kirlin in the whip's office; and very especially
Laura Dove, who really runs this place. She has a history from when her
dad was the Parliamentarian, and I am sure there was dinner table talk
that has led her to know a lot of the precedents. I have seen when
somebody disagreed with her, she was able to just go over and pull out
a manual and turn almost instantly to the page and say: Here it is. She
does an outstanding job of helping us stay on the right track. I also
thank Robert Duncan, Chris Tuck, Megan Mercer, Tony Hanagan, Mike
Smith, Katherine Kilroy, and Chloe Barz in the cloakroom.
I would really be remiss if I didn't thank the Senate
Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, and her team, along with our
bill and amendment clerks who kept us on the straight and narrow, but I
particularly want to point out our Senate Parliamentarian who has to go
through the technical details of every sentence of everything we do.
When you talk about a filing cabinet of ideas all contained in one
place, she does it. She knows precedent. She has been working at it for
a long time. To be Parliamentarian, you have to be somebody who really
likes detail work and pressure because when somebody comes in, they
don't say: Take a look at this, and maybe I will see what you think
next week. No, they want to know right now what you think, and
fortunately she is able to, with a very great personality, say: Not
yet, and then she does her research and comes up with some great
explanations--not ones we always agree with--but great explanations for
any decision she makes, and we really appreciate that.
So you can see that it takes a whole lot of people, and I haven't had
a chance to get the list of the people from the other side of the aisle
who have been working on, in some cases countering what we are doing
and keeping their people informed, but that is the Senate; that is,
there are all these people behind the scenes who are helping to make it
work and to do it right. That is important. We want to do it right.
Now, I think we could work together a lot better if we were able to
work in smaller bites. I get a little upset when we do comprehensive
stuff around here. I have watched so many times when we take a
comprehensive bill and soundly defeat it or maybe narrowly defeat it,
but we defeat it. I figured out, when we do something that ought to be
in separate bites, that this piece loses 5 votes and this piece loses
10 votes and this piece loses 12 votes, and pretty quickly you don't
have a majority anymore, but if you do it in smaller bites, you may
lose 5 votes, lose 12 votes, and it isn't a big deal. Getting it done
would be the big deal. So if people would settle for working one issue
and sticking to that issue and not say: No, I have this amendment that
I know nobody will like, but this is such an important bill, if I could
get it in there, it will make it through and hardly anybody will know--
that is not legislating, and we shouldn't be operating that way. We
should be doing an item at a time, in bite sizes, so the American
people can understand it, and we get it done.
I think a lot of people have done a great job here, including the
pages. It is late, so rather than go on--I made it to after 10 p.m. so
you don't have to have class tomorrow morning. With that, I will close.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Ohio.
Tax Reform
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, as we have just seen, there is no more
decent or honest Senator in the U.S. Senate than the Senator from
Wyoming who just spoke, and that is why we were able to expedite the
process tonight. It may seem like we are here late, but, frankly, we
all expected to be here until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, and instead
we worked things out. He is an example of why we did, both in committee
and on the floor. Senator Enzi was able to work with people, be fair,
honest, and that pays off. It gave everybody a fair shot.
I will also say he has produced a budget that does balance, which I
think most Americans agree with. As he said so well, the budget is a
framework. So the budget itself does not have the specific policies in
it. In fact, those have to go to other committees to be passed and then
will be passed by
[[Page S6634]]
the full Senate and the House and signed into law by the President.
What it does do is it prepares this body to do something really
important and really exciting, and that is the opportunity to reform
our broken Tax Code. It is so important because it will give us a shot
in the arm, in terms of our economy. It will get this economy moving
again, and it is going to help people who have been left behind in this
economy. Really, when we look over the past 15 years, so many people
whom I represent and who are represented by the other Members in this
Chamber have not seen their wages go up. In fact, they have been flat,
and what has gone up are expenses--healthcare expenses more than any,
frankly. It is the biggest single increase people see in their family
budget but also food, medicine, and tuition. We have seen flat wages,
not more take-home pay, and higher expenses.
What we have an opportunity to do in this tax reform bill--that is a
framework, not a mandate--that was made possible by the budget that was
passed tonight is we have set the stage for commonsense tax reform that
is essential to this effort to grow our economy and create more and
better jobs and increased wages for middle-class Americans.
We heard a lot of discussion about it adding to the deficit. I will
just add to what has been said already. If we do this tax reform right,
it will not add to the deficit. In fact, I strongly believe it will
reduce the deficit over the next 10 years. Why do I say that?
I am going to talk for a second about some of the things that are in
good pro-growth tax reform that we are planning to implement that will
actually grow the economy that will result in more economic activity
and more revenue coming into the Treasury.
If you assume, as the Congressional Budget Office does, that we are
only going to grow this economy 1.9 percent, which is a pretty paltry
amount over the next 10 years--way below what the average has been for
the past 30 years--then let's say all this tax reform we are doing only
grows the economy by a little bit more. Let's say .4 percent. So
instead of 1.9 percent, let's grow the economy at 2.3 percent. That is
a conservative estimate, I believe, based on the kinds of things we are
talking about. That will mean we actually not only have a revenue-
neutral tax proposal, but we begin paying back some of the national
debt by having the deficit, once again, as it was in the years 2000 and
2001, be on a unified basis at a zero deficit.
This is an exciting opportunity to help people be able to seek their
goals in life but also to actually help with regard to the budget
deficit. I agree with the chairman on that. I think we have an
opportunity, if we do the right tax relief, to really help to get the
budget deficit down.
How does this comprehensive tax reform help the middle class? We
talked a little bit about this today. Some offered amendments. I
offered one with regard to the business tax side of things, but I think
it does it in three ways. First, it immediately helps the family budget
by cutting middle-class taxes. So everything that has been laid out in
terms of the proposals tonight on the tax side, we can talk about the
fact that for families who are working families in this country who are
making $30, $40, $50, $60,000 a year, those folks will see a reduction
in their taxes which will help the family budget.
The Tax Code, of course, is very complicated, too burdensome. One
thing we are proposing is to double the standard deduction. That means
for people who take the deduction now--and about two-thirds of the
people I represent do--they will be able to have a doubling of that,
from $12,000 for a family to up to $24,000 for a family. That is a 0
tax bracket for the first $24,000 in income. That is significant
middle-class tax relief.
Second, we are going to expand the child tax credit. That is really
important, not just to provide relief but to help families with kids be
able to afford childcare.
Finally, we will adjust the bracket so people who are beyond the
standard deduction, double or nothing, and who don't take advantage of
the child tax credit also get tax relief.
So these are ways in which folks are going to see immediate help for
the family budget, but it is more than that. It is more than that.
I think, frankly, the most significant part of this reform is going
to be giving the economy that shot in the arm and helping to increase
jobs and improve wages. That is going to happen, I think, through the
business tax relief that we have talked about. First, with regard to
smaller companies, the so-called passthrough companies, about three-
quarters of the companies in America pay their taxes as individuals.
This is the corner drugstore; this is the small manufacturing business
in your town. Those folks are going to see a reduction in their taxes
on their business income so they can invest more in that business and
create more jobs, and a lot of the growth is going to come from these
smaller businesses. That is the 25-percent rate people are talking
about as compared to, say, a 35-percent or higher rate for individuals.
That is something that is fair, in part because we are also going to
lower the rates for people who are in the larger businesses. These are
the C corporations that are being talked about. That rate has to come
down. If it does not, America will continue to lose jobs and investment
overseas, and that is what is happening right now.
Just in the last 24 hours, another major American company announced
that they are inverting; in other words, they are going overseas. Why?
Because of the Tax Code. It is amazing that the Tax Code that this
Congress is responsible for improving is so bad that people are
actually voting with their feet and leaving the country and taking jobs
and investment with them. We have done research on this, we have had
investigations on this, and we know what is happening. We know, as an
example, that because of our Tax Code, there are almost 5,000--4,700
companies just in the last 13 years that have become foreign companies
that otherwise would be American companies. Think about that. That is
the Ernst & Young study we recently saw. This is amazing. We know for a
fact that it is not just about these companies leaving America and
going to other countries and doing these so-called inversions--becoming
a foreign company--but it is also foreign companies coming here and
taking over U.S. companies, and, again, what is happening here is that
jobs and investment are going overseas.
Why is this? Well, it is for a couple of reasons. One is that
American companies now have the highest tax rate in all of the
industrialized world. So the 35-percent tax rate you hear about, that
is a high rate compared to every other country in the world that we do
business with. That is a negative, but it is also how we tax. We tax in
a way that discourages us from bringing profits back to America to the
point that, unbelievably, there is between $2.5 trillion and $3
trillion--and some say more--of earnings stuck overseas, locked out of
America, which could come back here to expand plants, equipment, and
jobs, to actually get this economy moving. This is a huge opportunity
for us. We don't want to see these companies go offshore. We want to
see them come back.
Trade policy is important. Regulations are important. Worker
retraining programs are important. Healthcare cost containment is
important. But nothing is more important than fixing this broken Tax
Code if we are going to see the kind of economic growth and improvement
in wages that we all hope for.
There have been a lot of studies done on this, and they say that we
haven't changed our code since the mid-1980s, but every other one of
our competitors have. They have all lowered their rates, and they have
all gone to a system of taxation that is more efficient to get this
money back to their countries.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan was President. He made some great changes.
That was 31 years ago. Things have changed a lot since then. By the
way, back then Pete Rose was still playing for my Cincinnati Reds. That
is how long ago it was.
It is time for us to update this Tax Code, to modernize it, and to
bring back those jobs and that investment. We can do it. We can do it
because of what happened tonight. This creates the framework for us to
able to do this.
In a recent business roundtable survey of 150 American companies--
these are the CEOs--82 percent said that tax
[[Page S6635]]
reform that we are talking about will prompt them to increase capital
spending. Three-quarters of them--76 percent--said that it is going to
increase hiring. And with this reduced tax burden, businesses are going
to have the money to invest in their workers.
I will tell you, with the tighter job market that is out there now as
the economy has begun to improve, this will increase competition for
workers, and this will increase wages. We know that is going to happen.
Every economist agrees that this kind of tax reform is going to
change behavior. Some might think it doesn't improve the economy as
much as others do, but everyone believes this will incentivize us to
create more jobs and improve wages here in the United States of
America.
There is a group called the Congressional Budget Office, a
nonpartisan group up here that we work with. They have a study that
says that as much as 70 percent of the benefit from that lower
corporate rate is going to go to the workers in terms of higher wages,
better benefits. That is the way we are going to help the middle class
also--not just with regard to the tax relief directly but with regard
to helping to improve job creation and increase wages. So I am excited
about this. I think it can happen. I think it is something that is long
overdue.
I think it is something, frankly, that should be bipartisan. This was
what the Simpson-Bowles proposal, which was a totally bipartisan
proposal, said we ought to do. In fact, they took the top rate down to
28 percent--lower than anybody is talking about here. But they said
that we should go to this kind of taxation we are talking about in
terms of international businesses, in terms of corporations, in terms
of creating jobs.
Two years ago, I worked with Chuck Schumer, who is now the Democratic
leader here in the U.S. Senate, and we were asked to cochair a working
group on taxation--particularly folks on the international side--and we
came up with a consensus, which said that we have to fix this broken
Tax Code. It is not working, and we need to bring this money back. We
need to bring these jobs back by going through this kind of system we
are talking about, a so-called territorial system. In the past, this
has been bipartisan, and my hope is it can be again.
Yes, the budget provides the framework for us to get this done, not
on a 60-vote basis but a 50-vote basis. But we should do it with more
than 60 votes. We welcome input from our Democratic colleagues. I
believe, in the end, this will be bipartisan because I do believe that
the vast majority of Americans out there, as they understand this tax
reform proposal will say: Yes, I think middle-class tax relief makes
sense, and, yes, I think we should be bringing back the jobs and the
investment to this country. I think that is going to be something that
Members will hear across this country and across this aisle. When they
do, I believe we will have the opportunity to have the kind of
commonsense, bipartisan tax reform we need in this country. We need to
do it to be able to have a thriving American middle class, and we need
to do it to have a stronger America.
I am excited about this opportunity. I look forward to working with
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Mr. President, I yield back my time on that, but I have another
matter that I need to do, the closing business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
____________________