[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 171 (Tuesday, October 24, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6720-S6721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REPUBLICAN TAX PLAN

  Mr. SCHUMER. Probably most of all, when we talk about the President, 
it is time to stop tweeting and start leading on taxes. Mr. President, 
it is time to start really engaging with the substance of the tax plan 
that your staff and congressional Republicans have put together 
because, Mr. President, your rhetoric does not match the reality on the 
tax bill.
  The President has been selling his tax plan as a boon for the middle 
class. He told a group of truckers earlier this month that his tax plan 
is ``a middle-class bill.'' He said: ``The biggest winners will be 
everyday American workers.'' In his words, the Republican tax plan 
would bring about a ``middle-class miracle.''
  President Trump, I urge you to look closely at the tax plan that your 
staff and congressional Republicans have put together. Ask the advisers 
around you what about this tax plan benefits the middle class and the 
everyday American worker more than the wealthy and the powerful, 
because trickle-down, if that is the only thing that benefits the 
middle class in your thinking, doesn't work. No one believes in 
trickle-down anymore except a small group of very wealthy business 
people who have undue influence on the Republican Party and, I hope, 
not on you, Mr. President.
  Let's look at this plan that supposedly is a middle-class plan. It 
repeals the estate tax. That applies to a small number of families with 
estates over $5 million. It lowers the rate on passthrough entities. 
That benefits wealthy law firms and hedge fund managers so they can pay 
less in taxes than the average citizen. It lowers the top rate while 
raising the bottom one. The cut in the corporate rate would hardly help 
the American worker. This is trickle-down. Our Republican colleagues 
don't talk about trickle-down because they know most of America doesn't 
believe in it.
  Our corporations are flush with cash already. They are flush with 
cash. Giving them more cash is not going to change their behavior. What 
are they doing with this cash? Most of the large corporations are not 
creating jobs with the cash they now have. Stock dividends, stock 
buybacks, dividends, increases in CEO salaries--that is where it goes. 
So this bill is not a middle-class bill. I believe the President 
believes it is. You have to read it. No more tweeting, no more 
superficiality--read the bill. Don't let your advisers just walk in and 
say: Mr. President, it is a great, middle-class bill, and you just let 
them go by.
  It has already been shown--not just by me but by many others--that 
Mnuchin and Cohen don't tell the truth about this bill, and they know 
better. The Tax Policy Center said that the top 1 percent of our 
country will reap 80 percent of the benefits from this plan. They also 
said, Mr. President, that it is a middle-class bill. According to the 
Tax Policy Center--no one has disputed it--a third of all middle-class 
taxpayers will see their taxes go up. Is that a middle-class tax bill, 
Mr. President, one in which taxes go up, not down, on nearly 30 percent 
of middle-class taxpayers?

[[Page S6721]]

  Now, if this is such a middle-class tax plan, then, why do 
Republicans here on the Hill keep floating new middle-class deductions 
to cut--the very deductions on which the middle class depends. First, 
it was the mortgage deduction and, then, the elimination of State and 
local deductibility, which made it into the plan. Now they are even 
talking about capping pretax contributions to 401(k) plans.
  There are such huge tax breaks for the wealthy and such a huge 
deficit hole that the tax writers have no choice but to raise taxes on 
the middle class and cut deductions. Even the great doubling of the 
standard deduction, Mr. President, is undone by the elimination of the 
personal deduction. If you are a family of three, you break even. If 
you are a family of four, you lose money even before they cut the other 
deductions.

  Now, on State and local, in many Republican districts in the House, 
in many of our Republican colleagues' States, over 30 percent--
certainly, 20 percent, and the lowest number is 17--of taxpayers would 
use that deduction. Eliminating the State and local deduction is a 
dagger to the heart of the middle class, Mr. President. You should tell 
your tax writers in the House and Senate to take it out of the bill.
  Here is what PricewaterhouseCoopers just found out. Home values would 
go down 10 percent if we eliminated the State and local deduction. 
Homes are the piece of the rock for the middle class. People wait and 
struggle and pay every month so they can own their own home free and 
clear, and then that value declines because we eliminated State and 
local deductibility. Every homeowner is affected, even those who take 
the standard deduction.
  If this were such a middle-class plan, I would say this to the 
President: Why wouldn't Republicans on the Hill scrap the repeal of the 
estate tax, which only benefits the very rich--not one drop goes to the 
middle class--instead of looking for more middle-class deductions, like 
the 401(k), to reduce or eliminate?
  President Trump says he wants to do a middle-class bill, but if the 
only benefit to the middle class is this trickle-down theory, it is not 
a middle-class bill at all.
  We Democrats have said all along that we want to update our Tax Code 
to provide middle-class tax relief. My caucus wants to provide tax 
relief to small businesses, not to big corporations. They are the ones 
that need the money to create jobs, not the big corporations who are 
flush with money.
  Incidentally, as for AT&T, which is leading the charge for this tax 
cut, their average tax rate over the last 10 years was 8 percent, and 
they eliminated 80,000 jobs. So much for the idea that when you pay a 
low tax rate you are creating jobs.
  So we offer this to the President: Come work with Democrats on a real 
middle-class tax bill. The plan your advisers put together with 
Republicans on the Hill doesn't do what you say it does. We can put 
together a tax bill in a bipartisan way that actually gets the job done 
for the middle class and that tells the rich corporate leaders and 
financiers that they shouldn't be in control of the bill, which they 
are now, and you, Mr. President, are going along wittingly or 
unwittingly. Either way is no good for you, no good for your party, and 
no good, most of all, for America.

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