[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 186 (Tuesday, November 14, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H9181-H9182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              GOP TAX BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I was here when Democrats and Republicans 
came together to enact bipartisan tax reform in 1986. We paid for our 
tax overhaul and never once asked future generations to foot the bill.
  President Trump said in July that tax reform is, and I quote, ``going 
to be easy.'' I will admit that, to someone like him who is new to 
government and who may not understand fully how Congress works, what we 
achieved in 1986 may, in hindsight, appear to have been easy. It 
wasn't.
  It was difficult because it required compromise; it was difficult 
because it required trust; and it was difficult because it required 
both parties to make tough choices and share the burden of taking 
responsibility, along with the benefit of claiming victory.
  Somewhere along the way, Mr. Speaker, it seems that many in the 
Republican Party lost sight of this truth. First on healthcare, and now 
on taxes, they have decided that it would be easier not to work with 
Democrats at all, so they have chosen a partisan path, where the only 
ones with whom they have to compromise are themselves. It is ``going to 
be easy,'' they said.
  And the result: We now expect, on this floor, a bill so dangerous and 
so reprehensible to the taxpayers of this country that nearly every 
major organization representing taxpayers, small businesses, workers, 
farmers, seniors, home builders, realtors, teachers--and I could go 
on--oppose this bill.
  There are more serious problems with the Republican tax bill than 
time to address them on this floor, so I want to highlight the three 
that make it so utterly dangerous to our economy and to the middle 
class.
  First, most of the benefits of the tax cuts Republicans are proposing 
will benefit only those at the very top 1 percent; the 99 percent left 
behind. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's latest 
analysis, under the Republican plan, 47 percent of the tax cuts will 
benefit that top 1 percent, just 1.2 million households making more 
than $900,000 a year.
  Let me repeat: the top 1 percent will get nearly half of all the tax 
cuts in this bill, and 50 percent for the 99 percent.
  Second, the Republican plan raises taxes on 36 million middle class 
families. That is not what the Speaker said it was going to do. He said 
he would give everybody a tax cut. That was not true, and is not true. 
36 million middle class American households will see their taxes go up 
over the next 10 years as a result of this Republican plan.
  And third, the Republican plan will explode the debt by more than 
$1.7 trillion over the next decade. This bill is the granddaddy of all 
debt creators. This means that those tax cuts, more than half of which 
benefit only the top 1.5 percent, will be paid for by a huge tax 
increase on our children and on our grandchildren.
  The late Senator Russell Long from Louisiana liked to cite an old 
ditty about who gets stuck with the pain of tax increase. He said: 
``Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree,'' 
meaning, of course, that none of the voters want a tax increase, so if 
you raise taxes, make sure it is someone else who is out of sight and 
out of mind.
  In this case, sadly, Mr. Speaker, that fellow behind the tree is a 
child. This is a tax increase on all those children. It is a child who 
can't vote and doesn't have a voice in this debate.
  The Republican plan asks Members to pile $1.7 trillion or more of 
debt onto our children and grandchildren and put the fiscal 
sustainability of our country at further risk. When confronted with 
this fact, we heard only the same arguments we heard in 2001 and 2003, 
before the last major Republican effort to cut taxes precipitated the 
worst recession in our memory and a period of severe budget tightening 
that led to disinvestment in our country under the threat of 
sequestration.
  That argument, flawed and false, is that these tax cuts will grow the 
economy so much that the ensuing growth will magically erase all the 
deficits we know their plan will accrue.
  So easy, Mr. Speaker, so easy. The cuts will simply pay for 
themselves, we

[[Page H9182]]

are told. We have been told that before, of course. The cycle repeats: 
Republican promises that tax cuts will pay for themselves, followed by 
massive deficits, 189 percent increase in the deficit under Ronald 
Reagan, followed by Republicans insisting that we respond with austere 
cuts to investments in our people and in our opportunity. So easily 
they forget.
  But middle class Americans will not forget who is responsible when 
their taxes go up, when their tax increases pay for tax cuts for the 
top 1 percent, and when, in the years ahead, more and more investments 
need to be cut to pay the interest on the debt under which this plan 
will bury the children and grandchildren of America.

  And all because my colleagues across the aisle wanted to skip out on 
doing what they knew would be hard, just as they did when former Ways 
and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp introduced his comprehensive tax 
reform that was responsibly paid for. That is Dave Camp, Republican, 
State of Michigan. He is retired now, but he offered a responsible 
bill, and it was not even considered by his committee.
  He asked his colleagues to do something hard, of course, but they 
dismissed it, dismissed it out of hand, because it would have required 
hashing out a difficult compromise. But easy is no synonym for 
successful.
  President Kennedy told us that we choose these things, that is, 
tackling our greatest challenges, ``not because they are easy, but 
because they are hard.''
  So I ask my Republican friends--no, I urge them, set aside this 
dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible bill. Instead, let's choose the 
hard path that involves hard choices and trust and all of those things 
that made tax reform successful in 1986, which are the missing elements 
in this flawed bill.
  Mr. Speaker, Democrats are ready to sit down with you and work on 
this challenge, together. It won't be easy, that is a promise, but if 
we do it together, if we do it in a way that doesn't balloon the debt 
or raise taxes on the middle class, we have a chance to do it right. 
Let's take that chance.

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