[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 188 (Thursday, November 16, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7281-S7283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Republican Tax Plan

  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise today to make a simple request of 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. When it comes to the tax 
legislation that Republican colleagues are rushing through Congress, 
please stop, slow down, and let's start over together.
  We need real tax reform with clear policy goals that will make our 
Nation more competitive, not a partisan attempt to pass something--
anything--that can get 51 Republican votes in the Senate. Our shared 
policy goals should be making the Tax Code fairer, simpler, and 
fiscally responsible. If we can achieve these goals, that would be real 
tax reform.
  If we worked together, we could take long overdue steps and build a 
tax code that lets working families in Michigan and across the country 
keep more of their hard-earned money, levels the playing field for our 
small businesses, and keeps good jobs here at home in the United 
States. Fairer, simpler, responsible--those are three key points making 
a tax code that works. If we don't start over, I am afraid the current 
tax legislation will fail on all three accounts.
  First, this tax legislation is not fair. It dramatically moves toward 
benefiting the wealthiest people in this Nation, with only a little 
sliver of the benefits going to working-class families.
  The Republican tax bill was clearly written to cut rates for CEOs and 
large corporations and treats the middle class like an afterthought. I 
would argue that working Americans who are struggling with stagnant 
wages--while the cost of prescription drugs, college, and housing 
continue to rise--need tax cuts that are built around them.
  Instead, we are looking at a Republican tax plan that repeals the 
alternative minimum tax--a fail-safe designed specifically to make sure 
that wealthy Americans cannot deduct their way to paying nothing in 
taxes. From what little we have seen of President Trump's tax returns, 
we know that the AMT--the alternative minimum tax--is the only reason 
he paid income taxes at all. The Republican bill will eliminate the 
AMT, and President Trump and folks like him will receive a huge 
windfall and may not have to pay any taxes at all--zero.
  Wall Street loves this bill, too, because hedge funds will continue 
to be taxed at lower rates than small businesses in our local 
communities. This means many hedge fund managers making millions of 
dollars will have a lower tax rate than an office assistant working at 
their firm. Simply put, this proposal fails on the test of making the 
Tax Code fairer.
  I also believe this effort fails on the test of making the code 
simpler. For small business owners back in Michigan, they want to spend 
their time doing what they know best, which is running their business, 
not spending days or weeks trying to figure out the taxes they owe. 
But, as many of my colleagues in the Finance Committee have pointed out 
throughout this week, the provisions for a small business passthrough 
serve only to make a complicated tax code even more complicated--yes, 
even more complicated.
  Expert analysis says that the passthrough provisions will require 
years of rulemakings and thousands of pages of additional rules and 
regulations. As a small business owner, unless your hobby is studying 
the Internal Revenue Code, this bill is going to make your life a whole 
lot more difficult.
  Finally, on the last test, the test of whether or not this bill is 
responsible, this proposal fails miserably. Writing responsible tax 
legislation means making hard choices--closing loopholes and balancing 
out the pros and cons of any action.
  Congress has the responsibility to take seriously the threat of a 
growing national debt, and we have to think about this when changing 
our Tax Code. But instead of working to reduce our debt, which we are 
passing on to our children and grandchildren, this proposal actually 
adds more than $1 trillion to our deficit. And it would be even more 
expensive, but in a haphazard attempt to limit the cost, the majority 
has put forward a bill where hundreds of millions of dollars of 
provisions that middle-class families could use to reduce their taxes 
expire at random times over the next few years.
  When you add it all up and factor in the additional interest costs to 
carry this new debt, you have a proposal that adds over $2 trillion to 
the Federal debt, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a 
Responsible Federal Budget. It is wildly irresponsible to pile on this 
debt to finance a tax break for the wealthiest people in this country, 
but it doesn't have to be that way.
  Tax reform can be bipartisan. The goal of tax reform must be fairer, 
simpler, and responsible. This isn't just idealism or wishful thinking. 
We have seen it happen before. When Ronald Reagan worked with Congress 
to pass tax reform in 1986, the bill received 97 votes in the U.S. 
Senate--yes, 97 votes. That is the sort of bipartisan approach we need, 
and we need to start working on that now.
  Michiganders--and all Americans--deserve a tax code that is fairer, 
simpler, and more responsible, not more multinational corporate 
giveaways and more debt.
  I will not stop fighting for hard-working American families and small 
businesses who deserve to see more take-home pay, and I hope my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join me.

[[Page S7282]]

  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that upon the 
conclusion of my remarks, the Senator from Rhode Island be recognized.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concern 
with the tax reform bill that the Senate Finance Committee is likely to 
approve later this week. The latest version of this massive tax bill, 
which will impact every single American, was only released to the 
public late Tuesday night. Less than 48 hours later, the Finance 
Committee is ramming through this bill on a party-line vote without any 
hearings and without a thorough review of the bill.
  I strongly disagree with the closed-door process of developing the 
substance of a bill which skews the benefits to the wealthy at the 
expense of middle-class families and with this bill's irresponsible 
cost of $1.7 trillion over 10 years. I also want to tell my colleagues 
and the President that there is still an opportunity for us to do the 
right thing and to work together on tax reform.
  We should follow the example of the last time there was successful 
tax reform enacted by Congress. This was led by Republican President 
Ronald Reagan, Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, and Members 
of Congress from both parties, who worked together back in 1986 to pass 
major tax reform legislation. Sure, they had strong disagreements, but 
they held lengthy public debates, compromised on both sides of the 
aisle, and eventually passed a major tax reform bill that was 
bipartisan, was fair, and did not add to our deficits and national 
debt.
  For some reason, my Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten the 
example of the last time the Congress actually passed tax reform. It 
happened because both parties worked together. It happened because both 
parties compromised. And while I believe there is still time for us to 
undertake this approach, what we are seeing right now is the exact 
opposite. I think that is a big mistake.
  When I am on the train back to Wilmington or when I am at home in my 
State of Delaware hearing from my constituents, my message about this 
bill is simple: I am worried what this bill will do to our fiscal 
health as a country and the middle class, and you should be too.
  Let me start by quoting a story from the Washington Post today whose 
headline reads ``Senate tax bill cuts taxes of wealthy and hikes taxes 
on families earning under $75,000 over a decade.'' Let me repeat that. 
The Senate tax bill cuts the taxes of the wealthy and hikes taxes on 
families earning under $75,000. The story is based on a report from the 
nonpartisan Joint Commission on Taxation which shows that the claims 
from President Trump and my Republican colleagues that this bill is all 
about tax relief for the middle class are simply wrong.
  I will quote from this story:

       By the year 2027, Americans earning $30,000 to $75,000 a 
     year--

  Solidly middle-class folks--

     would also be forced to pay more in taxes even though people 
     earning over $100,000 would continue to get substantial tax 
     cuts.

  Unfortunately, though, that is not the end of my concerns with this 
legislation. I am also alarmed by how much this bill would add to our 
Nation's budget deficits and by the long-term impacts it would have on 
our debt.
  According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, this tax 
bill--this Republican-only tax bill--will cost over $1.7 trillion over 
10 years. That is $1.7 trillion with a ``t.'' What happened to my 
colleagues who spent years talking about the danger posed by a growing 
national debt? Now these very same Senators and Representatives are 
willing to put almost $2 trillion on our Nation's credit card. It is an 
astounding figure--more than twice as large as the emergency stimulus 
package Congress passed in 2009 to prevent the next Great Depression. 
It is more than twice as much as the much maligned so-called bailout 
that Congress authorized to prevent the collapse of the financial 
system.
  What does $1.7 trillion buy us? What is the great return on 
investment that would justify borrowing $1.7 trillion--mostly from 
China--in a time of near record-low unemployment? The Speaker of the 
House, Paul Ryan, publicly bragged that their tax plan would produce 1 
million jobs. That sounds good but not when you consider the cost. My 
math may not be great, but if you spend $1.7 trillion to get 1 million 
jobs, that is $1.5 million per job. That is not a great return on 
investment.

  To add insult to injury, the majority believes they can use this bill 
to also cut access to healthcare for millions of Americans because they 
have decided at the last moment to include a repeal of the Affordable 
Care Act's individual mandate--a critical part of that bill--law, which 
helps ensure a healthy risk pool, which, in turn, lowers premiums.
  Those who actually work in healthcare know this is a bad idea. That 
is why the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family 
Physicians, the American Hospital Association, and America's Health 
Insurance Plans have all come out against the inclusion of the 
individual mandate repeal in this bill, saying that ``eliminating the 
individual mandate by itself likely will result in a significant 
increase in premiums, which would substantially increase the number of 
uninsured Americans.''
  The nonpartisan CBO agrees. They found that repealing the mandate 
will cause 13 million people to lose their healthcare by 2027, and 
average premiums would increase about 10 percent each year.
  The inclusion of the mandate repeal to pay for corporate tax cuts 
will hurt middle-class families across our country. It is politics at 
its worst, throwing aside the needs of our constituents to ensure that 
a small group of the wealthy get wealthy. That is because the core of 
this bill is based on a promise proven false time and again--that tax 
cuts for the richest Americans and most profitable corporations will 
somehow trickle down to help the majority of working Americans. We know 
that is not how our economy has actually worked. Even President 
Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, said yesterday that this 
bill isn't going to increase wages for the middle class.
  The Senate bill proposes we cut the top corporate rate nearly in 
half; exempt more wealthy individuals from the estate tax, which 
impacts only the top 0.2 percent of Americans; repeal the alternative 
minimum tax, which affects those making hundreds of thousands annually; 
and cut tax rates for those earning over $1 million.
  Altogether, the core elements of this plan amount to $1.7 trillion in 
tax cuts, and my Republican colleagues are simply asking us to trust 
them that the benefits will somehow reach the middle class.
  If that isn't enough to prove that this bill being rushed through in 
today's markup is bad policy, my colleagues in the majority went one 
step further in this latest version by eliminating all tax breaks for 
middle-class families in 8 years while making the tax cuts for 
corporations permanent. This means that millions of middle-class 
families will see a tax hike in the future in order to fund permanency 
for corporate tax breaks. That is just not right.
  So here is what I think we should do. Let's slow down. Let's work 
together, Republicans and Democrats, to pass a bill that is actually 
good for all Americans. I believe we can get that done. I think it is 
our job and our duty. We don't have to start from scratch. There are 
bipartisan ideas. There are introduced, bipartisan tax bills that could 
make our code simpler and fairer and more effective.
  I will mention two examples of bills I have introduced--one with 
Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito and another with Republican 
Senator Pat Roberts--that encourage manufacturers to use made-in-
America parts and incentivize companies that invent something here to 
make it here. I have introduced another bill with Republican Senator 
Jerry Moran--it has eight bipartisan cosponsors--and with Republican 
Congressman Ted Poe that would alter the Tax Code to boost

[[Page S7283]]

every aspect of the American energy industry, from oil and gas to the 
latest renewable and clean energy technologies. These are just a few 
ideas, but they represent a simple truth: that we can and should work 
together on tax reform instead of making this one more pointless, 
partisan battle.
  The same thing is true for our healthcare system. The American people 
have overwhelmingly said they want a bipartisan and open process to fix 
healthcare, not a one-party scheme by either party that throws our 
system into chaos with no plan to replace it.
  I encourage President Trump and Republican leaders to stop trying to 
pass tax reform with only Republicans and to reach across the aisle to 
work with Democrats and pass something we can all get behind.