[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.
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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.