[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 193 (Tuesday, November 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7346-S7348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this week we are engaged in what is 
perhaps the most momentous subject that we haven't dealt with in recent 
times, and that is, after 30 years, updating and reforming our Nation's 
convoluted, complex, and self-destructive Tax Code.
  Those who are interested in getting to yes and who will cast a 
``yes'' vote, I believe, will be casting a vote for growing the 
economy, voting for more jobs, voting for higher wages, and voting for 
more take-home pay. Those who vote against this endeavor are really 
saying yes to stagnant wages, less jobs, and a lower standard of 
living. They are willing to accept the reality that American jobs are 
going overseas because our country has the highest Tax Code in the 
civilized world, and bringing the money earned overseas back home 
basically means having to pay double taxes. So what people do is they 
do what you would logically do, and they spend the money overseas and 
hire foreign workers in foreign countries rather than Americans and 
make things stamped ``Made in America.''

  Simply stated, this bill is about the dreamers and the doers, the 
small businesses and the hard-working American families who need tax 
cuts and tax reform. This is about helping the middle class.
  Actually, what this bill does--the Senate version of the bill--is it 
reduces the tax burden on every tax-paying cohort. In other words, all 
of the tax rates come down. In order to do that, both on the personal 
side and the business side, we had to eliminate a lot of what I call 
the underbrush, which are the tax deductions, the tax credits, and the 
other subsidies that have made our Tax Code so incomprehensible to 
everybody other than accountants and lawyers. That is one reason people 
are so frustrated with our Tax Code--it costs them so much money just 
to comply with their legal obligations.
  It has been a long time since we took up this important topic, and I 
know the reaction is, well, this is just another going-through-the-
motions effort, but I assure you that is not the case. These reforms 
are not only possible, they are very important because they will 
positively impact real people's lives.
  Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute has said that 
``some believe that taxation is a dry topic

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with no moral significance, but nothing could be further from the 
truth.'' For example, by doubling the standard deduction, we will limit 
the number of people who have to itemize their tax deductions in order 
to claim the full legal deduction. That means that now only 1 out of 
every 10 taxpayers will have to itemize and 9 out of 10 will just claim 
the standard deduction, which will now be doubled.
  We are also going to double the child tax credit, which will help 
working families provide the things they need in order to take care of 
their growing families. It will mean that more people will have more 
money left over after paying Uncle Sam to spend on their own families, 
to invest in their children's education, maybe to even take the first 
vacation they have taken in 10 years or more.
  Mr. President, $2,200 is what a median family of four will save in 
taxes under our proposal. Maybe they want to get their pickup truck 
fixed. Maybe they want to build a little financial cushion because they 
have been living paycheck to paycheck. I can't remember the precise 
statistic, but the number of people in America who could not meet their 
financial needs if they experienced an unexpected $400 cost--maybe your 
car broke down, or maybe your house flooded, whatever the case may be. 
We need people to be able to keep more of what they earn and build a 
cushion so they don't have to live with the anxiety of living paycheck 
to paycheck, knowing that if the unexpected happens, it could put them 
in deep trouble. That $2,200 a year could mean a couple hundred dollars 
each month to put toward your mortgage, to pay down your mortgage, or 
to provide a little breathing room.
  This plan is also designed to increase wages, and it is estimated 
that the combined benefit of this bill, together with the economic 
growth we are anticipating, could mean as much as $4,000 in additional 
income. So it not only lowers the tax burden, but it raises the income 
levels. Frankly, as I mentioned a moment ago, our Tax Code incentivizes 
American businesses to send jobs overseas. Why in the world wouldn't we 
want to incentivize them to bring those jobs back home and invest here?
  Not only can we make this Tax Code better, but I want to emphasize 
why we should. We have a historic opportunity, and we shouldn't 
squander our chances to take a bit of the pressure off of frustrated 
workers and struggling families who are trying to make ends meet.
  This country has long been a leader in the world, with the strongest 
economy and the strongest people, but the reality is, our Tax Code is 
no longer a world leader. As I indicated earlier, we have one of the 
highest tax rates in the world, particularly for businesses. So what 
happens when countries like Ireland or the United Kingdom lower their 
tax rates for businesses? Well, those businesses move to those 
countries. People who want to start a new business say: Well, if I have 
a choice where to start that business, why should I start that business 
in a country that punishes us with the highest tax rate in the world?
  The current tax system penalizes success by taxing American ingenuity 
and hard work at rates that are uncompetitive, and it discourages our 
free enterprise system. What I mean is that it sends messages to 
Americans like, don't work so hard because, you know what, you are not 
working for yourself, you are working for the government. We ought to 
be sending the message that by working harder, you can keep more of 
what you earn and spend it the way you see fit.
  Companies, of course, have no particular loyalty to our country, so 
they don't really have a need to stick around because they are going to 
go to countries where they can make the most profit, where they can 
keep more of what they earn.
  My basic point is that the messages our convoluted and archaic Tax 
Code is sending are counterproductive. They are counterproductive to 
workers who are looking for jobs, they are counterproductive to workers 
who are looking for a little more in their paychecks, and they are 
counterproductive to families who want to save and provide for their 
own future.
  In 2016, the Tax Policy Center projected that almost 44 percent of 
Americans will pay no or negative individual income tax for 2017 under 
current law, and some smaller number even get more money back from the 
government in the form of refundable tax credits than they pay in 
taxes. We need to make sure that everybody participates in our 
government.
  One thing I have heard a lot during this tax debate is that America 
is horribly in debt. Sadly, that is true. But it is not because of our 
Tax Code. It is not because Americans aren't taxed enough. It is not 
because we spend too much money defending our country against threats 
here at home and abroad. It is because we have a spending problem.

  Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues, who suddenly got religion 
when it comes to deficits and debt after doubling the national debt 
during the Obama administration, want to use this as a reason not to 
cut the taxes for hard-working American families, and I think it is 
terribly misplaced.
  Is the deficit important? Is debt important? Yes, it is, and we know 
what we need to do to fix that. But denying the American people and 
hard-working American families the tax relief they need and deserve and 
failing to get the economy growing again is the wrong way to do it.
  Let me quote from Arthur Brooks again. He said: ``If income tax rates 
are 100 percent, income tax revenue will be zero. Why? Because with a 
100-percent tax rate, nobody will bother to work. And companies won't 
produce'' either.
  On corporate taxes, we are seeing a lot of hypocrisy from our friends 
across the aisle who had previously championed some of the very 
provisions we have included in this legislation. For example, the 
ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, our Democratic friend 
from Oregon, had previously championed a 24-percent corporate rate 
because he recognized that a 35-percent corporate rate chased 
companies, businesses, and jobs overseas. Now he calls our reduction in 
corporate taxes a giveaway to corporations. You could consider the 
statements made by President Barack Obama in 2011 when he said to a 
joint session of Congress--he said that one of the things Republicans 
and Democrats need to do together is to work on lowering the corporate 
tax rate because he, too, recognized that this was self-destructive, 
that it was chasing jobs overseas, that it was preventing the U.S. 
Treasury from collecting its taxes, and frankly that it was hurting the 
bottom line for American families who maybe couldn't find work or whose 
work was not rewarded with fatter paychecks and more take-home pay.
  For corporate taxes, economists have said that actually lowering the 
corporate tax rate will bring more investment and more jobs back home. 
If it were lowered, expanded production and investment would increase 
domestically.
  Even though it might seem a little counterintuitive, Barack Obama; 
the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden; and the minority leader, Senator 
Schumer from New York, were correct when they called for lowering the 
corporate rate, and it is unseemly to now try to demagogue this issue 
by calling it a giveaway when it is not. We are doing what they said we 
should do years ago.
  When it comes to these corporate rates, some of my colleagues have 
raised concerns about passthrough businesses. It is true that a number 
of businesses operate here in America not as corporations but as 
passthrough entities, meaning that they pay their business income on an 
individual tax return. These concerns are legitimate, and we have 
worked hard to try to address them.
  Earlier, we were working with the National Federation of Independent 
Business, which is one of the largest trade associations in the country 
representing small- and medium-sized passthrough businesses. We were 
able to come up with a solution which addressed their concerns and 
which benefits those passthrough businesses. We still have some more 
work to do, but that demonstrates what we can do when working together 
to try to answer the concerns people have raised along the way during 
this legislative process.
  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent 
Business, which I mentioned a moment ago, and nearly all major small 
business advocacy groups support this legislation. We had a press 
conference

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here in the Senate, just off the floor, earlier this morning, and it 
was uniform--everybody said this is good for small businesses. And 
small businesses are what create the vast majority of jobs in America.
  I know that those who have continued questions or issues about the 
legislation have had productive discussions with all of us and today 
with the President, who came to visit us. I am confident that if we 
keep working at it in good faith, we can come up with a way to address 
the remaining issues so that we are all satisfied as much as possible.
  There is an expression: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the 
good. If you are waiting around for perfection, particularly here in 
the legislative process, you are never going to get anything done. That 
is not an excuse for not making it as good as it can possibly be, I 
believe, working together, preferably on a bipartisan basis. But if our 
Democratic colleagues refuse to participate, as they have done so far, 
then we have no choice but to do it ourselves.
  So in the end, a vote against tax reform is a vote for economic 
stagnation. It is allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. The 
Wall Street Journal, as they said yesterday--the question we need to 
ask ourselves is not whether the tax bill is perfect but whether it is 
a net benefit to the United States. I think it clearly is, and I think 
that, with the policies embodied in this bill, we can restore America's 
economic vigor.
  America must continue to prosper if it is to remain the economic 
beacon of the world, and we need to remain a strong country 
economically so we can defend ourselves and our friends and allies 
abroad. The rest of the world--it is true--is just waiting for a sign 
that America's best days are ahead, and passing this important tax 
legislation is an indication that it is the case that America's best 
days still lie ahead.
  It is time to awaken the slumbering giant of the American economy. By 
lightening the load on workers and companies alike, we can make sure 
new opportunities abound for those just coming into the workforce. We 
will make everyday drivers of the economy excited once again about our 
country's future. The President noted today, when he was with us at 
lunch, that consumer confidence is literally at an alltime high. People 
have seen the stock market go up and their retirement funds that are 
invested in pension funds or in their IRA or elsewhere skyrocket since 
the Trump administration came into office. I think that is because 
people are sensing we are on the verge of a great economic recovery.

  Accepting a stagnant, anemic recovery is not something we have to do. 
We know what we need to do to rev up the engine of the American economy 
and get it moving again to benefit all of us. Through tax reform, let's 
show that the American dream of allowing men and women to work hard and 
earn success isn't just a bygone notion, and it is not just a figment 
of our imagination. We can do it if we pass this tax reform bill this 
week, which we intend to do.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Utah.