[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 194 (Wednesday, November 29, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7370-S7376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TAX REFORM
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I have listened to the minority leader's
remarks. If anybody believes that we are going to be able to work
together closely when they just want a bill for the Federal Government
at all costs--they had us right there on the cusp of socialism just a
month ago, and we are still right on the cusp of socialism. I hate to
say it, but our Democratic friends are pushing us toward socialism,
which has never worked anywhere in the world, and it is not going to
work here. Their answer to everything is big government.
There are two different points of view here. I have to tell you I
used to be on their side when I was a young fellow. I was raised in
poverty. I came up the hard way. I learned a trade. I became a
journeyman metal lather, which was one of the most skilled trades at
the time.
I have to say that these haunting refrains were used by Democrats
back then, too, but look at this country and the mess it is in, and it
is in a mess because of their philosophy. We have to change it. I
admit, with him, that the business community isn't always right, and
they are not always the best to spend our money, but they are sure a
lot better than government spending it all the time. So much for that.
The Senate will soon vote on a motion to proceed to legislation to
reform our Nation's broken Tax Code and to provide significant relief
for tens of millions of middle-class families.
Members from both parties have worked for years on this effort. As we
move to consider this legislation, we will take another step toward
accomplishing what has--until recently, anyway--been a bipartisan goal.
I want to thank all of those who have helped us advance this process,
especially the members and staff of the Finance Committee, who have
worked tirelessly to get us to this point. I also want to thank our
distinguished majority leader, Senator McConnell, for his work and
leadership on this as well.
Of course, we are not there yet. We have a number of additional steps
to take, including today's vote. I don't want to put any carts ahead of
any horses, but I am optimistic that we can get a positive outcome
today.
Our tax reform bill is crafted with the primary purpose of providing
tax relief to the middle class and growth to our economy. To accomplish
these goals, the bill lowers individual tax rates across the board. The
bill also expands the zero tax bracket by nearly doubling the standard
deduction, doubling the child tax credit, and increasing the child tax
credit refundability, all of which, combined, will eliminate income tax
liability for many hard-working American families and significantly cut
taxes for tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers. That sounds like
the right thing to do to me.
Some examples, I think, can be illustrative here. Under our bill, a
family of four making the U.S. median family income of around $73,000 a
year will see their taxes go down by more than $2,000 a year. That is a
savings of more than $180 a month. Overall, this represents a nearly
60-percent reduction in that family's tax liability. A single parent
with one child making $41,000 a year, under the bill, will pay about
one-quarter of the Federal income taxes he or she may pay today, an
annual reduction of almost $1,400. Now, that is real money for these
families. It will help them to make car payments, to pay their rent or
mortgages, to bring down credit card balances, or to increase their
ability to save for the future.
In addition to reducing the tax burden on low-income to middle-income
families, the changes in our bill will make filing taxes much simpler
for most of these taxpayers. According to JCT, or the Joint Committee
on Taxation, more than 9 in 10 American families will opt for the
standard deduction under this legislation, avoiding altogether the
difficult and complicated process of itemizing deductions. This means
less time and money spent on tax compliance and preparation for
millions of middle-class taxpayers. It may hurt the legal profession,
but it is going to give freedom to the American people.
The bill also repeals one of the most regressive taxes in American
history--the ObamaCare individual mandate tax, which overwhelmingly
burdens middle-income and low-income families. In fact, 80 percent of
the families that pay the tax make less than $50,000 per year. Yet this
repeal has been the source of much consternation for my friends on the
other side of the aisle. I will have more to say on that in a moment.
For most small businesses that pay taxes on the owners' individual
returns, or passthroughs, the bill provides significant relief in the
form of a simple tax reduction applied to qualified business income.
This will reduce the overall tax burden for passthrough businesses,
which are the primary engines of our job creation in the United States.
In addition, our bill helps Main Street businesses by enhancing
expensing and expanding the availability of simplified cash
accountability. All told, this means more expansion, more investment,
and more jobs for U.S. workers employed by small businesses.
Make no mistake, this bill is pro-small business, which is why the
National Federation of Independent Businesses, the largest small
business association in the country, has enthusiastically expressed its
support for our legislation. They are not stupid. They are brilliant
people. They know how badly the small business community has been
treated by our tax writers over the years, and they are looking forward
to this legislation passing.
It should probably go without saying at this point that the United
States currently has the highest corporate tax rate in the
industrialized world, and, as a result, we are seeing businesses flee
our country for more favorable tax conditions overseas, while others
are getting purchased by foreign companies. Some of them are just
giving up and letting foreign companies take them over. That is not
good for American workers, and that is not good for America.
Former Presidents Clinton and Obama have spoken in favor of lowering
the corporate tax rate to allow our country to be more globally
competitive. That sentiment has been shared by countless Democrats in
this Chamber, including the current ranking member on the Finance
Committee and the Senate Minority Leader. With this bill, we are taking
their advice by lowering the corporate tax rate to 20 percent.
We also shift to a more territorial system of international tax--
another idea that was explicitly endorsed in a bipartisan working group
report, coauthored by my good friend Senator Schumer, by the way, who
just spoke here. This shift is paid for largely through the use of a
``deemed repatriation,'' another idea supported by Democrats in recent
years. We are creating both incentives and penalties to prevent base
erosion, a goal that has become clearly bipartisan during the recent
waves of corporate inversions.
Long story short, there is quite a bit in this bill that both
Republicans and Democrats should be able to support. Of course, anyone
who gets their information solely from the statements and talking
points from our friends on the other side would never get that.
Over the next few days, I expect we will hear quite a few misleading
claims, both about the bill and about the process which led us here.
For example, I think we will hear that this bill is just a massive
giveaway to the so-called rich. That is always the claim of the
Democrats: It is a gift to the so-called rich. Gosh, give me a break. I
get so tired of that phony, lousy argument that they make all the time.
They have hurt the middle class so badly in this country; it is
unbelievable.
My colleagues will make the claim that this is a massive giveaway to
the so-called rich even though they have the same data from the Joint
Committee on Taxation, which clearly shows that middle-class taxpayers
will receive the largest proportional tax cuts under the bill and that
none of the existing tax burden will be shifted downward from those at
the top. In fact, those in the highest bracket, according to JCT, or
the Joint Committee on Taxation, will pay a higher percentage of the
overall tax burden than they do now.
I expect we will hear that, by repealing the individual mandate tax,
the bill will be taking people's health insurance away and raising
taxes on the
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poor. That claim will be made despite confirmation from congressional
scorekeepers that nothing--nothing--in the bill removes or limits
anyone's access to health insurance. The approach they are taking
toward health insurance will put us into a socialized medicine
situation overnight. If anybody thinks that is a great idea, I ask them
to look at the socialized medicine countries and compare them to what
we have been able to have. Instead, JCT and CBO predict that, with no
individual mandate, people will choose to not get health insurance even
if they still have access to premium subsidies, employer-provided
plans, or even free health coverage through Medicaid. This bill
provides choice. It doesn't take anything away from those individuals.
We can quibble with that conclusion and question whether tens of
millions of people who currently have health insurance--including a few
million who are currently getting it for free--will suddenly opt to go
uninsured once the mandate penalty is zeroed out. Given that most
observers have concluded that the mandate has essentially failed to
draw enough participants into the healthcare market to keep premiums
from skyrocketing, there is room for questioning whether the
scorekeepers are right on that score. However, even if they are 100
percent correct, no one will lose their health insurance under this
bill when the mandate is repealed. Anyone going uninsured will be doing
so voluntarily. We are not kicking anyone off their insurance by
zeroing out the individual mandate penalty, and it is a blatant
distortion of reality to claim otherwise.
Similarly, no one's taxes will go up if the mandate is zeroed out.
True enough, our scorekeepers have produced distribution tables showing
an uptick in taxes at the low end of the income spectrum due to
decreased utilization of premium tax credits under ObamaCare. My
colleagues, I am sure, will talk about this at length as well. However,
I would like to have one of them explain how a person's voluntary
decision to forego a tax subsidy amounts to a tax hike. So far, I
haven't heard a serious attempt at such an explanation. In fact, during
our recent markup, when the chief of staff of JCT sat at a table and
told my colleagues that no one will owe a dime in additional taxes as a
result of the individual mandate repeal, none of my colleagues disputed
this conclusion. Instead, they opted to ignore it, even after they were
shown a JCT table showing that, if the behavioral effects of the
mandate repeal are removed from the equation--as they should be when we
are talking about taxes owed--every income group will see their taxes
go down under this bill. I hope our colleagues and those watching will
remember these facts when they are evaluating the claims being made by
some on the other side.
We have a good bill here, under the circumstances, and I believe
Members of both parties, if politics were removed from consideration,
could support it. We have gotten significant support throughout the
business community, with associations and companies from almost every
industry and sector publicly in support of the reforms in this bill.
I know some of my Republican colleagues have concerns, and I have
been committed to working with them to see if improvements can be made,
and, as this process moves forward, we are going to have to make a few
more changes. This, of course, is how the legislative process works.
Our process is designed to produce legislation that reflects the
combined views and interests of a majority of Senators and, more
importantly, the constituents they represent.
As with any legislative endeavor of real significance, the perfect
should not be considered the enemy of the good. As I have said before,
I have been around long enough to know that anyone demanding perfection
when it comes to major legislation is bound to be waiting a very, very
long time and likely will not accomplish much.
Before I close, I want to underscore how much of a once-in-a
generation opportunity this is. We need to get this done. The costs of
failure and continuing with the status quo are just too high. The
American people deserve a tax system that provides greater opportunity,
a stronger economy, and better jobs. We need a tax code designed to
work for the world of 2017 and beyond. Our bill will accomplish these
goals. We need to take this next step so that we can continue the work.
So I urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Madam President, two weeks ago, I urged my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle to reject the partisan and fiscally
irresponsible Republican tax proposal in the so-called Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act. I asked them to remember that, when it comes to our
responsibility to plan for the nation's long-term economic future, we
are here to create opportunity and security for future generations--not
to serve the short-term interests of partisan politics. Today, I regret
to say that the process surrounding the Republican tax bill has only
become more rushed, more partisan, more bitter, and less transparent.
My Republican colleagues wrote this bill behind closed doors, held no
serious hearings or debate, and even now are planning to make
substantial changes to the final bill that we will vote on before we
have even had the benefit of a comprehensive, nonpartisan score of its
cost.
We all know better than to believe that this irresponsible process
will lead to a responsible or sustainable outcome. Therefore, because
it is clear that this bill is an unprecedented giveaway to wealthy
corporations and individuals at the expense of poor, sick, elderly, and
middle-class Americans, and because it will drive our Nation trillions
of dollars further into debt, I strongly urge my colleagues to reject
this bill and to work with both sides of the aisle to craft tax reform
that will help--rather than burden--future generations and the middle
class.
The only future generations that this bill appears to take into
account are the children and grandchildren of the wealthiest families
in the United States, including President Trump's family and the
families of the wealthiest Cabinet ever assembled by any President.
According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, half of all
households, and two-thirds of households making between $54,700 and
$93,200 would see their taxes go up under the current Republican bill.
Individuals who struggle to get by because of sickness or the
unavailability of well-paying job opportunities would lose tax
exemptions and advantages that have helped them stay afloat. Many
Americans who have played by the rules and persevered through our long
recovery from the great recession will open their paychecks to see a
little more taken out every month, but not for their benefit. On the
other hand, for the 5,000 American families with fortunes in the
millions of dollars or more, the Republican plan to repeal or
drastically curtail the estate tax could, on its own, funnel hundreds
of billions of dollars to those few who need it the very least.
The mere idea that we would raise taxes on poor and working Americans
to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest American estates epitomizes how
this Republican tax bill is wholly at odds with our values. The
trillions of dollars this bill will add to our deficit will almost
certainly lead to deep cuts in earned benefits like Social Security and
Medicare, as well as our national defense. Indeed, major cuts to
defense historically follow deficit-increasing tax cuts, and this is
almost precisely why we have an estate tax in the first place.
Our Nation first enacted estate taxes in order to pay for military
conflicts without driving the Nation deeply into debt. Starting in
1797, and continuing through the Civil War, the Spanish-American War,
and World War I, the United States used temporary estate taxes to
offset the costs of war. Congress kept the estate tax after World War I
as a means of balancing the Federal budget and countering the growth of
massive wealth inequality. Because of this foresight, the estate tax
was a critical source of revenue that softened the blow of the Great
Depression and supported the war effort in World War II.
Prior Congresses saw it as their responsibility to pay America's
bills at home and abroad. They did not leave years of war on America's
line of credit, nor did they expect the poor and working classes to pay
while the
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wealthiest took a tax cut. There were certainly times when running a
deficit was necessary, and even economically wise, but because of this
pay-as-you-go principle, no American generation has faced what we do
now: 16 years of deficit-financed military conflict with no end in
sight, compounded by the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that never paid
for themselves, despite repeated Republican promises. Before we give
the wealthiest Americans another tax cut at the expense of our children
and our children's children, we need at least an idea of how we are
going to handle trillions of dollars in compounding war debt--not to
mention the trillions more we must spend to maintain and modernize our
military--and address our basic domestic needs that have gone unnoticed
and underfunded for so long.
That is why I plan to file a motion on this bill that would send this
bill back to the Finance Committee to reinstate the estate tax at
current levels and place all the revenue generated by it into a trust
fund. Those funds, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars over
a decade, will be devoted evenly between maintaining the readiness of
our Armed Forces and addressing the opioid epidemic here at home. This
motion not only restores original intent of the estate tax as a tool
for combating deficits in times of war but also makes a much needed
down-payment on our long-stalled domestic agenda.
But the bill's elimination of the estate tax is just one of its many
harmful provisions. The bill sabotages our healthcare system by
repealing the individual mandate, which could easily throw 13 million
Americans off their health insurance and increase premiums for millions
of others. Yet again, the 130 million Americans with preexisting
conditions must fear that their premiums will skyrocket or that they
will be left with no options at all.
And the poor and the sick may find even fewer options after this bill
forces $25 billion in cuts into Medicare in 2018 alone because of the
massive deficits it will produce. Do not tell me this will pay for
itself with growth. I have served in this body long enough to know that
trickle-down economics doesn't work, and I take the word of the scores
of economists who say, in no uncertain terms, that this bill will
balloon the debt and will not create enough growth to offset it. Even
major companies like Cisco, Pfizer, and Coca-Cola say they will use the
gains from these massive corporate tax cuts to pay shareholders, rather
than create jobs or raise wages for the middle class. We are making
decisions here that will guide the largest economy in the world. We
simply cannot roll the dice on a plan of this scale and hope for the
best.
It remains my sincere hope that my Republican colleagues will see the
error of their ways and choose to work with Democrats on tax reform
that is bipartisan, reasonable, and in keeping with our responsibility
to leave this Nation better than we found it. We can and should address
other domestic priorities in dire need like our Nation's
infrastructure, the economic security of children and seniors, and
programs that create and sustain employment for the middle class. I and
my colleagues are ready and willing to work in good faith on tax
reform, but we cannot begin that work until we abandon the kind of
recklessness and partisanship that led to this Republican tax bill.
Once again, we are all here, and we are all committed to defending
our Nation, but this bill will make it virtually impossible to do what
we know we must do. There are unavoidable costs in our national
security that are not even counted in this bill. My fellow members of
the Armed Services Committee and I have committed to making needed
increases to the size of our military forces. It costs roughly an
additional $1.8 billion per year for every 10,000 servicemembers. Where
will we get that money when we are going $1.8 trillion in debt to
provide tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? We want a 355-ship Navy.
There have been some estimates that doing that will require at least an
additional $1 trillion a year. Where are we going to get that when we
have already given $1.5 trillion to the wealthiest Americans? We have
to modernize our nuclear triad, our submarines, our land-based
missiles, and our aircraft. There are estimates that this will cost
about $400 billion per year in costs. Where are we getting that, since
we have given the money--$1.5 trillion--to the wealthiest Americans? We
have overseas operations in Iraq. Over a 10-year period, roughly $10
billion must be repaid. We pay about $1 billion a year there. For
Syria, that is $13 billion. If we stay there for 10 years--and that
seems to be the present policy--that is $130 billion. We pay $50
billion a year to support the Afghan operation. We are going to stay
there, apparently, under the current procedure--not based on time but
conditions--for another 10 years. Add that up, and that is about $640
billion over the next 10 years, just to maintain the situation in those
three countries.
These are not costs we can ignore. If we did, we would--at the very
least--be turning our backs on the policies announced by this President
and this Congress--and by my Republican colleagues in particular. But
where is this money coming from? We don't have the situation we had in
2001 when President George W. Bush proposed his tax cuts. We don't have
an expected $5 trillion surplus. We already have a multitrillion-dollar
deficit over 10 years, and we are adding to that deficit. We know we
have to maintain the military expenditures.
Anyone who is voting for this bill is essentially saying: I will talk
a good story about supporting national security, but when it comes down
to the money, it is going to go to the wealthiest Americans, to things
like the estate tax cut. It is going to go to the wealthiest Americans
who are paying the alternative minimum tax. The money we need for
security will not be there unless we borrow it from future
generations--to fund the things we know we already have to fund to
defend America.
This is absolutely irresponsible, and, as a result, I would hope we
could regain our senses, sit down, and deal, on a bipartisan basis,
with tax reform that could help all of us and could indeed even begin,
after 16 years, to put real money into our national defense rather than
borrowing it from future generations. Again, this bill is not only
economically unwise because it will not generate growth, but it is also
irresponsible because it will put us in a position where we will be
choosing, very shortly--in the next several years--whether we are going
to cut defense or whether we are going to cut Social Security or
whether we are going to cut everything because the deficit is growing
so large. I don't think we should put ourselves in that position.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, the American people have gotten a lot
of lip service over the past 10 months. Remember draining the swamp and
fighting for the forgotten families? The President apparently forgot
them when he filled the Cabinet with a who's who of Wall Street. How
about every single American having better, cheaper healthcare? That
was, of course, before Republicans tried to kick millions of people off
of their coverage, increase costs for millions more, and gut
protections for people with preexisting conditions.
You would think it would be tough to top all of that, but here we are
watching as Republicans, led by President Trump, twist themselves into
knots trying to convince hard-working families that the GOP tax plan is
anything but a high-priced giveaway to millionaires, billionaires, and
the biggest corporations. It is a high-priced giveaway paid for by--you
guessed it--the middle class and those who can least afford it. This is
so wrong, and I am glad, finally, the phones across the Capitol are
today lighting up with constituents demanding to know how anyone
promising to represent them could possibly put their name on this
terrible, partisan, fast-tracked bill because they see the same
nonpartisan reports we all do. They know expert after expert has
confirmed what we all know: The Republican tax plan will hurt millions
of everyday Americans, including those who are already falling behind
in an economy that tilts further and further in favor of the wealthiest
few. They know the Republican tax plan takes money out of their
pockets. They know it guts their healthcare by spiking premiums and
leaving millions and millions of
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Americans without the coverage they need. They know it papers over our
Nation's paid family leave problem, instead giving corporations a
massive giveaway and leaving families who need to care for loved ones
in the lurch. They know it adds trillions of dollars to the national
debt, setting up, once again, the perfect foil for Republicans to then
come after Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other middle-class
priorities when the bill comes due.
In case that wasn't enough, the Senate Republican tax bill adds a
backdoor attempt to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to
drilling for oil, just for good measure. Republicans are even trying to
pay for tax cuts for those at the top by sabotaging families'
healthcare in this bill in a way that would spike premiums, cause 13
million people to lose their coverage, and creates more chaos in the
healthcare system.
I know they are claiming the bipartisan bill I reached with Chairman
Alexander can somehow fix this if it is signed into law and that other
bipartisan legislation to help States cover the costs of enrolling very
sick patients might help, too, but let me make very clear, that is very
wrong. This is the classic example of trying to fit a square peg into a
round hole and would be cold comfort to the people across the country
who will struggle even more to get the care they need while at the same
time watching massive corporations get more tax breaks they don't need.
If anyone was still under any illusion that Republicans were
concerned about the middle class or fiscal responsibility or even
regular order, that ends here and now. This is shameful and wrong. I
have to say, it is not too late. I say this to my Republican
colleagues, let's move right now to the bipartisan work we know our
constituents actually want and expect. Let's return to a process that
allows a true debate about our values and priorities as a nation. Let's
talk about ways to help our workers and grow the economy from the
middle out, such as access to high-quality childcare and pre-K for all
of our working families; providing meaningful paid family and medical
leave for every American; making college more affordable; investing in
retirement security for our workers; supporting our veterans; and
making healthcare higher quality, more affordable, and more accessible.
Those are the kinds of conversations we should be having. Those are the
people we should be investing in. We will not stop reminding you of
that every day until you give up this cruel tax plan.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, President Trump and the Republican
leadership are on television every day telling the American people how
this tax bill is going to help the middle class, how it was written for
the middle class. Unfortunately, I will not shock too many people by
suggesting what President Trump is saying is not truthful.
This legislation, according to independent studies, will provide 60
percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent. We are living in a moment
in American history where we have massive levels of income and wealth
inequality, where the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as
much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, where three people--three of the
wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half
of the American population. Yet my Republican colleagues believe this
is a moment when 60 percent of the benefits of the so-called tax reform
bill should go to the 1 percent. Meanwhile, millions of middle-class
families will end up paying more in taxes. So we have a situation in
which the wealthy, who need tax breaks the least, will benefit the
most, and many millions of struggling working-class and middle-class
families will end up paying more in taxes at the end of 10 years.
The President of the United States and my Republican colleagues tell
the American people that trickle-down economics--giving huge tax breaks
to the wealthy and large corporations--will expand the economy, will
create new jobs, and will pay for the deficit that this legislation
brings about. The simple truth is, trickle-down economics is a
fraudulent theory. It has failed miserably in Kansas, where it has been
most recently put into effect. It failed under the Reagan
administration, and it failed under the administration of George W.
Bush.
What interests me the most is, my Republican colleagues will not tell
the American people how they are going to be paying for the $1.4
trillion increase in deficits that this bill creates. You have a $1.4
trillion increase in deficits. How is that going to be paid for? My
view is that, without doubt, as soon as this legislation is passed, the
Republicans will come back, and they will suddenly rediscover their
religion about deficits. They will go before the American people and
say we need ``entitlement reform'' or we need ``welfare reform.'' Let
me translate for you what ``entitlement reform'' means. It means that
when millions of older workers have nothing in the bank saved up for
retirement, they are going to propose massive cuts to Social Security.
We do not know exactly the form it will take. Maybe they will want to
raise the retirement age, forcing older workers to work more before
they can get their Social Security benefits. Maybe they will cut back
on cost-of-living increases through a so-called chained CPI, which
means lower benefits. They are going to go after Medicare. Maybe their
idea will be to privatize Medicare, convert it into a voucher program,
and say to older Americans: Here is a check for $8,000. You go out and
find the private insurance that you can, and good luck to you with your
$8,000 check if you are dealing with heart disease or cancer. They
will, no doubt, come back to slash Medicaid.
Now, these are not just wild ideas that I have been thinking about.
This is pretty much what was in the budget the Republicans voted for
right on the floor of the Senate. They already voted for a $1 trillion
cut over a 10-year period to Medicaid, and that means massive
reductions in help not only for lower income Americans, not only for
children but for people in nursing homes. They have already voted in
the budget, over a 10-year period, to cut Medicare by $470 billion, and
in the House they are working hard to figure out ways to cut Social
Security. The Republicans will also make massive cuts to education, to
nutrition, and to environmental protection.
The other day, I sent a letter to the Senate majority leader, Mitch
McConnell, and to the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. What I asked of
them was to be honest with the American people.
I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Budget,
Washington, DC, November 27, 2017.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Senate Majority Leader,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Paul Ryan,
Speaker of the House,
Washington, DC.
Dear Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan: It is no
secret that I am vigorously opposed to the disastrous ``tax
reform'' bills that you are pushing in the U.S. House and
U.S. Senate.
At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, both of
these bills would provide huge tax breaks to the very rich
and large corporations. Meanwhile, they would raise taxes for
millions of middle class families.
Further, and the point of this letter, is that both of
these bills would increase the federal deficit by more than
$1.4 trillion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
I am very concerned that if you succeed in passing tax
legislation that significantly adds to our national debt, you
will then move aggressively to balance the budget on the
backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the
sick, and the poor. In other words, in order to pay for tax
breaks for the rich and large corporations, you will make
massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
nutrition, environmental protection, and every other program
designed to protect the needs of the middle class and working
families of our country.
Before the Senate votes on tax legislation that adds over
$1.4 trillion to the deficit, you owe the American people a
specific and detailed explanation as to how the Republican
Congress will achieve its commitment of balancing the budget
over the next decade.
Will you schedule a vote to raise the eligibility of
Medicare from 65 to 67 as called for in the House Budget
Resolution? Will you attempt to end Medicare as we know it by
giving seniors vouchers to purchase private health insurance,
something long supported by Speaker Ryan?
How much will you cut Social Security? Will you try to
increase the retirement age
[[Page S7374]]
to 70, cut cost-of-living adjustments for senior citizens and
disabled veterans, and/or privatize Social Security?
Will you support legislation to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion
over the next decade, kicking 15 million Americans off of
health insurance? As you know, this was a provision included
in the Republican Budget Resolution that was passed earlier
this year.
How much do you plan on cutting affordable housing, Pell
Grants, WIC, and Head Start to pay for a permanent tax break
for profitable corporations?
The bottom line is that the American people have a right to
know exactly how you plan to pay for a $1.4 trillion increase
in the deficit before, not after, tax legislation is signed
into law. In your response, please be as specific as you can.
Sincerely,
Bernard Sanders,
Ranking Member.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this is what I asked:
I am very concerned that if you succeed in passing tax
legislation that significantly adds to our national debt, you
will then move aggressively to balance the budget on the
backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the
sick, and the poor. In other words, in order to pay for tax
breaks for the rich and large corporations, you will make
massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
nutrition, environmental protection, and every other program
designed to protect the needs of the middle class and working
families of our country.
Before the Senate votes on tax legislation that adds over
$1.4 trillion to the deficit, you owe the American people a
specific and detailed explanation as to how the Republican
Congress will achieve its commitment of balancing the budget
over the next decade.
Will you schedule a vote to raise the eligibility age of
Medicare from 65 to 67 as called for in the House Budget
Resolution? Will you attempt to end Medicare as we know it by
giving seniors vouchers to purchase private health insurance,
something long supported by Speaker Ryan?
How much will you cut Social Security? Will you try to
increase the retirement age to 70, cut cost-of-living
adjustments for senior citizens and disabled veterans, and/or
privatize Social Security?
Will you support legislation to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion
over the next decade, kicking 15 million Americans off of
health insurance? As you know, this was a provision included
in the Republican Budget Resolution that was passed earlier
this year.
How much do you plan on cutting affordable housing, Pell
Grants, WIC, and Head Start to pay for a permanent tax break
for profitable corporations?
That is what I wrote to the majority leader.
My challenge right now to my Republican colleagues is--and I ask
you--to come down to the floor of the Senate and tell me I am wrong.
Come down here and tell the American people, if this legislation--this
disastrous tax bill--passes, that you will not be coming back to cut
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition, education, and other
programs. Maybe I am wrong. If Republicans come down here and say:
Bernie, you are wrong. We have no intention of cutting Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid, I will come here, and I will apologize.
So here is my challenge right now to my Republican colleagues: Come
down here. Tell me and tell the American people I am wrong. Tell us all
that you are not going to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
education in order to deal with the $1.4 trillion deficit you will
bring about in this disastrous tax bill. Tell the American people you
are not going to cut programs that the elderly, the children, the sick,
and the poor desperately need in order to give huge tax breaks to the
wealthy and large corporations.
That is my challenge, and I will be listening eagerly to see if there
are any Republicans who are going to come down and tell me what I am
suggesting is wrong.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this week, we are debating the
Republican tax relief plan.
I had a telephone townhall meeting the other night, along with
Senator Enzi, and we talked to the people of Wyoming who have actually
done the math and looked at the impact of the things that are included
in this proposal--doubling the standard deduction and the child tax
credit. People think it is a good deal for them personally, so there is
a lot to like in this legislation. It gives tax cuts to hard-working
American families; it makes taxes simpler and fairer; it makes American
businesses more competitive around the world; and it makes our economy
stronger here at home. That is all good news for our country and for
the American people.
Now, there is other good news in this legislation, and it is
something I continue to hear about at home and heard about over the
Thanksgiving recess in Wyoming, which is that it wipes out the
ObamaCare insurance mandate tax. This is the tax penalty the Obama
healthcare law forced on the American people. Under the Republican
plan, people would no longer have to pay a tax penalty to the IRS if
they did not want the Democrats' expensive health insurance or if they
just couldn't afford it.
We have seen health insurance premiums skyrocket over the past few
years in this country, and it is because of the way Democrats wrote the
healthcare law. The cost and the deductibles are so high that many
people find that even if they have paid for the expensive insurance,
they still can't afford to get the care they need. The law says that no
matter how expensive the insurance gets or how unusable it is for that
individual, by law, people still have to buy it or pay a tax.
Families ought to be able to make decisions about what they want to
buy and what works for them, not the government. I believe that if
people don't want to buy the ObamaCare insurance, they shouldn't have
to pay a tax penalty to the IRS. Those are the things we are looking
at.
Interestingly, today in the New York Times, there was more than half
a page devoted to this. ``Millions Pay Penalty Instead of Buying
Policy. Who Are They?'' Well, in the State of Wyoming, over 15,000
people paid over $5 million in fines to the IRS. This article today
says that 6.7 million tax filers paid the penalty in 2015. Who are
they? Well, it is not surprising to the Presiding Officer that the
great majority of these--8 out of 10 who paid the fine--have an
adjusted family income of less than $50,000. It says the $25,000 to
$50,000 income range group had the highest share of people paying the
penalty in 2015. Why do we think those people aren't able to buy the
insurance? It is too expensive. It is not a good deal for them. That is
why even the New York Times is reporting that the $25,000 to $50,000
income group--hard-working American families--has the highest share of
people paying the penalty.
Then they questioned why they paid the penalty, and it was because
they couldn't afford the insurance. It is right here in black and
white. It points out that the average penalty in 2017 is $708. That is
money those families could use for many other things, but it is not
enough compared to the cost of the insurance, which is even higher. A
single woman would have to pay a tax of either $695 or 2.5 percent of
her income, whichever is higher. That is the rule. The average is over
$700. For a couple, the tax would be double. A family with kids would
pay additional for each of the children. The majority of Americans say
they don't have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency expense if one
came up.
Who actually pays? These 16,000 people in Wyoming who paid the
penalty are hard-working men and women who are opposed to the fact that
Washington--the Federal Government under ObamaCare--says they have to
pay a tax if they don't buy a government product that doesn't work for
them.
Across the country, over 6 million people were hit with this extra
tax. The ObamaCare insurance mandate tax is a direct tax on the working
people of this country. I think it is not right. The Republican Party
Members of the Senate think it is not right. Washington should not make
people pay higher taxes just because they can't afford expensive
ObamaCare insurance. People shouldn't be forced to buy a product that
is not the right choice for them and their families.
The Congressional Budget Office says that if we get rid of the
insurance mandate, 13 million people will eventually decide under their
own free will not to have insurance. These people don't view it as a
good benefit for them. That is why they may walk away from it. They
don't view it as worth their money. Republicans want to give all these
people a tax cut. Democrats want to make sure that people still have to
pay the tax penalty.
There is a lot that I want to change about how America's healthcare
system works. I want to repeal the entire healthcare law that the
Democrats wrote a few years ago. I want to return
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the money and the decisions back to the people or do that at the State
level, where people at the local level can make the best decisions
about what works best for them and their State, not a one-size-fits-all
coming out of Washington. I haven't given up on trying to get that done
because we need to make healthcare better in this country.
In Wyoming, we are down to just one insurer willing to sell these
policies. That is happening more and more around the country. One
insurer is not a marketplace but a monopoly. That has left many people
at the breaking point.
I got an email from one man in Sheridan, WY. He talked about the fact
that his monthly premiums will be going up by more than $700 each month
next year. That is for two adults, no children, and there is a
deductible of $6,000. He and his wife are stuck in a position where
they will have to pay more than $2,400 a month for insurance or pay an
extra tax.
A woman from Park County wrote to me that her family had to switch
insurance plans a couple of years ago. The coverage they had before was
canceled.
Why did 5,000 people in Wyoming lose their insurance? Why was it
canceled? It was good enough for them, provided what they needed, but
the government said it wasn't good enough for the government. That is
wrong.
This lady writes about the incredible increase in the costs. She
asked, ``What are we supposed to do?''
I have heard that in all corners of the State of Wyoming. What are
they supposed to do? I don't believe these people should face a choice
between paying sky-high insurance premiums or a sky-high tax penalty to
the IRS. People in Wyoming and around the country want to buy insurance
that is affordable, that works for them, and that fits their families'
needs. They don't want to be forced to buy the insurance that
Washington tells them they have to buy because Washington, as we have
seen in the past, thinks they know better than the American people.
People want the coverage they need so they can go to the doctor they
want at lower costs.
I would also point out that the cost of insurance isn't the only
problem we are looking at right now. There are other parts of the
healthcare law that may actually be harming patients.
As a physician, I receive multiple medical journals. There was a new
study out in the American Medical Association cardiology journal that
looked at Medicare patients who were hospitalized with heart failure.
Many people across the country are hospitalized for heart failure. It
is a chronic condition, and occasionally they have to go back in the
hospital for additional treatment.
There is a program in the healthcare law that started to penalize
hospitals if that Medicare patient was readmitted to the hospital
within 30 days after they had been released from the hospital. There
are a number of reasons that may happen, but the goal was to penalize
hospitals, and--the goal, the laudable goal, was to give patients
better treatment, but that is not what happened. This is the problem:
The Democrats wrote into this law and the regulations something that
they really had no evidence would actually help patients and save money
at the same time. They said: We are going to penalize hospitals. So if
every hospital improved its numbers, they were still going to grade it
on a curve, so if a hospital didn't improve enough, it was still going
to be penalized. That has had huge a impact on hospitals that take
sicker patients, regardless of their location, in terms of how they do
followup with patients.
Well, it turns out that the study in the Journal of the American
Medical Association--a well-respected cardiology journal, their heart
issue--says that the death rate actually went up after hospitals faced
this new requirement. The study covered over 400 hospitals and over
110,000 patients. The study found that an extra 5,400 people are dying
every year just among heart failure patients because of the way the
Federal Government has chosen to penalize hospitals around the country
when patients are readmitted. It is interesting because what has
happened is that the readmission rates in the hospital have actually
gone down. The hospitals succeeded in keeping people out to avoid the
penalty, but people died in the process.
The Wall Street Journal had an editorial about it last week. They
concluded that if you were doing a drug trial on a drug that you were
working on inventing to improve the lives of people and you had the
same results as this--5,000 people dying--they would have shut it down
long ago. That is a deadly, unintended consequence of the ObamaCare
healthcare law.
The insurance mandate was supposed to keep premiums from rising.
Premiums have gone way up anyway. That is another unintended
consequence of the law. In spite of good intentions, that is not what
happened under the law that was passed and is the law of the land right
now.
I believe we should repeal the entire law. Until we can do that, we
should do what we can to help the American people who are struggling to
deal with this expensive insurance and what I believe to be an unfair
tax and fine that they must pay if they don't buy the insurance because
they can't afford it, because it is not a good deal for them and it
doesn't work for them or their families. It is not just unpopular, it
is un-American. It took away people's choices. It forced them to buy
expensive insurance that wasn't right for them.
It is time for the insurance mandate to go away. We know it is a bad
idea. We need to give people relief from this terrible tax. The people
of Wyoming and the people of this country simply can't afford to wait
any longer. It is time to repeal the mandate of the healthcare law.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The Senator from North
Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Presiding Officer
for his comments just before mine, and thank him for presiding so that
I can step down and speak briefly.
I wasn't sure if I was going to speak. I don't have any notes. But I
was inspired by some of the comments that were made by the Senator from
Vermont as I was presiding.
We heard--actually, for those who are visiting the DC area, if you
don't get an opportunity to go to any of the wonderful theaters we have
here, such as the Kennedy Center, don't worry because you are seeing a
lot of theater down here on the Senate floor.
Anybody who would suggest that we are going to come back and cut my
mother's Medicare and my mother's Social Security and that of the
mothers and brothers and sisters of other people who are depending on
that for their livelihood is somewhat involved in political theater.
Some of you were here and probably heard the challenge to have a
Republican come down here on the floor and say: Bernie, you are wrong.
Well, the distinguished Senator from Vermont is wrong.
This bill is about actually providing freedom and tax relief to
working families and reducing the tax burden on businesses so that the
economy will grow and we will have the resources to pay our bills.
I can understand that maybe it is not intentional theater on the part
of some of these folks; it may just be because they simply have never
done it before. But if you have ever lived in North Carolina or if you
have lived in North Carolina since 2011, you know that we did.
I have seen this theater before--from the dais as speaker of the
house in the State of North Carolina when we were one of the highest--
the sixth highest tax State in the Nation, with one of the slowest
growing economies. We were having a problem paying our Medicaid bills.
We were having a problem paying our bills. We had a $2.5 billion
structural deficit. I heard the theater on the floor: If you cut taxes,
you are going to drive up the deficit. If you cut taxes, you are going
to cut Medicaid. If you cut taxes, you are going to cut social
services.
I heard it all. Everybody accused us of that. I hit the gavel, and I
ratified the bill for tax reform. Guess what happened. We went from
being the sixth most taxed State that today is in the top ten best
taxed. We went from one of the worst performing State economies to now
one of the best performing State economies. We have reduced the
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number of people in poverty, and statistically--I mean, we can prove it
to you. We do the counts. The number of people who have been lifted out
of poverty has increased over the last 3 years. Median incomes have
gone up. Job creation has gone up. Our gross domestic product has gone
up over the past 5 or 6 years by $80 billion. We were at about $400
billion, and now we are at $480 billion.
So let me tell you how we are going to pay for these tax cuts. We are
not going to pay for them by cutting Medicare for seniors. We are going
to pay for them through the economic activity that will absolutely
occur if we have the courage to fulfill the promise that we made last
year to the American people. We are going to reduce the regulatory
burden on businesses. We are going to get our tax policy consistent and
competitive with nations that are eating our lunch on locating business
expansion and having businesses come offshore--away from the United
States to more preferable tax jurisdictions, and we are going to change
people's lives.
I am motivated to support this plan because I have been in a position
of leadership where I had great people in my caucus who had the courage
to fulfill a promise that I made if I became speaker of the house. Now
we are at a point in time to do the same thing for America that we did
for North Carolina. If we do it, it is going to be extraordinary.
Let me reduce it down to an answer I gave to a little boy yesterday.
I think he was in fourth grade. I had a Skype video conference with an
English as a second language class in an elementary school down in
North Carolina. One of the little boys asked me a great question, and
it is a question that has never been asked of me. I have been in
politics only for about 12 years. But he said: What piece of
legislation are you most proud of? What is the thing you are most proud
of since you have been in the legislature?
I thought about it. It was a tough question because I can think of
many things I have done. But then I went back to this little boy in the
classroom, and I said: You know what, buddy, it was something I did
back when I was speaker of the North Carolina House. By the way, if any
politician tells you ``I did this,'' they are invariably not telling
you the truth because you don't get anything done unless the team
commits to it. So I, along with a lot of people in North Carolina,
decided that your parents could not afford to pay the bills. They were
having a difficult time paying the utility bills, their rent, and their
groceries, paying for food. So we decided we were going to do something
to make sure that government gave your parents more money to make sure
you could go to school, to make sure they could pay their bills, to
make sure they could have a better paying job. And, buddy, that is the
thing I am most proud of. The thing I am most proud of was tax reform
that produced results that are indisputable. I have seen the theater
before, and it didn't work out too well because it proved to be fiction
in North Carolina.
If we have the courage over the next couple of days to take that same
vote here, we are going to see the same results for those working
families and those job employers in the United States. So I hope all of
the Members of this body recognize that we are not going to fund the
tax cuts on the backs of people who need the help the most. That is
absurd. It is unfair. It is theater. We are going to take care of them,
and we are going to take care of everyone else who is relying on us,
this caucus, to fulfill the promise we made, get the economy back on
track, and start winning more than losing against our international
competition. I am completely convinced that the bill that is going to
be before us over the end of this week is going to do just that.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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