[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 196 (Friday, December 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7653-S7655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TAX CUTS AND JOBS ACT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 1, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 1) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to
titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget
for fiscal year 2018.
Pending:
McConnell (for Hatch/Murkowski) amendment No. 1618, of a
perfecting nature.
Baldwin motion to commit the bill to the Committee on
Finance, with instructions.
Wyden (for Nelson) motion to commit the bill to the
Committee on Finance, with instructions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Order for Recess Subject to the Call of the Chair
Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following
the remarks of the Senator from Wisconsin, the Senate stand in recess
subject to the call of the chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The Democratic leader is recognized.
Government Funding
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I address the issue of taxes,
let me address the matter of the government funding bill.
We are now only a week away from a government shutdown, which, to
remind my colleagues, could cost our economy thousands of jobs and
billions of dollars, as it did in 2013. I think a government shutdown
is something we all desperately want to avoid, Democrats and
Republicans--I talked to some of my colleagues this morning--with the
exception, it seems, of the President.
This morning's Washington Post reports that President Trump has told
his confidantes that a government shutdown could be good for him
politically and that he has asked friends about how a shutdown would
affect him politically. It is disappointing but maybe not surprising
that President Trump appears to be putting politics before the well-
being of the American people. As President, the welfare of the American
people should always come first--always.
We have a lot of things to accomplish by the end of the year, and a
government spending deal is particularly important for our men and
women in uniform, as well as a host of programs that create jobs and
boost the economy.
The President talks about defending the troops and then threatens a
shutdown. It is a contradiction--a contradiction--and I am sure our
generals would tell him that even playing around with the possibility
of sequester and shutting down the government is no good for our armed
services, as well as for the rest of the country.
We should all be focused on avoiding a government shutdown. Certainly
Democrats will be working with our Republican colleagues in Congress to
that end. I think our Republican colleagues agree. I hope they won't
succumb to President Trump's whim based on a political decision and not
on what is good for America. President Trump must change his tune--and
soon--if he wants to be a constructive partner in those discussions
rather than the focal point of blame.
Madam President, on taxes, my Republican friends have stretched into
day 2 of their debate on the bill, which still lacks resolution on some
critical issues.
After promising over the past few months that their tax bill would
pay for itself through economic growth, the Joint Committee on Taxation
came out with a report yesterday that showed that these promises were
unfounded, way off the mark. Even considering economic growth, the
Republican tax bill will add roughly $1 trillion to the deficit. And
many economists have said
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that this dynamic scoring doesn't work at all. Here, the JCT gave
credence to the theory of dynamic scoring but then came out with a
number that was not the kind of wild exaggerations we are hearing from
the Secretary of the Treasury, from the President, and from some of our
Republican colleagues, particularly those of the Club for Growth bent.
Earlier in this debate, Republicans claimed that this would be a tax
cut for everybody and that nobody in the middle class is going to get a
tax increase. Independent analyses show that these claims were not
valid, and to their credit, some Republicans corrected the record.
Now Republicans have gotten the ``dynamic scoring'' they have
demanded for years. They are in charge. They put dynamic scoring in
place. It is still not good enough. As recently as this week, the
Republican leader and others claimed that this bill would not add to
the deficit. We know now that even under the dynamic scoring method the
Republican Party asked for and received, this bill would add $1
trillion to the deficit. All of the claims that tax cuts for the
wealthy and corporations will pay for themselves were not correct. It
is time for my Republican friends to admit the error and come clean
with the American people.
The fact that we received the dynamic score only a day before a final
vote on the bill shows just how foolhardy it is to rush a bill like
this through.
From press reports, we know that the Republicans are making the
passthrough provisions more generous, widening what was already a
gargantuan tax loophole for wealthy business owners. Why should wealthy
business owners pay a significantly lower rate on their personal
income, because they are paying no corporate tax if they use the
passthrough, than the average American? That is what this bill does.
Hedge funds, big fancy law firms, and lobbyist firms would all get a
lower rate than the average American because of the passthrough. The
average American who makes $100,000, $200,000 is already paying in the
30-percent range.
From press reports--you would think that maybe Republicans would be
concerned by the many reports that their bill increases taxes on 60
percent of middle-class families by the end of the day. No. Instead,
the holdout Republicans are concerned that this bill isn't generous
enough to corporations and wealthy business owners. So now the
Republican leadership is working to fix that. In the waning hours, this
bill is tilting even further toward business, even further away from
families. Every time the choice is between big corporations and
families, the Republicans choose the big corporations.
And still no one knows what the final bill will look like. Why on
Earth wouldn't you want to spend more than a few hours looking at a
bill of this magnitude? What might have been snuck in? What might have
been changed by mistake--an innocent mistake? There are so many reasons
to not rush this bill through, but we know why it is being done. We
know why Republican Members will only have a few hours at most to read
the draft legislation before voting on it.
Notching a political win, I would say to my colleagues, isn't a good
enough reason to throw common sense and legislative responsibility out
the window. Notching a political win isn't a good enough reason to
raise taxes and premiums on millions of middle-classes families when
there is a much better bill to be had by working in a bipartisan way,
Democrats and Republicans, across the aisle, together. My Republican
friends must know that ``we needed to notch a political win'' isn't a
good enough excuse for a constituent who asks why you voted to raise
their taxes but slash them for big corporations.
Today may be the first day of the new Republican Party--one that
raises taxes on the middle class. The one thing Republicans always
promised the middle class is, we are not going to raise your taxes. A
good number of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle--the
junior Senator from Texas--I heard him talk about it--said he doesn't
want to raise taxes on any middle-class person, but this bill does it.
The Republican Party is abandoning its long-held principles to please
its political pay masters. It is a bad move for the Republicans, as
well as a bad move for America.
Again, ``we needed to notch a political win'' is going to be no
excuse when your constituents complain that they are getting the short
end of the stick in this tax bill and wealthy corporations, the richest
people, are not.
Democrats remain united against any middle-class tax increase, and we
will fight to reverse that. The stakes are too high. Our economy is
already stacked against working men and women. Corporate profits and
stocks have reached alltime highs. The top 1 percent capture 20 percent
of the national income--higher than at any time in our history since
the roaring twenties.
Meanwhile, for too many Americans, the American dream is slipping
away. Hard-working Americans who get up every morning worried about
paying the bills, making the mortgage payment, the tuition payment, the
healthcare bill, are not getting the help they need in this bill.
Instead, it is going to the wealthiest, biggest corporations on a
theory of trickle-down, which almost everyone accepts and rightwing
economists agree has never made sense.
Any moral tax bill would focus on giving a leg up to middle-class
Americans, to working class Americans. Instead, this bill directs the
lion's share of its benefits to those at the very top--the already
wealthy, the already powerful. It makes healthcare less affordable and
less accessible. It will deprive the government of the resources needed
to support the military, scientific research, education, and
infrastructure.
The hole it blows in the deficit will--make no mistake--endanger
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Republicans, including
President Trump, have openly admitted that they will seek changes in
this program after the tax bill. Senator Sanders has outlined
eloquently how dangerous this bill is to the future of Social Security
and Medicare. I know our Republican colleagues who came down to argue
against him were all on the defensive.
All the things our President and Republicans say they wanted to do
are not happening. And this bill moves in the opposite direction--not
only on helping the wealthy and not helping the middle class in the way
it needs to but also in endangering Social Security and Medicare. Most
insidious of all, the bill hides a ticking time bomb of middle-class
tax hikes at the center of our Tax Code. Who would want to vote for
that?
Many of my Republican friends feel that the hard right--big, wealthy
corporate interests--will put these ads on TV saying that this bill
helps the middle class. It is not going to work. When the middle class
gets a tax increase, they are going to know why, and they are going to
know whom to blame, and these ads will have faded into the air.
Today, my Republican friends can choose to cement their party as the
party that raises taxes on the middle class. It will be a dramatic
turning point in a downward spiral for the Republicans and something
they have never believed in before. But Republicans have an
alternative. They can step back from the brink and work with Democrats
on a bipartisan tax reform bill to deliver across-the-board tax relief
to the middle class, a bill that makes our businesses more competitive
while closing egregious corporate loopholes and that grows our economy
without adding a penny to the deficit.
Bipartisan tax reform--not this cynical bill, not this partisan
exercise, not this bill that seems to please the 1 percent but not the
rest of America--is possible but only if my friends and colleagues will
abandon this bill and reach out for a better kind of politics.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Motion to Commit
Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise to offer motion to do something
that this tax plan fails to do: make good on President Trump's promise
to close the carried interest tax loophole. This motion has the support
of Senators Whitehouse, Donnelly, and Van Hollen.
I think we need to make our tax system simpler and fairer for hard-
working families, businesses--particularly
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small businesses--and manufacturers, and that is what I have been
working for. Unfortunately, this is not the plan being presented today
by Senate Republicans.
Let's be honest with the American people. This bill is largely a tax
giveaway to the wealthiest few and big corporations, while millions of
middle-class families will get a tax hike. With this partisan bill from
across the aisle, big corporations get permanent tax breaks--
permanent--while middle-class families will see tax increases. In fact,
most Americans earning less than $75,000 a year will see tax increases.
That is simply not fair.
It is also not fair that the top 1 percent will end up with over 60
percent of the benefits, and in exchange, 13 million more will lose
health insurance. Healthcare premiums will increase by 10 percent, and
Medicare and Medicaid have been put on the chopping block to pay for
it.
In addition, with the Senate Republican plan, powerful corporations
can still deduct their State and local taxes, but they completely
eliminate the State and local tax deduction for individual taxpayers.
This deduction ensures households aren't taxed twice by the Federal
Government on money they have already paid in State and local taxes,
including property taxes. But with the current Senate plan, nearly one
in three Wisconsinites will lose their personal income, sales, and
property tax deductions. A recent study shows that it could decrease
the value of home ownership. The average deduction in Wisconsin is
$11,653, and nearly $10 billion of Wisconsinites' paychecks would be
subject to a double tax--all to pay for a plan that favors those at the
top. What is more, by the latest estimation from our own congressional
scorekeeper, this plan will add $1 trillion--$1 trillion--to our
deficit, breaking our promise to the next generation and sticking them
with the bill.
Our Tax Code ought to reward hard work more than it rewards wealth.
It doesn't do that today, and it will not do that tomorrow if this bill
passes. In fact, this Republican plan's primary purpose is to reward
Fortune 500 corporations who will simply reward the wealth of
shareholders, not the hard work that drives productivity and growth
across our economy.
The primary promise of this legislation makes the same promise that
has not been kept to workers for decades. Trickle-down economics has
not worked in the past, and it is not going to work now. American
workers know that. But my colleagues, rushing to pass this legislation,
don't seem to care, because the only thing that matters is delivering
for donors, who have too much power and influence in Washington.
I want to see loopholes closed, like the one that favors Wall Street
hedge funds and allows them to pay a lower tax rate than many Wisconsin
workers pay. Earlier this year, I introduced the Carried Interest
Fairness Act to close the carried interest tax loophole for
millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street.
The carried interest loophole allows certain investment managers to
take advantage of the preferential 20 percent long-term capital gains
tax rates on the income they get for managing other people's money,
rather than the ordinary income tax rates of up to 39.6 percent that
American workers pay. My legislation closes the carried interest tax
loophole by ensuring that income earned by managing other people's
money is taxed at the same ordinary income tax rates as the vast
majority of working Americans pay.
As a candidate, President Trump included closing the carried interest
tax loophole in his tax reform plan. While campaigning in Detroit last
year, he said: ``We will eliminate the carried interest deduction and
other special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street
investors, and for people like me, but unfair to American workers.''
Then this May, after being asked why his tax reform outline didn't
mention carried interest after campaigning on its closure, the
President responded by saying:
It's out. Done . . . carried interest was great for me, but
carried interest was unfair and it's gone.
I agree that it is unfair and it should be eliminated. However, it is
not gone with this legislation. This loophole for Wall Street is still
in the bill. Why? Is it because my Republican colleagues on the other
side of the aisle simply do not believe a word this President says? Is
it because Wall Street lobbyists, big banks, and hedge funds have such
a grip on Washington? Is it because these are the very donors that this
legislation is meant to serve with a win?
Today I am offering a motion to close the carried interest tax
loophole once and for all. It is simply unfair for Wisconsin workers to
pay higher income tax rates than a billionaire hedge fund on Wall
Street.
If you agree, you will support this motion. If you want to help
President Trump keep his promises to the American people, you will
support this motion. Let's do right by the American people and close
this tax loophole for the wealthy on Wall Street. Let's make sure that
our Tax Code rewards hard work as much as it currently rewards wealth.
If that isn't simple and fair, I don't know what is.
I yield the floor.
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