[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 204 (Thursday, December 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8019-S8020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Republican Tax Bill

  Mr. President, a word on the Republican tax bill. On both process and 
substance, it appears that the Republicans' conference committee is 
making all the mistakes that the Republicans made when they passed 
their bill in the first place. Even though there is still not a final 
agreement on the text of the tax bill, Republican leaders promise a 
vote on the committee report as early as Monday of next week. I am not 
sure that my colleagues will have had enough time to have read and 
digested the bill that passed this Chamber a few weeks ago, let alone 
an entirely new conference report that will include many changes. It is 
the same rushed, awful process as before, and it can only result in 
mistakes and unintended consequences that could wreak havoc on the 
economy. Why are our Republican colleagues rushing this bill through? I 
think that they are ashamed of it.
  Every day, the more people know about the bill, the more they don't 
like it. Just in the polling data today, it shows that the popularity 
of the bill continues to plummet, and a poll out today said it is not 
just that the people do not like the bill but that those who vote for 
it will be affected at election time. The poll today asked people if 
they were more or less likely to vote for a Congressman who would vote 
for this bill or to vote for a Senator who would vote for this bill. 
Many in the public said that they were less likely to vote for a 
Congressman who would vote for this awful bill. The public knows that 
it is awful. Why? They know that Republicans are doubling down in this 
new proposal on the core mistake of their bill by tilting it even 
further in favor of the wealthy.
  I saw on TV this morning a guy from the Club for Growth and a guy 
from--I forgot the name--another group. These are narrow, narrow groups 
that have very little support and that are funded by the hard-right 
group of billionaires who want to see their taxes cut. They don't even 
talk about what is in the bill. They try to talk about its being a job 
creator, but they dare don't say, like so many of my Republican 
colleagues, how disproportionately it goes to those in the upper 
incomes and not to the middle class.
  Amazingly enough, behind closed doors, they have made a bad bill even 
worse. One of the most significant changes that have been made by the 
conference committee will be to lower the top tax rate 2 percentage 
points more than in the original bill. Let's help those millionaires 
get an even lower tax rate than they have now, for they are doing so 
poorly. This is crazy. There are a lot of wealthy people in America. 
God bless them. I don't resent their wealth, but they don't need a tax 
break. On the other hand, there are hundreds of millions of struggling 
middle-class people, and they could use that kind of money. Yet 
millions of people in this bill who are middle class, upper middle 
class, and who are struggling to be middle class get a tax increase. 
Instead of lowering the rate on the highest income people, why not use 
the money to help those in the middle?
  Despite all of the concerns about raising middle-class taxes, which 
makes the bill as unpopular as I just mentioned, the one big thing that 
Republicans go back and change is the rate paid by the wealthiest of 
Americans. They lower it. When it comes down to a choice between the 
middle class and the wealthy and the middle class and big corporations, 
the Republicans just instinctively, atavistically--in a knee-jerk way--
choose the wealthy and the powerful over the middle class. That is why 
they are struggling.
  I believe that is why President Trump's numbers are as low as they 
have ever been. People are getting a feel--a smell--in that President 
Trump talks about the middle class, but when he acts, like in this tax 
bill, it is to help the wealthiest and the most powerful. That happens 
with issue after issue.
  I see that my colleague Dick Blumenthal, the Senator from 
Connecticut, has come to the floor. He is going to talk about net 
neutrality, I believe. Again, help the big cable companies and the 
corporations, and make it harder for the middle class when it comes to 
cable service and the cost of cable.
  Republicans claim that lowering the top rate is an attempt to address 
tax hikes that would result from their plan to gut the State and local 
deduction, but reducing the top rate only helps the very wealthy--
couples who make over $1 million in the last draft that we heard 
about--but they are already the prime beneficiaries of this tax plan.
  I have a feeling that President Trump was hearing from his handful of 
wealthy friends who pay a lot in State and local taxes, many from my 
home State of New York. He decided, well, I will lower their taxes even 
more. But 99 percent of State and local deductions are taken by 
Americans with incomes under $1 million. More than half of the 
taxpayers who take the SALT deduction make less than $100,000. Reducing 
the top rate does nothing to help the 99 percent of taxpayers who take 
SALT. It only helps the top 1 percent, who make over $1 million. But 
this is what, it seems, the President and our Republican colleagues in 
the House and the Senate keep doing.
  As I have said from the start, eliminating or cutting the State and 
local deduction would hurt the middle class across the country. It 
would raise taxes on millions, lower home values for millions more, and 
gut our State and local

[[Page S8020]]

programs--education, law enforcement, infrastructure. None of those 
programs were addressed in the conference. Instead, the richest 
Americans will likely get an even bigger tax break.
  There is no reason to rush the bill through the Senate.
  Tuesday night, as our Presiding Officer knows, we had an election in 
Alabama. This Chamber is waiting for the seating of a new Senator. 
Shouldn't the people of Alabama have their voices in the Senate present 
for a vote on the tax bill?
  Again I would say to my friend the majority leader, slow down and 
wait for Senator-Elect Jones to arrive before taking any more votes on 
the tax bill. Democrats waited for Republican Senator Scott Brown in 
2010, but now that the shoe is on the other foot, Republicans don't 
seem to want to do the same. It is the right thing to do, and it will 
give every Senator and the American people more time to consider the 
legislation.