[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 207 (Tuesday, December 19, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H10234-H10240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                PASSAGE OF THE TAX CUT AND WHAT IT MEANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for this time to talk 
about something that is rather important. Something we did today was to 
pass a horrendous tax cut that doesn't meet this fundamental goal.
  Really, whenever we legislate here, we really ought to keep in mind 
our values: What is the purpose? What are we trying to accomplish? What 
is the goal? What is the human value that we are trying to put in 
place?
  I often use this because it is here in Washington at the FDR 
Memorial. It is on the marble there: ``The test of our progress is not 
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much.''
  Let me read that again, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: ``The test of our 
progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have 
much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''
  I want to use this as my compass, my guiding light on where we need 
to go. So this afternoon, this House of Representatives, by a vote of, 
I think, just over 200 voted to enact a tax law that goes in exactly 
the opposite direction of what FDR would say is our value, our goal.
  Here it is. The Speaker of the House came here to bring down the 
gavel to announce the vote that he was so proud to have.
  Eighty percent of the individual tax cuts don't go to the poor, don't 
go to the middle class. They go to the top 1 percent.
  How does that fit with what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to the 
American Nation during the height of the Great Depression?
  No. You may as well take Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words, turn them 
on their head, because this House didn't follow the edict, didn't 
follow the value, but did exactly the opposite: gave away, to the top 1 
percent, even greater wealth.
  How could that be? Why would they do that? Why would they do that?
  Well, I don't know why they would do it, but they surely did it. And 
in addition to that, not just the wealthy 1 percent, the wealthy 10 
percent, why don't you add American corporations to that who are awash 
in cash? $2.5 trillion in the bank accounts of American corporations, 
and they don't know how to spend it to create jobs in the United 
States.

  Instead, the Republicans, today, decided they needed $1.43 billion 
additional cash as a result of the tax cut that no Democrats, not a 
one, but every Republican voted for, $1.43 billion--the number is from 
the Joint Committee on Taxation--of new after-tax revenue to American 
corporations.
  And what do you suppose they are going to do with that? Create jobs 
in the United States? Expand their manufacturing? No. Or higher wages 
for their workers? No.
  I will tell you what they intend to do with it. This is it. The 
corporate tax giveaway will give Wells Fargo an 18 percent earnings 
increase.
  How do they intend to spend it? Hint: Not on jobs.
  In his own words, Tim Sloan, CEO of Wells Fargo, December 2017--I 
think that is this month--said: ``Is it our goal to increase return to 
shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer . . 
. is yes. So our expectation should be that we will continue to 
increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year 
after that and the year after that.''
  All right, Mr. Sloan. You can thank the Republicans, because when you 
buy back your shares, when you increase your dividends, guess what. The 
stock price goes up, and we know that your compensation is based on 
stock price. Are you going to use that extra money for loans to small 
businesses? to farmers? No, you are not. You are not going to make more 
loans.
  This is replicated across the American corporate culture. This is not 
unique. This new after-tax bonus that the Republicans are giving to 
American corporations is going to be used for the benefit of the 
wealthy. So you can add, if you will, to the tax cuts that are coming 
as a result of the reduction in the top income tax bracket for 
individuals from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, you can add to it, but, by 
the way, their investment portfolio is going to go up also.
  This tax program is an abomination, and it is going to hurt every 
American over time.
  I am joined here tonight by my colleagues who are probably as riled 
up about this as I am. I am not sure which one of them came in first.
  I yield to the gentleman from the State of Oregon, Peter DeFazio, my 
colleague.

[[Page H10235]]

  

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for explaining in 
some detail what the impacts of this legislation are and who is going 
to benefit. The gentleman is a member of the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee, on which I am the ranking member.
  I just want to say, we have been waiting for the trillion-dollar 
Trump infrastructure plan for a year now, and what we are hearing is, 
well, they just can't afford it. We can't afford to rebuild America's 
infrastructure.
  So let's compare the impact of a few of these tax cuts to what we 
could have done or could do with that money. Every tax cut means the 
government forgoes revenue.
  So let's just take the estate tax. Doubling the exemption from an $11 
million to $22 million estate, that costs $100 billion. If we invested 
that $100 billion in infrastructure, we would create 1.5 million 
working family wage jobs for Americans--1.5 million jobs. Now, I 
suppose those people with the cuts in the estate tax, they are going to 
trickle something on working people, probably not jobs, though.
  And let's look at one of my favorites, the passthrough. We are going 
to help small business. Well, no, we are not really going to help small 
business. If you work in your small business, you are not going to get 
a tax break. If you are a passive investor in a so-called small 
business or passthrough entity, you get a big tax break.
  Now, the President says he won't benefit. He owns 500 passthrough 
businesses according to his financial disclosure. Each one of those 
will give him a massive tax break.
  Well, that little beauty costs $600 billion. For $600 billion, if we 
invested it in infrastructure, we could create 9 million jobs. These 
passive investors in oil and gas and real estate, how many jobs are 
they going to create? Again, they might hire another manservant or 
someone to cut the lawn or someone to wax the yacht, but it's not going 
to be 9 million jobs, and it isn't going to be at family wages--Davis-
Bacon wages, I might say, really good wages.
  Let's just look at one item, the top rate. That only goes to people 
who earn over $500,000 a year. They are going to get a substantial 
break. About $130 billion it is going to cost us to give a tax break to 
people who earn over $500,000 a year, more of the trickle class, and 
that would have created 2 million family wage jobs rebuilding America's 
infrastructure, and not just benefiting the people who do the work.
  And it isn't just construction. It is design. It is engineering. It 
is small business. And just think of all the benefits in terms of the 
movement of goods and people and how it makes America more competitive.
  What a sad day it is when, as you pointed out very well, we are 
giving this money--three-quarters of it goes to corporate tax breaks, 
three-quarters. The last time we gave corporations a big tax cut under 
Bush when they repatriated almost $1 trillion, 93 percent of the money 
was spent on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive bonuses. I don't 
know what they did with the other 7 percent because those same 
corporations actually reduced employment.
  So what a false promise this is. A very, very sad day. I thank the 
gentleman for bringing this to the attention of the American people.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the ranking member of the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee for making a very clear case on how we might 
better spend our money.
  I yield to the gentleman from the great State of California (Mr. 
McNerney), my colleague and neighbor.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. McNERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my neighbor and friend, Mr. 
Garamendi, for holding this Special Order tonight and allowing us to 
talk about what this tax bill means.
  Mr. Speaker, today is a sad day in America, as the House passed an 
unholy tax scam of a tax bill. This bill was rushed through Congress 
with no hearings, no Democratic votes, and no Democratic amendments. 
This Republican tax scam is being deceptively sold as a benefit for the 
middle class, but the real winners will be the big corporations and 
those on the cover of Forbes 400 richest Americans.
  The Republican tax scam will increase the national debt by almost $2 
trillion, burdening our children or giving a Christmas bonus to the 
wealthiest Americans.
  The Republican tax scam permanently lowers the corporate tax rate 
while the child tax credit increase expires in 2025. In other words, 
big corporations get a permanent tax cut while the middle class 
receives a temporary tax cut.
  This tax scam places a cap on State and local taxes for individuals, 
targeting punishment for Democratic States. This is a new low for our 
democracy. The Republican tax scam also repeals the Affordable Care 
Act's individual mandate. This will cause 13 million Americans to lose 
their health insurance. Taking healthcare away from those who elected 
us is shameful.
  Earlier today, we heard from Ady Barkan, who was recently diagnosed 
with ALS. Many will recognize Ady from the video of him confronting 
Senator Flake in an airplane.
  Ady spoke passionately this morning about the dangers of this tax 
scam. As he was finishing, he talked about the opportunity we have to 
come back and do a real tax reform, in 2018, and do so in a bipartisan 
way. His hope for what a good tax bill should look like struck me. He 
said that we should come back and negotiate a tax bill that elevates 
human dignity, instead of promoting human misery.
  This Republican tax scam will hurt millions of Americans, many who 
are already struggling. We need a bipartisan solution to tax reform, 
not a special interest scam that benefits the wealthiest.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans should have no doubt this tax scam will hurt 
them and the economy. Forget about investing in infrastructure. Forget 
about investing in education. Forget about investing in research. You 
better start worrying about Medicare and Social Security. This tax scam 
will make America a Third World nation.
  Mr. Speaker, this tax scam is a disgrace.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Perlmutter), my friend.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Garamendi, for 
allowing me the opportunity to speak about this.
  You have FDR on the poster. He also said December 7 was a day that 
would live in infamy. This is a day that will live in infamy because of 
the tax bill that was passed today.
  I don't like to speak in this hyperbolic way, but what was passed by 
the Republican House, and soon by the Republican Senate, is something 
none of us has ever seen before.
  Let's just do some easy math so that people understand how 
unbelievable the numbers are on this.
  Let's take Speaker Ryan's numbers. He said an average family of four 
making some $60,000 are going to save about $1,183. Okay. Of the four, 
that is about $275 per person. That is nice. I like it.
  What he doesn't tell you, and what the Republicans refuse to talk 
about, is how much money is put on the credit card of the Nation for 
the current generation and future generations to have to pay. At best, 
it is $1.5 trillion.
  That is a number that none of us can really understand how big it is. 
But let's say there are 300 million Americans. Divide 300 million into 
$1.5 trillion and that is $5,000. Let's do the math. You get to save 
$270, but you put $5,000 on the credit card.
  Wait a second. That doesn't sound quite right. Where does that $4,730 
go?
  Well, it goes straight up to the wealthiest among us.
  So all of us, as a country, as a nation, and as a people, have the 
obligation to pay this back.
  And who gets it?
  Just a very slim few. We get $270, but we have $5,000 on a credit 
card.
  Mr. DeFazio talked about some of the opportunity costs that are lost 
from this $1.5 trillion. If the $1.5 trillion were out there to benefit 
all of us and just put in infrastructure, we would basically fix every 
road, every water work, every electric grid issue that we have; we 
would put broadband across the country, and all of us would benefit and 
make this country competitive for the next 50 years.
  Instead, we say: We don't need that money. Let's just give it back to 
the wealthiest people in America.

[[Page H10236]]

  Wrong. Terrible.
  I serve on the Science Committee. We did some numbers in the Science 
Committee.
  The entire budget for solar energy for our laboratories, in any given 
year, is about $207 million. We were having this testimony and the 
Republicans were picking on the managers of the solar budget line and 
said: You have really got to shrink this. This is costing too much 
money.
  Well, do you know how many times 207 million goes into $1.5 trillion? 
Do you know how many years worth of budgets that is?
  It is 7,480 years worth of solar energy budgets.
  I have really been working on getting our astronauts to Mars. We have 
been advised that that is going to cost about $200 billion over the 
course of the next 16 years, to 2033, which is when the orbits of Mars 
and the Earth come close together and saves us a lot of space time, 
travel time, and is safer for our astronauts.
  We could send our astronauts to Mars and back and start from scratch 
eight times for this tax cut that is going to be received by the rich.

  It is not right. It is not American. It is the opposite of what FDR 
said when he said: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add 
more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide 
enough for those who have too little.''
  There has been some talk about how real estate developers and others 
are really going to benefit by this tax cut that nobody has seen until 
the last day or two. This is a giant piece of legislation.
  One of the things the Democrats have asked for for a year now is that 
we want to see the President's tax returns. He has refused to disclose 
his tax returns. So we know he was a real estate developer, we know he 
is a very wealthy guy, and we know he is going to benefit in a large 
way--or, he might say in a huge way--by this tax cut. But we don't know 
how much it is going to be because he will never disclose his tax 
returns.
  The ink is just barely dry as to how this is all going to work out. 
What has transpired today is really a shame. I really am disappointed 
in my Republican colleagues in how this matter has been rushed through.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's final sentence was 
``rushed through.'' There has not been one substantive hearing in 
either House. There has been a markup hearing, but that is not a 
substantive hearing.
  No Democratic amendments have been accepted. Not one economist has 
been called to testify--not one accountant, not one tax lawyer. No 
hearings whatsoever.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. 
Cicilline) to share with us his perspective.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding.
  I would like to begin by thanking Mr. Garamendi for his relentless 
and passionate voice on behalf of working people, not only of 
California, but this country. He comes to the floor regularly and 
organizes these Special Order hours to help bring attention to these 
very important issues, and I really thank him for the opportunity to be 
part of it.
  I want to begin where he left off, and that is the process.
  We just learned today that the tax scam that the Republicans jammed 
through the House has to come back for another vote because they made 
some mistakes and didn't comply with some Senate rules.
  This is what happens when you don't have hearings, you don't have 
thoughtful deliberation, you don't listen to witnesses who can identify 
problems with the bill, and instead you just bring it to the floor.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, did I hear Mr. Cicilline correctly that 
the action taken here on the floor is not dispositive, but has to be 
modified in the Senate and brought back because they screwed up?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, yes. Exactly. The bill will come back. 
So, hopefully, the American people will have another opportunity to 
make certain their voices are heard.
  But this is not the way to do a complicated piece of legislation. The 
last time the Congress did tax reform, there were 400 witnesses, 
experts who came in, hearings month after month, because it is 
complicated. You want to make sure it works right. You are talking 
about the American economy.
  None of that happened here. It was written in the dark of the night. 
Some of our Republican colleagues didn't see the text. This is not a 
way to do legislation, and it is one of the reasons that excluding the 
Democrats from contributing to this process was a terrible, terrible 
mistake.
  What is the result?
  We end up with a bill that does exactly the opposite of what it says 
it will do.
  This is a job-killing bill. There is no more urgent priority that all 
of us have to create good-paying jobs, family supporting jobs. We 
Democrats have launched a very bold economic agenda that focuses on 
better jobs, better wages for a better future.
  Millions of Americans will go to bed tonight and lie awake worried 
about whether or not they have enough money to pay their bills, whether 
they can put aside some savings for their retirement, whether they can 
send their kids to school.
  All of those anxieties come from the fact they are not making enough 
money to make ends meet. They haven't seen an increase in their income 
in a very long time. What this tax bill does is make those problems 
worse. This will raise taxes on 86 million middle class families in 
this country.
  They call it a tax cut. For those 86 middle class families, it is a 
tax increase. In fact, 83 percent of the tax cuts go to the top 1 
percent, the very richest people in this country and the biggest 
corporations. It also makes more generous tax provisions that 
incentivize companies to ship American jobs oversees.
  This is not a job creator. The idea that if we just let the people at 
the very top hold on to all their money, it is going to trickle down to 
the rest of us, is a job killer. We know that doesn't work. They tried 
during the Bush administration. We had the worst job loss in a 
generation.
  It doesn't work because we all know the way you actually create jobs 
is you grow the middle class. You make sure folks have good-paying 
jobs, have more money in their pockets to buy the goods and services.
  Go to any small business in my State of Rhode Island, and I am sure 
it is the same in the State of California, and ask a small-business 
owner: What do you need to add a job? What do you need to increase the 
number of people who work in your business?
  They will say one thing: I need customers. I need people to buy what 
I make and sell.
  That is why strengthening the middle class, raising the income of 
people in this country, is the way you grow the economy. This is just 
the opposite.
  I was sickened when that bill passed the floor a few moments ago and 
I saw our Republican colleagues cheering and hooting and hollering like 
they were at a ball game. They put points on the board. They didn't put 
points on the board for the American people.

  We are going to keep fighting for a tax reform bill that actually 
provides cuts to middle class families that will help to promote 
economic growth and create good-paying jobs.
  We think the Tax Code is broken. We have always been willing to work 
together in a bipartisan way to make the Tax Code simpler, more 
competitive, and work for the American people.
  That is not what the Republicans did. This is a giveaway to their 
donors. Some of our colleagues said it out loud: If we don't pass a tax 
cut, our donors told us to not call anymore. They actually said that 
out loud.
  That is not how you write legislation. Let's not forget who sent us 
here and whom we should be working for.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving me an opportunity to 
contribute to the conversation tonight. This is a bill which will hurt 
Rhode Island, hurt this country, and hurt our economy.
  Finally, it also will result in the gutting of Medicare and Medicaid. 
Everyone forgets this creates a $1.5 trillion debt which, by our rules, 
is going to result in automatic cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, student 
loan programs, block grants, vocational rehabilitation programs, and on 
and on and on.

[[Page H10237]]

  


                              {time}  1800

  They give away $1.5 trillion that we don't have. They borrow the 
money to give away the tax cuts, and then next year they come back and 
say: Oh, we have no money. We have to cut Medicare and cut Medicaid and 
cut Social Security and cut Pell grants and not rebuild the 
infrastructure of our country.
  Our Republican colleagues have said this is part one. Part two will 
be these cuts. The American people know this, which is why this bill is 
overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people. They see what the 
Republicans are up to. They are insulting the American people. They 
think they haven't figured this out. They are going to dangle a couple 
of dollars in front of them but then whack them with huge cuts next 
year.
  The American people are smarter than this. The Republicans are going 
to be held accountable. We have to fight with every fiber in our body 
to stop this because it is really going to hurt people.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cicilline for bringing to our 
attention some key elements here: The deficit issue, which we will 
discuss a little longer today. Also, the issue of really growing 
American jobs: growing wages, growing the future, and creating a better 
future for American workers. I know that has been the gentleman's 
passion and his work. We will go through all of those things in the day 
ahead.
  This bill may very well become law, but I would surely like to see 
exactly how the President is going to do with this. I suspect this 
passthrough business in which he has 500 passthrough corporations--he 
is not an active investor. He will make out very, very well, and the 
working men and women of the middle class are going to lose.
  I am just looking at this. This is the distribution tables from the 
Joint Committee on Taxation, December 18, 2017. Income category, a 
distribution of individual income tax side of the proposal. 2019, a 
small $127 million reduction for everybody making less than $10,000. In 
2021, they are actually paying higher taxes. So the very, very bottom, 
in just 3 years, they are going to pay higher taxes.
  I notice that my friend from North Carolina has joined us, and I 
thank him so very much for joining us. I know he has a few things on 
his mind, as do Mr. Cicilline and I.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) 
to share with us his views on what has happened today and where we are 
going.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for 
yielding. I am thankful that Mr. Garamendi has taken out this Special 
Order and that so many colleagues have come out to express their views 
on this travesty of a tax bill that was passed by the House today and 
that appears to be on its way to the President's desk.
  Speaking of the President and how much he will benefit from that, I 
am sure my colleagues have heard the saying that he campaigned like a 
populist and is governing like a plutocrat.
  Wouldn't you say this bill is a pretty good exhibit A with respect to 
that?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, oh, absolutely. And I 
would say, also, that maybe it is an oligarch, and maybe we are 
creating one of those Russian oligarch societies here in which a few 
who are well connected to this President are going to do very, very 
well.
  We are not talking about the Russia thing here today, but it gives me 
some pause to think: Why are they working so hard to end the Mueller 
investigation? But that is another subject for another day.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. It is, indeed. But the Russian role 
model seems alive and well as we look at the development of the 
American economy and where we may be going.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleague will agree that our Republican 
friends know this is a very, very unpopular piece of legislation. It is 
striking, isn't it? They decided that they were going to go into the 
hole $1.5 trillion, forget about revenue neutrality. They are going to 
go into the hole and borrow $1.5 trillion. Even with that, they have 
not been able to write a bill that most of the American people feel a 
benefit from. It is extraordinary.
  Well, the fact is that most of the American people won't benefit from 
this bill. I think they are on to that. The latest polling shows that 
Americans oppose this bill by a margin of 2 to 1. That is, of course, 
before they have even felt the effects of this bill.
  I think Republicans know that this opposition is only going to get 
stronger the more people figure out what is in this bill. That may be 
why they have rushed this thing to passage in the most chaotic 
legislative process I can ever remember.
  They released thousands of pages of text on this bill last Friday and 
expected to vote on it today, of course.

  Maybe that is the reason why they held no hearings. The less people 
know, the better.
  Maybe that is why we have had almost no debate.
  Maybe that is why they won't even allow for a complete scoring of the 
bill by the Joint Committee on Taxation or the Congressional Budget 
Office.
  Maybe that desire to cover up the consequences of this is the reason 
they have added these questionable provisions, to provide a fig leaf of 
coverage for hesitant Members, skittish Members who want to be able to 
explain this vote back home.
  Mr. Speaker, I have heard for years Republican colleagues decry 
fiscal irresponsibility, a lack of regular order in these Chambers and 
a lack of orderly, responsible procedures. They have talked about tax 
reform that simplifies the Tax Code, that benefits hardworking 
families.
  Well, what we have seen today and what we have seen in recent days as 
this bill came to the floor is just a total contradiction of all that 
they have professed to stand for all these years. These words are 
nothing but lip service and false promises. They have sloppily drafted 
this bill behind closed doors. They plan to raise taxes on 86 million 
middle class families, and they plan to add $1.5 trillion to the 
national debt.
  Despite claims that this bill will benefit the middle class, 83 
percent of the tax cuts go to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.
  And they have also taken aim at healthcare, as if the tax travesties 
weren't enough. By eliminating the so-called individual mandate, the 
GOP tax scam will explode premiums, and it will add 13 million 
Americans to the ranks of the uninsured.
  The bill is a windfall for large corporations that want to ship 
American jobs overseas. They want to cut staff. They drive down wages 
and salaries. This bill will facilitate that.
  Plain and simple, the Republican tax scam asks hardworking families 
and future generations of Americans to foot the bill for huge tax cuts 
for corporations and for the wealthiest.
  And we haven't seen the end of it yet. Do you know what is coming 
next? You can bet that, once this bill passes, Republicans are going to 
pivot. They are going to pivot in a heartbeat to pose as the guardians 
of fiscal rectitude.
  Having abandoned any pretense of revenue neutrality in this bill and 
having added $1.5 trillion to the national debt and having triggered a 
$25 billion Medicare sequester cut, they are, all of a sudden, going to 
sound the alarm: Poor us. We are broke. Our country is broke. We have 
got to squeeze Medicaid now. We have got to squeeze Medicare. We have 
got to squeeze Social Security. We have got to squeeze investments in 
transportation, housing, education, and research.
  You can see it coming. We have seen this bad Republican movie before, 
although never on such an epic scale.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we don't need to 
guess what they are going to do. The Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, Mr. Ryan, has said very clearly that next year will be 
step two. They will take on what he calls the social safety net: Social 
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. That is where the cuts 
are going to come. This is not our words. These are the words of the 
leadership of this House of Representatives, the words of the Speaker.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely 
right. This has been in Republican budgets forever, this war on the 
kind of safety net provisions that so many of our fellow citizens 
depend on.
  Fiscal rectitude, indeed. They are willing to go $1.5 trillion in the 
hole,

[[Page H10238]]

willing to borrow that money, to take the national debt to dangerous 
levels.
  But it is a matter of being able, then, to say: Poor us. Our country 
is broke. We can't afford to invest in our people. We can't afford to 
build our infrastructure. We can't even afford to leave intact the 
safety net that people have spent their lives depending on.
  It is a travesty. This tax bill is not just about taxes. It is about 
keeping faith with the American people; and that faith, this very day, 
has been broken by the Republican Party.
  Mr. Speaker, I should say this. They had an opportunity to do this 
the right way. This wasn't inevitable. This wasn't written in stone. 
They could have worked with Democrats in Congress in a bipartisan way 
to figure out how to grow the economy and how to simplify our Tax Code.
  Do you remember that? Simplify the Tax Code and file it on a 
postcard. This bill makes the Tax Code far, far more complicated. It is 
a dream bill for tax lawyers and accountants.
  So no more simplification. That has been forgotten.
  They were going to lower the tax burden for middle class families. We 
could have figured out how to do that without exploding the debt. There 
are many, many things we could have achieved together.
  We have, here, a once-in-a-decade opportunity, and they have blown 
it, they have squandered it, and that is a source of great regret. In 
fact, the Republicans have jeopardized our economic future to give tax 
cuts, tailor-made, for corporate lobbyists and, as they have actually 
said, to make their donors happy--to make their donors happy.
  Mr. Speaker, we hope against hope that the Senate might yet do the 
right thing, and when they have to clean up this bill to bring it back 
to the House for yet another vote, that our House colleagues--it was a 
narrow vote. It was a narrow vote. It would be wonderful to turn it 
around. But we certainly need to make sure that there is no mistake how 
this has happened, what has happened, and we must start, this very day, 
to figure out how to make our economy and our country whole and to make 
it work for all of our people.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for this opportunity. This is 
very, very useful to be able to have this kind of extended discussion. 
Even though the subject matter is not happy--we have had a very bad day 
here in the House of Representatives--it is important for us to pick 
up, move ahead, and realize the task that lies ahead.

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Price of North Carolina so 
very much. His thoughtful discussion of this is much appreciated.
  He mentioned the deficit issue. $1.5 trillion does not include the 
interest on the $1.5 trillion. So if you were to add the interest to 
the $1.5 trillion, it would actually probably be over $2 trillion to 
$2.3 trillion that this will cost. The actual reduction in revenues, 
$1.5 trillion, interest on top of that another $600 billion or so, so 
we are looking at something really serious here.
  I would like to go through some of the numbers.
  I looked at this. This is not something that is off 10 years from 
now. This is now.
  In 2019, the structural deficit that is already in place, without 
even talking about this additional burden of increased deficit, the 
underlying structural deficit in 2019 is right around $600 billion. 
This tax bill will add maybe $250 billion to $300 billion of additional 
debt in 2019. So we are going to get very close to $1 trillion of 
deficit in 2019.
  And, by the way, the military budget is increased by about, I think 
it is over $50 billion. That is not paid for, so that is additional 
debt. That is going to be here on the floor tomorrow or the next day.
  In addition to that, there is this ongoing effort to deal with the 
hurricanes, fires, and so forth. That is another $120 billion that is 
not paid for.
  So if you take $120 billion, you take $50 billion, and you take the 
$250 billion to $300 billion in the tax bill and you add that to the 
$600 billion that exists to begin with, in 2019, it will be over $1 
trillion of new debt. And I will guarantee that the exodus, the 
migration of the deficit hawks from Washington, D.C., during December 
of 2017 will reverse in the warmer weather, coming back next year. And 
those deficit hawks will come back, they will come back to Congress, 
and they will go right after the programs that FDR talked about: those 
who have the least.
  Our colleague, Mr. DeFazio, from the Transportation and 
Infrastructure Committee talked about what we could do if we had the 
money in infrastructure or if we had that billion dollars; 15,000 
people would be employed. But we won't--we won't--have an 
infrastructure program, and they will be back here.

                              {time}  1815

  They will be back here to make cuts in the social safety net, as the 
Speaker has already said he intends to do. Medicaid, $800 billion to $1 
trillion reduction in Medicaid over the next decade.
  Who are the beneficiaries of Medicaid?
  We think they are the people on welfare. Well, yes, but some 60 
percent of Medicaid recipients are seniors, seniors in nursing homes 
and long-term care facilities.
  I thank Mr. Price very much for joining us.
  I think I am going to stop for just a moment and turn to my colleague 
from the great State of Maryland. If the gentleman would care to join 
us, I yield to Mr. Raskin for his remarks.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join this evening. I thank 
the gentleman for putting together a discussion, a Special Order on 
this critical piece of legislation, which is now hurdling through 
Congress today.
  I was reflecting, Mr. Speaker, that I had never seen a riot before, 
and I wonder how many people have been to a riot. And then as I was 
watching this bill being rammed through Congress, I realized that we 
were observing up close a riot, a ruling class riot, a trickle-down 
riot, special interest riot, a 1 percent riot against the rest of the 
country, the 1 percent that will get 83 percent of the tax cuts, the 1 
percent that is overseeing an explosion in our deficit, adding 
somewhere between $1\1/2\ trillion to $2.3 trillion to our deficit that 
we are passing on to our children and our grandchildren.
  My constituents in Maryland are saying to me: Hey, if we are going to 
go into an extra $1\1/2\ trillion into deficits and debt, why don't we 
put that into an infrastructure plan for America? Why not rebuild our 
transportation system, the roads, the highways, the bridges, the Metro 
systems, the port authorities, the water systems, and cybersecurity? 
They are collapsing in front of our very eyes. So if we have got $1\1/
2\ trillion that we are going to put on the Federal tab, let's direct 
it into infrastructure.
  But what do they bring us instead?
  Old-fashioned, shopworn, and historically discredited trickle-down 
economics. It never works. It never works to cut taxes on the wealthy 
and big corporations and hope that the profits will just magically, 
mysteriously rain down on the middle class and working people.
  It has just never worked like that. The only thing that does work is 
bubble-up middle class economics that gives opportunity to everybody--
the poor working people, the middle class--and the money will flow up. 
The rich will get richer. We have proven it. That when you actually 
invest in education and you invest in infrastructure and you invest in 
healthcare, everybody does better. And then, because everybody is doing 
better, everybody does better, including the wealthy. We don't need to 
have top-down class warfare, trickle-down economics in America. But, 
hey, it is hard to stop a riot once it gets going, and we are in the 
middle of a riot here.
  They said Malcolm X could stop a riot if he wanted to. Well, Paul 
Ryan could stop this riot if he wanted to. The GOP could stop this 
riot. Maybe even President Trump could stop this riot. But the American 
oligarchs, the ones who are friends with the Russian oligarchs, the 
American oligarchs can taste victory already. They are carting off 
their TVs. They are checking out their gorgeous new yachts. They are 
measuring the drapes at Mar-a-Lago. They are polling for the Senate 
seats that they plan to buy with all of the new campaign contributions 
that come rolling in from the Mercers and the Koch brothers and the 
other plutocrats who are going to make out like bandits with this 
highway robbery.

[[Page H10239]]

  In a riot, there is no time for hearings, no time for facts, no time 
for economic analysis, no time for experts, no time for discussion or 
democracy. There is no time for us even to read the lousy bills that 
their lobbyists write for them. They are too busy looting the Treasury 
in the middle of the night, ransacking Medicare and Medicaid, and 
trashing the neighborhoods of the beleaguered American middle class by 
raising taxes on 86 million families over the next decade.
  They are too busy trashing the State and local tax deduction, 
imposing double taxes on our people, something that has not occurred 
since we developed the tax system back in 1862, when they imposed the 
first revenue act. In the middle of the Civil War, they exempted State 
and local taxes.
  Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans said then, ``That is double 
taxation; we won't do it in the middle of the Civil War,'' when they 
needed to raise money.
  And here we are, in a time of record corporate profits, amazing 
prosperity that comes out of the Obama administration, amazing economic 
expansion and growth, and what do they want to do?
  They want to impose double taxation on what they say is the blue 
States because now America has got to be divided.
  It is their States and our States, so the blue States are going to 
just pay more. That is the way that they are pursuing their tax policy 
in the United States Congress. You could almost understand and 
appreciate this trickle-down mob mentality if it were just our own rich 
people who were wilding against American democracy. After all, the top 
1 percent in America today owns only as much wealth as the bottom 90 
percent combined. There is still the remnants of the middle class to 
destroy, and it is hard to keep up with the lifestyle of the rich and 
famous in Trump's billionaire Cabinet.
  So they need to drive 13 million Americans off of their health 
insurance. They need to make tens of millions of Americans pay more in 
taxes. But here is the thing: one-third of the corporate windfall in 
their gigantic corporate tax break, which is the heart of their bill, 
hundreds of billions of dollars, one-third of the money will go to 
foreign investors in Saudi Arabia, in China, in Russia. The one-third 
of the American stock that is owned by foreign investors is going to 
just sail outside of the country immediately when we do this.
  And that huge sucking sound of hundreds of billions of dollars 
flowing to other people's oligarchs will be followed by billions more 
in investments and millions more in jobs because of another little 
trick that got tucked into this bag of tricks on the American people 
and treats for our plutocrats. Their bill changes our tax policy to a 
territorial system.
  Well, what does that mean?
  It means, if you are an American businessman and you are setting up 
your new business, the American businessman or businesswoman, you are 
setting up your business on Main Street, you are going to pay 100 
percent of your taxes due. Your rate is going to go way down under this 
bill, but you will pay 100 percent. If you ship your business and your 
jobs overseas to Mexico or Indonesia or Switzerland or Vietnam, you are 
going to pay zero percent of what you would owe.
  Now, I think they put in some tiny, little fix about that saying: 
Well, if it gets too extreme, if you press the joke too far, you will 
pay something, maybe 10 percent.
  Again, that was written in the middle of the night, so I haven't seen 
that. That is just a talking point.
  But let me just close with this: like a riot, this tax scam has 
little to recommend it. Its only redeeming feature is that it will wake 
a horrified country up to the depravity and greed that have overtaken 
our politics and, I am sad to say, a once great political party in the 
United States of America. And when we wake up to the fiscal damage and 
the political hangover, then they will be coming with their meat 
cleavers towards Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
  And when the American people bounce out the people who rioted today, 
when they bounce them out of office, well, it is going to be okay for 
them because they can go and work for the lobbyists and the big 
companies that made out like bandits today. So the joke is on us if 
this actually goes through. But don't forget that what we saw today was 
a riot from above.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Raskin so very much for his 
remarks. The voice of Maryland is strong and powerful and quite 
correct. Mr. Raskin spoke of income inequality.
  The wealthy in America, the top 1 percent, own as much wealth as the 
bottom 90 percent?
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, yes, I did say that.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this bill would seem to further the 
skewing of wealth to the wealthy.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the whole point is to cement into place an 
oligarchy, a plutocracy.
  One of the reasons that the Founders of America were so opposed to 
the intergenerational transmission of wealth is because they said that 
is going to increase idleness, laziness, presumptuousness, and 
entitlement in new generations.
  At a certain point, if you buy enough houses, if you buy enough 
horses, if you buy enough yachts, if you buy enough jewels, what do you 
want?
  Well, you want a governorship. You want a Senate seat.
  That is not democracy. That is plutocracy. So we can't let this 
system of wealth discrimination and separation devour our basic 
democratic values.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, that is interesting. Perhaps the House of 
Lords is in our future.
  I was just thinking, as Mr. Raskin was talking, of an old comic book 
that used to be popular. It was one of the Donald Duck comic books, and 
I remember it was Uncle Scrooge McDuck. I guess, in his treasury, he 
was playing with the dollars, throwing the coins up into the air. I am 
wondering if that is what we are really into here.
  The superwealthy are just accumulating more and more wealth. For the 
benefit of the economy? Not really. It doesn't trickle down. There is 
absolutely no evidence that it does. In fact, there is plenty of 
historic economic evidence that trickle down doesn't work, but pushing 
up from the bottom would. We could have had a tax bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I was shocked to read so many prominent 
elected officials and political operatives on the GOP side saying that 
the whole reason for doing this is that their donors were effectively 
going on a strike and the donors were saying: If you don't get the tax 
bill through, don't expect contributions from us.
  We couldn't have a more vivid demonstration of plutocracy in the 
country.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, if their tax bill is for their donors, we have a 
pretty good idea who the beneficiaries of the tax bill are. So the 
donors are the plutocrats, the superwealthy. It is Wall Street. Very 
much it is Wall Street because this is really about raising the stock 
price.
  I think Mr. Raskin may not have been here when I put this up, but I 
am going to do it one more time. It has been clear that before the 
1980s, 50 percent, maybe 55 percent, 60 percent of the after-tax income 
of corporations went into creating a bigger corporation, into 
manufacturing jobs, plant equipment, hiring more people, paying better 
wages.

  Beginning in the mid-1980s or so, that began to shift so that, today, 
exactly the opposite occurs. Maybe 70, 80 percent of the after-tax 
profits now go into buying back stock, increasing the stock price, 
higher dividends.
  Case in point: the corporate tax giveaway in this bill, which is 
actually--I said earlier it was $1.4 trillion reduction in corporate 
taxes over the next decade. It is actually $1.3 trillion. My apologies 
for being incorrect.
  $1.3 trillion reduction in corporate taxes. For a company like Wells 
Fargo, a rather major bank, the corporate tax giveaway will give Wells 
Fargo an 18 percent earnings increase.
  How does Wells Fargo intend to spend it?
  Not on jobs.
  Here is what the CEO of Wells Fargo, Mr. Tim Sloan, said in December 
of 2017. That is this month. He said: ``Is it our goal to increase 
return to shareholders, and do we have an excess amount of capital? The 
answer to both is `yes.' So our expectation should be that we will 
continue to increase our

[[Page H10240]]

dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and 
the year after that.''
  So where are the jobs?
  May I cite one other example. Lowering the corporate tax rate was 
said to be an incentive for corporations to invest. Well, here is one 
of the great American corporations.
  Are they investing?
  I think not. They are buying back stock.
  AT&T, another major American corporation, effectively reduced its tax 
rate to 8 percent over the last decade. So they are paying not 21 
percent, as this bill would require. They are paying 8 percent.
  Did they create jobs?
  No. During that same period of time, they laid off 80,000 workers.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Raskin, if he would like to make a few 
closing remarks, and then I will wrap up.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, once again, for this 
opportunity and for his leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes a superb point. We are at a point of 
record corporate profits. The corporations are swimming in profits and 
in cash, and if they wanted to be employing more people, they could be 
employing more people now.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, they could be raising wages. I yield to 
the gentleman.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, or raising wages. They could do it right 
now.
  All that we are doing is bestowing more of a bonus on them so they 
can give more money away to the CEOs. In the stock dividends and in the 
stock buybacks, it is cash gains within the corporations, so they are 
going to get wealthier. There is no reason to begrudge that. It is a 
large part of a lot of people's dreams to make a lot of money, but 
let's not press a good joke too far.
  They are making tons of money right now, and we have got serious 
needs in the country. We have got an infrastructure crisis. Our roads 
and our highways and our metro systems and our water systems are 
suffering--our schools, our universities, our community colleges.
  Why not invest in some common things that bring us together as a 
society, rather than having highway robbery from above against the rest 
of the country? It is just incomprehensible to me.
  I have got to believe this is something to do with the corruption of 
our campaign finance regime. People are talking about: Well, we are 
waiting for the contributions to come in, and that they are telling us 
on the phone they don't want to give us contributions until we pass the 
tax bill.
  So give them hundreds of billions, drive us into trillions of dollars 
in debt, and then they will give us back hundreds of thousands of 
dollars in campaign contributions. It is a bad deal. That is why a lot 
of parts of the country are moving to public financing now, because it 
is remarkable how much damage you could do to the country on the cheap 
with a relatively small investment. After the Supreme Court's decision 
in 2010, in the Citizens United case, redefining corporations as 
political citizens, now the CEOs can take money directly out of the 
corporate treasury and put it into politics.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, from their own mouth comes from the truth 
of what Mr. Raskin said. They have said it very clearly, they need to 
do this for their contributors.
  Who are their contributors? Well, the wealthy, the superwealthy, and 
the rest.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to wrap it up here. I want to thank 
Mr. Raskin for his participation. I want to thank my colleagues who 
came to the floor tonight to express their dismay at what has happened.
  Now, because the bill was rushed through without any public hearings, 
there were errors in the bill that require that the Senate take the 
approved conference committee report and modify it, which I suppose 
means there has to be yet another conference committee, modify it, 
remove the errors that are in conflict with the Senate rules, and send 
it back here. Presumably, that will be done tomorrow.
  Maybe now, as we bring to the attention of the American public the 
way in which this tax bill is harmful to the economy, harmful to the 
American middle class, and will result in 83 million Americans 
immediately paying higher taxes, and over the period of time, everybody 
that is less than $100,000, maybe $150,000, will be paying higher 
taxes, but the wealthy and the corporations will go on and have their 
lower taxes for many, many years to come, all of that hopefully will 
begin to sink in on the American public, and they will rise up in 
indignation and call a halt to what is a major rip-off of the American 
Treasury and America's future.
  So we will continue to talk about this in the days ahead, and those 
who have voted for this are going to be held responsible and 
accountable as the days and the months go by.
  Keep in mind that the Texas Two-Step is very much in play, and that, 
in the days ahead, in the next year, as the weather warms, the returned 
migration of the deficit hawks will take place, and they will go after 
Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, education, children's health, and 
other programs that men and women of America rely upon, and perhaps 
many, many more.
  We will be fighting this fight for many months to come.
  Mr. Speaker, keeping in mind the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 
I yield back the balance of my time.

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