[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S122-S124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Tax Reform

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, when we were debating the tax relief 
law at the end of last year, it was a very familiar debate in many 
ways.
  Republicans came to the floor with facts and figures on how much 
extra money people were going to see in their pockets and their 
paychecks. Democrats came to the floor with the same old tired line 
that you always hear them talk about--the millionaires and 
billionaires.
  Republicans pointed out economic studies that showed that workers 
right now pay more than 70 percent of the cost of corporate taxes. We 
talked about a study by the Tax Foundation that predicted that if we 
passed the tax relief bill, the average family would actually see a 
gain of about $2,600 a year in their after-tax income. It was partly 
because of getting the tax cut and partly because their employers would 
then pass on much of the tax cut in higher wages. Democrats didn't 
believe it. They said that only rich people would benefit and that 
businesses would never share their tax savings with the workers. The 
Democratic leader said that ``tax cuts like these benefit the wealthy 
and the powerful to the exclusion of the middle class.''
  Here we are. It is the month after we passed the tax relief bill, the 
tax reduction bill, and the tax simplification bill, and the question 
is, Who was right? The very day the tax bill passed in Congress, AT&T 
came out and said it was giving its workers a bonus. It said that 
200,000 hard-working employees were going to get an extra $1,000 each 
directly because of the new tax relief, tax reduction, tax cut bill. 
The Tax Foundation predicted that they would eventually get an extra 
$2,600, and these people are already getting $1,000 each on day one.
  That has opened the floodgates to other companies doing the exact 
same thing and employees around the country experiencing the exact same 
thing. Businesses started sharing the tax savings with rank-and-file, 
middle-class workers, and it started on day one--not just the wealthy 
and the powerful, as Senator Schumer has predicted. Over 120 companies 
have said they are raising wages, giving out bonuses, and investing in 
their workers because of the tax law. It adds up to over $980 million--
$980 million in the pockets of hard-working men and women around the 
country. How many people are seeing that? By last count, almost 1 
million hard-working Americans--over 970,000 hard-working Americans 
have already gotten the good news.
  There is more good news coming every day, with more announcements 
today. It is exactly what Republicans said would happen. It is 
happening for people who work at banks, who work at insurance 
companies, who work at airlines. It is happening for people who work at 
big companies, such as AT&T, Visa, and Comcast, but it is also 
happening for people who work at smaller companies, such as a winery in 
California and an aviation company in Texas. These are businesses and 
people in communities who are important parts of their communities and 
doing important jobs. The employees work hard, and now they are getting 
a share of the relief the Republicans had predicted they would get all 
along. And they are not just getting cash bonuses. There is a bank in 
Massachusetts called Berkshire Hills Bancorp. They announced last week 
that the people working there will be getting a $1,000 bonus and will 
also see the minimum wage raised to $15 an hour.
  More is being invested in employee development and training programs. 
When you invest more in employee development and training programs, 
that means people are going to have additional skills that make them 
even more productive, better at their jobs, and qualify for even higher 
wages.
  This bank in Massachusetts is also contributing an extra $2 million 
to its charitable efforts, including scholarships. That helps improve 
the communities where the workers live and where they raise their 
families.
  Democrats said it is not going to happen. It has happened. It is 
happening every day. They said that businesses would keep the money for 
themselves. That is not what we are seeing all across the country.
  Ms. Warren, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, went on PBS. The 
senior Senator from Massachusetts said that the idea that tax relief 
would lead to higher wages was, in her words, ``the big lie that 
Republicans have been selling'' for decades. She said that tax relief 
was ``an insult to working families across America.''
  I would point out to Senator Warren that many of the people who work 
at this bank are in her home State of Massachusetts. People have gotten 
wage increases. People have gotten additional money spent on training 
so they can become more valuable and make even more money. People have 
seen the minimum wage in that business go up. The workers getting these 
bonuses and raises in their pay are her constituents. Does she think 
these people are feeling insulted? Does she believe they have been 
insulted by getting a $1,000 bonus and getting an increase in their 
salaries and having investments in terms of additional training? Is 
that an insult to those people? I don't think so. I bet they are 
feeling pretty glad to be supported and valued by their employer.

  There is another business in Nevada, South Point Casino. Workers 
there are receiving $1 million total in bonuses. Previously, this 
business had actually planned to increase the share of health insurance 
costs that its employees would have to pay because health insurance 
costs have gone up.
  Health insurance prices have skyrocketed ever since ObamaCare was 
passed. Companies have struggled with how to deal with these rising 
costs. Many have tried to pass these on to the employees.
  This company in Nevada has said that because of the Republican tax 
relief law, they are canceling their plans to raise insurance costs--
canceling their plans to raise the costs. That is more money in 
employees' pockets. The owner of the business said: ``We want to be 
sure that our extended family is taken care of.'' That is the way these 
people think of the people who work for them--as part of their extended 
family. That is how employers are responding to tax relief all around 
the country, and that is what we said would happen.
  We also predicted that one way businesses might deal with lower taxes 
would be to cut prices for consumers, let people who use their services 
or buy their products keep more of their hard-earned money. Americans 
are starting to see that prediction come true in the form of lower 
utility bills. Gas, electric, and water utilities across the country 
are getting ready to cut their rates because the taxes are going down 
under the law. Customers of the power company in Baltimore are going to 
receive millions of dollars in the form of lower rates. It has been a 
cold winter on the east coast, and a lower electric bill is going to be 
good news for a lot of people in that area. Customers are also likely 
to see the same thing in Missouri, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
  These are the kinds of effects we are seeing all across the country, 
in various ways. It is all good news for consumers, all good news for 
people at home as a result of the tax reduction, tax relief, tax cuts 
passed by Republicans and signed by President Trump.
  Americans are getting the benefits of tax relief. They are getting 
the benefit of regulatory relief and the pro-growth policies of 
Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration. People are seeing 
it in their daily lives. The polling company Gallup said that as soon 
as Donald Trump was elected President, economic confidence in this 
country soared. That is what the polls found. It has stayed positive 
almost without interruption ever since. It is the exact opposite of 
what polls were showing during the previous 8 years, in the previous 
administration. That was during the so-called economic recovery.
  Why are people so optimistic now? It is because you can't open a 
newspaper or turn on a television without seeing more good news about 
the economy. New employment numbers came out last Friday. CNN had a 
headline: ``U.S.

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economy added 2 million jobs in 2017.'' The Washington Post's headline 
was ``Trump's first-year jobs numbers were very, very good.'' Bloomberg 
reported that the Christmas shopping season was ``probably the best one 
in a decade.'' People are feeling confident. They are seeing higher 
wages, they are seeing cash bonuses, and soon they will start seeing 
the tax cut in their paychecks.
  The American people know that Republicans have kept our promise. We 
are cutting regulations, cutting taxes, putting more money back in 
their pockets. That is what hard-working Americans have asked us to do, 
and that is what we are going to continue to do.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the positive impact the 
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will have on Iowa farmers.
  Of course, our Iowa agricultural economy is really important, and 
those men and women who are serving as farmers, ranchers, and growers 
in the State of Iowa mean the world to me, coming from a farm my family 
had in Southwest Iowa.
  We all understand this has been a very challenging time for farmers 
in our rural communities. The community I come from in Southwest Iowa 
has just 10,000 people in our county. Many of them have faced the 
challenges of the economic downturn. Since their peaks in 2012, corn 
prices have declined by 60 percent and soybean prices have declined by 
47 percent. My neighbors are hurting, folks. Farm income has nearly 
been cut in half since 2013.
  A lot of our producers are hurting, especially our young and 
beginning farmers who have gotten their start just in maybe the last 10 
years or so, but, fortunately for our farmers, our ranchers, and our 
growers, tax relief is on its way. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will 
provide sweeping tax cuts for farmers and rural communities, allowing 
our producers to keep more of those hard-earned dollars.
  About 95 percent of farms are organized as passthrough businesses, 
such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corps. These 
businesses are taxed under individual tax rules and will benefit from 
lower tax rates for every income bracket. On top of that, they will see 
significant relief through a new 20-percent deduction on passthrough 
business income. The law also provides relief from the costly 
individual mandate which forced many farmers to choose between buying 
an expensive ObamaCare plan through their State exchange or being 
fined.

  Now, just a couple of years ago, I remember a very intense 
conversation I had with a beginning farmer in Northeast Iowa. When he 
was purchasing his insurance through the State exchange, the cost had 
more than doubled. He was shaking he was so upset about it, and he 
explained to me the additional cost of that individual policy was his 
truck payment. There was no room in his budget for the additional cost 
of that insurance policy so he had to make that choice: Do I purchase 
through the individual exchange or do I make my truck payment? 
Fortunately, within this bill, we have that relief. He can make that 
choice, and the choice is his on whether he makes that truck payment 
and forgoes the insurance or whether now he can do without that type of 
insurance and not be fined because he was too poor to afford it.
  In addition, the bill dramatically expands section 179 expensing and 
allows 5 years of 100 bonus depreciation. Both of these changes will 
foster much needed investment in farms throughout Iowa.
  The law also preserves a number of important tax provisions for 
farmers, including the interest deduction, cash accounting, and the use 
of like-kind exchanges for property.
  Last, but certainly not least, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubles the 
Federal estate tax exemption while preserving the stepped-up basis. The 
death tax can have a devastating impact on family farms. Over 90 
percent of farm assets cannot be sold easily without losing value. 
Especially as we continue to experience a downturn in that ag economy, 
family farmers are sometimes left with no choice but to sell land or 
the equipment they use to farm that land when they are forced to pay 
that tax.
  The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is a big step in the right direction for 
agriculture. I am thankful to the President for his leadership and to 
my colleagues in the Senate and the House for helping get this long-
needed bill done. On behalf of agriculture, thank you.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I rise to highlight the positive impacts 
our historic tax reform law will have on the agricultural community.
  Agriculture is Arkansas' largest industry by far, adding $16 billion 
to our economy every year and accounting for approximately one in every 
six jobs. We are the top rice-producing State in the Nation, No. 2 in 
the Nation in broiler chicken production, and the third largest 
producer of catfish in the United States. We could also clothe and 
shelter ourselves from fiber grown in Arkansas, as we are the third in 
the Nation in cotton production and the fifth largest softwood lumber-
producing State. You could keep going down the list, and you would find 
Arkansas as one of the Nation's top 10 producers of a number of 
agricultural commodities.
  Clearly, ensuring that Washington helps create an economic 
environment that allows the agricultural industry to thrive is 
extremely important to my home State of Arkansas. When President Trump 
signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, his signature provided much 
needed tax relief to America's farmers. More than 94 percent of farms 
are organized as passthrough businesses, which means they are impacted 
by the same tax provisions as individual filers. Lower tax rates across 
the board and a 20-percent deduction from their taxable income means 
immediate savings, which can be reinvested to help grow their 
operations.
  Ninety seven percent of the farms in Arkansas are family owned, and 
the vast majority of them will now be exempt from the estate tax--the 
death tax. This is a big deal. It will help keep those farms and 
ranches in the family for generations to come.
  Finally, farmers and ranchers will be able to expense 100 percent of 
their capital investments, such as equipment, over the next 4 years. In 
his address to the Farm Bureau earlier this week, the President called 
this the ``sleeper'' in the bill. He is right. People don't realize and 
there hasn't been enough talk about how beneficial this provision will 
be for our family-run agricultural operations. The substance of the 
President's Farm Bureau speech tilted heavily toward our efforts to 
bring stability and predictability to the economy.
  As we have witnessed over the course of the previous administration, 
uncertainty is devastating to our economy. There are few industries 
that are inherently more affected by uncertainty than agriculture. This 
is why we have taken steps to eliminate some of the punitive, needless 
regulations that create uncertainty for our farmers and our ranchers.
  It is also why my colleagues and I on the Agriculture Committee, 
under the steadfast leadership of Chairman Roberts, are working hard to 
reauthorize the farm bill. Programs are authorized by the farm bill 
that are absolutely vital to farmers, ranchers, and consumers. These 
programs will provide more certainty in rural America to address the 
challenges ahead. Finally, it is why we took great care to ensure that 
the agricultural industry will see the benefits of tax reform. 
Establishing a tax code that works for our farmers and ranchers, as 
opposed to against them, is vital to their ability to plan for the 
future and invigorate our rural communities.
  I am proud of our efforts to pass this landmark tax reform law, and I 
am

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confident it will have lasting, positive effects for our economy.
  With that, I yield back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.