[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 76 (Thursday, May 10, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2614-S2615]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                  INTERNATIONAL FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION

 Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask that my remarks to the 
International Franchise Association be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

                  International Franchise Association

       Mr. ALEXANDER. What I have discovered is that those who 
     like a center-right administration, which I do, have a hard 
     time accepting success. I could probably do the 
     accomplishments and achievements over the last 15 or 16 
     months in a 60 second version, which would be a better 
     economy, lower taxes, fewer regulations, more conservative 
     judges, repeal of the part of Dodd Frank that hamstrung small 
     financial institutions in mortgage lending, Alaskan energy, a 
     new NLRB, the local control of schools--that actually 
     happened before President Trump came in because of a 
     Republican majority in the Senate--and the repeal of the 
     individual mandate. That's a pretty good list. In fact, if 
     you only did economy, taxes, regulations and judges, at the 
     end of four years, most administrations would be pretty happy 
     with the

[[Page S2615]]

     different direction. So if you cut through all the tweets and 
     the chaos and confusion and the noise and the cable 
     television in Washington, D.C. and look at the direction of 
     the country, I think it's significantly different.
       I'll give a couple of examples of that: rolling back 
     regulations--only once before this administration and this 
     Republican majority in Congress, we've used a provision in 
     the law that allows us to overturn a regulation with 51 
     votes. We've done it 15 times in the last 15 months, 
     including the blacklisting rule, including the OSHA record 
     keeping rule. Most of you know about all these things in 
     detail so I won't go into detail, but those are important. 
     They're unusual and they're a completely different direction.
       We passed the first major tax reform for 31 years. In 
     Tennessee, I hear a lot about that, not just from individuals 
     whose taxes are lower but I hear it from corporations who are 
     now paying 21 percent on their income tax. But I'm hearing 
     especially about being able to deduct capital investments in 
     the first year, and I think we can see the results in the 
     economy.
       We have been able to confirm experienced and qualified 
     nominees in a whole range of areas and I would suggest that 
     in no area has the shift in policy been more marked than in 
     the Labor area. For example, there's a new labor secretary, 
     Acosta. A new deputy labor secretary, Pizzella. There's a new 
     NLRB chairman Ring, NLRB member Kaplan, NLRB member Emanuel, 
     NLRB general counsel. Those are big changes in the policy 
     direction of this country. Then we've been examining, or 
     these new appointees have been examining policies that are 
     harmful that you work on a regular basis. Let's start with 
     joint employer guidance. At least Secretary Acosta was able 
     to pull back that guidance as it bled over from the NLRB to 
     the department.
       The problem with the joint-employer decision for me is that 
     we live in a time when it's harder to find a good middle 
     class job close to home. People are always flying here, 
     flying there in what I would call the Internet economy. The 
     hundreds of thousands of franchisees we have in America are 
     an opportunity for mom or mom and dad or a family to work 12 
     hours a day, work several days a week, build their own 
     business in their own home, contribute to their own community 
     and be a part of the American middle class. And the joint 
     employer decision during the last administration was a direct 
     assault on that route for the middle class. And I'm glad to 
     see this administration heading in a different direction on 
     that as well as the Micro Union decision, as well as 
     beginning to review the Ambush Election Rule.
       These are all major, major decisions. Where are we likely 
     to go on joint employer? Well, the House has done its job, 
     but in the Senate to get legislative results, you need 60 
     votes, and that's going to be hard to do--impossible to do--
     without Democratic support. We don't have any Democratic 
     support in the Senate right now. Your association has been 
     working hard to try and develop that. I hear Democrats 
     privately talking about it, but when it comes to co-sponsor a 
     bill or vote for a bill, they don't want to do that. So I 
     think I would suggest to keep pushing, but a more likely 
     solution is when the NLRB revisits the rule, because that's 
     after all how it was changed in the first place, and by a new 
     administration with new appointees from a center-right 
     administration and a center-right Senate that keeps things 
     headed in that direction.
       Last thing I want to mention to you has to do with what I 
     believe is a prominent Labor Department proposed rule 
     involving health insurance called association health plans. I 
     worked for the last seven months to try to at least 
     temporarily fix the individual market. President Trump asked 
     me to do it. He did a very good job of working with us. In 
     the end, we had a proposal which he called Senator McConnell 
     and Speaker Ryan and asked him to put it in the omnibus 
     spending bill a month ago. They agreed to do it but the 
     Democrats blocked it because Democrats didn't want to vote 
     for the so called Hyde compromise language that they'd been 
     voting for on elective abortion since 1976 and that they 
     voted for in a hundred other provisions in the same bill. The 
     shame of that is that we have millions of Americans who don't 
     get any government subsidy. A contractor, for example, may be 
     earning $60,000 and paying 15 or $20,000 for their insurance.
       We had a proposal and Oliver Wyman--the experts in health 
     consulting--said over these next three years would reduce 
     those premiums up to 40 percent. If you're paying $20,000 for 
     your health insurance and you get an $8,000 reduction, those 
     are real bucks. So we have to turn to the administration to 
     get changes in the Affordable Care Act. One of the most 
     promising potential administrative changes is Secretary 
     Acosta's proposed rule, and I hope you've followed it. It 
     basically would allow uninsured people who are self-employed 
     and more small business people to enjoy some of the same 
     health insurance benefits that people who work for large 
     companies do. Most Americans get a subsidy of some sort from 
     the government for their health insurance. More than half of 
     Americans get their insurance on the job, they get in effect 
     about a $5,000 subsidy because of the way the tax code 
     interacts with the employer deductions and the income that 
     goes to the employee on large group insurance. So, if you're 
     a small business person, you get the same kind of insurance 
     that somebody who works for IBM might have.
       It would be cheaper. I just mentioned the amount of the 
     deduction, and it wouldn't have the same protections that the 
     large group plans have where you couldn't be charged because 
     of a pre-existing condition, you couldn't be denied insurance 
     or be denied coverage. You'd have to have coverage offered 
     for your kids up to the age 26. You couldn't have lifetime 
     limits and you would have of course, the lower costs. That 
     could affect 9,000,000 Americans like the contractor I 
     described who are getting hammered by Obamacare because they 
     get no subsidies when they buy their insurance, and could 
     affect the 11,000,000 other people who are self-employed or 
     work for small businesses that don't provide health 
     insurance. So that rule is not yet final. It's been published 
     by the Department of Labor for everybody to consider.
       I expect it to soon become final. And I expect that when it 
     is, it's likely to be the single greatest development in the 
     near term for individuals who are either uninsured or who 
     worked for small businesses and who can't afford the 
     insurance that is offered. So thanks for all that you do. 
     We'll keep our eye on joint employer. At the very least, our 
     committee can continue to focus on it. My hope is that the 
     NLRB revisits the issue soon.
       And I hope you remember when you think about this 
     administration and you look through the chaos and the tweets 
     and all that goes on here, that if you stripped that all 
     away, there's a picture of a country heading in a 
     significantly different direction with a better economy, 
     lower taxes, fewer regulations, more conservative judges, a 
     repeal of a significant part of Dodd Frank, an energy bill in 
     Alaska that we've been trying for 40 years to do, a different 
     NLRB, more local control of schools and a repeal the 
     individual mandate.
       In a big democratic, messy government, that's a significant 
     shift of direction. I hope we can add joint employer to it 
     before very long.

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