[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 206 (Thursday, December 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7186-S7187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3104

  Mr. SCHATZ. As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be 
discharged from the further consideration of S. 3104, the Federal 
Employee Parental Leave Technical Correction Act, and the Senate 
proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Reserving the right to object, let me explain what is 
going on here.
  My colleague from Hawaii has an amendment that he would like to make 
to the NDAA legislation that we passed recently. It has been described 
by our Democratic colleagues as a technical correction.
  Well, I have a technical correction that I would like to have 
considered as well. So I think we have a good solution where we can 
both get the technical corrections we would like. We have been waiting 
on mine for 2 years, but the good news is that we have broad bipartisan 
support for mine. Every Republican Senator supports it, and 13 
Democrats are cosponsors of my legislation to make this technical 
correction. If my math is right, that means 66 Senators support doing 
this. There is huge bipartisan support in the House. So I would say 
let's fix both problems. The fix that I have in mind is to fix a 
drafting error from our tax reform bill from 2 years ago, and 
specifically, it would be to restore the ability of people who make 
leasehold improvements to fully expense that at the time it occurs.

  That was always the intent. Nobody disputes that that was the intent, 
but because of a drafting error, when someone makes a leasehold 
improvement, not only are they unable to expense it in the year in 
which it incurs, but they have to depreciate it over 39 years, the 
exact opposite of our intention. This is a huge problem for restaurants 
and retailers generally, and every one of our States has how many 
retailers, how many restaurants that are adversely affected today by 
this technical error, and it is having an economic impact.
  This category of business investment is the only category that has 
declined over the last year. It was down almost

[[Page S7187]]

4 percent in the third quarter. That is because of the adverse tax 
treatment. That is not good for any of us. It is not good for the 
United States. It is not good for our States. In the omnibus bill that 
we just passed, we had all kinds of tax provisions--$427 billion, 
actually, worth of tax provisions announced at 2 in the morning on 
Tuesday, by the way.
  It has things, including a resurrection of a special tax rule that 
was supposed to die in 2017. We are going to send checks to people for 
what they did in 2018, which will have no impact whatsoever, obviously, 
on changing incentives since it is the past. We did that. We reversed a 
deal that was struck in 2015 to phase out expensive renewable energy 
credits. We made two changes to the tax reform of 2017, but we weren't 
able to include the technical fix that 66 Senators want that would cost 
zero.
  What we were told by our Democratic colleagues is that, if you want 
to do that, there is a price you have to pay. The price would be tens 
of billions of dollars of increases in refundable tax credits. That is 
checks being sent to people who don't pay taxes. Ranking Member of the 
Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, said just this week: ``Democrats have 
long said the Republicans need to negotiate on broader issues if they 
want to fix all the mistakes in their tax giveaway.'' In other words, 
there has to be a price.
  Well, if I were adopting the approach of my Democratic colleagues--
and when my colleague from Hawaii comes down and makes this request--I 
could say, Well, you need to come up with $50 billion worth of 
Republican priorities, maybe $50 billion worth of capital gain tax 
cuts, or $50 billion in reduction in some kind of mandatory spending or 
something. That is what I would do if I were taking the exact same 
approach that our Democratic colleagues took.
  I am not going to do that. I am going to suggest that we both get 
what we are after here, and the American people get the benefit. Here 
is what I am going to do. I am going to modify the unanimous consent 
request. The way I am going to do that is to take the bill advocated by 
the Senator from Hawaii, drop it into a legislative vehicle, add the 
technical fix that I and 66 Senators support--and, by the way, 297 
House Members have cosponsored the companion legislation, including 145 
Democrat House Members--I am going to put them together in an otherwise 
empty legislative vehicle so that we can do both. When we pass it here 
in the Senate by unanimous consent in just a moment, if we do, then the 
House would virtually be assured of passage, since 297 House Members 
have cosponsored this legislation.
  Mr. President, my suggestion is we modify this unanimous consent 
request so that the Senator from Hawaii gets the provision that he 
wants and I get the provision that 66 Senators want.