[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 194 (Wednesday, December 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7180-S7181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Senate Accomplishments

  Madam President, I think we can agree that we had a very productive 
23 months in this session of the U.S. Senate. Democrats passed the 
Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower prescription drug costs, 
which will combat climate change, and which will hold corporations 
accountable when they reward CEOs at the expense of workers.
  We worked together on a bipartisan basis, and I worked with my 
colleague Senator Portman to pass a historic infrastructure bill. 
Presidents of both parties promised it, and we finally got it done, 
starting last year, with a new President and a new Senate. It means 
moving forward on projects Americans need, like the Brent Spence 
Bridge, which is in Senator Portman's community on the other end of my 
State. It connects my State to Leader McConnell's State. The Brent 
Spence Bridge--they say something like 3 percent of GDP crosses over 
that bridge every single day.
  Senator Portman and I also worked together to make sure that we had 
strong ``Buy American'' language--the strongest ever ``Buy American'' 
language. We teamed up because we know the jobs that creates in my 
State.
  We passed the PACT Act, again bipartisan, the most comprehensive 
expansion of benefits for veterans who faced toxic exposure in our 
country's history.
  Senator Tester, who sits just two seats away from me here and who 
came to the Senate with me--Senator Tester from Montana chairs the 
Veterans' Affairs Committee. I will be, next year, the second-most 
senior member of that committee. We wrote that bill together. I give 
more credit to Senator Tester, but we worked together. It is the most 
comprehensive expansion of benefits.
  I have been in 15 Ohio counties since that bill passed talking to 
people. If you are diagnosed as a veteran with one of the 23 illnesses 
this bill spells out and you were exposed to these football field-sized 
burn pits in Iraq or Afghanistan, you automatically will get coverage 
in the Cleveland VA or Dayton or Cincinnati or Chillicothe or in one of 
the community-based clinics in Zanesville or Mansfield or Parma.
  After decades of inaction, we passed the first meaningful legislation 
on gun safety in decades, which will help make our schools and 
communities a bit safer.
  This summer--again, bipartisan, with Senator Portman and others--we 
passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which is already helping to reshore 
semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.
  Earlier today, I was with a number of people from Intel, the company 
that is going to have a huge expansion. That company has promised, when 
they hire 5,000 workers--which they have already started to do the 
construction of the Intel manufacturing plant--that they are hiring a 
lot of so-called PLA, which means they will hire union workers.
  And in the worst depths--and this is what I want to talk about in 
more detail. Sorry for the long lead-in.

[[Page S7181]]

  In the worst depths of COVID, Democrats passed the American Rescue 
Plan, which temporarily expanded the child tax credit. It kept renters 
in their homes and saved the pensions of more than a million retirees. 
It saved the pensions already of 40,000 Ohio workers, and that number 
will grow to 100,000 by the time it is fully in effect.
  I sat on the floor that day on March 6. I sat next to Senator Casey, 
one of my best friends here, from Pennsylvania, and I turned to him 
when we passed the child tax credit and the pensions bill, keeping 
renters in their homes. I said: This is the best day of my career, 
because I knew what it would mean to do the child tax credit.
  The bill passed on March 6, at 12:30 in the afternoon, after a 12-
hour vote. It passed by one vote two different times. The President 
signed it 2 days later.
  I called Secretary Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury. She 
immediately enlisted the head of the Internal Revenue Service, who 
began the process. By mid-July, checks were going out to hundreds of 
thousands of families in Minnesota and Ohio and across the country. We 
saw in the space of about 3 months a 40-percent--40 percent--reduction 
in the child poverty rate.
  I heard from parents all around the State--helping them afford 
childcare, groceries, rent, new school clothes, summer camp. For many 
kids it was the first time ever to go to a summer camp. We know what a 
difference this made at a time when families struggled to keep up with 
rising costs.
  Unfortunately, the child tax credit expansion ended in 2021. It 
shouldn't have happened, and we have an opportunity now to get it going 
again. The bipartisan work of this Congress doesn't have to be done 
yet.
  Here is what we need to do.
  In 2017, the tax law Republicans passed gave profitable corporations 
a 14-percent reduction in the corporate tax rate--a huge gift. I 
opposed it. Many of us did. It was a huge gift to the megawealthy and 
corporations. Part of that law changed the rules for business 
deductions. It said: You get a 14-point cut to the corporate rate, but 
now you have to amortize R&D, research and development expensing. There 
is going to be more of a limit on the interest you can deduct. You 
won't be able to deduct all of your investments in the year you make 
them, just four-fifths.
  Now businesses are asking us to undo these new rules. In exchange, 
are they offering to give back a point on the corporate rate? No.
  They got a huge windfall 5 years ago. They want more now. Are they 
offering maybe a half point, a quarter point? No, they just want 
another tax cut.
  Here is what I want everybody to hear:
  In this body and throughout the United States, the Democrats are 
willing to do it. We believe we should invest in manufacturing. We 
should believe in American families and American children. As part of a 
balanced package, we will make the changes the businesses are asking 
for. We have already offered to make these changes. All we are saying 
is that it needs to be balanced. If we are going to give huge tax cuts 
to large corporations, we are going to at the same time make sure that 
we take care of children. This isn't just the lowest income kids. They 
certainly are part of it. This is 90 percent of children in Ohio. This 
is 2 million Ohio children. It is all but the wealthiest 10 percent of 
families who get this tax cut.
  Do you know what that means? Think about if this child tax credit had 
been in effect in the last year and how it would have blunted the 
damage from inflation that inflicted so many families. If they had been 
getting that $250 or $300 per child, per month, as they had gotten 
through calendar year 2021--from July until the end of the year and 
then the beginning of the next year--imagine how much easier their 
lives would have been and how much more they would have been able to 
cope with inflation if they had gotten that monthly $250 or $300 check.
  It is a smart policy. It is a win-win for every single one of our 
States. One in four kids who is living in rural Idaho is left out of 
the full child tax credit. In Kentucky and Ohio, that number is one in 
three. We can fix that.
  Raising kids is hard work. I heard time and again, after we passed 
the CTC, from people who said it made it just a little bit easier for 
families. We got so many calls and letters--I am sure Senator Portman 
did too--about how this would make people's lives just a little bit 
easier. If you had had two children who were 2 and 4 years old, you 
would have gotten $600 a month. If you had had three kids who were 7, 
10, and 12, you would have gotten $750 for a period of time.
  So what are we here for in this body? We are not just here to give 
tax cuts to rich people and to corporations. We should try to make 
things just a little bit easier--I have heard that term over and over--
for the families we represent.
  There is a deal to be had here. Let's knock out one more bipartisan 
victory for the American people before we go home. Yes, let's do the 
research and development tax break--it will help us grow jobs--but at 
the same time, let's do the child tax credit expansion. It will help us 
grow our children. It will make a huge difference.
  I ask my colleagues: Let's get this done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Ohio.