[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 126 (Thursday, August 1, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5746-S5749]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  TAX RELIEF FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES AND WORKERS ACT OF 2024--Motion to 
                           Proceed--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                              Nominations

  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, today, the HELP Committee held an off-
the-floor markup to consider three Biden-Harris labor nominees, 
including a new term for current National Labor Relations Board, or 
NLRB, Chair Lauren McFerran. Chair Sanders directed this vote to take 
place without a public hearing or an opportunity to hear from the 
nominees directly.
  Ms. McFerran has served as a member of the NLRB since 2014, and 
President Biden picked her as Chair in 2021. It has been 10 years since 
Ms. McFerran has testified before the HELP Committee.
  Since the HELP majority decided to skip a hearing to prevent an 
examination of Ms. McFerran's troubling record, I am speaking about her 
nomination on the Senate floor.
  When multiple Board seats are vacant, the Senate's longstanding 
practice is to fill Democrat and Republican vacancies on important, 
bipartisan Boards and Commissions in tandem, but last September, 
Democrats reconfirmed Gwynne Wilcox, a Democrat nominee, without a 
Republican counterpart even though there were multiple vacant seats. 
The Senate should have considered Joshua Ditelberg as a pairing with 
Wilcox, not with Ms. McFerran. It is bad faith that the majority would 
represent these nominations as a pairing to justify this process.
  As to the substance of Ms. McFerran's nomination, the NLRB is 
required by Federal law to act as a neutral party in labor disputes 
between employees and employers, not favoring one party over the other, 
but under Ms. McFerran's leadership, the Board has weaponized its 
authority on behalf of Democrats' labor union supporters at the expense 
of workers.
  For example, the Board has overturned 50 years of NLRB precedent by 
renewing card check during union elections, which exposes workers to 
intimidation tactics; condensed the time for union elections down to as 
little as 3 weeks after a petition is filed, depriving employees of a 
fair chance to hear from both sides and to make an informed decision 
about whether to unionize; and implemented new, burdensome regulations 
preventing workers from leaving their union if the union has become 
ineffective or too costly. It has prevented employers from disciplining 
employees on the picket line who use racist and hostile language 
against other employees and managers. The NLRB deems using racist and 
hostile language as ``protected concerted activity.''
  The weaponization of NLRB under Ms. McFerran's leadership is deeply 
troubling. Her clear bias against employers' and workers' rights 
deserves accountability.
  Republican members of the HELP Committee have repeatedly called on 
the chair to hold a public hearing to discuss these concerns directly 
with her. It is unacceptable that they will be denied this opportunity.
  Nomination hearings are not just checking a box; they are a crucial 
part of Congress's responsibility to review nominees. Every Senator 
uses information revealed in hearings to decide how he or she will vote 
on the flo or. Unfortunately, shielding Democrat nominees from scrutiny 
has been the norm of the HELP Committee under Chair Sanders.
  Earlier this year, the chair decided to hold a closed-door committee 
vote on the renomination of Julie Su for Secretary of Labor. Since Ms. 
Su's first nomination attempt failed last year, concerns over her 
leadership of DOL have grown. HELP Committee members should have been 
able to raise these concerns with Ms. Su directly. Unfortunately, the 
chair blocked the public hearing from taking place.
  Congress has a responsibility to rein in the executive branch and 
hold it accountable to the people and their elected representatives.
  Last month, I introduced legislation requiring each Federal nominee 
to testify before the committee of jurisdiction prior to Senate 
confirmation. This bill should not be controversial to anyone. Frankly, 
it should be the standard.
  The chair's refusal to have public hearings on important nominees is 
unacceptable. It undermines the committee's constitutional duty to 
advise and consent on Presidential nominees. The President and his 
nominees are not above accountability.
  Given the serious concerns over Ms. McFerran's leadership and lack of 
accountability in the nomination process, I voted no on her nomination.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.


        Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, with election politics front of mind, 
doomed-to-fail show votes have become an all too frequent occurrence in 
this Chamber. But there is no more obvious show vote than the one 
scheduled to happen today, immediately before the August recess.
  In today's attempt to score political points, the Democrats are 
moving to a bill, H.R. 7024, that has been languishing for 6 months in 
the hopes of fabricating a narrative that Republicans don't support 
small business, children, or alleviating poverty. However, if my 
Democrat colleagues were serious about delivering relief to small 
businesses and working families, they would have worked out a solution 
with Senate Republicans in earnest on a pathway that would gain broad 
support from our Members.
  While there are plenty of provisions in this bill that my colleagues 
and I support, the proponents have known since before it was released 
that Senate Republicans would need to change the bill in order to gain 
substantial bipartisan support.
  It is now August, and it has been months since any real attempt at 
outreach or engagement has taken place, which suggests that my 
colleagues are not actually serious about passing a bill but are 
instead focused on election year messaging.

[[Page S5747]]

  There is plenty of evidence that today's theatrics are clearly 
posturing.
  First, there are several components of the bill that are 
noncontroversial and have overwhelming bipartisan support, like 
disaster tax relief and double-tax relief provisions on activity 
between the United States and Taiwan. That some Democrats have chosen 
to block these bills, including providing needed tax relief to fire and 
hurricane victims, to prove a point demonstrates true cynicism.
  In the same vein, Democrats claim that Republicans are abandoning 
small businesses by not passing this bill, but it is Democrats who have 
held the R&D expensing hostage for years. Republicans have shown time 
and again their desire to pass R&D expensing, including in an 
overwhelming, 90-to-5 motion led by Senator Young back in 2022. Yet 
Democrats continue to block efforts to pass it.
  If Democrats were serious about helping small businesses, they would 
stop using them as a political football.
  Members are also aware of the recent data on fraud in the employee 
retention tax credit, or ERTC, program. Senator Tillis requested 
unanimous consent to pass a bill that would end the fraud-ridden 
program back in February, but the bill was blocked by the Democrats. If 
someone is to blame for not ending the ERTC fraud, it is not the Senate 
Republicans.
  Democrats knew the bill couldn't pass the Senate in time for this tax 
filing season, but now they want to make changes long after tax filers 
have filed their 2023 tax returns and received their refunds. This bill 
would require the IRS to reprocess millions of 2023 taxpayer returns. 
This is an IRS that still has backlogs in the millions, including 
identity theft case delays that the National Taxpayer Advocate has 
described as making ``a mockery of the right to quality service in the 
Taxpayer Bill of Rights.''
  If Democrats were serious about providing taxpayer relief, they would 
not pile additional work on an IRS that still cannot carry out basic 
taxpayer services.
  For all my Democrat colleagues' past calls for regular order in the 
Senate, one would think the Senate Republican request for a Finance 
Committee markup on this bill would have been well received. Instead, 
those requests, which began in January, have continued to go ignored.
  Instead of moving through regular order and engaging my colleagues 
and me, the bill's proponents have used the better part of this year on 
a public pressure campaign littered with misinformation. That is 
unfortunate because the bill does get a lot of things right.
  However, the critical flaw with the bill is that it fails to provide 
meaningful tax relief to working families and instead goes too far 
toward the Democrats' goal of turning the child tax credit into a 
subsidy untethered to work, which is fundamentally contrary to what the 
credit was created to do.
  For those who accuse Republicans of not caring about children, I 
would remind my colleagues that it was the Republicans who created the 
child tax credit. It was intended to provide tax relief to working 
families. Yet more than $30 billion of the cost to expand the child tax 
credit in this bill--about 91 percent of the money in this bill for the 
child tax credit--would go to individuals who pay no income tax. That 
isn't tax relief; it is a subsidy.
  The bill's child tax credit provisions treat working-family taxpayers 
as an afterthought. Not only do families with a Federal income tax 
liability receive a mere 9 percent of the bill's child tax credit 
benefits, they also would be left waiting for that tax relief until 2 
years after the benefits accrue to those with zero income tax 
liability.
  I raised these concerns repeatedly before the bill was released. 
Unfortunately, by merely questioning the ratio skewed towards subsidies 
and asking whether working families should receive more tax relief, I 
and other Senate Republicans have been maligned for not caring about 
children and alleviating poverty.
  While Senate Republicans have also been accused of playing politics, 
the timing of today's vote, coupled with the lack of meaningful 
engagement since January to reach a compromise, confirms that the 
strategy was always a ``take it or leave it'' proposition in the 
Senate.
  If my Democrat colleagues want to show that they are serious about 
supporting small businesses, providing disaster tax relief, alleviating 
double taxation on activity between the United States and Taiwan, and 
eliminating fraud in the ERTC program--all bipartisan proposals--then I 
call on them to separately pass Senator Young and Senator Hassan's 
bipartisan American Innovation and Jobs Act that would reinstate R&D 
expensing; the bipartisan Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2024; the 
bipartisan and bicameral United States-Taiwan Expedited Double-Tax 
Relief Act; and Senator Tillis's bill to end the ERTC program.
  On the child tax credit, it bears repeating that Republicans--the 
ones who I have already said created the child tax credit--doubled that 
child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2017 for the Tax Cuts and 
Jobs Act and provided additional help to low-income families by 
lowering the phase-in floor and increasing the refundability of the 
credit. That doubled child tax credit is still law. It has not expired. 
It is still in full force and effect. If the Democrats are serious 
about helping these working families, I am ready to push for an 
extension of those changes beyond 2025.
  I have maintained a willingness to negotiate a bill that provides 
meaningful relief to Americans now--a bill that a majority of 
Republicans in this Chamber can support--but today's senseless show 
vote further demonstrates that Democrats are not serious about doing 
so.
  For that reason, I will be voting no on cloture and urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today the Senate will have a procedural 
vote on moving to a tax bill that the House passed over 7 months ago.
  At the time of House passage, myself, Ranking Member Crapo, and other 
Finance Republicans made it clear to Democrats that this bill would not 
pass muster in the Senate absent substantive changes.
  So over that past 7 months what steps have Senate Democrats taken to 
earn Republican support? Did they engage with Ranking Member Crapo and 
Finance Republicans in good-faith negotiations to find a bipartisan 
path forward? Did the Finance chairman schedule a markup to provide 
Republicans an opportunity to shape the bill through the committee 
process? Did the Democrat majority leader schedule floor time to allow 
robust debate and amendment process to permit the Senate to work its 
will?
  The answer to all these questions is a resounding no. Democrats 
couldn't be bothered with a trivial thing like legislating. After all, 
they have nominees to confirm and god forbid we work more than 3 days a 
week.
  With respect to the tax bill, it includes an assortment of tax 
provisions--some good and some bad. The good includes extensions of 
pro-growth tax policies, such as allowing employers to immediately 
write-off research expenses and capital investments. Both of these are 
key to boosting worker productivity and wages. The bill also includes 
disaster tax relief and extends to our ally Taiwan tax treaty like 
benefits to strengthen our economic ties and counter China. Both have 
overwhelmingly strong bipartisan support and could pass easily if 
Democrats would stop holding them hostage for political gain.
  As for the bad, the bill includes a multibillion-dollar expansion of 
welfare under the guise of providing middle-class tax relief through an 
expanded child tax credit.
  The fact is this bill has very little middle-class tax relief to 
speak of. For 2023 and 2024, only $3 billion out of the provision's $33 
billion cost is attributed to tax relief. The remaining $30 billion, or 
91 percent of the overall cost, is pure spending. These are transfer 
payments to those who pay no Federal income tax. Under this bill, those 
who only work sparingly and, in some cases not at all, would see 
benefit increases of $1,000 or more. Meanwhile, if you are a single 
parent raising two kids while working full-time earning $40,000 a year, 
chances are you wouldn't see a dime this year.
  Last Congress, I proposed real relief for middle-class families by 
indexing the child tax credit to inflation. This proposal would have 
immediately increased the credit amount to account for its loss in 
value since President

[[Page S5748]]

Biden took office. I offered this proposal as an amendment to the 
Democrat's Inflation Enhancement Act, but not a single Democrat voted 
for it. This current bill includes a watered-down version of my 
proposal. It doesn't do anything to make up for the fact that middle-
class families have seen their cost of living increase 20 percent since 
Biden took office. I have long supported the child tax credit as a way 
to support families and fight poverty by rewarding work. As a former 
chairman of the Finance Committee, I spearheaded expansions of this 
credit to better target relief to low-income families.
  But provisions in this bill would depart from fundamental principles 
that have always guided child tax credit expansions. This includes that 
the credit be tied to work and linked to the payment of tax, whether 
that is income or payroll taxes. In breaking with these principles, the 
proposal in this bill would undermine the credit's traditional role as 
a work incentive, favor part-time work over full-time, and worsen 
marriage penalties imbedded in our social welfare system. As a result, 
the changes in this bill undermine the pro-work welfare reforms adopted 
on a bipartisan basis in 1996. Those reforms led to precipitous 
declines in welfare caseloads and increased employment and incomes 
among single mothers. Delinking assistance from work, as this bill 
does, threatens those gains.
  I fully support lending a hand to families in need of support. But 
our policies must be focused on providing a hand-up, not just a 
handout.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.


            Tax Relief for American Workers and Families Act

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in a few minutes, Senators will vote on the 
Tax Relief for American Workers and Families Act. There has been a lot 
of discussion and debate this week about it, and I will make just a few 
final points.
  Republicans are talking a lot these days, trying to convince 
Americans that they are the ones who support children and families, not 
Democrats.
  The Republicans talk about supporting small businesses. They talk 
about competing with China. They talk about how terrible it is that 
nobody can afford a home in America. And they talk about cracking down 
on fraud in government programs.
  The bill that the Senate will vote on in a few minutes helps with 
each and every one of these issues. Now, we are going see whether 
Senate Republicans really, in fact, do want to help, whether they are 
offering anything more than talk.
  Over the last couple of days, I have read lots of comments from 
Republican Senators who say that it is really time to wait and that, if 
Republicans take control of the Senate, they will write a better bill. 
So I would ask: Better for whom?
  One thing I am sure of is it won't be a better bill for the 16 
million kids who stand to benefit today--today--colleagues, from the 
proposal we are going to vote on. And it won't come as any comfort to 
families who are getting clobbered on rent or the small businesses that 
are going to fail if they don't get help now.
  The House of Representatives passed this bill back in January. It was 
the product of work with Republican Chair Jason Smith and I, but it 
also included a year's worth of negotiations with colleagues here in 
the Senate. That bill got 357 votes--almost an even split between the 
two parties. And as I have said before, in the House of 
Representatives, at this point, it would be hard to get 357 votes if 
you were just out ordering a piece of pie.
  The only reason our bipartisan bill didn't become law 6 months ago 
was because of the delay of Senate Republicans. I offered to make 
changes. I met with a significant number of Senate Republicans 
personally.
  They talked about what their proposed ideas were for compromise, and 
I offered them. I offered them. I said it publicly in the Senate 
Finance Committee. It wasn't good enough, although they looked a little 
bit like the dog that caught the car.
  But in old-school basketball terms, Senate Republicans just continued 
the delays. It was kind of the old four-corners offense: stall and 
drain the clock.
  But for the millions of people who are hurting, those folks can't 
afford for the Senate to just keep waiting.
  Now, the reality is, when it comes to tax policy debates, this is the 
easy stuff. The difficult issues don't get agreement from 357 Members 
of the House of Representatives.
  The debate on taxes is sure to get a lot harder when Congress is 
going to have to deal with trillions of dollars in tax changes coming 
down the pike.
  If Senate Republicans can't work across the aisle or work with a 
House that produced 357 votes, there is going to be some very, very 
heavy lifting next year.
  And I will close with this. Every Senator now has a choice. The 
results here are not predetermined. Republicans can choose to side with 
children and families. Republicans can choose to side with people who 
are walking an economic tightrope just trying to pay the rent. 
Importantly, Republicans can choose to side with small businesses.
  The fact is, the problems small businesses are having today, to a 
great extent, are due to the singlehanded efforts of Senate 
Republicans, who did nothing but derail an effort to fix research and 
development expensing.
  In fact, they were willing to derail research and development 
expensing in the 2017 tax bill when everybody said we need this to 
compete with China. Senate Republicans said: Nah, we are interested in 
giving tax breaks to people at the top rather than small businesses.
  So they gutted--gutted--research and development expensing for small 
business. Not a single Democrat voted for it. And then they promised to 
fix it in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. All those 
years, Senate Republicans said they would get a break for small 
businesses on the research and development issue.
  Now, a lot of those small businesses have to go out and borrow to 
keep their doors open. So we offered to work that and other issues out. 
But Republicans said: Gee, we are just going wait around until 2025.
  Well, I want to say to my colleagues and I want to say to the 
country, for a lot of these small businesses, the research and 
development issue is a lifeline. I have had them come to me and say: 
Ron, I am not even going to be around in 2025 for somebody like the 
Senate Republicans who want to wait.
  I say we ought to help them now. Make no mistake about it, a Senate 
that passes this legislation can allow our bill to go to the President 
of the United States right away--right away--and help goes out to those 
16 million families, the 4 million small businesses that depend on 
research and development expensing and the families that got clobbered 
with disasters. We have a chance to help those families who, after they 
got clobbered with disasters, got clobbered by an outdated tax code. We 
would fix it. We would fix it today.
  And because of Senator Cantwell, hundreds of thousands of units of 
affordable housing could get on the way today.
  So Senate Republicans can do those things that I just described. And 
the way I see it, you know, if you show up for work around here and you 
have a chance to help 16 million kids, 4 million small businesses, 
scores of businesses that have been clobbered by disasters and create 
hundreds of thousands of units of housing--doing all that sounds, to 
me, like one hell of a day at the office.
  So Senate Republicans can choose to help that way or they can 
continue with excuses, empty talk, and what are sure to be their plans 
for the future: locking in even more handouts to big corporations and 
the wealthy.
  This is a thoroughly bipartisan bill; 357 votes in the House of 
Representatives--every Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee 
voted for this bill.
  So I say: Let's help the kids and the families. Let's help the small 
businesses. Let's help those who need housing. Let's be there for those 
who face disasters.
  I say to my colleagues on the Republican side: This is a chance to 
help everybody in America--everybody. I hope my Republican colleagues 
make the right choice. I strongly urge them to vote yes and side with 
the children and families all over the country.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S5749]]

  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        American Hostages Freed

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before I speak on the tax bill, I come to 
the floor with really good news.
  After years of brutal and wrongful detention in Russia at the hands 
of Putin's regime, Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, and 
Vladimir Kara-Murza are on their way home.
  It is great news, and I was proud to work and stand with Leader 
McConnell in a bipartisan show of unity. We spent many, many hours 
working hard, sending letters, making calls to get Evan's return. I 
commend President Biden for getting them all home.
  For all other Americans held hostage or unjustly imprisoned around 
the world, today shines as a beacon of hope that America will never 
give up on you, and we will continue to do everything we can to bring 
you home. You are in our thoughts and minds, including those from New 
York who are still imprisoned unjustly by authoritarian regimes around 
the world.


        Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024

  Now, Mr. President, on the tax bill, today, the Senate has a chance 
to move forward on the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers 
Act.
  Democrats are ready to advance bipartisan--bipartisan--tax relief 
today. The question is, will Senate Republicans join us to give 
Americans a tax break or will they stand in the way? Will Senate 
Republicans join us to give businesses a tax break; to give families 
with children a tax break; to give our housing market a tax break; or 
will they stand in the way?
  This is bipartisan legislation if there ever was any. The bipartisan 
tax bill passed the House 357 to 70. It won majorities from both 
parties. It was written, along with Senator Wyden who did a great job, 
by the conservative Republican chair of the Ways and Means Committee--
hardly a liberal. So we know this is not only a good bill, it is a 
bipartisan bill. If the tax break was able to unite a group as divided 
as House Republicans, it should certainly not be blocked by Republicans 
in the Senate. It is good to talk about standing up for families and 
business but not if you turn around and then vote against them here in 
the Senate.
  Today is a good opportunity for both sides to show we back up good 
talk with strong action. So, if you care about helping families, vote 
yes. If you care about taking a half a million kids out of poverty and 
giving relief to 16 million other families so that they have enough 
money to give their kids clothes and books and food, vote yes. If you 
care about promoting business and getting an R&D tax credit, something 
that has always had bipartisan support, passed so that business can 
invest in new machinery and equipment and hire new workers, vote yes; 
and if you care about solving the housing crisis whether it is rural--
where it has become a big problem--or urban or suburban, please vote 
yes.
  I want to give many thanks to my colleagues: Chairman Wyden for his 
leadership, the whole Finance Committee, and, particularly, Senators 
Brown and Casey and Bennet as well as Cantwell and Hassan, who worked 
so long and hard on this bill.
  I yield the floor.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 349, H.R. 7024, a bill to make 
     improvements to the child tax credit, to provide tax 
     incentives to promote economic growth, to provide special 
     rules for the taxation of certain residents of Taiwan with 
     income from sources within the United States, to provide tax 
     relief with respect to certain Federal disasters, to make 
     improvements to the low-income housing tax credit, and for 
     other purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Ron Wyden, Tammy Baldwin, Catherine 
           Cortez Masto, Cory A. Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Debbie 
           Stabenow, Richard J. Durbin, Gary C. Peters, Tammy 
           Duckworth, Sheldon Whitehouse, Benjamin L. Cardin, Tina 
           Smith, Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Margaret Wood Hassan, 
           Robert P. Casey, Jr..

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 7024, a bill to make improvements to the 
child tax credit, to provide tax incentives to promote economic growth, 
to provide special rules for the taxation of certain residents of 
Taiwan with income from sources within the United States, to provide 
tax relief with respect to certain Federal disasters, to make 
improvements to the low-income housing tax credit, and for other 
purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Fetterman), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator 
from Virginia (Mr. Warner) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. 
Hoeven), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Romney), the Senator from South 
Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).
  Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. 
Hoeven) would have voted ``nay.''
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 48, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 230 Leg.]

                                YEAS--48

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Butler
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Markey
     Merkley
     Mullin
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Scott (FL)
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--44

     Barrasso
     Boozman
     Braun
     Britt
     Budd
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schmitt
     Schumer
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Blackburn
     Fetterman
     Hoeven
     Menendez
     Romney
     Scott (SC)
     Vance
     Warner
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). On this vote, the yeas are 48, 
the nays are 44.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having not voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
  The motion was rejected.


                          Motion to Reconsider

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I enter a motion to reconsider.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, once again, let me just repeat quickly, 
I am just really saddened by the fact that our Republican colleagues 
have not voted for a bill that passed so overwhelmingly in the House, 
put together by a conservative Republican chairman of the Ways and 
Means Committee and that would do so much to help housing, help kids 
and families, and help businesses.
  It is a shame that they put politics over helping the American 
people.

                          ____________________