[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 10, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S951-S953]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     LEGISLATIVE SESSION--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume legislative session.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the

[[Page S952]]

Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The senior assistant executive 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 substitute 
     amendment No. 4308 to Calendar No. 343, H.R. 6644, a bill to 
     increase the supply of housing in America, and for other 
     purposes.
         John Thune, Mike Crapo, Jim Justice, Lindsey Graham, Eric 
           Schmitt, Chuck Grassley, Roger F. Wicker, Mike Rounds, 
           John Barrasso, Roger Marshall, Tim Sheehy, Markwayne 
           Mullin, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Jim Banks, Joni 
           Ernst, Pete Ricketts, John R. Curtis.

  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 
amendment No. 4308, offered by the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. 
Scott, to H.R. 6644, a bill to increase the supply of housing in 
America 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 senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. 
Shaheen) is necessarily absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 89, nays 9, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 50 Leg.]

                                YEAS--89

     Alsobrooks
     Baldwin
     Banks
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt Rochester
     Boozman
     Britt
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Curtis
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Fetterman
     Fischer
     Gallego
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Husted
     Hyde-Smith
     Justice
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kim
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Markey
     Marshall
     McConnell
     McCormick
     Merkley
     Moody
     Moran
     Moreno
     Mullin
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Schiff
     Schmitt
     Schumer
     Scott (SC)
     Sheehy
     Slotkin
     Smith
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--9

     Budd
     Johnson
     Lee
     Murphy
     Paul
     Schatz
     Scott (FL)
     Tuberville
     Young

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--1

       
     Booker
       

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Shaheen
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). On this vote, the yeas are 89, the 
nays are 9, and one Senator responded ``present.''
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Cloture having been invoked, the motion to 
commit falls.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                      Working Families Tax Cut Act

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, with the change of our clocks in recent 
days, the Sun seems to shine later in the day and days are getting 
longer. We are even starting to feel signs of spring in the air here in 
Washington, DC. But along with the longer days and the budding flowers, 
something else is rapidly approaching that Americans find far less 
palatable, and that, of course, is tax season.
  Americans have long had a distaste for taxes in this country, going 
back to the Boston Tea Party--a protest over seemingly minor taxes 
imposed by the British Empire that helped spark the American 
Revolution. While we may not find ourselves clamoring for a revolution 
on April 15, it remains, nevertheless, a hapless ritual of forking over 
a good percentage of our hard-earned wages to the Federal Government--
something none of us looks forward to.
  Fortunately for the American people, Senate Republicans have 
delivered a series of important victories through the Working Families 
Tax Cut Act that will set them up for a far less painful tax season 
than they would have experienced if the Democrats had been in charge. 
In fact, our Democratic colleagues uniformly voted against any of these 
tax cuts.
  With the 2017 Trump tax cuts set to expire, Americans would have 
experienced the largest increase in history if it weren't for this new 
legislation--and again, our Democratic colleagues were OK with that. We 
saved the average Texas family more than $3,000, and we prevented 62 
percent of Americans from seeing a tax increase. Small business owners 
alone would have seen their Federal tax rates increase by nearly 50 
percent, and American households would have faced a more than $4 
trillion tax hike. Democrats, as I said, were OK with that.
  By now, at least most of my colleagues have become familiar with some 
of these top-line numbers, but today, I want to highlight a few 
provisions that have seen a little less daylight even though they will 
serve as a boon to working families all across our Nation.
  As we all know, 56 percent of American voters have said that 
affordability is their top concern. I am actually surprised it is that 
low, but 56 is no small number. Parents of small children in particular 
are feeling the affordability crunch even more than their childless 
peers as they try to stretch their paychecks to meet the increasing 
costs of housing, groceries, and childcare each month.
  While there is no silver bullet that can magically make the cost of 
raising a family go away, Republicans have delivered provisions through 
the Working Families Tax Cut Act that will attempt to lessen that 
burden. For example, back in 2017, Republicans doubled the child tax 
credit from $1,000 to $2,000. In 2025, that was scheduled to go back to 
$1,000, but Senate Republicans built on their prior success and 
permanently increased the child tax credit to $2,200 per child. We 
ensured that this was not via temporary provision, and we provided that 
it would not be eaten up by inflation by making sure that it was 
permanent and tied to inflation so that the child tax credit can keep 
pace with the increasing costs of raising a child over time. Parents 
who are married and filing jointly can earn up to $400,000 and still be 
able to claim this credit.
  In addition to expanding the child tax credit, Republicans took steps 
to alleviate what is perhaps one of the most commonly cited concerns 
that parents face, and that is the increasing cost of childcare.
  Some families are spending as much as $15,000 or more per year for 
each child in full-time childcare--higher than the annual median cost 
of rent in the United States, with even higher costs for the very 
young. This marks a more than 50-percent increase over the past 
decade--far outpacing inflammation.
  These skyrocketing costs leave many families with two working parents 
in a very difficult dilemma: They can either eat this cost or choose to 
have one or the other parent give up their income entirely in order to 
provide full-time childcare. This choice can bring with it a great deal 
of mixed emotions, with the tradeoffs involved being much more complex 
than simply the dollars and cents on either side of the ledger. And 
this isn't to mention the situation of single parents, who often have 
even fewer options on the table.
  Once again, there is no single legislative fix to this dilemma, but 
Republicans have taken important steps toward addressing the struggles 
that working families face in the Working Families Tax Cut Act by 
enhancing the paid family and medical leave credit and the employer-
provided childcare credit.
  The paid family and medical leave credit is a general business credit 
that is now offered to employers who provide paid family and medical 
leave to qualifying employees. That makes it a lot easier for these 
businesses--often small businesses--to offer this childcare support for 
their employees. Our 2025 legislation strengthened this credit, 
broadened the eligibility to make it more widely available, and made it 
permanent.
  This provision will reward businesses that offer these valuable 
benefits to their employees, allowing mothers to recover from 
childbirth and allowing both mothers and fathers the time they want to 
bond with their newborns in the first important months of their lives.

[[Page S953]]

  We also built on these successes by bolstering the employer-provided 
child tax credit. This credit rewards businesses that provide childcare 
to their employees, whether by constructing an onsite daycare center or 
by assisting employees with subsidies or other options that help them 
afford childcare.
  By incentivizing onsite childcare options, which can make the 
dropoffs and pickups less logistically challenging, and offsetting the 
high costs, this tax credit is another step toward a less stressful 
experience of parenting in America--and if there is anybody who needs a 
little less stress, it is parents.
  But this isn't the end of the pro-family provisions in the Working 
Families Tax Cut Act. We also bolstered the adoption tax credit by 
making it partially refundable--up to $5,000--in order to support those 
who have decided to build their families through the heroic path of 
adoption. We increased the dependent care assistance exclusion--up to 
$7,500 from $5,000--and we increased the child and dependent care tax 
credit, which will help millions of families offset the cost of 
childcare by nearly $1,000, on average.
  There is no doubt that raising a family in today's world is a 
rewarding but challenging experience, but thanks to the historic 
inflation that the Biden administration imposed on the American people, 
this already daunting journey became much harder. While, again, we 
don't have a silver bullet or a magic wand that can make all of these 
rising costs go away overnight, I hope that the pro-family reforms that 
we champion in the Working Families Tax Cut Act can make this journey 
easier on the millions of parents around the country.
  So while none of us are looking forward to filing our income tax 
returns come April 15, I hope that working parents will see a little 
bit of well-deserved relief in their pocketbooks as a result of these 
provisions that Republicans provided in the Working Families Tax Cut 
Act and which President Trump signed into law.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________