[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21583-21584]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          OMNIBUS LEGISLATION

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, now that the votes have concluded and we 
have successfully passed our legislation granting tax relief to 
millions of Americans, I want to take a few minutes to express my 
gratitude.
  This has been a very long and sometimes difficult process, but it has 
at almost every step been bipartisan and cooperative. I also think the 
results speak for themselves. This legislation, the PATH Act, will help 
families and job creators and grow our economy. This legislation will 
allow businesses and run-of-the-mill taxpayers to more effectively plan 
for their future. This legislation will pave the way for comprehensive 
tax reform, and this legislation will relieve the pressure we face 
every year on tax extenders and end the cliff-or-crisis mentality that 
surrounds much of our tax policy. It is, quite simply, a win for good 
government--the last of many we have enjoyed in what has been a very 
productive year here in the Senate.
  I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work on this important 
bill and am even more pleased to see it finally passed through both the 
House and the Senate. I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle who worked to make this possible, who set aside partisanship 
and allowed both parties to realize their top priorities in this 
legislation without seeing it as a loss to their side.
  Here in the Senate, I, of course, want to thank Senator Wyden, who 
has been an effective and valuable partner in all of our efforts on the 
Finance Committee this year.
  I really need to thank all of the members of the Finance Committee 
and their staffs who worked extraordinarily hard on the tax extenders 
issue throughout this entire year.
  I also thank our distinguished majority leader, who recognized the 
opportunity to get another big accomplishment through the Senate this 
year and pushed to help us get the substance of the bill in place, and 
he worked tirelessly to get it across the goal line.
  Thanks also to our majority whip for leading another successful 
effort to secure the vote and shore up support within our conference.
  I also thank our distinguished minority leader as well. Although he 
and I are friends, we are quite often in disagreement on issues before 
the Senate. But in this effort, we were able to find a lot of common 
ground, and he worked hard to get us where we needed to be and was 
extremely effective in leading his conference.
  Over on the other side of the Capitol, I need to thank the chairman 
of the Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady. Chairman Brady is pretty 
new to his position, but he worked as a seasoned veteran in putting 
this bill together. He is, quite simply, an exceptional and excellent 
legislator.
  I thank Speaker Ryan for his work on this as well. He and I have 
worked well together over the past year and enjoyed a lot of victories. 
This is one of the biggest and most consequential, and I think he would 
agree.
  I also need to pay tribute to our staffs who put in so much time and 
effort to get this endeavor off the ground and to see it through to the 
finish. On both sides of the aisle, there have been a lot of late 
nights, early mornings, and neglected families during these final 
weeks. I really can't thank them enough.
  On my Finance Committee staff, I need to thank our tax team, led as 
always by the indefatigable Mark Prater, my chief tax counsel and 
deputy staff director. We all know and love Mark here in the Senate, 
and this bill, like every major tax bill over the last quarter century, 
has his fingerprints all over it. I need to thank my tax counsel, Jim 
Lyons, for spearheading yet another tax extenders effort, along with 
the rest of the Republican tax team: Preston Rutledge, Jeff Wrase, Tony 
Coughlan, Eric Oman, Christopher Hanna, Nick Wyatt, and Sam Beaver.
  I also need to thank Jay Khosla, my policy director and chief health 
counsel for his work on the health care issues we address in this bill 
and for his overall leadership in this process. Also on the health 
side, I want to thank Katie Simeon, one of the best health staffers on 
Capitol Hill. I also want to express particular thanks to Chris 
Campbell--he is my incomparable staff director--for shepherding another 
high-profile effort and major success for the Senate Finance Committee.
  I want to thank other members of my senior team, including Julia 
Lawless, Aaron Fobes, and Bryan Hickman for their work in the press and 
communications outreach and, of course, in building coalitions. I 
really do have the best committee staff in Congress, a statement I make 
without reservation. But with all due respect to my colleagues and 
their staffs, I have to make that statement.
  On Ranking Member Wyden's staff, I need to thank his tax team, 
particularly Todd Metcalf, who led the efforts for the other side and 
was a key liaison with the White House on these issues. Thanks also to 
the rest of the Democratic tax team: Tiffany Smith, Ryan Abraham, Chris 
Arneson, Robert Andres, Kara Getz, Adam Carasso, and Todd Wooten. I 
also want to thank Ranking Member Wyden's health team.
  From Majority Leader McConnell's office, I want to thank Sharon 
Soderstrom, Hazen Marshall, Brendan Dunn, Scott Raab, Don Stewart, and 
Antonia Ferrier for all they did to help put this bill together, to 
negotiate the package, and to shore up enough votes to get it done. 
Thanks also to Monica Popp and Jane Lee from the majority whip's 
office. From Minority Leader Reid's office, I want to thank Drew 
Willison, Ellen Doneski, and Kate Leone.
  Over on the House side, I want to thank Chairman Brady's tax team, 
led by George Callas, and Dave Stewart for their work on this 
legislation. From Speaker Ryan's staff, I want to thank Austin Smythe 
and Dave Hoppe.
  Of course, no tax effort is ever completed without the vital 
assistance offered by the staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation. I 
want to thank JCT's chief of staff, Tom Barthold, and all of his great 
staff for the long hours they put in to make sure this bill was put 
together right.
  Finally, I want to acknowledge the help we got from the Senate 
legislative counsel's office, particularly from Mark McGunagle, Vince 
Gaiani, Allison Otto, and Jim Fransen. Thanks to all of them as well.
  As you can see, it took a lot of people to put this bill together and 
get it passed. I am sure I have not mentioned everyone who played a 
role. Once again, I am very pleased to have been a part of this huge 
effort that we have been in a rush to get to this point at the end of 
the year. I think we all have a chance to reflect on the implications 
of what we have been able to do. We

[[Page 21584]]

will all recognize the truly historic nature of this very important 
piece of tax legislation.

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