[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16388-16392]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BUDGET AND TAX REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Comer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, an interesting week out ahead. As we 
begin this week, as we look at the budget for the United States of 
America, as we look and prepare to deal with the tax cut issue, we 
really ought to start that discussion with a clear understanding of 
what our goal is.
  I often use this when I talk here on the floor because it is 
foundational. It is foundational to what I believe we should use to 
test the various pieces of legislation that come before us. This would 
certainly be applicable as we look at the question of the Republican 
budget, which will be on the floor in the next couple of days, perhaps 
as early as tomorrow, and, of course, the tax cuts beyond.
  Here it is. This is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt--FDR. This is 
actually etched into the marble at the memorial for Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt. I came across it one day, and I think it is a very good 
criteria to judge.
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: ``The test of our progress is not 
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is 
whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''
  Using this as the criteria to judge the Republican budget and the 
upcoming tax reform or tax cuts, we would have to judge both as a 
miserable failure. We are looking at a situation in which somewhere 
between $2.5 trillion to $5 trillion of revenue will be removed from 
the Federal Government. That is about somewhere between $250 billion a 
year to $500 billion of revenue.
  It doesn't mean a thing until you translate that into real programs. 
Keep in mind that to reduce the revenue of the Federal Government 
somewhere around $500 billion a year, you would have to remove 80 
percent of the total money spent by the Department of Defense in all of 
the wars and all of the programs that they do in order to make up for 
that lost revenue.
  Alternatively, you would have to reduce almost all of the other 
discretionary funding. No, we wouldn't build a wall. In fact, we would 
have to fire all of the immigration authorities. The TSA would no 
longer be in our airports. There would no longer be any educational 
programs. There would be no programs dealing with all of the Coast 
Guard. There would be no programs for the Department of Homeland 
Security or the Department of Transportation.
  $500 billion of reduced revenue is possible as a result of both the 
budget, as well as the tax proposals that are coming before the House 
and the Senate in the days ahead. It may be just half that so we don't 
have to reduce all of those programs.
  This is a monumental, critical issue upon which, if we were to use 
this as the criteria to judge it, we would say: Wait a minute. What 
about national defense?
  Or we would say: Wait a minute. What about all of those programs that 
are necessary for our children, like the School Lunch Program?
  It is critical that we analyze this carefully.
  What does it do for the wealthy?
  Well, let's take a look at that.
  Now, given that the proposals are not yet defined down to the line 
and the text--but we do know from a general outline of our Speaker's 
previous proposals when he ran the budget here in the House and when he 
was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; and we have also 
President Trump's proposal--if it is the Ryan-McConnell-Trump 
proposal--it is the billionaires-first tax plan. It cuts the taxes for 
the wealthy. Eighty percent of the $2\1/2\ trillion to $5 trillion 
reduction winds up in the hands of the top 1 percent of Americans. 
Incredible.
  At the same time, what does it do for the rest of the public?
  Well, if you take a look at the detail in the budget that did pass 
this House and will be up for a vote in the very near future, it 
reduces Medicare and Medicaid by as much as $2 trillion. So you have 
got a reduction in revenue to be made up by a $2 trillion cut in 
Medicaid and Medicare.
  Who receives Medicaid?
  Across the United States, it is the working poor, and 60 percent of 
the total Medicaid budget is for seniors in nursing homes.
  So what we have here is a tax policy that cuts the taxes for the 
wealthiest of America's, the great 1 percent. They get 80 percent of 
the tax reductions. The rest of the public, 99 percent, will somehow 
share in the remaining 20 percent of reductions.
  Sounds like a bad deal?
  It certainly is, if you are to compare that against what Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt said should be our criteria for judging legislation.
  Now, it will be argued that the middle class will receive a tax cut. 
Well, some, perhaps, but not many. The majority of the middle class 
will actually receive a tax increase.
  How does that happen?
  The elimination of the deductions, State and local taxes, and other 
gimmicks that they have in it. So a family of four making somewhere 
around $50,000 could see their tax bill increase by as much as 380 
percent.
  Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What are we talking about here?
  We are talking about a tax plan that does not even come close to 
meeting this criteria of judgment.
  Does it do more for the wealthy?
  Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We are talking about trillions of dollars of tax 
reductions for the corporations and the superwealthy.
  And what does the rest of the country get for those who have little?
  They get even less.
  So what we have here, when you consider that they are proposing as 
much as a $2 trillion reduction in Medicare--we are talking about the 
healthcare system for seniors--and Medicaid--the healthcare system for, 
again, seniors in nursing homes--about 60 percent of that money goes to 
those seniors. The remaining 40 percent goes to the working poor and 
the poor.
  That alone, together with this transfer of the tax reductions for the 
superwealthy, amount to the largest transfer of wealth ever in any 
legislation that has been proposed, and hopefully will not pass, but 
has been proposed in this House. It is even a greater transfer of 
wealth than we saw in the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable 
Care Act.

[[Page 16389]]

  Beware, America. Be wary. The hucksters are promising something that 
they are only going to deliver to the superwealthy and to American 
corporations.
  One more point I would like to make here is that often you will hear 
the argument that cutting corporate taxes will somehow lead to more 
jobs and that the employees will receive more benefits. Well, it turns 
out that a cut in corporate tax rates actually comes back to the top 1 
percent. They will receive about 34 percent of the tax reductions that 
go to corporations.
  I have heard this argued by our Treasury Secretary, that if we are 
somehow to cut corporate tax rates, we will see the corporations 
investing in their workers.
  Wow. Wouldn't that be great?
  So we cut the corporate tax rate from some 35 percent down to 10 
percent, or maybe 15 percent, as our President has suggested. All of 
those reduced taxes will flow to the corporation's bottom line after 
tax profits will increase, and, wow, they will create jobs, they will 
pay higher wages.
  What are the facts? What are the facts here?
  Well, first of all, most of it will not wind up in the pockets of the 
workers. It will wind up in the top 20 percent of taxpayers, of which 
34 percent of that will be the top 1 percent. So, once again, if you 
look at the corporate tax reductions, it is going to wind up benefiting 
the wealthy, not the workers.
  There is another fact out there. In the 1970s, American corporations 
would invest about 50 percent--maybe slightly more than 50 percent--in 
capital improvements, building new factories, expanding the work floor, 
expanding the workers, workers' wages, benefits, and research and 
development. It is right there.
  If you take a look at the Fortune 500 in the 1970s, well over 50 
percent was reinvested in American jobs, American workers, expanding 
the factory floor, expanding the business, expanding research and 
development, and growing the corporation.
  A remarkable and extremely important thing happened beginning in the 
1980s, at about the time of the Reagan tax cuts, and continuing on, and 
is in place today. That has shifted.
  Today, American corporations do not invest in America, they don't 
invest in new capital, and they don't invest in R&D. Ninety percent of 
the after-tax profits in the Fortune 500--most of the Fortune 500, or 
many of them--wind up in stock buybacks and executive salaries or 
overseas, not in American jobs.
  If you are wondering why the American middle class has seen a flat 
and actually declining share of the GDP, it is because American 
corporations have shifted from investing in American jobs, American 
planting equipment, research and development; and they have shifted 
into manipulating their stock price by buying back their own stock, 
using the after-tax profits, some 90 percent of it, for executive 
salaries and for stock buyback.

                              {time}  1830

  If you have got 100 stocks out there and they are valued at $10 
apiece, you buy back 50 percent of the stock, guess what. You have 
doubled the stock price. By creating more jobs? By creating more 
profit. By increasing wages? By R&D? No. By manipulating your stock 
price by buying back that stock.
  Now, maybe there is somebody who would like to debate this point. 
Come on down. Let's debate it.
  The reality is just as I said. It is laid out there.
  Oh, there is another fact. One of America's largest corporations, the 
CEO said: Not to worry. You reduce my company's tax rate, and I will 
invest in our workers. I will invest in new plant and equipment.
  Interesting. In the last 8 years, the tax rate for AT&T is about 8 
percent--not 35 percent, not 20 percent, not 15 percent, but 8 
percent--and yet during that period of time, AT&T laid off 80,000 
workers.
  So you are going to tell me lowering a major American corporation's 
tax rate is somehow going to lead to more employment, more jobs? Then 
tell me why AT&T, that has an effective tax rate of 8 percent over a 7-
, 8-year period of time, laid off 80,000 people. So let's argue this 
point. Let's see what is going on here.
  We have before the House of Representatives and the Senate a 
fundamental question: Are we going to transfer even more wealth to the 
superwealthy by reducing their taxes and pushing off to the working men 
and women of America, the middle class, a higher burden?
  Along with that, we either increase the deficit by $2.5 trillion or 
$5 trillion, depending upon how this finalizes--that is the tax 
reduction; that is the lost revenue to the Federal Government--or are 
we going to make massive cuts?
  I am telling you what our Republican colleagues are promising us. 
Massive tax cuts for the superwealthy. The top 1 percent will get 80 
percent of the tax reduction benefits, the remaining 99 percent of 
Americans will have to figure out how to share the small remaining 20 
percent.
  The probability associated with those tax cuts, a significant 
reduction in programs that serve seniors--Medicaid, in nursing homes, 
the working poor, the Medicaid expansion program wiped out, Medicare 
reductions, all of these things--and quite possibly reductions in 
children's health programs, school programs, school lunch programs, 
environmental support programs, clean water programs, transportation 
programs, all the rest. So a tax cut for the wealthy is going to be a 
burden on American workers.
  Once again, if it happens, it will be the largest transfer of wealth 
from the working men and women of America to the superwealthy, as if we 
already do not have income inequality in America. It can be calculated 
that the income inequality in America today is the greatest it has been 
in any country for the last 500 years, dating back to when Spain was 
ripping off the Western Hemisphere taking all the gold, all the silver, 
anything else they could find, and transferring it to the Spanish 
Government, to the King and the Queen and their favorite folks. Income 
inequality is real.
  There are many, many pieces of this puzzle that we need to 
understand. One of them is the way in which certain States that have 
heavy burdens because they are urbanized States will be particularly 
impacted by the proposals that we have seen.
  Joining me tonight is the Representative from one of those States, 
New Jersey.
  Mr. Payne, would you like to comment on this extraordinary transfer 
once again that is in this piece of legislation, the way it harms your 
State and my State?
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I would first like to start by thanking my 
colleague, Congressman Garamendi from the great State of California, 
for hosting this afternoon's Special Order hour on the Republicans' 
massive tax giveaway to the rich.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people want a tax plan that creates jobs, 
builds infrastructure, helps out the poorest among us, strengthens the 
middle class, and requires billionaires to pay their fair share.
  Unfortunately, the Trump-Ryan-McConnell tax plan puts billionaires 
first and working class people last. The Republicans' tax plan will cut 
taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent, and it will raise taxes for more 
than a quarter of New Jersey's households. That is 1.2 million families 
in the State that I represent.
  Across the country, the average tax increase for families under the 
Trump-Ryan-McConnell tax plan is $794 a year, another $794 a year on 
families struggling now to make ends meet. In New Jersey, that is money 
a family could use to pay for a month of childcare or 7 months of an 
electric bill.
  The President spends a lot of time golfing at his resort in 
Bedminster, New Jersey. He knows many working class people in New 
Jersey. He employs some of them. His proposal to eliminate the Federal 
deduction for State and local taxes will hurt them dramatically.
  Eliminating the Federal deduction for State and local taxes will take

[[Page 16390]]

money out of people's pockets and out of New Jersey to fund tax cuts 
for the wealthy. That is just not going to work for the American 
people. Eliminating the Federal deduction for State and local taxes 
doesn't work for New Jersey, and it doesn't work for the American 
people.
  Nearly 2 million people in New Jersey take the deduction. That is 
more than a third of the State's taxpayers. Most of them are from New 
Jersey's lower and middle-income families. Getting rid of that 
deduction means higher taxes for regular people.
  So let's be clear. The Republican tax plan claims to be cutting 
taxes, but in reality, it raises taxes on millions of New Jersey's 
families and millions of other families nationwide.
  The Federal deduction for State and local taxes is good for families. 
It keeps them from paying twice on the same income. If you pay State 
and local taxes on your hard-earned money, the Federal Government 
should respect that. After all, State and local taxes pay for our 
roads, our schools, our police, and all essential services we rely on 
each and every day.
  New Jersey already pays more to the Federal Government in taxes than 
it receives in return. In fact, according to the Tax Policy Center, for 
every dollar New Jersey pays to the Federal Government in taxes, we get 
back only 77 cents. That is 77 cents on every dollar. The Trump-Ryan-
McConnell tax plan is asking people from my State to send more to 
Washington so the wealthiest 1 percent can get a tax cut. That is just 
wrong.
  When he unveiled his tax plan, President Trump claimed taxes are 
something he is very good at. Yeah, protecting billionaires is all this 
tax plan is good at.
  Elected officials from both parties must continue to stand against 
the Trump-Ryan-McConnell proposal and prevent billionaires' first tax 
overhaul from crushing hardworking families.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Payne, thank you so very much. You made a very, 
very important point, and it is one I know your State and 
Representatives from your State are very aware of, and we are in 
California.
  You said that for New Jersey here, you pay $1 in taxes to the Federal 
Government and you get back 77 cents. It turns out that California is 
in the same situation. We pay $1. I think we get back somewhere around 
the same, 70 percent back from the Federal Government.
  Similarly, the other States, upper Midwest, this area, Nebraska, 
Colorado, Minnesota, these States also wind up paying more. Then over 
here, Illinois and New York, Massachusetts, it looks like, and New 
Jersey down here, Connecticut, also, these States wind up paying more.
  It turns out that the program proposed by the Republicans is to 
further harm these particular States by taking away--these are high 
cost States. They have big populations, and they have expenses that are 
associated with those large populations.
  They, the Republicans, want to eliminate the State and local tax 
deduction, which, as you said, not only burdens the individuals, but it 
is going to be seriously harming these particular States. Already, 
these States are paying more.
  If they are successful, they, the Republicans, are successful in 
eliminating the State and local taxes, the tax burden on these 
particular States, the big States, is going to go up, and the benefit 
will continue to flow to the States with lower populations. And you can 
see that on this map, because the rest of the Nation is red, meaning 
they receive more money than they pay in taxes.
  So this is a particular problem. I am not going to say this is the 
only problem because you raised the issue, also, of the top 1 percent 
getting 80 percent of the tax break, but this is a very interesting map 
that is really not understood by our colleagues here.
  Down here in Alabama and Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and so 
forth, relatively low tax States, they are actually subsidized by the 
high tax States; and so the elimination of State and local taxes 
increases the taxes on the high cost States already, who are already 
paying more than they are getting back from the Federal Government, so 
their burden is further increased.
  We have got a fight on our hands.
  Mr. PAYNE. Absolutely. Absolutely.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. So we are ready.
  Mr. PAYNE. And to your point, I appreciate you bringing this map out 
to show these States that are subsidizing, and you are being very 
generous in that statement, other States.
  To have Members, over the past several weeks, come to the floor and 
admonish New Jersey and say that we really don't need the deduction, 
when--if I can tell, North Carolina is one of those States being 
subsidized. It is disingenuous to come to the floor and critique this 
plan when it is one of the only ways that people, citizens from New 
Jersey have as a way to balance things out to some degree.
  We all have to pay our fair share, but at some point in time New 
Jerseyans would like to see a return on their investment as well.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, exactly so. This proposal that is going to be 
before the House very soon will simply make this inequality between the 
States even worse.
  Now, in Texas, this horrible problem down here in Houston, terrible--
similarly, with Florida--there will be even greater money flowing to 
those States that have seen these natural disasters, and so this is 
probably going to get even more so. If they are successful in doing 
away with the State and local tax deduction, this will become even more 
onerous for people in my State.

                              {time}  1845

  Frankly, I cannot understand how my Republican colleagues from 
California could possibly support something that would substantially 
increase their constituents' taxes. So we will see.
  It is an interesting map. I came across it not too long ago, and I 
think I will use it even more.
  I appreciate and thank Mr. Payne for joining us tonight. I am going 
to keep putting this back up here.
  What are we here for?
  The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance 
of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who 
have little.
  I am going to toss another thing up here. Included in this Republican 
program is the elimination of the estate tax.
  If you want the wealthy to get even wealthier, then you move forward 
with the proposal that would shift the tax burden to the working men 
and women and away from those who are superwealthy. It has been said in 
an article in The New York Times that our President, under these 
proposals that he has put forward together with Mr. Ryan and Senator 
McConnell, that he would receive a billion-dollar reduction in taxes.
  We don't have his tax returns so it is hard to say that that is the 
case, but based upon past tax returns, it appears as though, yeah, one 
of the beneficiaries of all of this tax reduction is the President and 
his Cabinet. His Cabinet is made up of some of the wealthiest people in 
America, and they are not only going to receive a huge tax cut if it 
were to go forward and as proposed today, the 400 highest income 
taxpayers whose incomes average more than $300 million a year--and I 
think that is probably most of the Cabinet, and certainly the President 
has been in that if he is not there today--that range of income would 
get an average tax cut of at least $15 million. That is enough for a 
few rounds of golf.
  There is another piece of this puzzle, and I want to put this one up 
here. We are going to hear a lot of discussion about the estate tax and 
how somehow the estate tax harms American families, particularly 
American farmers.
  Now, I represent a very large agricultural district, and I said let's 
do some research and see across the broad breadth of America. Is it the 
American farmers that are harmed by the estate tax?
  It turns out that, yeah, there are some American farmers that are 
going to have to pay estate tax. There are 50 of them. There are 50 
American farm

[[Page 16391]]

families that would now be burdened by the current estate tax. 
Thousands upon thousands, millions of small farmers out there that the 
estate tax will never even come close to touching. It is $5.6 million 
of estate value for one, the spouse--another 5,000--so you have got 
$11.2 million for the family. It turns out it affects, perhaps, 50 
families across America. The estate tax itself really only affects 
5,200 families.
  When you hear all this talk about the death tax or the estate tax, as 
it is really called, ask the question: Who does that affect?
  Well, it certainly affects at least the President, Mr. Speaker. It 
affects the President and many members of his Cabinet. I can think of 
four right off who would be burdened by having to pay the estate tax. 
It is about $20 billion a year that is involved here.
  So you have got 2.7 million estates of which just two-tenths of 1 
percent would actually be affected by the estate tax. So don't get all 
excited, America, about eliminating the death tax, unless you want to 
see the programs on which you depend: education, childcare, children 
school lunch programs--if you are worried about the border, you are 
worried about the Homeland Security agency and their ability to provide 
those men and women. So it is about $20 billion a year that would be 
eliminated from the Federal tax base if the estate tax were to 
disappear.
  If you care at all about income inequality, then you better keep the 
estate tax. Eliminate the estate tax, then the rich will get richer and 
the poor will get poorer, and we will see even greater income 
inequality in the years ahead. So we have got some very heavy lifting 
to do here over the next couple of weeks.
  Before I come back and end this with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I 
would just say that the Democrats in this House and in the Senate 
really want to have tax reform. We want to reform the tax system. We 
know that the corporate tax rate of 35 percent is the highest in the 
world, or at least the industrialized world, and it does need to be 
reduced.
  We also know that there are very few corporations that actually pay 
the 35 percent. They are clearly burdened by a higher tax rate. We want 
to lower that tax rate. We want to do it in a way that encourages 
investment in the United States; that we go back to those days in the 
1970s and early 1980s, when American corporations actually invested in 
expanding their business in the United States; that they would invest 
in capital formation, in plant and equipment, and hiring workers and 
paying higher wages, and engaging in research and development. There 
are ways we can do this in corporate tax reform.
  For example, we could provide a faster write-off depreciation for 
investment in American research and development, in American factories, 
in plant and equipment. We might even structure it in such a way that 
we would provide an immediate 1-year or 2-year write-off depreciation 
of capital equipment placed in American factories that was made in 
America. If you want to buy Chinese equipment for your factory, well, 
you are going to have to depreciate that over 15 years.
  There are ways in which--some very simple ways in which we can 
encourage corporations to invest in America by modifying the 
depreciation schedules. If it is an American-made piece of equipment, a 
Caterpillar tractor that is manufactured in America, write it off in 1 
year.
  You want to buy a Kubota manufactured in Japan?
  Okay. You can write that off in 10 years.
  In other words, a positive encouragement for American-made equipment 
is just one of many examples. As we bring down the corporate tax rate, 
we build into it very specific things to build the American economy. 
There are other things, and certainly the wages are part of this, R&D, 
and all of the other elements. We Democrats want to engage with our 
Republican colleagues in that kind of tax reform.
  On the personal income tax side, yes, we are willing to talk about 
the tax rates, but we don't want to see the tax cut benefit go to the 
superwealthy that are already doing extraordinarily well. We want that 
benefit to go to the working men and women of America. We can expand 
their deductibles, and the Republicans are talking about that, but it 
is done in a limited way. And when you add back into it the elimination 
of State and local income tax and other things that they are talking 
about doing, it turns out that a very limited number of middle-income 
and low-income taxpayers are going to benefit, and many will find their 
taxes go up. We think that is wrong.
  As we look at this on the personal income tax side, we want to make 
sure that we are able to structure those personal income tax changes in 
such a way as to simplify, absolutely, and eliminate a lot of 
scurrilous deductions that only benefit the rich and the wealthy, and 
come to a program that is simpler, more straightforward, and really 
benefits the great American middle class, or as the President likes to 
say, let's make the middle class great again. We can do that through 
tax policy. That is what we want to do.
  I am telling you where we are headed today. We are headed today in a 
program in which our Republican colleagues are going to ignore our 
Democratic participation in this democracy, and they are going to ram 
through their own version of tax reform, which is simply a monumental 
tax decrease for American corporations, many of which are offshoring 
jobs. I can come back to that in a moment, and the high-income 
Americans as their taxes are reduced and their estate tax is 
eliminated. We think that is wrong, but they are not asking us how we 
can work together. They are not asking us to work with them.
  They have structured it through the budget deal that they can do it 
with 51 votes in the Senate, totally ignoring the Democratic Senators, 
and here in the House of Representatives, following a tradition that 
has been underway for several years now of simply writing a tax bill on 
their own, writing a repeal on their own, and ignoring the Democrats 
who we believe have a better deal for Americans.
  We believe that there is a better deal, that we can increase American 
pay by writing a corporate Tax Code that encourages investment in 
America, that encourages investment in workers, in worker training, 
worker preparation, and all the technical skills that a modern American 
economy needs. Yes, we do know there is a better way in writing the Tax 
Code. We also know that we can write a Tax Code that would lower the 
cost for those American corporations, businesses, and farmers who are 
investing in America. I have given some of those ideas already here a 
moment ago.
  Finally, we know that there is a better deal for Americans when we 
provide the tools for the 21st century, and this has to do with those 
tools of training and retraining so that the American workers are 
prepared to take the jobs that are out there.
  How do you repair that robot that has replaced you on the 
manufacturing floor? How do you repair it? How do you program it?
  That is a skill set that Americans are going to need.
  In my area, we have pharmaceutical companies that are technologically 
driven. Their laboratories need to be staffed by American workers who 
understand the intricacies of biology and the biotechnical industry, 
which is emerging in my district and in California. That is a skill 
set.
  We know that there is a better deal for Americans. We know that there 
is a better way for tax reform. We know that there is a necessity in 
America to build the infrastructure, the foundation of economic growth. 
But we also know that if our Republican friends are successful in 
reducing Federal revenues by somewhere between $2.5 trillion to $5 
trillion, this is their proposal, revenues reduced by that, we will not 
have money for training American workers. We will not have money for 
the infrastructure investments, which are necessary to repair our 
bridges, build our roads, our airports and the like so that we have a 
foundation upon which the economy will grow. We know that.
  We have to persuade our Republican colleagues, so we are going to 
have to

[[Page 16392]]

rely on the American people, just as we relied upon you when the repeal 
and replace legislation was before the House of Representatives and the 
Senate.
  The American public said: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. This is a bad 
deal, not a better deal, but a bad deal for Americans.
  So the tax reform or the tax cuts that are before us in the next 
weeks--the next 4 weeks--are a bad deal for Americans, and we are going 
to have to rely upon the American public becoming aware of what is 
going on here in Washington, and then speaking out and saying: No, no. 
Time out, folks. You are not going to screw us again. You are not going 
to do that again. We don't want the wealthy to get wealthier while we 
get poorer.
  So the American public, I would expect, will say, ``No, no way,'' 
just as they did when the great repeal and replace legislation was 
before Congress just a month ago.
  Mr. Speaker, I have covered the issue for the night, but I want us 
all to remember that the test of our progress is not whether we add 
more to the abundance of those who have much; it is, rather, whether we 
provide enough for those who have too little. It is etched in the 
monument and the marble of the FDR Memorial, and it is a pretty good 
test of our progress here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________