[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16481-16482]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           A CIRCUIT BREAKER IS NEEDED FOR PROPOSED TAX CUTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the exercise my Republican friends are 
going through with their budget and tax cut proposal would be amusing 
if the consequences were not so serious.
  Coming to Congress, I worked hard to earn a position on the House 
Ways and Means Committee, which has been the focal point for critical 
decisions in the past dealing with tax reform, with Social Security. I 
respected its historic role and the way that its members worked 
together in a thoughtful and bipartisan basis.
  Unfortunately, unlike what has happened for other major tax reform 
efforts, currently there has been no effort for laying the groundwork, 
working with people in both parties, dealing with the hard decisions 
that are necessary for tax reform that will move our country forward. 
My Republican friends refuse to deal with the heavy legislative lifting 
necessary for true reform.
  In fact, my Republican friends now have given up on tax reform. They 
are rushing through, in a matter of days, not reform but as big a tax 
cut as they can possibly get, predicated on strong-arming their Members 
with narrow control in Congress and disregarding the fundamentals of 
responsible budgeting.
  The budget resolution that the House will soon be considering by the 
Republicans to enact their tax cut via the process known as 
reconciliation is a fantasy. Read it carefully. It is predicated on 
increasing our national debt $1.5 trillion, when previously they 
promised that their tax reform would be budget neutral.
  It is predicated on $4 trillion of unspecified budget cuts that will 
be concentrated on Medicare, Medicaid, and the other programs that 
Americans care the most deeply about.
  The proof for this fantasy is the fact that even though Republicans 
have an ironclad grip on the appropriations process in both the House 
and the Senate and they don't have to worry about filibusters, they 
don't need any Democratic votes at all, but they still cannot summon 
the courage of their convictions to implement the beginning of this 
strategy.
  It doesn't have to wait for 2 or 4 or 10 years. They could start now 
with the budget cutting that they are relying upon for this fantasy 
budget, but they know that the American people won't

[[Page 16482]]

stand for it and their own Members wouldn't vote for those cuts now 
even though there is nothing stopping them.
  That is why it is absolutely essential that, even if they are 
modestly successful with this reckless agenda, that we take steps to 
prevent the resulting fiscal train wreck, because we have seen deficits 
explode in the past where rosy projections about economic growth and 
stern budget cuts fail to materialize.
  The landmark 1986 tax reform legislation, the last time we had real 
tax reform, by the way, predicated on bipartisan cooperation and a lot 
of hard work, had no discernible impact on economic growth, even though 
it was, in fact, worth it.
  As a result, I will be offering standalone legislation and amendments 
in the Ways and Means Committee to establish a circuit breaker that 
will suspend the tax cuts if the rosy projections fail to materialize. 
If deficits explode and budgets are not cut according to their plan, 
then the American people should be spared the economic chaos by calling 
a timeout and rolling back these reckless proposals, allowing us to 
catch our breath and hopefully develop better policy based on 
bipartisanship and facts, not fantasy.
  America deserves a far-better vision than the Republican budget 
fantasy and the reckless tax cuts that they are pushing so hard to 
enact. At a minimum, we should have a circuit breaker to stop it if 
they can't follow through on their promises.

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