[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20088-20089]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT AND THE REPUBLICAN TAX BILL

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have a lot to accomplish before the 
end of the year. Government funding runs out on Friday. We still 
haven't reached a bipartisan agreement on lifting the budget caps to 
ensure that our investments in economic growth and job creation rise in 
tandem with our investments in our national defense or in a disaster 
supplemental that treats equitably California, Puerto Rico, and the 
U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as Texas and Florida. We need a bipartisan 
agreement to fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program and 
community health centers, end the sabotage of our healthcare markets, 
protect the Dreamers, and shore up pension plans for hundreds of 
thousands of hard-working Americans.
  We should be doing all these things together instead of in a 
piecemeal fashion. It will lead to a better bipartisan result, which is 
a necessity. To try to do it in a partisan way, as the House of 
Representatives seems to be doing, will lead to nowhere and to a 
government shutdown. Instead of jamming through a partisan tax scam in 
the House and Senate, we should be working on middle-class priorities.
  To make matters worse, House Republicans continue to waste time on a 
partisan CRomnibus that is dead on arrival in the Senate. There is 
another path. Republicans and Democrats should continue to negotiate a 
genuine bipartisan agreement that paves the way for the major 
unresolved issues to get to the President's desk. With so little time 
left before the end of the year, those negotiations must proceed in 
earnest. They haven't been.
  Today, in the House, the Republican Members of the team called off 
the negotiations and said: Let's do it tomorrow--as the clock ticks.
  A few items have become sticking points and should be addressed. We 
still don't have a deal on pensions. Over 1 million Americans are 
waiting for our Republican friends to do what is right and work with us 
on a solution to the pension crisis in America. These working people 
every month put money into a pension hoping that when they retire, they 
are not going to become rich, but they can live a life of dignity. A 
lot of that has been robbed from them. We have an obligation to help 
them. That is a high priority for Democrats in the Senate and the 
House.
  We still don't have a resolution on Democratic funding requests for 
opioid treatment. We know the scourge of opioids, the number of deaths 
throughout America--rural, suburban, urban, Black, White, Hispanic, 
Asian, everybody. In the flower of their youth, so many are being taken 
by opioids. We don't do enough, and there is a clamor from the Nation 
to do more.
  What about veterans' care? Cuts have hurt our veterans who have 
served us. They are not getting the help they need.
  Our infrastructure is crumbling. We need help in rural areas, urban 
areas, suburban areas. What about that?
  There is no resolution on adequate funding for Puerto Rico and its 
resiliency or the Virgin Islands, no resolution on fixing our wildfire 
funding problem which we proposed.
  We still don't have an understanding on the Republicans' plan to 
extend the 702 FISA Court program. The majority leader has told us: Oh, 
we have to act on FISA. He could put it on the floor today. He could 
have put it on the floor last week, instead of putting three judges--
some of whom had dubious credentials--on the floor. So to tell us we 
are running out of time for FISA, when the majority leader controls the 
floor and hasn't done anything for months, rings a little hollow.
  We still don't have a good deal on the healthcare package. Now that 
Republicans are pushing through a partisan repeal of the individual 
mandate in their tax bill, which causes premiums to rise 10 percent--
when America gets those premium increases this spring and summer, they 
will know who to blame. The number of Americans without insurance will 
rise by 13 million. The bipartisan stabilization bills will not have 
the same impact. We will need new legislation to account for the 
Republicans' latest attempt to undermine our healthcare system.
  We still don't have a disaster package that adequately takes care of 
Puerto Rico, California, the Virgin Islands. I hear that my friends 
from Texas--both Houses--are demanding we rush through a partisan 
disaster package through the end of the year. Texas needs the money, 
but the Governor of Texas has refused to tap the State's $10 billion 
rainy day fund--the largest in the country--to help Houston and other 
parts of the State recover from Hurricane Harvey. Yet, at the same 
time, he is demanding immediate Federal assistance. On its face, it is 
absurd. It is an absurd position for a routine critic of Federal 
Government spending to demand money immediately, while he has a $10 
billion fund sitting there. Imagine if those moneys were in New York or 
Maryland what our Republican colleagues would be saying. Constantly, we 
have this what is good for the goose is not good for the gander on our 
Republican side. I could have used stronger words, but I stopped 
myself.
  I say to the Governor of Texas: If a rainy day fund is not for a 
rainy day, which Texas had, then what the heck is it for? I, for one, 
don't want to vote for a nickel for Texas unless they tap that rainy 
day fund.
  Of course, last, but certainly not least, we have to ensure 
protection for the Dreamers. Bipartisan negotiations are ongoing in the 
House and Senate. That is good news. Democrats and Republicans in the 
Senate and the House are trying to come to an agreement on helping the 
Dreamers, who just want to become Americans, and coming up with border 
security which we all believe we need. One thousand Dreamers are losing 
their status every week. While our Republican friends twiddle their 
thumbs, we need action on the Dreamers, and we need our Republican 
colleagues to cooperate.
  On these issues and more, there is a lot of work left to do. Instead 
of rushing through their partisan tax bill, I would urge my Republican 
colleagues to focus on the year-end negotiations.
  Speaking of the tax bill, it appears it will be before us on a final 
vote early this week. Although there were significant changes in the 
conference report, Senators will not have much time to grapple with 
them. The conference report was released late last Friday. We are 
taking a final vote on a bill that will change the entire Tax Code only 
a few days later. It will be a culmination of the sloppiest legislative 
process I have witnessed in my time as a Senator. Fittingly, 
unfortunately, the results will be a mess as well.
  My Republican friends are squandering their so-called once-in-a-
generation opportunity for tax reform on a massive corporate bailout 
paid for by middle-class tax increases. What a shame.
  At a time when our economy is increasingly stacked against the middle 
class and in favor of the wealthy, the Republican tax bill will skew 
the playing field even further out of whack. It will explode inequality 
in the country, where the top 1 percent of earners already capture over 
20 percent of the national income, while the bottom 50 percent take in 
only 13 percent. It will explode the deficit, starving our country of 
the resources it needs to invest in education, infrastructure, and 
scientific research--all the things that help the middle class.
  After all of that, it will endanger Social Security, Medicaid, and 
Medicare. Then, 1 or 2 or 3 years down the line, Republicans will come 
back to slash those programs to pay for the deficit they have created.
  Finally, our Republican friends say: Well, it will create a whole lot 
of jobs. Give money to the wealthiest corporations. As has been shown 
over and over again, the wealthiest corporations have a ton of money 
right now. They are not creating jobs. Give them more money? They will 
not create any more jobs. The only claim our Republican colleagues have 
for the middle class is trickle-down. Well, my friends, no one believes 
in trickle-down except for a handful of wealthy, greedy people who seem 
to be controlling what you are saying and doing in this tax bill.
  This bill, in short, is a cynical one-two gut punch to the middle 
class. It

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raises middle-class taxes to pay for corporate tax cuts and decimates 
their earned benefits as a kicker. Surely we can do better than this.
  Tomorrow Republicans will have a chance to vote down this tax bill, 
which is one of the least popular pieces of legislation in the last 30 
years. My Republican colleagues have accomplished an amazing trick. A 
tax cut, usually popular, is 2-to-1 unpopular in America. Good work.
  They know what is in it. The public knows. They know they are getting 
crumbs, if anything, and many are getting increases, while the highest 
income people do great. Well, let me just say, if by some miracle, our 
Republican colleagues get the good sense to vote this package down and 
really help the middle class instead of just helping the wealthy, we 
Democrats will be there. They will find a Democratic leader and a 
Democratic Party willing to work with them on real bipartisan tax 
reform.
  I yield the floor.

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