[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 20150-20151]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        MORNING AGAIN IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania). The Chair 
recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I opposed the House version of the tax 
reform bill because the loss of broad-based deductions like State and 
local taxes would have caused significant tax increases on many of my 
middle class constituents in the high-tax, high-cost State of 
California. It actually increased the marginal tax rate on high-income 
earners and abolished lifeline deductions such as casualty loss, 
medical expenses, and student interest. I urge that we should leave no 
taxpayer behind.
  I thank Chairman Brady, the Republican leadership, and the conference 
committee for heeding these concerns. Their final product exceeds my 
expectations and, on behalf of California taxpayers, I can now offer my 
enthusiastic support.
  The new version leaves the casualty loss, medical expense, and 
student interest deductions intact. No family needs to fear being 
ruined by taxes after a major disaster or illness, and graduates can 
continue to plan their lives knowing that interest on their student 
loans will not be taxed.
  The new bill eases the proposed limit on mortgage interest deductions 
and allows up to $10,000 of State and local taxes to be deducted, all 
important changes for California. But most importantly, the lower tax 
rates in this bill now more than compensate in almost every case for 
the remaining limits on State and local tax and mortgage interest 
deductions. Even taxpayers who lose tens of thousand of dollars of 
deductions will still end up paying lower taxes than they do today.
  For example, a couple earning $60,000 with a $300,000 home and three 
adult dependents would have paid $200 more in taxes under the old bill. 
But under this new version, they will save $340.
  A couple earning $150,000 with a $750,000 home--that is a high-end 
tract home in California--and one child would have paid $1,200 more in 
taxes under the old House bill. But under the new bill, that same 
family will save $720.

[[Page 20151]]

  The business tax provisions are especially important because they 
will restore American workers to an internationally competitive 
position. According to economists ranging from Martin Feldstein to 
Arthur Laffer, these provisions alone will produce $5 trillion of new 
economic activity over the next decade. That is $40,000 per household, 
including $2 trillion of new tax revenues to all levels of government.
  Last Friday, I toured AMPAC, a local company making the active 
ingredient in several cancer and epilepsy drugs. Their product is then 
shipped to Ireland to make the actual medicine solely because the 
corporate tax in the United States is 35 percent, and in Ireland it is 
just 12.5 percent.
  Their CEO, Aslam Malik, told me that, if they gave their product away 
for free, the final medicine could still not be competitively 
manufactured in the United States solely because of our taxes. He 
expects their local company will grow dramatically because of this tax 
reform, employing hundreds more families both directly and indirectly 
as they expand everything from payroll to infrastructure.
  You see, that is what the Marxists just don't understand. Businesses 
don't pay business taxes. Businesses collect them from just three 
sources: from consumers through higher prices, from employees through 
lower wages, and from investors through lower earnings, usually pension 
plans and IRAs.
  We have the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, 
and commerce and capital simply move around it, leaving our workers 
behind. That is one of the reasons we averaged just 1.5 percent 
economic growth under Obama--worse than any President since Herbert 
Hoover--and lost an entire decade of prosperity.
  The Marxists tell us that this is just trickle-down economics and it 
has never worked. Well, in fact, it has always worked. It worked when 
Warren Harding did it in the 1920s, when John F. Kennedy did it in the 
1960s, when Ronald Reagan did it in the 1980s, and, lest we forget, 
when Bill Clinton approved the biggest capital gains tax cut in 
American history.
  Concerns over the deficit are legitimate and must be addressed by 
spending reforms in the coming year. We must always remember that taxes 
and debt are driven by just one thing: spending.
  The proof of these policies will manifest itself over the coming 
year, and every American will be able to decide for themselves if this 
has made them better off. I think that is why the left has pulled out 
all the stops to defeat it. Their arguments are exactly the same 
economically illiterate attacks filled with class envy that they made 
against Reagan.
  When the American people awakened one day to find it was morning 
again in America, the left was discredited for a generation. Let 
history repeat itself, beginning today, with this vote.

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