[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20225-20226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TAX CUTS AND JOBS BILL

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the second matter I would like to address 
is the historic vote that the House will take today and that we will 
take later on this evening on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
  This bill will dramatically reduce taxes on American families and 
incentivize the creation of new jobs. It is a major victory for all 
Americans who want to know that Washington has their best interests at 
heart. It does exactly what we told the voters we would do in 2016, and 
it is important to keep our word. We are delivering tax reform in a way 
that is real, comprehensive, and substantial, and we are doing it 
through what we usually refer to as regular order in the Senate.
  I know that ever since the Affordable Care Act was written in then-
Democratic Leader Harry Reid's conference room and was brought to the 
floor, there has been a lot of concern about the way the Senate 
conducts its activities. Senator McCain, who unfortunately will not be 
able to be with us today, has been a stickler for returning to regular 
order--by that, meaning introducing a bill, having it marked up and 
debated in the relevant committee--in this case, in the Finance 
Committee--then having it brought to the floor, where it is amended, 
and then debating it until we finally pass it. Then we go to a 
conference committee with the House and reconcile the differences 
between the Senate version and the House version. That is exactly what 
we did with this piece of legislation.
  I have spoken at length about certain provisions in the bill before, 
but I want to make one point abundantly clear. For the American people, 
this represents the very best kind of Christmas gift we can offer 
them--one that will actually make their lives better and one from which 
they will benefit right away. This tax reform may not bear the ribbons 
and bows of a Christmas present, but the men and women who are trying 
to make ends meet will benefit from having lower taxes, bigger 
paychecks, and a resurgent economy that will produce more jobs and 
better opportunities.
  I will refer to an article that came out in January of this year 
which cited a shocking statistic, really. The statistic is, most 
Americans remain one misstep away from having a financial crisis. 
Fifty-seven percent of Americans don't have enough cash on hand to 
cover an unexpected $500 expense. These findings from this CBS News 
report shed light on how many households continue to struggle with 
their basic finances more than 7 years after the official end of the 
great recession of 2007. A typical American household still earns 2.4 
percent below what it brought home in 1999. When people talk about less 
purchasing power and flat wages, that is what they are talking about.
  At the same time, we know costs for essentials, such as housing and 
childcare, have surged faster than the rate of inflation, which puts 
even more stress on these household budgets. That is one of the reasons 
we will pass this conference report later on this evening--because we 
believe these families deserve to keep more of what they earn so as to 
make sure they don't go into debt when they suffer an unexpected 
financial expense of $500, like the 57 percent of the respondents to 
the poll said they would, which was reported by CBS News. That is why 
it is a big deal.
  For example, a typical family of four who earns the median family 
income of $73,000 a year will receive a tax cut of $2,058, which is a 
reduction of nearly 58 percent. Now, that may not seem like a

[[Page 20226]]

big deal inside the beltway, but to those families who are living 
paycheck to paycheck and who cannot deal with unexpected financial 
expenses, this will help them in a real and meaningful way.
  Consider the single mother--or father, for that matter--with one 
child and an annual income of $41,000. That parent, that family, will 
receive a tax cut of $1,304.50, which is a reduction of nearly 73 
percent. This may be shocking news to most people who are listening 
because all they have heard about is what is bad in this bill.
  There are a lot of very good things in this bill, but it could have 
been made better if our Democratic colleagues had worked with us rather 
than resisted us at every step along the way. I guess they are 
satisfied with the status quo--the fact that purchasing power for the 
average family is actually 2.4 percent below what it was in 1999. The 
message I would like to convey is, we are not satisfied with the status 
quo. We think life can be better, and one way it will be better is to 
start with letting people keep more of what they earn.
  For a married small business owner with an income of $100,000, he 
will receive a tax cut of $2,603.50, which is a reduction of nearly 24 
percent. So you can see, across all incomes and among people in very 
different circumstances, each of them will benefit from the bill we 
will pass tonight and send to the President.
  This bill also does something for which Barack Obama had argued in 
2011, that of having a bipartisan consensus formed to cut the corporate 
income tax rate. I know people aren't necessarily immediately attracted 
to the idea of cutting corporations' taxes, but the fact is, America 
has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. What 
that means is, it is cheaper for businesses to move to other countries, 
to invest in jobs there, and to keep the money overseas that they earn 
abroad. By reducing it to 21 percent, as we do in this bill, we will 
basically have achieved the average tax rate in the industrialized 
world, and we will move from a worldwide tax system to a territorial 
one. This really is a bipartisan consensus move.
  When our Democratic friends criticize us for corporate giveaways, we 
are embracing the very same reforms they have advocated in the past, 
whether it is President Obama, Democratic leader Senator Schumer, or 
the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Wyden. All 
of them have advocated reducing the corporate tax rate and making our 
corporate business tax more competitive because they recognize, as we 
all recognize, the fact that the status quo kills jobs and encourages 
businesses to move overseas. We want to grow jobs in America, along 
with investment, and encourage those businesses to come back home.
  I daresay that all Americans from every walk of life will benefit 
from this stimulus to our economy. Janet Yellin, who was last appointed 
Chairman of the Federal Reserve by Barack Obama, said that in part as a 
result of this tax package, the Federal Reserve has raised its 
projection on growth of the U.S. economy from 2.1 percent next year to 
2.5 percent--four-tenths of 1 percent. That is a big deal.
  Every American will feel the benefit of that economic growth in terms 
of the wages they earn, the opportunities they have, and their ability 
to protect themselves against unexpected financial expenses, as I 
mentioned earlier.
  What could someone do with $2,600 more in their paycheck? Well, you 
could install concrete countertops or laminate flooring in your house. 
When it comes to a cell phone--everybody seems to have a cell phone--
you can pay your cell phone expense for 2\1/2\ years. You can go online 
at a Texas college and pay for your education for a full year. You can 
breathe a little bit easier in Dallas by having enough money to pay for 
2 months of average apartment rent. You can drive down Interstate 
Highway 35 in Texas, knowing that almost 5\1/2\ months of an average 
car payment is taken care of. If you need a little dental work done, 
you can go to your dentist for a little tune-up and pay for that out of 
the savings you will achieve as a result of this bill.
  Stories like these, stories of how busy, hard-working and 
multitasking Americans will benefit from our plan, simply leave me with 
confusion as to why our Democratic colleagues have simply refused to 
participate in this process and have blocked and dragged their feet 
every step along the way, trying to stop us from providing this relief, 
from keeping our promise to the American people. It seems in the 
process they have given up on the American dream, they have settled for 
the status quo, and they are even rooting for failure.
  This bill's final passage won't wait for our Democratic colleagues to 
wake up. We are simply determined to get this win even without them 
because American families need more take-home pay, they need higher 
wages, they need greater job opportunities, and they need a competitive 
economy and the benefits it brings. American families should not have 
to settle for anything less, and we will make sure they don't.
  There is one more aspect of the bill I want to bring up. Our tax 
reform plan strengthens our long-term energy security by opening up an 
area in Alaska to responsible energy development. At the invitation of 
Senator Murkowski, I traveled to the North Slope of Alaska about a year 
or so ago, and I am amazed at the technology they were able to deploy 
in extracting oil from the North Slope. They literally have ice roads 
that don't exist except during the coldest part of the year in order to 
protect the environment and allow equipment to travel overland. Thanks 
to directional drilling, they are able to occupy basically a very small 
footprint and literally drill hundreds of wells in a multitude of 
different directions and pump the energy from that location. It creates 
jobs, it creates wealth, and it helps create energy security for the 
people of Alaska and for the United States.
  I come from a State with a huge energy presence, and I understand the 
importance of developing our natural resources responsibly. Limited 
development with modern technologies will not ruin this area, as some 
of the critics have charged, because a very small portion of the 
acreage is allowed. It will provide jobs.
  Let's not forget why we are doing this. One reason we are increasing 
our domestic energy production is because we want to make ourselves 
less dependent on foreign energy sources. It also helps lower the price 
at the pump for millions of hard-working Americans.
  So I can't wait to vote on this bill later today, and I can't wait to 
hand-deliver to the President's desk this important bill this week and 
for him to sign it into law. We will all benefit from passage of this 
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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