[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 20234]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          REPUBLICAN TAX BILL

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, there are many reasons to vote against the 
tax bill. A new one has come to light in examining these 1,100 pages, 
and that is with regard to Puerto Rico and what it does to Puerto Rico.
  It ought to be enough that $1.5 trillion is borrowed in order to 
finance a huge tax cut for multinational corporations, with incentives 
to send American jobs overseas. That ought to be enough, and it ought 
to be enough that compared to that, there are just crumbs for the hard-
working, middle-class families, but there is more.
  In this tax bill, indeed, CBO has said that 13 million people will 
lose health insurance as a result of something that was done to the 
Affordable Care Act.
  Now, if all of that were not enough, and if you care about the people 
on the island of Puerto Rico who are reeling from two storms that hit 
them--a good part of the island still doesn't have electricity and 
still does not have potable water--and who were already in economic 
straits to begin with and wanting to keep jobs on the island so people 
don't have to flee--lo and behold, in the tax bill, what is given to 
American mainlanders is an increase in the child tax credit from $1,000 
to $2,000 per child and making that refundable for low-income people up 
to $1,400 per child--that increase to help poor, working families with 
children was not given to Puerto Rico.
  That doesn't make sense, and it is just another reason why we should 
vote against the tax bill.
  I yield the floor.

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