a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. a senator: thank you, mr. president. i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. all year this year, the majority has tried to ram through legislation to repeal the affordable care act and replace it with proposals that in effect cut health care for millions of people to finance tax cuts for those who make millions of dollars in income. all year the american people have made it perfectly clear that this was the opposite of what they wanted. unfortunately, those re-- and fortunately, those repeal efforts failed. now instead of listening to the american peemg and learning from -- people and learning from that failure, the majority has doubled down its tax plan. like health care, they've made no attempt to bring both sides together. in the senate we only saw the

bill last thursday, mr. president. i'm on the finance committee. i've been on there for years. we didn't see -- it wasn't even legislative language on thursday. i remember back in the health care debate nine years ago when people were saying, read the bill. read the bill. we came to the markup yesterday to offer amendments. there still wasn't a bill. there was not a bill. thomas jefferson used to say that he hoped that when these legislatures were put -- legislators were put together in the united states congress, that you would have to introduce a bill and it would take 365 days before it could be enacted into legislation. maybe that's where the tea party got the idea in 2009. where are they now? where are they now? we have not had a single hearing

on this bill, mr. president. and now they are marking up the most consequential tax policy in 31 years, one affecting every single american and moving around trillions of dollars in this economy. remember back during the health care debate when it was 16% of our economy and people were saying read the bill? you better read this bill. there is not a school board in colorado that would accept this process. there is not a city council that would accept this process. we have more process for a small decision about where parking meters should go than we have had in this process.

and people are upset no good reason. when you rush big things, when you don't listen to different views, you get bad policy. i've heard the majority leader say that on this floor. and there's a reason why they're trying to rush it through. there's a reason why they don't want america to have a chance to read the bill or their representatives to this chamber read the bill. and that's because just like the health care proposals that they've made, the majority's tax plan is fundamentally flawed. over the course of the campaign, president trump, then-candidate trump, promised the american people, quote, no cuts to social security, medicare, or medicaid. unquote. that's not fake news. that's what he said. he said, quote, everybody's got to be covered -- speaking of health insurance, mr. president -- everybody's got to be

covered, he said. everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now, end quote. he promised the public, quote, you're going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price. that's what he told the american people. and yesterday after a year -- a year after the election, after eight years of saying repeal and replace, repeal and replace, repeal and replace, it turned out because there was no idea of how to replace it, there was no consensus on the republican side about how to replace it, they failed twice to do it until yesterday. they added changes to a tax bill literally in the middle of the night, literally in the middle of the night that would cause 13 million people, according to the

congressional budget office, to lose health insurance. increase premiums by up to 10%, according to the congressional budget office. on the individual market each year, mr. president -- you can't make it up to a $25 billion cut in medicare. that's why what -- what's happening here while people are distracted by what's going on in the senate race in alabama. how does this proposal in any way square with the president's promises during the campaign? all year we saw tax cuts masquerading as a health care plan. i went home to colorado. people said, michael, you work with people in a bipartisan way all the time. why aren't you working on this health care bill? what i said was, there is no one in colorado who said to me, no

one including the critics of the affordable care act who said to me, michael, i've got a good idea for helping me with my health care. give the wealthiest people in america a tax cut. no one. no one said let's cut medicaid by 40% when we're facing the opioid crisis that we're facing. so they masqueraded it as a health care plan. and now we've got a health care plan masquerading as a tax plan. on top of that, this plan doubles down on the claim that tax cuts for the wealthiest for the people in america and businesses, not only trickle down to everyone else but also pay for themselves. and that part is not surprising because that has been the republican answer for what ails our economy. when our economy was up and our

deficit was down, they cut taxes for the top 1% of americans making an average of $2 million. when our economy was down and our deficit was up, they cut taxes on the top 1% making an average of $2 million. and now they're embracing exactly the same game plan in their tax bill, in their tax plan. the senate bill overwhelmingly benefits people and businesses who have done extremely well in this economy. and as a former business person myself, i have nothing against that success. in fact, i embrace that success. my issue is that trickle-down economics as a theory for economic growth has been entirely discredited by our own experiences. this is not a theoretical exercise anymore. it's not as if these arguments haven't been made time and time again and then been proven to be

false, which leads me to wonder why this plan or at least the version we debated yesterday -- not as sure about it today -- gives roughly $50,000 in tax cuts to those making over $1 million. for americans earning under $200,000, which is 19 million households, they'd actually see a tax increase. another 54 million households would see virtually no benefit at all. i agree that america needs tax reform. it's not about a political imperative for doing tax reform. america needs tax reform. that's why i joined the finance committee to begin with. and tax reform means we should clean up special interest -- just on that point, i have to stop for a minute, mr. president, and pause. on that point for years as, you know, part of the gang of eight,

athere's been bipartisan discussions, always what people said on the corporate side, what we're going to do is lower the rate, broaden the base. that ways the plan. and -- that was the plan. and the way we were going to do that was getting rid of a whole bunch of loopholes. this gets rid of the rate but forgets the second part of the equation. you actually have to take away someone's loophole and that's hard to do. instead what they're doing is lowering the rate and leaving the loopholes where they are. what a disaster. 31 years to get tax reform in this chamber and that' the answer? today if you don't like a situation where we have the highest published corporate rate in the world, which i don't like, that's uncompetitive for the united states, 35%. but one of the things we know

about it is, because of all those loopholes, no one actually -- very few people pay the 35%. some do and that's very unfair. because the average effective rate is more like 23%, not 35%, mr. president. and that's because companies can use loopholes. they can move money overseas. if you're a newspaper company or you're a trucking company here, you can't do that stuff. and that's why you pay the 35%. and that is not fair. but this bill does nothing to take on those challenges, nothing. we need tax reform to get rid of those special interest carveouts. we should take steps to help our businesses compete to unlock our energy economy, to modernize the electric grid. we need comprehensive and bipartisan reform. this cannot be done -- i want to

give republicans a chance to blame democrats for things they don't like and democrats to do the same so we can actually get a result that's real reform, not something crammed through with 51 votes and a health care bill on top of it. it has been a terrible thing to see this senate slide into the place that it is today. mr. president, i know enough about you to know you're not satisfied with the fact that we've been running this government on 30 continuing resolutions for the last ten years, that we can't pass a proper budget. we don't have an appropriations process anymore in the united states senate. it's disgraceful. we would not accept it for any other institution of government or business on the planet. we certainly wouldn't accept it in colorado. if when i was superintendent of schools i went to tell people, well, we have a little bit of a disagreement so i'm going to shut the government down until

we can deal with this continuing resolution, they would throw me out. they would throw me out. but that's what we've been doing here for the last ten years. and now we have sunk to a new low. there has been no attempt to bring the parties together on this, none. and the result is a deeply flawed proposal completely at odds with what our economy needs. if you accept the logic of the republican plan, the problem with our economy is that the wealthiest institutions and individuals in the united states don't have enough money to invest and create high-paying jobs for everyone else. sometimes i hear people at home say, i don't have anything against rich people. neither do i. neither do i. but the logic that somehow if you give somebody at the top a tax cut, that's going to result in an increase to other people's

income is completely contradicted by the facts. here's what's happened in america over the last -- since 1987, the last 30 years. this is median family income, mr. president. this is the middle class in america which basically for 40 years hasn't had a pay raise, has not had a pay raise. this can't be blamed on some socialist named barack obama. this is 40 years of american economic history, no pay raise. over that period of time, here's what's happened to corporate profits. and if the logic were true, if the logic were correct or right, we would see the middle-class income lifting better and doing better, as corporate income statements and balance sheets hit all-time highs, which they

have. this is the great depression. here's where we are today. here's where we were before the great depression, mr. president. and here is medium household income, stubbornly flat. the balance sheets in this country are awash in cash. the biggest companies, awash in cash. it has not led them to help lift this line. and the result of this has been a huge widening of the income gap in america. if trickle-down economics really worked, mr. president, every american would be -- would do better as incomes at the top rose. instead, what has happened is the top 10%, which is roughly 11 million taxpayers, 11 million taxpayers out of a total in america -- not the taxpayers, but of people, of 330 million

people -- 11 million taxpayers earning an average of $475,000. that top 10% now represents a larger share of america's wealth than everyone else. and everyone else -- look at this. here is the top 10%. these are the folks making, on average, $475,000. obviously, many people in here make a lot more than that but that's the average. they now earn more than the bottom 90% of earners in america. and that is not -- and that has not been the way this country has been. you have to go back to 1928, the year before the great depression, to see that level of income inequality in america. in between then and now, what we saw was a rising middle class, an economy that benefited everybody and lifted everyone up, gave them a chance to save

and provide toker their family. that's not -- and provide for their family. that's not happening anymore. the top one percent of inners are earning about 20% of the income. and it steams me that the challenges -- and it seems to me that the challenge with oury is not that the folks at the very top don't have enough. they've got more than they've ever had. by a lot, by a lot. the top 10% have over 50% of the income in america. the bottom 90% -- it seems crazy to say "bottom 90%." it's not the bottom 10%. it's the rest of america. it's 90% of america earns less. and that's the challenge that we

confront, the challenge is that incomes for everyone else haven't kept pace with the rising cost of housing or of health care or of higher education or child care. a month ago i met a mom -- i guess now several months ago -- a mom in rival, colorado, at an early childhood center on the west slope of colorado. she was so happy and the other moms were so happy that they had this early childhood center because they had had to drive 30 miles before to glenn wood springs to have child care. and this mom said during the course of the conversation, she said to me, i have a job so i can have health insurance, and every single dollar that i make, every single dollar that i make goes to pay for this day care center so i can have a job. and i have families all over my

state that are stuck in that place where at the end of the every month they have to decide what they're going to go witho without, can't afford a house, can't afford college, can't afford early childhood education, can't afford housing. that's increasing become a huge issue. and there are too many americans that are facing those unbelievably difficult choices. for those of you that are here that might say, well, just tough it out. that's your issue. work harder. these folks are killing themselves. they are killing themselves. but they're having to make choices and decisions because our economy is not working well enough for everybody and not working at all for everybody. they'ring are to make choices -- they're having to make choices their parents and grandparents never had to make. erin barnes is another one of my constituents. she lives in thornton, colorado,

with her husband and two kids. both she and her husband have college degrees and middle-class jobs. so, again, they are working. they are educated. erin works in marketing and her husband runs an i.t. department. she wrote to my office describing how, quote, they don't have luxury -- describing how they, quote, don't have luxuries like cable television, haircuts, lattes, manicures or even new clothes. my children all wear hand-me-downs from friends. and yet we make $1,200 less per month than we spend. it's not that we're irresponsible. our monthly mortgage payment is only 25% of our income. how are the pieces not fitting together, she wrote? in america, as the president knows, consumer spending drives 70% of our economy. when costs rise and middle-class

family wages stay flat, families like erin's cut back before buying books for their kids, birthday presents, health care. multiplied across millions of americans -- the 90% that we're talking about here -- that has a doctoral effect on our economy -- that has a dramatic effect on our economy because they're the folks that drive the 70% of our economy that's driven by consumer products. that is the problem we need to solve. that should be our focus. for their sake but also to drive our economy. not folks that have done the best in the economy and who are doing great. and i'm glad they're doing great. one way to help families like erin's is the american family act i wrote with senator sherrod brown which tripless the child

tax credit. erin's family would gain $3,000 per child your honor'd under our plan -- $300 per child each month. not only does the republican plan largely ignore families like erin's, it burdens their children with another $1 .5 trillion in debt for the favor of doing nothing for them. republicans claim -- and you'll hear it over and over again -- that their tax cuts fire themselves -- for themselves. we heard that in the committee today. anybody who has lived through what has happened since president clinton was president of the united states knows that is false. and it was the logic that was used in 2001, 2003, and it is what took us from having a $5 trillion projected deficit -- i'm sorry, surplus -- surplus -- you don't hear that word around here very often -- a $5 trillion projected surplus when bill

clinton finished being president to the record deficits that we have today. let me make sure i have the right chart up here, mr. president. i do. in 1991 ronald reagan signed major tax cuts and claimed they would pay for themselves. our national debt rose. in the 1990's president clinton raised taxes at the top and cut spending -- with a republican congress, i was reminded today by chairman hatch. one of the truly decent people in this place. the economy boomed and by 1999 the united states senate, believe it or not, actually held hearings on what to do with a $5.6 trillion projected surplus. i'm not making this up. i know democrats have a reputation for not caring about fiscal matters. republicans have a reputation for taking it seriously. i don't know how that happened, but that's not the history.

that is not the history. when george bush was elected president, he passed two tax tax cuts, prosecuted two wars that were not paid for and signed a $400 billion prescription drug benefit without paying for any of it. medicare part d -- didn't pay for a dollar of it. the reason today we collect $1 for every $3 weigh spend in medicare is largely because of what was done under president bush. and when president obama assumed office, from day one he inherited a $1 .2 trillion annual deficit and an economy in freefall. we were losing 800,000 jobs a month and unemployment was climbing to 10%. and then -- and back then -- and i was here -- during the worst downturn since the great depression, republicans all of a

sudden remembered their conservative fiscal discipline, just when the american people needed their help the most. not when the economy was going well at the beginning of the bush administration, not when we had a surplus, but when we had a $1 .2 trillion deficit caused by the policies of the previous administration and a failure in the housing market and it drove us into the worst recession since the great depression. and citing the debt that we had then, which barack obama had not put on the balance sheet of the united states government, every republican opposed president obama's economic recovery package to stabilize our economy. and now -- not only that, they called it a bolshevik takeover of the united states of america. and now, after inheriting a booming stock market and 4%

unemployment, republicans propose to add $1.5 trillion to our debt to give roughly $50,000 in tax cuts to those making over $1 million in this country. again, this line -- today america's debt is over $20 trillion. and we could face another economic downturn four months from now or six months from now, or an armed conflict on the korean peninsula. the debt suffocates our ability to respond. just as it has suffocated our ability to deal with the opioid epidemic. when i got here, mr. president, there was barely an opioid

epidemic in america. and over the last decade, it has flooded our country. but if you live in a rural part of my state, if you live in the sasan luis valley, your access o drug addiction policy is the same as it was years ago because we're broke. because we can't work in a bipartisan way to deal with these issues. it's disgraceful. just as it was disgraceful to cut taxes in 2003, just after we sent our troops into iraq. that was maybe the height of disgraceful. but when you know that there maybe something imminent on the korean peninsula, when you know that the middle east is in the turmail that we're in -- turmoil that we're in, is this really moment that we want to do this? i will say this on this floor -- if my colleagues volt for this plan, they forfeit any right to claim that they are fiscal conservatives. and i am sad to say this -- i really am.

i think my colleague from colorado would know i was telling the truth when i say i'm sad to say this. but i have learned over the past nine years that the only time the majority seems to care about fiscal responsibility is when they are not actually responsible for it. in a sense, it is a brilliant, it is a devastatingly brilliant political strategy. you come to washington arguing that government is incompetent. then you explode th the debt. then you point to the debt as evidence of washington's incompetence. and in 2016, here is how it all ends. you elect a president who promised that he would eliminate our debt. quote, over a period of eight years. that he would deliver, quote, a great, beautiful, massive tax cut. pass, quote, one of the largest increases in defense spending in american history while saying, quote, i'm not going to cut

social security and i'm not going to cut medicare or medicaid. why not, he told the american people, since our national debt can be solved by, quote, eliminating waste, fraud, and as buse in the federal government. quote, ending redundant government programs, quote, growing the economy and renegotiating all of our deals. here's the real problem. and i realize my colleagues are here. i'm going to take a few more minutes if that's okay. last year two-thirds of the federal budget went to medicare, medicaid, social security and other mandatory spending. of the remaining third half goes to national debt. that leaves 10% for all our investments in the future after interest. our future and children's future in infrastructure, research,

and education. over the years because of the insanity around this place, washington has slashed that part of the budget which is called domestic discretionary part of the budget, by 35% as a percentage of g.d.p. we've been really good at hacking on the stuff that's easy to get to. this should all seem deeply unfair to americans in their 20's and younger to know that we're investing simultaneously, investing less in them than our parents and grandparents invested in us, and then we have the nerve to say you need to pay back the debt we accrued. we're not going to pay it back. we're not going to invest in you and we're going to make you pay it back. we're going to live in the house, but you're going to be stuck with the mortgage. when i served as the superintendent of the denver public schools, we had to make hard choices to close schools, to modernize the curriculum,

fix unfunded pensions. we had intense fights. like here people had strong and principled agreements. but unlike here, unlike in washington, in denver the next generation was cause enough for us to set aside our differences and move forward. we understood that our children had no voice in our town halls. their future had no votes at the school board meetings. they only had us to do it for them. we have forgotten that here in washington in these marbled halls and on this carpeted floor of the senate and the house. we have abdicated our duty completely to the next generation. instead we impose on them all the hard questions we fail to answer in our time. mr. president, we are burdening the future with our debts. we are burdening them with the hard choices that we avoid with

the easy path that we follow, with the baseless claims that we accept that tax cuts for folks that are doing great somehow trickle down and pay for themselves. that's false. if this plan pass passes, washington will once again he bn the rights of our children and grandchildren to enjoy the same freedom and opportunity that our parents and grandparents handed us. what a shameful legacy that would be. what a surrender of our responsibility as americans. mr. president, we have to set aside this flawed proposal and this broken process and instead have an honest bipartisan effort that contends forthrightly with the substantive challenges of our fiscal condition and the political difficulties attended to solving them. i may be right, but i suspect what history will prove is that no meaningful solution can be

found by one party alone. mr. president, i thank my colleagues for their indulgence, especially my friend from missouri, who is here. and i yield the floor. mr. blunt: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, for eight years working families have seen their wages stay pretty much exactly where they were, and in some cases they've seen their wages go down and their income go down. i'll say again the goal of this tax proposal should be to immediately do what we can to see an increase in take-home pay for those families and to do everything we can in the tax code to make us more competitive to see that they have better jobs to start with and more competition for the good work they do. mr. president, our tax code clearly is broken. it's taking money out of the pockets of hardworking families. it's standing in the way of

stronger economic growth, and we can and should and must do something about that. that's why the senate is moving toward the passage of a bill that will address that tax code from both ends. more take-home pay now, better jobs with more pay to start with and more take-home pay later. according to the tax foundation, under the senate's proposal, middle-income families in missouri will see an estimated increase of about $2,400 of their after-tax income. when you consider the fact that nearly six in ten americans say they don't have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency or a $1,000 emergency, $200 a month really matters. there may be people talking about how the tax code doesn't do enough of this and enough of that at the higher end, we should do more or we should do less. but no family that is working hard every day in the middle

range of income in our country doesn't think that $200 a month makes a difference to them. another level of the $50,000 level, i think for that family, it's about $1,100 a month. $1,100 a year, so $100 a month makes a difference as well. this proposal would make our tax code simpler and easier to understand by just simply cutting out all the deductions that only a few people are able to take advantage of so that everybody looks at the tax code and has more reason to believe that everybody is not only being treated fairly but everybody is being treated the same. there are deductions in this bill that we should keep where they are. there are deductions like the child tax credit that we should increase. and in fact the senate proposal that that committee will start with the opportunity to amend further tomorrow, the senate

proposal doubles the child tax credit to $2,000 per child. senator klobuchar, my friend from minnesota, the cochairman of the adoption caucus, and i were on the floor yesterday pleased to -- talking about tax credits. certainly i'm pleased to see that the adoption tax credit continues to be in this bill. the new mark also reduces individual rates. the current rate of 22.5 goes lower. the 25% rate goes to 25%. the 32.5% goes to 32%. what does that mean? that's all very complicated, but what people know or at least their accountant knows is everybody sort of pays the same percentage on the first amount of income and then they pay a little higher percentage if they make it into the second bracket and a little higher if they make it into the third bracket. and when all of those percentages go down, your total tax benefit for taxpayers is

impacted by that. there are direct benefits in this bill, but also benefits that continue to encourage small business, the estimation here of small businesses, 97% of all business in missouri or small -e small businesses and the average tax cut for those businesses would be about $3,000 a year. these small businesses are the engines that drive the economy. they are the engines that drive growth. this bill understands that. it understands working families that haven't had a break in their paycheck in eight years now, and it's time for them to be able to take home more of the money that they earn. and then it's time for us to do everything we can to see that they're going to have more competition for the good work they do in the future and more competition and more ability to compete with other countries and other companies means better

jobs. that's what this is about. it is a tax bill about families and jobs, and i look forward to everyone in the senate having a chance to amend that bill on the floor and to watching what i think has been a significant improvement in the bill as the house finance committee has had a chance to look at it. they'll have a chance to amend it. and then we have a chance, those of us not on that committee, to look at what they've done to see what we can do to make it even better yet before we go to conference with the house and put a bill on the president's desk. mr. president, we will do that. i'm confident we're going to be successful here and successful this year in a way that matters to working families. i see my colleague from colorado is here. i am prepared to yield the floor. mr. gardner: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to join in a colloquy with my freshman colleagues. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. gardner: thank you, mr. president. i just want to talk about the last time we did tax reform. 1986. 1986 i was in the sixth grade i would just come back from camp chillee from sixth grade camp. the atari 800 was the popular thing we all wanted for christmas. i believe the ford ltd station wagon was rolling off assembly lines that year. i think "top gun" was the number one movie at the box office. that was 1986. why is 1986 important? that's the last time we did tax reform in this chamber. that's the last time we enacted meaningful comprehensive tax reform. we have an incredible opportunity before us today, this congress does. our colleagues have an opportunity to grow this economy, to get wages growing again, to create opportunity for the american people that they haven't seen in far too long. over the past decade americans are working harder than they ever have before. but what they've watched,

they've watched as the haves have more and the have-nots have less, and they're tired of it. we've seen wages growing -- we've been seeing wages stagnant and work hours growing. and that's what this debate is about. this debate is about people who want to stand up for coloradoans, people around this country, to make sure that we grow this economy so that people can stop working so two or three jobs that they have to now just to try to make ends meet but they can start seeing finally wages grow. i'm going to be joined throughout this afternoon's debate by the class of 2014, members of the senate who were elected in 2014 as a result of a message of economic opportunity. people from georgia, people from north carolina, senators from georgia, north carolina, west virginia elected from arkansas, elected because we believed in an america that was growing again. we believed in an america that didn't have to settle for second place, that didn't have to settle for mediocrity or decline but an america with the right economic policies, the right

tax policies we could lift the burden off the backs of the american people, off the backs of american businesses and get this country back to work. that's what this debate is about. over the past several weeks we've had, we've heard a lot of debate about what the senate bill is going to be, what the house bill is going to be. over the past several years the senate finance committee held over 70 committee hearings on the issue of tax reform, countless reports, paperwork done, economic models to show what this tax reform needed to look like. open debates, both sides of the aisle, a clans to say how do we re -- a chance to say how do we reduce the tax burden on the american people and get this economy moving again. and what the senate has come up with is a package estimated to create one million jobs across this country. one million jobs across this country, according to the tax foundation. in colorado, that means a $3,000-plus increase average after tax income. and if you don't think $3,000 is a heck of a lot of money to people, look at the statistics.

the statistics show that the average american family, significant percentages of american families don't have 24-hour access to just a few hundred dollars. they can't find -- they don't have access to just a couple hundred dollars in a 24-hour time period. a third of americans, if they had to come up with $500 today, it would be a fiscal crisis for their household. we're talking about an opportunity to grow wages. in fact, the tax foundation says a 4.4% increase in average after-tax income will result after the senate bill. i'm going to yield to my colleague from georgia. we're going to get out of your way with this easel, but i'm going to show you one chart here and how wage growth can grow. if you look across the world, around the globe and you see nations that have low statutory tax rates, and you see nations that have high statutory tax rates. you will see that those nations

that have the -- lowest statutory tax rate see the highest wage growth. people who work in these countries with low statutory tax rates, they see the highest average wage growth. people who have low -- excuse me. people who have high statutory tax rates, countries with high statutory tax rates, this red line right here, their wage growth is less than 1%. you know where the united states falls? the united states falls as the highest statutory corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. our wage growth is at the bottom. low tax rates result in high wage growth. this fight is for the middle class of america. this fight is for hardworking american families. this fight is to grow wages across the state of colorado from the eastern plains to the western slope and around this country. and i hope all of us will be engaged in this fight.

i'm going to turn over this debate to our colleague from georgia who has experience in business, who understands how taxes work and he understands how to make sure he's providing for the people of georgia. we'll get the easel out of the way and just would turn it over to the gentleman from georgia. mr. perdue: i'd like to thank my colleague from colorado. i won't tell him what i was doing in 1986, the last time we adjusted this tax rate. i want to remind my colleagues that we're at a moment of crisis in the united states. today we are in a national debt crisis. it affects our ability to do the things we know are right to do, to deal with the victims of hurricanes, to deal with national security, to deal with our health care situation. we are doing the right thing. to solve this national debt crisis, we have to do many things. one of the ways we can deal with

this debt crisis and one of the things that we have to do is grow our economy. the way to grow the economy is to roll back regulations, unleash our energy potential, and once and for all fix this tax system that keeps us from being competitive with the rest of the world. in 1986 we had the third lowest tax rate in the history, in the world. in the next ten years we benefited from that. at the same time, the more our economy grew, the lower tax rates were taken in the rest of the world. today the united states is taxed at the highest rate in the world, 35%. meanwhile japan's statutory corporate rate is 23%, germany is at 16%, mexico is at 30%, and the u.k. is about to go to 17% as we speak. the average rate, as a matter of fact in europe, is just 13%.

while in asia the average corporate tax rate is 20%. why is this important to an american worker? the corporate tax rate is the greatest burden the american worker has today. why? because it makes the american corporation less competitive with the rest of the world. it also makes that american corporation vulnerable to foreign acquisitions of u.s. companies, and then the moving of those headquarters, factories, and jobs offshore. the number one thing we can do for the american worker, mr. president, is become competitive from a tax point with the rest of the world. i lived in asia, europe, and i work here most of my career. i know when this gets out of balance and it is out of balance today and we are penalizing the american worker because it. it is no secret that a lower corporate tax rate will make us more competitive globally. our tax plan fixes this. we're one of the last countries

that still has a tax on unrepatriated earnings. if we have a u.s. company that makes money overseas, we have to pay taxes over there and we have to pay taxes here. we need to end that repatriation act so we can bring the profits back from overseas and use it for training in plants and facilities. our plan makes that happen. we have an individual tax code, mr. president, that's 2.4 million words in length. let me say that again. 2.4 million words in length. wasn't it supposed to be the tax simplification bill? our plan will fix this. it's estimated also that this tax plan, if we can get it enacted, will create over one million new jobs because of the changes that we are

developing -- developing in this tax code. the g.d.p. will be 3.7% instead of the 1.9%. there is no reason to believe that it can't be more. there is a lot more to do. it's more important now than ever that we don't get bogged down in this washington dysfunction and gridlock. last week i mentioned many democrats supported the changes that we're talking about in the tax code right up until president trump took office. in fact, over the last several years -- in fact, over the last several decades, many people on the other side of the aisle and people in their place before, democrats in our country agreed. this is not a partisan issue, mr. president. this is about national security, if you want to get right down to it. it's about making america competitive again. who would be against that? there are decades of quotes,

mr. president, from democrats and republicans about this issue. this should be a bipartisan issue. in 1963, a very famous american made this quote: a tax cut means higher family income and a balanced budget. every taxpayer will have more money left over after taxes, every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his or her profits to expand his or her business. as the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenue. that noted american was john f. kennedy. if he were here i think he would admonish all of us to put our bickering aside and get this done for the american people. another quote, and i quote, i think the corporate rate should be lowered. we should try to get it as close to the international average so

we will once and for you will be competitive, bill clinton last year, 2016. another quote, get rid of the loopholes, level the playing field and use the savings to lower the corporate tax rate for the first time in 25 years, president obama in 2011, believe it or not. this is not a bipartisan issue. there are minority leaders in the senate and house who said. 20o.c.d. country -- o.c.d. country has adopted some tt sort of -- some sort of system. this means no matter what jurisdiction a multinational company is competing in, they are competing at a disadvantage. that was the current senate minority leader in 2015. this not a partisan issue. another quote, it was long past time for tax reform that would

lower the corporate tax rate. unquote, house minority leader leader -- pelosi last year. this is being done under regular order, including a committee markup, and it will go to floor as soon as we can get it there. i urge all of my colleagues, let's put partisan politics aside once and for and collaborate through the amendment process to do something historic, something that american workers deserve, and that is to become competitive with the rest of the world. renew your support for the same tax changes your party has supported for years. i want to close with another quote from an individual i long admired, president john f. kennedy in 1962. i repeat, our practical choice is not between a tax cut deficit and budget surplus. it is between two kinds of deficits, a chronic deficit of ee nergsa as a result of a

restricted economy or a temporary deficit of transition resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax reeve news and achieve, i believe, and i believe this can be done, a budget surplus. the first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness, the second reflects an investment in the future. words from john f. kennedy while he was president in 1962. mr. president, this is not a partisan issue. our tax plan is an investment in our future just as john f. kennedy said. it is an investment that will help all americans. i know there is a lot of disinformation from this president that it is only for the wealthy. when the facts come out -- there are four pinocchios given to those comments. our tax plan will give the details. equally important of getting this tax plan done to help all

americans, it's a critical part of developing a long-term plan to solve this national debt crisis. mr. president, i'm proud to serve here with my colleague from north carolina, senator tillis. i think in north carolina they actually did this and they had the results we're talking about here. mr. tillis: well, i thank the gentleman from georgia and my colleague from colorado and the future comments from my colleagues from the class of 2014. i want to talk about fact and fiction and some of the things you will observe here. i think the kennedy center is the only place you can go to see a bigger theatrical performance than what you will see on the floor over the next couple of weeks. it is not consistent with what we're trying to do here. i want to talk a little bit about it. let's start with the fiction. i was just presiding before i

came off the dais about 30 minutes ago and i heard a 30 minute speech from someone who said that they hadn't seen the bill, that it was passed in the dark of night and not discussed in committee, but then went on to have a 30-minute description of why it is bad. how could you have such a definitive position on the bill? here's something that is curious, there are so many members, many of them friends on the other side of the aisle that are making a false claim, that we're somehow going to raise taxes on working families, the middle class. why would that make snens why -- sense? why would the voters of the united states, what would the voters in north carolina do if i raised taxes on middle and lower-income taxed families. "the washington post" has a

pinocchio system, one pinocchio means that you are stretching the truth, four pinocchios means that you are not telling the truth. this claim on taxes being raised for middle-class families is four pinocchios. we are tying to help those who need it the most, those trying to pay the bills, struggling to go to school, struggling to actually pay the rent. this tax cut is about getting the economy back on track so that we can also drief up wages -- drive up wages. not only do we want to provide you with more money in your pocketbook and wallet at the end of the month by reducing your tax burden, we want to make it more likely that you're going to make more money, get a better job, and have more income at the end of this process, and i firmly believe that it will work. let's talk about the facts of this plan.

the facts are we have to have tax relief. we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. there's no way that the greatest economy that's ever existed should be one of the least welcoming to job growth. that's why we have to reduce the corporate tax rate. we also have to reduce the tax rate on small businesses. in north carolina 80% of all the jobs created in north carolina are created by small businesses. the people that the gentleman from colorado referred to as the rich people are small business owners who actually file their taxes through their individual income. so they have a fair amount of revenue, perhaps, a lot has to go to pay for the business and some is left behind to pay them and their employees. we need to help the small businesses. hopefully corporations creating more and more jobs and more opportunity for more workers.

and at the end of the day, the middle-income tax break will be from $1,500 to $2,000 a year. more important than that are the opportunities that will be created through economic growth. that's what i'll leave you with. i've seen this happen. first off, i've seen the false claims before. they were waged against me when i was speaker of the house in north carolina and we had a chance in the middle of a fiscal crisis to cut taxes and grow jobs. we had all the liberal media and some friends on the other side of the aisle that i agreed with on being issues, but disagreed with the tax reform. but no one is complaining about the tax reform results. we have one of the fastest growing economies in the united states today. we have seen our median incomes go up, a number of people were lifted out of poverty at high levels. i know that it works. it's not easy, but it's a

promise we made to the american people last year and it's a promise we're going to keep this -- this congress is going to keep in the coming weeks. and when we do this, then we can start working on an economy that can pay down the debt and make sure that these young people that are pages here and the young people up in the gallery, you may not know this but you owe $70,000 to the government. i don't want you to have to pay it back. i want an economy that's growing that will resolve the debt problem, but you can only do it by prows -- producing growth and by lifting the tax burden on businesses so that money can float through the private economy and out of the coffers in washington. i thank my colleagues for the hard work on this bill. i look forward to voting for the bill. i know it will produce a result because i've seen it produce a result in my experience as speaker of the house it will work for america, it will be one of the great things we will do

in this congress. at this point, again, and i want to thank my colleagues. i believe i'm going to pass it off to the senator from louisiana. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, it does not take a genius to see that something is stalling the american economy. now, the economy has been better lately. i think frankly in anticipation of the united states congress passing these tax cuts. but the fact remains that 2016 was the 11th straight year that our economy, the greatest economy in the history of the world, the strongest economy in the history of the world, even when it has the flu, 2016 was the 11th straight year that we have failed to achieve 3% annual

growth, which has been our average. every year since 1960. now, something's wrong. and those experts i talked about, they tried everything. they tried monetary policy, changing interest rates. they tried deficit spending. remember prem's stimulus -- remember president obama's stimulus program? the federal reserves tried quantitative easing out the wh whazoo. they tried everything instead of what they should have tried first. that is let the american people keep more money than they earn, because they can spend that money better than the government can. now, we've got two groups of

policymakers in washington, d.c. i'm sorry, this is what it's come down to. and i'm not talking about liberals or conservatives. i'm not talking about republicans and democrats. the two groups that i'm talking about are a as follows. we have one group of policymakers in washington who believe in more freedom. and we've got another group of policymakers in washington who believe in more free stuff. now, i'm not criticizing policymakers for wanting to help people who are less fortunate than us. the fact of the matter is that the united states taxpayer at the state and the local level spends $1 trillion a year helping people less fortunate than us.

and that money didn't just fall from heaven. we thank heaven for it but it came out of people's pockets. we spend $1 trillion a year in our country helping people who are less fortunate than us. in our country, if you're a home -- if you're homeless, we house you. if you're hungry, we need you. if you're too poor to be sick, we will pay for your doctor. and i am very proud of that. so i am not criticizing, in fact i join my colleagues in wanting to help people who are less fortunate than us, but the fact of the matter is it takes money. and that money is generated by the american taxpayer and the american taxpayer is not generating very much because the american taxpayer's not making very much. now, let me talk to you about the middle class. i could talk about the business side of this bill and this is

going to help every business in america. it's going to help c corps, family farm, single proprietorships. it's going to help large business women and business men and it's going to help small business women and business men. but i want to talk about the personal income side. this bill will give a tax cut to just about every american. i know our opponents can probably find one or two people under certain circumstances that aren't going to give a tax cut. but the fact remains that if you look at the joint committee on the budget's numbers, if you make between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, on average you're going to get a 10% tax cut. if you make between $50,000 and $70,000 a year, you're going to get right around a 7% tax cut. if you make a million dollars or

more a year, you're going to get roughly a 5% tax cut. the middle class -- and i consider -- we can debate on what the middle class is, but i consider the middle class to be somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 a year. you can pick your own definition. they're the ones i'm concerned about the most, not exclusively the most. let me tell you what this bill is about in terms of our middle class. this, the wallet, their wallet because the middlelass are angry in this country and they ought to be angry. they tell me every day, they say, kennedy, i give up every day. i go to work. i owe buy the law -- i obey the law. i pay my taxes. i try to do the right thing by my kids, teach memorials, try to save for retirement but i'm getting bed up because they tell me, kennedy, i look around i see -- i see a rigged economy.

i see too many undeserving people at the top getting bailouts, cutting corners and making deals. and i see too many undeserving people at the bottom getting handouts. and i'm in the middle, and i get stuck with the bill. and i can't pay it anymore, kennedy, because my health insurance has gone up, thanks to the affordable care act. and my kids' tuition has gone up. my taxes have gone up but i'll tell you what hasn't gone up. my income. now, these are people -- these are the american people, the middle class. they're busy earning a living. they may not read their aristotle every day but they're smart and they get it and they know that median household income in america today is basically the same as it was in 1999. and for that, every policymaker responsible for that fact in washington, d.c. and elsewhere

ought to hide their heads in a bag. this bill is going to fix that. and that's why it's so inning credibly important that we pass it. yes, it's important for our business community. yes, it's important for the large corporations. yes, it's important to repatriate those trillions of dollars. but at the end of the day, it's important primarily for ordinary people, you and me, the people who get up every day and go to work and obey the law and pay their taxes and have made this country great. they've hurt long enough. with that, mr. president, i yield to my colleague. we call him a silver tongue devil, he's so eloquent, from colorado. mr. gardner: i thank you for that and i recognize the

gentlelady from west virginia for comments on why this is important to the country. mrs. capito: thank you very much. mr. president, thank you. i'd like to thank the senator from colorado for his leadership in bringing us the class of 2014 to the floor to talk about the commonsense tax reform measure that we have, the opportunity of decades to make a difference, a big difference, a big difference in many of the lives of the people that we represent. and i would even say most lives. this is like the sixth time i've been down to the floor to talk about what i think is the best reform -- tax reform package i've seen in my time here, and also the different aspects of tax reform that i think are great for the country but great for my state. i represent a small state, the small state of west virginia. so i am really glad to be -- i've talked about small business and families and what it means for them, simplification,

creating a competitive environment, but there's nothing like going home and talking to people, whether you're at the grocery store -- this past week we were all in veterans day parades. people are generally so respectful and very happy at a veterans day parade. i can't say the same for every parade, but i will say for the veterans day parade, they're generally pretty happy. and i was really surprised because i had several constituents, not just one or two, but several saying to me, pass this bill. we want tax relief. totally unsolicited. so west virginians are paying attention to what we're doing here in the senate. right now our colleagues on the finance committee are working to advance this bill as early as tomorrow, and we are very hopeful that we'll be able to consider this bill on the floor of the u.s. senate the week we get back from thanksgiving as our colleagues in the house are passing their bill this week.

but you know what? it's been disappointing to me and really to everybody i think involved in this is tax reform has become a partisan issue, an exercise. we have shared goals. we all want to go to the same place in this country, a prosperous place where everybody can thrive and succeed. but to turn your back on what i think is a well thought out, much studied plan on tax relief i think is to turn a blind eye to just every working american, every american business, every american family and personally, i don't think it's fair. our goals are shairld by many americans, regardless -- shared by many americans, regardless of their party because we want to grow small businesses. in my state 95% of our businesses are small businesses. we want to allow that business to make decisions to grow or raise wages. we want to make our businesses

competitive global. people say, what's a big company really going to do for me, working and living here in west virginia. well, i think if we looked at the major companies that are invested in our state, we know that making those companies more competitive will make them -- will result in those companies creating more jobs, investing more capital, buying more products, raising wages for workers. so many our companies competitive globally is exceedingly important. we want to make sure the middle-class family that's working and struggling -- and i've heard many of my colleagues say statistics show that men american -- many american families can't up with $400 for an emergency expenditure in their family. that's almost a flat tire and the towing expense to get your car fixed so you can go to work or take your kids to school or get to your job, get to your church. so i think the tax reform bill

in the senate meets many of these objectives. the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation has found that the bill would provide tax relief to americans in every single income category with the largest percent -- and this was after working the bill over several months -- the largest percent going where it should go which is to the middle-income earner. with the senate bill, as many as 925,000 new jobs can be created. that's significant. that's significant because i believe some of those jobs and i would hope a great deal of them would land in the great state of west virginia. and in west virginia the studies show that the average middle-income family would gain $952 in after-tax income and the job creation for the state of west virginia, 4,784 jobs in our state.

for some that may sound like not very much, but in our state that's significant and almost 5,000 more jobs? i'll take them. we'll take them. and we'll provide good workers for them, too. and $1,900 more from your taxes? that is a major infusion of cash into a family to make the decisions that they want, that they make around their kitchen tables, not the decisions that we're making here on the floor. yesterday i heard from members of the west virginia chamber of commerce, and steve roberts, who is the president of that group, said, quote, our current system is full of, quote, negative consequences and reduces a business' ability to hire new workers, invest in inventory and equipment and boost our employee pay. these are the hallmarks -- what he's saying here is the negative consequences are the hallmarks of what we're fixing and what we're reforming in this bill. he noted that employers are eager to grow, reinvest, reward employees with better wages. we hope congress will act

quickly to reduce and simplify taxes ensuring a stronger and economically vigorous nation. this is something i don't think we talk about either. if we had economic security in our families and economic security in this country, we're stronger in a lot of ways that go beyond being stronger economically. think about in your family if you have -- if you have a decision you have to make. you have to come up with some emergency funds. if you have to go and borrow or try to figure out a way to meet end -- make ends meet, it makes you feel weaker. if you can do it yourself, you're stronger. and that's what we're doing in this bill. i also want to talk about the transparency here. we're hearing criticisms that, oh, this is coming in the dead of night. nobody has ever heard of it. nothing could be further from the truth. the finance committee alone has held 70 hearings on this since the year 2011. senators from both parties have had the opportunity to weigh in,

both from experts inside the capitol and outside the capitol. and we've been -- it's undergoing a full markup in committee. this is total light in the day. this is how legislation is made. and so i am very pleased that this -- the tax reform principles in this bill is moving through our senate. we know the president is very enthusiastic about this. he will sign a bill that will grow our economy and benefits what he wants to benefit and what we all want, which are those middle-income families. so, you know, each senator has a choice here. we all have our choices. my friends from south dakota and oklahoma and louisiana and colorado are on the floor with me. we all have choices every day -- arkansas, mr. president. you can either cling to the status quo and say, yeah, everything is working well, or you could really grab this -- grab this and say, this is good.

this is good policy. this is good politics. this will make our country stronger. and our families stronger. so this will help our small businesses thrive, create more jobs, raise wages, and above all else benefit our families. i think it's more growth, it's more opportunity. the people that i represent want this. they want to have more of their money at the end of the day, make their own decisions. they want their good, hard work rewarded. they want to see a country that grows and is optimistic and is strong and powerful and economic strength can give us that. i just heard from a 70-year-old postal worker from wheeling, west virginia. he wrote me saying, quote, the senate needs to get these tax cuts and tax reform done. end of quote. that's the simple way most people communicate in this country. i understand that. i hope our friends on the other

side of the aisle understand that. it would be great to have us join together as a senate, as a country, to do something we know is going to have the right results, the right consequences, and the right results again of growing this country, providing the relief that people want, with a wel well-stead did id process, with well-researched data and with the power of the american people behind us. thank you. and now i would yield to my colleague from colorado and thank him again for leading this. mr. gardner: i thank the gentlelady from west virginia. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that at 2:50 senator rounds be recognized as the leader of the colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, our economy is stuck. we've had between 1.4% and .9%

growth. medicare to the ten-year cycles before that every year in a ten-year block, every group of that was 3% or more growth. we've had half the growth of our economy in the last ten years. i hear people over and over again say the regulations are choking out our business. it's driving up the cost of products for consumers. but our tax code is full of loopholes, full of confusion, it's complicated. deductions when i go through to fill out my individual taxes seem like there are deductions for everybody else but me. and people want to get that fixed. and quite frankly, no one likes paying taxes and everyone wants to make sure whatever taxes they pay are spent efficiently and

are as low as possible. i can't tell them that because their spend something not on and it is -- on track and is not efficient. we need to fix that. the tax reform that we have in discussion in the senate right now deals with some very basic things, beginning with more take-home pay for individuals. you can either be paid more by an employer or taxed less by the government. either one of those increases the take-home pay. this solves the tax less by the government so that i had haves can have more take-home pay. serious money for most oklahomans to have more known come back into their family. the way that happens, it starts with the standard deduction that doubles. it is $24,000. to say flat you would make between zero and $24,000 as a family and you wouldn't have any tax on the first $24,000 at all. that's a great help. so your tax doesn't even begin until after $24,000 at all.

you'd be in that 0% bracket. we double the child tax credit for families that are raising kids, it is exceptionally helpful to them to have a larger tax credit. then we'd take out the individual mandate in obamacare. we've already had folks that have said, what does obamacare have to do with tax policy? well, let me it will you very simply. the individual mandate is a tax. that's what the supreme court labeled it as. that's what individuals understand it to be. if you don't buy the type of insurance that washington, d.c., approves, you may buy some different insurance, but if it is not the one that washington, d.c., approves, you get an additional tax penalty on your tax. who pays for that? in oklahoma, 81% of the people who paid the individual mandate tax penalty make $50,000 or less a year. it is a tax directly at the middle class. i think that is unfair. we want to remove that tax penaltyway from the middle class and to say, they don't have that penalty and they're allowed to

be able to buy insurance that they can actually afford. what does this mean for jobs? well, if small businesses have a better tax code in their pass-throughs, they are able to hire more additional jobs. the unemployment rate has continued to drop over the last several years. at the stop spot that they're at right now, that means they're more competition. there's more hiring, more people have to compete for those jobs. that means employers have to pay a little bit more money to get the people to be able to do it. that raises wages for people all around the country and have additional people that are not working now actually back to work. more people working are actually paying taxes. and it pays for itself. getting a growing economy going is essential to us. and the way that you do that is you take care of the tax code for small businesses and you take care of the tax code for corporate businesses. i've had folks that have said to me, if you drop the corporate

rate from 35% 20%, what does that do? it allows the big companies as well as the small companies to hire more people, to build more factory, to buy more machinery. that's what it allows them to be able to do, to grow their business. but on an international stage, our tax code is 35%. if our tax code is at 35%, compare that to other countries that are somewhere around 22%, 23%, 24%, some of them less than that, let me make it this simple -- if you're going online to buy a shirt and you can see that shirt for $20 on one website or $35 on another website, where do you buy the shirt? probably from the one that is $20. if you're starting a business or founding a business and you go in one spot where the tax rate is 20% or another spot where it's 35%, guess where they found the business? where it's lower. we're the higher right rate now. if we don't fix that, businesses

are going to continue to move overseas. and we can make fun of them in the news, we can yell at them and tell them they're un-american. they're going to continue to move where they pay less, exactly like every american does with their online shopping. that's fixable. in the middle of all this we've got to deal with debt and deficit. we can't ignore that reality. and one of the things that i'm still going through in the proposal that we're working through right now are things that are unrealistic in the proposal. because at the end of the day, we have to get the economy growing again, but we've got to deal with half a trillion dollars in overspending from this government right now. we can do both. we've got to be able to do both. i am encouraging this body to take seriously a proposal to be able to deal with how we get our economy going again. let's figure out how to get it done and then let's actually solve this for the american people. with that, i would yield to the senator from south dakota.

mr. rounds: thank you, mr. president. my colleague has talked about some commonsense solutions to our tax challenges in the united states today. at this time i would like to recognize senator cassidy from louisiana for his thoughts concerning what we have to do to fix our tax challenges within our country. senator capacity. mr. cassidy: thank you, senator rounds. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: the last eight year, mr. president, have been really hard for a lot of families. they have seen their wages stagnate, their benefits not going up. indeed, what they have been paying for health insurance and flood insurance and many other things has risen even though their wages have not. so the goal of this bill is to decrease taxes upon those middle-income working families to give them the opportunity to have better wages, better benefits and to bring relief for situations that are peculiar to louisiana -- no, they're not peculiar to louisiana.

i'll elaborate in just a second. what could a middle-class family in louisiana do with better wages? well, they could pay off debt. they could provide more for their children. they could just live life a little bitter bit more rebustly. not perhaps have to move out of one home to another because they can no longer afford the mortgage on the first. so the goal of this is, first, to bring tax relief to working families and middle-class families. all part of an effort to cut taxes particularly for them but now let's talk about raising their wages. folks want to have more money in their take-home pay after taxes, but they also want to have higher wages and better benefits. our current tax code encourages companies to move overseas. what they move money overseas, keep it there building plants and factories in other countries, employing folks in other countries but not bringing the money home and employing americans and raising wages and

giving better benefits for those americans. this changes that. not only do we have tax cuts for the middle class, for working families, but we also encourage businesses to invest they're to create better-paying jobs here. and i've heard some say, well, wait a second. unemployment is low now. why does it matter? now is the time in which workers most benefit. if there is investment creating more opportunity for those here in the united states and there is a worker who is a welder and he could either work here or there, businesses are going to bid for his services. they are going to pay more to get him to work. and as they do that, just from supply and demand, wages will go up for the average american worker. for the average american family benefits will rise for those families. the children of those families will have more opportunity. this is what that is about. another way we bring relief to those middle-income families,

part of what we're doing here is repealing the mandate of the affordable care act. americans hate the government telling them what to do. but as part of the obamacare mandate, it tells someone, even if you can't afford that insurance, if you don't buy it, we're going to make you pay a fine. in 2015 more than 100,000 folks in louisiana paid a fine for not having health insurance. 37% -- almost 40% of those folks have an adjusted gross income of less than $25,000. 78% less than $50,000. think about this. the families reporting an income of $50,000 or less, they can't afford insurance and they're having to pay a fine because they have not. they're not millionaires and billionaires. these are families trying to make ends meet. they make a decision because the exchange policies are too expensive not to buy, and now they're getting fined.

this is part of the relief we're bringing to those working families by getting rid of the that and make. and lastly, there is another form of relief. louisiana had its great floods of 2016, similar to maria, irma and harvey, but this is an unnamed storm that affected tens of thousands of people. we bring disaster relief to the folks in louisiana through this bill. and they'll be able to deduct their losses from their income, allowing them to rebuild their homes, allowing them to rebuild their businesses, and as they rebuild those businesses, allowing them to employ those who need a job to rebuild their homes, their lives. so, mr. president, this bill cuts taxes for those families, it create -- it will increase their wages, and it brings relief not only from an economic stagnation but also from a natural disaster that is one of the most expensive storms in our

nation's history. i'm very pleased that this bill is advancing. i look forward to it being passed and i look forward most of all to the increased wages, the lower taxes, and the relief it brings to those families in louisiana. mr. president, i now yield the floor to the senator from south dakota. mr. rounds: thank you. the thank you, mr. president. i'd just like to thank senator cassidy for his words. senator cassidy is also a member of what we call our bear den, the class of 2014. he came in here with the idea of getting things done. another member of the class of 2014 with us today is the senator from alaska, senator sullivan. senator sullivan comes with a fine and distinguished career working in the united states military, but he's also got a strong interest in seeing the economic development in the united states continue. he recognizes the needs for tax relief. at this time he'd like to turn the floor over -- i'd like to have senator sullivan speak. mr. sullivan: thank you,

senator rounds. i appreciate a lot of my colleagues come down here. a lot of my colleagues from the class of 2014. you know, mr. president, we've actually -- there's been a theme here. it's been talked about -- economic growth. talking about this challenge of what of what i've been referral to referring to as a lost decade of economic growth. when you talk about tax reform, you have to go back to the history. what do we mean by a lost decade? well, mr. president, i have been coming down to the floor for, gosh, a couple years now with this chart. and this chart says a lot. this chart just looks at the history of the united states and where we have been with regard to economic growth. bipartisan, democrat, republican administrations decade after decade starting with president eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, nixon. and what this chart tells you, mr. president, is that right now something's wrong. we talk about g.d.p. growth,

but really g.d.p. growth is a proxy for the health of the economy. unfortunately we've had a sick economy. g.d.p. growth is a proxy for the american dream. and unfortunately i think a lot of people over the last ten years started to worry, is that something i can obtain? let's look here, mr. president. so every administration, it doesn't matter -- democrat, republican -- really strong levels of growth. my colleague from oklahoma was talking about at least 3% or higher since the great depression. some of these years, kennedy, johnson. so right here, mr. president, this line here is 3%. the red line, 3%. it's not great but it's pretty good. pretty good. you looked at reagan, carter, there are years we were growing at 4%, 5%, 6%, 7% growth. the pages right here looking at this chart, they don't even know what that means. they don't know what that means

because what happened? over the last 12 years, boom. look at this, everything is under 3%. the entire obama administration years never hit 3% g.d.p. growth once. not once. there's a lot of talk about what makes america great in this town. you want to see what makes america great? look at these years of growth. it doesn't matter, democrat, republican, 3%, 4%, 5%. heck, 8% during the johnson administration. and now look, 3%. and you know what's surprising, mr. president, to me when i came here? nobody talked about this issue. nobody talked about this issue. a lost decade of growth, and certainly unfortunately my colleagues -- i've been here three years. i don't think i've heard my colleagues once come down on the senate floor and go holy cow, we've got to fix this.

a lost decade of growth, a sick economy. the proxy for the american dream going away, and nobody talks about it. you know, mr. president, former senator and secretary of the hillary clinton wrote a book recently called "what happened?" what happened? well, i think what happened is this: no growth for over ten years. and nobody was talking about it. and i think a lot of people in this country said i'm not going to throw away the american dream. i believe in the american dream. the american dream means that we've got to start growing at traditional levels of u.s. economic growth, at least above this red line. 3%. so i'm optimistic, mr. president, because right now for the first time in a long time this body is really, really focused on this issue. with policies that will hopefully get us there. tax reform, regulatory reform,

taking advantage of our huge energy opportunities. and so many other things. but that's why this discussion, this debate that we're having right now with regard to tax reform is so critical. tax relief for middle-class families, tax relief for small businesses in this bill, as you've heard, has many, many provisions that we think are going to help jump start this economy and get us back to at least 3% growth, at least this number where the red line is that we haven't seen in well over a decade. so, mr. president, these kind of policies that we're pursuing now that the white house is focused on, tax reform, energy, permitting reform, i think, i would hope that every member of this body views this as probably the most important

thing we can do right here. growing the u.s. economy. with these kind of policies that have widespread support across the country. they certainly do in my state of alaska. so i'm optimistic and i'm also optimistic because the new administration, the donald trump administration is off to a good start. the obama administration never even came close to 3%. the last two quarters of 2017 we actually hit 3%. 3.1% and 3%. we're off to a decent start, but this body must do much more. and i'm hopeful that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can come down and talk about how important this is. because everybody america agrees with this: growing the economy again and tax reform is going to be a critical component of getting us there. so, mr. president, senator rounds, i appreciate the

opportunity to say a few words on this important topic. we'll be down here again. but growth, growth, growth has to be what we're focused on. thank you. mr. rounds: mr. president, i'd like to take this opportunity to thank senator sullivan from alaska. once again, he comes in from the class of 2014, and we have a specific request to basically talk about what we see as being the appropriate way in which we create a healthy economy. i see that our colleague from iowa has arrived. if our colleague from iowa, senator ernst, would care to speak, we would love to have her do that as well. part of what senator sullivan has shared with you today is the need to move back above 3% growth. and that is an item which we think is critical. in doing so not only do we begin to move back into what i think most americans would consider to be a healthy economy, one in which they can actually see

their own families doing better, but we'll also see a better movement in terms of the shortfalls within revenues coming into the federal government. with that let me once again welcome senator ernst from iowa, also a member of the class of 2014. senator ernst. mrs. ernst: thank you very much. mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mrs. ernst: thank you very much. i appreciate the senator from south dakota's points and glad to join in this conversation this afternoon. about a decade ago the worst economic recession since the great depression devastated our middle class, our middle-class households, those families all across the country. and in its aftermath, our economy consistently underachieved, underachieved. last year the united states saw less than a 2% increase in the

amount of goods and services we produced. and the reason? our stagnant economy has suffered from an outdated tax system that stifles economic growth through high tax rates and an unreasonable compliance burden. small businesses which i'm partial to because they make up about 97% of employers in iowa -- let me state that again. 97% of employers in iowa are small businesses. they are taxed as much as 44.6% on their profits. every year these job creators spend over $18 billion just to comply with federal tax laws and regulations. middle-class families and individuals around this country need some relief. by streamlining our cumbersome

tax system and eliminating loopholes that primarily benefit the wealthy, congress has an opportunity to lower tax rates for middle- and lower-income wage earners. likewise, by creating a more competitive tax system for businesses, we can foster greater growth and investment in the united states and boost wages for more iowans. tax reform also provides congress with an opportunity to lead by example and offer up its own unnecessary tax break. that's why i introduced the stop questionable unnecessary and excessive allowances for legislators act, also known as the squeal act. this legislation would eliminate a provision of the tax code that allows members of congress to deduct up to $3,000 annually in

living expenses that they incur while in washington, d.c. as we seek to achieve the ultimate goal of lowering rates for families and small businesses, congress should start by eliminating handouts to our politicians. it's long overdue for our country to pursue a simpler tax code that provides much-needed relief for hardworking iowans that puts our economy back on track. i look forward to working with my colleagues on a path forward that reduces the burden of our complicated tax system, the burden that's placed upon our families, our hardworking individuals and our small businesses. and with that, to the distinguished member from south dakota, i will turn the floor back over to you and thank you for accommodating the members of our class, and we are very hopeful that we'll be able to

move forward with smart, effective tax reform. mr. rounds: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the senator from iowa for her remarks. once again, as we call it midwestern common sense. mr. president, let me finish this colloquy today with just a few thoughts. first of all, we want tax reform, but what we really want is that healthy american economy. we think that's what the people of the united states want. they want the ability to compete. over the last ten years there have been 4,700 businesses that left our shores and moved overseas. the reason for that is because they can survive better by leaving our country and going someplace else because of the tax consequences of doing so. when we start talking about the direction we want to go in this country, we want the people of america to understand our goal with this entire package is to make things better for the american public. that means a healthier economy for them. it also means by doing so that they'll see actually the bottom

line in their own pockets, more money that they can spend that otherwise would go to the federal government. and at the same time businesses that might leave and take jobs and the opportunity to invest their dollars, we want those back into the united states again and to be able to hire more people, to pay better wages. we think the fact that over the last ten years the american public haven't seen those higher wages, we think that's because the competition for jobs has moved offshore, moved into the other parts of the world where they have a more competitive tax climate. but there's something else as well that i think we have to point out. we recognize that at the federal level we have a deficit and we have not been able to break that deficit. today we have a deficit which is in excess of $500 billion. out of a $4.1 trillion total payments that are out there that we spend on an annual basis, our omnibus bill, as we call ite and nondefense discretionary side of the formula -- we voted about $1.1 trillion of the $4

trillion. there is about $3 trillion that is automatic, not auto pilot. medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt. if we want to close that gap, then we have to be able to see an economy which is growing, an economy which can support the programs that we believe are necessary. the safety nets that we in america have decided are very appropriate for those that have no place else to go. so if we want to close the deficit, we need more revenues coming in. the only way we can pick up more revenues coming in is by having an economy which is strong enough to support that. so by actually reducing taxes, we bring in more businesses. those businesses make more profits. we're able to at a lower rate tax profits. and that is returned back to the american people in a number of ways. first of all, a lower tax burden to themselves, through personal income taxes and

through subchapter s and c corporations through lower businesses taxes. but finally and just as importantly, in terms of how we support the operations of government. we support that because with a growing economy, the revenue coming from that growing economy can be utilized to eliminate the debt, which is a threat to our national defense. so, mr. president, at this time i'd like to thank our colleagues who have patiently worked their way through this entire process. i'd like to thank the senator from colorado for beginning this. and at this time i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i was very pleased to be here for the, the remarks of my colleagues and friends. and i'd just respond by saying that we are all for growth. we are all for growth of the american economy. i think on this side we're just a little bit less sure that you grow the economy by growing the share of the economy that goes to the super rich and to big

corporations. or that you grow the economy by growing benefits to corporations that move jobs from america overseas. and i'm pretty confident that on our side, we don't believe that the solution to the deficit is a tax bill that raises the deficit. but i'm here to talk about the climate change conference that we just got back from in germany , a conference where the united states stood alone as the only nation in the world. syria and nicaragua having left us. not a party to the historic paris agreement. led by senator cardin, my colleague, senators markey, schatz, merkley and i went to tell the nations gathered there that the trump administration does not represent american views on this issue, nor

american determination to tackle the climate challenge, and it was not just us who went there to say we are still in. american governors, mayors, universities, and major corporations all brought the same message, that notwithstanding the trump administration's efforts to separate us from the paris goal, we are still in. the urgency of the experts at our nation's universities and federal agencies is reflected in a major multiagency climate report that was released last week and makes an astounding contrast to the position taken by the trump administration. the climate science special report will serve as the scientific backbone for the fourth national climate assessment due next year. the authors' list is a who's who

of top university scientists and agency experts from noaa, the e.p.a., nasa, our national labs, the national science foundation, and the departments of agriculture, defense, energy, commerce, interior, and state. in all, 13 federal agencies and departments. this report was also peer-reviewed by our american national academy of sciences. "the new york times" properly described it as the united states' most definitive statement on climate change science. the report wastes no time getting to the heart of what's causing climate change. i quote it. this assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions from greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed

warming since the mid 20th century. it goes on to say the magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, emitted globally. further it says there is broad consensus that the further and faster the earth's system is pushed towards warming, the greater the risk of unanticipated changes and impacts, some of which are potentially large and irreversible. in a 2016 interview, president trump said there is some connectivity between human activity and climate change, but he said you can make lots of cases for different views. well, the president ought to read his administration's own report. there is more than just some connectivity. to quote the report, for the

warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation. no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence. but this administration's industry hacks are not paying attention, and instead of helping, they are out busily doing things like deleting the words climate change from agency websites. "the washington post" reported in september that e.p.a. public affairs officer john promkiss, quote, told staff that he is on the lookout for the double c word, climate change, and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in colorado istations. maybe they think if they crawl under the bed and scrub out the word climate change, the

scientific phenomenon will disappear, but in science, it actually doesn't work that way. over at the department of energy is secretary rick perry who called climate change a contrived, phony mess in his 2010 book. he backtracked his position in his january confirmation hearings but still said he, quote, believes some of it is naturally occurring, but some of it is also man made. well, the energy secretary might want to receipt the report. man-made activity is not some of it. it's the dominant cause. then there is e.p.a. administrator scott pruitt who said about human activity coughing climate change, there is tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, i would not agree that it's a

primary contributor to the global warming that we see. the e.p.a. administrator needs to read the report, too. he's wrong and wrong. dominant is what the report says with no convincing alternative. if perry or pruitt bothered to look at the report their staffs helped write, they would see this graph. human activities are the primary driver of recent global temperature rise. this is the human activity column. this is solar effects. this is volcanic effects. every once in a while, somebody says oh, it's advocacy that are doing this. it's not us. it turns out advocacy are having a slightly fooling effect. people say no, it's solar radiation, it's not us. you can barely see the amount of solar radiation warming. all of this is human-caused

climate change. it's more than dominant. you can barely see other factors against it. as for pruitt's claim that humans are not a primary contributor to the global warming that we see, well, you can turn to the report's page 31. quote, human activities are now thedom -- the dominant cause of the observed trends in climate. and flip forward to page 36. many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible. so pruitt, humans are not a primary contributor. the actual science, human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for the

observed climate changes in the industrial era, especially over the last six decades, to finish out the quote. and you could flip to the next page where it says there are no suggested factors, not even speculative ones that can explain the timing or magnitude of what's happening in our climate or that it would somehow cancel out the role of human factors. just last week, kathleen hartnett white rolled into the environment and public works committee out of the president's climate denial clown car. quite is a prolific climate denier from the fossil fuel-funded texas public policy foundation. she wrote that carbon pollution in the atmosphere is, quote, unquestionably a huge social benefit. unquestionably a huge social benefit.

okay. she also compares climate science to a cult, which kind of winds her up a little bit with that heartland institute that has compared climate scientists to the unabomber, just to give you an idea of the intellectual rigor of the climate denial arguments. now she is up for consideration as chair of the white house council on environmental quality. in responding to our questions, ms. white was, let's just say, a little at a loss. she responded, for instance, that she has, quote, a very superficial understanding of ocean issues. she said on ocean acidification that there, and i quote her here, are different perspectives, and that acidity changes up and down are not hairntly a problem, end quote.

well, clean hartnett white needs to read this report, too. according to the climate science special report, quote, the world's oceans are currently absorbing nearly a quarter of the co2 emitted to the atmosphere annually from human activities, making them more acid i can with -- acidic with potential detrimental impacts to marine systems. how much more acidic are the oceans being made by the absorption of co2? the report goes on to say the rate of acidification is unparalleled in at least 66 million years. 66 million years is way before humankind even existed. that's the kind of dice we're

rolling with ocean acidification. i pressed miss white on how much of the heat greenhouse gas emissions add to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans. she couldn't even tell me if it was more or less than half of it. yet, she insisted she knew there, quote, are differences of opinion on that, that there is not one right answer. so in a nutshell, she doesn't know what the science is, but she sure knows that it's wrong. well, there actually is one right answer. and wouldn't you know it, it's in the climate science special report which says, and i quote, not only has ocean heat content increased dramatically, but more than 90%, more than 90% of the energy gained in the combined ocean atmosphere system over

recent decades has gone into the ocean. in fact, to be more precise, it's 93%. and by the way, that is heating the oceans at a rate greater than setting off a hiroshima-style nuclear bomb in the oceans and having all of the heat of the nuclear explosion absorbed by the oceans, more than one explosion per second. so it's quite a heat transfer. i asked miss white about a basic scientific principle. do you think if the ocean warms, it expands? does the law of thermal expansion apply to seawater, end quote? after a long pause, she replied, again, i do not have any kind of

expertise or even such layman's study of the ocean dynamics and the climate change issues. for somebody who wants to lead the white house council on environmental quality and help guide the science in this area, it's a pretty rudimentary scientific principle that water expands as it warms. if you can't grasp that, good luck grasping the risks that sea level rise poses to coastal communities like ours in rhode island. the climate science special report states that -- and i'm quoting here -- it is virtually certain that sea level rise this century and beyond will pose a growing challenge to coastal communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. rhode island has coastal

communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems, so this challenge is very real for my home state. climate change, sea level rise, and ocean acid if i ration are challenges that require smart leadership and initiative. we need to take action to bolster our infrastructure, fortify our coasts, and help communities prepare for those challenges on the horizon. instead, in this administration, we get the likes of perry, pruitt, and white. i wish ignorance were what's driving these administration officials. ignorance can be rectified with education, with information. we could assign them to read the