quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. toomey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, mr. president. it was about two weeks ago that

i had the opportunity to tour a steel plant in reading, pennsylvania. the plant is owned by carpenter technology. it's a company that was founded in 1889. it's quite extraordinary, a vast complex in reading, pennsylvania. they have 2,000 employees in burkes county which is where reading is located. they have an additional 1,200 or so folks across pennsylvania. carpenter technology is a leading producer and distributor of specialty metals, including what they call soft magnetics. as i understand it, soft magnetics increase the efficiency and the power and the battery life of electric motors. that's one of the main applications of these soft magnetics. it's a feature in steel and other metals that allows the magnetic properties to be turned on and off very rapidly. it's amazing technology.

and it's an absolutely essential component for all kinds of products, including aircrafts, electric cars, even medical devices. it's quite a range of products. and one of the things that i learned -- of the many things i learned while at carpenter technology was that tax reform is working for carpenter technology. while i was there, the c.e.o. announced a $100 million investment right there in reading, burkes county, pennsylvania, to upgrade their capabilities and their capacity to produce these soft magnetics. to be more precise, they are buying an entire new hot rolling steel mill in reading, pennsylvania, $100 million investment in a new mill that will allow them to expand their output and meet increasing demand for this really fascinating product that they

make. one of the things that the leadership of carpenter technology made abundantly clear in their press release and in their public statements was that they were able to purchase this mill and make this $100 million investment in their company now because of the tax reform that we passed. mr. president, this is exactly the type of capital investment we envisioned when we passed the tax reform. it was exactly for this kind of economic activity and expansion that we wanted to lower the cost of deploying this capital and expanding business and generate the economic growth and prosperity that comes with this. and by the way, carpenter technology is not an outlier. this kind of investment is consistent with the sentiment that we are seeing all across the country. just the end of the first

quarter, the quarter that just ended, there was a large survey of american chief financial officers, c.f.o.'s across the country. it was carried by deloit l.l.p. and it was exploring the question of growth expectations for capital expenditure. their conclusion is that these c.f.o.'s increase greater growth, more hiring. in fact, the sentiment is at a multiyear high. why is that? this is what he had to say about that. clearly, there is a high desire for investment in the u.s. and that is coming from just the structure of tax reform. c.f.o.'s are expecting higher domestic wages, almost 40% are anticipating and planning for higher and front-loaded capital investments and about a third higher research and development. what they've said is, because of tax reform, they're going to that those actions. it's very straightforward, mr.

president. it's very clear. so here we are just three and a half months since passage, and the tax bill has already and continues to benefit workers and businesses. and, boy, these are not the crumbs that some of our friends on the other side of the aisle have tried to suggest that they are. there's over 500 businesses that we know of, businesses that are sufficiently high profile that we've read about and we can track their announcements. these 500-plus businesses employ over four million workers. mr. president, over four million workers across america have already received bonuses, wage increases, enhanced benefits, increased contributions to their pension plans. it's already happened and attributable entirely to the tax reform. so the benefits from this tax reform are clearly already

flowing to the very workers that we intended to benefit from it. so my friends on the other side have had some struggles in thinking about how they can disparage this. they've come to realize that calling thousand dollar bonuses and multithousand pay raise, calling them crumbs is probably not such a good idea. so they have switched the argument to be a class warfare argument. i hear two varieties of this most frequently. one is this idea that well, the benefits all flow to the rich. and the second is, this idea that, well, these are greedy corporations that get the tax savings and they just use the money to buy stock back. let's unpack this a little bit. what about this argument that it all flows to the rich? well, there's one problem with that argument. that problem is it's not true. it's not true at all because when we did this tax reform, we did it in a way that makes the

tax code more progressive. what does that mean? that means that upper-income americans, the wealthiest americans, have an increased percentage of the total tax burden. so while everybody gets a savings, in percentage terms the savings disproportionately goes to middle and low-income workers and disproportionately small amount of the saving goes to upper income workers. so when the dust clear, the net effect is wealthier people are paying a larger percentage of the total tax bill than they paid beforehand. so clearly the benefits of this tax reform are flowing to everyone and disproportionately to low and middle-income peoples idea that these stock buy-backs are terrible things? there have been some stock buybacks. that means that companies have taken the additional cash they have and they've decided that

they'll take a portion of it and return it to the owners of the company. well, it just so happens that about 40% of the owners of the public companies in america are the people who have saved in their retirement plans. it's 401(k) plans, ira savings accounts, 529 plans, defined pension plans -- defined benefit pension plans. these are middle-income americans whose savings are invested in the stocks of companies. so in some cases, yeah, there have been stock buybacks. that means these savers have had cash introduced into their accounts, which then can be deployed by the managers of these accounts into new investments. and that's what happens for anybody who's selling their stock in response to a buyback. they get cash and what do they do with that cash? they get the chance to then reassess where they invest their money, making different investments, reallocating

capital, and shifting capital to where there's the greatest demand for t this is exactly the way a free enterprise system should work. this is exactly the mechanism that allows capital to flow to its highest use and helps to encourage still more economic growth. and better still, mr. president, this is just the beginning. we're only three and a half months into this. we haven't yet even begun to reap the benefits as a country, as a society of this reformed tax code. businesses are already responding to the incentives, and with the lower cost of capital, the lower after-tax cost of capital that we've created, we are seeing that increased investment. and what increased investment means is, first of all, whether it's a tractor or a new factory or a piece of machinery or a steel mill in redding,

pennsylvania, that investment, it invariably required workers to produce that investment. so there's greater job security and more opportunities for those workers. but then the company that actu actually deploys that investment, such as carpenter technology, in the case that i just mentioned, their workers become more productive. their workers have new tools that allows them toll command higher wages -- them to command higher wages and a better standard of lisk. that's what's happening and that's going to continue to develop as companies are just now beginning to have the opportunity to deploy that capital three and a half months into a new tax regime. so i'm just delighted that every week that goes by i learn about more pennsylvania workers, more american workers who are working for businesses that are benefiting, that are enhancing their investments. it's just -- it's a really good-news story. let me shift a little bit to the

c.b.o. report that came out earlier this week. there are a few things worth noting. one that's -- that should be on all of our radar mr. president is the fiscal challenge that we face. we have too much debt, and that number is growing too rapidly. this fiscal year, the total -- the grass amount of the federal debt is $21 trillion. by the end of this ten-year window that the c.b.o. contemplates, that number goes to up $33 trillion. and that's a huge problem. but i think it's important that we stress where this problem comes from. this, mr. president, is a spending problem. this is not a revenue problem. this -- you can see this in the c.b.o. numbers. in june of last year -- so almost a year ago -- c.b.o. projected that over this next -- the ten-year window that they were considering at the time, we'd have $43 trillion of tax

revenues flowing into the federal government with $53 trillion of spending. so a net deficit over that period of $10 trillion. one year later, c.b.o. updates its projections and now it's calling for $44 trillion in revenue over the current ten-year window. so $1 trillion higher in revenue. but $56 trillion in spending, $3 trillion more spending. so we go from a ten-year window that looks like the c.b.o. is projecting a $10 trillion deficit to a $12 trillion deficit. clearly, the deficit is growing and clearly it is driven by the increase in spending. look, bottom line -- whether you're talking $10 trillion or $12 trillion, this is way too big a deficit. but the tax reform is going to enhance the revenue collected by the federal government by helping us create a larger economy to tax. the spending -- that's our fault. that's something we've got to get under control.

a couple of other things the c.b.o. observes. i mean, they talk about our tax reform, and they talk about the terrific things. they say right there in the report, and i quote, that the tax reform results in, quote, higher levels of investment, employment, and g.d.p. that's the c.b.o. and you can see dramatically different projections of economic growth post-tax reform according to the c.b.o. than we had pretax reform, according to the c.b.o. in january of to 17 they projected that this year the economy would grow 2%. but after the tax reform has passed, they reassessed this year and they take the projection of 2% for this year and they say, no, now it'll grow 3% based on the tax reform. that's a 50% increase in the growth of our economy. that's huge. next year, 2019, they were

projecting 1.7% growth. now their estimating 2.the% growth. so 1.2 percentage points -- again, almost a 50% increase. these are huge increases and they explain it. they say -- and i quote -- the largest effects on g.d.p. over the decade stem from the tax arctic boost the real level of g.d.p. biage of .7%. so the fact is this tax bill is already working, mr. president. it's making the structural changes in the tax code that create a greater incentive for businesses to invest. it's making american companies and american workers more competitive than we've been in a very, very long time. it's going to increase the capital stock, the invested assets in our businesses that allow our workers to become more

productive, and it is going to continue to allow those more productive workers to earn higher wages. but let's be honest. no one can prove with certainty what the future holds. so it's worth looking at what is happening in the present. and, as a result of our tax reform, what is happening today, what's happening in the present, millions of americans have been receiving bonuses, millions of americans have been receiving pay raises, millions of americans have seen increases in their pension contributions. millions of americans have seen an increase in the value of their pensions. and millions of americans like the workers at carpenter technology have seen greater job security and greater opportunity as their employers are investing in their company, and that's going to be -- that is already beneficial for all of us. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: as my colleague from pennsylvania pointed out, the recently passed tax bill is already having a profound impacted on the economy, and as the congressional budget office report points out, over the course of the next decade, it will significantly increase economic growth in the economy, increase the number of jobs -- over 1 million jobs it said would be created as a result of the passage of the tax bill -- and to his point as well, they talk about deficits and debt projected out into the future, which clearly are a major, major issue. but, again, i would point out, are a result of the rate of growth in spending and not in the impact of the revenues generated by lowering taxes. because what you get greater growth in the economy, it means more people are paying taxes, more people are taking

realizations and more people are paying taxes. the congressional budget office rule of thumb suggests that for each one percent increase in growth in the economy, you get about $3 trillion in additional revenue over the course of a decade. and so if you assume -- and i believe we will -- and even the c.b.o., which is i think very conservative in terms of the growth estimates is, suggests that there is higher growth attributable largely to the changes that we made in the tax code to reducing taxes on families in this country and reducing taxes on our small businesses, which incentivizing them to expand and grow their operations and, therefore, create better-paying jobs and higher wages but also generates more revenue coming into the federal coffers. and so clearly the issue that we have in terms of the debt picture in the long term is not about revenue. it is about spending, which is growing dramatically over that next decade, particularly in what we refer to as mandatory spending or entitlement programs, which crisis out, i

would argue, mr. president, for reforms in entitlement programs. but to say that somehow tax reform is contributing to that is a far cry from the truth, and i think the congressional budget office numbers bear that out. and again i would that are in terms of what they suggest we were going to see in growth as a result of the changes that we made in the tax code, i believe that it's going to be dramatically understated. mr. president, we came to a time to draft tax reform. republicans really had two goals in mind. first was we wanted to put more money in the pockets of hardwo hardworking americans, and we wanted to do that right away. and, second, we wanted to create the kind of economy that would give americans access to economic security for the long term. less than four months after we passed this bill, i am proud to report that the tax cuts and jobs act has already achieved the first goal and is well on

its way to achieving the second. to put more money in americans' pockets, we lowered tax rates across the board for american families, nearly doubled the standard deduction, and increased the child tax credit to $2,000, doubling the amount of families can deduct for child -- for a child in terms of the child tax credit. in february that relief started to show up in americans' paychecks. according to the treasury department estimates, 90% of the american people are seeing bigger paychecks this year, thanks to the tax cuts and jobs act. and thanks to the i.r.s.' new withholding calculator, families with children can adjust their withholding to take into account the individual tax relief that's provided in the new tax law; in particular the increased child tax credit. so that means, mr. president, even more in the paychecks of hardworking americans without their having to wait until they

file their 2018 tax returns next year. so when it came to our second goal, we knew that the only way to give americans access to real long-term economic security was to ensure that they had access to good jobs, good wages, and real opportunities. and we knew that the only way to guarantee access to good jobs, wages, and opportunities was to make sure that businesses had the ability to create them. but before the tax cuts and jobs act, our tax code wasn't helping businesses to create jobs or to increase opportunities for workers. in fact, it was doing the exact opposite. large and small businesses were weighed down by high tax rates and growth-killing tax provisions in all of the regulatory and compliance burdens that came along with them. and our outdated international tax rules left america's global businesses at a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. that had real consequences for american workers.

a small business owner struggling to afford their annual tax bill for their business was highly unlikely to be able to hire a new worker or to raise wages. a larger business struggling to stay competitive in the global marketplace while paying substantially higher tax rates than its foreign competitors too often had limited funds to expand or to increase its investment here in the united states. and so when it came time for tax reform, we set out to improve the playing field for american workers by improving the playing field for businesses as well. to accomplish that, we lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small and medium-sized businesses and farms and ranches. we lowered our nation's massive corporate tax rate, which up until january is was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. we expanded business owner