subsidizes people who choose to live in high tax jurisdictions. it does that because it lowers the tax bill of somebody who lives in a high tax jurisdiction, like manhattan or san francisco because they get to deduct the full amount of the outrageously high state and local taxes that they choose to pay. now, the fact that they get to deduct that big number means the rest of us have to pay higher rates on our income than we otherwise would have to pay. so why should my constituents in blare county or cambria county or anywhere else in pennsylvania, constituents with modest income who choose local governments that keep modest level of service and, therefore, modest level of taxes, why should those constituents have to pay higher tax rates to subsidize the folks who have multimillion dollar condos on the upper west side of manhattan? it's totally unfair. they certainly should not have

to do that and have no doubt about it, the huge benefits of this unlimited state and local tax deduction that we used to have always flowed to a handful of states which have chosen to have very, very high taxes. california and new york are two good examples. under the old regime, about a third of all the benefits of local and state tax deductions went to just those two states, new york and california. they had a third of all the benefits. take new jersey, right next to my state of pennsylvania. new jersey has four million fewer people than we have in pennsylvania, but they got more of the benefit of the salt deductions than my entire state and that is because new jersey is a very high-tax state. well, guess what, it's a high-tax state because the people who lived there voted for politicians that raised their

taxes. that's what they want apparently. they want to have all of the services that go with that. they are happy with very high state income tax and local property tax. that's their decision. look, if you want to vote for someone that's going to impose high taxes, that's your vote. don't penalize my constituents to subsidize it. that's the regime we had in place and tax reform comes along and we said we're going to put a limit on the state and local taxes that a tax filer can deduct. the limit is $10 million. that's the limit. if you pay more than that in state and local taxes, you do not get to deduct it. in response to that, mr. president, it's very interesting. several of these high-tax states have designed a scam to get around the limitation that we imposed. the scam is they create this

vehicle and then they have their taxpayers pay their taxes into that vehicle and call it a charity -- call it a charitable contribution. the money then goes out of that vehicle and goes to the government. it's not a charity. it's an obvious attempt to circumvent the law that we passed in 2017. so the i.r.s. came along and said this is an obvious scam and they developed a rule that shuts down the scam. it says if you create this scam, make believe charity as a way to circumvent the cap on state and local deductions, we're going to disallow the deduction. so the i.r.s. ruling shuts down the scam, maintains the deduction cap, whan my democratic colleagues want to do right now is have a vote to invalidate the i.r.s. ruling. in other words, have a vote to keep the scam. that's what the vote is today,

to make sure that we destroy the i.r.s. ruling and we keep this scam in place. you know, one of the ironies of this whole debate is our democratic colleagues voted against our tax reform because they said that it was too much of a tax cut for the rich, despite the fact that our tax reform shifted the tax burden from lower income taxpayers to higher income taxpayers while saving money for everybody. the relative proportion of taxes paid increased for wealthy people, decreased for low income people while everyone had some savings. that was objectionable to my democratic colleagues. and now they come along and they want to repeal the rule that shuts town the scam. -- shuts down the scam. they want to perpetuate the scam that is a massive giveaway to the wealthiest americans. it's amazing. according to the joint committee on taxation, 94% of the benefit,

if they had their way and preveiled on this vote, 94% of the benefit would go to people whose income is over $32,000. 52% goes to people who make over $1 million. not only is it fundamentally unfair to ask people in some low-tax jurisdictions to subsidize the taxes chosen by people in high-tax jurisdiction, the subsidy all flows from low and middle income people to very, very wealthy people. that's -- that's a deal, millionaires would receive an average tax cut of $60,000, people between $50,000 and $100,000 would receive a tax cut of $10. not $10,000, $10. so, mr. president, what we did

when we put a limit on the ability to deduct state and local taxes, we made our tax code more fair. the states came along and developed a scam to circumvent it. the i.r.s. sees through the scam and says we're not going to allow that scam to continue, and now my democratic colleagues want to tear up the i.r.s. rule to perpetuate the scam. that is a very bad idea and i hope we will all vote against the congressional review act effort that's scheduled for a vote later today. and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i'm here today because unfortunately

our elections still remain vulnerable to foreign election interference. earlier this month the senate intelligence committee, which i'm proud to serve on with the presiding officer, released its report on russia's use of social media to undermine our democracy. the committee's bipartisan conclusion was clear. russia attacked our democracy in 2016, and their efforts on social media are ongoing and they will be back in 2020. frankly, they never left. the echos -- this echos all the evidence we've seen from the intelligence community, from companies like facebook where its c.e.o. was testifying on the other side of the capitol today, mr. zuckerberg, on some of the efforts and we've seen this from

special counsel mueller and many others. the alarm bells are going off and what are we doing? we're running out of time to do something about it. now, twice in recent weeks i've come to the floor to make a unanimous consent request on bipartisan legislation that i've introduced called the fire act. and twice this bipartisan legislation has been blocked by my republican colleagues. actually, their actions earned applause from the president on twitter. now, again, let me once again go forward with what this bill does, it's pretty simple, very straightforward. it would say to all presidential campaigns going forward, if a foreign power reaches out to your campaign offering assistance or offering dirt on a political opponent, the appropriate response is not to

say thank you. the appropriate response is to call the f.b.i. when i first introduced this legislation, we were concerned with the mueller's report finding that the trump campaigns welcomed the assistance of the russian government. i was deeply alarmed by the president's comments in the oval office during the summer that he would entertain offers of foreign assistance in future elections. now, a lot has happened since then which makes this legislation more necessary than ever. in the time since i last spoke on the fire act, the president has used his office to seek dirt on a political opponent, mr. biden. it appears he's pressured the

ukrainians. in the middle of ongoing trade negotiations, he went on national television to call on china to investigate mr. biden. he also, during this period of time, has used the bully pulpit to intimidate and threaten an intelligence community whistle-blower -- i'm glad to see many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have stood up for the integrity of the whistle-blower program and the notion that whistle-blowers are a critical part of keeping our system on the up and up and whistle-blowers should not be threatened. we also heard in these past few weeks, and i will not get into all of the details, a lot of contradictory and frankly almost orwellian claims if this is evidence of a quid pro quo. and we've seen in recent days a series of career diplomats

coming forward basically trying to validate the whistle-blower's complaints. i -- i know, and the house is working on some of this and our senate intelligence committee is also looking at some of the counterintelligence concerns, about the president's dealings, about the president's dealings particularly with mr. giuliani and his associates. i have particular interest as well in terms of what the attorney general is doing when he's going out asking our closest allies, our five-i partners to use their intelligence services to bring us dirt on the president's political opponents. that puts in jeopardy the trust basis the 5-i's plan works on. we need this basic fire act bill to make it absolutely clear that

if we see foreign governments interfering, the obligation ought to be on any presidential campaign it tell -- campaign to tell the f.b.i. now, i see my colleague on the other side of the aisle, and i know she will probably object again. i just hope my colleagues will look back on the fact how history will judge this body. did we do what's necessary to protect the integrity of our democratic process? and how in the heck did we allow the protection of our democratic process to become a partisan issue? we'd never make protection of the power grid a part of -- a part issue. -- a partisan issue. i think we will see folks on the other side of the aisle object to this commonsense legislation. if there's ways to improve on this, i'm open. some of the claims that were

made last time are not true. do not affect diplomatic efforts, do not affect folks who are visiting here in this country. we've been very, very clear. this is about a foreign government's offer or their spy service's offer of assistance during a presidential campaign directly to that campaign. but if there's ways to improve on the legislation, let's have at it. let's offer an amendment. let's at least vote. the truth is we know what we need to do to protect our elections. i want to recognize before i make my unanimous consent request, recognize my -- my friends and colleague senator klobuchar and -- friends senator klobuchar and senator wyden who will speak on a broader bill, which i am a cosponsor of. i support their efforts to make

sure that we have post election audits, to make sure if the kremlin is paying for advertising on facebook that they have the same kind of disclosure requirements if they advertise on fox. commonsense proposals that if they actually got to the floor of the senate, i would bet we would get 80 votes. the truth is the only person that is winning from our failure to act, and unfortunately this person seems to be winning as well in syria, seems to be winning as well between the split with ukraine is vladimir putin. let's move forward with the first step with protecting the integrity of our elections. let's bring forward the fire act. let's make absolutely clear if a foreign government tries to interfere in an election, the obligation is to report to the f.b.i. and not say thank you.

so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the rules committee be discharged from further consideration of senate bill 2242, the fire act, the senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill would be read for a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. warner: mr. president, i'm going to allow my colleague to speak on this item. i would ask my colleague from tennessee, and others, if there are ways to improve this legislation, let's have at it, but the notion that we're going into a presidential election where our intelligence community said russia and others will be back, that we have taken no action to prevent that when there are commonsense items from social media constraints, to

making sure that foreign governments do not intervene to having paper ballot backups, we are shirking our responsibilities and i hope in the future my colleagues will consider. with that, i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i'm proud to be here with senator warden and senator wyden, both leaders on the election security issue. this is the second time i have come to the floor this week to urge the senate to take action on election security legislation. it's been 1,006 days since russia attacked us in 2016, something that has been confirmed by all of president trump's top intelligence agents. in fact, former director coats actually said they're getting bolder. the next major elections are just 377 days away. we must take action now to secure our elections. i know that senator wyden will be addressing the actual hacking

of our election equipment which is so important as well as other issues, but i amfo cussed on -- but i amfo cussed on -- i am focused on this propaganda issue that w, this campaign we have sn from the russia. the honest ads act which is part of the bill i will be asking for consent on, the shield act which is going to be passed by the house today, it includes a number of measures that would close loopholes to stop foreign spending on issue ads in our elections. it would boost disclosure and transparency requirements. it would help stop bad actors from using deceptive practices to mislead voters. now, that may all sound like a list of policy issues that seem very removed, but let me just make it very specific. here's one example of literally millions. in the last election, an ad was discovered that was paid for in

rubles. it had been paid for in rubles before the election and it happened and we did not know about it until long after the election. it was the face of an african american woman, an innocent woman in chicago. she later called our office and said i don't know where they got my face. they put her face on a facebook ad that went to african american facebook pages in swing states. this is what the russians did. and her picture was there and it said don't wait in line to vote for hillary clinton. you can text your vote at, and it gave a five-digit number like 8561 3. that's a crime. a crime. they're suppressing the vote. they're telling a voter to vote illegally in a way that will not register their vote. that is what we're talking about here, propaganda. and, yeah, it hurt one side in this 2016 election but the next time it could be someone else on

the other side of the aisle. fundamental to our democracy and our founding fathers was this simple idea that we would determine our fate in america, that we would not let foreign powers influence our elections. that is what this is about. it's about protecting our election hardware and infrastructure, but it is also about protecting us from this disinformation campaign, all of this really bad stuff. and i don't think my colleagues are interested in protecting. i hope this isn't their goal, the big social media companies. i hope that their goal is to protect americans so that they can determine their own fate in an election. sow with that i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 2669, the stopping harmful interference in elections for a lasting democracy act, otherwise known as the shield act which was introduced earlier today.

further, that the bill be considered read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection. mrs. blackburn: mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. a senator: that's very unfortunate. what a difference we could make, especially with the disinformation campaigns. i hope my colleagues change their mind, a bipartisan bill. with senator graham, the chair -- republican chair of the judiciary committee. we must act. ms. klobuchar: thank you. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i will be making a unanimous consent request to move the safe act in just a couple of moments, and i want to say that this is legislation that senator klobuchar and i have teamed up on for quite some time.

it basically incorporates the three priorities that all of the nonpartisan experts at elections recommend. paper ballots, routine post election limiting audits and cyber security standards for election systems. i'm going to make some brief remarks and then pose a unanimous consent request. and i will just say, mr. president, i just find it stunning that the republican party continues its wall-to-wall campaign of obstruction against election security. and because of this legislative blockade, the united states senate has been awol when it comes to stopping foreign cyber attacks on our elections. for example, mr. president, i believe most americans would be stunned to learn that there is

not a single mandatory nationwide election cyber security standard on the books. so for example, there are no rules, for example, barring connections with voting machines to the internet. mr. president and colleagues, that is the equivalent of putting american ballot boxes in the kremlin. that's what happens if you don't have cybersecurity standards. and let's remember what happened in the election security debacle of 2017. all 50 state -- russians successfully hacked at least one election vendor according to the mueller report. they penetrated two florida county election systems, according to florida's governor. that's all that we know about. and people are always saying, well, no votes were changed.

nobody knows that because you wouldn't know it unless you had a real forensic analyses. you really broke the systems down and that hadn't been done. despite all of the ways foreign hackers have already made it into our election infrastructure, congress has refused to arm the state and county election officials with the knowledge and funding they need to secure their system. and i will just -- make one additional point. i thank my colleague for her courtesy because i know everyone is on a tight schedule. this summer i saw for myself how vulnerable election systems are. i went to deat death con which s really the white hacker convention in las vegas and i went because i wanted to see how issue it was to hack e-poll books and voting machines and other key parts of election infrastructure.

and i sure wish some of my colleagues on the other side including the distinguished majority leader could have seen in the voting village all of these young people going through a who's who of hackable voting machines. and how easy it was to compromise election machines, to alter votes and disrupt ballot printers and meddle with registration systems. teenagers in the voting village showed me an e-poll book hacked is completely that young people were playing video games like doom on it. so i sure wish my colleagues could have been there and i think we ought to understand that as of right now -- and i sit on the intelligence committee. i'm not going to get into anything classified, but i'm going to close by simply saying as of today, the threats that we face in 2020 from hostile foreign powers, the threats we

face in 2020 in my view are going to make 2016 look like small potatoes. so for that reason, mr. president, i now ask unanimous consent the rules committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 2238, the securing america's federal elections act otherwise known as the safe act, the senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. blackburn: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. my mom would always say you know, it's not a good sign if you're doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. and my colleagues have sought several times under the guise of

election security to circumvent going to the rules committee and try to bring these bills to the floor. now, it's important to note the legislation that they're bringing would do something that most people, especially people in tennessee tell me they do not want to see happen. what it would do is be to take away authority, to take it away from your local election commission, your state election commission and then vest that authority with the federal government. now, federalizing our elections in my opinion would actually make them less secure. is there anybody that thinks the federal government is going to do a better job of administering

an election in with himson county -- williamson county where i live and have served on the election commission? the answer would be of course not. they know that their friends and neighbors who serve on those entities will do a better job. i must also remind my colleagues every single member, every single member, democrat, republican, independent, every member of the senate agrees that foreign meddling in our nation's business is a problem. foreign nations for decades have sought to meddle in our affairs in the physical space. aren't we to have expected them to try this in the virtual space? it ought not to have come as a surprise to us.

we also know that members are working on this issue and that there has been progress that has been made by the intel community, by state level authorities, by those that are making certain these elections systems are secure. and guess what? you know, mr. president, they are doing this without a federal power grab taking place. i fear that my friends on the other side of the aisle still have not gotten over that they lost in 2016. further, they have yet to accept that their colleagues in the house of representatives have turned their best hopes for correcting this electoral disappointment into a farce. we know that in 2016 the russians seized upon partisan

hysteria and used it to pit the american people against one another. they did not affect voting election systems. it's not too much to ask that my friends in the minority cease using the business of the senate to continue these requests. mr. president, i do object to the motion. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i'm going to be brief. i just think it is so critical to respond to the comments my colleague has made. the first argument was that on this side of the aisle people really aren't interested in election security. well, the fact is what senator klobuchar and i and those on other side of the aisle have been interested in are the three priorities that independent

cybersecurity experts agree on are essential to protecting our elections. paper ballots, audits, and cybersecurity standards. so that ought to dispose of this issue that somehow on this side of the aisle people really aren't interested in election security. second, i want it understood that over here we've been interested in working in a bipartisan way and our ranking member, senator klobuchar on rules, says at one point there was a markup scheduled on these issues and essentially the leadership on the other side of the aisle intervened and it was canceled. so the fact is here we are with just a few months until people start voting. they're going to vote in primaries early next year.

they're going to go to the polls from sea to shining sea in the fall of 2020. and i will just say to my colleagues that we've got something like 25 states in america that are nakedly vulnerable. these are the states with paperless systems and states without audits. and as senator warner has said, senator klobuchar has said, i have said, the distinguished minority leader, senator schumer, all were interested -- all we're interested in is working to deal with this issue in an objective way based on the facts outlined by the experts who aren't at all political. so i think it is really unfortunate that there has been an objection to the proposal from the distinguished senator from virginia, senator warner, the proposal from the ranking member on the rules committee who has worked with me on the safe act, and the safe act

itself, because as a result of this action, the senate is missing yet another opportunity to provide an additional measure of security for the 2020 election. and i will just close with one last response in light of a comment my colleague, our new senator from tennessee, has made and she and i have talked about these issues, and i have appreciated it. she said no votes were changed, no voted were changed in the election. nobody knows that because, unless you do a forensic analyses and break down the machines, you don't know that. so i sure hope that we'll be back on this floor moving soon the proposal advanced by the senator from virginia, the proposal advanced by the senator from minnesota, and myself

because these are measures proposed by independent experts who don't care about d's and r's. they care about what's right for america. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. hawley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, first i'd like to ask unanimous consent for senator merkley's intern, thomas siff, to have privileges for the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. hawley: mr. president, as we gather today here in peace and safety in this quiet chamber, we must remember that there is a city half a world away that is struggling to survive, a city that is fighting for human rights and human liberty, a city that is a solitary pinpoint of light on a continent of authoritarianism, a city called hong kong. and the need there is urgent,

and the hour there is late, and it is time for america to act. and i know this because i've been there. i've been there myself. i have seen it, mr. president. i have been to hong kong. i have been to the streets of hong kong. i have seen the protesters marching in support of, in defense of their basic human rights. i have seen them demonstrating for their basic human liberties. i have seen them confronting the police with their tactics of brutality and oppression. and it makes me think, mr. president, that sometimes in the course of history the fate of one city defines the challenge of an entire generation. 50 years ago that city was berlin. today that city is hong kong. and the situation there is critical, because hong kong is sliding towards becoming a police state. make no doubt -- make no mistake, beijing wants to impose its will on hong kong.

it wants to silence dissent in hong kong. it wants to steamroll hong kong, just as it wants to steamroll all of its neighbors in the region, just as it wants to control the region, and just as it wants ultimately to control the entire international system. and we know what's at stake in this country because we've gotten all too familiar with beijing's tactics. we've seen what beijing has tried to do to this country for decades now. they have stolen our jobs, they have stolen our technologies, they have tried to build and are building their military on the backs of our middle class. and their aims are expansionists, and their aims are domination, and their aims are not compatible with the security or the prosperity of this country. and that's why what is happening in hong kong today is so important and the fight there is so significant. will a totalitarian china, totalitarian beijing, will they

be allowed to dominate the city of hong kong, to silence it, and then to turn to the region as a whole? you know, let's review what's actually happening there on the streets of hong kong. this didn't start with the people of hong kong. this started with beijing. this started with beijing and its puppet government, its puppet chief executive in hong kong attempting to revoke the rights of hong kongers, the rights that beijing promised to the people of that city in 1984 and again in 1999, trying to revoke those rights by bringing in a bill for extradition of hong kong citizens and hong kong residents to mainland china to be tried in china's courts where there is no due process, where there are no basic guaranteed liberties, where there is no recourse. this was beijing's plan, and that would have affected not just the citizens of hong kong but the residents there, including over 80,000 americans who are currently residents in the city.

and the people of hong kong said, no. mr. president, on the is is is n the 12th of july just after this extradition bill was put forward, 2 million hong kong residents took to the streets in peaceful protest. this is a city of 7.5 million. 2 million on the streets on the 12th of july, and when the hong kong government, the beijing-controlled government, refused to back down, the people of hong kong refused to be silenced and for months now -- months on end, 20 weeks on more -- the people of hong kong have been taking to the streets, protesting, seeking to vindicate their rights. and they have been doing it in the face of escalating opposition. the hong kong government, on orders, no doubt, from beijing, has sought to deny the protesters permits to gather peacefully. they have sought to deny them the right to cover their faces because, let's not forget, china

is a surveillance state and the persecution and reservetory because against protesters is real and it is constant. now they are talking about a potential curfew. they're shutting down subway stations early so protesters can't get from one place to another. they've used violent tactics to put down the protests. tear gas and beatings and dye blasted at protesters. and china continues to escalate. beijing continues to escalate the situation, turning the screws on hong kong, taking away the rights and liberties of the people there. hong kong's demands are not outlandish, mr. president. they are asking for what they were promised. they were promised in 1984 by the government of beijing, in a duly ratified international treaty, they were promised the right to assemble, the right peacefully to gather and protest. they were promised the right to

vote and to be ail to choose their own government. they were -- and to be able to choose their own government. they were promised the right to worship. those are the rights that the people of hong kong seek to vindicate today. and those are the rights, mr. president, that beijing is attempting to strip from the city as we stand here today in this chamber. you know, the people of hong kong, they have an expression, i found. the protesters say that they're going to be like water. they say, be water. and some have actually referred to this as a water movement. they mean be fluid, be reactive, adjust to the situation. and i just have to say, having been there myself, having been to the streets, having seen the protesters, having met with them and talked with them, their courage and their bravery under pressure is the really something to behold. it is an inspiration to me, mr. president. and i think it should be an inspiration to all of us, and their love of liberty -- you never love something more than

when it's threatened. their love of liberty is something really extraordinary. i want to share something that was said about liberty and democracy. it was said so beautifully. we strive for democracy because democracy strives for freedom and equality and universal love. political freedom is more than loyalty to a state. political freedom professes human dignity. every single person living in a community possesses unique potentials and unique powers capable of making a unique contribution to society. that's extraordinary, and he's exactly right, and hong kongers know it, and that's what they're standing forks and that's what they're -- and that's what they're standing for, and that's what they're fighting for. the people of hong kong need our support. they deserve our support. and they are depending on our support, and that is why it is time for this body to act. it is time to take up and pass the hong kong human rights and

democracy act. the time for debate is over. the time for delay is past. it is time mao to stand with the people -- it is time to stand with the people of hong kong and send a signal to the world that the united states will stand with freedom-loving peoples, that the united states will stand up to beijing, that the united states will not permit china to dominate its neighbors and its region and the world. and so it is time for this body to act and to act now. and it is time to do more, and that is why i will soon be introducing further measures to help support the people of hong kong. i will be calling for the imposition of global magnitsky sanctions on individuals and business entities that abet beijing and its oppression of the freedoms of speech and assembly that rightfully belong to the people of hong kong. and i would just say to those corporations doing business in

china, to those multinational corporate entities and organizations like the nba that it is time for you to take a stand as well. it is time for you to show a little backbone. it is time for you to show some independence. you may be multinational corporations who do business everywhere in the world, but remember that you are based here in this country. remember -- the nba should -- that they are an american corporation. these companies need to remember that they are american entities, and time to show a little american independence. and so when beijing tries to use threats of coercion, threats of market access to get the nba to censor, to get corporations like apple to censor, it's time for these corporations to stand up and say, we are not going to participate. we are not going to become part of the chinese communist party's

propaganda arm. it's time for these companies to remember where their loyalties actually lie. and i have to say, mr. president, for too long now, for too many years now we've seen too many of these companies and these same corporate executives who make money hand over fist in china, we've seen them happily send our jobs to china, we've seen them happily outsource our work to china, and now they want to import censorship into this country from china. well, no, thank you. and it's time that they were open about what it is they're doing. and it is time that they stood up to beijing and said, no further. i want to say again, mr. president, that the situation in hong kong is urgent, and the people of hong kong are looking to the united states and to other freedom-loving peoples around the world for support and for strength. and it is time that we sent them the message and that we called on our allies to do the same, that we must stand with hong

kong, because our own security and our own prosperity and our own ideals are at stake there. and i think finally of the words of john quincy adams, who i'll paraphrase. he said, wherever the standard of freedom is unfurled, there will be america's prayers. there will be america's benedictions. there will be america's heart. and today, mr. president, there needs to be america's voice. thank you. i yield the floor. mrs. feinstein: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you, very much. mr. president, the senate this week is honoring our former colleague, senator ted stevens, with the unveiling of his official pour triumphant i come to the -- portrait. i come to the floor to say some words about a friend and former chairman. ted stevens' life in public

service started early when he joined the army corps in 1943. so great was his desire to serve our country that he joined after attending just one semester of college. during the war, he flew dangerous, unescorted missions in china and india, earning two distinguished flying crosses for flights behind enemy lines. after the war, he returned to his studies and graduated from ucla and harvard law school. not long after that he moved to alaska to practice law, and there he began a life of service to the state he'd call home for the rest of his life. ted served as a district attorney. he became known for accompanying united states marshals on raids, and that was really an early hint of his temperament and intensity on the job.

of course, all senators devote their careers to their states, but few have the distinction of working to achieve statehood. senator stevens was one of them. working in the department of interior in the 1950's, he became known as mr. alaska for his focus on achieving statehood. he worked tirelessly to assuage the concerns of then-president eisenhower to get statehood passed through both the house and the senate. when the alaska statehood act finally passed, ted returned to alaska and served as a representative in the state house, becoming majority leader after just one term. then in 1968, he came to our senate where he would go on to serve for 40 years. once here, he distinguished himself as a fierce advocate for

alaska. he fought relentlessly for funding to build rural hospitals, highways, ports, and military bases across the state he helped create. his efforts only increased when he ascended to the powerful chairmanship of the appropriations committee. he often quipped that being such a young state, alaska needed extra help to catch up to its elder siblings. any help -- and help is exactly what he secured. one estimate says he steered more than $3.4 billion in federal funding to alaskan projects in just the last 14 years of his tenure. those of us who served with him on the appropriations committee got to know ted's incredible hulk tie which he would wear on days with especially difficult

debates. he was a fighter and a fierce advocate for his state and his party. when a reporter once asked about his reputation for losing his temper, senator stevens replied i didn't lose my temper. i know right where it is. but he would also cross party lines and work side by side with his appropriation colleagues, especially bob byrd and dan inouye. they would trade the gavel between them, serving as chair and ranking member of subcommittees and the full committee. beyond federal funding, stevens settled many long-standing issues that faced his young state. chief among them was the settling of tribal land claims. the alaska native claims settlement act would almost the largest land settlement claim in united states history. it was hailed as ground breaking

for its involvement of alaskan native communities from the outset. always with an eye to the future, ted stevens not only supported native leaders in asserting land claims, but he also supported economic development measures in the final bill. personally, i remain thankful for ted's support with the 10 and 10 fuel economy act, a bill i authored in 2007 with senators olympia snowe, maria cantwell, tom carper, and others. the bill was drafted to increase fuel economy by ten miles per gallon within ten years, but it was responsible for much more. the obama administration went on to use the ten in ten act to set rules that will increase fuel efficiency to more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025 and save

consumers more than $460 billion at the pump. now, here is how it got done. i couldn't get it done. it was controversial at the time. and believe it or not, ted stevens played a big role in getting this bill passed. as ranking member of the commerce committee, he and senator inouye included the language as part of a broader energy bill that president bush signed into law in 2007. so this was a big deal, and it was controversial. senator stevens knew that, but he understood the importance of the issue, and he included the language in one of his bills, and it could not have passed any other way. so it was a very big event for

me, and it really sealed my respect for this senator. different party, different state, but he cared. and you could go to him. and he helped. and i remember back, and now our mileage is going up, and i think of ted, when i talked to him, saying okay, we'll get it done. and he and danny inouye did do that. he said my motto has always been to hell with politics, let's do right for alaska. and i don't think anyone who had the pleasure of knowing ted stevens would know him as anything other than a great legislator for the state of alaska and a great legislator for the united states of america. thank you very much, mr. chairman. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: mr. president, i rise to speak in records to the appropriations bill that is now before the senate. i would, however, like to defer to the minority member -- the ranking minority member on the senate ag appropriations committee for his comments due to time constraints, and then i would reserve the rest of my time following his comments. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, thank you. a huge thanks to my colleague and for -- not just for deferring to me to make comments, which i'm going to make very brief, but also for the leadership of the subcommittee, the bipartisan work. it's the way the senate should work. let's just expand that spirit to the entire chamber and we'll make a lot of progress. this bill makes funding for important rural development programs including housing, including rural broadband very

essential all across america. it provides assistance with farm ownership and farm operating loans because access to credit to farmers is critical to stay in business, and it helps new farmers come into the farming and ranching community, including minorities, women, and veterans. it provides critical funding for snap. in our country, no one should go hungry. it assists with school meal equipment grants, farmers market nutrition program and commodity supplemental food program, all relevant to making sure that our children and our families have basic nutrition. and it assists on the international front with food for peace and the mcgovern-dole program that feeds millions of children around the world. i was down in central america and found that the average child in guatemala at 9 years old is

six inches shorter than the average guatemalan child raised in the united states. stunting is a huge factor. it affects the entire course of the mind. america is doing incredible work around the world in poverty-stricken countries. it also -- this food program increases food attend -- school attendance particularly among girls. funding for the food and drug administration is part of this bill for a whole host of reasons. there is really only one thing in this bill that i have a disagreement on, and that's funding for the relocation of the national institute of food and agriculture and the economic research service. i think that those organizations do a far better job when they are here networking with the other key critical policy groups and when folks coming from oregon and places remote around the country can visit e.r.s. at the same time as visiting other programs. for 11 years, bob ross has been a detailee from the department

of agriculture to our committee, our subcommittee, and that's because he is fabulous, and we just couldn't let him go here in the u.s. senate. most people in rural america haven't heard of bob ross, but millions and millions have benefited from his work, particularly his superb work on rural housing. he has been invaluable to us, but few people get a chance to make such a mark to leave the world a better place as he has. he is on to the next chapter of his life, retirement, and perhaps many adventures in retirement. bob is sitting behind me, and we thank him for his years of service and all the best of luck in the chapters to come. thank you so much, mr. president, and thank you to the chair of the subcommittee of appropriations on agriculture. a pleasure to work with you.

mr. hoeven: i'd like to thank the senator from oregon for his work and also express appreciation for the bipartisan approach to the appropriations bill. this is regular order. this is how we're supposed to do things. it's not just the ag appropriations bill. it's the other bills that we have included in this package. that includes criminal, justice, science, t-hud, as well as our ag appropriations bill and interior. this is the work of the senate. this is regular order. this is how it should be done. and so i am appreciative of the bipartisan approach taken not only on our bill but on these other bills and the fact that we now have them on the floor, and i hope that that continues in terms of regular order and bipartisanship that enables us to advance these bills in regular order. and then we have got the other appropriations bills as well.

we moved all 12 of these bills through our full appropriations committee in a bipartisan way, and so now we need to do the same thing on the floor and go to conference with the house to get this done. we have a continuing resolution in place until november 21, and so it is imperative that we continue this work and that we do it in this way. so i'm very pleased to introduce the 2020 appropriations bill for agriculture, rural development, food and drug administration, and related agencies. this legislation passed out of our appropriations committee, as i said, with -- actually in the case of this appropriations bill unanimous support, unanimous support out of the full appropriations committee. so i'm pleased that we're bringing it to the floor. the other bills that we have included now in this package had broad-based bipartisan support as well as the president knows being a member of the full committee. i'm also pleased to join my colleagues from the

subcommittees on interior, transportation, housing, urban development, commerce, justice, and science, but my comments will be focused on our bill, specifically the ag appropriations bill. and right now, farmers across this country are really up against it, no question about it. whether you are from north dakota, oklahoma, points in between, east or west, north or south, our farmers are really up against it. in north dakota, we have had unbelievable flight. we have had it from freak snowstorms to rainstorms, but just pretty much nonstop rain and other challenges that have left our fields swamped. so i mean we have great diversity of crops, most of which have not been harvested because we can't get farm equipment out in the field in order to conduct that harvest. now, earlier this year, in may, we worked to advance supplementals to address the

hurricanes and the other wildfires we had had out in california, hurricanes that have hit the southeast and other weather disasters. so in that package, in that supplemental that we passed back in may, we included assistance -- we called it w.i.c. plus -- for the midwest, for the farm country, anticipating not only that we needed to address the flooding and the problems that had occurred this spring, but that there was additional flooding coming, and of course that's exactly what's happened. and so we worked to ensure that there is disaster assistance legislation passed that will help, but now we need to advance this appropriations bill to make sure that -- that we continue to support our farmers not only in terms of the challenges they face due to all these weather conditions but also due to low commodity prices and the real challenges that we face with trade right now. so we need to keep advancing on

all of these fronts, and of course this legislation is an important part of that. it includes support for our producers, it includes funding for ag research, housing and business own programs for rural america, domestic and international nutrition programs, and food safety and drug safety because we also fund f.d.a., food and drug administration as part of this bill. and so, again, very important priorities for this body that we need to take up and pass. the subcommittee has made difficult decisions in drafting the bill, and i'm proud of the work that has been done to this point. it's written to our allocation of $23.1 billion, which is $58 million above the current enacted level. we have worked hard to invest taxpayer dollars responsibly. finding programs that provide assistance to our farmers and rural communities and supporting programs that provide direct

health and safety, very vital safety benefits and safeguards to all americans, for example, not only through usda but as i said through the food and drug administration. agri best in the world. what they do benefits every single american every single day. we have the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world in the history of the world produced by our farmers and ranchers that benefits every single american every single day. when we're talking about good farm policy and good ag policy, we're talking about something that benefits every single american every single day. again, i want to thank senator merkley for the bipartisan working relationship we've had on our committee. i think this bill reflects the well-balanced compromise on a lot of issues that we had not only among the members, but on

both sides of the aisle, and i hope that my colleagues will join me in passing this important legislation. with that, mr. president, i thank you and yield the floor.

mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, two months ago texans were mourning the loss of 22 of our people killed in a senseless attack in el paso, texas. little did we know that we were

just days away from another violent attack, this time in midland and odessa that took seven lives. visiting these communities in the wake of these tragedies is tough, something i have unfortunately had experience with following the 2017 shooting at sutherland springs and again in 2018 at sante fe high school. there are no words to bring comfort to the families and the friends and the community members who were shaken to their very core by these sudden and unwarranted acts of violence. but as i visited with the families and offered my condolences following each of these attacks, there was one common refrain, one common request. please do something.

if i knew of a way to introduce and pass legislation that could stop these types of criminal acts from occurring, i guarantee we could pass it with 100% of the senate and 435 members of the house, and the president would sign it. but that unfortunately is not the human condition. unfortunately there is no quick fix, no simple answer. instead we are left to look at the factors that led to these attacks and to try to do something to prevent the sequence of events from playing out again in the future. following the shooting in sutherland springs, we quickly learned some disturbing facts about the shooter and how he obtained his weapons. he had a history of violence and a conviction, a criminal conviction that should have prevented him from ever purchasing a firearm.

but this information was never uploaded into the background check system run by the f.b.i. and as a result, the shooter was able to purchase four firearms, three of which were used in the attack. he shouldn't have been able to do that. every time something like this happens, it's only natural to say, well, what if. what if those convictions had been uploaded. what if he wasn't able to purchase those firearms, could we have stopped this terrible loss of life? so my goal then, as it is now, is to do everything i can to make sure those questions don't have to be asked again. ten days after the sutherland springs shooting, i introduced a piece of legislation called fix nics, fix the national instant batch system, to fill

the -- background check system. we worked hard on it over a long period of time, but it passed with more than 70 senate cosponsors, bipartisan cosponsors. and what is the result of the fix nics bill that we passed in the wake of sutherland springs? we know now that the federal government has increased its record submissions to the background check system by 400%. 400% increase in entries into the background check system. that means if somebody is dishonorably discharged from the military, if somebody has been convicted of domestic violence, violated a protective order, convicted of any floin, felony that the background check check system is much more likely to have that derogatory information in it and the seller will not certainly that firearm. because of this legislation,

our federal background databases are becoming stronger and better by the day and preventing more criminals from getting their hands on deadly weapons that are already prohibited by existing law. but it's time once again to revisit the way we might reduce the loss of life, the way we might be able to reduce these mass violence episodes from occurring in our country in the future. today i'm introducing the restoring, enhancing, strengthening and promoting our nation's safety efforts, or the response act as we call it. as fix nics did, this bill addresses specific problems to try to prevent attack and make our communities safer. first, this legislation takes aim at unlicensed firearms dealers who are breaking existing law. shortly after the midland odessa shooting, we learned that the shooter failed a background

check when he attempted to buy a gun from a licensed dealer. he then managed to circumvent the process by purchasing his weapon from somebody who appears to have been in the business of manufacturing and selling guns but who is not a registered firearms dealer. by not registering as a dealer, the seller was able to skirt the legal requirement and sell a weapon to the shooter without conducting the necessary background check. so to prevent unlicensed dealers like that from continuing to break the law, the response act creates a nationwide task force to investigate and prosecute those individuals. the task forces will focus on both those who are illegally selling firearms as well as those attempting to buy firearms who provide false statements as part of a background check. while preventing unlicensed dealers from selling weapons without appropriate background checks is an important way to reduce violence, it's only one

factor. and i think we have to admit there isn't one single solution. it's multifactorial. there are multiple things we can and should do. the second major piece of this legislation improves the quality and availability of mental health care. when i asked the odessa police chief following the shooting in midland odessa, what is it that you think we might have been able to do, he said we need better access to mental health diagnosis and treatment. so we clearly need to do more to identify and support struggling individuals who could pose a danger to themselves and to others. we know as a fact that the majority of gun deaths are suicides, self-inflicted. and while mental health illness is not the massive cause, enhanced treatment can save

life. the response act can improve coordination between mental health providers and law enforcement and bolstering the mental health workforce. importantly, this bill expands something called assisted outpatient treatment programs, or a.o.t.'s. this is something we passed as part of the 21st century cures act, my mental health and safe communities act to help focus as a priority pilot projects of thee assisted outpatient treatment programs and here we seek to expand them further based on their proven success. a.o.t.'s provides families of individuals of mental illness an opportunity to get treatment for their loved one in their community rather than in an institution. making mental health resources more accessible will serve our most vulnerable friends and neighbors in countless ways,

and i believe make our communities safer. third, the response act seeks to increase the safety of our students. i've heard this from countless parents, no doubt the presiding officer has too, that parents literally are in fear of sending their children to school not knowing whether they make victimized by one of these senseless attacks, especially in the aftermath of sante fe and parkland high school. parents are rightfully concerned about sending their kids to school, and they should not have to live with that. the response act includes provisions to help identify students whose behavior indicates a threat of violence and then provide the student with the appropriate services they may need to not be a danger to themselves or others. by promoting best practices within our schools, as well as internet safety policies, we can help protect both students

and school faculty and provide parents with a little peace of mind. and finally, because so often these shooters advertise on social media or cry out for attention to law enforcement or other people ahead of time, this legislation includes provisions to ensure law enforcement can receive timely information about potential threats made online. online providers and platforms have the ability to share information with law enforcement today during emergencies and in the fight against child abuse. the response act would expand the scope of information they can share to include information about potential acts of mass violence, or self-harm or hate crimes or acts of domestic terrorism. the response act has been endorsed already by a number of law enforcement and mental health organizations including

the national council for behavioral health, national alliance on mental illness and the national district attorney's association, the fraternal order of police, and a number of others. i'm glad to say that also has received support already, even though we are only introducing it today, by a number of our colleagues, our colleagues here, senator mcsally, tillis, capito and senator tim scott. i hope we can build a big bipartisan list of sponsors as others have the opportunity to review this legislation. again, using the fix nics as a model of how we can build consensus and get something done that will save lives. there's no quick fix, as i said, but there are commonsense measures that we can take to reduce mass violence and protect the american people. as texans continue to grieve in the aftermath of these attacks,

i'm committed to upholding my promise that i made to their families and friends to do something, to do what we can, to prevent more communities from facing this sort of heartbreak. mr. president, on another matter, briefly, we're just a couple of months away from the two-year anniversary of the passage of the tax cuts and jobs act. because of this legislation, families across the country are benefiting from lower income tax rates and bringing home and able to keep more of what they earn. we also help families by doubling the standard deduction that for children, expanded the child tax credit and simplified the tax code, something that i think we can all agree needs to be done. for millions of texans who were filled with dread simply about filing their taxes, it was a

welcomed relief. the journey to pass the legislation wasn't easy, of course, and there's no shortage, there never are, a shortage of naysayers. many of our senate democrat colleagues said that this only benefited the rich, the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. we know that's false because the facts tell that to us. but what is causing many of us to scratch our heads over the democrats' latest move, well, let me go back a second and explain why this congressional resolution of disapproval that we'll be voting on about 2:30 p.m., 4:00 is so mistaken. prior to tax reform, taxpayers could deduct their state and local taxes without limit. and they got to -- they got to

deduct that from the federal tax. in the high tax jurisdictions, the cities and states that had high local state taxes, in essence taxpayers from around the country would be subsidizing those taxpayers in those high tax jurisdictions. the jobs cuts and jobs act capped this deduction better known now as the salt deduction, the state and local tax deduction, capping it at $10,000 for everybody across the country. everybody was treated the same, put on a level playing field. in other words, tax reform stopped the endless subsidy that taxpayers living in my state gave to fiscal decisions made by other states and local governments. there's no reason why we should ask a taxpayer living in austin to subsidize the financial decisions, the fiscal decisions made in albany or sacramento or any other state capital.

before the cap, the wealthiest americans were disproportionately reaping the benefit of this no limit deduction. that's why the cap was included in tax reform, in order to support the middle class, not the top 1%. and we, in the process, prevented the richest people in the country from faming the -- gaming the tax code. this chart, produced by the senate finance committee, courtesy of chairman grassley, talks about who benefits from the salt cap repeal. that's what we'll be voting on indirectly this afternoon. well, 52% of the benefit goes to taxpayers with an income over $1 million. our democratic friends like to say that they are the party of the working man and woman, but clearly here they are working on behalf of the 52% of taxpayers

with an income of over $1 million by seeking to repeal this legislation which paiskly pre -- basically prevents a tax dodge. 42% of taxpayers between 2$00,000 and $1 million will be affected and 66% will be with -- 6% will be with taxpayers under $200,000. this is for the wealthiest people of the country. i don't have any ax to grind with people who have been successful minute and a lot of money. they paid their taxes, they contribute their philanthropy and help in in this many ways. -- they help in many ways. this is a way to ensure that oklahoma and texas and wyoming,

that our taxpayers subsidize the high tax rates in new york or los angeles or other places that have high state and local taxes, and we cannot, in good conscience, let that happen. the fact is since tax reform passed, a number of states have crafted a work around -- i'd call it a tax dodge, to circumvent this $10,000 limit. in june treasury issued a regulation to stop them, the tax dodge, and require states to adhere to the limit that congress passed into law and which the president signed. the financial consequences of what the democratic members of the senate are trying do here are enormous. the joint committee on tax estimates that doing away with the subsidy cap would cost about $700 billion over the next seven years or $100 billion a year. with almost 95% of the benefit

going to people who make more than $200,000. even, according to the liberal tax policy center, one-third of the uncapped salt deduction went to the top 1%. you know, if i heard bernie sanders or elizabeth or any of the -- or elizabeth warren rail about the top 1%, and the inequality, once, i heard it a thousand times, and here what they are seeking to do is to undo a cap which treats every taxpayer the same and essentially require taxpayers in low-tax states to subsidize those in high-tax states and localities and 52% of them make over $1 million a year. a millionaire would receive a tax cut of $60,000, higher than

the household income of many people in my state. that's what we would be voting on. that's what the democratic leader from new york, a high-tax state and city, seeks do for his constituents, but to the detriment of hardworking families in my state and in many states around the country. it's actually duplicities to argue after continually hammering the tax cut where there was the modest cut of the highest marginal rate, most of the benefit flowed to everybody in every tax brarkts but most of it went to the middle class. but after hammering this side of the aisle for some how benefiting the wealthy, democrats are helping their richest constituents go back to days of unlimited deductions.

so, mr. president, this is unfair. it's regressive. it benefits the people who need the help the most -- or the least, excuse me, and hurts the people who need our attention and help the most. so asking texans and all americans to somehow foot the bill for $700 billion so that folks who live in these high-tax cities and states can get a $60,000 tax cut is something i'm simply unwilling to participate in. i would urge all of my colleagues to vote against this continuing -- this resolution of disapproval. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i would like to echo what i just heard from my colleague, the senator from texas, about this senate joint resolution 50 that we're being asked to vote on

this afternoon, congressional disapproval resolution. i agree with the senator from texas. this is a mistake. it is wrong. i think he used some wrongs, ironic, mistaken and duplicity, and i would call it the height of democracy, and i am planning to oppose it. i come to the floor to just tell you that republicans two years ago passed major tax reform from this country and what we wanted to do was make the tax code simpler, fairer, people pay less, and that's what we've seen. and to do it, we also eliminated some tax deduction for the wealthy. one, the state and local tax, it was a deduction specifically aimed for the wealthy and we eliminated tvment that's what our goal -- eliminated it. that's what our goal was, to eliminate those deductions to people across the country could see the benefits of tax reform.

let's be clear who would be benefited by the congressional review act that is being proposed to be voted on today. 94% of the benefits are going to go to those with incomes over $200,000. those are aren't the people who need tax relief in this country. we made choices, mr. president, in passing tax reform, and we wanted to provide tax relief for the middle class. we wanted to double -- double the child tax credit, and it worked. we wanted to double the standard deduction, than worked, and we wanted to lower the tax rates as well. and the results are that a great majority of american households are paying less in taxes today than they were before. we also had this great boost to the economy, a lot of people working, the lowest unemployment rate. we have seen wages and income grow, we have seen the unemployment rate drop to a 50-year low and economic growth

beat all previous predictions. that's what we have gotten with the tax relief president trump signed into law. republicans are going to continue to focus on keeping taxes low for all americans. so i'll just tell you, mr. president, the best description i've heard of this proposal is it seems to be a -- to be an effort to give tax breaks to rich people in blue states. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i guess if you live long enough and you are around here long enough, you get to hear it all. hypocrisy is when the party of the rich, now the party that gave $1 trillion in the trump tax bill to the largest corporations in -- and most of it going to the wealthiest

one-tenth of 1% now says it is working for the working guy. hypocrisy is when a state like my state of new jersey, give moocher states, those that give far more to the national treasury and say that somehow we should continue to pay more. that's overwhelmingly the reality that's going on. so i find it pretty ironic that, in fact, the comments of some of my colleagues here. i want to urge the senate to reject these new i.r.s. rules designed to block efforts by homeowners across america to avoid the trump tax law's harmful caps on their state and local tax deductions. i want to thank leader schumer and ranking member wyden for the opportunity to exercise our authority under the congressional review act to stop these i.r.s. rules from taking effect. two years ago when president

trump and his allies ran their corporate tax bill through congress, they promised middle-class families thousands of dollars in tax relief and a $4,000 raise in their salary. instead all they got was $1.5 trillion more in debt and an economy that's even more rigged for big corporations and wealthy c.e.o.'s. of course, as bad as the trump tax bill is for the whole country, it's even worse for states like new jersey. that's because even after borrowing -- borrowing over $1.5 trillion from china, the president still couldn't pay for his deficit-exploding corporate tax cuts. where are all of my colleagues, all of those deficit hawks who talked about exploding deficits and debt? silent. so what did president trump do even though he couldn't have enough with $1.5 trillion of

borrowing, he dipped into the wallets of new jersey and other middle-class by using -- taking away the deduction to write off property taxes. in 201840% of taxpayers deducted their property and state income taxes from the federal returns and that average was $18,000 per deduction. -- deduction. and more than 80% of those who deducted earned less -- less than $200,000. so to say that the trump tax law was a giant hit job on new jersey's middle-class -- already new jerseyans are paying the price. new data reveal that because of the new cap on property tax deductions, home values in new jersey have taken a huge hit. in fact home values in essex

county, new jersey, declined more than any other county in america. and according to nj.com, the largest with the lowest cuts are in the garden state. that's why they have taken tax to protect homeowners from getting hammered. they adopted a program that over 30 other states, and by the way, these states -- all these red states, they are not the -- the quote, unquote, blue states, wealthy states. these are states that adopted similar provisions before the trump tax bill that were getting the benefit of a local tax credit for charitable contributions to nonprofits set up by local governments. they adopted a program that 30

some other states have on the books in some form. in return taxpayers could receive a property credit worth up to 90% of their contribution. other states have long used similar charitable contribution programs. for example, in alabama, there's a hundred percent tax credit available for contributions to private school scholarship funds. in missouri, one program incentivizes donations to shelters for survivors of domestic abuse. in florida there is programs that actually go to an education fund and to a conservation fund. and i could go through the list of these 32 states that had charity tax credit programs across the country which now the i.r.s. rules is nullifying what all of those states, many of my republican colleagues who represent them, are now facing.

that what was completely acceptablacceptable and the i.ro problem with now is not acceptable whatsoever. the i.r.s. long respected these programs so i was hopeful that new jersey's charitable contribution credits would provide relief to homeowners suffering under the trump tax scam and would be treated the same as all these 32 other states. unfortunately as soon as new jersey and other states took action, the i.r.s. reversed course and issued new regulati regulations hamstringing this long accepted type of charitable contribution program. these are harmful regulations for all of the 32 states that are represented through some of these programs and the senate has an opportunity to protect all of those 32 states' charitable contribution programs. new jersey's charitable contribution credit in an ideal

world wouldn'ten necessary because congress would uphold the full state and local tax deduction as a bedrock principle of our tax code. as a matter of fact, it is the oldest deduction in the history of the code. and it's a principle that i would especially expect my republican colleagues to stand up for. since the federal income tax creation in 1913, the state and local tax deduction ha has encouraged states to stand on their own feet. it encourages states to make smart investments that at end of the day make them less reliant on federal handouts. in new jersey, we know when we invest in public schools, we prepare our students to succeed in high-paying fields. in new jersey we know when we invest in mass transit, we connect workers to new jobs and opportunities. in new jersey we know when we invest in public health and law enforcement, we all do better because our streets are safer and our families are healthier.

and it's no coincidence that new jersey is one of the most economically productive states in the nation to the betterment of all americans, especially those in less productive states, donor state versus moocher states. mr. president, isn't that a good thing? isn't it a state's right to set its own tax policies, a right worth defending? for as long as i can remember, i've heard my republican colleagues talk about self-reliance, about personal responsibility, about protecting, not punishing success about states' rights. well, the trump tax law was nothing short of a massive tax on the success of states like new jersey and the state rights of states like new jersey. likewise i've heard republicans talk about state rights and the virtues of federalism. well guess what? the state and local tax deduction is a bedrock of

federalism. today's c.r.a. vote is an opportunity for my colleagues across the aisle to actually stand up for those principles of self-reliance, of state rights, and federalism, to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk. and to preserve the programs of these 32 states with charity tax credit programs that are now all threatened of being extinguished by the i.r.s.' determination. i want to close by sharing a constituent letter i received earlier this year about what the property tax deduction meant to one new jersey family. this past april leah from bud lake wrote, quote, my husband and i just did our taxes today and for the first time ever we owe money. and it's not just a little but hundreds. we own a home and for the first time we were not able to itemize our deductions.

our deductions, in fact, were cut in half. there is no incentive to us own -- incentive toous owning our money. we're paying a mortgage and trying to raise three kids. i'm tired of our family being collateral damage and yet -- in yet another political fight. close quote. leah is absolutely right. new jersey families shouldn't have to foot the bill for massive handouts for big corporations. and to add insult to injury, while the new i.r.s. rules crack down on new jersey's efforts to save families like leah's money, last fall the treasury department made clear that corporations -- listen to this -- corporations could continue to benefit from the same exact kind of workaround. corporations can continue to benefit from the same kind of workaround. how is that for protecting the little guy? how is that for hypocrisy? it's not fair.

it's not right. and our constituents deserve better. so we'll continue to push for a long-term solution to this problem. i've introduced the stop attacking local taxpayers assault act to restore the full -- under my bill the more you pay in state taxes the more relief you get. it's the exact opposite of what the trump bill says which says the higher cost of living is in your state and the more you pay in state and local taxes, the more you owe the federal government come tax time. it's double taxation. it makes no sense. the salt act deserves full consideration in the senate but in the meantime we should use the opportunity to help hardworking homeowners suffering from the trump tax law. we should help these 32 states overwhelmingly most of them republican that have a tax credit program be able to sustain that program for the benefits of the decisions that they made in their states for the purposes they made it, whether it be ed indication,

conservation -- evidence indication, conservation or whatever else that are now nullify by the i.r.s. ruling. join us and let's exercise our power that the congressional review act has to do what's right, to protect middle-class families throughout the nation from higher property tax burdens, to protect states and their rights to determine how their taxpayers will ultimately receive the benefit for making investments in education, for making investments in conservation, for making investments in a whole host of issues that these states in their rightful judgment decided were perfectly fine, that were always upheld by the i.r.s. and are now nullified by the i.r.s.' decision. that's what we have an opportunity to turn around and i hope we will. with that i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: before i address the issues before the senate right now, i'd like to express

some concern i have about whether the u.s.-mexico-canadian agreement will be able to get done this year. so i come to the floor today to express a growing worry. the democratic-controlled house of representatives looks increasingly less likely to act this year on the united states-mexico-canada agreement. that threatens passage of the trilateral trade deal this congress as next year is a presidential election year. it's been about a year since the updated trade agreement with canada and mexico was signed by the leaders of the three nations. a whole year and democrats have still failed to act. every day that passes, americans are losing out on economic benefits of the usmca. house democrats seem to have no

sense of urgency. for months now house democrats have said they're working on it, that they're making progress, and that they're optimistic that they can get to yes. but conspicuously absent from their pronouncements are any mention of a date or time line. with every passing month these seem less like good-faith assurances and more like stalling tactics. the new congress has been seated for more than ten months now. how long is it going to take before this can come up? ambassador lighthizer more than any other trade representative i can recall has gone above and beyond to accommodate the other party's policy demands. for nearly a year now,

lighthizer has worked with house democrats to find solutions on issues of concern to them like labor and environment, intellectual property, and enforcement. i'm beginning to wonder if democrats are interested in reaching a compromise at all. it's looking more like they would prefer to deprive the administration of a victory, even if it comes at the expense of the american people. that should not stand. earlier this month i wrote a column with congressman kevin brady, the ranking republican on the house, ways, and means committee. we wrote that time would tell if democrats cared more about undermining president trump than helping the american economy and job creation as a result of it. today it's looking more like the former than the latter.

if usmca is not brought up for a vote in the house very soon, democrats will have a price to pay next year when the american people have a chance to weigh in. there's little americans dislike more than the politics that is zero sum oppose the other party's politics no matter the cost. the usmca would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, protect american industries, and provide confidence to u.s. businesses and innovators to invest right here in america. that's what democrats seem willing to sacrifice by inaction on the usmca. but democrats are making the wrong political calculus. this underestimates the intelligence of the american voter and their ability to sniff

out phony. president trump has done his job. he's renegotiated a trade deal that nearly everyone besides a few congressional democrats can agree is better than its predecessors we know as nafta. it's now up to the house of representatives to do the job and bring this deal to a vote. if they don't act soon, the american people will hold them accountable a year from now. now to an issue before the united states senate, the state and local tax deduction. this week democrats are using the congressional review act to force a vote on a resolution that would effectively repeal an i.r.s. regulation aimed at preventing millionaires and billionaires from exploiting a tax loophole.

this loophole would allow top income earners to save billions of dollars in federal taxes annually. new york city's hedge funds and private equity managers would most assuredly be some of the biggest beneficiaries under this loophole. at the same time, the taxpayers with incomes under $50,000 would see virtually no benefit. in this case one might think my democratic colleagues would be cheering on the treasury department and the internal revenue service for taking decisive actions shutting down this loophole for the wealthy. but this doesn't seem to be the case. if democrats and only democrats including the democrat minority leader were arguing in favor of allowing wealthy taxpayers to exploit this loophole. moreover, predominantly

democratic states have been actively promoting and bemoaning the loss of this loophole. the loophole i'm talking about is a concerted effort by predominantly democrat states to help their wealthiest residents get around the $10,000 cap on the deduction of state and local taxes which has come to be known by the acronym salt. and these efforts to get around the cap have been called blue state salt work-arounds. these work-arounds are essentially state-sanctioned tax shelters where wealthy residents make payments to a state or local government-controlled fund in exchange for tax credits that they can use to wipe out most or all of their state taxes.

these states then want the federal government to ignore this sleight of hand and recognize these payments as fully deductible, charitable contributions when they're nothing more than state tax payments. well, that's really too cute by half. it's cheating, and these states are encouraging it, forcing the rest of the country to subsidize these tax shelters for the wealthy. the treasury department and the i.r.s. have correctly determined that these work-arounds are contrary to the federal tax law and have issued sensible regulations that clarify this tax treatment. in doing so, they applied long-standing tax principles that deny a charity deduction to

the extent the taxpayer receives something of value in return for their charitable donation. it's simple common sense. charity is, by definition, something done out of the goodness of your heart, without expecting or getting something in return. that's certainly not the case for these work-arounds. there's no charity involved. in fact, once taken into account, both the state tax credit and the charitable deduction at the federal level, a taxpayer could actually receive a tax benefit that exceeds the dollar value of their so-called donation. that's not charity. that's a tax scam. some have attempted to justify this tax scam by pointing out to

state tax credit programs that existed prior to the existence of the salt cap. but unlike the recently enacted programs, these older programs were not specifically designed to circumvent federal tax law when they were enacted. these preexisting state tax programs were targeted at giving taxpayers the option of funding certain nontraditional government service activities, such as providing underprivileged children scholarships or to set aside land for conservation. my democratic colleagues have painstakingly tried to defend these scams by claiming that they are efforts to alleviate state tax burdens on the middle

class. however, this argument doesn't even pass the laugh test. it's undeniable that these work-arounds will over-emwithingly -- overwhelmingly benefit the super-wealthy while the middle class will receive little or no benefits. i was pleased to see at least one senate democrat was willing to be honest about this last night here on the senate floor. as senator bennet of colorado put it this way -- quote, the vast majority of the benefits of repealing the salt cap would go to high-income americans. repeal would be extremely costly, and for that same cost, we could advance much more worthy efforts to help working and middle-class families all over the country. end of senator bennet's quote.

to illustrate this point, i have here a chart based on the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation distribution analysis. they have made very clear through this chart showing who would benefit from repealing the tap on deductions for state and local taxes. while eliminating these treasury regulations wouldn't repeal the salt cap entirely, it would effectively make the cap toothless, as more and more states would create work-arounds. and let's not forget, the repeal of the cap is their ultimate goal. as you can see here on the chart, the majority of the benefits from repealing the salt cap -- 52% -- would flow to

taxpayers with incomes exceeding $1 million. now, let's think about that just for a minute. less than half of one percent of all tax returns report incomes exceeding $1 million. yet, according to the joint committee on taxation, these taxpayers would receive 52% of the tax benefit, if this resolution of disapproval went through. now, another 42% of the tax benefit would the go to taxpayers with incomes between $200,000 and $1 million. when combined with those earning over $1 million, then you can see that fully 94% of the tax benefits would go to taxpayers with incomes of over $200,000.

to put this into perspective, then only 7% of the tax returns report income exceeding this level. now, compare this to taxpayers with incomes under $200,000, which is about 93% of all taxpayers. according to the joint committee on taxation, this group would receive a measly 6% of the benefits from repealing the cap on state tax deductions, as the democrats are proposing. only a handful of taxpayers with incomes under $200,000 -- or about 3% -- would actually see any benefit. 97% of the taxes -- 97% of these

taxpayers would see even one penny of benefit from taking away the salt cap. so, very simply, there you have it. the same democrats who have criticized the 2017 tax bill as supposedly benefiting only the wealthy -- can you believe it? -- are now actively pushing an agenda that would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. this goes to show how off-base democrat criticism of tax reform really is, as we've heard it over the last two years. far from being a giveaway to the wealthy, tax reform passed in 2017 was a concerted effort to provide tax relief for everybody. republicans accomplished this tax cut for everybody primarily

by lowering tax rates across the board. but we also did it by repealing or limiting certain regressive tax benefits, such as the deduction for state and local taxes, the salt provisions we're talking about. we then used that revenue to increase benefits to better target low- to middle-income taxpayers. for example, we doubled the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000, and increased the refundability of that tax credit. we also nearly doubled the standard deduction to the benefit of many lower- and middle-income taxpayers. we likely couldn't have made these changes if we hadn't limited the deduction for state taxes that mostly benefited the wealthy. democrats who wrongly associate

this salt cap with a tax increase on middle-income folks simply aren't looking at the facts or at tax reform as a whole. two years ago republicans created a tax cut for an overwhelming majority of americans. this is true even for taxpayers affected by the deduction for state taxes. before tax reform, many upper middle-income taxpayers -- particularly those in the high-tax blue states -- had to pay the alternative minimum tax. we refer to that as the a.m.t. well, for anyone who used to pay the a.m.t., after you struggled through the incredible complexity of the a.m.t. rules, you realized an unfortunate fact: the a.m.t. clawed back the deductions for your state tax

payments. therefore, many of these taxpayers saw little or no benefit from this deduction before tax reform. now, democrats don't like to admit this inconvenient truth, but it's true. they don't seem to let facts interfere with their political rhetoric. so, yes, these same taxpayers are likely now affected by the salt cap. but because republicans largely did away with the a.m.t., at the same time lowering everybody's tax rate, they still received a tax cut. and let's not forget, these taxpayers no longer have to deal with the mind-numbing complexity of the a.m.t. now, question -- do democrats really want middle-income

families to have to go back to the nonsense of figuring out the alternative minimum tax every year? i've heard democrats claim it was part of some nefarious plot against blue states. that's simply not true. yes, more taxpayers in blue states are affected by the cap, given the high state taxes that those states impose on their residents. but the fact is, on average, every income group in every state saw a tax cut under the 2017 tax cut bill. this isn't just coming from this senator, chuck grassley, but an analysis by the liberal institute on taxation and economic policy. in addition, recent filing season data released by h&r

block shows, on average, residents of even high-tax states received a tax cut. we've also heard fears that the cap will negatively affect blue-state revenues as higher-income taxpayers flee to lower-tax jurisdictions. but concerns about such an exodus aren't new and didn't start because of the cap. they started because of sky-high taxes in those very same states. in november of 2017 prior to the enactment of this tax cut and reform bill, "the wall street journal" wrote about, quote, the great progressive tax escape, end of quote. this article focused on i.r.s. tax return data between 2012 and

2015 that showed billions of dollars in taxable income leaving high-tax states for low-tax states due to taxpayer migration. the last time i checked, there was no salt cap between 2012 and 2015. while there is some anecdotal evidence that taxpayer migration might be starting to increase due to the cap, it's not entirely clear at this point. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record a bloomberg article from may of this year entitled "blue states warned of salt apocalypse , it hasn't happened." that's the name of the article.