Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, tax reform is working. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has been the law of the land for just 2 months, but it is already helping American workers.

When it came time to draft tax reform legislation, we had one objective, and that was to make hard-working Americans' lives better. To accomplish that, we focused on two important priorities.

First, we focused on immediately increasing Americans' take-home pay. We lowered tax rates across the board, we nearly doubled the standard deduction, and we doubled the child tax credit. All of those provisions went into effect on January 1, and by the end of this month, according to the IRS, 90 percent of the American people should see lower paychecks.

While immediate relief for hard-working Americans was crucial, we wanted more than that. We wanted to give the American people access to the kinds of jobs and the kinds of wages and opportunities that would set them up for long-term security. We wanted to give them the kinds of jobs and wages where they wouldn't be forced to choose between sending their kids to college and saving for a secure retirement or between paying the mortgage or medical bills. So in addition to lowering the tax burden on Americans directly, we set about improving the playing field for American businesses so that we could make things better for American workers.

Needless to say, in order for American workers to thrive, the American economy has to thrive, and that means that American businesses have to thrive. It is pretty hard for a small business to hire a new worker or to raise wages if the owner can barely pay the tax bill. It is unlikely that an American company is going to have a lot of spare cash for investing in its workforce if it is struggling to compete with foreign companies that are paying far less in taxes. It is unlikely that America's global companies are going to focus on reinvesting in the United States if they face a tax penalty for bringing foreign earnings back home. So we lowered our Nation's massive corporate tax rate, which, up until January 1, was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. We lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small- and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We expanded business owners' ability to recover investments they make in their businesses, which will free up cash that they can reinvest into their operations and their workers. We brought the U.S. international tax system into the 21st century by replacing our outdated worldwide system with a modernized territorial tax system so that American businesses are not operating at a disadvantage next to their foreign competitors.

The goal in all of this was to free up businesses to increase their investments in the American economy and in American workers, and that is exactly what businesses are doing. The list of tax reform good news keeps growing--wage increases, new jobs, increased investment, bonuses, benefit increases, and the list goes on and on.

Take utility bills. Lower utility bills might not be the first result we think of from tax reform, but tax reform is saving utility companies money, and they are passing those savings on to consumers.

Washington, DC, radio station WTOP reports:

In a flip-flop related to tax reform, [utility company] Pepco now says it wants to cut rates instead of raise them.

In December and January, the utility announced plans to raise rates in D.C. and Maryland respectively. . . . But the sweeping Federal tax bill signed into law late last year meant a significant tax savings for the utility. As a result, Pepco is now asking the Maryland Public Service Commission to approve a rate cut.

That is right--they were talking about a rate increase, but now they are talking about a rate cut in their utility rates.

Take this story from the Daily Energy Insider titled ``Federal Tax Cut More Than Reverses Eversource Rate Increase in Massachusetts.''

The Daily Energy Insider:

Many Eversource Energy electricity customers in Massachusetts who were expecting to see a rate increase this year instead will see a rate reduction because of the recent Federal corporate tax cut.

``What was expected to be about a $36 million annual rate increase has turned into a $20 million annual decrease,'' said the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.

In my home State of South Dakota, Black Hills Energy in Rapid City is working with regulators to pass tax savings on to South Dakotans. So far, utility companies in at least 39 States are passing tax savings on to consumers, and that can be a real help to family budgets. Everybody knows how much gets spent out of every family's budget on utilities, on energy, and certainly in my part of the country in South Dakota, with the cold winters, that is even amplified. It can be a real help to family budgets, particularly families who are living paycheck to paycheck.

In Florida, Florida Power and Light Company announced that thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it will no longer require its customers to pay a surcharge for Hurricane Irma restoration. Instead, the company reports:

Florida Power and Light plans to apply federal tax savings toward the $1.3 billion cost of Hurricane Irma restoration, which will save each of Florida Power and Light's 4.9 million customers an average of approximately $250.

Thanks to tax reform, good news for American workers seems to just pour in daily, whether it is lower utility bills, new jobs, bonuses, or, as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina announced last week, lower rate increases on health insurance.

I am proud that tax reform is accomplishing our goal of making life better for hard-working Americans, and I look forward to seeing even more benefits for American workers in the weeks and months to come.

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