Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as my colleague from Pennsylvania has pointed out, the recently passed tax bill is already having a profound impact on the economy, and, as the Congressional Budget Office report points out, over the course of the next decade, it will significantly increase economic growth in the economy and increase the number of jobs. It said that over 1 million jobs would be created as a result of the passage of the tax bill.
To his point, as well, they talk about deficits and debt projected out into the future, which clearly are major issues but, again, I would point out, are a result of the rate of growth in spending and not of the impact of the revenues generated by lowering taxes because when you get greater growth in the economy, it means that more people are taking realizations and more people are paying taxes. The Congressional Budget Office, as a rule of thumb, suggests that for each percentage--a 1- percent increase in growth of the economy--you get about $3 trillion in additional revenue over the course of a decade.
If we assume, and I believe we will--even the CBO, which I think is very conservative in terms of growth estimates, suggests that there is higher growth attributable largely to the changes we made in the Tax Code, reducing taxes on families in this country and reducing taxes on our small businesses, which incentivize them to expand and grow their operations and, therefore, create better paying jobs and higher wages, but also will generate more revenue coming in to the Federal coffers.
Clearly, the issue that we have in terms of the debt picture in the long term is not about revenue; it is about spending, which is growing dramatically over that next decade, particularly in what we refer to as mandatory spending or entitlement programs. This cries out, I would argue, for reforms in entitlement programs. But to say that somehow tax reform is contributing to that is a far cry from the truth, and I think the Congressional Budget Office numbers bear that out. Again, I would argue that in terms of what they suggest we are going to see in growth as a result of the changes we made in the Tax Code, I believe it is going to be dramatically understated.
When it came time to draft tax reform, Republicans really had two goals in mind. First, we wanted to put more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans, and we wanted to do that right away. Second, we wanted to create the kind of economy that would give Americans access to economic security for the long term.
Less than 4 months after we passed this bill, I am proud to report that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has already achieved the first goal and is well on its way to achieving the second.
To put more money in Americans' pockets, we lowered tax rates across the board for American families, nearly doubled the standard deduction, and increased the child tax credit to $2,000, doubling the amount that families can deduct per child in terms of the child tax credit.
In February, that relief started to show up in Americans' paychecks. According to Treasury Department estimates, 90 percent of the American people are seeing bigger paychecks this year, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And thanks to the IRS's new withholding calculator, families with children can adjust their withholding to take into account the individual tax relief provided in the new tax law, in particular, the increased child tax credit. That means even more in the paychecks of hard-working Americans without their having to wait until they file their 2018 tax returns next year.
When it came to our second goal, we knew that the only way to give Americans access to real long-term economic security was to ensure they had access to good jobs, good wages, and real opportunities. We knew that the only way to guarantee access to good jobs, wages, and opportunities was to make sure businesses had the ability to create them.
Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, our Tax Code wasn't helping businesses to create jobs or to increase opportunities for workers. In fact, it was doing the exact opposite. Large and small businesses were weighed down by high tax rates and growth-killing tax provisions, and all the regulatory and compliance burdens that came along with them.
Our outdated international tax rules left America's global businesses at a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. That had real consequences for American workers. A small business owner struggling to afford the annual tax bill for their business was highly unlikely to be able to hire a new worker or to raise wages. A larger business struggling to stay competitive in the global marketplace while paying substantially higher tax rates than its foreign competitors too often had limited funds to expand or increase its investment here in the United States.
When it came time for tax reform, we set out to improve the playing field for American workers by improving the playing field for businesses as well. To accomplish that, we lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We lowered our Nation's massive corporate tax rate, which until January 1, was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. We expanded business owners' ability to recover investments they make in their businesses, which will free up cash that they can reinvest in 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 investments in the U.S. economy, hire new workers, and increase wages and benefits. I am happy to report that this is exactly what they are doing. Since tax reform became the law of the land, we have seen a steady drumbeat of businesses announcing good news for American workers. So far, more than 500 companies, and counting, have announced pay raises, bonuses, 401(k) match increases and other benefits, business expansions, and utility rate cuts: Starbucks, McDonald's, Jergens, McCormac & Company, Apple, Best Buy, Walmart, Bank of America, ExxonMobil, Hormel Foods, UPS, and American Express. And the list goes on and on.
I don't need to tell anyone that Americans had a tough time during the last administration or that our economy had stagnated. But under Republican leadership, we are finally starting to see the economy turn around, and tax reform is playing a very big part. Unfortunately, Democrats seem unable to accept the fact that tax reform is benefiting middle-class Americans. In fact, Democrats recently introduced an infrastructure plan that they want to pay for by repealing features of the tax law that are producing so many new benefits for American workers.
Republicans wanted Democrats to join us in the process of drafting tax reform. After all, a lot of the provisions in the final bill were the result of years of work by Republicans and Democrats. I was a part of that process. We had working groups that spent a good amount of time looking at every element and feature of the Tax Code--bipartisan groups of Republicans and Democrats, working together, making recommendations about things that we could do to reform our Tax Code in a way that would incentivize greater growth and expansion and better jobs and higher wages.
Democrats had previously expressed their support for things that became key parts of the bill, like lowering our Nation's massive corporate tax rate. Unfortunately, instead of working with us, Democrats chose to play politics. Apparently, it was more important to them to attempt to score political points against Republicans than to work on a bill that they knew had the potential to help the American people. Almost 4 months after the bill's passage, they are still playing politics, despite the fact that in the face of the bill's success, their attempts to criticize it are sounding pretty desperate.
Take their attempt to portray the bill's benefits for workers as ``crumbs.'' Let me tell you that a worker whose salary just increased by $3 an hour does not see that additional $500 a month as crumbs, especially when you combine it with the rest of the tax relief in the new tax law. A worker who gets an increased match in her 401(k) account will see her retirement savings increase significantly as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and she will not see that benefit as crumbs.
It is too bad that Democrats can't accept the fact that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is working. At the very least, they should stop trying to undo the benefits that it is bringing to the American people. Over 500 companies across this country have announced increases in wages, increases in benefits, and bonuses--direct benefits to American workers, to the tune of over 5 million Americans who already have benefitted from this. That is the short-term impact that we have seen already.
The American people spent long enough in a stagnant economy. It is time to get this economy jump-started and to see those wages and those good-paying jobs come back into this economy so that American families can benefit, can experience, and can enjoy a better standard of living, a higher quality of life, an opportunity to do more for their children, to help them with their college education, to set aside a little bit for retirement, and to take care of those day-to-day bills.
Fifty percent of the American people, according to polls, say they are living paycheck to paycheck. One thing we can do to help them is to make that paycheck bigger and, hopefully, to put them in a position where they can put aside a little bit for retirement and where, maybe, they can help save up for their kids' college education, and maybe take a vacation with the family.
There are so many ways in which the benefits of this bill are delivered to the American people and to American families and can help them in their daily lives. We shouldn't try and go back. We ought to try to go forward and recognize that the near-term benefits of this bill are very real to American workers. The long-term benefits are going to be, I think, even more beneficial to American workers, to American businesses, and to American families because not only now will they benefit from the lower tax rates that are delivered to the entire tax table, but they are also benefiting from the doubling of the standard deduction, the doubling of the child tax credit, and all the other benefits that are included in this bill. American businesses, small and large, are also seeing those benefits on a daily basis, so much so that they have already made these commitments to over 5 million Americans. That is 500 companies that are paying out bonuses, higher pay, and bigger benefits for their workers. That is only going to increase over time as this economy starts to take off because they now have an incentive to expand and grow their operations through reduced rates, when it comes both to large and small businesses, through the ability to recover their costs more quickly and to free up that capital with which they can invest in and expand and grow this economy and create those better paying jobs.
This is a win-win for the American people. It is a win-win for our country. I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will quit referring to it as ``crumbs'' because I know the American people don't see it that way.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source