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Floor Speech

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Ms. HASSAN. Thank you very much, Chairman Wyden.

Madam President, I rise to join my colleagues in urging Members from both parties to come together and pass the bipartisan Wyden-Smith package to lower taxes for working families and for small businesses.

And I want to add my thanks to my colleague from Colorado for his remarks because this really is about making sure that our families and small businesses can get ahead and stay ahead.

As you know, earlier this year, Members from both parties in the House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan package to cut taxes. Like any legislative compromise, it may not have included everything that people wanted, but it included commonsense provisions that a majority of Americans agree on. And as my colleague from Colorado and the chairman have just said, it has provisions that not only the majority of Americans agree on, but a significant, really large, outsized majority of the U.S. House of Representatives agreed on.

This bipartisan package to cut taxes includes provisions that would help keep our economy on the cutting edge by fully restoring critical research and development--R&D--deductions. This provision would give American creators and entrepreneurs the resources that they need to outcompete countries like China and help ensure that our country and our economy is second to none. I have been working on a bipartisan basis to pass this provision and have heard from small businesses in New Hampshire about the really tough financial decisions that they are making now that the full R&D deduction has expired.

Not only would this tax cut package help us build a more innovative economy, it also helps make our economy work better for everyone through a bipartisan expansion of the child tax credit. We know that families are still struggling with the burdens of high costs. Expanding the child tax credit is a commonsense, practical way to put more money back into the pockets of hard-working families.

And this child tax credit provision would have helped families who have the most children, the families who, because of their higher number of children, have the most costs. There is a reason that a majority of Americans support these proposals. It is because they are good ideas that will make a difference in people's lives.

But despite what our constituents are telling us in support of this legislation, despite the good-faith bipartisan discussions that we have had, and despite the fact that the House was able to come together to overwhelmingly pass this bill, we still don't have an agreement on how to advance the bipartisan tax cut package this week. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have seemingly allowed partisan politics to interfere with good-faith efforts to find a path forward.

Despite this setback, I am going to continue to work across party lines to pass the provisions of this bipartisan tax cut package. And I urge my colleagues to reconsider and come together to pass this legislation when it comes to a vote tomorrow.

I understand that for some of my colleagues, this bipartisan tax cut package doesn't have everything that they might want, but we would be ill-advised to miss this window.

We have the opportunity to lower taxes for the American people now. Hard-working families struggling to keep up with high costs, they aren't asking to expand the child tax credit a couple of years down the line. They want tax cuts so that they can keep more money in their pockets now.

If we are serious about outcompeting China, we can't afford to simply hope that we pass legislation restoring the R&D tax credit in the future. No, we need to give American innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs the support that they need now. For many small businesses, even waiting another year will be too late, because, ultimately, the American people aren't asking for perfect legislation, nor do they care if an idea is red or blue. They care about results, and they don't want politics to get in the way of a good idea.

So I urge my colleagues to come together and support this bipartisan tax cut package that will strengthen our economy, support our entrepreneurs, deliver for American families, and demonstrate that we can accomplish great things when we work together.

Thank you, Madam President.

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