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Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, if I started the workday with the opportunity to help 16 million kids from low-income families, make America more competitive with China, build affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of Americans, and pay for it all by cracking down on fraud, I would call that a hell of a good day at the office.
Tomorrow, we are going to find out if Senate Republicans agree. The vote on the tax bill tomorrow has been more than 6 months in the making. In fact, I have been working on this in a completely bipartisan way for 2 full years. The only reason this didn't get done a long time ago is delay on the part of the Senate Republicans.
So no more delay. It is time to vote. Everybody is going to see where each Senator stands.
Over the next 45 minutes or so, I am going to have a number of my colleagues talk about why this bill is so important. So I am going to start with just a few key points. For starters, the bill was designed with balance in mind. For every dollar in tax cuts for business, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper of these matters, has told us that an equal amount goes to children and families as goes to business.
Our focus on families is on those that are walking an economic tightrope. And 16 million kids are going to benefit from the bill, half a million lifted out of poverty--a huge accomplishment. And it is especially important for the families with modest incomes; families with two, three, or four kids.
Under the current rules, they get discriminated against because those big families get only a single child tax credit regardless of how many kids they have. Think about that. Federal law tells these struggling families that if you have got a large family, well, try to figure out how to get by splitting a single child tax credit, and figure out how three or four kids can split a pair of shoes. Three or four kids can't do that. They can't split a single meal. This economic discrimination against large families in America ought to end.
There has been a lot of talk about who is really looking out for the families. My view is, that is going to become clear when the Senate votes tomorrow. We will see who is actually on the side of the families that need a boost, families who are facing the kind of economic discrimination that I just outlined.
I know that my colleagues on this side want to make sure that families can get the assistance they need, and we want to end the discrimination against large families.
There is so much in this bill that ought to bring the two sides together. That is certainly what happened in the House, with 357 votes. For example, the bill builds 200,000 new affordable housing units. The lack of affordable housing is a nationwide crisis. It is not just blue States and cities; it is everywhere.
On housing, you can call me a supply-sider. We have to build and build and build 200,000 new units. And in a minute or two we will hear from my colleague in Washington State, who has singlehandedly led the effort to meet housing needs in America.
The bill invests in research and development so we can outcompete China. Changes Republicans made to the Tax Code back in 2017 slashed the value of the tax incentives for research and development. It is worth only 20 percent of what it used to be.
Republicans have said in 2018, in 2019, in 2020, in 2021, in 2022, in 2023, and in 2024 that they would fix the research and development tax credit mess that they singlehandedly created. Tomorrow is going to be their chance.
According to the Treasury Department, 4 million small businesses would benefit from this bill. Picture that, Mr. President: 4 million small businesses, startups, ones that depend so much on research and development to compete with China. Many of them are in fields that compete directly with China and other countries.
They want to know why in the world would Congress put this off until 2025. A lot of them say: Ron, we are not going to be around in 2025 if you all don't act.
The bill also provides help to families and businesses hit by mega storms and mega wildfires. This is so important to the people in my State. I have told them at townhall meetings--I have had almost 1,100 of them, Mr. President--that we are going to get this done because, in Oregon and virtually everywhere in our country, so many of our communities have been devastated.
As I touched on, 357 votes in the House doesn't happen by osmosis. By and large, on a normal day, you can't get 357 House Members to agree to order a piece of apple pie, but that is the kind of support this tax bill had. Left-leaning groups like it; right-leaning groups like it; family organizations like it; faith-based organizations like it; pro- life groups, pro-choice groups--across the political spectrum.
And in the next day or so we are going to see if the Republicans, who talk so much about these issues--help for small business, help for families, building housing, preventing fraud--my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about it constantly. Now we are going to find out if anybody wants to actually follow through on the rhetoric. I know we do.
We believe, with the Senate voting now, we have got a chance--as I touched on at the beginning--to have a real day at the office, a day when you help the kids, when you help the families and the small businesses and the people who need housing and people who have been devastated by disasters.
Get all that done tomorrow, Mr. President, and that is one hell of a day at the office.
I yield my time now to my colleague from Washington State, our leader on housing issues and many others.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for her good work.
Senator Casey and Senator Brown have been two champions of the child tax credit. Let's start with Senator Casey.
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Mr. WYDEN. Senator Casey, one of the things that I most appreciate about the Senator's services, when we bring up a bill, you invariably say: What does it mean for the kids who are hurting? We thank you for it.
Senator Brown.
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves, I just want to say one of the most powerful things Senator Brown often says on the Finance Committee is: Whose side are you on? And Senator Brown always is on the side of communities where everybody has a chance to get ahead--not just the people at the top, the small businesses and the kids and the working families. And we so appreciate that leadership.
Next is Senator Whitehouse, and not only is he a valued Member of the Finance Committee, but he uses the Budget Committee to focus on these kind of priorities, and we appreciate that.
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Mr. WYDEN. Senator Whitehouse, thank you very much for your comments, particularly if you are talking about the immediacy of what is in this bill. I have had small businesses come to me--I am sure Senator Hassan has, too--and they say, look, if this is put off until 2025, you guys might have your debate then, I won't even be around to see it because I won't field any payroll and I won't have that R&D money.
Senator Bennet has been in this fight since day one, has really dedicated his public service to kids.
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Mr. WYDEN. Apple pie.
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Mr. WYDEN. Senator Bennet, you have been leading on these issues for a long time, and I want to take special note of a message for tomorrow. We have all been reading the press and the discussion about what is going on, sometimes thousands of miles from here, and there is a debate about who is for kids. I want everybody to remember what Senator Bennet said: Tomorrow, every single Senator can be for the kids. That is going to be our message for tomorrow.
And by the way, our next speaker, our colleague from New Hampshire really shows her support for that proposition because she has been a champ on small business issues, and as we went into these debates, she pointed out, folks, we better be for the kids because kids who have an opportunity can be better workers down the road, and at every step of the way, she championed both kids and small businesses.
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, what we have heard from our friend from New Hampshire is: It is time for results, not just rhetoric.
Our last speaker will be Senator Padilla, our friend from the West.
Senator Padilla.
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I thank my colleague. And Senator Cornyn said I could take a second to add on.
I think my colleague from California has made a central point. In the West, in particular, we want to make sure that those who have been clobbered by these fires don't get clobbered again by an outdated tax code. So I am strongly in support of Senator Padilla's work.
We have an opportunity to get it on the books tomorrow, if it passes. Tomorrow, it goes to the President and gets signed into law.
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