Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are kicking off the week today with a vote on a former colleague of ours, David Perdue, to be Ambassador to China. We will be working through several other Ambassador nominations this week, including our Ambassador to our close friend and ally Great Britain.

I don't need to tell anybody that it is important to have these individuals in place. We are going to continue to confirm the President's Ambassadors as expeditiously as possible.

We are also going to continue to focus on filling out the rest of the President's administration. The President needs to have his team in place so that he can do the job he was elected to do. I intend to make sure that happens as quickly as possible.

We have already set a brisk pace on nominations, confirming more than 50 to date. We are going to have a lot more nominees coming out of committee. I want to make it very clear that we are going to process those nominees in a timely fashion. As I have said before, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But one way or another, we are going to get it done. The President needs to have his team in place, and we have a lot of other work to do.

Speaking of some of that other work, before Easter, the House and the Senate took a major step forward on a permanent extension of tax relief for American families by passing a budget resolution that will allow us to proceed to a final bill. We have been working toward the text of this final bill for months, and drafting has only accelerated since passage of the budget resolution. I am looking forward to the House and the Senate taking up the final legislation.

Mr. President, there is a lot on the line here. The tax relief the Republicans passed in 2017, which puts more money in Americans' pockets, is set to expire at the end of this year. Without congressional action, in 2026, tax rates will increase, the child tax credit will be cut in half, and the standard deduction will be nearly halved. Americans making less than $400,000 a year would see a $2.6 trillion tax hike, and a typical family of four making $80,000 would be sending an additional $1,700 to Uncle Sam. Republicans do not intend to let that happen. Our final bill will not only extend the 2017 tax relief for hard-working Americans, it will make it permanent.

In addition to permanent tax relief, our final legislation will invest in our border, energy, and national security. All three have suffered in recent years under the Biden administration, and Republicans are committed to securing our border, unleashing America's abundant energy resources, and ensuring that our military has the resources it needs to deter and defeat any threat.

Finally, our legislation will also include substantial savings measures as we take a hard look at how we spend taxpayer dollars and work to get our country on a more sustainable fiscal path.

Work on drafting this legislation continues. As we consider nominations, measures to repeal burdensome Biden administration regulations, and other legislation on the floor, off the floor, we are getting ever closer to a final bill. It is going to be great.

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