Supporting the Big, Beautiful Bill
Floor Speech
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the floor this evening and to give that opportunity to some of my colleagues also, if their schedule permits.
We don't get enough opportunities to speak to the American people, and I don't get enough chances to speak to my constituents back home, particularly from the House floor. I think it is a unique opportunity that I will get to address a few things this evening.
I want to take a minute just to walk through, big picture, what we are accomplishing with this reconciliation bill titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and walk through some of the provisions.
I actually tried my hardest back in my district to let facts rule the day and not be governed and manipulated by a lot of rhetoric about this particular type of work.
I am going to take you back, Mr. Speaker, to my first election when I first decided to run for Congress. It was the end of January 2020. We had never heard of the term ``COVID'' before. We had seen a tax reform bill take place at the end of 2017 that people couldn't really wrap their heads around.
I was working for a consulting firm, and I remember talking to some of the partners at the firm. I was a principal at the time--actually, I was probably an engagement manager at the time.
I remember them saying: We are going to see a significant tax decrease. If this bill goes through, we are going to have a substantial amount of extra discretionary money. What are we going to do with it? This is going to be significant.
More so, many of our clients that we served were going to all of a sudden see some discretionary income that they would now be able to use and had to figure out what they were going to do.
This wasn't a client of ours, but in the aftermath of that bill, this is what I understand took place. When they had a corporate tax rate decrease, they have shown me their books, and the areas that they prioritized were to increase wages for their frontline workers. They said every single person at the firm got a pay increase. They grew real wage growth without massive inflation that takes place sometimes under a reconciliation bill.
I will point to the American Rescue Plan that took place when Democrats took control of the White House, House, and Senate. We saw the worst inflation we have seen in my lifetime under the guise of a COVID relief package.
That company, which had some tax pressure removed from their books, went straight to their employees. They created wage growth opportunities. The other thing was that they had extra discretionary income to take to their immediate community in which they worked and bought ambulances for the emergency response in the community.
This is the type of stuff that happened across the country post-2017 when you saw a significant economic boon in the U.S.
Years prior to 2017, you saw a lot of companies decide there were favorable tax rates elsewhere. Oftentimes, in countries in Europe-- there was a tax provision that was done in 2017 that is called FDII, an intangible income piece.
You can establish intellectual property overseas at a lower tax rate than what we were doing here in the U.S. We decided to make our rates in the U.S. competitive. That provision alone immediately stopped the term ``corporate inversion,'' where U.S. companies were taking their revenue to other countries. Instead, they decided that they have a more favorable rate here, so they will bring it back. Most multinational companies, most U.S.-based companies, a lot of times foreign companies, want to be based here.
All we did with that rate was to say that we are going to make that rate competitive. With that, they repatriated their money back to the U.S.
When I talk to townhall participants, regular constituent meetings, I highlight that when you make taxes competitive, you get companies to reinvest back in the United States, and we then can grow our revenue.
Companies have told us since 2017, even though they got more favorable, more fair, and competitive tax rates, they actually spend more money on their tax revenues to the U.S. Government.
The whole concept behind Republican tax policy is to make taxes competitive against the OECD, against our allies or our adversaries, to make sure we repatriate and keep that money in the U.S. and grow our revenues. That is why, even with tax cuts, we don't see a dip in what we have gained from revenue.
We can argue all day long, and you can even draw the graph: Should we be spending a higher percentage of our GDP? Should we be collecting a higher percentage of our GDP in tax revenues?
Twenty-five years ago, approximately 17 percent of GDP was what we collected in tax revenues, and at that same time, 17 percent of GDP was spending. In those 25 years, our spending has gone from 17 percent of GDP to approximately 26 percent of GDP. That is what our spending has done.
Our revenue has actually stayed at approximately 17 percent through Republican and Democratic administrations. That means our revenue has continued to grow, but it actually stays consistent as a percentage of our entire GDP. Our spending has grown, up to 26 percent.
That is why you see in a Republican reconciliation bill like we passed a couple of weeks ago that a significant portion of that bill is spending cuts, offsets to spending, and revenue increases. Yes, there are actually tax increases in a Republican bill, but overall, we are creating a very competitive tax rate that exists.
Companies from 2017 on have reinvested in the U.S. and, at the same time, have reinvested in their communities, reinvested in their employees, and have grown their presence. Most of that is set to expire at the end of this year. If we don't get a tax bill done, then you are just going to see a significant tax increase across everything.
Mr. Speaker, I will also talk briefly about some of the individual provisions because it is important to talk about the small business corporation, S corps, LLCs, all the various different types of businesses that we run here in the U.S., they all get a competitive tax rate, keeping them wanting to invest here in America and reinvesting in their business. If they can reinvest in their business, they can actually grow overall tax receipts because of the concept of economic growth.
Mr. Speaker, on the individual side, this is something that my Democrat colleagues oftentimes overlook. They oftentimes talk about, oh, this is just some tax giveaway to the billionaires. I have never seen anybody actually pinpoint and show me where this is targeted toward giving the billionaires some type of tax relief.
Probably the largest portion of this tax reconciliation bill is what is called the standard deduction. The standard deduction is taken advantage of by over 90 percent of Americans. This is what simplifies our tax code. When you show up to do your taxes for that year, you are automatically given a dollar figure that you can deduct from your taxable income.
In 2017, that number was doubled. We said to middle-income filers, lower-income filers that we want to give you a significant deduction and we are going to double that standard deduction. It hasn't been done for a while. We need to increase this to a really healthy amount. That simply means that individual and married filing jointly can look at their tax bill and say, we are going to offset our taxable income by $30,000. In a lot of cases that is a significant benefit to them because that helps lower their overall tax liability and puts money directly back in their pocket.
Guess what? It doesn't help the wealthy. The wealthy itemize their taxes. They will probably have more mortgage interest to write off than they will that $30,000 standard deduction, if you will. Then all of a sudden, we see that that makes sense. We can see how the standard deduction actually affects middle- and lower-income Americans.
Okay. Why in the world do my Democrat colleagues keep repeating this constant--I think it might have just been something they saw in some polling that said: It works well if you say this is just tax cuts for the wealthy.
Let's look at the child tax credit. If you have a child under the age of 17--prior to 2017, it was $1,000 that you were able to deduct from your taxable income. Republicans in 2017 doubled it and they set that amount for 8 years. That is what expires at the end of this year.
If Republicans don't act, that number goes back to $1,000. Anybody that votes against this bill is saying: I am okay with that number going back to $1,000. We actually, in this bill, repeat that $2,000 amount per child, but we did something unique. We are going to index it to inflation. It is something we should always be thinking about doing in any type of tax policy. We are indexing it to inflation. We actually added an enhancement to it, so you are able to, for the next 4 years, take a $2,500 deduction. If you are building a family, if you have young kids, this is a big expense. We are giving that tax relief to families so we can continue to grow our next generation.
The unique part is, in 4 years or so when that extra $500 enhancement is up for renewal, we will have already grown the $2,000 to be at approximately that level. What we are doing is, we are really doing right by individuals that are doing the right thing by investing in our future and raising kids.
Those two things are the biggest items of this entire bill. Then to go and say it is just some tax giveaway to the wealthy, it just flies in the face of reality. It might poll well, I guess, but it is disheartening to see something that I actually believe most, if not all, Members of Congress believe in a simplified, higher standard deduction, increased child tax credit, which covers the vast majority of the cost of this bill.
Then you get to things that actually help individuals that we are doing with our research and development, helping small businesses be able to grow and have that discretionary income.
There is just so much here, and I would love to be able to, in long form, talk a little bit about the specifics because too often these become one-liners or a tweet here or there that says this or that. We are being as responsible as you possibly can be by making this bill deficit neutral.
We will see growth in our economy because of it. We will see historic decreases in our overall expenditure and spending, and at the same time have policies that will drive economic growth.
I thank him for his dedication and time investing in me as a member of his committee, to help bring me up in the ways of doing the right thing for the right cause in all these things related to tax, spending, and such.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the Permian Basin.
Just to quickly recap, I love the concept that he juxtaposes to opportunities.
It is interesting that in our political environment, from 2017 to 2021 and 2025, we have seen the White House, House, and Senate flip completely three times. I think that is a little bit unprecedented. We mentioned there were times with Reagan where there was a sustained period of Democratic control of Congress but there were Republicans in the White House and vice versa.
To flip the White House, House, and Senate three times in the last 8 years is unprecedented. It gives us a unique opportunity, though.
Look at TCJA and ARPA. Look at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and then go look at the American Rescue Plan Act. Created wage growth, no inflation. Those are consistent things that took place from TCJA when tax reform took place with Republicans.
The American Rescue Plan was stimulus spending masquerading as COVID relief spending. It was massive amounts of monetary policy added to the system. There is only one equation, and that is inflation.
Look at the difference between an inflationist and real wage growth. Those are the two things we have to compare.
This bill basically takes 2017 and says we have seen this work. Democrats looked at the tax policy in 2017, when they had the White House, House, and Senate. They said: We like the standard deduction. We like the increased child tax credit. We like the approach to getting U.S. companies to reinvest in America. We are not going to touch it.
They had an opportunity to change all the things that they say are so bad in this bill. They didn't touch any of the core tax policies from 2017 to today. They expire at the end of this year.
Republicans are going to go at it alone. We are going to make sure we extend this out. We are going to give companies and families some consistency. All we have to do is juxtapose those two bills--the TCJA and the American Rescue Plan--and make the decision based on that. That is as simple as it needs to be.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington) likes to say a lot of things. He talks a lot. He is very verbose. When he mentions my leadership, I very much appreciate the sentiment. I have been watching and following him. He is my committee chair and has an extremely strong leadership in the conference.
I express my appreciation and downplay the fact that he is just blowing smoke there sometimes when he says it about me.
I would like to get to some real substantive remarks now with my colleague.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Dakota for her remarks.
I appreciate my colleagues for participating this evening. This is something historic, and it is something monumental.
As I was talking about at the beginning of my remarks, when I first ran for Congress in January 2020, the entire conversation of every single candidate was: How do we go about extending and making permanent the tax reform that just took place in our country a few years prior and the juice that it created for our economy and the growth that it had that was raising the tide of all income levels?
That was the concept, and 4\1/2\ years later, I am sitting here on the committee particularly regarding the tax policy to be able to bring it up.
This is a unique and really special time. We are already engaging with the Senate to make sure this can adhere to and go through the Byrd rule, all the specifics of making this a reality.
This is an exciting moment. It will be monumental, and it will do so much good.
I have always said, as I have been involved in congressional policymaking, that we live in 2-year increments, but every CEO across the country has to live in 15-year increments. They have to see what is around the corner, and we are constantly putting people at an impasse because we just keep dealing with 2-year increments of what their policies are going to be.
We have to signal what the future holds with respect to tax policy, and there is nothing that would do more for sustained economic growth than this bill.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the time this evening and for my colleagues being here to share the message.
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