The ndaa, the democratic side is committed to working with the republican side in good faith to finish this very important legislation. Im pleased the managers have been able already to include more than 100 amendments in the substitute. I hope we can do another package today. Senator mccain and reed are managing this bill with their usual great skill. I very much appreciate their hard work. I particularly know how important this legislation is to senator mccain. He wants to see it through, see it through as soon as possible. Now, and were going to help in that regard, of course. Now, mr. President , last night leader pelosi and i had a constructive meeting with President Trump and several members of his cabinet. One of our most productive discussions was about the daca program in which we all agreed on a framework. Pass daca protections and Additional Border security measures, excluding the wall. We agreed that the president would support enshrining the daca protections into law. In fact, something he stated for a while needed to be done, and encourage and the president would also encourage the house and senate to act. What remains to be negotiated with the details of Border Security with a mutual goal of finalizing all the details as soon as possible. While both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the president made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear that we would continue to oppose it. The president and if you listened to the president s comments this morning, director mulvaneys comments this morning, it is clear that what leader pelosi and i put out last night was exactly accurate, confirmed again this morning by our statement, by the president s statement before he got on the helicopter to go to florida and director mulvaneys comments. We have reached an understanding on this issue. We have to work out details. We can Work Together on a Border Security package with the white house and get daca on the floor quickly. Let me talk for a minute about Border Security. We democrats are for Border Security. We passed a robust Border Security package as part of Immigration Reform in 2013, as you, mr. President , know better than anybody else. Were not for the wall. Well never be for the wall. Its expensive, its ineffective, it involves a lot of difficult eminent domain, taking peoples property, and, apparently, its not being paid for by mexico. In fact, i listened to fox news this morning im starting to do that to see whats going on over there and they keep saying the president promised a wall in the campaign. Yeah, he also promised that mexico would pay for it. Wheres mexico . They have said 12 times theyre not paying for it. Thats not the promise he made. And finally on the wall, it sends a terrible symbol to the world about the u. S. , about who we are, what kind of country we are. For decades, since the 1880s, a beautiful statue in the harbor in the city in which i live has been the symbol of the world to america, that great torch symbolizes what a noble land we are. Can you imagine if in future decades that symbol was replaced by a big, foreboding wall . Thats not who america is, was, or hopefully will be. Now, were for sensible Border Security. As i mentioned. And there are a lot more effective ways of securing the border than a wall. A wall can be scaled over. For those who love the wall, they have heard of ladders. A wall can be tunneled under. Im sure those who support the wall have heard of shovels. Its a medieval solution for a modern problem. A game of thrones idea for a world that is a lot closer to star wars. And the thing is we have new modern Solutions Using our best technology. We discussed some of them at the white house last night. Drones. These drones can spot the difference from a deer or a human being crossing the border. We have great sensory equipment. Our military has specialized in this kind of stuff. A lot of its made in syracuse, new york, im proud to say. We can rebuild roads along the border, talk to the people on the border patrol, and they say a lot of places dont have roads. So if they see someone crossing the border, they cant get to them. And, of course, there is the bipartisan mccallthompson bill in the house that has broad bipartisan support that sets certain standards. Every one of these ideas would provide better, more effective Border Security than a medieval wall. So there is still much to be done. We have to put meat on the bones of the agreement. Details will matter, but it was a very, very positive step for the president to commit to daca protections without insisting on the inclusion of or even a debate about border walls. Now, on the equifax data breach, mr. President , what has transpired over the past several months is one of the most egregious examples of corporate malfeasance since enron. Equifax has exposed the most sensitive personal information of over half of the United States citizens. Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, and in some cases even their credit history. Clearly, there were inadequate Data Security standards at equifax, which is doubly troubling and deeply troubling on a number of levels. When youre a Credit Agency like equifax, you have two principal jobs, calculating and reporting accurate Credit Scores and protecting the Sensitive Information of individuals that are funneled through that process. Equifax stunningly and epically failed to perform one of its two essential duties as a company, to protect Sensitive Information of the people in its files. That is unacceptable, and theres no other word for it. Even following the failure by equifax, this huge, massive failure, the company and its leadership failed to communicate this breach to the public effectively. And in the aftermath of the announcement failed to address public concern. The company knew about the breach and did not notify consumers that their information had been compromised for far too long a period. Because equifax waited so long to report the breach, consumers were put behind the eight ball. Their information was potentially compromised without their knowledge. They had no ability to protect themselves. Meanwhile, hackers could attempt to take out loans in their name. Potentially use the information for Identity Fraud to perpetrate a number of fraudulent schemes with Sensitive Information these horrible hackers have obtained. Once the breach was eventually announced, consumers found themselves forced to provide Sensitive Information to equifax in order to verify whether they were impacted by the breach. In order to sign up for the companys Credit Monitoring Services, customers were forced to agree to terms prohibiting their ability to bring a legal claim against equifax. Is that disgusting . Equifax creates the problem and then says customer, if you want to solve it, you have to give up your rights. Outrageous. Equifax was saying we royally screwed up, but trust us, we wont screw up again, but if we do screw up, you cant sue us. To make matters worse, in the weeks leading up to the announcement of their breach, while customers were in the dark, several executives at equifax sold off their stock in the company. They claim they had no knowledge of the breach. If they did, it would be one of the most brazen and shameful attempts of Insider Trading that i can recall. So we need to get to the bottom of this, the very bottom, a murky bottom, the dirty bottom. The senate must hold hearings on the Equifax Breach where these executives are called to account. There is no question about that. But beyond that, five things need to happen in the near future. Id like to see them in the next week. Equifax must, first, commit proactively to reach out to all impacted individuals to notify them that their personal identifiable information may have been compromised, and if known, inform them of exactly what information has been released. Second, provide credit monitoring and i. D. Theft Protection Services to all impacted individuals for no less than ten years. If an individual chooses not to use the Credit Monitoring Service offered by equifax because they naturally dont trust them, then equifax should reimburse that individual for the costs of the alternative Credit Monitoring Service they sign up for. Third, offer any impacted individual the ability to freeze their credit at any point for up to ten years. Fourth, remove arbitration provisions from any agreement or terms of use for products, services, or disclosures offered by equifax. This means that equifax will proactively come in compliance with the sfpb forced arbitration rule and there will be no question that an individual will not have all legal rights at their disposal. Fifth, equifax must agree to testify before the senate, s. E. C. And comply with any fines, penalties or new standards recommended at the conclusion of these investigations. And if equifax does not agree to these five things in one weeks time, the c. E. O. Of the company and the entire board should step down. These five steps are common sense. They are the baseline of decency. If equifax cant commit to them, their leaderships not up to the job and the entire leadership must be replaced. Let me tell you, folks. If joe public, if the average citizen did anything close to what the Corporate Leaders did that led to this data breach and the awful response to it, that average citizen would be fired immediately. To give the equifax a week to implement these things is overly generous to people who did horrible stuff and then after it happened did nothing virtually nothing that showed that they had remorse. Its only right that the c. E. O. And the board step down if they cant reach this modicum of corporate decency by next week. Finally, mr. President , i have a lot to say. Taxes, last night at the white house, President Trump said he didnt want his tax plan to benefit the very wealthy. Thats a good thing. We democrats agree. 45 of the 48 of us signed an agreement that the tax break shouldnt go to the top people. But the devil when the president says that is always in the details and we havent seen any details. We havent seen anything resembling a plan yet. We hear its being written in a backroom by the socalled big six, all republican. But i havent seen it, Ranking Member wyden hasnt seen it. No democrat in the senate hasnt seen it. I can tell you one thing, if the president s tax plan repeals or rolls back the estate tax, it will be clear that a lot of his benefits the very rich, contrary to all of his words. Id remind everyone that only 5,200 of the 2. 7 million estates in this country will pay any taxes this year. The estate tax only kicks in when couples with estates of nearly 11 million transfer their wealth. Go to north dakota and i know you have nice family farms out there ask how many of you have an estate worth 11 million. And if they do, im willing to exempt a family farm that is over that from the estate tax, but almost no one does. A study by the center of policy priorities showed that of the 5,200 estates here we have 2. 7 million estates only 5, 5,200 qualify for the estate tax, and of those 50 are small farms and businesses. Lets exempt those 50. Lets make all these other guys pay. We need the money. They are rich. God bes them god bless them. Now, when President Trump says that the estate tax is a burden on the family farmer, i honestly dont know what hes talking about. There may be a few, they may make a lot of noise. God bless them. S that their right as thats their right as americans. But there are very few. Very, very few. Thats not what the facts say. Of the 2. 7 million taxable estates, just 50 are farms and Small Businesses that would benefit from the repeal of the estate tax. 2. 7 million, taxable estates, 50. There was a moment last night during the meeting at the white house when the estate tax came up. A few of the president s advisors said no one pays the estate tax. There has been news that gary cohen said only morons pay the estate tax. What they mean, of course, is that people who are rich enough can find their way around it. First, they are wrong. Repealing the estate tax would add 269 billion to the deficit over ten years 269 billion. There are a lot of people paying the estate tax, maybe they are morons as gary cohen once called them, maybe they are not, but theres a lot of money that comes in from the estate tax. But mr. Cohen and there are others who say that, bring up an important point, the right thing to do is not repeal the estate tax, but close the loopholes. If you have an estate worth that much, you should pay the estate tax and not finding clever ways to avoid paying it. If youre rich, you pay it. God bless you, thats the american way, but pay your fair share. So, mr. President , democrats want to participate in reforming our tax code. There are lots of good things we can agree on, closing loopholes like this one, cutting taxes for the middle class, helping businesses, bringing offshore income back to the United States. We have no reconciliations, that means do it together, not how you did health care, which didnt end up with a great result. Second, no tax cuts for the top 1 who are doing just fine, god bless them, and fiscal responsibility. We should not increase the deficit as we cut taxes, particularly now that were going to have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help the beleaguered states of texas and florida. Some republicans have characterized those three principles as lines in the sand that show democrats arent serious about tax reform. Id ask my republican colleagues, which of the three do you not agree with . Do you think we should cut taxes on the top 1 . Do you think we should create deficits by cutting taxes on the wealthy . And do you think you should just go at this alone . If you agree with those, fine, but dont say these are lines in the sand. We are giving policy guidance that has virtually unanimous support in our caucus. It seems to me i ask these these three principles guided the 1986 tax reform which was the most successful tax reform in decades. It seems that it is not democrats who moved the goalposts on tax reform here, but some republicans no longer want to play by the same rules. I yield the floor to
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