In a quorum call . The presiding officer we are not in a quorum call. Mr. Thune mr. President , were getting close to making tax relief a reamount imri reality. Last week the house released its tax reform bill. Both houses will review the bills and debate them on the floor and develop a final version. Mr. President , after years of economic stagnation, americans are ready for relief. They are ready to keep more of their hardearned money. They are ready to finally see a real pay increase, and they are ready for more access to economic opportunity. Thats what our tax reform bill is going to provide. To start with, our bill is going to put more money in americans pockets by lowering their tax rates and doubling their standard deduction. In our bill a family making 24,000 a year or less wont be paying any taxes. Families making more than 24,000 a year will pay significantly less than they are paying today. Were also going to help families by substantially increasing the child tax credit. Were going to simplify and streamline the tax code so that its easier for americans to figure out what benefits they qualify for so they dont have to spend a lot of time and money filing their taxes. But, mr. President , thats only the beginning. Americans dont just warrant to keep dont just want to keep more of their hardearned money, they also want to be making more of it, but americans have had a hard time doing that lately. Wages have been stagnant for years and new opportunities have been hard to find. So in addition to reforming the the tax code, we will reform the business side so we can give americans wages that will settle them up for a secure future. We need american businesses to thrive. Thriving businesses creates jobs, they provide opportunities, and they increase wages and invest in their workers. Right now, though, our tax code is not helping businesses thrive. Instead its strangling both large and Small Businesses with high tax rates. Small businesses are incredibly important for new job creation. They play a huge role in the economy in my home state of south dakota and other states all across the country. But the high tax rates that too many Small Businesses currently face makes it difficult for them to p even survive much less thrive and expand their operation operations. Were going to lower taxes for Small Businesses so they can grow and hire new businesses. Were also going to allow Small Businesses to recover their capital invested in inventory and machinery more quickly will which will create more capital. Right now it can take Small Businesses years, or in some cases decades, to recover the costs of their investments in equipment facilities. That can leave them extremely cash poor in the meantime. Needless to say, cashpoor businesses have a hard time expanding, hiring new workers or increasing wages. Allowing Small Businesses to recover their investments more quickly will mean more jobs and opportunities for American Workers. In addition to high tax rates on large and Small Businesses, another thing that is decreasing jobs and opportunities for American Workers is our outdated worldwide tax system which is discouraging American Companies from investing their profits here at home and american jobs and American Workers. Having a worldwide tax system, mr. President , means that American Companies pay u. S. Taxes on the profit that they make here at home as well as on part of the profit that they make abroad once they bring that money back to the United States. The problem with this is that American Companies are already paying taxes to foreign governments on the money they make abroad. Then when they bring that money home, they too often having to pay taxes again on part of those profits, and, i might add, at the highest tax rate in the industrialized world. Its no surprise that this discourages businesses from bringing their profits back to the United States to invest in their domestic operations and in new jobs and increased wages. From 1993 to 2003, there were 29 corporate inversions where u. S. Companies moved abroad. Between 2003 and 2014, when other countries were dropping their Corporate Tax rates and shifting to territorial tax systems, there were 47 such inversions. Our tax plan address this drag on our economy by moving from our outdated worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system. What does that mean, mr. President . Well, by shifting to a territorial tax system here in the United States, a move, a move that is supported by members of both political parties, we will eliminate the double taxation. Combine that with a reduction in the high Corporate Tax rate and we can provide a strong incentive for u. S. Companies to invest their profits at home in american jobs and American Workers instead of abroad. Business tax reform is essential to reversing the economic stagnation that weve seen in recent years. The white House Counsel of council of economic advisors estimates that the framework will boost Economic Growth by 3 and 5 . Mr. President , thats good news for the economy. More specifically, however, its good news for American Workers who can expect to see their incomes rise as a result. A study from the White House Council of check advisors shows that reducing the Corporate Tax rate from 35 , which is the highest in the industrialized world, down to 20 , which is more competitive with our competitors around the world, would increase average Household Income by 4,000 annually. Well, think about that, mr. President. Reducing the tax on businesses in this country would increase average Household Income for families in america by 4,000. A Boston University professor and Public Finance expert, larry kutlakof, found that this would increase Household Income by 3,500 per year. This was found by the former chair of economic advisors who noted that Corporate Tax reform will boost Household Income by 3 toy 500 per year. There are lots of analysts looking at the proposed changes in the tax code that we are attempting to get through the congress this year and on the president s desk. Not only will it reduce the taxes, the tax burden, the amount of tax paid by middleincome families in this country, the reduction in the rates on businesses will also increase the number of opportunities for better paying jobs and higher wages and raise that average Household Income that is so desperately in need of a boost. Mr. President , its been a rough few years for the American Economy and workers. I think all you have to do is look at the numbers and know most americans havent seen a pay raise in almost the last decade. But with comprehensive tax reform, the next few years and the next few decades, for that matter, can look very, very different. Republicans tax reform legislation is going to provide direct relief to hardworking americans and its going to create the kind of economy that will give workers access to more jobs, to better opportunities, and to higher wages. Not just for the near term but for the long term. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Finance committee under the leadership of chairman hatch to put the final touches on our bill and to take it up in the committee next week. And then i hope we can bring that bill to the floor of the United States senate and have an open debate, process amendments but put something, pass something through the senate that we can conference with the house of representatives, put on the president s desk and move our economy in a direction that will provide a brighter and more prosperous future for American Workers and american families. Mr. President , its time to give the American People some relief. I yield the floor. A senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from maryland. Mr. Van hollen thank you, mr. President. I rise today to strongly oppose the legislation thats emerged from the house of representatives that pretends to provide tax relief to middleclass americans. But if you take a look at it and you look at the analyses that have already come out, what it really is is another big tax giveaway to millionaires, billionaires, and big Multinational Corporations. I believe we should do tax reform. We should take our tax code. We should clean up a lot of junk thats gotten into our tax code thats not there for good Public Policy reasons. Its there because someone had a highpowered lobbyist. We need to clean up our tax code. We need to reform our tax code, and we need to do it in a way that helps the middle class and doesnt add more big breaks to Big Corporations. Unfortunately, this republican plan does the opposite of tax reform. What it does is doubles down on big tax breaks to Big Corporations and the super wealthy. Lets just take a headline we saw today based on the analysis. The New York Times looked at it. Republican plan would raise taxes on millions of middleclass families. I can tell you that is very true in my state of maryland. In fact, its going to be true in states throughout the United States of america. You are going to see millions of middleclass tax families pay more under this plan. In fact, this analysis that is discussed in the times found that 45 of middleclass families get a tax increase under this plan once its fully implemented. That means that families making between roughly 50,000 a year and 160,000 a year, about half of them are going to end up paying higher taxes under the republican plan. And heres one of the double standards that you see continuing throughout the republican tax plan. Big corporations not only get big tax cuts, 1. 5 trillion, but theyre going to go on forever. Middleclass families, many people will see an Immediate Tax increase, an Immediate Tax increase. Others will see initially a tax cut, a little tax cut. But for individuals and families, its the great disappearing tax cut. A little sweetener to make the bill look good in the early years, but the bill takes away all those tax cuts from middleclass families on average, and then actually increases the burden on a family of four making 59,000 or under, under the plan. So corporations, 1. 5 trillion tax cut over ten years permanent. Folks in the middle, many will see an Immediate Tax increase and it will stay in place. The tax increase. Others will see a little tax decrease, but many of those, as the years go by, are going to see their taxes go up. Again, major Corporate Tax cut financed in large part by millions of middleclass families paying higher taxes. Now just to give you a sense of how well the folks at the very top will do, theres a headline from the wall street journal. This is not a democraticleaning newspaper. Headline, banks sidestep a big tax plan pitfall. Right here in the second paragraph it says this, the wall street journal article at a 20 Corporate Tax rate, banks stand to be among the biggest winners from tax reform. Thats according to s p Global Market intelligence. The five biggest diversified u. S. Banks alone might have had tax savings of 11. 5 billion in 2016 at that rate. The biggest sum for any subindustry group tracked by s p. So big banks, the biggest banks, they do just great under this republican plan. Middleclass families are left paying the bill. If you look at this on the individual side, the top 1 wealthiest americans in this country, the top 1 are going to get an average tax cut of 65,000. Thats per person, on average. If youre in that top 1 , an average family will get a 65,000 tax cut. That means that 48 of the benefit of all the tax cuts in this republican plan go to the top 1 . Let me say that again. Flip it around. The top 1 wealthiest households are going to get 48 of the Dollar Benefit of this tax cut. That doesnt sound like a plan focused on improving the situation of middleclass taxpayers. They are the ones who are going to have to finance many of those tax cuts for the very wealthy and Big Corporations. I know our republican colleagues recognize what a vulnerability this is because our colleague, Senate Majority leader, mr. Mcconnell, said about the tax bill in an interview last saturday, he said at the end of the day, nobody, nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase. Lets understand what that means. Hes saying that not a single middleclass household out there in the country is going to see their taxes go up. Well, i dont know what tax plan hes talking about. Its certainly one that hasnt seen the light of day yet, because the bill thats coming out of the house will raise taxes on millions of middleclass families, and that is a fact. Speaker ryan just said the other day, he said an interview on fox news he said, quote, we are making sure every middleclass taxpayer is a winner here. Every middleclass taxpayer is a winner here. Well, thats certainly not true of the plan that just was marked up in the ways and Means Committee of the house, because there are a whole lot of families in the middle class who are big losers on the republican plan. In fact, millions of them around the country. So i dont know what plan theyre talking about. Im looking forward to seeing the republican plan that doesnt raise taxes on any middleclass families in the United States. That should be our policy. We should not be increasing the burden on middleclass families in order to finance a 1. 5 trillion tax cut for big Multinational Corporations. But thats the way it is right now. Now homeowners are going to be especially hard hit under this republican plan because a lot fewer homeowners will utilize the mortgage interest deduction, and the republican plan also slashes the deduction for state and local taxes. In fact, they eliminate your option to deduct state and local income taxes. The result is going to be a lot of middleclass homeowners are going to pay a lot more. Thats why the realtors oppose this bill. These are the folks in our neighborhoods who are buying and selling homes. They are folks who have their ear to the ground in our communities. Heres what the realtors said about this bill. It said it threatens home values and takes money straight from the pockets of homeowners. In fact, they had a study done by coopers Price Waterhouse that said if youre a homeowner and your income is between 50,000 and 200,000 adjusted gross income, you will see an average tax increase. They also predicted that ohm values across the that home values across the board could drop by 10 , and its not clear when they would recover their value. The National Association of Home Builders is also opposed to this legislation because the impact it will have on homeownership and the prices and values of peoples homes around the country. Im quoting from them. The House Republican tax reform plan abandons middleclass taxpayers in favor of highincome americans and wealthy corporations. The bill eviscerates existing housing tax benefits by drastically reducing the number of homeowners who can take advantage of mortgage interest and property tax incentives. Mr. President , i think all of us know that this is not some leftleaning group. Were talking about the National Association of Home Builders finding that the republican plan abandons the middleclass taxpayers in favor of highincome americans and wealthy corporations. Thats their finding based on their analysis of the bill. And heres the catch. Its that double standard again. Just as i said earlier that youve got the tax cuts for Big Corporations going on forever, but theres much smaller tax relief for middleincome taxpayers taking effect early but phasing out. You have the situation if youre a Big Corporation you get to deduct your state and local taxes, all of them. In fact, if youre a Multinational Corporation and youre in china, you get to deduct taxes you pay to the government of china. But if youre a household in maryland or any of our states, you dont get to deduct the taxes you pay to your state and local governments. So youre paying taxes twice on that dollar. Once to the State Government and again to uncle sam out of the same dollar. Fitch ratings looked at this and concluded it will put dramatic strains on state and local budgets since people in those states are not going to be able to take those tax deductions. So either youre going to see dramatic cuts to school funding, health care, or youre going to see state and local governments raise the property taxes in those states. So you get hit coming and going if youre a middleclass homeowner. This also damages our Economic Development efforts in many parts of our country. It repeals the new markets tax credit. And while it doesnt get rid of what President Trump said was a huge giveaway the hedge Fund Loopholes. Cant remember how many times during the president ial Campaign Candidate trump talked about how the Hedge Fund Tax break was a total giveaway. Thats not eliminated in this republican bill. They keep the Big Hedge Fund loopholes. But heres what they get rid of. They get rid of the ability of people with high medical expenses to deduct those expenses from their taxes. They even take away the additional standard deduction that currently applies to taxpayers who are at least 65 years of age or who are blind. So there are many folks who are in that category who are also going to see their taxes go up. Seniors are going to have their taxes go up, which is why aarp has raised the alarm about that provision and others. So while we keep the Big Hedge Fund loophole, you get rid of the ability of families who adopt children to take a tax credit to help cover the costs of adoption. They also get rid of provisions in the tax code that helps students and teachers and schools. If youre a teacher who has been spending money to buy textbooks and other materials for your class, you used to be able to deduct the costs of what youre buying to help your kids. They take that away in the same bill that they give Big Corporations a big 1. 5 trillion tax break. If youre a student who has been struggling to afford college bills, you no longer get to deduct the interest on your student loans. If youre an employer who was currently receiving an incentive to employ veterans who have served our country, sorry, thats gone, too. So we want to get this straight. Were going to take away the ability of people with high medical expenses to take a deduction. Youre going to take away the ability of College Graduates to take a deduction so that their expenses are more affordable. Youre going to take away the ability of people to get the adoption tax credit. And youre going to take away incentives for people to hire our veterans. But youre going to keep the hedge Fund Loophole and youre going to give 1. 5 trillion tax cut to Big Corporations. Thats what this bill is all about. Finally and im going to talk about this at greater length at some other time, but if you look at the way the International Tax provisions in this bill, in this republican bill, how they are structured, i really urge my colleagues to take a look at this. They actually increase the incentives for u. S. Based businesses and companies to move their operations overseas. And thats for two reasons. One is when you reduce the International Tax rates, when you say essentially that a u. S. Corporation that moves its jobs overseas now just pays the tax in that country and has no u. S. Tax obligation, we under this bill are at 20 , you still have an incentive obviously to move your operations to a very low tax place like the Cayman Islands. But then there is an effort to address that issue in this bill, but the problem is the effort to address that provision doesnt work at all, so heres the current situation. Cayman islands or other tax havens, a lot of orpgz try to park their lot of organizations try to park their whats known as their intangible assets there. These are the intangible patents. You get a patent from the u. S. Patent office. You make royalties off of that patent. Then you get a lot of good lawyers, and essentially you park that patent in the Cayman Islands that has really no tax obligations, so all the profits that devief from that patent, they are not subject to any tax or maybe 1 or 2 tax. So in this republican bill, there is an effort to try to address that issue. At least it pretends to address the issue. The problem is it doesnt. Heres what they say. They say were going to catch you if you park your money in a place like the Cayman Islands, because were going to have a tax of 10 on important high return tax, is what they call it. And the way they determine whether you are making an excess profit is you look at your tangible assets in that country, and you determine whether or not the profit you have made is over 8 . Thats the way it approximately adds up onto this bill. But heres the problem. Its an average international minimum tax. Not a percountry minimum tax. So let me tell you what a company does that wants to reduce its tax obligation. They move their company offshore. They take a company, say, in baltimore, maryland, thats 100 million, and theyre making 5 million profit today here in the United States, and they will be taxed at 20 , and then theyve got this profit from the Cayman Islands at 2 million. Now, under that previous provision, i talked about this effort in the republican bill to protect against what they call high return tax areas. They would normally have captured some of the income generated, the profits in the Cayman Islands, but when i move my company from baltimore to, say, the united kingdom, i actually then escape having to pay that tax on my moneys in the tax haven. So the bottom line is this republican bill, because it has this average 10 minimum tax provision, is going to encourage american businesses and companies to move overseas, and that is not if that is not what the intention is, i urge my republican colleagues to fix this right away. It hasnt been talked about much. There have been a couple articles recently about it. Gene sperling, kim clausing and others have gone through the economics of this, and it would make the situation a lot worse compared to even today in terms of these incentives. So the bottom line is in addition to this being a 1. 5 trillion tax break for big Multinational Corporations, paid for and financed by folks in the middle, which even after you see the middleclass families pay more, results in a 1. 5 trillion additional addition to the debt, but even after all that, after the big tax giveaway to Big Corporations, it adds an incentive for them to add insult to injury for them to move their businesses and factories offshore. So, mr. President , i hope that we will take a big step back, stop rushing a bill through as a matter of political imperative. We need to get this right. We should have hearings. We should have folks from all different walks of life, and folks who will be impacted by this bill in many different ways come and testify to congress about this bill, and then lets get together on a bipartisan basis and actually do something that works for the American People, not something thats going to clobber the middle class and provide this huge windfall tax break to big Multinational Corporations, while encouraging them to suck jobs and factories from the United States overseas. We need to start again on this. I urge my colleagues to do that, and i yield ther. President. The presiding officer the senator from ohio. Mr. Portman mr. President , i dont know where to begin. I want to talk a little about the tax reform proposal but start by responding to my colleague from maryland, and he is a colleague and a friend, and say he must be talking about a different tax reform proposal than were talking about, because so much of what he said, actually, is not consistent with the legislation that i have seen the house proposing and certainly not consistent with the legislation were talking about over here in the senate. Let me start with his claim that there is a 1. 5 trillion tax cut for Big Corporations. Thats simply not true. And, you know, you can look at the house proposal because its now out. You can see the fact that it does have tax relief. It has tax relief targeted at middleclass families. He is right about the fact that it has a lower rate for our multinational businesses, but he also knows that our Current System is absolutely broken, and whats occurring is precisely what he is suggesting might occur if we were to change the code, which is companies and jobs and investment are going overseas. We he talked about the fact that we havent had hearings. Just since i was elected here in 2010, we have had 70 hearings, which is the committee i serve on, the finance committee. I would encourage people to look at what we did two years ago. We set up five Bipartisan Task forces. I encourage my colleague to look at the paper on International Tax reform and the need for us to go to a low rate, 20 , to be competitive, to get just below the average of the other industrialized countries. And then to have the opportunity to go to a new type of tax system that enables us to bring back the money that is locked out overseas. Unbelievably, there is 2. 5 trillion to 3 trillion of earnings that are overseas. Much of that could be brought back, and thats what this tax proposal does. Significantly, that report you will see was coauthored by two members of this body, one republican and one democrat, because all these task forces, these working groups were bipartisan. My colleague in that effort was a senator from new york by the name of chuck schumer. Who now happens to be the democratic leader. So i think there is a consensus, at least in the real world, about the fact that our current tax code is hopelessly broken, and we have to fix it, and if youre against helping our companies to stay American Companies, that must mean that you believe they ought to become Foreign Companies, which is exactly whats happening, and it is to me an outrage that the United States congress is allowing this to happen. Ernst and young, which is a Public Accounting firm, recently came out with a study showing that 4,700 companies that have become Foreign Companies over the past 13 years would be still American Companies if we were to go to the kind of tax reform proposal that we are proposing. In other words, if you had this 20 rate i talked about in this Competitive International system, you would have 4,700 more American Companies here, providing jobs, making investments, contributing to their communities, and it does matter, and it matters that a company is headquartered here versus u. S. S. Overseas. We have done an analysis of this. We have determined that when companies leave, they dont just change their headquarters, they take investment and jobs with them. I would refer you to the permanent subcommittee on investigations work on this. Again, bipartisan work about the fact that we have to fix this broken tax code. The congressional Budget Office, which is the Nonpartisan Group up here on capitol hill that gives us advice on the impact of tax reform, on the economy, on deficits, on revenues, they had a report that says that if you do lower the business tax rate to make these companies competitive, again, the alternative is going overseas that the benefit of that goes to shareholders, goes to workers. They say in their analysis 70 of the benefit goes to higher wages, more benefits for workers. Now, think about it. That makes sense. If a company is not competitive, they cant pay the kind of wages we want them to pay. We want them to get wages up. They cant pay the kind of benefits we want them to pay. We want them to get benefits up. I would hope that, although we could have a spirited debate about aspects of this legislation, we should stick to the facts. We should not attempt to make this yet another partisan issue here in this town where were attacking something, not so much on the merits but because the other side thought about it. I will tell you, when you look back historically, it isnt just the working group that senator schumer and i cochaired on this International Front where we have to get this rate down, we have to become competitive, we have to save our jobs here, but look at another bipartisan effort thats talked about a lot and its not agreed to by all democrats or all republicans, but its called the simpsonbowles proposal. This was several years ago, and they looked at the tax policy and deficit issues, and simpsonbowles, you know, totally bipartisan, supported by a Bipartisan Group of United States senators at the time who were on that commission. They said we ought to go to this lower rate and territorial system. This is not a partisan issue, or at least it hasnt been until now. Lets not make it one. Yes, its true, there is tax relief in this proposal, the proposal that the house has proposed and that the proposal that the senate is likely to propose later this week does have tax relief. And we believe that tax relief is appropriate, because we do believe that weve got to give middleclass families in my home state of ohio and around the country a little break right now. Why . Because they are seeing their expenses go up, especially health care but also other expenses, and i say especially health care because thats the single largest increase in expenses is in the health care area, diewbles, copays, premiums, but also in food, housing, other costs, tuition if youre trying to send your kids to school, its skyrocketed, and yet wages are flat. Meaning people are facing this middleclass squeeze. We hear a discussion on both sides of the aisle about the fact we want to help the middle class. One way to help is to help the Family Budget, isnt it . Lets get a little relief into these families so that they can be able to make ends meet and not just live paycheck to paycheck. By the way, it will help the economy. It will help just to get more money into the economy to buy that car, to be able to buy that appliance, help move the economy forward. But its part of this reform bill. Yes, it is. And were proud of that. We also again provide some of that tax relief on the business side to help Small Businesses. These ever the socalled are the socalled passthrough companies. About 90 of the businesses in america dont pay their taxes as companies. Theyre not corporations in that sense. They pay their taxes through their individual tax return. Theyre called passthrough companies. Some call them l. L. C. s or subchapter s or sole proprietorship. They tend to be smaller companies. They tend to be family own. They need a little help too. The proposal does provide some significant relief for those Small Businesses. And that in the house proposal, in the senate proposal, its hundreds of billions of dollars out of that 1. 5 trillion tax relief. We think thats appropriate. And then finally again, on the business side, its to help make these companies competitive, to get that rate down so that they can attract investment into america rather than having that investment and jobs going out of america which is whats happening now. 4700 companies would be American Companies today if we had this kind of tax reform proposal in place but we didnt. And we should learn from that. As congress and its Congress Responsibility to keep that from happening in the future. Thats what this tax reform is about. Its about three things. It is about a middle class tax cut. And having people be able to keep more of their hard earned money. We think thats appropriate in these times. It is about helping make our companies more competitive because we want more jobs and we want higher wages. Part of doing the middleclass squeeze is provide a little help for the Family Budget with tax reform. Part of it is to get wages up. When people look at this tax reform proposal right, left, center, theyre going to say the same thing. Yes this is going to incentivize more investment. Some think more, some think less. But in a tight labor market like weve got right now will result in more competition for those workers and therefore pushing wages up. Thats what we want. Thats what this is about. Its exciting. And then third is to level that Playing Field internationally. So American Companies wont be going overseas. Thats the whole point. Were not doing this tax reform proposal to encourage companies to go overseas. Were doing this tax reform proposal to incentivize them to stay in america and attract more Foreign Investment here in this country so that an American Company can pay that premium for a foreign subsidiary rather than the other way around now where American Companies are not just inverting youve heard this word probably, inversions, going overseases and buying a foreign company. Theyre actually being taken over by Foreign Companies. Thats the reality. We cant let it continue. We have to stand up and be counted. Stand up for the middle class. Stand up for our workers who are now competing with one hand tied behind their back, whether its a big auto company in my home state of ohio. I toured five of these auto factories over the last couple weeks, talked to them about the tax reform proposal, how it would work. They gave me their input. Its going to help. By the way, its going to help whether youre a u. S. Company or a foreign company. If youre a foreign automaker here in america or you have other Foreign Investment, a lower rate and immediate expensing, in other words, being able to write off your investments as you make them and equipment, thats all good for you, too. So it will have both the desir d effect of helping American Companies be competitive but if you have Foreign Direct Investment in your state, in your community, they should be encouraged to put more money in america rather than somewhere else. If youre a japanese automaker and looking around the world and say do i put that next investment in china, do i put it in tokyo, do i put it in europe or germany or do i put it in america . Theyll like this proposal because theyll want to invest and be part of this, too. Thats going to help us give this economy a needed shot in the arm. Theres been a lot of talk and i heard it again today on the floor, gosh, this is going to be bad for the deficit. Well, i think it will be there will be about 44 trillion of new revenue coming in exmated over the next estimated over the next ten years. Yes, out of that money were suggesting a 1. 5 trillion tax cut relative to the score, the budget we have to use. What does that mean . Well, actually, about a third of that, about 500 billion of that is simply saying that, you know what . The Budget Office says that the existing tax policy thats in place is only temporary. Some of it is only temporary. These are the socalled extenders. We know thats unlikely because weve always made these permanent pretty much, including a big one called bonus appreciation which is most of take. So we think right away the way its scored is not fair. So you get down to about a trillion dollars in tax relief. Thats a trillion dollars over ten years with 44 trillion coming in. What does that mean . Well, it means that you have to have a little more Economic Growth than is projected in order to have not a deficit but actually paying down the deficit through more revenue coming in. I think that will happen. Why do i say that . Well, because the projections we have to use are very conservative. The congressional Budget Office is what we are using and we are obliged to do that which is final. Its a Nonpartisan Group. They are saying that Economic Growth over the next ten years will average about 1. 9 of growth. Now, the average over the past 30 years is about 2. 5 . So theyre saying our economy is not going to grow as fast as it has in the last 30 years. Well see. The last two quarters the economy grew at 3 and 3. 1 . So they dont seem to be on track with where the economy is going right now. More importantly to me, if you look at these proposals were talking about, these are progrowth proposals, whether its the help with regard to the business rate which gets it below the rate of other industrialized countries rather than the highest rate in the entire industrialized world which is where we are now. We have the highest rate in the industrialized world. Were getting it below the afternoon. That will increase investment and Economic Activity and jobs and, therefore, revenue. Whether its the immediate expensing where you can write down your expenses right away, thats going to increase investment and jobs according to all the economists who look at that. Thats true. They may differ on how much. If you look at the International Side where were going to bring back some of that 2. 5 to 3 trillion that stuck overseas, that certainly is going to be invested here in this country and help with our Economic Growth. So there are a number of provisions. I talked about the Small Business provisions earlier that are going to help Small Businesses to be able to innovate, to be entrepreneurial which is what we need more of, more new starts. Thats going to help. So all of that together is going to help with Economic Growth. How much . Well, lets say instead of the 1. 9 conservative estimate that they have made for next ten years, lets say it grows. 4 more. 4 more than projected. I would attribute at least that much just to this tax reform proposal because of what we just talked about. But if you believe its going to grow at. 4 more than projected, in other words instead of 1. 9 , 2. 3 , 2. 3 growth would be below the average over the last 30 years, then you actually will see the deficit start to come down because of this tax reform proposal. Because the revenue will be there, not just to make it revenue neutral but beyond that will actually pay down the deficit. We havent done that in a while. But back in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2,000 we went through this before. We began to reduce the deficit annually. You know how it happened . Well, constraining some spending helped. Thats obviously part of our challenge here in the congress. How do we get our hands around the spending . But second is growing the economy and in that case the Capital Gains rate of taxation was reduced. And suddenly in the late 199 ons, about 1990s about a hundred billion dollars of revenue showed up in the coffers. Tax revenues were greater than expected. I believe this will happen again. I believe that when you look at this proposal, it is conservative in the sense that it says, yes, lets provide needed middleclass tax relief. Lets also do these things to grow the economy. And lets assume that because of all this, were going to be able to improve the economic perform pans thats projected performance thats projected. Its a pretty disappointing projection. 1. 9 growth isnt great for any of us. It isnt great to deal with the issues of poverty. It isnt great to deal with the issues of entrepreneurship and innovation. It isnt going to help us to be able to afford the entitlements that are growing. We need better growth than that. We want more growth than that. And i think tax relief is the single most important thing we can do right now. Yes, we should have more regulatory relief. Yes, we should do better in terms of getting the costs of health care under control. People are concerned about their costs rising so fast. We havent been able to grapple with that issue. Yes, we should do more on worker training. We have a skills gap in this country. We have jobs that are available and yet we dont have the Skilled Workforce to take those jobs. Yes, we can do more in terms of helping grow the economy through education, other things. But the one policy area that is crying out for reform is our tax system. It is antiquated. It is out of date. It is driving jobs overseas. It makes no sense. It can be simplified. And this simplifies the tax code. It can be made more fair and this makes it more fair by helping the middle class more. It can encourage Economic Growth and it does so through the Small Business relief and the relief for our multinational companies. It can help bring back the trillions of dollars that are stuck overseas and thats what this does. Thats the whole idea here. So im excited about this opportunity. The house of representatives is working on their legislation now in committee. Next week that will shift to the senate and the Senate Committee on finance will have the opportunity for an open process. As i noted weve already had 70 hearings in the finance committee. Just over the past seven years since ive been in this chamber. Weve had working groups including the bipartisan one i mentioned earlier, the five bipartisan working groups of that committee. Well have the opportunity at our hearing next week to have an open process. Anybody can offer an amendment. Open discussion. And well have an interesting debate. It will be spirited as we saw here today. Weve got some differences of opinion, but lets stick to the facts. Lets not make this partisan. Lets stick to the merits. Lets try to help the American People and our economy. Then it will come to the floor of the United States senate and the same thing will happen. An open process. Every desk you see in here represents a senator who will have the opportunity should he or she wish to to offer an amendment, to have a debate, to discuss the issue. Yeah, it will be spirited at times but again i hope it will lead us to a result that actually helps to do the things we were elected to do, to give our constituents, the people we represent, the chance to have a better life, to give middleclass families a little relief as theyre facing this middleclass squeeze, to help grow this economy. From the middle out, from the bottom up, from everywhere to be able to give us the ability to say once again that america is that shining example, that beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world. Thats what this is about. And lets not blow this opportunity. Lets get it done. Lets get to the president , to his desk for his signature before the end of this year and lets make good on the commitments we have made to our constituents to help create a better economy and a better future. I yield