Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate 20180207

Families and lets finally give americans access to paid leave. I urge my colleagues to join me in this fight and pass the family act. I now would like to yield the floor to my colleague who is also going to speak about why this is good for america. Ms. Duckworth mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from illinois. Ms. Duckworth thank you, mr. President. I want to thank my colleague from new york on the floor today for her leadership in this very important issue. Im here to help discuss one of the most pressing issues facing American Families all across the country, our nations outdated family leave policies. About two weeks ago i announced i am expecting a baby girl in april. The support since my announcement has been overwhelming. I received so many congratulations and lots of questions about my daughter to be. And i was also asked how i expect to handle having a newborn and 3yearold as i continue my work here in the United States senate. I know these questions come from a good place, but lets be real, its 2018. Women have been having children since the beginning of humanity and im not the first person to be a working mom. My colleague was a working legislator before i was. Many moms have been balancing the demands of jobs and families since the female trailblazers. The United States is one of just a handful of developed countries in the world that doesnt offer paid maternity leave, and one of the very few industrialized nations that doesnt offer pay parental or family leave to parents. Across our nation working families face barriers to staying in the workforce, lack of access to affordable child care and paid medical leave, forces families to leave between taking care of their children or a sick Family Member and losing their job or Health Insurance. That hurts our entire country. Thats why as we mark the 25th anniversary of the family and medical leave act today, i want to highlight some of the commonsense legislation my colleagues and i have introduced to make the workplace more accommodating for working parents. Senator gillibrand has a great bill, the family act, that would do just that, that would have a medical and Family Leave Insurance Program that would cost less than 1. 50 per week on average. This is people helping themselves so they can have the leave that they need when their families need it. Senator Patty Murrays child care for working families act would ensure that every family has access to affordable child care. And my act would mean the parents in schools reauthorization act would increase access to oncampus care for student parents who make up onequarter of all College Students in america. These bills are a great place to start and we should take them up in the senate as soon as possible. After all the fmla passed in 1993. While it was an important step forward for our country, it is not comprehensive and it is nowhere near enough. Many workers across the country are ineligible for it and dont qualify to receive unpaid time off and cant afford it. The fmla does little to help americans who cant afford those who cant take time off. We need to do what we can to change that. To offer paid parental leave like the rest of the world has. Theres no reason we cant get this done today, and we should get to work on it today. Thank you. The presiding officer the senator from north dakota. Ms. Heitkamp mr. President , i rise today to talk about paid family leave. I want to kind of introduce this topic by saying, you know, politicians across america, whether they are local, whether they are in state offices, or whether they are in very important bodies like the United States senate, make one pledge, and that is to support American Families, to make life just a little easier for the people who are raising the next generation, to do what it takes to encourage people to have families and to have children so our future is secured with a workforce and also the vibrancy that is america. So it is 25 years since we adopted the family medical leave act. That was a great step forward and actually i actually remember when it happened. I was north dakotas attorney general cheering from the sidelines thinking, we involved this problem, we are protecting parents from losing their jobs and able to care for their newborns. Unfortunately, it wasnt enough. It wasnt enough because how many people, even if they have the protection can afford to exercise their right under family medical leave act . Very, very few in my state. And so it is absolutely essential that we take this to the next step, that we make sure that we are not forcing our citizens to choose between working as they have to when families live paycheck to paycheck and caring for their newborn. Yet, many day care facilities wont even take a baby. Think about that, wont take an infant until they are 10 or 12 weeks old. What choice have we given families under the family medical leave act. Just 40 have access to paid family leave through their employer. That leaves millions of people without access to paid leave, time away from their job to care for a new child or a seriously sick relative. It is well past the time that the United States of america, the dplaitest greatest country in the world, has a federal medical paid leave policy. I will tell you, i find this issue particularly vexing because as north dakota competes with the rest of the country for workforce, if you go to california this benefit is extended through a state system, if you go to rhode island, this benefit is extended through a state system. New york is pursuing a system. Large populations have the economies to scale to offer this benefit. Guess what happens to a state that only has 700,000 people in population, think about the percentages that we would need to run a statebased program. We need a National Solution to this problem. I know a lot of people are talking about, the states are doing it, the laboratories of experimentation in this great democracy. But for states that dont enjoy the economy of scale, this wont be a reality in my state who want to have children. Day care is the second issue that makes this so, so difficult. We need to make sure that people know that they are going to have a guaranteed income for those first three months of child raising. And why is that important . It is also important because we know, as a matter of physiological development, that bonding period of time with your parents, those early months are so critical. And when people get detatched from their parents during the early months, you can suffer psychological effects that will last forever, and so we need to get this done. So lets talk about what the proposals are on the table, and i dont want to be critical because i think it is wonderful that this issue has come to this body, not only on this side of the aisle, but to talk about the need for paid family leave. But once again, where we applauded the family medical leave act, we left too many people behind. We cant do that again. We cant do that again, and so thats why its really important that we analyze the proposals that are out there. And so i know that, along with my good friend, the senator from new york, we have been having long and extensive conversations with many republicans about this issue, many folks in the white house about the need for paid federal paid leave, but in the past few days details have come out about a republican plan that would have new parents do something we should never do, which is take money out of our retirement system. So have new parents take money out of their Social Security benefits. Think about that. We have a Retirement Crisis in this country. Too few people have anything other than Social Security to live on in their older years and now were saying, guess what, borrow against that. Get your Social Security to help you pay for what happens today and then hope upon hope that you will have enough money to retire in the future. It is, quite honestly, the wrong direction. And so this plan does not, in my opinion, support families. It would not help most working families and those who could use it. It would force them to choose between caring for a newborn or a Family Member or their retirement savings. I think it is likely that people would take that option, but jeopardizing their future retirement is not a choice they should have to make. Women already get think about this get on average 20 less in Social Security benefits than men. Why is that . It is that way because of the pay gap that we have in this country. Social security is a critical Retirement Security plan in this country, and for far too many families it is the only thing they can rely on in retirement, something we need to fix and we need to exacerbate it by complicating the Social Security Retirement Crisis with the problem of paid family leave. So i am here to advocate for a bill that senator gillibrand has introduced, and i have cosponsored, called the family act. It is a real federal paid leave policy that i think we desperately need. We need to support working families in this bill because this would truly make that promise of family paid leave possible. So our bill provides 12 weeks of partially paid leave for workers dealing with Serious Health issues on their own, including birth and adoption of children or for Family Members. Our bill would create an affordable effective earned benefit that both employers and employees could contribute to and would contribute to. For employees, the paid leave benefit would always apply to them no matter where they live. It is transportable, which is so important in this new gig economy. Almost half of north dakota workers do not qualify i want you to remember this for a single work day where they could get sick and only about onethird of north dakotas workers are eligible for and can afford unpaid leave. For them the family act would make all the difference. No family should have to koo choose between a loved one to choose wean a loved one between a loved one and their job. They should not have to do that today because they cant afford it when they put ink pen to paper. So our bill also levels the Playing Field for businesses. I think this is an important part. I want people to understand this. If youre a small firm in north dakota that does coding. Lets say that youre a Software Firm and you want you get an exciting new product. You want to generate excitement within your business and you want to recruit the best and the brightest coming out of our universities, coming out of our technical schools, but youre competing against microsoft and youre competing against google and your competing against all of those companies that can afford to provide that benefit. Many, many of the Small Businesses in my state have said, help us compete. Help us compete for the best and brightest. Because when those benefits are offered to workers, where are they going to go when they want to raise a family in they are going to family . They are going to go where not just the pay is better but where they can get the benefit of paid family leave. It is critically important that Small Businesses enjoy the economies of scale. Many if you work in retail and you say i want to exercise my right of family leave and im going to go, i mean, youre going to protect the job, but you cant afford to pay that person when youre paying another person in a Small Business. That struggle if you can think about this the way that i think about it, which is we have Unemployment Insurance for a reason. We have Unemployment Insurance because temporarily people have to get out of the workforce because maybe their job no longer exists or they have had a crisis in their family not a crisis in their family, but they lost their job for some reason. We give Unemployment Benefits to help bridge theming to the next them to the next job, to keep them in the workforce, and as a condition of that, we can them ask them to continue to look for a job and we hopefully provide some services in their search for a job. You think about the unemployment system. Who here would repeal Unemployment Insurance . Its temporary. This is an extension, and think about it like you would think about Unemployment Insurance. Something happens in your family. You have a baby. Your mother gets cancer. Your husband gets cancer. You cant afford to take that time off, but you cant afford to leave them alone. And so what do you do . You exit the workforce, potentially qualifying for food stamps, potentially qualifying for government benefits. This benefit keeps people in the workforce. And when i talked about this benefit in dickinson, north dakota, not exactly a hotbed of liberalism, and i explained why i thought it was important that we do it, a woman came up to me afterwards and said you know what i really like about your plan, senator heitkamp . I said that were going to help families. She said well, thats important, but she said i really like that it keeps people in the workforce. That they come to it, they have a job when they come back, and theyre able to bridge that and not leave employment. Think about this. Think about the economic disruption that happens when somebody cant keep an employee. Because of these challenges. Retraining costs are high. Thats why when this started in california, this was not this was yet again another, you know, Big Government program. People would talk about it that way. Satisfaction levels with this program from every end of the spectrum in california are off the charts, with employers and employees, with Small Business, with large business, because they know that that retraining and retooling that they would have to do for employees is is expensive, and they want to keep those good employees that they have. Lets do something for families. Lets actually do something. Lets not just promise it. Lets not mortgage our retirement for it. Lets do something for families and actually take this burden and say were going to help you if you want to have a child, three months of paid family leave. Not at your total salary. It wont be the full amount, but were going to help you if your mom gets sick with cancer so you dont have to leave your job to take care of her. Were going to work with families to make this happen. I can guarantee you this will be a program that will be remembered the way we remember other great programs like Social Security, other great programs like medicare, other great programs like Unemployment Insurance. And so with that, i just urge my colleagues to take a look at the family act, take a look at all the good economic arguments that go with it. Not the heartwarming arguments which i think we can make but the economic arguments about why this makes sense for American Business and why this makes sense for the American Economy. With that, mr. President , i yield the floor. I notice the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call mr. Blunt mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from missouri. Mr. Blunt i move we suspend the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Blunt mr. President , when the jobs act and tax cut bill was signed into law in december, we heard a lot of things about what was going to immediately happen. This was going to be a tax cut for the rich. Corporations were going to use their money to buy back their stock and not share it with the people that worked for them. The senate, as divided on a partisan basis as the senate could be. Every person in the majority who was here voted for the tax bill. Every person in the minority voted against the tax bill. We heard from some of the leaders of the other side that it would be armageddon. We heard from president obamas treasury secretary that 10,000 people would die every year if the tax bill was signed into law. We heard that the average family would only get crumbs and scraps from the tax bill. Its turning out that thats not what appears to be happening at all. Not only have companies stepped up to show that in a growing economy, an economy they believe is going to grow, that they value the people they work with and they value the employees of their company in a way that we wouldnt have anticipated. I thought this would happen as we saw the economy take off from the tax bill. It didnt occur to most of us that companies would step up on day one and say were going to value and show our value to the people that work for us. Over i think 3. 8 Million People now have received over 4 billion in bonuses. A lot of those happened in my state. A lot of those things happened in missouri. The central bank of st. Louis, which has over 2,000 people, gave a 1,000 bonus to all their fulltime employees. The 246 parttime employees they had will get a 500 bonus. Charter communications gave a an announcement, as many people have, that theyre going to increase their own minimum. Whatever their minimum salaries had been in the past, those are going to be higher now. You know, the very best kind of minimum wage increase is when youre increasing your minimum wage because you believe thats the fair thing to do for your employees and also because you believe its what you need to do to keep good employees in a rising economy, and so we have seen that. I think, mr. President , we have gotten so used to the stagnant economy of the last eight or so years that people have forget what happens when the economy begins to grow, so Charter Communications now increasing their minimum wage to 15 an hour. Commerce bank shares in kansas city, they have more than 2,300 employees in missouri. They gave a 1,000 bonus to all of their fulltime employees and a 250dollar bonus to their parttime employees. Mid america metal forming in southwest missouri gave all 140 of their employees a cash bonus. This is not, mr. President , about big companies. This is about little companies, looking at how they want to grow, and knowing they wanted to grow we can keep a workforce that is part of that growth. Great Southern Bank in my hometown of springfield has over 800 missouri employees. They gave, again, a 1,000 bonus to the fulltime employees and a 500 bonus to the parttime employees. 25,700 missourians work for walmart. They are raising not only are they giving bonuses, but they are raising their starting wage for fulltime employees to just under 14 an hour, substantially higher than the wage otherwise. It doesnt sound like crumbs to people who are getting those bonuses. And theyre seeing what they can do with them. Solomon essex is a warehouse worker for dynamic fasteners in raytown told us he was using his 1,000 to help his daughter buy a car. Mary beth hartman who owns a Construction Company in springfield said, one, i have been able to offer my longtime employees a week vacation that they didnt have before. Theyre getting plenty of overtime. They have job security. And also she is creating new jobs in her business. Its a good start, but there are, i think, even more announcements ahead and more Good Opportunity ahead. I said and senator capito and i were on the floor talking about this before the bill passed. I said several times. There are two ways to increase your takehome pay. One is for the government to take less out of it. Another one is for you to get a better job to start with. We are already beginning to see both of those things happen. When you double the standard deduction, when you double the Child Tax Credit, when you lower the rates, new code just allows you to have more money. Our friends on the other side said people wouldnt get a tax cut. 90 of workers in the country that have income tax deducted from their paycheck are going to have less income tax deducted on the same pay in february than they would have had in december. And what does that mean . A Boone County Court this is columbia missouri, the home of the university of missouri. I will want to mention here that the university of missouri just beat kentucky in basketball for the First Time Since we got into the sec a handful of years ago. I wouldnt want to let that go unmentioned. But the boone county clerk announced he had run the payroll for the first time for all county employees, all 485 of them, and the average county employee was getting 150. 54 a month more than they were getting on that same salary last year. And many of those employees, by the way, have two people at their house working, so this is just the one salary, an average of 150. 54. Thats about 1,800 a year, obviously. A brandnew Deputy Sheriff who in boone county earns 45,905 will have an extra 1,929 this year that they wouldnt have if they started that job in november or december of last year. 1,929 does a lot of things. 2 hundred dollars a month only seems like a lot if you dont have it. I think all of us are hearing by the way, that in boone county, that payroll for 485 people calculates right at 945,000 a year that those employees will have that in the past they would have sent to the federal government. Some of it will be saved, some of it will be spent. When i was flying back from kansas city on sunday, a guy behind me on the plane as we were getting off tapped me on the shoulder, said thanks for the tax cut. My wife and i, he said, just got our first checks with the new tax rates, and were going to have 5,000 more this year than we had last year. They said were going to put every penny of it in our kids College Savings account, and were really happy about it. Were really happy about it. What we do here, we dont actually often hear people say were really happy about something you have done because its going to make a difference for the future of our family, but this tax bill will. For a single parent with one child in missouri that makes 41,000 a year, their taxes are going to go down 75 . They will have that person that single parent with their one child would have 1,400 more this year than they had last year. Over 100 every single month. If youre a family of four, you make about 75,000, you will have 2,000 more. Thats a 50 tax cut for that family. You know, thats a lot of things. For most people, thats two months worth of groceries. Its a lot of gasoline. Its an electric bill. Oh, and by the way. If you get your electricity from a privately owned Electric Company like many people do, theyre having to refile also. In 47 states, some of the electric companies are going to be reducing their rates. Now, if you have got a Rural Electric coop like my farm in stratford has or a public utility like my house in springfield has, i wont get that tax cut, but lots of missourians are served, they get their electricity from somebody that pays taxes. And if you pay taxes, youre going to be reducing your trek bill because that was figured that 35 rate was figured into your electric what you were allowed to charge. Now youre paying 20 . That basically is money youre going to be giving back to the families and businesses you serve. Helping families means ensuring that they have more opportunities in the future. Being part of a growing economy means youre going to have more opportunities in the future. We are seeing all those things happen, and i think were going to continue to see them happen. Not just big businesses like at t and boeing and apple, who, by the way, just brought all of the money they had earned outside the country back home. They Just Announced they are bringing 100 of everything back that they would have not brought back in a 35 rate, but theyre glad to bring back at the rate in this tax bill and glad to see us be all those companies in a more competitive marketplace, just like Small Businesses are. So even though the law went into effect just a little over a month ago, i think were seeing the kind of reaction we would have hoped for. Families are beginning to see that what they were told about the tax bill wasnt true. If youre going to Say Something thats not true, you should never want to do that, but surely you should not want to do it when in 60 days, youre going to be proven not true, and the one thing everybody looks at, which is a bigger paycheck than they had 60 days ago. So in spite of what was said, nine out of ten workers are going to have a bigger paycheck, and those are hardworking families. The people are going to have a paycheck that doesnt benefit with a tax cut are the people at the richest end of the tax scale, not the other end of the tax scale. So, mr. President , i think were off to a good start. I think we ought to be talking about a growing economy. And all of us should talk about what happened over the last few months and what happens now as we move to a better place for families, a better place for jobs, a better place for competition because the tax bill that we passed in december and the president signed into law. And with that, mr. President , i think other colleagues of mine are here. Senator capito and i have been object have been on the floor a number of times talking about this together and i know she is here to follow me right now. The presiding officer the senator from West Virginia. Mrs. Capito thank you, mr. President. I want to thank my colleague from missouri for his really terrific explanation of 60 days hence of voting for the tax reform bill and the effect it is having in his great state. I want to come to the floor today to talk about what i think are the positive effects of tax reform not just across the country but particularly in my small state of West Virginia. Vice president pens the Vice President came to my state to talk about this. Worldwide equipment, which employs 1,100 people across the country and we learned from owner terry dodson how he feels about tax reform and the effect it has had on his business, his employees, his ability to grow his business. And what we learned is that mr. D. O. D. Son is going mr. Dodson is going to invest 8 million more in his operations and in his workforce, whether its through bonus, expanding the facility, buying new equipment, but particularly for the men and women working for worldwide equipment, it is the bonus that will see the effect and he attributed this to the tax reform. The men and women of worldwide equipment joined this from across the country, whether its walmart, at t, fiat, and many others who will receive bonuses because of this bill. The good news doesnt really stop there, and that is good. Because those of us who voted for this bill, and i did very proudly, said the effects of this tax reform will be felt in many different ways. So mr. Dodson has a relatively Small Business. He mentioned how he feels it. Many workers will see their tack take their takehome pay will increase as employers adjust their withholding based on the law. People like rob from berkeley springs, West Virginia, wrote, quote, thank you for helping my family by voting yes on the tax bill. My family saw a significant increase in our takehome pay today. Edwin from hurricane, West Virginia, said i want to thank you and the president for the tax break. Please keep working to help the American Worker. Denny from charleston writes, the tax bill will provide a big boost to our economy in many ways, including more Employment Opportunities and money in our own pockets. Robert, who is a Small Business owner from huntington wrote, quote, i want to thank you for your yes vote on the tax cut and jobs act. This legislation recognizes the importance of Small Business. In a state like ours, Small Businesses are like 95 of the businesses are Small Businesses. Many of them family owned. Other West Virginians will soon see the benefit. Id like to tip my hat and congratulate our state auditor j. B. Mccusky, because he took the time to figure out what kind of impact this tax cut and jobs bill act will have on the state worker, the worker from West Virginia university or marshall university, the three largest workforce that the state of West Virginia does payroll for. So he announced that in all, in total, all three of those entities will have 50 more dollars 50 million more pockets. For a state worker, it is 1,000 more per year. This is a significant amount for young families trying to buy new shoes, buy books and school supplies, use the gas to go visit or go on a vacation. We could go on and on. It seems like on the coldest day, a wet day like today is when your furniss furnace breaks down. How nice it would be to have the cash to do these things. Were seeing because the state exemplified i would say 55 million more West Virginia workers is 50 million more in the local economy, into the state economy, and better yet people are making their own decisions on how to spend it. Less than two weeks after it became law, americans are seeing the benefits. The jobs report showed over 200,000 jobs created just in the month of january. The report showed, and i think this might be more significant than job growth is that wage growth is accelerating at the fastest rate in the last eight years. People talk about stagnated wages and how they havent had a raise or how their dollars are going fewer less and less distance. By increasing the standard deduction and the Child Tax Credit for middleclass families, were making life better for the people that we represent. By making our tax code more competitive, were allowing American Companies to bring home money that had been previously left overseas. Now, theres a big controversy on this when we began discussing it. Are they really going to bring their money home . Well, apple announced plans to return as much as 250 billion in cash that it had kept overseas. Thats billion with a b, and that move is expected to create 20,000 new american jobs, and a tax payment on that is 338 billion on the repatriated cash. That is one of the largest and one of the best examples. Under our previous outdated tax code, corporations were faced with a 35 tax if they brought their foreign earnings home. Because the u. S. Corporate rate was the highest in the developed world, American Companies often just made the choice the financial choice to leave their foreign profits overseas, and that meant under the old system the federal treasury was frequently left to collect 35 of nothing because people werent bringing the money back and jobs that could have been done here in america were being done elsewhere, and thats a big problem and in december we fixed it with this bill. We said that a more competitive tax code would allow our companies to bring their money back and provide more opportunities for americans all across this country. And thats exactly what were starting to see. Today i want to highlight another important part of the tax reform effort, and i want to thank my colleague from south carolina, senator tim scott, who spearheaded this. He was the sponsor of the investing in opportunity act of which i was a cosponsor. This bill, which became part of the law in the tax reform bill will help spur growth in economically distressed areas. Under the bill, investors can defer their Capital Gains tax if they invest in opportunity funds. You know, living in rural areas, particularly those that have difficult economic conditions, such as many of the areas of my state, its hard to spur investment to get more people back to work to create new opportunities. So these funds must be invested in distressed areas, and census tracks that are designated by their governors who knows best than the governors where the distressed areas are this will provide capital to grow new businesses and create jobs in parts of our country that really need it the most. If those parts rise, the rest of the country will continue to rise. According to the economic innovation group, one in six americans live in an economically distressed community, and these distressed areas lost 6 of their jobs between the years 2011 and 2015. The New York Times recently highlighted the benefits of the investing in opportunity act, writing that rural areas account for just 3 only 3 of the job growth in the years 2010 to 2014 and Rural Communities saw more businesses close than open over the previous time period. So many West Virginians are continuing to suffer the consequences of the previous administrations anticoal policies, our economies could use this boost, and this is exactly what tax reform and the investing in opportunity act in particular will provide. Passing tax reform fulfilled a promise that we made to the American People to make jobs and Economic Growth our top priority. Two weeks ago the senate fulfilled another major promise by passing the longest extension of the Childrens Health insurance program. In West Virginia approximately 22,000 children rely on chip for access to health care. It has been a successful program. It has helped a lot of working families. And over the years it has helped to improve the health of our states children. These working families deserve the longterm senator that the chip certainty that the chip program will be there to provide those critical services. Im proud that we have been there to provide that service. I am a proud supporter of the chip legislation. I was in the state house when we forged and implemented the program in our state and ive been dedicated to it ever since. When it came i came to the senate three years ago in my maiden speech, i made longterm funding for the chip program one of my main priorities. So passage of this Bipartisan Legislation to extend it for the next six years was a big win for the children of this country and across West Virginia too. Hardworking americans are the beneficiaries of both tax reform and the chip reauthorization. Im confident that the benefits will keep coming. It seems like every day something good is happening in the American Economy with businesses and raises and bonuses and lower tax bills, people are seeing this on their withholding. So struggling communities in West Virginia welcome this. Cities will see greater Economic Growth and all because of the tax reform bill and its presented to us as that. Many of the Companies Making announcements are not making these announcements in a vacuum. They are saying very explicitly that because of the tax reform bill that Congress Passed and the president signed, we are able to do these things we wanted to do for our employees, give them a bonus, put more money in their pension, provide more longterm certainty. Have no doubt we will continue to add to the list of accomplishments and i will probably be on the senate floor talking about them. With that, mr. President , i would yield the floor and i see my colleague from indiana here to talk about Tax Reform Tax reform. Thank you. Mr. Young mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from indiana. Mr. Young mr. President , i rise today to speak in support of and show an example of the positive results that the state of indiana is already experiencing as a result of tax reform. Hoosiers like Chelsea Hatfield who accompanied me at the state of the union are seeing the benefits. Chelsea is a young mother of three. She is a teller at a rural branch of first Farmers Branch in tipton, indiana. She learned that she will receive a raise and a bonus as a result of tax reform. This additional income will help chelsea go back to school and earn her associates degree. It will enable her to put money away for her childrens college education. First farmers bank and trust is also investing 250,000 per year in Community Development in these small, Rural Communities where they serve businesses and individuals. Moreover, first farmers is going to invest 150,000 per year in employee development. This is Just One Company one company throughout the state of indiana and were seeing all sorts of stories like this already emerging. Which he will sao e and employers hell which he cd others will see real benefits, substantial benefits for themselves, their families, and the entire state and country of course will benefit as a result as well. So indiana, like so many states, is already seeing a steady stream of tax reform Success Stories like these ever since we passed the tax cuts and jobs act. Im, mr. President , going to go through a number of these positive stories that are emerging. Anthem, its an indianapolisbased Health Insurance company. They announced on monday that more than 58,000 employees and recent retirees will receive 1,000 contributions to their retirement. In my family and so many families around this country, 1,000 is real money, and thats just here and now. Moving forward we can expect increased Economic Growth, greater demand for workers, more wages to increase. But just in the near term, we know that anthem has said that they will give retirees and employees 1,000 contributions to their retirement. Family express, they are out of value out of valpraiso, they are boosting starting wage for employees at their 70 locations in indiana. Gus savings to their employees because they want to retain their employees. This is a good way to do it. Southwest airlines, they announced they will be investing in a new fleet of airplanes, and the engines will be built by hoosiers in lafayette. Fedex is investing 1. 5 billion in its indianapolis hub and providing bonuses to its workers. First midwest bank raised the minimum pay for hourly employees to 15 an hour in its 18 northwest indiana branches. Real results, real compensation, real benefits already being experienced by rankandfile hoosiers, by the people who help keep this economy humming. I listened very carefully to h h hoosier voices when we were debating the tax cuts and jobs act. Leagues. Workers at companies of all sizes are already beginning to see the benefits, as weve seen, of a tax code that is simpler, that is fairer, and that allows hoosiers to keep more of their hardearned money. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from louisiana. A senator i ask that the quorum call be suspended, mr. President. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Kennedy 47 days, thats how long its been since President Trump signed the tax cut and jobs act into law. And what a 47 days its been. Were already beginning to see what meaningful tax relief looks like for middle and workingclass americans. In just 47 days, well over three million American Workers, the people who get up every day, who go to work, and obey the law, and try to do the right thing by their kids, in just over 47 days over three million americans have received wage increases, benefits increases, and or bonuses. Now, mr. President , ive heard a number of socalled experts. Its been my experience that the experts are almost always wrong, but thats a separate subject. Ive heard many socalled experts say that if congress reduced the Corporate Tax rate from 40 to 21 , that if the United States congress lowered taxes on subchapter S Corporations and l. L. C. s and l. L. P. s and Sole Proprietorships and family farms, that the benefits would only be felt by the socalled rich. Mr. President , i would respectfully suggest that those three million americans who received bonuses and higher wages and more generous benefits, once again in just 47 days, would not agree with the experts. In those 47 short days, over 330 companies had passed along their tax savings to their employees. One of my states im from louisiana one of my states largest employers, j. P. Morgan chase, has increased minimum wages and expanded benefits for its hourly workers. Real money, higher takehome pay. J. P. Morgan chase has also planned a 20 billion fiveyear domestic investment that will benefit those americans who own homes, who own Small Businesses, or those who would like to someday as part of the american dream. Honeywell, another wellrecognized corporation, honeywell happens to have a manufacturing plant in guysmer. It was quick to increase its 401 k match for its employees. Bancorp south, another company that does business in louisiana, it gave raises to 70 of its employees right off the bat within the first 47 days. At t, at t has 4,600 employees in louisiana. Those employees are going to see 1,000 in a bonus. And many other benefits of a 1 billion, a 1 billion increase in investment by the company all as a result of the passage of the tax cuts and jobs act legislation. Now there are other businesses with footprints in louisiana, businesses like home depot, capital oil, starbucks, visa, american airlines, capital one, southwest airlines, bank of america, apple, fidelity, humana, nationwide, regions, verizon, and fedex. And i just named a few. They also made the list of companies that are passing along their savings to the American Worker. Furthermore, mr. President , in my home state of louisiana, the tax cut and jobs act is allowing Small Businesses to grow and reinvest in their employees. And into their communities. Thanks to the tcja i hate acronyms like you do thats the tax cut and jobs act. Thanks to our legislation, gulf coast bank, a bank in louisiana, actually in the new orleans metropolitan area, was able to raise its minimum wage to 12 an hour. Nearly doubling the federally mandated minimum wage. Gulf coast bank was also able to increase its contributions by 75,000. Maybe to some, that 75,000 is mere crumbs, but to the people of louisiana, thats a lot of money. Blessey marine in harrihan, louisiana, immediately took 1 million of its tax savings and increased its employees benefits. The tax cut act also allowed a brewery, a small brewery in hammond, louisiana i live about 30 miles away the brewery is called gnarley barley. It is going to expand, hire more workers and provide more benefits to existing workers. Its not as big as at t, but gnarley barley and the people who work for it are just as important to my state and to my company. Iberia bank is giving its employees 1,000 bonuses. You can call that a crumb if you want to, but in louisiana 1,000 is a lot of money and i think its a lot of money to most americans. I could keep going, but i think you get the point. The tax cuts and jobs act promised just about every American Family and just about every American Worker and nearly every American Business large and small a tax break, and theyre already starting to see the effects. Ive said this before, but it bears saying one more time. You cannot be for jobs if youre against business. Youll never hear a politician say he is against jobs or she is against jobs. Every politician is for jobs. But you cannot be for jobs if youre against business. And in order for businesswomen and businesswomen to succeed, they need four things. They need reasonable regulations. They need a welltrained workforce. They need decent infrastructure. And they need low taxes. Thats what government is supposed to provide and then government is supposed to get out of the way and let the Free Enterprise system work. Our tax cuts and jobs act provided those low taxes, and im very proud of the legislation. Last september i stood here and talked about the importance of tax relief for American Families, businesses, and industries, and for the Overall Health of our economy. Finally, i didnt know if id see the day finally were on track to see better than average Economic Growth, and im talking about threeplus percent. We talk about 3 growth as if its the holy grail. But its just average for the American Economy. Our burdensome tax code, it is clear now, was hamstringing our job creators, limiting productivity, and keeping wages about as low as they were adjusted for inflation as in 1999. The American Economy needed a shot in the arm, and that shot in the arm came 47 days ago. I think the outlook for our economy is better now than certainly its been in ten years. And i guarantee you that in 47 days from now it will look even better because the United States congress had the courage to legislate with the american e American People already knew. And that is that people can spend the money they earn better than government can. Thank you, mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum. A senator will the senator withhold his suggestion . Mr. Kennedy then i yield to the senator. How about that, senator . Mr. Tester mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from montana. Mr. Tester i want to thank the senator from louisiana for allowing me to say a few words and i want to thank you, mr. President , for doing the same. Mr. President , hopefully today works out better than the last 131 days have. And that hopefully today a Bipartisan Group of senators will be able to put forth a budget agreement that will be long term. And i want to thank them. Because part of that, although it isnt done yet so we dont want to get the cart too far ahead of the horse, but part of that is funding for our Community Health centers in this agreement. Funding for Community Health centers has been a top priority for me, and it became that because of my visits to the health care, the Community Health centers around the state, from bohuck to Partnership Health care in missoula and the list goes on and on. These Health Care Facilities provide incredibly affordable and Efficient Health care to people across montana. So i am incredibly pleased to work with the leadership in this body and get a deal for health care, Community Health care Centers Across this country, including montanas 17 Community Health centers. Now, i will tell you two years is a good start, but there happens to be 19 bipartisan cosponsors on a bill called the chime act which would reauthorize Community Health centers funding for five years. Thats where we really need to be. Im not complaining about the two years. I think its important we keep these folks going and two years is certainly better than where we are now. But really we dont look with much vision in this body. And its really not visionary to say that were going to give a fiveyear funding mechanism to our Community Health centers, but thats what we need to do today. We need to give the Community Health centers the longterm predictability that they deser deserve. In montana these centers are the backbone of much of our Health Care Delivery system. They provide Affordable Access, Affordable Access to care keeping our communities and families healthy. Let me give you a little example of how important these are. Community Health Centers and Community Health centers alone provide over 10 of the people of the state of montana their health care. Thats where they go to get it. 85 of those folks are low income. These are folks who probably wouldnt be able to get Health Care Without a Community Health center there. 20,000 of them are children. In montana were a big state, big geographically with not a lot of folks. So often times folks have to travel a long ways under the best conditions to see a doctor. If we didnt do this funding mechanism that we hope happens today or tomorrow, we would see these folks be traveling hundreds of more miles to see a doctor buzz oftentimes because oftentimes this is the only Health Care Facility close to them. So although the news that weve heard today so far seems to be positive, it does on our budget, it doesnt change the fact that congress should have acted on this 131 days ago. A solution should have been passed when our Fiscal Year Ended the end of september. It speaks to the dysfunction of this body. Our basic job here is to put forth a funding mechanickively known as a budget mechanism known as a budget that will provide basic health care, that will fund things like Community Health centers and chip, not use them as political pawns. Fund them, give people certainty, give our military certainty, give our security folks certainty, and not continue governing from crisis to crisis with continuing resolution to continuing resolution. I have seen firsthand the destruction of these shortterm budgets. Health clinics, our veterans, Small Business i just had a group of school board folks in my office the other day that talked about impact aid. These are schools that serve our military and native americans and said how these crrs were limit c. R. s were limiting the possibility of payments for these schools. We heard from our military leaders how the shortterm c. R. Is wasting taxpayer dollars and hurting our military readiness. At a time when men and women from this great country are stationed around the world, we need to give them certainty. They need to know that were doing our job as they do their job in incredibly difficult conditions. So for 131 days, too Many Americans have been living with uncertainty as a direct result of dysfunction in congress. This agreement is a step in the right direction and i am very pleased to see progress on a budget because 131 days is too long. So lets get this fixed. And over the coming weeks, i will be more than happy to sit down with republicans, democra democrats, independents who are willing to roll you their sleeves and work to give this country, Small Businesses, working families the predictability through a longer term budget so that they can move forward and be all that they hope to be in the greatest country in the world. With that, mr. President , i yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call quorum call a senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley mr. President , we hear a lot in this chamber the presiding officer the senate is in a quorum call. Mr. Merkley thank you, mr. President. I ask that the quorum call be lifted. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Merkley thank you. We hear a lot in this chamber about family values. We hear from democrats. We hear from republicans about the need to support and improve the strength of families across our nation. And one of the things that really do provide a foundation for a family to thrive . Jobs, education, and health care, good paying jobs, jobs with good work conditions certainly are extremely valuable. But the issue of good paying jobs and good working conditions has been caught in a struggle between we the people and the powerful and privileged of this nation. Now, our constitution starts out with these three beautiful wor words, we the people. The whole entire setup was to avoid the type of situation that was in so many places in europe where the privileged and powerful families ransom everything for their own ransom everything for their own people. Our vision is different. And yet time and time again we see this struggle played out where the powerful and privileged are trying to ride right over the top of ordinary people, ordinary working americans, ordinary middleclass americans. And that certainly is the case when we take a look at the issue of the family and medical leave act, the fmla. This is an act passed 25 years ago. And it was a major step forward at striking the better balance for good working conditions. And lets revisit a little bit the debate that occurred 25 years ago in preparation for the consideration of that act. Well, many folks today dont realize that the opportunity too take unpaid time off, to be with a child or be with a loved one who is very sick or Family Member whos dying, its something that came out of the fmla25 years ago fmla 25 years ago. They assumed that this is just a fair and decent and right way to treat your employees, that it produces more productive, more loyal team members, and its just part of an appropriate consideration of the human condition. But before we had the fmla 25 years ago, oftentimes people couldnt take time off to have an operation for a medical condition. Being sick a day might mean youre fired. Tending to a child, a newborn child might mean you lose your job. And just decent ordinary interaction with family was something not prioritized by the companies around this country. And its a system that big and powerful and privileged individuals and organizations fought to preserve. It took seven years of congressional debates. It took overcoming two president ial vetoes. It took overcoming entrenched opposition from special interests who said that it would be a disaster for workers to be able to address their medical conditions or their family medical conditions. They predicted all types of catastrophe. The chamber of commerce back then called fmla, that is simply family medical leave, a dangerous precedent. The National Federation of independent business said it was the greatest threat to Small Business in america. One member of congress, representative ballenger of North Carolina described fmla as essentially nothing short of europeanization and he didnt mean that in a complementary fashion. But we know better today. Theres no partisan debate over the fmla today. Theres no organized corporate opposition to the family medical leave act. Companies have found that treating their employees with the opportunity to address medical conditions of their own or of their Family Members or to be with a new baby is simply a winwin for the company and for the employee. More than 200 million working americans have taken leave under the family medical leave act to care for a newborn child, to sit at the bedside of a sick loved one, to recuperate after a major surgery. And what has been the result . According to a Labor Department survey released five years ago on the 20th anniversary, 91 of employers said the law had either a positive impact or at least no negative impact on the business. When you get nine out of ten on anything in america, we should pay a lot of attention to that. In fact, the fmla has been so successful, so popular, its been expanded twice. In 2008 we expanded it to allow military families to take up to 26 weeks of leave to care for injured service members. And then again in 2009 we expanded it to cover flight attendants and Airline Flight crews. Its time that we consider here on the 25th anniversary that we need to go from a system of simply unpaid leave to a system of paid leave. We need to join the rest of the developed world and say it makes so much sense for Family Members to have this flexibility. It makes so much of an improved worker and an improved family that its a winwin for america. Its time to recognize that while the fmla, the family medical leave act, was powerful, its only powerful for those who could afford to go without income. And that leaves out a great vast swath of america. Now, President Trump said he wants to fight for working families. So i should expect him to be down here lobbying for the improvement of this act. But we havent heard from him yet. And im not really expecting we will because what weve seen in the course of the past year is while talking about strengthening families, time and time again the president is simply about diminishing the support for working families, undermining them. We saw that most recently with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Assigning someone to go over there and head it up and proceed to undo the protections for fair financial deals that are the foundation for the Financial Success of our families. Really turn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into a bureau into a bureau to support financial predators . No. That does not help our families. And in fact, it will help our families to advance senator gillibrands family act. Because the time has come for National Paid family and medical leave insurance here in the United States. We know this because a number of states have already enacted their own paid leave laws so this isnt some big experiment that we have no foundation for understanding the pros and cons because states have already acted and we can evaluate how that has gone. When california was debating paid leave before its passage in 2002, yes, 16 years ago, the chamber of commerce described it as a coming disaster. And the National Federation of independent business predicted it would be the biggest financial burden for business in decades. But a study looking back on californias paid leave found that after 1. 4 million leave claims were paid, and thats 1. 4 million times that a worker was able to take care of a medical condition, was able to care for a newborn, was able to sit by the bed of a dying Family Member, the law has helped reduce turnover good for business its increased employee loyalty, good for business. And new jersey passed family paid leave in 2008. They offered workers six weeks at twothirds their salary funded through a payroll tax. At the time the mayor of bogato, new jersey raid at it saying the basic argument for this is to subsidize an army of Breast Feeding single mothers. Well, i must, must say what a misunderstanding of the importance of a mother to be with a newborn or a father to be with a newborn. That bonding, that support, thats family values. Dont talk about family values to me and then talk about a mother having zero days to be with a newborn or a father zero days to be with a newborn. After two years, new jersey has a fund that has a sur fund. Surplus. They did a deduction in the payroll that pays for it. Between 2009 and 2015, 200,000 paid leave claims approved, paying out 507 million in benefits resulting in Employee Retention of over 90 . Business is humming in new jersey and in california. In fact, business is doing well in each of the states and the District Of Columbia where paid leave has already been established by law. Mr. President , i celebrate what we accomplished 25 years ago with the family medical leave act. But im saddened that we restricted it to only those who could afford to take time off with no pay. Because strengthening families is something we should want to happen with families that are doing well enough to go without pay but also to assist families that are struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. I want those moms living paycheck to paycheck and those dads living paycheck to paycheck to be able to spend a moment with their newborn. I want them to get the operation which they need for which they are going to miss time. I want them to be able to sit by the bed of a loved wife or husband as they are dying or a loved child. Thats strengthening of families in america. Thats putting people ahead of the powerful and the privileged and putting the people ahead of the powerful and privileged, thats what our nation is all about. So lets get it done and pass this bill. Thank you, mr. President. I notice the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator for alaska. Ms. Murkowski are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are. Ms. Murkowski i ask unanimous consent the proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Ms. Murkowski thank you, mr. President. I think every community has one, the iconic american diner. Its definition, as has been officially outlined, is, quote, a friendly place, usually mom and pop with a Sole Proprietor that serves basic homecooked fresh food for good value. This is sort of an official definition. It was coined by a gentleman named Richard Gutman who is regarded as the curator and expert on all things diner. In 1955, four years before alaska won statehood, our very own iconic american diner opened in anchorage. It was called the lucky wishbone. It was a friendly place. It featured panfried chicken, real cheeseburgers, great milkshakes, by the way, and french fries that had been cut from potatoes just that morning. Fitting squarely within gutmans definition, it was a mom and pop. Mom was peggy brown. Peggy passed away in 2011 at the age of 87 after a long struggle with parkinsons disease. And pop was george brown who passed away on january 13 at the age of 96. This is the story of two extraordinary, extraordinary individuals that helped build our community, helped build our state, and remarkable and very humble ways. George along with his partner at the time built the restaurant with their own hands. Peggy became georges Business Partner as well as his life partner. She did the books. She greeted the guests. She was involved in every aspect of the enterprise. In 2002, the lucky wish bone was named alaskas Small Business of the year. When you think about it, there is nothing more homegrown, nothing more truly Small Business and entrepreneurial than that small diner that everybody calls home. Peggy flew back to washington, d. C. To receive the award in 2002. She was introduced at the time