Families across our country by providing a tax credit as large as 25 for employers who offer up to 12 weeks of paid family leave. Employees would be able to take this time without needing to choose between potentially falling behind on their bills or spending time caring for their loved ones. Caring for families today does not just mean taking care of children. My proposal helps to ease burdens on family caregivers taking care of aging parents as well. The Senate Special committee on aging recently released a report focusing on americas aging workforce and the opportunities and challenges associated with it. One of its findings is that a growing group of aging workers are also caregivers. In fact, one out of every four employees over the age of 50 serves as a family caregiver. Some employers are implementing strategies to support them, but i believe that this credit will go a long way in encouraging additional employers to take proactive steps to help these workers. This proposal also gives businesses the flexibility to set up these plans in ways that make sense for their companies and does so without mandates that some simply cannot afford. I also want to take this opportunity to briefly address some of the criticisms of my proposal. It has been said that a provision in this bill was designed to punish states and localities that have laws mandating paid leave already in place. If employers in states and localities that already require some paid leave go beyond what is mandated at the local level, they will be able to take advantage of this credit. We designed this credit to be targeted toward lower and middleincome workers who do not currently have access to paid family leave. We want to expand that access. Moreover, mr. President , i was happy to see an addition that was included in the Senate Tax Bill regarding state and local taxes. Most nebraskans will tell you that our property taxes are too high, and i agree. I supported the proposal to allow for a state and local property Tax Deduction of up to 10,000 on federal taxes. As this bill moves towards a conference committee, i urge our conferees to keep this proposal and my Strong Families act in the final bill. These provisions would help our families and they would help americas middle class. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. I would suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call a senator mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Lankford i ask unanimous consent to suspend the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Lankford mr. President , were in the middle of a have protracted conversation about tax reform. This conversation started in january. I heard people say it was riewshed through, rushed through, it started in january. There were hearings in the house and senate, different drafts, shot down and come back again and now were in the 12th month of going through this process. As we get close to the end, i wanton outline what were working on to tell the American People what is actually happening here. The focus here from the very start of it was two simple things. How can we reduce the rates for individuals so they can spend more of keep more of their own money and then spend their money to stimulate the economy. And the second question, how can we stimulate the economy . Those two things are very clear. This dramatically simplifies the tax structure that we have and it reduces rates for people so that people have more of their own money to be table to spend. Businesses have more of their own money to be able to invest in their biz, to business, to be able to buy their own equipment, and expand their business. That helps everybody in the economy. Whether you spend or save your money, you can keep your own money. Heres what it means for hardworking americans and in particular for my state of hardworking oklahomans. Every bracket gets a Tax Deduction. The Tax Foundation, as they study the senate plan state by state, they looked at the middleclass income family in oklahoma and the Tax Foundation found that the middleclass income family in oklahoma will have will take home 2,200. People will be able to see if in their paycheck. The senate plan doubles the standard deduction so that a single adult working will have the first 1212 where the first 12,000 is not taxed all. We also double the Child Tax Credit to 2,000 directly to be able to protect the people that need the help the most. What does that look like for us . When you take an oklahoma family of four, that family with all the incomes put together with two working parents that are there, that typical family of four in my state makes about 73,000, combining all of their intersection together had that family of four with a 73,000 total income for the family will see a cut in their tax bill of 2,200 next year. They pay typically about 3,600 in federal taxes, next year they will pay 1,500 in federal taxes. Thats a pretty dramatic shift for. They. Lets take a teacher in oklahoma, a cheecher who teacher who has been teaching for a cup of years, a single mom, 41,000 in total income, that single mom with a couple of kids will see a tax reduction of 1,400. That is significant to her in daytoday life. I can assure you that every oklahoman would like to see an extra 100 or 150 extra in their paycheck every month. This is a process that really does affect real people and it has been lost in all the conversation. It has been interesting to me to hear the debate and all the noise on it. Im hearing things that are tax myths. The most common one is that it will increase taxes for those in poverty. People out there saying it will increase taxes for those individuals, it does not. It does the opposite, not only by reducing rates but increasing the Child Tax Credit, it helps people who need help the most. I have also heard individuals out there in the media say this is going to hurt people because the individual mandate, something unrelated to tax policy entirely, has been snuck into the tax bill. Well, the individual mandate on the Affordable Care act is a tax policy that was actually added to a health care bill. This is a tax bill dealing with the tax aspect that snuck into the original obamacare bill. How does it work . The mandate says if you dont buy the Insurance Approved by the folks in washington, d. C. , then you get an extra tax on you. Where does that tax go . Well, in oklahoma 81 of the people that pay that extra tax make 50,000 or less. That extra obamacare tax, that penalty that was put on there was targeted directly at the middle class, and the middle class in oklahoma pays that fine 81 of the fine that is paid is paid by people making 50,000 or less in my state. We want to see that tax rate go down for those individuals and we want people to be able to have their choice. Thats a significant change for those individuals that are not only trying to make ends meet they dont want to see another tax laid upon them. Heres another myth. They say that the tax cuts for individuals arent permanent. May i remind everyone that the tax changes for the individuals that were made by the Bush Administration had the exact same effect. They had a tenyear life span. As we went out to the end of the tenyear life span, they were renewed. This is the same. A future congress will go back and evaluate, is this the right formula that is in place and be able to determine just like in 2011 when the tax rates were made permanent, give them the future window to evaluate if this is the right direction. Theres another p one that i heard several times saying that it will hurt teachers and it will hurt schools. Its interesting to me. I heard someone this past weekend specifically say the senate bill takes away classroom expenses from teachers. The ironic part about that is the senate bill actually doubles the deductibility for teachers and classroom expenses. The lie is that it the senate bill takes it away, the truth is that it doubles it so that teachers have twice as much as they can deduct. Teachers make a limited salary, the last thing that we need to do is hurt the teachers as they take care of the kids in their classrooms. It doubles deductibility for teachers. Many parents set aside a little bit of money every month to go toward the childs college education, this could be used for education that they can use from kindergarten to 12th grade as well as college, increases that opportunity. The house bill did have a portion in their bill about student Loan Interest and tuition waiver for graduate students. The senate actually does not have those two areas. I think thats important. Theres also been a great myth thats out there that republicans are cutting social security, medicare, and medicaid with this bill. Can i tell you, there is nothing in this bill about social security, medicare, medicaid. We are not trying to damage or change any of those programs. In fact, there was one of the hears that came up in it just last month where joint commission on taxation, joint commission on taxation, was asked that question and they confirmed that there is nothing in the bill that is trying to change those policies. That is just a myth. What we need is a healthy growing economy. Our economy has been flat for the last eight years, growing at around 2 . Historically the United States economy, since world war ii, has grown at about 3 . That little one percentage point may not be a big deal, but thats increased jobs, wages, and opportunity. I feel sorry for College Graduates that graduated in the last several years because trying to land a job in this economy and are finding it difficult to get a job in this economy and they wonder if it has always been like that. It has not. If you go back just a decade or two decades ago, people were graduating out of college and landing into great jobs because the economy was growing faster. If we dont do something to get this economy growing faster again, we will continue to have limited opportunities for all americans and peoples paychecks will continue to be flat yet another decade. This is a way to nudge the economy, to say lets get it back going again. Quite frankly, my democratic colleagues eight years ago passed a 1 trillion stimulus package and said that would nudge the economy and the economy didnt budge at all. This is an opportunity to come back and say, lets do this rieft. Not having right. Not having the government spend your money, but allow you to keep more of your money and allow the free market by spending and saving watch the economy lift. That lift makes a tremendous difference. One last interesting conversation. Theres been a lot of folks that talked about deficit or debt effects in this bill, to say that this bill could be up to another 1 trillion in the deficit. That is typical washington speak. There are 130 economists that look at this, all turn in reports, everyone has a p different outlook has a different outlook. They run their models, but everyone is guessing. I get that. They are educated guesses, but they are all guessing. It is the responsibility of us in the chamber to look the to look at the study and determine if this works. For instance, j. C. T. Said that there will be a half trillion dollars in deficit. When they didnt take into account is any increase in international funding, any increase in our american businesses that do business here in america and across the ocean. Thats not really taken into account in theirs many they dont look at tremendous swaths of the economy because they dont have that in their model. But they estimate that well have half a trillion dollars in deficit even without those things in there if our economy grows by. 1 . 1 . As i mentioned before, our economy is stuck at 2 or less. If we typically run at 3 . They are saying if we can go from. 9 to 2 then were half a trillion dollars in deficit over ten years. If our economy grows. 2 , according to j. C. T. , we breakeven, if we go. 3 , were in the positive. Do you understand what im saying . If you ask the questions, they have conservative estimates, as they should, as economists. But if our economy goes up to even maybe 2. 5 , so half a percentage point of whats typical for us, were far in the black. I understand its always a risk. My democratic colleagues took a risk eight years ago when they spent almost 1 trillion in the stimulus package saying, i hope this works, and it did not. I understand its a risk, but i think its an appropriate risk to be able to say lets allow americans to keep more of their own money to invest in this economy on the risk that we grow the economy. 2 more to be able to breakeven. I think the American Economy can grow much faster than that. She has for decades up until the last decade. Lets get us back to our old normal and allow that to be our new normal. Theres a lot of questions on the tax policy, rightfully so. Its important to all of us. Lets get it right and keep moving. Overu over the next couple of weeks well do a conference committee. Its a back and forth about how do we resolve the differences between the house bill and the senate bill. When thats done, it will have to pass the house and it will pass the senate and go to the president s desk. In the days ahead, americans will see the changes in their own paycheck as they see their rates go down and people are able to keep more of their own money. Understanding that the median family, their rates are set to go down by 60 in this bill. Its a tremendous benefit to them and one we shouldnt miss that opportunity. With that, mr. President , i yield the floor. I would note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from illinois. Mr. Durbin are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer we are. Mr. Durbin i ask consent the quorum call be suspended. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Durbin mr. President , as you know, and many do, 16 years ago i introduced a bill called the dream act, and the dream act was written to cover young people brought to the United States by their parents who have grown up in this country but do not have legal status. They are undocumented. Some of them dont learn that until theyre in high school or later. They think theyre americans. They went to school with a lot of american kids. They pledge allegiance to that flag. They sing our national anthem. They truly believe they were americans and didnt learn until later in life that in fact they overstayed a visa. Perhaps their parents overstayed a visa is a better description and that has affected their legal situation. So i introduced this bill, a simple bill that said if you have a child in america caught up in that circumstance, we will give them a chance to get legal. They didnt make the decision to come here in the first place but they ought to have a chance to become legal in america and to become citizens. Thats what the dream act said, and we set up certain standards. How do you become legal in america . First, if you have a serious criminal record, goodbye. We dont want you, dont need you. Second, if youre not going to finish school and drop out, sorry, there is no future for you in this country or limited future. And third, would you consider serving in our u. S. Military as a way of proving that you want to be part of americas future . So we set that up with the dream act and time passed, and we didnt pass the bill. One of my colleagues in the senate went on to be elected president of the United States, barack obama, and i reached out to him and said, mr. President , can you figure out a way to protect these young people who are subject to deportation through no fault of their own, and he did. He came up with an executive order called the daca program. Under the daca program, young people like those i described came forward, paid a 500 filing fee, and then went through a criminal background check to make sure they have no problems, submitted their information, and each of them were given a twoyear renewable protection plan, so they could live in america, not be deported, and be able to legally work. What happened to those people . 780,000 of them showed up, paid the fee, and got the protection under the daca program. Then came a presentation campaign, the last one, where donald trump as candidate for president said im going to get rid of this daca program. I think its wrong. It never should have been done by executive order. He said that and then was elected and set out to do it last september 5, he did just that. Announced by the attorney general of the United States. They said that by march 5, 2018, the program would end. What it means is that today and every day, more and more of these protected young people fall out of protection. About 120 a day. So for 10,000 of them, 10,000 of them who were protected by daca now can be deported, and the numbers will continue to grow until march 5 when the president said the program should end when 1,000 young people a day in america will lose daca protection, be subject to deportation, and cannot legally work. President trump said to us when he eliminated the daca program september 5 i challenge congress. Do what youre supposed to do. Pass a law to take care of this. Well, i accepted that challenge and i joined with senator lindsey graham, a republican of south carolina. We introduced the dream act. Were ready to pass the dream act. I think there are votes on the floor to pass the dream act. Some of my republican friends have said to me we support it, but we want a show of good faith on your part that you will strengthen our Border Operations to reduce others from coming into this country, and i said sign me up. As a democrat, i will join with you as a republican to fund things that are sensible, realistic, and effective to take our tax dollars and make our borders safer. I accept that. So now were in a position where the president s challenge has really come to the spot where we have to do something. Were going to leave here by december 22 to go home and enjoy the holidays. If we dont fix this problem before we leave, imagine what that means to these 780,000 young people. They dont know what their futures going to hold. Well, who are they . 20,000 of them teach in schools, grade schools and middle schools and high schools across the United States. 20,000 of these dacaprotected young people. When they lose their right to legally work in america, they are finished as teachers, finished. Out the door. 20,000 teachers could be lost.