[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 168 (Wednesday, October 23, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6053-S6080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, RELATING TO ``CONTRIBUTIONS IN
EXCHANGE FOR STATE OR LOCAL TAX CREDITS''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S.J. Res. 50, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 50) providing for
congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United
States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue
Service, Department of the Treasury, relating to
``Contributions in Exchange for State or Local Tax Credits.''
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the joint
resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). The majority whip.
Tax Reform
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, Democrats are forcing a vote to
repeal the administration's sensible rule to disallow bogus charitable
deductions that are designed to circumvent the SALT, or the State and
local tax, deduction cap that was part of the 2017 tax reform bill.
Frankly, I welcome this vote and today's debate. It gives us an
opportunity to review all the benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
While drafting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress made a conscious
choice to cap the State and local tax deduction, or SALT, at $10,000.
Doing so allowed us to provide additional tax relief to the middle
class, support families by doubling the child tax credit, and simplify
the Tax Code for filers by nearly doubling the standard deduction.
These changes resulted in the average family of four in my home State
of South Dakota receiving a tax cut of more than $2,000.
In response to this cap, certain high-tax States adopted--what some
would call ``creative'' but what I would call ``bogus''--schemes to try
to circumvent the cap. These so-called charities that these States have
set up are designed solely as an alternative method of paying State and
local taxes so millionaires can shirk their Federal tax obligations. So
the IRS did what the tax law directed. It enacted sensible regulations
to shut down these bogus tax avoidance schemes. But it did so in a
thoughtful manner, carefully considering more than 7,700 comments and
creating a safe harbor for certain donations to avoid unintentionally
discouraging actual charitable giving.
It is ironic that Democrats, who uniformly opposed the middle-class
tax cuts in the new tax law, are now calling for a tax cut for the most
well off Americans. Based on nonpartisan data from the Joint Committee
on Taxation, 94 percent of the benefit from passing this CRA would flow
to taxpayers with incomes of over $200,000. Fifty-two percent of the
benefit would go to those with incomes of over $1 million.
In fact, repealing the SALT cap would result in millionaires
receiving an average tax cut of nearly $60,000, while the average tax
cut for taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 would be
less than $10.
If you put that into perspective, the choice here is very clear.
Today, we have an opportunity to vote no--to vote no--on the Democrats'
proposed tax cut for millionaires.
Religious Freedom
The Democratic Party has undergone quite an evolution over these past
3 years. Like all political parties, the Democratic Party has always
had an extremist fringe, with the far-left wing of the Democratic Party
rapidly becoming its mainstream. Democrats have been falling all over
each other to see how far they can run to the left. Socialism, a
concept that, in America at least, seemed to have been firmly consigned
to the ash heap of history is now being openly embraced by the
Democratic Party. Leading Democrats have embraced putting the
government in control of everything from American's energy usage to
healthcare.
It is not socialism or government-run healthcare that I want to focus
on today. I want to talk about another trend that has been gradually
emerging in the Democratic Party but doesn't always get the coverage
that proposals like Medicare for All receive. It is the growing
Democratic hostility to religion, which culminated a couple of weeks
ago in a Democratic Presidential candidate's proposal to selectively
tax churches based on whether he agrees with their religious beliefs.
Let me repeat that. Think about that for a minute. A Democratic
Presidential candidate proposed that the government should selectively
tax churches and synagogues and mosques based on whether their
religious beliefs pass muster with the President. That is, or should
be, a shocking statement.
The idea of taxing churches based on whether their religious beliefs
meet with a political party's approval is antithetical to the
fundamental right to freely exercise one's religion. It is not just
antithetical, but it is unconstitutional. Targeting churches for
discriminatory treatment based on their theology is a violation of the
First Amendment.
It is an understatement to say that it is deeply disturbing to see
this proposal emerge from a mainstream candidate. But what might be
even more disturbing is that members of the Democratic Party aren't
lining up to reject this outlandish and unconstitutional proposal.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. This is not the first time a
Democrat has shown signs of regarding religious people as second-class
citizens. During some of the judicial confirmations of this
administration, it became clear that Democrats believed religious
people should be subjected to extra scrutiny.
There was the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett during the first year
of this administration. She was an outstanding judicial candidate who
received the American Bar Association's highest rating of ``well
qualified.'' The ABA's evaluation, as the Democratic leader once said,
is ``the gold standard by which judicial candidates are judged.''
Yet during the confirmation process, it became clear that some
Democrats thought she should be disqualified because she is a
practicing Catholic. ``The dogma lives loudly within you'' is a quote
from the Democratic ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, with the
implication that anyone who takes his or her religious faith seriously
can't be trusted to hold public office.
Last December, Democrats raised questions about another judicial
nominee because he is a member of a Catholic charitable organization,
the
[[Page S6054]]
Knights of Columbus, which participates in such disturbing activities
as serving veterans, raising money for the needy, and providing young
people with scholarships. The Constitution is very clear on whether
being a person of faith can disqualify you from public office. From
article VI, ``no religious Test shall ever be required as a
Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.''
``No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any
Office or public Trust under the United States.'' That is a quote from
article VI of the Constitution.
Religious liberty is a foundational part of our system of government.
There is a reason it is the very first freedom mentioned in the Bill of
Rights. More than one of the 13 original colonies were founded for the
express purpose of securing religious freedom. By religious freedom, I
don't mean the right to worship privately as long as you don't bring
your faith into the public square. What people were looking for in
America--what they still look for in America--is the freedom to live
according to their religion and according to their conscience and
beliefs, freely and publicly, without interference from the government.
That is what the First Amendment was intended to protect.
I want to move away from the Constitution for a minute, though. There
is no question that Democrats' increasingly hostile public attitude
toward religion raises some serious questions about constitutionality.
I think that is clear. That is not the only disturbing aspect of it.
I am also profoundly disturbed by the none-too-subtle implication
that religious people are somehow second-class citizens, that we may
have to tolerate them, but that we should seek to push them out of
public life. That idea is also one that would be absolutely
antithetical to the Founders.
The Founders didn't see religion as something to be tolerated. They
saw it as an absolute good, and that isn't just because a number of the
Founders were men and women of faith. They didn't think religion was
just a private good--that it kept you in a good place with God. No,
they thought religion was good for society. Think of the famous passage
from Washington's Farewell Address, which we read in the Senate,
literally, every single year in observance of Washington's birthday.
Let me quote:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who
should labor to subvert these great pillars of human
happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and
citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not
trace all their connections with private and public felicity.
Again, this is from President Washington's Farewell Address. This is
a sentiment that occurs over and over again during the founding--that
religion is a benefit not just to individuals privately but to the
public, that it makes men and women into good citizens. It encourages
them to uphold the law, to live virtuous lives, to take their oaths
seriously, to respect the property of others, and to moderate
problematic passions like vengeance and avarice.
That is not to say that you have to be religious to be a good
citizen, but it does point to the truth that religion is something that
adds value to society and that it builds men and women who are a
blessing to their neighbors and to their country.
Americans are known for being a generous people. I don't think it is
much of a coincidence that Americans are also known for being a
religious people. Again, to be clear, that doesn't mean you have been
to be religious to be generous, but religion encourages generosity.
Think about how much of the charitable work in this country would go
away overnight without religion. Churches and religious organizations
support food banks and homeless shelters and crisis pregnancy centers.
They run tutoring programs and scholarship programs and mentoring
programs. They reach out to immigrants and refugees and to struggling
parents and struggling families. They serve military members and first
responders. They sign up people to vote. They help families looking to
adopt. They implement recycling programs. They collect aid for
individuals caught in the path of natural disasters. They build houses
for those without a home, and I could go on and on and on.
I will provide just one South Dakota example. A few months ago, I
visited LifeLight's new youth center in the Pettigrew Heights area of
Sioux Falls. In addition to providing spiritual opportunities, the
center is focused on providing a safe place where underprivileged
children can come to hang out, play games, have a snack, and do their
homework. It is just one of the many tremendous things being done by
churches and religious organizations in Sioux Falls and around my
State. I doubt there is any area where good work is being done in this
country where you won't find religious people helping out.
I don't just want to see religious people tolerated. I want to see
the Democratic Party rejecting the un-American idea that being
religious somehow makes you less qualified to participate in the public
square, and I want to see the Democratic Party standing up to condemn
unconstitutional ideas like that proposed by one of their Presidential
candidates.
Until then, I will keep fighting to ensure that every American's
fundamental right to live in accordance with his or her religious
beliefs is protected.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Turkey and Syria
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, 3 weeks ago, a small number of U.S.
Special Forces were working with our Syrian Kurdish partners to conduct
operations against ISIS and hold more than 10,000 detainees, many of
them hardened ISIS fighters. It was a product of a half decade of hard
work by American and coalition forces and the Kurds to degrade ISIS, to
put them on the run, and stabilize the postconflict region.
Today, only 3 weeks later, as American troops continue their
withdrawal from their bases in northern Syria at the President's
orders, President Putin and President Erdogan have announced a plan to
establish Russian and Turkish control of a region that was once
controlled by American and Kurdish forces. Our partners, the Syrian
Kurds, have been killed and wounded in Erdogan's invasion and forced to
leave their homes in droves. Most importantly, the upper hand we once
held over ISIS has been eroded.
We don't know how many ISIS detainees have escaped from detention
facilities or where they have gone. There seems to be no articulable
plan on how to get them back. In the blink of an eye, President Trump
has undone over 5 years of progress against the Islamic State.
Three weeks after first announcing the troop withdrawal, the
President does not seem to have a clear strategy for securing the
enduring defeat of ISIS and fixing the mess he has created in Syria.
Secretary of State Pompeo does not have a clear strategy. Secretary of
Defense Esper does not have a clear strategy. Every day it seems like
we are going in a completely different direction. One day, reports
indicate the administration was considering a residual force in eastern
Syria; the next report says the administration planned to target ISIS
from Iraq. The next minute, reports said Iraq will not allow our forces
to do that.
What is the strategy here? America's security is at risk. ISIS is
dangerous. ISIS is escaping. How will the administration continue to
bring the fight to ISIS? What will the President do to prevent Russian
and Turkish aggression and the potential slaughter of our allies and
friends, the Kurds? When will the administration present its strategy
to Congress?
We need answers to these questions right away, but, shockingly, the
administration's top officials, Secretary of State Pompeo, Secretary of
Defense Esper, have now canceled two scheduled briefings with the
Senate, and there is no new time on the calendar.
[[Page S6055]]
Secretary of State Pompeo apparently had time to speak to the
Heritage Foundation yesterday, which is four blocks away from the
Capitol, but he doesn't have time to come to Congress, not even to
brief us on Syria?
Secretary Pompeo is derelict in his duty. He has an obligation to
come here. It is not a question of time if he spoke four blocks away at
the Heritage Foundation. He is ducking. We need answers, and if they
don't have answers, we need to have a Q and A, a dialogue, and maybe
that will push them to some answers. It is too dangerous for America to
sit and do nothing--to run and hide, as Secretary Pompeo is now doing.
Today Senate Democrats are holding a special caucus to hear from
Brett McGurk, the former government envoy in charge of countering ISIS
under both Presidents Obama and Trump. While I expect Mr. McGurk's
presentation to be helpful to our caucus, it does not replace the need
for the Trump administration and its officials to come to Congress and
explain their strategy.
At the same time, we should send a message to the President that both
parties oppose his policy in Syria. The House has passed such a
resolution on an overwhelming bipartisan vote, including the Republican
leaders like Leader McCarthy, Representative Scalise, and
Representative Cheney.
I have asked the Senate twice now to take up the House resolution,
only to be blocked by a single Republican Member. I continue to believe
the quickest and most powerful way to convince the President that he is
on the wrong track is for Congress to put a bipartisan, joint
resolution on his desk saying so. That is what the House resolution
does, and the Senate should take it up and pass it.
We all know it is hard to shake the President from his thoughts and
ideas, even when they are creating such disaster. His ego is enormous,
but the one thing we can do is our Republican colleagues joining us in
a resolution that reaches his desk. When Republican colleagues
criticized him about Doral, he backed off. It is the only thing that
can get him to change, and America is at risk.
Why aren't our Republican colleagues stepping forward? Do they care
more about protecting President Trump than protecting America? I hope
not.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
USMCA Agreement
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, it has been over 1 year since the United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was signed by President Trump and the
leaders of Canada and Mexico. This landmark trade agreement is expected
to create 176,000 new American jobs. It is expected to grow American
businesses all over our country and help give a jump-start to our hard-
working farmers and ranchers. With 95 percent of the world's population
outside of the United States, Montana producers need access to these
global markets.
Agriculture drives our economy in Montana. In fact, it is the No. 1
economic driver in our State. Canada and Mexico both are in high demand
for our products like wheat, barley, and beef. In fact, in 2018 alone,
Montana had $731 million in total exports to Canada and Mexico.
For our producers in Montana, the USMCA would be a positive step
forward in providing certainty and alleviating the challenges and
obstacles they faced virtually every single day this season.
When I travel across Montana, I have heard from folks in every corner
of our State: 4-H members, FFA members, farmers and ranchers at local
county fairs, and producers along the highway. They all want action on
USMCA. They all need relief. They are looking for something certain
coming out of Washington, DC, in these uncertain times.
I cannot stand by any longer as my colleagues in the U.S. House of
Representatives fail to act. Listen, we have enough votes in the Senate
to pass it. There are enough votes in the House to pass it. President
Trump can't wait to sign it. Mexico is ready; Canada is ready; the
United States is ready; and I can state that in my home State of
Montana, we are very ready. I, along with the majority in the U.S.
Senate, am ready to get this deal done and get it across the finish
line for some of the hardest working folks in our Nation, our farmers
and ranchers.
Hard-working small business owners and folks on farms and ranches all
over Montana are sitting and waiting for Speaker Pelosi to stop slow-
walking the USMCA. The House Democrats cannot continue to hold our
farmers and ranchers hostage for any future political gain that we are
seeing right now in the House. It has been a political game over there.
This is negatively impacting the Montana way of life.
There are countless numbers of Montana families out there who are
surviving paycheck to paycheck. They are living on a prayer. They are
sick and tired of politics and the partisan games being played in
Washington, DC, and, you know what, I am too.
We were elected to come here and get something done, not spin the
wheels on cable TV at night just talking about other issues that aren't
moving the ball forward on behalf of the American people. What
Montanans care about is how they are going to put food on the table and
how they are going to make ends meet this winter coming up. The USMCA
is more than just a trade deal, it is an opportunity for more jobs and,
importantly, higher wages.
That is why I am here today. I am here to encourage our Democratic
colleagues in the House to stop playing politics with our communities,
our jobs, and our very lives. I am calling on the U.S. House to act,
bring this important trade deal up for a vote. Let's have an up-or-down
vote. Let the House Chamber speak. Let them vote.
The USMCA has the potential to boost our Nation's GDP by $68 billion,
plain and simple. That means more money in the pockets of Montanans. It
is a better opportunity for our folks in agriculture. There is more
revenue for Main Street businesses in Montana. The USMCA will deliver
much needed trade certainty, secure intellectual property rights, and
modernize digital trade.
I am not alone in wanting swift action. I am honored to have support
from the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Montana Farm Bureau
Federation, from the Montana Grain Growers Association, from the
Montana Stockgrowers Association, and from the Montana Pork Producers
Association. They are all with us to get the USMCA done. The longer we
stall this deal, the further we stall economic opportunity in Montana
and across this Nation.
To Speaker Pelosi and to my colleagues in the House, the time to act
is now. Our neighbors depend on it, my Montana farmers and ranchers
depend on it, and the entire country depends on it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Colorado Farm Tour
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Montana for his
comments on the USMCA.
I come to the floor today to talk about a farm tour that I have done
every year that I have been in the Senate. This is a tradition that
started when I was in the House of Representatives with the wheat
growers in Colorado, where we go around the Fourth Congressional
District talking about those issues that matter to our farmers in the
wheat business. Colorado's Fourth Congressional District raises the
vast majority of wheat in the State of Colorado, and about 87 percent
of that wheat gets exported.
Senator Daines' comments on the USMCA and what that means for Eastern
Colorado are incredibly important. I hope that is a bipartisan effort
that we can all get behind in the House and the Senate, and, of course,
it has to start in the House, and we need the House to act as quickly
as possible because those wheat farmers in Eastern Colorado need the
certainty of new markets. The cattlemen in Colorado need the certainty
of new markets and existing markets. That is exactly what the USMCA
will do. I commend my colleague for his words on the USMCA.
Over the last several months, I have been participating in this
annual Colorado farm tour that I undertake every year with not only my
staff but producers from across Colorado. It is in conjunction with a
number of organizations in Colorado, like the Colorado Farm Bureau,
Colorado wheat growers, corn growers, cattlemen, and others,
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who all come together to show us every aspect of Colorado agriculture,
from the production itself to the actual processing and finishing of
agricultural products.
We drove hundreds of miles across the State of Colorado, starting in
Greeley at a cheese-making plant. Almost all of the milk that is
produced in Colorado--Colorado being one of the highest milk-producing
States in the country--goes into cheese that every American gets to
enjoy. Whether it is Domino's pizza or Papa John's pizza, that cheese
most likely comes from Colorado. This is a great opportunity on this
tour to connect all four corners of Colorado and the work that we do in
agriculture and to hear their concerns.
We ended the farm tour at the State Fair in Pueblo.
What was particularly special about this year's farm tour, though,
was, of course, being joined by the Colorado Farm Bureau, and the fact
that it is the 100th year anniversary of the Colorado Farm Bureau.
Congratulations to the Colorado Farm Bureau. We will be talking about
that more over the next several months. Congratulations on this very
historic anniversary, and thank you so much for joining this tour and
making it happen once again.
As Members of Congress, all of us are used to discussing policy
topics, but keeping farming and ranching at the forefront and keeping
rural America at the forefront of those discussions is critically
important because we need to focus specifically on those issues facing
our farming and ranching communities.
In Colorado, the ag community accounts for more than 170,000 jobs. It
is responsible for more than $40 billion in economic activity. It is
one of the largest economic drivers in our State--a State that has been
transformed by energy jobs and high-tech aerospace jobs. Agriculture
remains one of the highest job sectors in the State.
Even though it is so vital to our State, we know how much of a
struggle it has been in agriculture over the last several years.
According to the Department of Agriculture, 2019 farm income is
projected to be down 49 percent from its peak in 2013. Over the last 6
years, we have seen a nearly 50-percent drop in farm income. Debt held
by our farmers and ranchers is at $409 billion this year. That is up
from $385 billion the year before. There is significant worry in the
heartland about what is happening to our agricultural communities and
the future of farming and ranching in this country.
One way to immediately help to provide solutions to solve this
problem for farmers and ranchers is to make sure that we implement the
2018 farm bill programs as quickly and expeditiously as we can and that
we resolve outstanding trade disputes, that we pass the USMCA, and that
we resolve the trade dispute with China so that we can continue to open
up new markets, develop new markets, and thrive with existing markets.
When an industry that accounts for nearly 11 percent of our Nation's
employment is struggling like agriculture is, we simply can't wait any
longer to provide help. We must act now to put the ag community back on
the path to sustainability, so that not only current generations of
farmers and ranchers can continue in operation but new generations of
farmers and ranchers can come back to Colorado, North Dakota, and
States across this country to make sure they have bright futures in
agriculture.
Even in the face of difficult times, we saw on this tour how farmers
and ranchers are innovating and looking to address new markets to
increase their incomes. They are opening up new markets through the
Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, whether that is a trade agreement with
ASEAN or Taiwan.
Another example is clean energy opportunities that our farmers have
embraced. On one of the stops during the tour, we visited a farm in
Eastern Colorado near Limon, CO, to talk about what wind production
means for that rancher. The farmer leased the land, the area, to Xcel
Energy, which is Colorado's largest investor-owned utility, to install
wind turbines, which provides them with an alternative source of
income.
Another rancher in the county talked about how they may earn as much
as $5,000 per turbine for the wind operations on their ranch. If you
think about it, this farmer had 20 turbines on his land--that is $5,000
times 20. That is $100,000 in income that this farmer would not have
otherwise had. Farm income is down 50 percent, farm debt has increased,
but this wind production, with a very small footprint, may be the
difference between keeping in operation this year and next year. We
have to welcome that kind of diversified agriculture opportunity.
Another example of diversified income for agricultural producers is
in Springfield, CO, in the far southeastern area of the State, where we
visited a hemp processing plant. This Chamber has done great work when
it comes to hemp, a new value-added opportunity for farmers and
ranchers in Colorado. When this hemp processing plant is fully up and
running, they are hoping to employ around 50 people. We went to this
facility, and there is millions of dollars of equipment being invested
in a small town. Employees will have a shop, a gym, and recreational
facilities. They are going to build a lake there and hire 50 employees
in Springfield. I remember asking one of the other county commissioners
who was on the tour with us in Baca County: Did you ever imagine a day
when one business would bring 50 employees to Springfield?
The answer was very quick: No, never at all.
This as an incredible opportunity, not only for the farmers in the
area but the community that will now benefit from 50 good-paying jobs
with benefits. That is just one other source of revenue that we can
achieve.
We also had the opportunity to visit Agriculture Research Station in
Akron, CO, where they are doing tremendous research on dryland oilseeds
and new technologies. One of the things we talked about is how we can
make it more effective to produce dryland crops and how we can make
oilseed opportunities available for additional value-added
opportunities in the area.
We also had opportunities on the farm tour to talk about mental
health needs and what is happening in our communities. On too many
stops during the farm tour, I heard about the impact that our
struggling ag economy is having on the mental health of farmers and
ranchers. A 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found
that agricultural workers have a higher suicide rate than any other
occupation.
When we passed the farm bill in 2018, we also included language
called the FARMERS FIRST Act, which will help to create mental health
opportunities for those involved in agriculture and help to make sure
that we have suicide assistance and prevention training for mental
health assistance and suicide prevention efforts for farm advocates to
help create support groups and reestablish the Farm and Ranch Stress
Assistance Network. That needs to be something that we all talk about
back home with our agricultural community. Because they have provided
food and fiber for this country and, certainly, the world, we need to
make sure we are supporting them in every way.
We also talked about how we saw a nearly 40-percent increase in
admissions for meth addiction in Colorado between 2011 and 2018. While
we talk a lot about opiate addictions in this country, it is actually
meth that our sheriffs are most concerned about in our rural areas.
While we address the opiate epidemic, we also have to be giving and
providing new tools and resources to deal with the addiction scourge of
methamphetamine.
Alarmingly, a significant number of that meth is coming into Colorado
from, basically, industrial-scale manufacturing facilities and
sophisticated operations in Mexico and China. We need to make sure that
we disrupt those operations. We need to advocate more for the High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program and the anti-methamphetamine
task force to help law enforcement prevent cartels from getting these
kinds of drugs into the country and continue to work on programs like
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to focus
on recovery resources and prevention.
Everywhere we went on the farm tour, we heard about the labor
shortage, whether it was the cheese-making facility or whether it was
the ranch or the hospitals that we visited on the farm tour. They
talked about the need
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for labor. We need a guest worker program that meets the needs of labor
in this country.
Housing issues seem to be something that we don't talk about when it
comes to our rural areas. We talk a lot about it when it comes to the
Denvers and the mountain communities and resort communities. Our rural
areas are facing housing shortages and needs, as well. We introduced
legislation and are working on legislation out of this farm tour to
help focus our labor and housing shortage needs.
I have talked about trade and the opportunities we have with trade to
open up new markets and to resolve current trade issues, and we need to
continue to work on that.
While the agricultural community is currently facing very serious
issues, I want to be clear that our farmers and ranchers are as strong
as ever.
Growing up on the Eastern Plains of Colorado and still living in the
heartland of Colorado agriculture, I have always observed the
incredible positive impact that agriculture has on our communities--
rural communities and urban centers as well. When the Federal
Government gets out of the way of farmers and ranchers and growers and
allows good things to happen, that is when our rural communities grow
and thrive.
A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to celebrate National
Farmers Day. It was a day to celebrate the great community that has
always been the backbone of this Nation, but we can never express all
of our thanks to this industry simply on 1 day of the year.
To all of our farmers and ranchers, to those who make our breakfast,
lunch, and dinners possible by providing abundant food and fiber for
this country and this world, I am grateful for them and look forward to
continuing to work on new solutions and better opportunities in the
years to come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Appropriations
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am here this morning very pleased to
be at this point where we are talking about consideration of an
appropriations package that includes the fiscal year 2020 bills for the
subcommittees on Interior and Environment; Commerce, Justice, and
Science; Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug
Administration; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development;
and the various related agencies.
It may be premature to call this a return to regular order, but I
think that is kind of what it feels like. I would note that it is
October 23, well past time that we should have finished our
appropriations work, but we are advancing. We have bills that we have
moved through the subcommittees and the full committee, and we are now
moving packages of these to the floor.
I am pleased that we are here, where we have an opportunity to take
up these substantive measures that the full committee has addressed
with strong bipartisan support.
In the case of the Interior and Environment bill, there was unanimous
support for our bill. Then, there is the opportunity to bring the bills
to the floor for consideration, where other Members have an opportunity
to debate these appropriations bills, offer amendments, and, then,
advance them through the process.
I am pleased this morning--particularly pleased--to be able to speak
on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee bill and to be here with my
ranking member, Senator Udall. We have worked through this subcommittee
account now for several years. It has been a good partnership, a strong
partnership, with our teams working side by side. It is not the easiest
of bills. We get our fair share of controversy.
In addition to taking care of all of our public lands, we also have
oversight of our Native peoples. We also have oversight of the EPA. So
we have a range of subject matters that sometimes can bring us together
and sometimes can cause some bumps along the way. Yet what we have
committed to doing, I think, in working collaboratively, in working
together, has resulted in a good, strong measure that the Senate now
sees before it.
Last year was the first time since fiscal year 2010--9 years now--
that the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations was
brought before the full Senate. We have been in a situation in which,
for years, we have kind of been at the tail end of the line, the last
of those spending bills to move. Now we are debating it in the first
package, so we really feel like we have kind of arrived here. Again,
you don't arrive here as part of the first package without having done
a great deal of work. You don't do that and receive unanimous support
coming out of the committee for the second year in a row now if you do
not demonstrate this strong commitment that both sides have made to
create an environment in which we can work through these issues in a
bipartisan manner.
The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies portion of this
minibus includes funding for all of the major Federal land management
agencies. This includes the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, as well
as the Environmental Protection Agency. We also provide funding for
essential Indian health, education, and resource management programs
through the BIA and the Indian Health Service. Then we also provide
funding and oversight for important cultural institutions, like the
Smithsonian Institution, our National Gallery of Art, the National
Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This aspect of our oversight is often kind of forgotten because it
doesn't necessarily fit in with the public lands, with the EPA, with
the BIA, but it is an important and an integral part of our
subcommittee's work.
Our subcommittee's allocation for fiscal year 2020 is $35.8 billion.
This is $248 million more than last year, with an additional $2.25
billion being made available by the wildfire cap adjustment, and I will
speak to the wildfire cap issue a little bit later here. Similar to the
approach that we took in fiscal year 2019, the bill rejects the
proposed budget decreases. We make investments in our highest
priorities, such as infrastructure investments for our land management
agencies, Indian Country, and wastewater and drinking water
improvements.
The Department of the Interior itself is funded at $13.7 billion.
These funds go to support energy development that is critical to our
Nation's economy, to recreation activities that power our rural
communities, and to conservation efforts to protect our public lands
and the wildlife that relies on them. Funding is provided to support an
all-of-the-above energy approach, both onshore and offshore, that will
continue to help our country achieve energy independence.
On the conservation front, investments in grants programs for species
protection, wetlands conservation, and to combat wildlife trafficking
are included. We also took a keen look at some of the invasive species
that are wreaking havoc in certain of our regions, like the Asian carp,
so we provide a lot of good focus there.
Americans love to love our national parks, so this bill provides the
funds that are necessary to meet our responsibility at the national
park units. We also focus on the deferred maintenance, which is
something we have talked a lot about in committee and on the floor. We
invest $127 million for deferred maintenance. We also increase funding
for historic preservation, which is critical to preserving the sites
and the stories of our Nation.
The USGS, the U.S. Geological Survey, receives funding for important
programs that help our emergency responders during natural disasters
like earthquakes or tsunamis. We work within this bill to provide
assistance for responses to natural hazards and disasters as well as to
inform the public. In my State of Alaska, the support for the
Earthquake Hazards Program helps us. As a State that is very
seismically prone, it helps us with warnings, and it helps to enhance
the earthquake monitoring capability. The bill also maintains funding
for mapping initiatives that will help to gather data to improve our
maps, which enhances the safety of activities such as aviation. In
certain parts of the country, believe it or not, we do not have current
and accurate mapping. Certainly, in my home State--and I know in other
parts of the country--the updates to the maps have simply not been
made.
[[Page S6058]]
We also fully fund another lands matter, PILT, which is estimated at
$500 million, and it maintains our commitment to meeting the needs of
local communities for county roads, public safety, and schools. I know
many of us in this Chamber hear from our constituents about the
significance of adequate PILT funding.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is something that is near and
dear to many in this body. You will see in this bill an increase to the
LWCF, which receives $465 million. This is $30 million above the
enacted level. This also includes $140 million for the NPS State side
program as well as additional funding for recreational access. We focus
on how we are able to access our treasured lands and ensure we have a
level of conservation that is supported across the country.
In working with Senator Udall over these years, I think it has been
important--it has certainly been important for me--to have had a great
partnership, a strong partnership when it has come to trying to meet
the needs of those within Indian Country and having to fund the
critical services. With this bill, I think we are making good measure
to do that. The two primary agencies that deliver services to the
Indian community are the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health
Service. They receive a combined increase of $288 million over the 2019
levels. We maintain all critical program funding with some important
increases for Indian Country.
For the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BIA, we maintain the
substantial increases we have provided over the last 2 fiscal years. We
are helping on matters such as the construction, operation, and
maintenance of Indian schools. We know, unfortunately, that in so many
of the reservations in the lower 48, our schools are simply inadequate.
The education scores we are seeing from our schools are not where we
need to be. Making sure we are doing right by our Native children
around the country is so important when it comes to education.
We also include funding for irrigation systems. We also fully fund
contract support costs. We increase funding for public safety and
justice facilities construction and programs. Certainly, as I hear from
folks in Alaska and those around Indian Country in the lower 48, public
safety is something by which, again, we are not doing right by those
whom we must serve in these areas. This is an effort that I intend to
continue to push in my going forward.
I would specifically like to point out to my colleagues that for the
very first time, we include a comprehensive look with new funding into
those issues related to murdered and missing indigenous women. Many of
us have been shocked at what we are coming to understand about the
murdered and missing of our Native women around the country. The data
we have we know is lacking. We don't know what we don't know. Thus,
oftentimes it is difficult to respond and to address resources. The
fact is that many who live in Tribal communities are often located in
rural areas that lack public safety, and even though you have high
rates of violence, abuse, murder, trafficking, we simply don't have the
resources there to help to respond to it.
I have been working with several of my colleagues to address these
challenges--Senator Udall, Senator Hoeven, Senator Daines, and so
many--to shine a light in this area. We know it is going to take a lot
of coordination and communication among law enforcement agencies to get
this right. In this bill, we include $6.5 million for cold case
investigations, equipment, training, background checks, and the
necessary report language to move us in the right direction.
Attorney General Barr came to the State of Alaska in May. In
Anchorage, he had an opportunity to sit and listen to statewide
leaders, Native leaders, and law enforcement. He then had an
opportunity to get out of the rural areas and into the villages. After
he left, he declared a public safety emergency in the State of Alaska
because of where we sit. So we have been working with the Attorney
General and greatly appreciate his efforts there, but we need to do
more through these appropriations to look specifically at these issues
as well.
For the Indian Health Service, there are also programs we have an
obligation to fund that are vital to Indian Country. Many of these
programs and the costs associated with them have grown since we enacted
the 2019 bill. Among these are leasing and staffing costs that are
associated with new healthcare facilities that are operated by the IHS
or by Tribes under compact agreements. Our bill funds these new
increases. We provide additional funding for recruitment and quality
improvement as well as providing a $24 million increase for facilities,
including an increase for medical equipment.
The Forest Service receives investments in funding for the improved
health and management of our Nation's forests, including for recreation
assets, such as the cabins so many of us enjoy, the trails on which we
hike, and recreation special use permitting to allow certain businesses
to operate in our national forests in order to enhance the many
recreational experiences and opportunities.
At the beginning of my comments, I mentioned the wildfire cap
adjustment. It was back in the 2018 omnibus that we created the
wildland fire cap adjustment, and fiscal year 2020 is the first year
this is now available. The bill invests $5.167 billion in wildland fire
activity, including $2.25 billion in fire cap adjustment funding.
In my State over this past summer, we certainly saw intense and
extensive fires. It was a recordbreaking heat year this past summer,
and we had some pretty devastating fires. We are still talking about
the fires just last year in California. We know the threat is real, and
we know we have to respond. So making sure we have the capacity to
fight fire is important. In this bill, we not only invest in fire
suppression, but we also invest in State and volunteer fire assistance.
We provide increases for hazardous fuels reductions.
As far as the EPA budget goes, we prioritize funding for the programs
that result in concrete actions to improve the quality of the
environment across our country. The bill provides significant increases
in State and Tribal grant programs, which will lead to tangible, on-
the-ground cleanup and environment benefits, which was another priority
that was strongly supported by many in this Chamber.
The priority that was targeted by many in the waters phase was water
infrastructure development. Many of the newly authorized programs in
America's Water Infrastructure Act are funded for the first time in
this measure. Funding is also provided for the Clean Water and Drinking
Water State Revolving Funds and for the WIFIA Program to build and
support critical water infrastructure in communities in every State.
The bill also equips the EPA with a powerful set of tools to further
the Agency's core missions of clean air, clean water, and clean land.
One of the issues I hear a lot about from the folks back home, as
well as from my colleagues in the Senate, is the issue of PFAS and PFAS
contamination. In this bill, we have provided $25 million in increases
to address PFAS, including new funding for State-led cleanup and
remediation efforts. We also focus on the research of human health and
environmental impacts and related priority regulatory actions. There is
a $20 million increase provided for EPA grant programs to support
States in their cleanup and remediation efforts of PFAS-contaminated
water sources as well as the water systems and the lands.
The remaining $5 million in increases will support the EPA's priority
actions on PFAS and supplement the research that other agencies are
currently conducting on the chemicals.
So we heard the concerns of so many, and we really worked to respond
in this measure.
Lastly, the bill includes important increases for our cultural
institutions and our agencies. The Smithsonian Institution, the Gallery
of Art, and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities all
receive increases in our measure.
I think it is so important to make sure that when we think about our
treasures--clearly our land, the cleanliness of our water, but we also
have national treasures, and we see so much of that reflected in the
arts, whether it is the Smithsonian, the galleries, or what the
Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities do.
Consistent with fiscal year 2019, we do not include new policy
provisions
[[Page S6059]]
that were not in the enacted bill. So we worked with Chairman Shelby,
Vice Chairman Leahy, and the ranking member, again, with Senator Udall,
to assemble a package that both sides supported in committee.
I want to reiterate the work Senator Udall and I put in to produce a
bipartisan product that invests in programs that we care about--
programs that protect our land and our people and enable infrastructure
projects to boost the economy and help communities provide vital basic
services that many might take for granted. We also worked hard to shape
this bill so that it reflects the priorities of Members on both sides
of the aisle. I am proud--I am really very proud--of the good,
bipartisan work to ensure that this Interior appropriations bill
directs the Federal resources to where they are needed most, providing
critical investments in communities across the Nation.
Of course, this Interior bill is just a part of this package. We also
have Commerce-Justice-Science, Agriculture, and T-HUD. All of these
have significant impacts across the country. Certainly in my home
State, we are looking at the Commerce-Justice-Science bill to help keep
our fisheries healthy and provide assistance for public safety
programs.
In the Agriculture bill, there is funding for much needed water
infrastructure in our villages, and it helps expand our ever-growing
agricultural industries.
Of course T-HUD makes sure that rural communities in my State can
still receive things like essential air service and helps with our
ferry transportation system and to provide Tribal housing.
There is so much good in all of these measures. I would commend them
to Members' consideration but would certainly urge passage of this very
important Appropriations bill.
I am pleased to be here with my colleague, the good Senator from New
Mexico.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, it is great to be here with Senator
Murkowski.
I rise to speak in support of the fiscal year 2020 Interior
appropriations bill, which is now before the Senate. I want to begin by
thanking my chairman and partner in this endeavor, Senator Murkowski,
for her working with me to produce a very fine bill that was crafted on
a bipartisan basis. It is extraordinary that this bill is on the floor
for the second consecutive year after many years when we were not able
to move the bill by regular order. Much of the credit goes to her
leadership and her commitment to working through tough issues in a fair
and a pragmatic way.
One of the reasons I am particularly proud of moving a bipartisan
bill is the importance this bill has for my home State of New Mexico.
This bill reflects the long tradition we have in my State of working
across the aisle to support conservation priorities. It includes a
number of important accomplishments for the State, including language
to protect the sacred landscape of Chaco Canyon, along with funding to
support the Valles Caldera National Preserve and the new resources to
clean up the PFAS contamination in New Mexico and across the country.
This bill is also an important reflection of why the work that
Chairman Shelby and Vice Chairman Leahy did earlier this year to secure
a 2-year budget agreement is so important.
The Interior bill delivers roughly 2.5 percent more funding than last
year once you factor in the increase we received under the budget
agreement and the savings we picked up from using the first year of the
wildfire cap adjustment.
The funds in this bill allow this body to make solid increases to
support the Land and Water Conservation Fund and to protect and manage
national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands. I know many
hope we can do better on the Land and Water Conservation Fund funding,
and so do I. While I am pleased about the increase in this bill above
the enacted level, I will be working to improve the LWCF's funding when
we conference with the House. But our efforts in the short term should
not take away from the goal we have set on a bipartisan basis to
provide permanent, mandatory, full funding of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. That remains a top priority for me, and I think we
can and should accomplish that in this Congress.
The bill also makes critical investments in Indian Country. Many of
those were mentioned by Chairman Murkowski, and we believe there are
really solid things that have been done there--investments in Indian
Country, providing a 4-percent increase for the Indian Health Service
and a 2-percent increase for programs funded through the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education.
We provide $2.25 billion in new firefighting funds using the wildfire
cap adjustment, which means that these funds are finally, for the first
time, provided without requiring reductions to other important
programs. It also means that the Forest Service will not be forced to
raid nonfire programs to pay for firefighting needs without knowing
whether those funds will be repaid.
The bill increases funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by
2 percent in order to support new bipartisan infrastructure priorities
and to make important investments in regional cleanup programs. The EPA
is still struggling after years of budget cuts, but I am proud that our
bill includes the best EPA budget in a decade and completely rejects
the billions in cuts proposed by the Trump administration.
It also provides vital resources to our counties by fully funding the
payment in lieu of taxes program--a program that supports over $40
million per year in local government services in New Mexico.
This bill boosts funding for cultural agencies, including the
National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, as well as the Kennedy
Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Specifically, I am very proud that we were able to increase the budgets
of NEA and NEH by $2 million each. These funds provide a critical boost
to local arts and humanities programs in small towns across the United
States--programs that create countless jobs and ensure economic
vitality in communities like those in New Mexico.
I am also pleased that the bill contains no new funding requested by
the administration for the Interior Department reorganization,
including the efforts to dismantle the Bureau of Land Management. This
bill sends a strong message that the administration needs to push
``pause'' and work with Members on both sides of the aisle. It is
vitally important that we now have both Chambers on record on this
important issue, and I hope the administration hears us loud and clear.
I appreciate that the bill contains no new poison pill riders for the
second year in a row, which is all the more notable given the number of
difficult issues that we confront through the EPA and the Federal land
management agencies.
I want to thank Chairman Shelby and Senator Murkowski for their
commitment to moving a clean Interior bill.
That said, I do want to note that the bill does continue several
provisions that I oppose, including provisions dealing with the lead
content of ammunition, biomass energy policy, Clean Water Act
exemptions, and Clean Air Act exemptions.
I also oppose a troubling provision in the bill that weakens
protections for the sage grouse. Given the bad-faith efforts by this
administration to weaken efforts to protect the sage grouse, it is
extremely shortsighted for Congress to continue to block protections
under the Endangered Species Act for the species when the
administration has failed to hold up its end of the bargain.
These provisions are contrary to the spirit of the no poison pill
riders agreement. Thankfully, they are not in the underlying House
bill, H.R. 3055, and I expect to have some frank conversations as part
of the conference process about the need to remove them and the need to
include a number of other important curbs on this administration
included in that legislation. So I want to be on record that in the
conference, I will be fighting to keep the House's positions on several
of these very important items.
I look forward to debating this bill, considering amendments, and
ultimately passing it with a bipartisan
[[Page S6060]]
vote so that we can proceed to a conference with the House.
I also want to express my personal thanks to the majority
subcommittee staff--Emy Lesofski, Nona McCoy, and Lucas Agnew--for
working with me and my staff. This is Emy's first bill serving as the
clerk of the subcommittee, and I congratulate her on this milestone as
the Senate takes up the bill. Their work is a great credit to Chairman
Murkowski and Chairman Shelby.
I would also like to thank my staff--Rachael Taylor, Ryan Hunt,
Melissa Zimmerman, and Faisal Amin--for all of their hard work to
accommodate the priorities of Senators on both sides of the aisle.
I think one thing that Chairman Murkowski and I worked on was trying
to handle any request that came to us from wherever in the Senate and
deal with it in a bipartisan way. So I very much appreciate working
hard with Senator Murkowski to get this bill done and to move it on to
conference with the House and to get it into law.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
S.J. Res. 50
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to address the Congressional Review
Act measure we will be voting on later today.
Let's be very clear. This is a vote the purpose of which is to
overturn a very, very important part of the tax reform that we passed
in December of 2017 that made the Tax Code much more fair than it was
before. Specifically, I am referring to the limitations that we put on
the ability of people to deduct State and local taxes.
Let's remember what our Tax Code looked like before our tax reform.
Wealthy individuals could deduct the full amount of any State and local
tax deductions, however high they got. And we use the acronym ``SALT''
to refer to these State and local tax deductions. So why do I say that
is unfair? Well, it is unfair because it subsidizes people who choose
to live in high-tax jurisdictions. It does that because it lowers the
tax bill of somebody who lives in a high-tax jurisdiction, like
Manhattan or San Francisco, because they get to deduct the full amount
of the outrageously high State and local taxes they choose to pay. The
fact that they get to deduct that big number means the rest of us have
to pay higher rates on our income than we otherwise would have to pay.
Why should my constituents in Blair County or Cambria County or
anywhere else in Pennsylvania--constituents with modest incomes who
choose local governments that keep a modest level of service and
therefore a modest level of taxes--why should those constituents have
to pay higher tax rates to subsidize the folks who have multimillion-
dollar condos on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? It is totally
unfair. They certainly should not have to do that. And have no doubt
about it--the huge benefits of this unlimited State and local tax
deduction that we used to have always flowed to a handful of States
that have chosen to have very, very high taxes. California and New York
are two good examples. Under the old regime, about one-third of all the
benefits of the State and local tax deductions went to just those two
States--just California and New York. They had one-third of all the
benefits.
Take New Jersey, right next door to my State of Pennsylvania. New
Jersey has 4 million fewer people than we have in Pennsylvania, almost
one-third fewer people, but they got more of the benefit of the SALT
deductions than my entire State. That is because New Jersey is a very
high-tax State. Guess what. It is a high-tax State because the people
who live there voted for politicians who raise their taxes. That is
apparently what they want. They want to have all of the services that
go with that. They are happy with very high State income tax and local
property taxes. That is their decision. Look, if you want to vote for
someone who is going to impose exorbitantly high taxes on you, you
should be free to cast that vote. But don't expect my constituents to
subsidize them.
So that was the regime we had in place. Tax reform came along, and we
said: Do you know what we are going to do? We are going to put a limit
on the amount of State and local taxes that a tax filer can deduct. The
limit is $10,000. It is not trivial. It is a lot of money. But that is
the limit. If you pay more than that in State and local taxes, you do
not get to deduct it.
In response to that, very interestingly, several of these high-tax
States have designed a scam to get around the limitation we imposed.
The scam is that they create this vehicle, and then they have their
taxpayers pay their taxes into that vehicle and call it a charity, call
it a charitable contribution. The money then goes out of that vehicle
and goes to the government. It is not a charitable contribution at all.
It is a transparent, obvious attempt to circumvent the law that we
passed in 2017.
The IRS came along and said: Well, this is an obvious scam. They
developed a rule that shuts down the scam. It says: If you create this
scam, this make-believe charity, as a way to circumvent the cap on
State and local deductions, we are going to disallow the deduction. So
the IRS ruling shuts down the scam and maintains the deduction cap, and
what my Democratic colleagues want to do right now is have a vote to
invalidate the IRS ruling--in other words, have a vote to keep the
scam. That is what the vote is today, to make sure we destroy the IRS
ruling and keep this scam in place.
One of the ironies of this whole debate is that our Democratic
colleagues voted against our tax reform because they said that it was
too much of a tax cut for the rich, despite the fact that, in fact, our
tax reform shifted the tax burden from lower income taxpayers to higher
income taxpayers while saving money for everybody.
The relative proportion of taxes paid increased for wealthy people,
decreased for low-income people, while everyone had some savings. That
was objectionable to my Democratic colleagues.
Now they come along, and they want to repeal the rule that shuts down
the scam. They want to perpetuate the scam that is a massive giveaway
to the wealthiest Americans. It is amazing.
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 94 percent of the
benefit--if they had their way and prevailed on this vote, 94 percent
of the benefit would go to people whose income is over $200,000; 52
percent of the benefit would go to taxpayers with income over $1
million.
Not only is it fundamentally unfair to ask people in some low-tax
jurisdictions to subsidize the taxes chosen by people in high-tax
jurisdictions, the subsidy all flows from low- and middle-income people
to very, very wealthy people. That is the deal: Millionaires would
receive an average tax cut of $60,000; taxpayers with income between
$50,000 and $100,000 would receive an average tax cut of less than
$10--not $10,000--$10.
What we did when we put a limit on the ability to deduct State and
local taxes was a big step in making our Tax Code more fair. The States
came along and developed a scam to circumvent it. The IRS, quite
rightly, saw through the scam and said: We are not going to allow that
scam to continue. Now my Democratic colleagues want to tear up the IRS
rule to perpetuate the scam. That is a very bad idea, and I hope we
will all vote against the Congressional Review Act effort that is
scheduled for a vote later today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2242
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am here today because, unfortunately,
our elections still remain vulnerable to foreign election interference.
Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which I am
proud to serve on, released its report on Russia's use of social media
to undermine our democracy.
The committee's bipartisan conclusion was clear. Russia attacked our
democracy in 2016; their efforts on social media are ongoing; and they
will be back in 2020. Frankly, they never left.
This echos all of the evidence we have seen from the intelligence
community and from companies like Facebook, whose CEO, Mr. Zuckerberg,
is testifying on the other side of the Capitol today on some of the
ongoing efforts. We have seen this evidence, as well, from Special
Counsel Mueller and many, many others.
The alarm bells are going off, and what are we doing? We are running
out of time to do something about it.
[[Page S6061]]
Twice in recent weeks I have come to the floor to make a unanimous
consent request on bipartisan legislation, which I have introduced,
called the FIRE Act, and twice this bipartisan legislation has been
blocked by my Republican colleagues. Actually, their actions earned
applause from the President on Twitter.
Again, let me once again go forward with what this bill does. It is
pretty simple and very straightforward. It would say to all
Presidential campaigns going forward: If a foreign power reaches out to
your campaign, offering assistance or offering dirt on a political
opponent, the appropriate response is not to say thank you; the
appropriate response is to call the FBI.
When I first introduced this legislation, we were concerned about the
Mueller report's finding that the Trump campaign welcomed the
assistance of the Russian Government during the 2016 election.
At the time, I was also deeply alarmed by the President's comments in
the Oval Office during the summer that he would entertain offers of
foreign assistance in future elections.
A lot has happened since then, which makes this legislation more
necessary than ever. In the time since I last spoke on the FIRE Act,
the President has used his office to seek dirt on a political opponent,
Mr. Biden. It appears he pressured the Ukrainians. In the middle of
ongoing trade negotiations, he went on national television to call on
China to investigate Mr. Biden.
He also, during this period of time, has used the bully pulpit to
intimidate and threaten an intelligence community whistleblower. I am
glad to see that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
have stood up for the integrity of the whistleblower program and the
notions that whistleblowers are a critical part of keeping our system
on the up and up and that whistleblowers should not be threatened.
We have also heard in these past few weeks--I am not going to get
into all of the details--a lot of contradictory and, frankly, almost
Orwellian claims about whether the President's asking a favor of the
Ukrainian President is evidence of a quid pro quo. Then, just in recent
days, we have seen a series of career diplomats coming forward,
basically trying to validate the whistleblower's complaints.
I know the House is working on some of this, and our Senate
Intelligence Committee is also looking at some of the
counterintelligence concerns about the President's deals--about the
President's deals particularly with Mr. Giuliani and his associates.
I have particular interest, as well, in terms of what the Attorney
General is doing when he is going out, asking our closest allies--our
FVEY partners, in the case of Australia and the United Kingdom--to use
their intelligence services to bring us dirt on the President's
political opponents. That puts in jeopardy the trust basis the Five
Eyes plan operates under.
We need, more than ever, this basic FIRE Act bill to make it
absolutely clear that if we see foreign governments interfering, the
obligation ought to be on any Presidential campaign to tell the FBI.
I see my colleague on the other side of the aisle, and I know she
will probably object again. I just hope my colleagues will think about
and look back on how history is going to judge this body. Did we do
what was necessary to protect the integrity of our democratic process?
And how in the heck did we allow the protection of our democratic
process to become a partisan issue? We would never make protection of
the power grid a partisan issue. Yet, unfortunately, I think we are
going to see folks on the other side of the aisle object to this
commonsense basic reform.
If there are ways to improve on this legislation, I am wide open. I
know my colleague raised concerns about the breadth. Let me be clear.
Some of the claims that were made last time are not true, do not affect
diplomatic efforts, do not affect folks who are visiting here in this
country. We have been very, very clear. This is about a foreign
government's offer or their spy service's offer of assistance during a
Presidential campaign directly to that campaign.
But if there are ways to improve on the legislation, let's have it at
it. Let's offer an amendment. Let's at least vote. The truth is, we
know what we need to do to protect our elections.
Before I make my unanimous consent request, I want to recognize my
friends and colleagues, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Wyden, who, after
I make my request, will be speaking on a broader election security bill
of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor as well. Let me simply
say that I support their efforts to make sure we have paper ballot
backups, to make sure we have postelection audits, to make sure if the
Kremlin is paying for advertising on Facebook, they have the same kind
of disclosure requirements as if they advertise on FOX--commonsense
bipartisan proposals that, if they actually got to the floor of the
Senate, I bet we would get 80 votes. My hope is that we will have that
opportunity.
The truth is, the only person winning from our failure to act--and,
unfortunately, this person seems to be winning, as well, in Syria and
seems to be winning, as well, in terms of the split between America and
Ukraine--is Vladimir Putin.
Again, I appeal to my colleagues: Let's move forward on the first
step, protecting the integrity of our elections. Let's bring forward
the FIRE Act. Let's make absolutely clear that if a foreign government
tries to intervene in a Presidential election, the obligation is to
report to the FBI and not say thank you.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be
discharged from further consideration of S. 2242, the FIRE Act; that
the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be
read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or
debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would allow my colleague to speak on
this item. I say to my colleague from Tennessee, and others, that if
there are ways to improve this legislation, let's have at it. But the
notion that we are going into a Presidential election in which our
intelligence community has said that Russia and others will be back,
and we have taken no action to prevent that when there are commonsense
items from social media constraints to making clear the foreign
government shouldn't intervene, to having paper ballot backups, to
making sure we have appropriate campaign disclosure, we are shirking
our responsibility, and I hope in the future my colleagues will
reconsider.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2669
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am proud to be here with Senator
Warner and Senator Wyden, both leaders on this election security issue.
This is the second time I have come to the floor this week to urge
the Senate to take action on election security legislation. It has been
1,006 days since Russia attacked us in 2016, something that has been
confirmed by all of President Trump's top intelligence agents. In fact,
former Director Coats actually said they are getting bolder.
The next major elections are just 377 days away. We must take action
now to secure our elections.
I know Senator Wyden will be addressing the actual hacking of our
election equipment, which is so important, as well as other issues, but
I am focused on this propaganda issue, this disinformation campaign
that we have seen from the Russians.
The Honest Ads Act, which is part of the bill that I will be asking
for unanimous consent on, the SHIELD Act, which is going to be passed
by the House today, includes a number of measures that would close
loopholes to stop foreign spending on issue ads in our elections. It
would boost disclosure and transparency requirements, and it would help
to stop bad actors from using deceptive practices to mislead voters.
All that may sound like a list of policy issues that seem very
removed, but let me make it very specific. Here is one example of,
literally, millions.
In the last election, an ad was discovered that was paid for in
rubles. It had been paid for in rubles before the election. It
happened, but we did not know
[[Page S6062]]
about it until long after the election. It was the face of an African-
American woman, an innocent woman, in Chicago. She later called our
office and said: I don't know where they got my face. They put her face
on a Facebook ad that went to African-American Facebook pages in swing
States. This is what the Russians did. Her picture was there, and it
said: Don't wait in line to vote for Hillary Clinton. You can text your
vote at--and it gave a five-digit number, like 86153.
That is a crime. That is a crime. They are suppressing the vote. They
are telling a voter to vote illegally in a way that will not register
their vote. That is what we are talking about here--propaganda. Yes, it
hurt one side in this 2016 election, but the next time it could be
someone else on the other side of the aisle.
Fundamental to our democracy and our Founding Fathers was the simple
idea that we would determine our faith in America and that we would not
let foreign powers influence our elections. That is what this is about.
It is about protecting our election hardware and infrastructure, and it
is also about protecting us from this disinformation campaign and all
of this really bad stuff.
I don't think my colleagues are interested in protecting--I hope this
isn't their goal--the big social media companies. I hope their goal is
to protect Americans so they can determine their own faith in an
election.
With that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the
immediate consideration of S. 2669, the Stopping Harmful Interference
in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act, otherwise known as the SHIELD
Act, which was introduced earlier today; further, that the bill be
considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. That is very unfortunate, given how soon the elections
are and what a difference we could make, especially with the
disinformation campaigns. I hope my colleagues change their minds.
The Honest Ads Act is a bipartisan bill with Senator Graham, the
Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee. We must act.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2238
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will be making a unanimous consent
request to move the SAFE Act in just a couple of moments. This is
legislation that Senator Klobuchar and I have teamed up on for quite
some time.
It basically incorporates the three priorities that all of the
nonpartisan election cybersecurity experts recommend: paper ballots,
routine post-election, risk-limiting audits, and Federal cyber security
standards for election systems.
I am going to make some brief remarks and then pose a unanimous
consent request.
I just find it stunning that the Republican Party continues its wall-
to-wall campaign of obstruction against election security. Because of
this legislative blockade, the Senate has been AWOL when it comes to
stopping foreign cyber attacks on our elections.
For example, I think most Americans would be stunned to learn that
there is not a single mandatory, nationwide election cyber security
standard on the books. For example, there are no rules barring
connecting voting machines to the internet. I say to the Presiding
Officer and colleagues that doing so is equivalent to putting American
ballot boxes in the Kremlin. That is what happens when you don't have
cyber security standards.
Let's remember what happened in the election cyber security debacle
of 2016. Russian hackers probed all 50 State election systems. Russians
successfully hacked at least one election technology vendor, according
to the Mueller report. Russians penetrated two Florida county election
systems, according to Florida's Governor. That is just what we know
about.
People are always saying: Well, no votes were changed. Nobody knows
that because you wouldn't know it unless you had a real forensic
analysis conducted by cybersecurity experts who broke the systems down,
and that hasn't been done.
Despite all of the ways foreign hackers have already made it into our
election infrastructure, Congress has refused to arm State and county
election officials with the knowledge and funding they need to secure
their systems.
I will just make one additional point, and I thank my colleague for
her courtesy because I know everyone is on a tight schedule. This
summer, I saw for myself how vulnerable election systems are. I went to
DEF CON, which is really the major ``white hat'' hacker convention in
Las Vegas. I went because I wanted to see how easy it was to hack e-
pollbooks, voting machines, and other key parts of election
infrastructure. I sure wish some of my colleagues on the other side,
including the distinguished majority leader, could have seen all of
these young people in the Voting Village going through a who's who of
hackable voting machines and see how easy it was to compromise voting
machines to alter votes, disrupt ballot printers, and meddle with
registration systems.
Teenagers in the DEF CON Voting Village showed me an e-pollbook
hacked so completely that young people were playing video games like
``Doom'' on it. I sure wish my colleagues could have been there.
I sit on the Intelligence Committee. I am not going to get into
anything classified, but I am going to close simply by saying that, as
of today, the threats that we face in 2020 from hostile foreign powers,
in my view, are going to make 2016 look like small potatoes.
For that reason, I now ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee
be discharged from further consideration of S. 2238, the Securing
America's Federal Elections Act, otherwise known as the SAFE Act; that
the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, my mom would always say: You know, it
is not a good sign if you are doing the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result.
My colleagues have sought several times, under the guise of election
security, to circumvent going to the Rules Committee and trying to
bring these bills to the floor.
It is important to note that the legislation they are bringing would
do something that most people, especially people in Tennessee, tell me
they do not want to see happen. What it would do is take away authority
from your local election commission, your State election commission,
and then vest that authority with the Federal Government.
Federalizing our elections, in my opinion, would actually make them
less secure. Is there anybody who thinks the Federal Government is
going to do a better job of administering an election in Williamson
County, TN, where I live and where I have served on the election
commission? The answer would be ``of course, not.'' They know that
their friends and neighbors who served on those entities would do a
better job.
I must also remind my colleagues that every single Member--Democrat,
Republican, and Independent; every Member of the Senate--agrees that
foreign meddling in our Nation's business is a problem. For decades,
foreign nations have sought to meddle in our affairs in the physical
space. Ought we to have expected them to try this in the virtual space?
It ought not have come as a surprise to us.
We also know that Members are working on this issue, and that there
has been progress that has been made by the Intel community, by State-
level authorities, and by those who are making certain these election
systems are secure. And guess what. They are doing this without a
Federal power grab taking place.
I fear that my friends on the other side of the aisle still have not
gotten
[[Page S6063]]
over that they lost in 2016. Further, they have yet to accept that
their colleagues in the House of Representatives have turned their best
hopes for correcting this electoral disappointment into a farce.
We know that in 2016 the Russians seized upon partisan hysteria and
used it to pit the American people against one another. They did not
affect voting in election systems.
It is not too much to ask that my friends in the minority cease using
the business of the Senate to continue these requests.
I do object to the motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to be brief because I just think
it is so critical to respond to the comments my colleague has made.
The first argument was that, on this side of the aisle, people really
aren't interested in election security. The fact is, what Senator
Klobuchar and I and those on our side of the aisle have been interested
in are the three priorities that independent cyber security experts
agree are essential to protecting our elections: paper ballots, audits,
and cyber security standards. So that ought to dispose of this issue
that somehow on this side of the aisle, people really aren't interested
in election security.
Second, I want it understood that over here, we have been interested
in working in a bipartisan way. But our ranking member, Senator
Klobuchar, on the Rules Committee said that at one point there was a
markup scheduled on these issues, and, essentially, the leadership on
the other side of the aisle intervened, and it was canceled.
The fact is that here we are, with just a few months until people
start voting. They are going to vote in primaries early next year. They
are going to go to the polls from sea to shining sea in the fall of
2020. I will just say to my colleagues that we have something like 25
States in America that are nakedly vulnerable. These are the States
that are still using hackable, paperless voting machines and States
that do not have routine, post-election audits.
As Senator Warner, Senator Klobuchar, and I have said, and the
distinguished minority leader, Senator Schumer, all we are interested
in is working to deal with this issue in an objective way, based on the
facts outlined by the experts who aren't at all political.
I think it is very unfortunate that there has been an objection to
the proposal from the distinguished Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner,
and the proposal from the ranking member on the Rules Committee, who
has worked with me on the SAFE Act, and the SAFE Act itself because, as
a result of this action, the Senate is missing yet another opportunity
to provide an additional measure of security for the 2020 election.
I will close with one last response in light of a comment my
colleague, our new Senator from Tennessee, has made. She and I have
talked about these issues, and I have appreciated it. She said that no
votes were changed--no votes were changed in the election. Nobody knows
that. Unless you do a forensic analysis and break down the machines,
you won't know that.
I sure hope that soon we will be back on this floor moving the
proposal advanced by the Senator from Virginia and the proposal
advanced by the Senator from Minnesota and me because these are
measures proposed by independent experts who don't care about Ds and
Rs; they care about what is right for America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Hong Kong
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, as we gather today here in peace and
safety in this quiet Chamber, we must remember that there is a city
half a world away that is struggling to survive--a city that is
fighting for human rights and human liberty and a city that is a
solitary pinpoint of light on a continent of authoritarianism, a city
called Hong Kong.
The need there is urgent, and the hour there is late, and it is time
for America to act. I know this because I have been there. I have been
there myself. I have seen it. I have been to Hong Kong. I have been to
the streets of Hong Kong. I have seen the protesters marching in
support of and in defense of their basic human rights. I have seen them
demonstrating for their basic human liberties. I have seen them
confronting the police with their tactics of brutality and oppression.
It makes me think that sometimes, in the course of history, the fate
of one city defines the challenge of an entire generation. Fifty years
ago, that city was Berlin. Today, that city is Hong Kong. The situation
there is critical. Hong Kong is sliding toward becoming a police state.
Have no doubt and make no mistake that Beijing wants to impose its will
on Hong Kong. It wants to silence dissent in Hong Kong. It wants to
steamroll Hong Kong, just as it wants to steamroll all of its neighbors
in the region, just as it wants to control the region, and just as it
wants ultimately to control the entire international system.
We know what is at stake in this country because we have gotten all
too familiar with Beijing's tactics. We have seen what Beijing has
tried to do to this country for decades now. They have stolen our jobs.
They have stolen our technologies. They have tried to build and are
building their military on the backs of our middle class. Their aims
are expansionist, and their aims are domination, and their aims are not
compatible with the security or the prosperity of this country. That is
why what is happening in Hong Kong today is so important and the fight
there is so significant.
Will a totalitarian China and totalitarian Beijing be allowed to
dominate the city of Hong Kong, to silence it, and then to turn to the
region as a whole?
You know, let's review what is actually happening there in the
streets of Hong Kong. This didn't start with the people of Hong Kong;
this started with Beijing. This started with Beijing and its puppet
government and its puppet chief executive in Hong Kong attempting to
revoke the rights of Hongkongers--the rights, by the way, that Beijing
promised to the people of that city in 1984 and again in 1997. They are
trying to revoke those rights by bringing in a bill for extradition of
Hong Kong citizens and Hong Kong residents to mainland China to be
tried in China's courts, where there is no due process, where there are
no basic guaranteed liberties, and where there is no recourse. That was
Beijing's plan, and that would have affected not just the citizens of
Hong Kong but the residents there, including over 80,000 Americans who
are currently residents in the city. And the people of Hong Kong said
no.
On the 12th of July, just a few days after Beijing put forward this
extradition bill, 2 million Hong Kong residents--2 million took to the
streets in peaceful protest. This is a city of 7\1/2\ million. There
were 2 million on the streets on the 12th of July. When the Hong Kong
Government--the Beijing-controlled government refused to back down, the
people of Hong Kong refused to be silenced. For months now, months on
end, 20 weeks and more, the people of Hong Kong have been taking to the
streets protesting, seeking to vindicate their rights, and they have
been doing it in the face of escalating opposition.
The Hong Kong Government--on orders, no doubt, from Beijing--has
sought to deny the protesters permits to gather peacefully. They have
sought to deny them the right to cover their faces because, let's not
forget, China is a surveillance state, and the persecution and
retribution against protesters is real, and it is constant.
Now they are talking about a potential curfew. They are shutting down
subway stations early so protesters can't get from one place to
another. They have used violent tactics to put down the protests--tear
gas and beatings and dye blasted at protesters.
China continues to escalate--Beijing continues to escalate the
situation, turning the screws on Hong Kong and taking away the rights
and liberties of the people there.
Hong Kong's demands are not outlandish; they are asking for what they
were promised. They were promised in 1984, by the Government of
Beijing--in a duly ratified international treaty, they were promised
the right to assemble and the right to peacefully gather and protest.
They were promised the right to vote and to be able to choose their own
government. They were promised the right to speak openly. They were
promised the right to worship. Those are the rights the people of
[[Page S6064]]
Hong Kong seek to vindicate today, and those are the rights Beijing is
attempting to strip from this city as we stand here today in this
Chamber.
The people of Hong Kong--they have an expression. The protesters say
they are going to be like water. They say ``Be water.'' Some have
actually referred to this as a water movement. They mean ``Be fluid. Be
reactive. Adjust to the situation.''
I just have to say, having been there myself, having been to the
streets, having seen the protesters, having met with them and talked
with them, their courage and their bravery under pressure is really
something to behold. It is an inspiration to me, and I think it should
be an inspiration to all of us. Their love of liberty--you never love
something more than when it is threatened--their love of liberty is
really extraordinary.
I want to say something the Reverend Chu Yiu-ming said about liberty
and democracy. He said it so beautifully. These are his words:
We strive for democracy, because democracy strives for
freedom, equality and universal love. Political freedom is
more than loyalty to a state. [Political freedom] professes
human dignity. Every single person living in a community
possesses unique potentials and unique powers, capable of
making a [unique] contribution to society.
That is extraordinary, and he is exactly right. Hongkongers know it,
and that is what they are standing for, and that is what they are
fighting for.
The people of Hong Kong need our support, they deserve our support,
and they are depending on our support. That is why it is time for this
body to act. It is time to take up and pass the Hong Kong Human Rights
and Democracy Act. The time for debate is over. The time for delay has
passed. It is now time to stand with the people of Hong Kong and to
send a signal to the world that the United States will stand with
freedom-loving people, that the United States will stand up to Beijing,
and that the United States will not permit China to dominate its
neighbors and its region and the world.
It is time for this body to act and to act now, and it is time to do
more. That is why I will soon be introducing further measures to help
support the people of Hong Kong. I will be calling for the imposition
of Global Magnitsky sanctions on individuals and business entities that
abet Beijing in its suppression of the freedoms of speech and assembly
that rightfully belong to the people of Hong Kong.
I would just say to those corporations doing business in China and to
those multinational corporate entities and organizations like the NBA
that it is time for you to take a stand as well. It is time for you to
show a little backbone. It is time for you to show some independence.
You may be multinational corporations that do business everywhere in
the world, but remember that you are based here in this country.
Remember--the NBA should--that you are an American organization. These
companies need to remember that they are American entities, and it is
time to show a little American independence.
When Beijing tries to use threats of coercion and threats of market
access to get the NBA to censure and to get corporations like Apple to
censure, it is time for these corporations to stand up and say: We are
not going to participate, and we are not going to become part of the
Chinese Communist Party's propaganda arm. It is time for these
companies to remember where their loyalties actually lie.
I have to say, for too long now and for too many years now, we have
seen too many of these companies and these same corporate executives--
who make money hand over fist in China--we have seen them happily send
our jobs to China. We have seen them happily outsource our work to
China. Now they want to import censorship into this country from China.
Well, no thank you. It is time that they are open about what it is they
are doing, and it is time they stand up to Beijing and say: No further.
I want to say again that the situation in Hong Kong is urgent, and
the people of Hong Kong are looking to the United States and to other
freedom-loving peoples around the world for support and for strength.
It is time that we send them the message--and call on our allies to do
the same--that we must stand with Hong Kong because our own security
and our own prosperity and our own ideals are at stake there.
I think, finally, of the words of John Quincy Adams, whom I will
paraphrase. He said: Wherever the standard of freedom is unfurled,
there will be America's prayers, there will be America's benedictions,
there will be America's heart, and today, there needs to be America's
voice.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lankford). The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business, please.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Remembering Ted Stevens
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the Senate this week is honoring our
former colleague, Senator Ted Stevens, with the unveiling of his
official portrait. I come to the floor to say some words about a friend
and former chairman.
Ted Stevens' life in public service started early when he joined the
Army Corps in 1943. So great was his desire to serve our country that
he joined after attending just one semester of college. During the war,
he flew dangerous, unescorted missions in China and India, earning two
Distinguished Flying Crosses for flights behind enemy lines. After the
war, he returned to his studies and graduated from UCLA and Harvard Law
School. Not long after that, he moved to Alaska to practice law, and
there he began a life of service to the State he called home for the
rest of his life.
Ted served as a district attorney and became known for accompanying
U.S. Marshals on raids, and that was really an early hint of his
temperament and intensity on the job. Of course, all Senators devote
their careers to their States, but few have the distinction of working
to achieve statehood. Senator Stevens was one of them. Working in the
Department of Interior in the 1950s, he became known as ``Mr. Alaska''
for his focus on achieving statehood. He worked tirelessly to assuage
the concerns of then-President Eisenhower to get statehood passed
through both the House and the Senate.
When the Alaska Statehood Act finally passed, Ted returned to Alaska
and served as a representative in the State House, becoming majority
leader after just one term. Then, in 1968, he came to the Senate, where
he would go on to serve for 40 years.
Once here, he distinguished himself as a fierce advocate for Alaska.
He fought relentlessly for funding to build rural hospitals, highways,
courts, and military bases across the State he helped create. His
efforts only increased when he ascended to the powerful chairmanship of
the Appropriations Committee. He often quipped that being such a young
State, Alaska needed extra help to catch up to its elder siblings; and
help is exactly what he secured. One estimate says he steered more than
$3.4 billion in Federal funding to Alaskan projects in just the last 14
years of his tenure.
Those of us who served with him on the Appropriations Committee got
to know Ted's Incredible Hulk tie, which he would wear on days with
especially difficult debates. He was a fighter and a fierce advocate
for his State and his party. When a reporter once asked about his
reputation for losing his temper, Senator Stevens replied:
I didn't lose my temper. I know right where it is.
But he would also cross party lines and work side by side with his
appropriations colleagues, especially Bob Byrd and Daniel Inouye. They
would trade the gavel between them, serving as chair and ranking member
of subcommittees and the full committee.
Beyond Federal funding, Stevens settled many longstanding issues that
faced his young State. Chief among them was the settling of Tribal land
claims. The Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act would become the
largest land settlement claim in U.S. history. It was hailed as
groundbreaking for its involvement of Alaskan Native communities from
the outset.
Always with an eye to the future, Ted Stevens not only supported
Native leaders in asserting land claims, but he also supported economic
development measures in the final bill.
Personally, I remain thankful for Ted's support with the Ten-in-Ten
Fuel
[[Page S6065]]
Economy Act, a bill I authored in 2007 with Senators Olympia Snowe,
Maria Cantwell, Tom Carper, and others. The bill was drafted to
increase fuel economy by 10 miles per gallon within 10 years, but it
was responsible for much more. The Obama administration went on to use
the Ten-in-Ten Act to set rules that will increase fuel efficiency to
more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025 and save consumers more than $460
billion at the pump.
Here is how it got done. I couldn't get it done. It was controversial
at the time and, believe it or not, Ted Stevens played a big role in
getting this bill passed. As ranking member of the Commerce Committee,
he and Senator Inouye included the language as part of a broader energy
bill that President Bush signed into law in 2007.
So this was a big deal, and it was controversial. Senator Stevens
knew that, but he understood the importance of the issue, and he
included the language in one of his bills, and it could not have passed
any other way. It was a very big event for me, and it really sealed my
respect for this Senator from a different party, a different State; but
he cared, you could go to him, and he helped.
I remember back then. Now our mileage is going up, and I think of
Ted, when I talked to him, saying: OK. We will get it done--and he and
Dan Inouye did do that. He said: ``My motto has always been `To hell
with politics, just do what's right for Alaska.'''
I don't think anyone who had the pleasure of knowing Ted Stevens
would know him as anything other than a great legislator for the State
of Alaska and a great legislator for the United States of America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the appropriations bill
that is now before the Senate. I would like, however, to defer to the
ranking minority member on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations
Subcommittee for his comments, and then I would reserve the rest of my
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Appropriations
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, thank you and a huge thanks to my
colleague for not just deferring to me to make comments, which I am
going to make very brief, but also for the leadership of the
subcommittee and the bipartisan work. It is the way the Senate should
work. Let's just expand that spirit to the entire Chamber, and we will
make a lot of progress.
This bill maintains funding for important rural development programs,
including housing and rural broadband, which is essential all across
America. It provides assistance with farm ownership and farm operating
loans because access to credit to farmers is critical to stay in
business, and it helps new farmers come into the farming and ranching
community, including minorities, women, and veterans.
It provides critical funding for SNAP. In our country, no one should
go hungry. It assists with school meal equipment grants, the Farmer's
Market Nutrition Program, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program,
all relevant to making sure our children and our families have basic
nutrition. It assists on the international front with Food for Peace,
the McGovern-Dole program that feeds millions of children around the
world.
I was down in Central America and found that the average child in
Guatemala at 9 years old is 6 inches shorter than the average
Guatemalan child raised in the United States--stunning. It is a huge
factor and affects the entire course of the mind. America is doing
incredible work around the world in poverty-stricken countries. This
food program also increases school attendance, particularly among
girls.
Critical funding for the Food and Drug Administration is part of this
bill for a whole host of reasons.
There is only one thing in this bill that I have disagreement with,
and that is funding for the relocation of the National Institute of
Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service. I think those
organizations do a far better job when they are here networking with
the other key critical policy groups and when folks coming from Oregon
and places remotely around the country visit NIFA and ERS at the same
time as visiting other programs.
Tribute to Bob Ross
Mr. President, for 11 years, Bob Ross has been a detailee from the
Department of Agriculture to our subcommittee. That is because he is
fabulous, and we just couldn't let him go here in the U.S. Senate. Most
people in rural America haven't heard of Bob Ross, but millions and
millions have benefited from his work, particularly his superb work on
rural housing. He has been invaluable to us. Few people get a chance to
leave such a mark to make the world a better place as much as he has.
He is on to the next chapter of his life, retirement, and perhaps
many adventures in retirement. Bob is sitting behind me. We thank him
for his years of service and wish him all the best of luck in the
chapters to come.
I thank the chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.
It is a pleasure to work with him.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for his
work and also express appreciation for the bipartisan approach to the
appropriations bill. This is regular order. This is how we are supposed
to do things.
It is not just the Ag appropriations bill, it is the other bills we
have included in this package that includes Commerce-Justice-Science,
T-HUD, as well as our Ag appropriations bill and Interior.
This is the work of the Senate. This is regular order. This is how it
should be done. So I am appreciative of the bipartisan approach taken
not only on our bill but on these other bills and the fact that we now
have them on the floor. I hope it continues in terms of regular order
and bipartisanship that enables us to advance these bills in regular
order.
Then we have the other appropriations bills as well. We moved all 12
of these bills through our full Appropriations Committee in a
bipartisan way. Now we need to do the same thing on the floor and then
go to conference with the House to get this done. We have a continuing
resolution in place until November 21, so it is imperative that we
continue this work and that we do it in this way.
I am pleased to introduce the 2020 appropriations bill for
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and
Related Agencies. This legislation passed out of our Appropriations
Committee, as I said, in the case of this appropriations bill, with
unanimous support out of the full Appropriations Committee.
I am pleased to bring it to the floor. The other bills we have
included now in this package had broad-based bipartisan support as
well, as the Presiding Officer knows being a member of the full
committee.
I am pleased to join my colleagues on the Subcommittees on Interior;
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; Commerce, Justice and
Science. For now, my comments will be focused on our bill specifically,
the Ag appropriations bill.
Right now, farmers across this country are really up against it, no
question about it. Whether you are from North Dakota, Oklahoma, points
in between--east or west or north or south--our farmers are really up
against it. In North Dakota, we have had unbelievable flooding. From
snowstorms to rainstorms--but pretty much nonstop rain and other
challenges that have left our fields swamped.
We have a great diversity of crops, most of which have not been
harvested because we can't get farm equipment out in the field in order
to conduct that harvest.
Earlier this year in May, we worked to advance supplementals to
address the hurricanes--the other wildfires we had out in California,
the hurricanes that hit the Southeast, and other weather disasters. So
in that supplemental package we passed back in May, we included
assistance that we call WHIP+ for the Midwest farm country,
anticipating not only that we needed to address the flooding and
problems that occurred this spring but if there were additional
flooding coming. Of course, that is exactly what happened. So we worked
to ensure that there is disaster assistance legislation passed that
will help.
Now we need to advance this appropriations bill to make sure we
continue to support our folks not only due to the challenges they face
because of weather issues but also low commodity
[[Page S6066]]
prices and the real challenges we face due to trade right now. We need
to keep advancing on all these fronts. Of course, this legislation is
an important part of that.
It includes support for our producers, funding for ag research,
housing and business loan programs for rural America, domestic and
international nutrition programs, and food safety and drug safety
because we also fund the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, as part
of this bill.
Again, these are very important priorities for this body that we need
to take up and pass. The subcommittee has made difficult decisions in
drafting the bill, and I am proud of the work that has been done to
this point.
It is written to our allocation of $23.1 billion, which is $58
million above the current enacted level. We worked hard to invest
taxpayer dollars responsibly, funding programs to provide assistance to
our farmers in rural communities and supporting programs that provide
vital direct health and safety benefits and safeguards for all
Americans not only through the USDA but, as I said, the Food and Drug
Administration.
Agriculture supports more than 16 million jobs nationwide and forms
the backbone of our rural communities. Our farmers are the best in the
world, and what they do benefits every single American every single
day. We have the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the
history of the world, produced by our farmers and ranchers. It benefits
every single American every single day. So we are talking about good
farm policy and good ag policy. We are talking about something that
benefits every single American every single day.
Again, I thank Senator Merkley for the bipartisan working
relationship we have had on our committee. I think this bill reflects a
well-balanced compromise on a lot of the issues we had, not only among
the members but on both sides of the aisle, and I hope my colleagues
will join me in passing this important legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
(The remarks of Mr. CORNYN pertaining to the introduction of S. 2690
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, briefly on another matter, we are just a
couple of months away from the 2-year anniversary of the passage of the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Because of this legislation, families across the
country are benefiting from lower income tax rates and are able to keep
more of what they earn. We have also helped families by doubling the
standard deduction for children, expanding the child tax credit, and
simplifying the Tax Code, which is something I think we can all agree
needs to be done. For the millions of Texans who were filled with dread
simply about filing their taxes, it was a welcomed relief.
The journey to pass the legislation wasn't easy, of course, and there
was no shortage--there never are--of naysayers. Many of our Senate
Democratic colleagues claimed this legislation only benefited the rich,
the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. We know that is false
because of what the facts tell us.
Let me go back for a second and explain why this congressional
resolution of disapproval we will be voting on at about 3 o'clock is so
ironic and so mistaken.
Prior to tax reform, without limit, taxpayers could itemize their
deductions for State and local taxes. They got to deduct that from
their Federal income taxes, which meant, in essence, in those high-tax
jurisdictions--the cities and the States that had high local and State
taxes--taxpayers from around the country were subsidizing those
taxpayers in those high-tax jurisdictions.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act attempted to deal with this unfairness by
capping this deduction, better known now as the SALT deduction--the
State and local tax deduction--at $10,000 for everybody across the
country. Everybody was treated the same. Everybody was put on a level
playing field. In other words, tax reform stopped the endless subsidy
that taxpayers who were living in my State gave to fiscal decisions
that were made by other States and local governments. There is no
reason we should ask a taxpayer who is living in Austin to subsidize
the financial decisions, the fiscal decisions, made in Albany, in
Sacramento, or in any other State capitol.
Before the cap, the wealthiest Americans were disproportionately
reaping the benefit of this no-limit deduction. That is why the cap was
included in tax reform--in order to support the middle class, not the
top 1 percent. In the process, we prevented the richest people in the
country from gaming the Tax Code.
This chart, which was produced by the Senate Committee on Finance,
courtesy of Chairman Grassley, talks about who benefits from the SALT
cap repeal. This is what we will be voting on indirectly this
afternoon.
Here, 52 percent of the benefit goes to taxpayers with incomes of
over $1 million. Our Democratic friends like to say they are the party
of the working man and woman, but clearly they are working on behalf of
the 52 percent of taxpayers who have incomes of over $1 million in
their seeking to repeal this regulation that basically prevents a tax
dodge. There are 24 percent of taxpayers with incomes between $200,000
and $1 million who will be affected and 6 percent of taxpayers who will
be affected who earn under $200,000. You can see that the majority of
the benefit that our Democratic colleagues seek to confer is on the
wealthiest people in the country.
I don't have any ax to grind with people who have been successful and
who have made a lot of money. They pay their taxes, contribute their
philanthropy, and help in innumerable ways. This is simply a way to try
to make sure our taxpayers in Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming don't
subsidize the high tax rates in New York, Los Angeles, or other places
that have high State and local taxes. In good conscience, we cannot let
that happen.
The fact is, since tax reform passed, a number of States have crafted
a workaround--I call it a tax dodge--to circumvent this $10,000 limit.
In June, the Treasury issued a regulation to stop them--this is the tax
dodge--and required States to adhere to the limit that Congress passed
into law and that the President signed.
The financial consequences of what the Democratic Members of the
Senate are trying to do here are enormous. The Joint Committee on
Taxation estimates that doing away with the subsidy cap would cost
about $700 billion over the next 7 years, or $100 billion a year, and
almost 95 percent of the benefit would go to the people who make more
than $200,000. Even according to the liberal Tax Policy Center, one-
third of the uncapped SALT deduction went to the top 1 percent.
If I have heard Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or any of the
Democrats who are running for President rail on and on about the top 1
percent and income inequality once, I have heard it a thousand times.
Yet here they seek to undo a cap that treats every taxpayer the same
and essentially require taxpayers who are in low-tax States to
subsidize those who are in high-tax States and localities. And 52
percent of them make over $1 million a year. A millionaire would
receive a tax cut of nearly $60,000--higher than the household incomes
of many people who live in my State.
That is what we will be voting on. That is what the Democratic leader
from New York--a high-tax State and city--seeks to do for his
constituents, but it is to the detriment of hard-working families in my
State and in many States around the country.
After continually hammering the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it is actually
duplicitous to argue that it somehow benefits the wealthy when there
was just the most modest of cuts in the highest marginal rate. The
benefit flowed to everybody in every tax bracket, but most of it went
to the middle class. Yet, after hammering this side of the aisle for
its somehow benefiting the wealthy to the detriment of the middle
class, the Democrats are now working to help their richest constituents
get back to the days of unlimited deductions.
This is unfair. It is regressive. It benefits the people who need the
help the least, and it hurts the people who need our attention and help
the most. Asking Texans and all Americans to somehow foot the bill for
$700 billion so that
[[Page S6067]]
the folks who live in these high-tax cities and States can get a
$60,000 tax cut is something I am simply unwilling to participate in. I
urge all of my colleagues to vote against this resolution of
disapproval.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I echo what my colleague said about S.J.
Res. 50, a congressional resolution of disapproval we are being asked
to vote on this afternoon. I agree with the Senator from Texas. It is a
mistake. It is wrong. I think he used the words ``ironic,''
``mistaken,'' and ``duplicitous.'' I would call this Democratic
proposal the height of hypocrisy. That is what we are looking at right
here, and I am planning to oppose it.
Two years ago, the Republicans passed major tax reform for this
country. What we wanted to do was to make the Tax Code simpler, make it
fairer, and have people pay less, and that is what we have seen. To do
it, we have also eliminated some tax deductions for the wealthy. One
was the State and local tax deduction that was specifically aimed at
the wealthy. We eliminated it. That is what our goal was--to eliminate
those sorts of deductions so that people all across the country could
see the benefits of tax reform.
Let's be clear about who will be benefiting by the Congressional
Review Act that is being proposed to be voted on today. There will be
94 percent of the benefits going to those with incomes over $200,000.
Those aren't the people who need tax relief in this country.
We made choices when passing tax reform. We wanted to provide tax
relief for the middle class, and we wanted to double the child tax
credit. It worked. We wanted to double the standard deduction, and that
worked. We wanted to lower the tax rates as well. The results are that
a great majority of American households are actually paying less in
taxes today than they were before.
We have also had this great boost to the economy. We have more people
working and one of the lowest unemployment rates we have seen. We have
seen wages and incomes grow. We have seen the unemployment rate drop to
a 50-year low. We have also seen economic growth beat all previous
predictions. That is what we have gotten with the tax reform--the tax
relief--that the Republicans have passed and that President Trump has
signed into law. The Republicans are going to continue to focus on
keeping taxes low for all Americans.
The best description I have heard of this proposal is that it seems
to be an effort to give tax breaks to rich people in blue States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I guess if you live long enough and are
around here long enough, you get to hear it all.
Hypocrisy is when the party of the rich--now the party that gave $1
trillion in the Trump tax bill to the largest corporations, with most
of it going to the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent--now says it is
for the working guy. Amazing. Hypocrisy is when donor States, like my
State of New Jersey, give moocher States--those that actually receive
far more than they give to the Federal Treasury--say that somehow we
should continue to pay more. Yet that is overwhelmingly the reality
that is going on. In fact, I find the comments of some of my colleagues
here to be pretty ironic.
I urge the Senate to reject these new IRS rules that are designed to
block efforts by homeowners across America to avoid the Trump tax law's
harmful caps on their State and local tax deductions.
I thank Leader Schumer and Ranking Member Wyden for the opportunity
to exercise our authority under the Congressional Review Act to stop
these IRS rules from taking effect.
It was 2 years ago when President Trump and his allies rammed their
corporate tax bill through Congress. They promised middle-class
families thousands of dollars in tax relief and $4,000 raises in their
salaries. Instead, all they got was $1.5 trillion more in debt and an
economy that was even more rigged in favor of big corporations and
wealthy CEOs.
Of course, as bad as the tax bill is for the whole country, it is
even worse for States like New Jersey. That is because, even after
borrowing over $1.5 trillion from China, the President still can't pay
for his deficit-exploding corporate tax cuts. Where are all of my
colleagues--all of those deficit hawks--who talked about exploding
deficits and debt? They are silent.
Even though he couldn't have enough of this $1.5 trillion of
borrowing, what did President Trump do? He dipped into the wallets of
New Jersey's and other States' middle classes by gutting the State and
local tax deductions they used to write off, their property taxes. In
2016, $1.8 million, or around 40 percent of New Jersey's taxpayers,
deducted their property and State income taxes from their Federal
returns. That average was about $18,000 per deduction. More than 80
percent of those who deducted earned less than $200,000. So to say that
the Trump tax law was a giant hit job on New Jersey's middle class is
no exaggeration, for already New Jersey families are paying the price.
Earlier this month, new data from ProPublica revealed that because of
the new $10,000 cap on property tax deductions, home values in New
Jersey have taken a huge hit. In fact, home values in Essex County, NJ,
declined more than those of any other county in America.
And according to nj.com, of over 30 counties across the Nation
suffering the largest dip in home values, 16 of them are in the Garden
State. That is why Governor Murphy and New Jersey's legislative leaders
took action to protect homeowners from getting hammered. They adopted a
program, as did over 30 other States. And, by the way, these States, or
all these red States, are not the ``blue States'' or wealthy States.
These are States that adopted similar provisions before the Trump tax
bill that were getting the benefit of a local tax credit for charitable
contributions to nonprofits set up by local governments. They adopted a
program that 30-some other States have in the books in some form.
In return, taxpayers could receive a property credit worth up to 90
percent of their contribution. Other States have long used similar
charitable contribution programs. For example, in Alabama, there is a
100-percent tax credit available for contributions to private school
scholarship funds. In Missouri, one program incentivizes donations to
shelters for survivors of domestic abuse. In Florida, there are
programs that actually go to an education fund and to a conservation
fund. I could go through the list of these 32 States that had charity
tax-credit programs across the country, which now the IRS rules are
nullifying, and which all of those States--and many of my Republican
colleagues who represent them--are now facing. What was completely
acceptable and the IRS had no problem with now is not acceptable
whatsoever.
The IRS long respected these programs. So I was hopeful that New
Jersey's charitable contribution credits would provide relief to
homeowners suffering under the Trump tax scam and would be treated the
same as all of these 32 other States.
Unfortunately, as soon as New Jersey and other States took action,
the IRS reversed course and issued new regulations, hamstringing this
long-accepted type of charitable contribution program.
These are harmful regulations for all of the 32 States that are
represented through some of these programs, and the Senate has an
opportunity to protect all of those 32 States' charitable contribution
programs.
Look, in an ideal world, New Jersey's charitable contribution credit
wouldn't be necessary because Congress would uphold the full state and
local tax deduction as a bedrock principle of our Tax Code. As a matter
of fact, it is the oldest deduction in the history of the code, and it
is a principle that I would especially expect my Republican colleagues
to stand up for.
Since the Federal income tax creation in 1913, the State and local
tax deduction has encouraged States to stand on their own feet. It
encourages States to make smart investments that, at the end of the
day, make them less reliant on Federal handouts.
In New Jersey, we know that when we invest in public schools, we
prepare our students to succeed in high-paying fields. In New Jersey,
we know that
[[Page S6068]]
when we invest in mass transit, we connect workers to new jobs and
opportunities. In New Jersey, we know that when we invest in public
health and law enforcement, we all do better because our streets are
safer and our families are healthier.
It is no coincidence that New Jersey is one of the most economically
productive States in the Nation, to the betterment of all Americans,
especially those in less productive States--donor State versus moocher
States.
Isn't that a good thing? Isn't a State's right to set its own tax
policies a right worth defending?
For as long I can remember, I have heard my Republican colleagues
talk about self-reliance, about personal responsibility, about
protecting not punishing success, and about States' rights. Well, the
Trump tax law was nothing short of a massive tax on the success of
States like New Jersey and the State rights of States like New Jersey.
Likewise, I have heard Republicans talk about States' rights and the
virtues of federalism. Well, guess what. The State and local tax
deduction is a bedrock of federalism.
Today's CRA vote is an opportunity for my colleagues across the aisle
to actually stand up for those principles of self-reliance, of States'
rights, and federalism; to walk the walk, instead of just talking the
talk, and to preserve the programs of these 32 States with charity tax
credit programs that are now all threatened of being extinguished by
the IRS's determination.
I want to close by sharing a constituent letter I received earlier
this year about what the property tax deduction meant to one New Jersey
family.
This past April, Leigh, from Budd Lake, wrote:
My husband and I just did our taxes today--and for the
first time ever--we owe money. And not just a little,
hundreds.
We own a home and for the first time we were not able to
itemize our deductions; our deductions in fact were cut in
half.
There is no incentive to us owning our home anymore. We are
an average middle class family paying a mortgage and trying
to raise three kids. I'm tired of our family being collateral
damage in yet another political fight.
Leigh is absolutely right. New Jersey families shouldn't have to foot
the bill for massive handouts for big corporations.
To add insult to injury, while the new IRS rules crack down on New
Jersey's efforts to save families like Leigh's money, last fall the
Treasury Department made clear that corporations--listen to this--could
continue to benefit from the same exact kind of workaround.
Corporations can continue to benefit from the same kind of workaround.
How is that for protecting the little guy? How is that for hypocrisy?
It is not fair. It is not right. Our constituents deserve better. So
we will continue to push for a long-term solution to this problem. I
have introduced the Stop Attacking Local Taxpayers Act, or SALT Act, to
restore the full deductibility of State and local taxes.
Under my bill, the more you pay in property and State taxes, the more
relief you get. It is the exact opposite of what the Trump tax bill
says, which is that the higher the cost of living is in your State and
the more you pay in State and local taxes, the more you owe the Federal
Government come tax time. It is double taxation. It makes no sense.
The SALT Act deserves the full consideration of the Senate, but in
the meantime, we should use the opportunity before us today to help
hard-working homeowners suffering from the Trump tax law. We should
help these 32 States--overwhelmingly, most of them, Republican--that
have a tax credit program be able to sustain that program for the
benefits of the decisions they made in their States and for the
purposes they made, whether it be education, conservation, or whatever
else, that now are nullified by the IRS rule.
Join us, and let's exercise our power with the Congressional Review
Act to do what is right--to protect middle-class families throughout
the Nation from higher property tax burdens, to protect States and
their right to determine how their taxpayers will ultimately receive
the benefits for making investments in education, for making
investments in conservation, and for making investments in a whole host
of issues, that these States, in their rightful judgment, decided were
perfectly fine and that were always upheld by the IRS and are now
nullified by the Internal Revenue Service's decision.
That is what we have an opportunity to turn around, and I hope we
will.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Iowa.
United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, before I address the issues before the
Senate right now, I would like to express some concern I have about
whether the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be able to get
done this year.
I come to the floor today to express growing worry. The Democratic-
controlled House of Representatives looks increasingly less likely to
act this year on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. That
threatens passage of the trilateral trade deal this Congress, as next
year is a Presidential election year.
It has been about a year since the updated trade agreement with
Canada and Mexico was signed by the leaders of the three nations. It is
a whole year, and Democrats have still failed to act.
Every day that passes, Americans are losing out on economic benefits
of the USMCA. House Democrats seem to have no sense of urgency. For
months now, House Democrats have said they are working on it, that they
are making progress and that they are optimistic that they can get to
yes.
But conspicuously absent from their pronouncements are any mention of
a date or timeline. With every passing month, these seem less like
good-faith assurances and more like stalling tactics.
The new Congress has been seated for more than 10 months now. How
long is it going to take before this can come up?
Ambassador Lighthizer, more than any other Trade Representative I can
recall, has gone above and beyond to accommodate the other party's
policy demands. For nearly a year now, Lighthizer has worked with House
Democrats to find solutions on issues of concern to them, like labor,
environment, intellectual property, and enforcement.
I am beginning to wonder if Democrats are interested in reaching a
compromise at all. It is looking more like they would prefer to deprive
the administration of a victory, even if it comes at the expense of the
American people. That should not stand.
Earlier this month, I wrote a column with Congressman Kevin Brady,
the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. We wrote
that time would tell if Democrats cared more about undermining
President Trump than helping the American economy and job creation as a
result of it. Today, it is looking more like the former than the
latter.
If the USMCA is not brought up for a vote in the House very soon,
Democrats will have a price to pay next year when the American people
have a chance to weigh in. There is little Americans dislike more in
politics than zero-sum, oppose-the-other-party politics, no matter the
cost.
The USMCA would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, protect
American industries, and provide confidence to U.S. businesses and
innovators to invest right here in America.
That is what Democrats seem willing to sacrifice by inaction on the
USMCA. But Democrats are making the wrong political calculus. This
underestimates the intelligence of the American voter and their ability
to sniff out a phony.
President Trump has done his job. He has renegotiated a trade deal
that nearly everyone besides a few congressional Democrats can agree is
better than its predecessor we know as NAFTA.
It is now up to the House of Representatives to do their job and
bring this deal to a vote. If they don't act soon, the American people
will hold them accountable a year from now.
S.J. Res. 50
Now to the issue before the U.S. Senate--the State and local tax
deduction. This week, Democrats are using the Congressional Review Act
to force a vote on a resolution that would effectively repeal an IRS
regulation aimed at preventing millionaires and billionaires from
exploiting a tax loophole.
[[Page S6069]]
This loophole would allow top income earners to save billions of
dollars in Federal taxes annually.
New York City hedge fund and private equity managers would most
assuredly be some of the biggest beneficiaries under this loophole. At
the same time, the taxpayers with incomes under $50,000 would see
virtually no benefit.
In this case one might think my Democratic colleagues would be
cheering on the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service
for taking decisive actions and shutting down this loophole for the
wealthy. But this doesn't seem to be the case. Democrats--and only
Democrats--including the Democratic minority leader, are arguing in
favor of allowing wealthy taxpayers to exploit this loophole. Moreover,
predominantly Democratic States have been promoting and bemoaning the
loss of this loophole.
The loophole I am talking about is a concerted effort by
predominantly only Democrat States to help their wealthiest residents
get around the $10,000 cap on the deduction of State and local taxes,
which has come to be known by the acronym SALT.
These efforts to get around the cap have been called blue State SALT
workarounds. These workarounds are essentially State-sanctioned tax
shelters where wealthy residents make payments to a State or local
government-controlled fund in exchange for tax credits they can use to
wipe out most or all of their State taxes.
These States then want the Federal Government to ignore this sleight
of hand and recognize these payments as fully deductible charitable
contributions when they are nothing more than State tax payments. Well,
that is really too cute by half. It is cheating, and these States are
encouraging it, forcing the rest of the country to subsidize these tax
shelters for the wealthy.
The Treasury Department and the IRS have correctly determined that
these workarounds are contrary to the Federal tax law and have issued
sensible regulations to clarify this tax treatment. In doing so, they
applied longstanding tax principles that deny a charity deduction to
the extent the taxpayer receives something of value in return for their
charitable donation. It is simply common sense.
Charity is by definition something done out of the goodness of your
heart without expecting or getting something in return. That is
certainly not the case with these workarounds. There is no charity
involved. In fact, once taking into account both the State tax credit
and the charitable deduction at the Federal level, a taxpayer could
actually receive a tax benefit that exceeds the dollar value of their
so-called donation. That is not charity; that is a tax scam.
Some have attempted to justify this tax scam by pointing to State tax
credit programs that existed prior to the existence of the SALT cap,
but unlike the recently enacted programs, these older programs were not
specifically designed to circumvent Federal tax law when they were
enacted. These preexisting tax credit programs were targeted at giving
taxpayers the option of funding certain nontraditional governmental
activities, such as providing underprivileged children scholarships or
to set aside land for conservation.
My Democratic colleagues have painstakingly tried to defend these
scams by claiming they are efforts to alleviate State tax burdens on
the middle class; however, this argument doesn't even pass the laugh
test. It is undeniable that these workarounds will overwhelmingly
benefit the superwealthy, while the middle class will receive little or
no benefit.
I was pleased to see that at least one Senate Democrat was willing to
be honest about this last night here on the Senate floor. Senator
Bennet of Colorado put it this way:
The vast majority of the benefits of repealing the SALT cap
would go to high-income Americans. Repeal would be extremely
costly, and for that same cost, we could advance much more
worthy efforts to help working and middle-class families all
over the country.
To illustrate this point, I have here a chart based on a nonpartisan
Joint Committee on Taxation distribution analysis. They have made very
clear through their chart showing who would benefit from repealing the
cap on deductions for State and local taxes.
While eliminating these Treasury regulations wouldn't repeal the SALT
cap entirely, it would effectively make the cap toothless, as more and
more States would create workarounds. And let's not forget--the repeal
of the cap is their ultimate goal.
As we can see here on the chart, the majority of the benefits from
repealing the SALT cap--52 percent--would flow to taxpayers with
incomes exceeding $1 million. Let's think about that just for a minute.
Less than half of 1 percent of all tax returns report income exceeding
$1 million. Yet, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, these
taxpayers would receive 52 percent of the tax benefit if this
resolution of disapproval went through. Another 42 percent of the tax
benefit would go to taxpayers with incomes between $200,000 and $1
million. When combined with those earning over $1 million, you can see
that fully 94 percent of the tax benefit would go to taxpayers with
incomes over $200,000. To put this into perspective, only 7 percent of
tax returns report income exceeding this level.
Now compare this to taxpayers with incomes under $200,000, which is
about 93 percent of all taxpayers. According to the Joint Committee on
Taxation, this group would receive a measly 6 percent of the benefit
from repealing the cap on State tax deductions, as the Democrats are
proposing. Only a handful of taxpayers with incomes under $200,000--or
about 3 percent--would actually see any benefit. Ninety-seven percent
of these taxpayers wouldn't see even one penny of benefit from taking
away the SALT cap.
So, very simply, there you have it. The same Democrats who have
criticized the 2017 tax bill as supposedly benefiting only the
wealthy--can you believe it?--are now actively pushing an agenda that
would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. This goes to show how off-
base Democratic criticism of tax reform really is, as we have heard it
over the last 2 years.
Far from being a giveaway to the wealthy, the tax reform passed in
2017 was a concerted effort to provide tax relief for everybody.
Republicans accomplished this tax cut for everybody primarily by
lowering tax rates across the board, but we also did it by repealing or
limiting certain regressive tax benefits, such as the deduction for
State and local taxes, the SALT provisions we are talking about. We
then used that revenue to increase benefits that better target low- to
middle-income taxpayers. For example, we doubled the child tax credit
from $1,000 to $2,000 and increased the refundability of that tax
credit. We also nearly doubled the standard deduction, to the benefit
of many lower and middle-income taxpayers. We likely couldn't have made
those changes if we hadn't limited the deduction for State taxes that
mostly benefited the wealthy.
Democrats who wrongly associate this SALT cap with a tax increase on
middle-income folks simply aren't looking at the facts or at tax reform
as a whole. Two years ago, Republicans created a tax cut for an
overwhelming majority of Americans. This is true even for taxpayers
affected by the deduction for State taxes.
Before tax reform, many upper-middle-income taxpayers--particularly
those in the high-tax blue States--had to pay the alternative minimum
tax. We refer to that as the AMT. For anyone who used to pay the AMT,
after you struggled through the incredible complexity of the AMT rules,
you realized an unfortunate fact: The AMT clawed back the deduction for
your State tax payments. Therefore, many of these taxpayers saw little
or no benefit from this deduction before tax reform.
Democrats don't like to admit this inconvenient truth, but it is
true. They don't seem to let facts interfere with their political
rhetoric. So, yes, these same taxpayers are likely now affected by the
SALT cap, but because Republicans largely did away with the AMT--at the
same time, lowering everybody's tax rates--they still received a tax
cut. Let's not forget that these taxpayers no longer have to deal with
the mind-numbing complexity of the AMT. Now a question: Do Democrats
really want middle-income families to have to go back to the nonsense
of figuring out the alternative minimum tax every year?
I have heard Democrats try to justify their efforts to undermine the
SALT
[[Page S6070]]
cap by claiming it was part of some nefarious plot against blue States.
That is simply not true. Yes, more taxpayers in blue States are
affected by the cap given the high State taxes those States impose on
their residents, but the fact is, on average, every income group in
every State saw a tax cut under the 2017 tax cut bill. This isn't just
coming from this Senator, Chuck Grassley, but an analysis by the
liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In addition, recent
filing season data released by H&R Block shows that, on average,
residents of even high-tax States received a tax cut.
We have also heard fears that the cap will negatively affect blue
State revenues, as higher income taxpayers flee to lower tax
jurisdictions. But concerns about such an exodus aren't new and didn't
start because of the cap; they started because of sky-high taxes in
those very same States.
In November of 2017, prior to the enactment of this tax cut and
reform bill, the Wall Street Journal wrote about ``The Great
Progressive Tax Escape.'' This article focused on IRS tax return data
between 2012 and 2015 that showed billions of dollars in taxable income
leaving high-tax States for low-tax States due to taxpayer migration.
Last time I checked, there was no SALT cap between 2012 and 2015. While
there is some anecdotal evidence that taxpayer migration might be
starting to increase due to the cap, it is not entirely clear at this
point.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a Bloomberg article from
May of this year titled ``Blue States Warned of a SALT Apocalypse. It
Hasn't Happened'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[May 21, 2019]
Blue States Warned of a SALT Apocalypse. It Hasn't Happened
(By Martin Z Braun)
To listen to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the 2017
Republican tax overhaul that limited state and local
deductions to $10,000 was a devastating blow. The rich would
flee, the middle class would suffer and blue state budgets
would bleed.
Perhaps this will come to pass over time, but so far, there
are almost no signs of it.
New York, in fact, saw revenue rise $3.7 billion in April
from a year earlier, thanks to a shift in timing of taxpayer
payments, a stock market that rallied through much of 2018
and a decade-long economic expansion that's pushed national
unemployment to a 50-year low. Similar windfalls arrived in
New Jersey, California and Illinois--states that, like New
York, had warned of dire consequences from the law.
And it turns out that tax refunds across the U.S. in 2019--
those once-a-year checks from Uncle Sam that people use to
pay credit card debt from Christmas or buy a washing
machine--were roughly the same size as a year earlier. In
all, about 64% of American households paid less in individual
income tax for 2018 than they would have had the Tax Cut and
Jobs Act not become law, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax
Policy Center.
``Any comment that says this is an economic civil war that
would gut the middle class is overblown,'' said Kim Rueben,
the director of the State and Local Finance Initiative at the
Tax Policy Center. ``If there's going to be any effect of the
SALT limit on the ability of some states to have progressive
taxes it's too early to know that yet.''
Taxable Income
In some ways, the $10,000 limit on state and local tax
deductions--SALT--is saving states money by lowering their
borrowing costs. That's because investors seeking to reduce
their tax bill are plowing a record-setting amount of cash
into municipal bonds, driving interest rates lower. The extra
yield that investors demand to compensate for the risk of
holding Illinois general-obligation bonds, for instance, has
fallen to the lowest since May 2015, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg.
States are also benefiting from a broader tax base because
the law eliminated some exemptions and limited deductions,
like mortgage interest. Since states that levy income taxes
use federal adjusted gross income or taxable income as the
base, they have more income to tax.
Still, the nerves of Democratic governors and their budget
officers frayed in December when income tax collections
plunged by more than 30 percent from the prior December.
Cuomo was quick to call the tax law ``politically
diabolical'' and an act of ``economic civil war'' against the
middle class.
Then April came.
New York collected $3.4 billion more in personal income tax
revenue last month than a year earlier, a 57% increase,
according to Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. California took in
$19.2 billion in April, exceeding Governor Gavin Newsom's
estimate by $4 billion.
New Jersey had a record April with tax collections up 57%,
allowing it to boost forecasts for the year by $377 million
and triggering a political battle over how to spend the
windfall. Illinois individual and corporate tax revenue was
$1.5 billion more than projected, allowing Governor J.B.
Pritzker to scrap a plan to put off pension payments.
Timing Change
April personal income tax collections in 28 states and
Washington increased by $16.3 billion, or 36.2% year-over-
year to $61.4 billion, Bank of America Corp. said.
``SALT caps do not appear to be a broad system risk to
state credit quality at this point,'' S&P Global Ratings said
recently.
A big reason for the sharp bounce-back after December's
deep revenue declines in New York and other high-tax states:
The SALT limits caused some people to change when they paid
their taxes. Wealthy taxpayers in December 2017 accelerated
big tax payments to take advantage of the unlimited state and
local tax deduction before it expired. Then, with the SALT
deduction capped, that incentive evaporated and taxpayers
waited until this April to pay their 2018 taxes.
Also, some individuals failed to adjust their W-4s after
the passage of the tax law. So people who underwithheld
received more in their paychecks since then but had to pay
more tax in April or received lower refunds.
Trending Inline
Still, there are some indications that residents in high-
tax states are fretting about the law. Thirteen percent of
house-hunters in both New York and California said they have
started looking for homes in states with lower taxes,
according to a recent survey by brokerage Redfin Corp.
In Westchester County, where a typical property tax bill
for a single family home is more than $17,000, the average
sales price declined 7.6% between the first quarter of 2018
and the same quarter this year. Sales prices for luxury homes
(average price $2 million) plummeted 22% during the same
period, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and
brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
Almost half of income taxes paid to California, New York
and New Jersey are from the wealthiest 1% of earners. If they
were to move in large enough numbers, those states could be
in trouble. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland
sued the Trump administration last year to invalidate the
$10,000 cap, saying that it unfairly targets them. States
have sought to pass loopholes around the limit and there's a
push in Congress to reverse it.
But migration rates in high tax states most affected by
SALT are below pre-recession levels, and generally in-line
with U.S trends, Moody's Investors Service said in April.
Jobs, housing and the weather influence migration more than
taxes, according to Moody's analyst Marcia Van Wagner.
``Armageddon hasn't resulted from the changes to SALT, but
it still may be too early to measure its impact,'' said Matt
Dalton, chief executive officer of Rye Brook, New York-based
Belle Haven Investments, which manages $9 billion of
municipal bonds. ``You see more mansions listed in New York.
Manhattan real estate sales just had their worst quarter in a
decade.''
Mr. GRASSLEY. As this article highlights, revenue for blue States
this tax season were up, not down.
The ratings agency Moody's released a report in April saying that
there were no discernible signs that individuals were fleeing high-tax
States as a result of the SALT cap. However, even if taxpayer migration
were to occur as a result of the cap, the answer to the problem isn't
repealing the SALT cap; it is for States to look in their own backyard
at their own tax-and-spend policy.
The truth is, these State politicians aren't concerned about their
own taxpayers. What they are really worried about is their continued
ability to gouge those taxpayers with ever-increasing State and local
taxes, which used to be subsidized by taxpayers from other States
through the Federal Tax Code because there was no SALT cap.
In closing, I want to turn back to this very chart, the same one I
discussed earlier. For Democrats still on the fence as to whether to
vote to repeal the IRS regulations on the SALT work-arounds, you ought
to study this chart very closely.
I ask a question to the other side: Could you, with a straight face,
argue that a vote to protect these work-arounds is not a vote to
provide a massive tax cut for the wealthy? This chart shows it is
helping the wealthy.
For Democrats who intend to vote for this tax scam anyway, I don't
want to hear any more long-winded speeches about how the tax bill of
2017 benefited the wealthy. The fact is, after tax reform, the wealthy
now shoulder a larger share of Federal tax burden than they did under
the prior law.
This was made possible by reforms to regressive tax expenditures,
such as our capping the SALT deduction. What is more, these reforms
allow us to target more tax relief to lower and middle-income
taxpayers.
[[Page S6071]]
State work-arounds through the SALT cap are nothing more than State-
sanctioned tax shelters. By voting to undermine that cap, Democrats are
voting to enrich the wealthy taxpayers whom they persistently have
vilified as not paying enough. Moreover, they put the tax relief
provided to the middle class in jeopardy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to make sure the Senate and the
country understand what this debate is all about.
Senate Republicans have been writing letters to the Department of
Treasury saying that the Treasury SALT rule hurts their State
charities. Yet they have been unwilling--at least based on what I am
told--to be part of an effort to fix this and to support those
charities. That is what we would be doing in our effort today to
overturn the Treasury Department's flawed--deeply flawed--SALT
regulations.
My view is that these regulations illustrate essentially what was
wrong with the Republicans' 2017 tax law. This was a law that was half-
baked and rushed to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars to those at
the top of the economic pyramid in our country. Then $1.5 trillion was
borrowed so that Donald Trump and his Republican allies could find a
way to cover this tax cut for cronies and donors.
Then, because they still needed revenue, Republicans deliberately
targeted middle-class homeowners in States like New Jersey, New York,
Maryland, and Oregon for tax increases.
For some communities in Oregon, it is not uncommon for property tax
bills alone for middle-class folks to exceed $10,000. But when our
Republican colleagues took this flawed approach on the SALT issue, they
didn't want to listen to experts. So the Trump Treasury Department
stepped in, and without any clear authority to do so, the Treasury
Department reversed a longstanding IRS provision that had allowed
taxpayers a full deduction for charitable contributions to State tax
credit programs.
In essence, the Treasury Department created a new rule that extended
the $10,000 cap on State and local tax deductions to also include
charitable contributions to State tax credit programs.
To make matters worse, because Republican Senators began to see what
an absurd approach this was, Secretary Mnuchin put together another
carve-out for Republican interests, trying to figure out how to manage
this flawed regulation. In effect, businesses using these same
workarounds to fund private school voucher programs would be exempt
from the regulation. Middle-class families pay more; businesses pay
less. That is the Republican way.
My view is that the Treasury Department shouldn't be putting its
thumb on the scale on behalf of Republicans, and it certainly shouldn't
be using what amounts to a phony regulatory justification to fix this
extraordinarily poorly drafted law.
While Donald Trump certainly intended for these regulations to hurt
middle-class families in some parts of the country in Democratic States
and protect Republican interests, the bad news for my Republican
colleagues--and this is why so many Republican Senators are writing the
Treasury Department, talking about why their State charities are
getting hammered. The regulations produced by the Treasury Department
are overly broad, and they hurt the majority of States by effectively
eliminating the benefit of those State charitable tax credit programs.
These include credits that support priorities like conservation, child
care, charitable giving, and access to higher education.
This is particularly striking, given that the Trump tax law was
already estimated to slash overall charitable giving by as much as $20
million a year.
Now on top of that, the regulations that I oppose and feel so
strongly about coming from the Treasury Department threaten more than
100 charitable State tax credit programs in 33 States.
My Republican colleagues' constituents will be hurt by these
regulations, just like my constituents at home. We are talking about
childcare centers in Colorado and Missouri; foster care organizations
in Arizona; historic preservation groups in Kansas; charities in Iowa,
Kentucky, and Mississippi; conservation groups in Arkansas, Iowa,
Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee; rural hospitals
in Georgia, the home State of the Presiding Officer; universities in
Indiana, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota; and volunteer responders in
Nebraska.
As today's debate proceeds, you are going to hear about these
comments against these regulations that were submitted to the Trump
administration. There is a rural hospital in Georgia that was able to
upgrade its heart monitors, a childcare center in Colorado that helps
parents remain in the workforce, and a conservation group that has
preserved more than 10,000 acres of land in Florida's gulf coast.
In wrapping up, I just hope my Republican colleagues will put their
constituents first by shielding them from these unintended consequences
of losing their charitable tax credits and supporting this resolution
offered by the leader, Senator Schumer, myself, and other colleagues.
Senate Republicans have a choice. They can keep writing letters to
the Treasury Department, complaining about the regulations that hammer
their State charities, or they can join us in voting to reverse this
policy. I just hope that Senators move to this vote, and they take the
option that I think is the only one you can explain to the folks at
home in a townhall meeting. I have had more than 950 of them. I am
going to have some more very shortly. There, folks have a chance to
really see what your priorities are.
The question here is, Are your priorities with folks at home, with
these State charities that I have emphasized--everything from
conservation to healthcare, to children? Are you going to support the
State charities doing that important work or are you going to continue
to support the Department of the Treasury with their incredibly flawed
regulations to hammer these State charities?
I hope Senators from all sides--from those 33 States that I have just
ticked off--will vote to protect those charities and join me, Senator
Schumer, and a host of other colleagues in voting to get rid of the
Treasury Department's rule and stand with us on the CRA.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I come to the floor frustrated--frustrated
by the fact that it has been 327 days since President Trump signed the
USMCA, and the House has done nothing to take it up.
It is not because the House hasn't had time. They have found time to
do a lot of things, like continue on their partisan expedition toward
impeaching the President. They passed a bill without a pay raise for
our troops, spent a lot of ``energy'' on the Green New Deal, and one
Member of the House took the time to show the world she was frightened
by her garbage disposal.
The question is, What is preventing Congress from getting the USMCA
done?
From Humboldt County all the way to Hamburg, IA, at my townhall
meetings or during a visit to a small business or manufacturing plants
and everywhere in between, I have been hearing one thing consistently
and across the board: Iowans want the USMCA now.
These hard-working folks know the impact the USMCA will have on
Iowa's economy and the U.S. economy as a whole. There is no reason
Iowans should be waiting in limbo for this agreement to be ratified.
This trade agreement is a win for the American people, plain and
simple. Mexico has already ratified the deal, and Canada is well on
their way. Our trade partners are ready. The United States-Mexico-
Canada Agreement is about modernizing a trade deal with two of our
closest allies that would grow more than 175,000 jobs across this
country.
NAFTA was ratified in 1994. That was 3 years before Wi-Fi became
available to the public, 5 years before USB drives were invented, 12
years before the launch of Facebook and Twitter, and 16 years before
computer tablets were on sale. None of us are living with 1994
technology, so why should we be living with a 1994 trade policy?
[[Page S6072]]
President Trump understands the need to modernize trade with two of
our closest allies, and that is why he negotiated a great trade deal
with Mexico and Canada--the USMCA. Passing the USMCA will allow us to
compete in today's 21st century economy. It will provide folks back
home in Iowa with some certainty--certainty in a time where prices have
been low and markets have been eroded from other trade wars.
Iowans want and need USMCA. Canada and Mexico are our States' top two
trading partners. In 2018 alone, we exported $6.6 billion worth of
products to our neighbors to the north and to the south. Trade with
Canada and Mexico directly increases the value of Iowan exports like
beef, adding $70 in value to each head that comes from the State.
In case you didn't know it, Mexico is the No. 1 consumer of Iowa
corn. I was up in Northwest Iowa a couple of weeks ago visiting with
one Iowa corn farmer, and he said that if we were able to get the USMCA
deal done, it would have a direct impact--positive--on his farm.
It is not just our farmers who will benefit from the USMCA; it is
also our businesses and our manufacturers. I was visiting with some
business leaders at a roundtable in Des Moines, and time and again they
told me how important it is that we get this trade deal done and in
place.
All of this leaves me scratching my head, wondering when the House is
going to do what Americans are demanding. When will they stop
obstructing the good work done by our President to get a deal in place?
House Democrats need to do their job so Iowa farmers, manufacturers,
and business owners can do theirs. Now is the time to pass the USMCA.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Ms. McSALLY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak in support
of the USMCA, and I appreciate all of my other colleagues who are
speaking out as well.
Almost a year has passed since President Trump signed the U.S.-
Mexico-Canada Agreement and notified Congress of the administration's
intention to enter into the deal. Legislation to implement the
agreement must originate and be approved first in the U.S. House of
Representatives and then the U.S. Senate, where it will pass with a
strong bipartisan vote, including mine.
This modernization of NAFTA matters for Arizona businesses, hard-
working citizens, and families. Mexico has already ratified USMCA, and
Canada is in the process of doing so. Congress needs to pass USMCA
without any further delay.
Simply put, USMCA is a win for Arizona. Trade with Mexico and Canada
is key to Arizona jobs and opportunities. Almost 50 percent of all
Arizona exports go to Mexico and Canada, and more than 228,000 Arizona
jobs rely on this trade. In 2018, Arizona and Mexico engaged in $16.6
billion worth of cross-border commerce.
Exports to Canada and Mexico support Arizona jobs across a broad
variety of industries. In 2018, Arizona companies exported $2.3 billion
worth of computer and electrical products, $1.4 billion in appliances,
$928 million in transportation equipment, and $796 million in machinery
to Canada and Mexico. Arizona miners exported $1 billion in minerals
and ores, and Arizona farmers exported almost $600 million in
agricultural goods. One out of five Arizona manufacturers export to
Canada and Mexico, and most of those are small and medium-sized
businesses. It is not too hard to see how much Arizona communities,
farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and business owners stand to gain
from Congress finalizing the USMCA.
A few weeks ago, I was honored to host Vice President Pence in the
Grand Canyon State. One of our stops took us to Caterpillar's proving
grounds in Green Valley, AZ, where the company tests their impressive
machinery and trains operators on new equipment.
With roughly 660 full-time employees in our State, Caterpillar knows
what a critical role cross-border commerce--and the passage of USMCA--
is for Arizona. Caterpillar recycles 150 million tons of scraps a year
to create new products. This kind of innovation should be promoted, not
penalized. USMCA encourages this kind of innovation by specifically
prohibiting restrictions on remanufactured goods. In turn, companies
like Caterpillar are not penalized but encouraged to be thoughtful in
their environmental footprint.
I made many other visits to local businesses this year and heard
straight from Arizonans about why we need to get this deal passed and
now. The USMCA opens doors for Arizona to continue leading in the
aerospace, financial services, film and digital media, and bioscience
sectors. It enhances intellectual property protections and will benefit
Arizona's emerging automotive sector by requiring at least 75 percent
of a car to be built with North American parts in order for it to be
sold duty-free. Arizona's farmers and ranchers will have new
opportunities to export dairy, eggs, wheat, chicken, and turkey
products to Canada.
Earlier this month, Speaker Pelosi said about USMCA that her
Democratic caucus in the House was ``on a path to yes.'' Well, with
less than two dozen legislative days remaining in 2019, I sure hope
that is true, and I would encourage them to get to yes now.
The USMCA is good for our country, and too much time has passed
without any House action. During these divided times, this is a
proposal that should bring both sides of the aisle together. It is good
for America, and it is good for Arizona.
USMCA is a clear win for my constituents in Arizona. Arizonans in
every corner of our great State need to contact their Representative in
the House and tell them to encourage Speaker Pelosi to bring this bill
to the floor immediately. Let's pass USMCA now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, as our colleagues can hear, we are on
the floor talking about the USMCA and the need to get this agreement
passed. It really is frustrating. I feel as if we have come to the
floor, time and again, to encourage our friends in the House, and I
guess we are all but begging them to take a pause from their political
agenda and take one vote--just one vote that is going to make a
tremendous amount of difference in the lives of businesses, of our auto
manufacturers, our farmers, our chemical producers, and workers.
Our friends across the aisle like to say they are all for the
workers. Well, if you are all for the workers, let me tell you
something, there are 12 million--get that--12 million workers who are
directly impacted by the benefits that would come from the USMCA, and
this is across every single industrial sector.
As I have been about Tennessee, what I have heard from so many is a
simple question: When are you going to pass this? How long is it going
to take? We have heard that you have people in logistics, people who
are in farming, and people who are in every single part of the economy
who are saying: Why can't you get this done?
We all know there is support that we hear about--bipartisan support--
wide bipartisan support in the other Chamber and, indeed, wide
bipartisan support here in the Senate, but for some reason, they just
can't seem to find the time to schedule the bill and call the vote.
America is waiting on them to take this vote. There are 120,000 small
and midsize American businesses that will be able to continue exporting
their goods to customers in Canada and Mexico. Do you know what is
significant? These businesses, small and midsize businesses, are
located in every single one of our States.
The updated customs and trade rules are certainly going to make sure
that even startups are able to participate in this cross-border
economy. I have talked to so many new-start businesses that are coming
through our universities and our entrepreneur centers, and they say: We
want to make certain that we have access to markets around the globe.
Isn't this great? They are not just thinking locally or regionally.
Some of these talented young Americans, what are they doing? They are
thinking globally. They are planning ahead for decades of productivity.
This is going to ease regulations for our dairy and beef and pork
farmers who are in Tennessee.
[[Page S6073]]
Indeed, I was out in the past couple of weeks and talked with a
farmer who is a cattle farmer. He came to one of our meetings, and I
got around to questions and answers. The very first question was, When
is this going to be done? When is it going to be done? Why is it taking
so long? There was agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the United
States months ago. Why can't this get a vote?
These are real problems for real people who are working real jobs and
are very dedicated and are working diligently. The intellectual
property provisions that are in this bill are so significant for our
singers, our songwriters, and our musicians who call Nashville home,
and they want to see this take place.
I have to tell you, I know that all of these issues I have discussed
might not matter to those who are always interested in the 24-hour news
cycle and winning the shiny object debate of the day, but I will tell
you this: This matters to Tennesseans because Tennesseans exported
$13.7 billion worth of transportation equipment, electronics,
machinery, chemicals, fabricated metal, appliances, paper, plastics,
rubber, and other goods to Canada and Mexico in 2017--a $13.7 billion
export community to our neighbors to the north and south.
Tennessee businesses and workers have waited long enough, and they
want to see the House take action and the vote be completed and the
USMCA become a reality.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from my
colleague from Tennessee about the importance of this agreement in her
State, and I can tell you it is also important to a State a little
further north called Ohio. Our No. 1 trading partner, by far, is Canada
and No. 2 is Mexico, and we want this agreement.
I hear about it all the time I am out talking to our farmers. They
are concerned about the weather. They are concerned about what is going
on with the China market. They are concerned about low prices. They see
this as an opportunity. They see this as kind of the light at the end
of the tunnel.
If we can get the USMCA done, that expands markets for us and,
therefore, increases our prices and gives us a chance. It is the same
situation with a lot of manufacturers. It is amazing how many of them
depend on Mexico and Canada to be able to sell their products. This is
a big deal in Ohio and a big deal for our country. So I am here today
to try to urge the House of Representatives to go ahead and move on
this and then to urge the Senate to take it up right away. The Trump
administration negotiated a good agreement. It deserves a vote.
I am a former trade lawyer--a recovering one--and I am also a former
member of the Ways and Means Committee and a former U.S. Trade
Representative, and now I am on the Finance Committee, where we deal
with trade. The bottom line is that, in all of those years working with
trade, it is a complicated area. It is a politically difficult area.
But the bottom line is that we are about 5 percent of the world's
population in America, and yet we have 25 percent of the economy. The
way we do well is to sell more of our stuff to the 95 percent of the
people who are outside of our borders.
It should be fair. We should have a level playing field. That is the
kind of context in which I look at the USMCA. Does it meet these
criteria, where we can sell more of our stuff and we have a more level
playing field? Yes, it does. That is exactly what this agreement does.
It is a good agreement, and it deserves to have a vote. If it has a
vote, it will pass because logic, I think, will prevail.
As crazy as this town is these days and as partisan as things are,
the logic of this is inescapable, which is that you have the USMCA, a
good agreement, and then you have the status quo, which is NAFTA, which
is not as good in any respect. If you vote no on USMCA, you are
effectively voting yes for the status quo. I don't think that will
happen. I think it will pass if we can get it to the floor for a vote.
Taken together, our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, make up the most
important foreign markets for U.S. products, and not just for Ohio. In
fact, according to the recent data we have, one-third of all American
exports in 2019 this year have already gone to Mexico or Canada, well
ahead of any other foreign markets. So trade with Mexico and Canada is
now responsible for 12 million jobs nationally. Every single State
represented here has jobs related to this.
In Ohio, again, our No. 1 and No. 2 trade partners are Canada and
Mexico, with 39 percent of our exports going to Canada alone. That is
twice the national average, by the way. So we are particularly focused
on Canada and Mexico, which represent $28 billion in trade total.
What I am hearing from farmers, manufacturers, and service providers
is that this is really important for us. So we have to be sure that,
because this relationship is so important, it is built on a solid
foundation. The NAFTA agreement which it is built on is now 25 years
old. It is outdated. It has not kept up with the times, and it has to
be improved upon. That is what USMCA does. It basically says that we
are in the 21st century, and we have to make changes to this agreement.
NAFTA doesn't have things in it that one would expect in a 21st
century agreement.
Start with the digital economy. So much of our economy now operates
over the internet. Yet there is nothing in the current agreement,
NAFTA, that protects this trade like our modern agreements do.
Another aspect is labor and environmental standards, which are weak
and not enforceable in the NAFTA agreement but are in the USMCA. That
is a big change in and of itself.
This is not just a name change. This is a fundamental change in the
way in which we relate to our neighbors to the south and north.
This handy-dandy chart I put together shows us some of the
differences between the two agreements. The first one has to do with
economic impact. The independent International Trade Commission has
done a study on this. They are required by law to do it. They say that
the new USMCA is going to create 176,000 new jobs. That is the green
check under USMCA. That is a big difference right there. If we want to
create more jobs, by the way, here are 176,000 new jobs, and 20,000 of
those jobs are in the auto industry. That is very important to our
country and particularly important to States like mine.
Second, businesses in Ohio and around the country rely on internet
sales that we talked about earlier. Internet sales and rules for the
internet are unchanged in NAFTA. Frankly, there is no chapter in NAFTA
that deals with commerce over the internet. It is unbelievable. It
turns out that the USMCA does, and that is important because small
businesses that rely on access to Canada and Mexico through internet
sales are going to have an easing of their customs burdens for small-
value products. They will have data localization protections. They will
have a prohibition on Mexico and Canada requiring that there be
localization of the data in those countries. Finally, this prohibits
tariffs on data, which we don't have now. These are all important key
elements in the agreement to keep our internet economy moving. So under
the rules for the internet economy, there is a green check for the
USMCA, and NAFTA doesn't have it.
Let's talk about the next subject, which is enforceable labor and
environmental standards. In the agreement we have now, the NAFTA
agreement, there are no labor or environmental standards that are
enforceable--none. Whereas, in the new USMCA, standards are actually
enforceable. There are consequences if they don't abide by them. This
is part of the leveling of the playing field. Think about it. In
Mexico, one of their great advantages has been lower labor costs and
labor conditions--the inability to organize and so on. This changes
that now that we have labor standards. By the way, Mexico has already
made changes to their labor laws because of the agreement we have with
them under the USMCA, which, by the way, was negotiated with these two
countries and submitted back on September 30 of last year. It has been
over a year. So it is about time to move it. Again, the USMCA has
enforceable environmental and labor standards, and NAFTA does not.
There are some other provisions that are interesting that lead to why
this is
[[Page S6074]]
good for the economy. The International Trade Commission, or the ITC,
also says that this agreement will increase the GDP of our country,
which is the economic growth of our country, and, significantly, in
fact, more than the Trans-Pacific Partnership did. Remember that the
TPP is an agreement that a lot of Democrats have spoken very favorably
of because of its impact on the economy. The USMCA actually increases
our economy more than the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have.
Another issue that is unusual but is in this agreement and is helpful
to our manufacturing in Ohio and around the country is that 70 percent
of the steel used in manufacturing vehicles has to be made in the
United States, Canada, or Mexico. So this is a new standard that does
not exist in NAFTA at all. This means more steel jobs in America and
more heavy manufacturing jobs in this country. So we have a check on
USMCA, yes, with 70 percent of the steel. In NAFTA, there is nothing
with regard to how much steel has to be coming from North America.
It also states that, with regard to the wages in Canada, Mexico, and
the United States, there would be a minimum wage of $16 per hour for
about 40 to 45 percent of this manufacturing we are talking about. So
any vehicle made in Mexico or anywhere else in America has to be
produced by workers making 16 bucks an hour or more. This is again
about leveling the playing field, and, frankly, this is the kind of
provision that we would see in a provision negotiated by a Democratic
administration, not a Republican administration. My Democrat friends
have been calling for this for years. It is in the USMCA agreement, and
it is good for us because it will result in more jobs coming to the
United States of America, where we have not just higher labor standards
but higher wages. So 40 to 45 percent of the vehicles must be made by
workers earning $16 an hour. Check the box for yes in USMCA and no in
NAFTA.
It is another example of how this agreement is one that addresses a
lot of the concerns the Democrats have raised over the years. When I
was U.S. Trade Representative, we talked a lot about these issues. We
talked a lot about them in the Finance Committee. They are in this
agreement.
My hope would be that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats in the House
would take this into account and at least allow this agreement to be
voted on by the full House. If that happens, I can't believe that logic
wouldn't prevail, that NAFTA versus USMCA wouldn't result in our
passing USMCA. All of these things are going to help.
The one element that I think has gotten the most attention in farm
country is the fact that the dairy protections in Canada have been
changed so we have a chance to send our dairy products to Canada from
Ohio and other dairy States. It is more than that. It also affects
commodities--wheat, soybeans, and corn--and our proteins: beef,
poultry, and pork. This is really going to help our farmers. That is
why 1,000 farm groups around the country have supported this agreement.
Again, with what is going on with China, with the smaller markets,
with the difficult weather we have had, and the fact of low prices for
commodity crops--all are real problems--this is a godsend. It is really
needed for our farmers.
A lot of Democrats are telling me: Rob, this is just like the NAFTA
agreement in so many respects.
It is really not. It is a different agreement. The truth of the
matter is that this agreement is going to catch us up to the 21st
century with regard to our important trade relationship with our two
neighbors to the north and south. It is about improved market access
for manufacturing and a level playing field for workers and farmers. It
is about being sure that we have the ability in the modern digital
economy to get a fair shake. Put these two agreements side-by-side, and
this is a much-needed upgrade. It has to get a vote, and, if it does, I
think it will pass.
With all the improvements we talked about today, this is not just an
exercise in rebranding NAFTA. This is about a new agreement that is
really a big difference, and it is a binary choice. Are you for this
new agreement, which is better in every respect, or are you for the
status quo, which is NAFTA?
My hope is that the House will take this to the floor, and, if they
do, I think it will pass. It will then come to the Senate, and I am
confident that in the Senate we will have the support to pass this on a
bipartisan basis.
What I am most confident in is the fact that American workers,
farmers, and service providers are going to have the chance to improve
their economic opportunities because this agreement is going to be good
for all of them.
There is a lot of politics going on right now, and I get that. But,
folks, this is not even an election year. Let's finish it up this year
before we get into the 2020 election year. Let's be sure that before
Thanksgiving, we have the agreement passed in the House and sent to the
Senate to take a look at it.
It is too important. We need to keep the American people first and
put politics second and get this done.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, we have been talking about the USMCA and
the Senator from Ohio crammed into just a few moments quite a bit of
facts. We are late in time, so I am going to try to abbreviate my
remarks.
The Senator from Ohio taught me something a few years ago that is an
undisputed fact: We sell twice as many goods to countries where we have
trade agreements than we do with countries where we don't. This is an
opportunity to expand on an already great success story in terms of our
trade with Canada.
What do we see now in trade with Canada and Mexico? We see 12 million
American jobs, more than $500 billion worth of exports, and the USMCA
would enhance and improve that. It is good for large manufacturing. It
is good for small manufacturing. It is good for small business. The
tech industry benefits from the USMCA. As the Senator of Tennessee
pointed out, the creative industry--those people in Nashville and in
Hollywood--will benefit also, in terms of our ability to protect our
intellectual property. Farmers, ranchers, and agribusiness will all
benefit.
We strengthen our position with regard to China. This is not an
agreement with China, but we will be in a stronger position to compete
with China because of this.
I urge the Speaker of the House of Representatives to bring this to a
vote in the other body. There is one person on the face of the Earth
who can bring this bill, and that is the Speaker of the House of
Representatives. She needs to do it, and if she does, we will see a
rare opportunity for bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress. The House,
controlled by Democrats, will pass the USMCA because they know it is
good for jobs and they know it is good for families and working people.
The Senate will pass it on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, and that
ought to be refreshing.
I want to do something that I seldom do. I am going to quote the
Washington Post. I don't get a chance to do that very often. The
Washington Post has strongly endorsed USMCA. The editorial board wrote
recently: ``USMCA would be a real improvement over the status quo,''
and it went on to urge Democrats, including many who have already said
they support the agreement, to bring the USMCA up without delay.
This is an opportunity for us to move this economy forward. This is
an opportunity for us to join with Canada and Mexico, which have
already indicated their support for this treaty, and an opportunity for
bipartisanship, which needs to break out more in this building.
So I join my colleagues. I am glad to rise with them in support of
urging the Speaker to bring this bill to the floor, and I urge quick
adoption in the House and Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, the American people elected President
Trump based in part on his promise to negotiate better trade deals with
foreign nations--first among them, our largest trading partners, Canada
and Mexico.
The President and his administration wasted no time in working with
these two neighbors to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement
to reflect today's economic reality. Those talks produced the United
States-
Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA,
[[Page S6075]]
which the President unveiled more than 1 year ago.
When NAFTA was written more than a quarter of a century ago, the
internet was in its infancy and few could have foreseen the
increasingly globalized and digital economy we have today. USMCA takes
us into the 21st century, updating antiquated rules to prohibit the
theft of trade secrets, reward American innovators, and improve cross-
border e-commerce, while also providing increased market access for
American businesses and benefits for American workers in more
traditional sectors like agriculture and manufacturing.
Market access is very important to agriculture and to our Nation's
economy in general. Ninety-five percent of the world's population lives
outside of these United States. Without good trade agreements that give
us free access to the world's marketplace, we cannot prosper in
agriculture or any other business that depends on exports. The USMCA
will result in a fairer deal for U.S. businesses and consumers.
Today the American people should ask why it has taken more than a
year for the House and Senate to take up, debate, and pass an agreement
that will boost the American economy and job creation.
Manufacturers, farmers, and other businesses in my State of
Mississippi certainly want to know why we have not done that. The truth
is, House Democrats have delayed taking action because they want first
to deny President Trump a win for as long as possible and, secondly, to
secure last-minute favors for Big Labor.
It is ironic that these same Democrats and big labor groups now
oppose USMCA because of environmental protections or labor rights. The
truth is, they are largely responsible for the original NAFTA, which
they now claim incentivized a mass exodus of U.S. companies to Mexico
and decimated our manufacturing sector.
Unfortunately, Democrats' inexcusable foot-dragging is just hurting
American consumers and businesses. For years, Mississippi has worked
aggressively to increase the market penetration of its manufactured
goods and agricultural products in foreign markets. My State exported
$11.8 billion in goods in 2018--a 61-percent increase over the past
decade. Foreign trade accounts for almost 10 percent of Mississippi's
GDP. More than 50,000 workers and large manufacturers, medium and small
businesses, and farms played a role in producing these goods for use
around the world but primarily to Canada and Mexico, my State's largest
trade partners.
The bottom line is, the USMCA represents an important new tool for
Mississippi to expand its ability to sell more of what we produce to
consumers abroad. There is no good reason for the House to have held up
this 21st century trade agreement, and it is time to finally take a
vote, send it to the Senate, and get it done.
We all are benefiting from the strongest U.S. economy and lowest
jobless rate in decades. Congress needs to do its job to help maintain
and strengthen this economic growth. USMCA will create more certainty
for businesses and increase business confidence, which improves the
state of the world's economy.
Let's pass the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and spend more
time on accomplishing as much as we can on issues that will actually
make a difference in the lives of the American people.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I rise to support the USMCA--the United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement--along with my colleagues. You heard a
number of them already. You will hear more. It is compelling.
It is time to act. We are ready to go. This legislation has to start
in the House under fast track. We need the House to move forward. There
is no question that the bipartisan support is there. Bipartisan support
is here in the Senate, and bipartisan support is there in the House as
well. It is just a matter of bringing the legislation to the floor and
getting it passed.
The benefits of this agreement are very clear. It will increase
exports, expand consumer choice, raise wages, and boost innovation
throughout North America and especially here in the United States. An
analysis by the U.S. National Trade Commission found that USMCA will
raise GDP by nearly $63 billion and create 176,000 jobs in the United
States. It is clear that we need to move forward.
The agreement will secure and expand market access for our ag
products for an ag State like mine. It will grow our manufacturing base
for manufacturing States like Ohio, whose good Senator is here to my
right. It will provide important modernizations for our technology
sector for States like the Presiding Officer's State. It is certainly a
high-tech State.
It will solidify the United States as the global energy leader. We
are now, as you know, exporting energy in a bigger way than we ever
have before. This just builds on that momentum. These are all
significant wins for our States individually and for this country as a
whole.
As I said, ag is certainly a big issue for us in North Dakota. The
USMCA really makes an important difference and a helpful difference for
us in agriculture. For the last 50 years, our country has had a trade
surplus. Our farmers and ranchers can outcompete anyone in the world.
They produce the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world,
and we have a positive balance of trade in agriculture. We need these
types of trade agreements in place to continue that positive balance in
our agriculture trade. In my State, for example, we shipped $4.5
billion of agriculture products around the globe in 2017, making us the
ninth largest exporter of agriculture goods among the 50 States. Our
farmers and ranchers depend on being able to do that. What we are
seeing right now are low commodity prices in our country, which is
making it very difficult for our farmers and ranchers. The best way to
work out of that is with trade agreements that allow us to sell more
globally.
According to the ITC, when fully implemented, USMCA will increase
food and exports to Canada and Mexico by $2.2 billion. This agreement
secures existing market access, makes ag trade fair, increases access
to the Canadian market, supports innovation in agriculture and more,
which is why it is so critical that we pass this legislation as soon as
we can.
By maintaining all zero-tariff provisions on ag products, USMCA will
secure crucial market access in Canada and Mexico for our farmers and
ranchers. Canada and Mexico are critical markets for U.S. ag products.
To give you some examples, Mexico is the No. 1 buyer of U.S. corn and
DDGS, distillers dried grains with solubles; and Canada is the No. 2
buyer of U.S. ethanol. Additionally, Mexico is the No. 2 buyer of U.S.
soybean meal, oil, and whole beans. Canada is the No. 4 buyer of
soybean meal and the No. 7 buyer of soybean oil.
Again, you are talking about two very large markets for ag products,
for manufacturing products, and for technology--two incredibly
important partners. I can go on.
Again, I want to be respectful of my colleagues on the floor. This is
one of those cases where it is clear. This is absolutely beneficial to
our country. The point is, it is a bipartisan issue. I think, whether
you talk to Members of the Senate or to Members of the House, they will
tell you this is a bipartisan issue. This is a trade agreement that is
good for our country and good for two very strong allies and neighbors.
Obviously, Canada and Mexico are two very large trading partners.
We have been on the floor before asking for the House to advance this
legislation. If we could start the legislation here, we would. We would
pass it right now, and we would pass it with a bipartisan vote, but it
requires the House to get started. I hope that all of our colleagues
will visit with their counterparts from their respective States in the
House and urge that this bill be brought to the floor, passed in the
House, and delivered to the Senate so we can pass it for the President
to sign and put it into effect for Americans across this great country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, this is a classic example of everything has
been said but not everybody has said it yet. One of the great
traditions of the Senate is to be sure everybody says it. We are going
to say it now, and we will
[[Page S6076]]
continue to say it until the House finally has that vote.
It has been pointed out that this agreement was signed well over a
year ago. It has been pointed out that our two biggest trading partners
are Mexico and Canada, in that order. It has been pointed out that
there is lots of focus on agriculture. Every State is an agriculture
State. Every State has that as a significant part of their economy.
Nobody in the world does that part of the economy more efficiently or
more effectively than we do. So that is important. It is important to
realize that lots of other things are in trade, as well, but
agriculture has to be mentioned a lot until we get this done.
Whether I was at the Missouri State Fair in August or the roundtable
meetings I was at in our State in October, cost comes up--$88 billion
is the agricultural economy in Missouri. We are about the same amount.
I think Senator Hoeven said his State is in the top 10. Ours is too. We
export about $4 billion worth of ag products. We also export pickup
trucks and airplanes and lots of technology from our State. We export
our fair share of beer cans and other things that go all over the
world. We are going to continue to make that happen.
Opening markets make a big difference. It also makes a big difference
in how you look at the world. If you have strong trading relationships,
you are pretty careful with how you deal with all those other
relationships. We need to do that. We need to have this vote. The votes
are in the House. The votes are in the Senate. It is up to the Speaker
to bring this up.
I think the U.S. Trade Representative is working as hard with
Democrats in the House as he could possibly be expected to do to maybe
look at those last few things that might make this a better deal.
Senator Portman did a great job talking about why the choice here is
if you want to continue to have NAFTA--which has been great for all
three partners, Canada, Mexico, and us--or do you want to have USMCA,
which in area after area has the 20-year update it needs.
We need to get on with this. We need to get on with the activities of
the day.
Remembering Ted Stevens
Mr. President, I am going to start off by saying one of the things we
are going to do today is accept the official portrait of Ted Stevens,
President pro tempore of the Senate--the highest office that the Senate
can possibly give to anybody. It is the highest office in the Senate.
He was the chairman one time of the Commerce Committee, chairman of
the appropriating committee, and a guy who flew those tough planes in
the toughest areas in World War II.
He was a person who always did his best to try to figure out the
Senate and then be sure that the Senate worked for America and the
Senate worked for Alaska. When it came to both of those things, it was
hard to beat Ted Stevens' best. He knew how to make this place work.
He would be disappointed in the dysfunction we see right now, but he
would be optimistic that in the greatest country in the world, we will
figure this out. All of us who had a chance to serve with him--I had a
great relationship with him when I was a House Member. I learned a lot.
I think of him often. I miss the way he represented his State and our
country so uniquely and so dynamically and so effectively.
I look forward to not only the recognition here on the floor that he
will receive today but the permanent recognition he will receive as we
today hang his portrait in the U.S. Capitol.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, as the Senator from Missouri has
stated, this is a significant day. This is a very special day in the
Congress, as later this afternoon we are going to gather to pay tribute
to a truly great Senator, the late Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. His
official portrait will be unveiled shortly by the U.S. Senate
Commission on Art. It will be part of the U.S. Senate Leadership
Portrait Collection, which honors past Presidents pro tempore and past
leaders. Like all of the family, the friends, the colleagues, and the
former staff who have gathered for this occasion, I am so very pleased
that he will be memorialized forever here in the U.S. Capitol and will
be watching over all of us.
There are only 38 Members who are currently in the Senate who served
with Ted, but I think it is important that all of us--and really every
American--know who he was and why he so clearly deserves this honor.
Ted was a public servant. He was the ultimate public servant. He
dedicated his life to public service. He spent more than six decades
fighting for our State and the country he loved. His service began
during World War II, when he flew as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. He
flew missions behind enemy lines in China in support of the Flying
Tigers. The stories we have heard over the years are truly legendary of
his efforts in the war.
After the military, Ted helped Alaska to achieve its dream of
statehood. He was basically Secretary Seaton's point man at the
Department of the Interior during the Eisenhower administration. Think
about what that means to have the opportunity to shape statehood for
your State and then to go on and serve your State at this level as he
did for some 40 years.
He went on to become one of the longest serving Republican Senators
of all time. In this Chamber, he represented Alaska with great dignity,
with great distinction over the course of 40 exceptional years. He was
truly a public servant.
Really, from the very beginning, Ted was one of those special kinds
of guys. After being appointed to the Senate in 1968, he established
himself as a leader among leaders. Over the course of his time in the
Senate, he chaired the Select Committee on Ethics; Rules and
Administration; Governmental Affairs; Commerce, Science, and
Transportation, as well as the Committee on Appropriations. From 1977
to 1985, his colleagues chose him to be the Assistant Republican
Leader. He led the Senate's Arms Control Observer Group for 15 years,
and he served as the President pro tempore, the senior member of the
Senate's majority party, from 2003 to 2007--so leadership across all
levels.
As one might expect, Ted was a force to be reckoned with. He made
sure Alaska's voice was heard and was heard in every debate. As such,
he secured an incredible number of legislative victories that shaped
both the State of Alaska and our Nation.
He helped to settle most of Alaska's Native land claims, returning 44
million acres of land to First Alaskans and establishing a new model
that empowered our Native peoples to create new economic opportunities.
Ted was instrumental in securing the passage of a bill that enabled the
construction of our 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which, to this
day, remains the backbone of our State's economy and is a critical part
of our Nation's energy security supply.
Ted was a guy who worked very, very hard but who also loved to fish.
He loved to be outside. His focusing on fishing led him to be very
concerned about what he saw as being the overfishing by foreign fleets,
which was taking place just miles off of Alaska's shores. So he worked
across the aisle with Senator Warren Magnuson to protect and sustain
our fisheries into the future. The Magnuson-Stevens law has been
repeatedly reauthorized and, to this day, still bears their names.
It really is impossible to overstate the beneficial impact that Ted
had on Alaska. Now, keep in mind he came to the Senate in 1968--less
than a decade after Alaska had become a State. So he knew as well as
anyone how tough those early years of statehood were. He knew probably
as well as anyone how difficult life was for so many Alaskans,
particularly in the rural parts of our State and, more than anyone
else, he helped to change that.
Ted was an appropriator for a long time. He was legendary in that
role. He once convinced the entire Committee on Appropriations to go to
Alaska for 2 weeks to see Alaska's needs firsthand. The Federal funding
he secured year after year allowed many Alaskans to gain access to very
basic infrastructure. We are talking water and sewer--things that most
Americans would take for granted. He also worked to help develop Alaska
so we would have a telemedicine network that would work. He helped to
facilitate bypass mail and Essential Air Service for our rural
communities--programs and benefits that continue to this day.
[[Page S6077]]
There is absolutely no doubt that the people of Alaska are better off
because of Ted Stevens. Many around the State still lovingly refer to
Ted as ``Uncle Ted.'' We are happier, and we are clearly healthier. We
are a safer and more prosperous State because of his contributions. Yet
the same is true for every American because Ted's accomplishments did
not end with the State of Alaska. He was a patriot. He was firmly
committed to our national defense and the security of our country. He
had great admiration for those who answered the call to serve in
uniform, as he had. He traveled the world to visit with our troops and
hear directly from them.
He was a longtime leader on the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Department of Defense. He and Dan Inouye would kind of share the
chairmanship, one between the other practically. Throughout his Senate
tenure, he fought tirelessly to make sure our military had the best
equipment, better pay, and the needed care it sought. He was a defender
of those who defended us.
Ted was an avid surfer when he was young, and he recognized the
importance of sports in our daily lives. I can remember a story that
has gone around for so many years; that of having to put his eldest
daughter, Sue, on a boy's softball team because we didn't have a girls'
league in Alaska at the time. So he championed title IX of the
Education Amendments Act, which provides equal opportunity for women to
participate in sports. He also authored the Amateur Sports Act, which
created the U.S. Olympic Committee, and worked to ensure funding for
physical education programs--programs, again, that had that fingerprint
of Ted Stevens from so many years prior.
I can go on and on about Ted's accomplishments. His legislative
accomplishments are considerable and far too many to speak to here
today, things like his work to ban damaging high seas drift nets to the
funding he secured to advance AIDS and breast cancer research. He was
involved in so much.
In recognizing that other colleagues wish to speak of Senator Stevens
as well, I, instead, will speak very briefly about what I feel made him
so effective and really so beloved--because he was beloved, maybe
feared a little bit but beloved.
The first thing to understand is that Ted had a pretty simple motto.
It was not very complicated.
He said:
To hell with politics. Just do what is right for Alaska.
He lived by that every day that he served here. He would work with
anyone who was willing to do right by the State of Alaska no matter who
one was, where one came from, or which side of the aisle one was on. I
mentioned Senator Inouye and the relationship that Ted had with him on
the Subcommittee on Department of Defense and on the Committee on
Appropriations. They formed a very close relationship. They had a lot
in common. Obviously, they were both veterans, and they were both from
young, offshore States. Yet they looked out for one another. They had
one another's backs. On committees, as I mentioned, they would be
chairman and vice chairman and would trade off but would work with one
another. In later years, it was not uncommon to find them both smoking
cigars out on the pro tempore's balcony in the early evenings, talking
about what had happened that day or what was going to happen the next
day.
Another thing that folks should know about Ted is that he was
definitely a fighter. I am told that Newsweek described him as a
``scrapper'' when he first arrived in the Senate, and it certainly
proved to be an apt description throughout his tenure. Yet Ted was,
again, pretty clear: If Alaska's interests were at stake, he was out
there to defend them.
There were times he would put on his Incredible Hulk tie and channel
the big guy's persona. When that happened, everyone knew to look out
because Ted was going to the mat for Alaska on that day. Look out. Some
suggested that Ted had a bit of a temper.
A Senator is chuckling back there. I hear that.
I think Ted knew that a little bit of a temper could actually serve
him pretty well, and he would usually have a cute, little gleam in his
eye when he would say, ``I never lose my temper. I know exactly where I
left it.''
Ted was one of those guys who was great to his people, but when
something needed to be said--when it needed to be direct and to the
point--he was not going to shy away from it. That was another part of
what really made him a legend around here.
I think those who are listening and those who know me know I have an
immense, great affection for Ted and that this day and the recognition
he is receiving has great personal meaning. I had the extraordinary
fortune to know Ted Stevens for almost my entire life. At one point, he
was my boss. I was a high school intern. My first opportunity to really
be out of Alaska on my own was when I was an intern here for Senator
Ted. Later, of course, he was my colleague in the Senate, where he
mentored me and partnered with me to help serve Alaska. Above all that,
he was a true friend--truly a friend--and I miss him dearly.
I am reminded of him all the time. I have his old office in the Hart
Building. I have pictures and mementos that remind me of Ted. Every
time I go back home to the State, I think of him. It is not just
because, when I land, it reads ``Ted Stevens Anchorage International
Airport.'' It is also when I go out to the communities and see a road
or a bridge or a community that is no longer utilizing a honey bucket
system because of the work that Ted did. When you go home, when you
visit in Alaska, you see firsthand the impact he had. You see it
everywhere. I often say that Ted built Alaska and that Ted was Alaska.
So you can see why we named him the ``Alaskan of the 20th Century'' and
why we remain so grateful for all that he has done for us.
I am happy there is now going to be a place in the Capitol where I
can visit Ted, talk to him, and think about what he might have said and
about the counsel he might have provided for our State and our Nation.
I do hope his portrait will be a reminder to those of us who serve here
that we can work together even on the hardest of days and that, if we
do, we can achieve great things for the American people, which
sometimes might just require us to say: To hell with politics. Just do
what is right.
I am honored and privileged to be here with so many Alaskans,
including Catherine, Ted's wife, as well as many of his children and
grandchildren. I know they are overwhelmed by the number of friends and
colleagues and staff who are here to celebrate Ted's life and legacy.
In channeling here, I think Ted is looking down on all of this and is
thinking: Enough already. This is too much. You all have to get back to
work because, after all, we have appropriations bills on the floor.
With that, I yield to the fine Senator from Mississippi.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I will speak for only a few moments, and
then the distinguished junior Senator from Alaska will close this part
of the debate.
The senior Senator from Alaska mentioned that only 38 of us have
actually served with Senator Ted Stevens. Of that group, I am the
junior-most in rank, and I know that because I was the junior-most
Member of this body more than a decade ago when I rose on this floor to
pay tribute to this great Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, on his last
day in office.
I did not speak from my desk, as you can imagine. I didn't have a
very prominent desk at the time. I chose instead to stand as close as I
could directly behind Senator Stevens. I suppose I wanted to have his
back, at least figuratively, for one last time. And I wanted to make
sure I could see his wife Catherine in the gallery, as I may have done
just a few moments ago, because she meant so much and still means so
much to all of us and to my wife Gayle and me.
What we learned from Ted Stevens guides our work today. I was honored
to serve alongside him for just a few years. I was anguished when he
had to leave us in 2008, and together with all of us, I mourned his
death in 2010.
Seniority is earned when the people of our States see fit to return
us time and again to Washington to do their business. Respect is earned
when we
[[Page S6078]]
engage in the long fight to fulfill our oaths and to support and defend
the Constitution.
Ted Stevens earned both seniority and respect for 40 years. When he
was elected as the third Senator ever from the Land of the Midnight
Sun, he had already served his country brilliantly, as has been
mentioned, as a brave pilot in World War II for the Flying Tigers and
as a key leader in putting that 49th star on the American flag.
The portrait being unveiled in the Old Senate Chamber today, where so
many great debates took place, is a fitting homage to Ted Stevens. As
the senior Senator has mentioned, the seemingly gruff exterior depicted
was a facade over one of the most genuine and patriotic people ever to
walk these halls.
He went to work every day to defend Americans and to make good on the
promise of the country he so deeply loved. He belongs in the place of
honor where his portrait will be displayed. Members who served with Ted
Stevens will look on that portrait and remember that.
I hope our more recent colleagues who have joined since Ted Stevens
left will come to know what a giant he was. As chairman of the Commerce
Committee, a committee Ted Stevens once led, I went to Alaska with the
junior Senator from Alaska this summer to learn, among other things,
from coastguardsmen keeping our Nation safe in the Far North. But I saw
a lot of that State, and there is a lot to see.
Despite its geographic size, Alaska is in many respects a small town.
Like my home State of Mississippi, everyone knows just about everyone
else, and virtually every Alaskan knew Ted Stevens. They knew what he
did for them. They knew what he did for this country.
I could see his legacy this summer. The evidence of his leadership is
everywhere in so many ways. He helped turn America's last frontier into
a thriving community for Alaskans and Americans and a place of wonder
and adventure for any of us who will visit there.
While he was at it, he performed small acts of kindness that I will
never forget and heroic acts of statesmanship almost every day in his
chosen homes--this closed Chamber and that wide open State.
I can't wait to see the portrait. I can't wait to tell him hello and,
once again, to look him right in the eye.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, we are taking about somebody today who was
actually a mentor for me right here in the U.S. Senate--Ted Stevens.
I believe it was 33 years ago when I first met him--33 years ago--and
I was in the House, and I was coming to the Senate. He was a power in
the Senate then. He was a worker. He was involved. He was involved not
only in what happened in Alaska, where he was a champion of his own
State--and should have been--but also in the world. He wanted to make
sure that America had a defense second to nobody; that we were
powerful, but we were peaceful.
I had the occasion to serve for years and years on the Appropriations
Committee and on the Subcommittee on Defense with him. I hadn't been on
the committee long, and Senator Byrd was chairman of the committee, and
Senator Hatfield from Oregon had been, and he tasked me with a lot of
things that probably as a freshman--you know, second-year, third-year
guy here--I probably was appalled but pleased--maybe not appalled, but
pleased--what he would do. He told me one day: Senator Shelby, you are
going to be chairman of this committee. I looked around, and I said:
Oh, it will be years. I will never be that.
But Ted Stevens was a Senator's Senator. He was involved, as I said,
in just about everything in the Senate--the Rules Committee, the
Commerce Committee, Appropriations, and Defense.
I will never forget his experience, his wise suggestions to me that
probably helped me on my way. I traveled with him around the world
because we had serious meetings on the Defense appropriations bill.
All I can say is that we are going to unveil a portrait of Ted
Stevens here in the Senate later today, and it is a fitting tribute to
a great Senator representing the State of Alaska but a U.S. Senator
representing us all, Ted Stevens.
Ted, I will never forget you. We miss you. You left an indelible
imprint on the U.S. Senate. I am glad I got to meet you and work with
you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to add my voice in recognizing
what an important day it is here.
I want to thank the Senators from Alabama and Mississippi and, of
course, my good friend Senator Murkowski. Many other Senators--the
Senators from California, Iowa--all came to the floor already today to
talk about this great American, this great Alaskan.
I try to come to the floor about once a week, and I do a speech that
I call the ``Alaskan of the Week'' to talk about an Alaskan who has
done great stuff for our State, their community, the country.
But as Senator Murkowski just mentioned in her remarks, I am
literally able now to talk about the Alaskan of the Century. That is
right. The State of Alaska legislature voted that Ted Stevens was the
Alaskan of the Century for reasons we are all talking about today. So I
just want to add a few more words about this legendary U.S. Senator,
whose portrait we are unveiling today.
Let me say it is more than fitting that we have a portrait of Senator
Stevens in the Halls of Congress. It is a small tribute compared to the
magnitude of his contributions to our country and to our State. Yet, in
so many ways, it is proper and fitting because his spirit certainly
remains in this body. It is an example of leadership and public service
that you hear and I hear and I know Senator Murkowski hears all the
time--how so many of my colleagues still talk about Senator Stevens and
what he meant, just like my good friend the Senator from Alabama and so
many others.
So I will just give a little more color to this great man's life. He
was born in Indiana in 1923. When he was a young boy, the Great
Depression hit. Senator Stevens supported his family by selling
newspapers on the street, and after the untimely death of his father,
he moved to California to live with an aunt and uncle, where he learned
to kind of relax and to surf. The surf board that he learned to surf on
stayed with him in his office until the end.
As was already mentioned, he was, of course, a part of America's
``greatest generation''--a pilot, 14th Army Air Corps, flying supplies
to General Chennault's Fighting Tigers over ``the Hump''--India, China,
Burma--very dangerous missions. In 1953, armed with a law degree from
Harvard, he made his way to then the Territory of Alaska, where he
found, in his words, ``the passion of my career, the Alaskan dream.''
So what was this dream of Ted Stevens? A dream of an Alaska with
promises of the 21st century ``springing up from the Arctic,'' he
said--an Alaska where our Federal Government works with us, not against
us, to achieve our destiny to develop our resources and our economy for
the benefit of all Alaskans but also for the benefit of all Americans;
an Alaska that lives up to the potential the Congress of the United
States saw when it voted to allow Alaska to become the 49th State.
Senator Stevens worked tirelessly for these dreams, and in the last
speech he gave on this floor of the U.S. Senate, he recounted some of
his successes.
He said: ``Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there
are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals,
clinics, communications networks, research labs, and much, much more.''
He went on to say: ``Alaska was not Seward's folly and is no longer
an impoverished territory. Alaska is a great State and an essential
contributor to our Nation's energy security and national defense.''
In that speech, he said that he was proud to have had a role--a
role--in that transformation of Alaska.
Now, I think we are all realizing that in that speech Senator Stevens
was being very humble. He didn't have just a role; he played the lead
role. Indeed, everywhere any Alaskan goes across the State--as Senator
Murkowski has already stated--you see signs of his hard work, his
dedication to the Alaskan dream and the critical role he played in
transforming our great State.
[[Page S6079]]
But I think many of us--and we have already heard it being talked
about today--also see his hard work in the friendships and example he
set here in the U.S. Senate, friendships not based on party labels but
on a commitment to service.
As I mentioned, Members of this body, like Senator Shelby, still
approach me on a regular basis, saying what an impact Senator Stevens
had.
His friendships were of course legendary: Scoop Jackson; Henry
Magnuson; Pat Roberts; John Warner; Senator Shelby; Senator Leahy;
Senator Biden, who, as Vice President, traveled to Anchorage to speak
at Ted Stevens' funeral; and, of course, as Senator Murkowski
mentioned, his famous, enduring friendship with Hawaii's Daniel Inouye.
Senator Murkowski also mentioned his famous motto: ``To hell with
politics, just do what's right for Alaska.'' As a matter of fact, I
happen to be wearing a very special pair of cufflinks that once
belonged to Ted Stevens. That very motto is on these cufflinks. When we
are doing important stuff, I will wear these on the floor to remind
me--and I think all of us--of what is important not just for our States
but for our country.
As was already noted, it wasn't just Alaska that he focused on and
achieved so many great results for; it was our Nation. Whether national
security, strengthening our military, taking care of our veterans
through improved pay and benefits, as Senator Murkowski mentioned,
modernizing our fishing industry, our telecommunications industry,
being known as the title IX--the ``Father'' of that important
legislation, making sure young girls have the opportunity to play
sports--if you are an American and you have daughters--I have three--
and they are playing sports right now, guess who had so much to do with
that. The late great Senator Stevens. He was also in many ways the
Senator who cared more about the Olympics and focused on them more than
any other Senator.
One other thing about Senator Stevens. No matter how far he rose--and
we are hearing about the high levels he attained in the Senate--he
never forgot what was most important: serving the people of Alaska.
When our constituents traveled thousands of miles to come to DC, he
always made time for them. Thousands of Alaskans have notes from him--
congratulatory letters, condolence letters, and letters of
appreciation.
At his standing-room-only funeral in Anchorage, where I had the honor
of serving as an honorary pallbearer, someone asked for a show of hands
from the audience--hundreds and hundreds of people--how many had
received a letter from Senator Ted Stevens. Nearly every person at that
service raised their hand.
Of course, he treated his staff like family. If you worked for
Senator Stevens--as my wife, Julie, did--you were always part of that
family and you could always expect loyalty from him the rest of your
life.
These principles--relentless focus on Alaska, fighting the Feds if
you must, working across the aisle for the betterment of Alaska and
America, maintaining a strong military and national defense, and deep
reverence for our veterans and fellow Alaskans--are a key part of the
Stevens legacy.
I am deeply honored to serve in the Senate seat Senator Stevens held
for over 40 years and to literally sit at the same desk--right here,
this desk--he used in the Senate. More important, I try to live by and
serve my constituents according to these principles and the example he
set for Alaska and America. But here is something else that is really
so remarkable about Ted Stevens. I said I try to serve in that example,
but, as you are hearing on the Senate floor, so many other Senators
have said that and believe that too. That is really remarkable and
shows how much influence he still has in this body to this day.
Like most Senators, I try to get home every weekend. Senator
Murkowski and I just have a little farther to go than most--well,
actually, a lot farther than most. Our State recently dedicated a
wonderful statue of Ted Stevens in the Ted Stevens International
Airport. It is life-size. He is sitting on a bench with an inviting
smile, cowboy boots on, and his briefcase nearby. It is right in the
middle of the airport in Anchorage. I often walk by it, touch it, and
quietly say: How are we doing? It gives me inspiration and strength and
peace to do that.
With the unveiling of the official portrait of Ted Stevens today and
its placement permanently in the halls of the U.S. Senate, I will have
another image of this great Alaskan and this great American from which
to draw inspiration, but I think so many other Senators will as well.
So congratulations, especially to the family of Ted Stevens:
Catherine, his wonderful wife; his children: Ben, Walter, Ted Junior,
Susan, Lily, and Beth, who is with us in spirit, as are so many other
Alaskans and others who had such deep respect for Senator Stevens; and
to his wonderful grandchildren, many of whom Julie and I have known and
watched grow up with pride since they were born.
S.J. Res. 50
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I support the resolution that the
Senate is voting on today to disapprove of new rules from the Trump
administration to diminish the value of tax credits offered by State
and local governments.
From the very beginning, I have been against the 2017 tax bill that
became law. At a time of skyrocketing economic inequality, this tax law
has given the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest people and biggest
corporations. But in Maryland, 376,000 families are paying higher taxes
according to our Bureau of Revenue Estimates, due in large part to the
tax law's $10,000 limit on the state and local tax deduction. According
to the IRS, 46 percent of households in Maryland claimed the State and
local tax deduction prior to the new tax law, which is the largest
share of any state in the country. The average State and local tax
deduction in Maryland was roughly $13,000--well over the $10,000 limit.
Everything in the Maryland State budget, such as education,
transportation, and state Medicaid funding, is now more burdensome for
Maryland taxpayers to finance.
To make matters worse for working Marylanders, on June 13, 2019, the
Treasury Department issued a regulation against tax credits offered by
State and local governments for charitable giving. This misguided
regulation reduces a taxpayer's Federal deduction for charitable
donations by the amount of any tax credit the taxpayer receives for
their donation from State or local governments. The effects of this
regulation go well beyond programs recently established by some States
attempting to mitigate the damage of the new tax law. These rules will
be deeply detrimental to longstanding tax credit programs throughout
the Nation. In Maryland, this will affect tax credit programs for
affordable housing, conservation, and community endowment funds.
Ultimately, allowing this regulation to take effect will make it even
more difficult for State and local communities to fund our schools,
emergency responders, health care, roads, and other critical services.
That is unacceptable, which is why I support the Congressional Review
Act resolution to overturn the Treasury Department's June 2019
regulation.
Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield the floor.
Vote on S.J. Res. 50
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading
and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris),
the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Massachusetts
(Ms. Warren), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
[[Page S6080]]
The result was announced--yeas 43, nays 52, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 331 Leg.]
YEAS--43
Baldwin
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Jones
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Paul
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--52
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
McConnell
McSally
Moran
Murkowski
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--5
Harris
Isakson
Sanders
Warren
Whitehouse
The joint resolution was rejected.
____________________