Cory Gardner

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, I have had a little bit of time to listen to some of the speeches that have been given on the floor today, and I just want to talk about a few of those today. My great colleague from Maryland, with whom I have enjoyed the privilege of serving on the Foreign Relations Committee, talked about an open process and at the same time talked about being able to offer amendments. The definition of an open process is being able to offer amendments and that is what we are going through. We are going through later this week something called a vote-arama, where we will be having amendments. We talked about the permanent tax changes.

Mr. GARDNER. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. GARDNER. If the Senator would like to work with us on fixing the budget process, I hope he will. I hope we can change the budget process. It is fundamentally broken. We haven't changed it since 1974, the year I was born--maybe a few years after that. We ought to change this process so it works for the American people. We ought to do something to make this process more effective. We have heard people come and talk about Medicare and Medicaid. These are very critically important social safety nets for this country. People in my community, my parents, our families, and people we have lived with and known for our entire lives rely on Medicaid and Medicare, but there is this big myth out there that Washington has this ability to increase funds but yet rename it as a cut. You have a group of people in Washington, DC, who are trying that Washington, DC, Kabuki dance, where they say a decrease in the rate of increase is a cut. That is like saying that my son, who is 6 years old, is supposed to grow 4 inches next year, and the doctor says: Your son is going to grow 4 inches next year, based on the charts. If my son grows only 2 inches that year, did he shrink? No. He still grew. But in Washington, DC, they would say: No, he is shorter than he was. This is absurd. Let's be honest with the American people. Medicare increases in funding. We are trying to be more responsible with the dollars we have because the United States is in debt, and the way we are going to fix that is to be responsible with the dollars we have and to grow our economy. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a map of the United States. It showed distressed communities in this country. It showed that the haves have more and the have-nots have less. It is time we do something about that in this country. It is time we fix the fact there are counties in our country that are suffering. There are communities in our country that haven't seen a new net job for nearly two decades. We can do better than that. It has been 30 years since Congress last passed major tax reform. It was 1986. I was 12 years old. For those who are wondering what the No. 1 movie was the last time we passed tax reform, it was ``Top Gun.'' The one thing I wanted that same year, the last time we did tax reform, was an Atari 7800. That is what I wanted the last time this body passed tax reform. Fast forward to today, 30 years later. The last time we did tax reform was 30 years ago. We now live in a world of Wi-Fi, self-driving cars, and Smartphones, but we still have an Atari-era tax code. It is clunky. It is outdated. It is bloated to more pages than any of us would care to read. I wish I had come up with this, but I didn't. I will repeat it: The Tax Code is longer than the Bible, and unlike the Bible, there is no good news in it. It feeds the suspicion that you can game the Tax Code if you are wealthy. If you are average, you will be stuck with the bill. We can do better. That is the opportunity we have now. We must seize it in a way that helps hard-working American families and businesses to create jobs on Main Street, to change this unfair system that we have. When I go across the State of Colorado, throughout the four corners of our great State, there are people I meet who have been very successful. If you go to Denver, CO, right now, you will think the new State bird is the construction crane. Dozens of construction cranes are on the horizon, showing the success we have had in that State. If you go to Southeastern Colorado, Western Colorado, Northeastern Colorado, there are pockets of poverty that remain as strong as ever because we haven't been able to find the tools necessary to grow the economy the way we should. That is what this debate allows us to do--to grow this economy, to get this Nation firing on all cylinders again. It is the opportunity we have. We should seize it right now, passing this budget leading to tax reform, to make sure that we can grow American opportunity and innovation because too many people haven't had a meaningful pay increase for far too long. They know they spend too much time working through a tangled mess of rules just to file their taxes that are too high to begin with. As a country, we spend 6 billion hours and $263 billion each year just to jump through all the hoops and tangles and check the boxes of our Atari-era Tax Code. That is $263 billion we are spending on a 1986- era tax code, just to check the boxes, to fill the forms, to pay the accountants, and to find the lawyers. That is the entire GDP of the nation of New Zealand. That $263 billion is more than the GDP of New Zealand. We spend as much money preparing and filing our taxes in this country as the entire economic output of the nation of New Zealand. American people need relief. It starts by reducing the number of brackets, simplifying the Tax Code, and reducing our rates. For many American families, this will leave them with more money in their pockets at the end of the day. It also would cut that 6 billion hours that are spent working, trying to file taxes, and leave families with more time to do things that matter to them--not trying to fill out a tax form, but letting them be with their family, be at work, and invest the way they want to with their time and their money. It is just a start. The end of the unfair death tax will bring relief to regular Americans. Let's start with the death tax. I have heard people criticize the death tax. It is unfair and at times cruel. That should be reason enough for this Congress to repeal it. We have a tax that causes families to have to confront breaking up businesses that have been in the family for generations or selling off the family farm just to keep what they have built and what they have already paid taxes on because somebody died. The government seems to think death is a taxable event. When I visit with Colorado's farmers and ranchers, one of their biggest concerns--in fact, I met with a group of farmers this past week in Colorado who said that the repeal of the estate tax is more important to them than passing a new farm bill because it is affecting their way of life. These aren't billionaires whom we hear so many complaints about on the Senate floor and in the political op-eds and by the pundits on TV. These are families and ranchers whose families have been working for generations. They have dirt under their fingernails. These are people who have sacrificed for generations to build up land and capital, not liquid assets. That apparently makes them into billionaires, and it is bad enough that they ought to be penalized when they die. If you are fortunate enough to have some incredible land in Colorado underneath your farm or ranch--maybe a homestead around Vail or Aspen. Are you going to be forced to break up that estate, forced to sell that land, that 36-acre parcel, so you can pay the estate tax when it was open space and we are able to conserve that open space and enjoy that great beauty? Washington, DC, is driving local development decisions, all because of the estate tax. It is suffocating our way of life in rural America, and it must end. Reforming business taxes will bring tax relief to American families, hard-working families. The corporate tax rate is the highest in the world, and employees are paying the price for uncompetitive corporate tax rates. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. President Obama said that in his 2011 State of the Union Speech. If you just look at what we can do by decreasing tax burdens on American businesses, we can actually increase the average American household income by between $4,000 and $9,000 a year. This is an average increase to American households across the country. This isn't to the millionaires or billionaires. This is to hard-working American families who are just trying to get ahead in life. So this puts $4,000, at a minimum, in their pockets as a result of lower tax rates. That is not just a one-time increase either. We are not talking about a one- time hit. It is not just for the top earners. The Tax Foundation says that workers across the income distribution will feel the effects year after year. Go home and ask your constituents whether they would like to have more money in their own pockets or whether they would like to have that in the hands of Washington or Wall Street. Do you know what? I am pretty sure they are going to say: I can spend it better than any bureaucrat or Member of Congress ever could. If I keep it, I will make smart choices for my family. That is what we have to focus on. The Council of Economic Advisers put out a report explaining how reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent would result in the average American household income going up by $4,000 to $9,000. It is worth walking through what they said. Before 1990, when corporate profits went up by 1 percent, worker wages actually went up by more than 1 percent. Before 1990, profits went up by 1 percent and workers' wages went up by more than 1 percent. Since 1990, that relationship between corporate profits and workers has changed. Over the last 8 years, from 2008 to 2016, a 1-percent increase in corporate profits increased workers' wages only by 0.3 percent, a 0.7-percent decrease. Part of the reason for that is our uncompetitive corporate tax rates. We will go to our numbers to illustrate what has happened. During the same time, from 1990 until this decade, foreign countries, foreign nations figured out that lowering the corporate tax rate leads to more money in their workers' pockets. While our tax rate has stayed stubbornly high, the high tax rates in other countries have plummeted. The United States has decided that we are going to keep the highest tax rates while other economically developed countries are dropping theirs, resulting in higher wages for their workers. Today, U.S. corporate tax rates are far higher than those of any other country I have talked about today. Look at this. If you look at where the United States is right now, we are right here, top of the chart, 35 percent. That is the U.S. Federal tax rate, the 2017 average statutory corporate tax rate. Look at OECD countries: 10 percent lower than our statutory rate. Asia is at 20 percent, which is 15 percent lower than our statutory rate. Europe is at 18 percent, and some countries in Europe are going lower because they have realized that when they lower their taxes, they have done a better job of attracting businesses, growing their economy, and creating more work. It would be tempting for some to assume that taxing corporations skims some of the cream off the top. You will hear plenty of rhetoric about lowering corporate tax rates being a giveaway. Here is the sad truth. I hope the people take the time to learn this lesson. It is the employees that bear the burden of corporate taxes. Studies show that workers pay between 45 percent and 75 percent of corporate taxes in the form of lower wages. How do you fix that? Lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent will alleviate that burden and result in higher income to that average American family, allowing them to keep as much as $9,000--a kind of wage increase of $9,000, an effective increase of $9,000, as much as that each and every year. It is an average increase, according to the Council of Economic Advisers. Once those effects are fully felt, those effects are going to continue year after year across all income distributions. We are going to another chart here. The family will be able to spend that $4,000 to $9,000 the way they want to. It could be the difference between having a rainy day fund and living paycheck to paycheck. It could be the downpayment on a new home or a route to a better education or a way they can do what they want to with their free time, if they have some or are able to get some because of innovations we are able to create and the jobs we are able to make better and wages people are able to see increased. It is about them putting more money into their families instead of their government. None of that is going to happen, though, with this current Atari Tax Code. None of that is going to happen unless we can give families and businesses the relief they need. That is what we have the opportunity to do here today. This week, when we approve the budget, we set the stage for the budget reform, the budget bill, to move forward on tax reform and tax relief, allowing the American people to keep more money in their own pockets. We can provide meaningful relief with a simpler code, less hassle, less squandering of money to avoid the unfair death tax, and more businesses hiring more workers and paying higher wages. That is why this budget is so important. That is why I hope it is approved this week and we set the stage for a brighter future in the coming months and years, as we fight for every chance for the American people to keep the dollars they work so hard to get. Thank you. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up the following amendments and that the Senate vote in relation to the amendments following disposition of the Sanders amendment No. 1119, Nelson No. 1150, Heller No. 1146, Sanders No. 1120, and Collins No. 1151; further, that there be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided in the usual form, prior to all votes in the series at 3 p.m., with an exception of 10 minutes prior to the vote in relation to the Heller amendment, and that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the votes.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following leader remarks on October 19, it be in order to call up the following amendments; that the time until 11:45 a.m. be for debate on the amendments, equally divided between the managers or their designees; that at 11:45 a.m., the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes: Wyden No. 1302, Capito No. 1393, and Cantwell No. 1141; further, that following the disposition of the Cantwell amendment, Senator Warner's amendment No. 1138 be called up and the time until 2 p.m. be equally divided between the managers or their designees; and that at 2 p.m., the Senate vote in relation to the Warner amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the vote.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 293, submitted earlier today.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2989, which was received from the House.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, October 19; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; finally, that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of H. Con. Res. 71 under the previous order.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 106, H.R. 624.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 47, S. 920.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the Shaheen amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, 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.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about North Korea, the most urgent national security challenge for the United States and our allies in East Asia. Secretary Mattis has said that North Korea is the most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security. Admiral Gortney, previously the commander of the U.S. Northern Command, stated that the Korean Peninsula is at its most unstable point since 1953, when the armistice was signed. North Korea just conducted its sixth nuclear test, its most powerful to date. An early analysis from experts says: North Korea has comfortably demonstrated an explosive yield in the range of at least 100 kilotons with this test. That would be a considerable improvement from the 30 kiloton yield estimated in its fifth test and ideal for targeting U.S. cities--a primary objective in North Korea's pursuit of an ICBM. Unless drastic and credible measures are taken today, we are fast heading for a nuclear showdown that could cost millions of lives on the Korean Peninsula. Last year alone, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and a staggering 24 ballistic missile launches. This year, Pyongyang launched 21 missiles during 14 tests, including the 2 tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that are reportedly capable of reaching the U.S. homeland. During 6 years of rule as the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un has launched more missiles than his father and grandfather combined. Patience is not an option with the U.S. homeland now in the nuclear shadow of Kim Jong Un. Our North Korea policy of decades of bipartisan failure must turn to one of immediate bipartisan success, with pressure and global cooperation resulting in the peaceful denuclearization of the regime. Vice President Pence stated during his visit to South Korea in April: Since 1992, the United States and our allies have stood together for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. We hope to achieve this objective through peaceable means. But all options are on the table. I believe U.S. policy toward North Korea should be straightforward. The United States will deploy every economic, diplomatic, and, if necessary, military tool at our disposal to deter Pyongyang and to protect our allies. But time is not on our side. The international community needs to finally and fully join together to completely isolate this dangerous regime. As a first step, North Korea should immediately be kicked out of the United Nations and many multilateral institutions from which they derive the benefits of global recognition. Next, the United Nations Security Council should enact a new resolution that imposes a full economic embargo on North Korea that bans all of Pyongyang's economic activities, including petroleum resources. These economic tools need to be combined with robust military deterrent, including a U.S.-led international naval blockade of North Korea, in order to ensure a full enforcement of United Nations actions. We must also continue frequent show-of-force exercises by the United States and our partners in Seoul and Tokyo, enhanced missile defense activities, and assurances of extended U.S. nuclear deterrence to our allies. Kim Jong Un must know that any serious provocation will be met with a full range of U.S. military capabilities. The road to peacefully stopping Pyongyang undoubtedly lies through Beijing. I am continuing to call on the administration to block all entities that do business with North Korea, no matter where they are based, from conducting any financial activities through the U.S. financial system. China is the only country that holds the diplomatic and economic leverage necessary to put the real squeeze on the North Korean regime. China accounts for 90 percent of North Korea's trade and virtually all of North Korea's exports. Despite China's rhetoric of concern, from 2000 to 2015 trade volume between the two nations climbed more than tenfold, rising from $488 million in 2000 to $5.4 billion in 2015--hardly the sign of cracking down on the rogue regime. Beijing is the reason the regime acts so boldly and with relatively few consequences. China must move beyond an articulation of concern and lay out a transparent path of focused pressure to denuclearize North Korea. A global power that borders this regime cannot simply throw up its hands and absolve itself of responsibility. The administration is right to pursue a policy of ``maximum pressure'' toward North Korea, and we have a robust toolbox already available to ramp up the sanctions track--a track that has hardly been utilized to its full extent. Last Congress I led the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, which passed the Senate by a vote of 96 to 0. This legislation was the first stand-alone legislation in Congress regarding North Korea to impose mandatory sanctions on the proliferation activities, human rights violations, and malicious cyber behavior. The following is according to a recent analysis from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: North Korea sanctions have more than doubled since the NKSPEA [North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act] came into effect on February 18, 2016. Prior to that date, North Korea ranked eighth, behind Ukraine/Russia, Iran, Iraq, the Balkans, Syria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Even with the 130-percent sanctions increase after the sanctions bill passed last Congress, North Korea is today still only the fifth most sanctioned country by the United States. So while Congress has clearly moved away from the Obama administration's inaction to at least some action, the Trump administration has the opportunity to use these authorities to build maximum leverage with not only Pyongyang but also with Beijing. I am encouraged by the actions the administration took in June to finally designate a Chinese financial institution. But this should just be the beginning. The administration, with Congressional support, should now make clear to any entity doing business with North Korea that they will not be able to do business with the United States or have access to the U.S. financial system. A report released in June by an independent organization known as C4ADS identified over 5,000 Chinese companies that are doing business with North Korea today. These Chinese companies are responsible for $7 billion in trade with North Korea. Moreover, the C4ADS report found that only 10 of these companies--10 of these 5,000 companies-- controlled 30 percent of Chinese exports to North Korea in 2016. One of these 10 companies controlled nearly 10 percent of total imports from North Korea. Some of these companies were even found to have satellite offices in the United States. Enough is enough. According to recent disclosures, from 2009 to 2017, North Korea used Chinese banks to process at least $2.2 billion in transactions through the U.S. financial system. This should stop now. The United States should not be afraid of diplomatic confrontation with Beijing for simply enforcing existing U.S. law. In fact, it should be more afraid of Congress if it does not. As for any prospect of engagement, we should continue to let Beijing know in no uncertain terms that the United States will not negotiate with Pyongyang at the expense of U.S. national security or that of our allies. Instead of working with the United States and the international community to disarm the madman in Pyongyang, Beijing has called on the United States and South Korea to halt our military exercises in exchange for vague promises of North Korea suspending its missile and nuclear activities. That was a bad deal, and the Trump administration was right to reject it. Moreover, before any talks in any format, the United States and our partners must demand that Pyongyang first meet the denuclearization commitments it had already agreed to in the past and subsequently chose to brazenly violate. President Trump should continue to impress with President Xi that a denuclearized Korean Peninsula is in both nations' fundamental long- term interests. As ADM Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, rightly noted recently: ``We want to bring Kim Jong Un to his senses, not to his knees.'' To achieve this goal, Beijing must be made to choose whether it wants to work with the United States as a responsible global leader to stop Pyongyang or bear the consequences of keeping Kim Jong Un in power. In July, I introduced, with a bipartisan group of cosponsors, legislation called the North Korean Enablers Accountability Act, S. 1562. This legislation takes the first steps toward imposing an economic embargo on North Korea, including a ban on any entity that does business with North Korea or its enablers from using the U.S. financial system and imposing U.S. sanctions on all those participating in North Korean labor trafficking abuses. Our legislation specifically singles out the 10 largest Chinese importers of North Korean goods that we talked about earlier and sends a very clear message: You can either do business with this outlaw regime or the world's largest economy. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation in order to finally put real pressure--maximum pressure--on this regime and its enablers wherever they are based. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be considered and agreed to, and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the centennial celebration of the town of Estes Park, CO. For more than a century, Estes Park has been the primary entrance point into one of our national treasures, Rocky Mountain National Park. Millions of tourists visit the national park each year, beginning their journey in Estes Park. Before the formal incorporation of the town, many Native American tribes spent time in the region, including the Utes, Arapaho, Shoshone, and the Comanche. Settlers began to come to the area when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law in 1862, encouraging them to travel West and explore unchartered territory. In 1863, Joel and Patsy Estes traveled from Kentucky, in search of fertile land to begin their cattle ranch in Colorado, and they found it in the area that later bore their name. By 1874, many more settlers had traveled out West and made Estes Park their home. The original Coloradans living in Estes Park were resourceful and ingenious, building schools and homes from the ground up in this rugged, mountainous terrain. The present Coloradans living in Estes Park are also resilient--surviving floods and severe damages to the town and surrounding area in 1982 and again in 2013. Following the devastation of the flooding in 2013, U.S. Highway 34, one of the main roads into Estes, was in need of extreme restoration. Through bipartisan efforts in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, the Colorado delegation was able to ensure this highway received the funding it required to keep the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park open. I would like to congratulate the Town of Estes Park on this exciting milestone, and I look forward to the town's many more years of prosperity and success.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I understand there is a joint resolution at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 160 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Con. Res. 23, submitted earlier today.

Mr. GARDNER

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 201, S. 1359.

Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.