Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. I would like to be able to look at that particular analysis. There are other analyses that indicate that, yes, we can do better in this bill but also would disagree with that one. I don't happen to have my hands on those documents at this time. To make a long story short, we know you can come up with any outside liberal faction and come up with criticisms of anything around here, and we also know we can find some outside conservative factions that would cause most of us to cringe and wonder what in the world is going on. I can tell you this. I know what is going on; that is, we are spending ourselves into bankruptcy, and we are not doing a good job here. We are not watching the moneys of the American people. In fact, one reason we can't watch them very well is because they are all spent. We continuously have people come to the floor and act like they are better than others because they want to spend all our money to help the poor. I would love to help the poor. I grew up in a very poor family-- poor in the sense of money, great in the sense of everything else. Let's be honest about it. We are in trouble. This country is in deep debt. You don't help the poor by not solving the problems of debt too. You don't help the poor by continually pushing more and more liberal programs through that don't do the job anyway. You don't help the poor by continually pushing programs that really don't work.

Mr. HATCH. For a question.

Mr. HATCH. If you have a question----

Mr. HATCH. I got the point.

Mr. HATCH. Let me take the floor back. Nobody believes more in the CHIP program than I. I invented it. I was the one who wrote it. Kennedy came over and became the one who helped put it through.

Mr. HATCH. Of course I do. I don't think I do everything on my own here. I have to have good Democratic friends to do it. I don't think you do either. Let me tell you something. We are going to do CHIP. There is no question about it, in my mind. It has to be done the right way. The reason CHIP is having trouble is because we don't have any money anymore. We just add more and more spending and more and more spending, and you can look at the rest of the bill for the more and more spending. I happen to think that CHIP has done a terrific job for people who have really needed the help. I have taken the position around here for my whole Senate service that I believe in helping those who cannot help themselves but would if they could. I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who will not help themselves--who will not lift a finger--and expect the Federal Government to do everything.

Mr. HATCH. Unfortunately, the liberal philosophy has created millions of people that way, who believe everything that they are or ever hope to be depends upon the Federal Government rather than on the opportunities that this great country grants them. I have to say that I think it is pretty hard to argue against these comments because, if you look it over, for decades now, we have been spending more than we have, building more and more Federal programs, some of which are lousy, some of which are well-intended, and some of which are actually good, like the CHIP program. We are going to get CHIP through. There is no question about that. I am going to see that it gets through.

Mr. HATCH. I will yield for a question.

Mr. HATCH. I was the one who pulled Kennedy into it.

Mr. HATCH. I wrote the doggone bill.

Mr. HATCH. I don't intend to let that happen. I think that we will get CHIP taken care of and, hopefully, a number of other things, too, but we are going to have to resolve some of these big problems around here, it seems to me, before we do get those problems solved.

Mr. HATCH. But to prey upon the CHIP program as though it is the be- all and end-all of everything here in every aspect of this debate is not quite right either. All I can say is that I don't know anyone here who is not going to support CHIP when we bring it up, and I am one who wants to make sure that we bring it up. I appreciate my friend's feelings on this matter. Look, I like my friend from Ohio. He is sincere; he is dedicated; he is liberal and well-meaning, but I would like to see him be a little more concerned about everyone else. Let me just finish by saying that I am happy to be in this body. It is the greatest deliberative body in the world, but we are not living up to our potential, and we are not doing the job. We are getting into these little snits and fights around here that don't amount to a hill of beans in the final analysis. I would like to see us all get together and start running this country in a good manner--living within our means and finding ways of increasing our economy so that we can take care of the poor better than we are right now and do the things that we all know we should be doing. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I have listened to the minority leader's remarks. If anybody believes that we are going to be able to work together closely when they just want a bill for the Federal Government at all costs--they had us right there on the cusp of socialism just a month ago, and we are still right on the cusp of socialism. I hate to say it, but our Democratic friends are pushing us toward socialism, which has never worked anywhere in the world, and it is not going to work here. Their answer to everything is big government. There are two different points of view here. I have to tell you I used to be on their side when I was a young fellow. I was raised in poverty. I came up the hard way. I learned a trade. I became a journeyman metal lather, which was one of the most skilled trades at the time. I have to say that these haunting refrains were used by Democrats back then, too, but look at this country and the mess it is in, and it is in a mess because of their philosophy. We have to change it. I admit, with him, that the business community isn't always right, and they are not always the best to spend our money, but they are sure a lot better than government spending it all the time. So much for that. The Senate will soon vote on a motion to proceed to legislation to reform our Nation's broken Tax Code and to provide significant relief for tens of millions of middle-class families. Members from both parties have worked for years on this effort. As we move to consider this legislation, we will take another step toward accomplishing what has--until recently, anyway--been a bipartisan goal. I want to thank all of those who have helped us advance this process, especially the members and staff of the Finance Committee, who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point. I also want to thank our distinguished majority leader, Senator McConnell, for his work and leadership on this as well. Of course, we are not there yet. We have a number of additional steps to take, including today's vote. I don't want to put any carts ahead of any horses, but I am optimistic that we can get a positive outcome today. Our tax reform bill is crafted with the primary purpose of providing tax relief to the middle class and growth to our economy. To accomplish these goals, the bill lowers individual tax rates across the board. The bill also expands the zero tax bracket by nearly doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, and increasing the child tax credit refundability, all of which, combined, will eliminate income tax liability for many hard-working American families and significantly cut taxes for tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers. That sounds like the right thing to do to me. Some examples, I think, can be illustrative here. Under our bill, a family of four making the U.S. median family income of around $73,000 a year will see their taxes go down by more than $2,000 a year. That is a savings of more than $180 a month. Overall, this represents a nearly 60-percent reduction in that family's tax liability. A single parent with one child making $41,000 a year, under the bill, will pay about one-quarter of the Federal income taxes he or she may pay today, an annual reduction of almost $1,400. Now, that is real money for these families. It will help them to make car payments, to pay their rent or mortgages, to bring down credit card balances, or to increase their ability to save for the future. In addition to reducing the tax burden on low-income to middle-income families, the changes in our bill will make filing taxes much simpler for most of these taxpayers. According to JCT, or the Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 9 in 10 American families will opt for the standard deduction under this legislation, avoiding altogether the difficult and complicated process of itemizing deductions. This means less time and money spent on tax compliance and preparation for millions of middle-class taxpayers. It may hurt the legal profession, but it is going to give freedom to the American people. The bill also repeals one of the most regressive taxes in American history--the ObamaCare individual mandate tax, which overwhelmingly burdens middle-income and low-income families. In fact, 80 percent of the families that pay the tax make less than $50,000 per year. Yet this repeal has been the source of much consternation for my friends on the other side of the aisle. I will have more to say on that in a moment. For most small businesses that pay taxes on the owners' individual returns, or passthroughs, the bill provides significant relief in the form of a simple tax reduction applied to qualified business income. This will reduce the overall tax burden for passthrough businesses, which are the primary engines of our job creation in the United States. In addition, our bill helps Main Street businesses by enhancing expensing and expanding the availability of simplified cash accountability. All told, this means more expansion, more investment, and more jobs for U.S. workers employed by small businesses. Make no mistake, this bill is pro-small business, which is why the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the largest small business association in the country, has enthusiastically expressed its support for our legislation. They are not stupid. They are brilliant people. They know how badly the small business community has been treated by our tax writers over the years, and they are looking forward to this legislation passing. It should probably go without saying at this point that the United States currently has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, and, as a result, we are seeing businesses flee our country for more favorable tax conditions overseas, while others are getting purchased by foreign companies. Some of them are just giving up and letting foreign companies take them over. That is not good for American workers, and that is not good for America. Former Presidents Clinton and Obama have spoken in favor of lowering the corporate tax rate to allow our country to be more globally competitive. That sentiment has been shared by countless Democrats in this Chamber, including the current ranking member on the Finance Committee and the Senate Minority Leader. With this bill, we are taking their advice by lowering the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. We also shift to a more territorial system of international tax-- another idea that was explicitly endorsed in a bipartisan working group report, coauthored by my good friend Senator Schumer, by the way, who just spoke here. This shift is paid for largely through the use of a ``deemed repatriation,'' another idea supported by Democrats in recent years. We are creating both incentives and penalties to prevent base erosion, a goal that has become clearly bipartisan during the recent waves of corporate inversions. Long story short, there is quite a bit in this bill that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to support. Of course, anyone who gets their information solely from the statements and talking points from our friends on the other side would never get that. Over the next few days, I expect we will hear quite a few misleading claims, both about the bill and about the process which led us here. For example, I think we will hear that this bill is just a massive giveaway to the so-called rich. That is always the claim of the Democrats: It is a gift to the so-called rich. Gosh, give me a break. I get so tired of that phony, lousy argument that they make all the time. They have hurt the middle class so badly in this country; it is unbelievable. My colleagues will make the claim that this is a massive giveaway to the so-called rich even though they have the same data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which clearly shows that middle-class taxpayers will receive the largest proportional tax cuts under the bill and that none of the existing tax burden will be shifted downward from those at the top. In fact, those in the highest bracket, according to JCT, or the Joint Committee on Taxation, will pay a higher percentage of the overall tax burden than they do now. I expect we will hear that, by repealing the individual mandate tax, the bill will be taking people's health insurance away and raising taxes on the poor. That claim will be made despite confirmation from congressional scorekeepers that nothing--nothing--in the bill removes or limits anyone's access to health insurance. The approach they are taking toward health insurance will put us into a socialized medicine situation overnight. If anybody thinks that is a great idea, I ask them to look at the socialized medicine countries and compare them to what we have been able to have. Instead, JCT and CBO predict that, with no individual mandate, people will choose to not get health insurance even if they still have access to premium subsidies, employer-provided plans, or even free health coverage through Medicaid. This bill provides choice. It doesn't take anything away from those individuals. We can quibble with that conclusion and question whether tens of millions of people who currently have health insurance--including a few million who are currently getting it for free--will suddenly opt to go uninsured once the mandate penalty is zeroed out. Given that most observers have concluded that the mandate has essentially failed to draw enough participants into the healthcare market to keep premiums from skyrocketing, there is room for questioning whether the scorekeepers are right on that score. However, even if they are 100 percent correct, no one will lose their health insurance under this bill when the mandate is repealed. Anyone going uninsured will be doing so voluntarily. We are not kicking anyone off their insurance by zeroing out the individual mandate penalty, and it is a blatant distortion of reality to claim otherwise. Similarly, no one's taxes will go up if the mandate is zeroed out. True enough, our scorekeepers have produced distribution tables showing an uptick in taxes at the low end of the income spectrum due to decreased utilization of premium tax credits under ObamaCare. My colleagues, I am sure, will talk about this at length as well. However, I would like to have one of them explain how a person's voluntary decision to forego a tax subsidy amounts to a tax hike. So far, I haven't heard a serious attempt at such an explanation. In fact, during our recent markup, when the chief of staff of JCT sat at a table and told my colleagues that no one will owe a dime in additional taxes as a result of the individual mandate repeal, none of my colleagues disputed this conclusion. Instead, they opted to ignore it, even after they were shown a JCT table showing that, if the behavioral effects of the mandate repeal are removed from the equation--as they should be when we are talking about taxes owed--every income group will see their taxes go down under this bill. I hope our colleagues and those watching will remember these facts when they are evaluating the claims being made by some on the other side. We have a good bill here, under the circumstances, and I believe Members of both parties, if politics were removed from consideration, could support it. We have gotten significant support throughout the business community, with associations and companies from almost every industry and sector publicly in support of the reforms in this bill. I know some of my Republican colleagues have concerns, and I have been committed to working with them to see if improvements can be made, and, as this process moves forward, we are going to have to make a few more changes. This, of course, is how the legislative process works. Our process is designed to produce legislation that reflects the combined views and interests of a majority of Senators and, more importantly, the constituents they represent. As with any legislative endeavor of real significance, the perfect should not be considered the enemy of the good. As I have said before, I have been around long enough to know that anyone demanding perfection when it comes to major legislation is bound to be waiting a very, very long time and likely will not accomplish much. Before I close, I want to underscore how much of a once-in-a generation opportunity this is. We need to get this done. The costs of failure and continuing with the status quo are just too high. The American people deserve a tax system that provides greater opportunity, a stronger economy, and better jobs. We need a tax code designed to work for the world of 2017 and beyond. Our bill will accomplish these goals. We need to take this next step so that we can continue the work. So I urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to address two elements of the Senate's process for evaluating judicial nominations: the role of the American Bar Association and the so-called blue-slip courtesy. Each can influence the appointment process, and we must be diligent to ensure that neither is abused. The Eisenhower administration was the first to request the input of the ABA--American Bar Association--on prospective judicial nominations. Speaking to the 1955 ABA convention, President Eisenhower thanked the ABA for helping him and his advisers to ``secure judges'' of the kind he wanted to appoint. If that sounds as though the ABA was a part of the administration, it was. The ABA evaluated individuals before they were even nominated. Individuals deemed not qualified by the ABA were almost never nominated. No other interest group was given such a quasi-official veto over nominations to any other office. What could justify such a special role for an interest group? What could do that? The theory is that the ABA was a nonpolitical professional association concerned only with the legal profession and the practice of law. At its 1933 annual meeting in Grand Rapids, MI, for example, the ABA's executive committee considered changing the ABA constitution to allow ``discussion and expressions of opinion on questions of public interest.'' After arguments that this would revolutionize the scope and purpose of the ABA, no one--not one person--supported the amendment, to the best of my knowledge. In February 1965, ABA President Lewis Powell, who later served on the Supreme Court, wrote that ``the prevailing view is that the Association must follow a policy of noninvolvement in political and emotionally controversial issues.'' If that view actually prevailed in 1965, it did not last. The ABA House of Delegates soon crossed the political Rubicon and began taking positions on a host of issues through Federal arts funding, affirmative action, the death penalty, welfare policy, immigration; you name it, and the ABA has endorsed the liberal position, oftentimes the most liberal position. The ABA not only opines on such issues through resolutions but also lobbies legislatures and files briefs in court cases. The ABA has done exactly what it chose not to do back in 1933 and revolutionized the scope and purpose of the organization. It abandoned nearly a century of noninvolvement in political issues, the condition that was said to justify a special role in the judicial appointment process. It hardly seemed reasonable that the ABA could somehow seal off its evaluation of judicial nominees from all of this political activism so that its conclusions could still be trusted. In 1987, several members of the ABA evaluation committee said that Judge Robert Bork was not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. I said at the time that the ABA was ``playing politics with the ratings.'' Three years later, several of us on the Judiciary Committee, including now-Chairman Grassley, expressed the same view in a letter to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. We wrote that the ABA ``can no longer claim the impartial, neutral role it has been given in the judicial selection process.'' This conclusion has been bolstered by academic research. In 2001, Professor James Lindgren of Northwestern University law school published a study in the Journal of Law & Politics that examined ABA ratings for nominees of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Controlling for race, gender, and a range of objective measurable credentials, Professor Lindgren found that Clinton nominees were 10 times--10 times--more likely than Bush nominees to be rated well qualified by the ABA. In fact, he found that ``just being nominated by Clinton instead of Bush is better than any other credential or than all other credentials put together.'' Professor Lindgren concluded that ``the patterns revealed in the data are consistent with a conclusion of strong political bias favoring Clinton nominees.'' A decade later, three political scientists published a study in the Political Research Quarterly, looking at ABA ratings for U.S. Court of Appeals nominees over a 30-year period. Applying recognized social science methods, they concluded that ``individuals nominated by a Democratic president are significantly more likely to receive higher ABA ratings than individuals nominated by a Republican president. . . . [W]e find . . . strong evidence of systematic bias in favor of Democratic nominees.'' You don't say. President Trump recently nominated Steven Grasz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The distinguished Senators from Nebraska have, in the Judiciary Committee and here on the Senate floor, detailed Mr. Grasz's extensive experience and wide support throughout the legal community. He served as chief deputy attorney general of Nebraska for nearly a dozen years, during which time he defended the constitutionality of the State's law banning partial-birth abortion. That might have been his most serious sin in the eyes of the ABA, which has aggressively embraced the abortion agenda for more than four decades. In 1969, the ABA formed a committee on overpopulation, which immediately launched a project on the law of abortion and endorsed the Uniform Abortion Act in 1972, even before the Supreme Court's now- infamous Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion on demand. The committee endorsed Federal funding of abortion in 1978, and in 1990, by more than two to one, they opposed any requirement of parental notification before abortions are performed on minors. The ABA, again, fully embraced the abortion agenda in 1992 and never looked back. It is no wonder that they would deem someone like Mr. Grasz not qualified for the bench. President Trump has also nominated Brett Talley to the Federal district court in Alabama. Tally attended Harvard Law School. He spent years in a prestigious clerkship at the Federal appellate and trial court levels. He has worked here in the Senate. He has served as a deputy solicitor general of the State of Alabama. He has served in the Justice Department most recently as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy. He enjoys the support of both of Alabama's home State Senators and has a sterling reputation in the legal community. Yet he, too, has been deemed not qualified by the ABA. How is that possible? That determination is nakedly political and should not be taken seriously. The ABA once defined its purpose in terms of the legal profession and the practice of law. It has, however, chosen a different path. By doing so, the ABA has not only abandoned what once might have justified its role in judicial selection but has also cast serious doubt on the credibility and integrity of its judicial nominee ratings. The ABA was, of course, free to do so, but it should not expect that its actions have no consequences. The other element of the judicial confirmation process that I want to address is the so-called blue-slip courtesy. This is an informal practice, begun in 1917, by which the Judiciary Committee chairman seeks the views of Senators regarding nominees who would serve in their States. This practice really gets noticed only when the President and Senate majority are of the same party. In that situation, as we face today, the question is whether a home State Senator can use the blue- slip courtesy to block any Senate consideration and, therefore, effectively veto a President's nominees. Since the blue-slip courtesy was established, 19 Senators, including myself, have chaired the Judiciary Committee--10 Democrats and 9 Republicans. Only 2 of those 19 chairmen treated the blue-slip courtesy as a single-Senator veto. One of them, apparently, was to empower southern segregationist Senators to block judges who might support integration. The other 17 chairmen fall into two categories. The early chairmen allowed objecting home State Senators to present their views in the nominee's confirmation hearing. In the last few decades, chairmen of both parties have said that a negative blue slip would not veto a nominee if the White House consulted in good faith with the home State Senators. That is the approach that Chairman Joe Biden took and that I continued when I was chairman, each of us under Presidents of both parties. The blue-slip courtesy, then, has been a way to highlight the views of home State Senators and to encourage the White House to consult with them when choosing judicial nominees. And it works. When chairmen of both parties have chosen, only a handful of times, to proceed with a hearing for a nominee who lacked two positive blue slips, their decision was consistent with this approach. Today, Democrats want to rewrite the history of blue slips and redefine the very purpose of the courtesy behind the process. They want to weaponize the blue slip so that a single Senator can, at any time and for any reason, prevent Senate consideration of judicial nominees. They want to change the traditional use of the blue slip because they can no longer use the filibuster to defeat judicial nominees who have majority support. Democrats opposed filibustering judicial nominees during the Clinton administration. Then, in just 16 months during the 108th Congress, Democrats conducted 20 filibusters on judicial nominees by President George W. Bush. These were the first judicial filibusters in history to defeat majority-supported judicial nominees. The filibuster pace dropped by two-thirds under President Obama when Republicans conducted just 7 filibusters in 30 months. Claiming that declining filibusters were nonetheless a crisis, Democrats in 2013 abolished nomination filibusters for all executive and judicial nominations except for the Supreme Court. Democrats took away the ability of 41 Senators to block consideration of judicial nominations on the Senate floor, but now they demand that a single Senator have that much power in the Judiciary Committee by turning the blue-slip courtesy into a de facto filibuster. Like the ABA's rating of nominees, nothing but politics explains this flip- flopping and manipulation of the confirmation process. On October 31, I addressed this issue here on the Senate floor and suggested that the history and purpose of the blue-slip courtesy could help guide its application today. I still believe that. The views of home State Senators matter, and the White House should sincerely consult with them before making nominations to positions in their States. Home State Senators enjoy countless ways to convey their views to colleagues here in the Senate, and every Senator may decide whether and how to consider those views. But in the end, the blue slip is a courtesy, not an absolute veto. This distinction matters because tomorrow the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a nominee to the U.S. court of appeals from a State with two Democratic Senators. One has returned the blue slip; the other has not. Chairman Grassley's decision to hold a hearing is completely consistent with the history and purpose of the blue-slip courtesy. Democrats falsely claim that Chairman Grassley is eliminating what they say is a longstanding precedent that home State Senators may automatically veto appeals court nominations. No such precedent exists, or ever has, unless the practice of only two chairmen for only a fraction of the last century constitutes controlling precedent--and we all know it shouldn't. It is beyond hypocritical for Democrats to pretend they actually care about the confirmation process precedent. They began the practice of forcing time-consuming rollcall votes for nominees with no opposition at all. They began the practice of using the filibuster to defeat majority-supported nominees. They began the practice of forcing the President to renominate individuals multiple times. They began the practice of forcing cloture votes on unanimously supported judicial nominees and then delaying a confirmation vote for days. These weren't actions undertaken by Republicans. There is one side, and one side only, that has continuously pushed this envelope. Democrats cite a 2009 letter to President Obama from the Republican conference and an op-ed I publishing in 2014 defending the blue-slip courtesy. In each situation, the Democratic majority was actually threatening to abolish the blue-slip policy altogether. In my op-ed, I emphasized that the blue-slip courtesy is intended to encourage consultation by the White House with home State Senators. When he became chairman in 2015, Senator Grassley explained the blue- slip process to his constituents in a Des Moines Register op-ed. He wrote that the process has value and that he intended to honor it. He is doing just that by returning to the real history and purpose of the blue-slip courtesy. My Democratic colleagues seem to think that the confirmation process should be whatever they want it to be at whatever moment they so choose. Now they demand that, contrary to most of the last century, a single Senator should be able to do informally what 41 Senators can no longer do formally. They demand following precedent that does not exist while creating new obstruction precedents of their own. Democrats have forced the Senate to take 60 cloture votes on nominations so far this year, 13 of them on judicial nominations. That is nearly nine times as many as during the first year of all new Presidents--all new Presidents--since the cloture rule was applied to nominations in 1949. I have been in the minority a number of times, multiple times. I get it. Democrats want their way, and they don't always get it. That hardly means that the majority in general and Chairman Grassley in particular are not being fair, consistent, or evenhanded. The blue-slip courtesy has a history, and it has a purpose. It exists to allow home State Senators to share their views with the Judiciary Committee and to encourage White House consultation with them before making nominations. Neither a liberal interest group like the American Bar Association nor abuse of the blue-slip courtesy should be allowed to further distort and politicize the judicial confirmation process. It is a disgrace. It really is a disgrace, the way the Democrats changed the rules automatically, overnight, without even consulting with Republicans, and doing it solely to give advantage to their side, even though this is a process that really ought to have fair treatment on both sides at all times. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am releasing a chairman's mark for the Senate version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, legislation that is the culmination of years of effort to reform our Nation's Tax Code. We have been at this a long time, and today marks a significant step forward in this effort. While we refer to this document as a chairman's mark, it has really been a group effort, with significant input from all the Republican members of the Finance Committee and great work from all of our staff. I want to thank everyone involved for their hard work, as well as their feedback, perspectives, advice, and ideas. The last time Congress enacted a comprehensive overhaul of the Tax Code back in 1986, President Reagan famously noted that the American people would finally have a tax code they could be proud of. And in 1986, that was likely true. At that time, updates to the Tax Code were necessary to keep pace with the technological and geopolitical changes our Nation had been facing. That sounds pretty familiar, Mr. President. It is, after all, what we have been saying for the last several years. The world of 1986 was vastly different from the world we live in today. Advances in the past three decades have been monumental. Yet our Tax Code has not advanced, and it is failing us. The American people have dealt with years of stagnating wages, sluggishness in labor markets, and weak growth in the economy. Businesses are fleeing our country to find more favorable conditions in other countries. We have been working for years to address these issues and to meet the needs of the 21st-century global economy. Fortunately, we now find ourselves in a position to make good on all of these years of hard work. A big part of that is the fact that our current President is fully engaged on tax reform, unlike his most recent predecessor. So we have been focused this year on providing middle-class tax relief, reforming the business tax system, and fixing our obscenely outdated international tax regime. The mark we are releasing today will accomplish all of these goals and more. It will reduce individual rates across the board and direct substantial relief to low- and middle-income families and workers. It will bring down corporate tax rates--a goal long shared by Republicans and Democrats--and provide businesses with new opportunities for growth and expansion. It will modernize our international tax system, bringing to an end our worldwide tax regime, a relic that should have been retired many years ago. We have been laser-focused on reducing taxes for the middle class, and that is exactly what this bill will do. Combined, these changes to our broken Tax Code in the chairman's mark will give hard-working taxpayers across the country bigger paychecks and more opportunities. They will grow our economy, raising wages and improving the standard of living for all Americans. They will once again make America the best place in the world to create, grow, and keep a business--where we create more jobs and sustain a vibrant, growing economy. I will have more to say on the specifics of the mark in the coming days. For now, I just want to give my colleagues on the Finance Committee an opportunity to share their thoughts on the steps we are taking today. Before we get to that, I do want to acknowledge the elephants in the room. Only Republicans will be standing up today to speak in favor of the mark, and I expect we will hear some negative comments from our friends on the other side of the aisle soon enough. On that point, I will just reiterate what I have said many times in the past: Our desire from the outset of this endeavor has been to have Democrats join us in this effort. I have personally invited my colleagues to come to the table, to share their views, and to work with us in good faith. Yet I expect that we will hear a lot about supposed process fouls in the coming days. Let me make it clear to anyone listening: As chairman of the Senate's tax writing committee, I haven't turned anyone away from the process. I haven't refused to listen to anyone's ideas or suggestions. And I continue to say, with conviction, that I am still willing to have them onboard and hope they will be willing to get onboard and join us in this effort. A critical objective in the effort is to provide relief and support to the large swath of Americans in the middle class who have been left behind, without economic gain or opportunities for growth. Our tax reform efforts--represented in the chairman's mark put forward today--show that we are listening to those calling out for relief. We have a historic opportunity to help, and that opportunity should not be squandered by anyone on either side of the aisle for cheap political points. With that, I am grateful to be a member of this body and grateful to be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which is a very powerful and hard-working committee--both Republicans and Democrats. I am grateful to make these remarks today. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Martin Pippins, a detailee on the Senate Committee on Finance, be granted floor privileges for the duration of this Congress.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as we prepare to commemorate Veterans Day this weekend, I would like to offer my sincere appreciation to the dedicated veterans who have served our country so bravely over the years. Only in a great country such as ours do we have so many willing and able citizens who volunteer for duty. These selfless individuals understand the importance of protecting our country and are willing to give their lives to do it. Many of these brave men and women make the ultimate sacrifice, such as my own brother, Jesse Morlan Hatch who was killed in World War II. SSG Aaron Butler of Utah also comes to mind. Staff Sergeant Butler was tragically killed in the line of duty last summer while serving in Afghanistan. The valor of patriots like Jesse and Aaron is indicative of all men and women who volunteer to serve in our Armed Forces. I have always had a deep-rooted respect for America's servicemembers and her veterans. On behalf of the State of Utah, I would also like to express our humble gratitude for our Nation's veterans and active servicemembers. Throughout this weekend, Utah will host a variety of ceremonies, all dedicated to celebrating our veterans. The town of Magna will be hosting its annual Veterans Day parade; the town of Howell will be naming its community center after SGT Rocky D. Payne, who was killed in Iraq in 2005; and the students of Granite Park Junior High School will be hosting a special Veterans Day assembly. With events being held all across our State, it is clear to see that Utahns hold our Nation's veterans in the highest esteem. I am honored to represent a State that honors our veterans. I would also like to personally acknowledge the city of Layton, which will be hosting a grand Veterans Day parade to be followed by the groundbreaking ceremony of a new Vietnam War memorial wall. I could not even begin to describe the endeavor that Mayor Bob Stevenson, the city of Layton, the Utah State Legislature, and so many others have undertaken to bring this wonderful memorial to Utah. I am grateful for their leadership, and I am delighted to see this memorial become a reality. I will close today by saying this: To all veterans and your families, thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice, for your commitment, and for your dedication to this Nation and its citizens. Most of all, thank you for your patriotism and faith in America. To our Nation's veterans we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be fully repaid. (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to finish my full speech.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the Senate will consider this week four nominations for the U.S. courts of appeals. Two are well regarded professors at prestigious law schools, and two are highly respected State supreme court justices. Each of them has received the highest rating from the American Bar Association, ``well qualified,'' which my Democratic colleagues have said is the gold standard for evaluating nominees. I applaud the majority leader for committing to do what it takes to confirm these nominees, including, if necessary, working through the weekend to get it done. I want to address the state of the confirmation process by focusing on one of these nominees, as well as attempts to change the process itself. Later today we will confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Seventh Circuit. She has taught at the Notre Dame Law School for 15 years in fields that are especially relevant to the work of a Federal appellate judge. A distinguished and diverse group of more than 70 law professors at schools from Massachusetts to California and from Minnesota to Florida wrote that her scholarship is ``rigorous, fair-minded, respectful and constructive.'' I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record that letter.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the criticisms of Professor Barrett are laughable and ridiculous. One leftwing group, for example, objects because she has no judicial experience. I don't recall this group being concerned about the nearly 60 appeals court judges appointed by recent Democratic Presidents who had no prior judicial experience. In fact, President Clinton appointed a judge with a profile strikingly similar to Professor Barrett's--a woman who clerked on both the U.S. court of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court and who, after a few years in private practice, taught at a well-known Midwestern law school for 15 years and then received the ABA's highest rating to serve on this very same court. Leftwing groups supported the Democratic President's nominee but opposed the Republican President's nominee. It appears that Professor Barrett has one big strike against her, and that is her religious faith--an important part of her life, by the way. That is all it takes for her critics to say that she has no place on the Federal bench, that women or men with such personal religious faith cannot be impartial judges who respect the rule of law. That is bunk. It is ridiculous, it is despicable, it is stupid, and it is beneath the dignity of this body. I strongly reject that view. I find it appalling. These critics apparently believe that judges decide cases based on their personal beliefs. They may believe that, but Professor Barrett certainly does not. In her hearings she pledged to unflinchingly follow all Supreme Court precedents. She said: ``It is never appropriate for a judge to apply their personal convictions whether derived from faith or personal conviction.'' This has been her view for nearly two decades. In a 1998 law journal article she coauthored, she explored the real- world situation of how a judge should approach the death penalty when her religious beliefs counsel against capital punishment. Professor Barrett wrote that ``judges cannot, nor should they, try to align our legal system with the church's moral teaching whenever the two diverge.'' In her hearing, I asked Professor Barrett about this article and about what should happen when a judge faces a conflict between her personal views and the law. I wanted the record to be crystal clear so that her views would not be distorted or misrepresented. Here is what she said, as shown on this chart: I believe that the law wins . . . if a judge ever felt that for any reason she could not apply the law, her obligation is to recuse. I totally reject and I have rejected throughout my entire career the proposition that a judge should decide cases based on a desire to reach a certain outcome. Her critics appear, to put it most charitably, to have read a different article by a different Professor Barrett. My Democratic colleagues observed that religious dogma and the law are different--so far, so good, as far as I am concerned. But then there is this: ``The dogma lives loudly within you, and that is of concern.'' Can you imagine, in this day and age, one of our colleagues asking a question like that? Professor Barrett, as I described, has consistently argued for nearly 20 years that judges may not decide cases based on their personal religious beliefs. So what is the problem? It appears that the problem for some critics is not Professor Barrett's religious faith in general but the particular religious faith she has. Now this sounds disturbingly like a religious test for public office. In fact, it is a religious test by some of our colleagues, who ought to be ashamed of themselves. I thought America's Founders put that to rest when they wrote article VI of the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting a religious test for public office. I thought we had grown past periods in our history when suspicion was leveled against someone running for public office simply because of the church to which he or she belonged. I thought the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment included being free from that kind of suspicion and prejudice. Earlier today, the assistant Democratic leader tried to distract attention from the clearly inappropriate examination of Professor Barrett's religious beliefs. He suggested that by asking Professor Barrett whether a judge's personal beliefs should take precedence over the law is no different than expressing concern that ``the dogma lives loudly within you.'' Let me be clear. Inquiring whether a nominee will have her judicial priorities straight regarding the law and her personal views is one thing. Inquiring about her religious beliefs themselves is something very different, and I believe it should be off limits. I enthusiastically support Professor Barrett's nomination precisely because she knows the difference between her personal beliefs and the law and she is completely committed to maintaining that distinction when she becomes a judge. Let me now take a step back from this nominee and focus on the confirmation process itself. The Constitution gives the power to nominate and appoint judges to the President and it gives the power of advice and consent to the Senate as a check on the President. The latest dispute about the Senate's part in this process concerns a practice used in the Judiciary Committee to highlight the views of Senators regarding judicial nominees who would serve in their States. Judiciary Committee chairmen have come to use a blue piece of paper to inquire about a home State Senator's views on a particular nominee. We call it the blue slip. Today Democrats and their grassroots and media allies are demanding that the blue-slip process be used as a single-Senator veto, even though the vote is for a court of appeals judge who will represent a wide variety of States if not the whole country. They demand that a single home-State Senator be able, at any time and for any reason, to stop a nomination dead in its tracks without any Judiciary Committee consideration at all. That is ridiculous. I can understand why they want to weaponize the blue slip like this. After all, they once used the filibuster to prevent confirmation of Republican judges but then abolished nomination filibusters so that no one else could use them. Today, Democrats are trying to turn the blue- slip process into a de facto filibuster. They want a single Senator to be able to do in the Judiciary Committee what it once took 41 Senators to do on the Senate floor. Shortly after Democrats abolished nomination filibusters, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy warned: ``As long as the blue-slip process is not being abused by home-state Senators, then I will see no reason to change that tradition.'' He was right. The key is to know when that line has been crossed, and Senator Leahy made that point. I have served on the Judiciary Committee for more than 40 years. That experience leads me to suggest two things that can help us prevent abuse of this part of the confirmation process. The first thing to keep in mind is the history of the blue-slip process. Now, 19 Senators have chaired the Judiciary Committee, including me, since this practice began in 1917--10 Democrats and 9 Republicans. Only 2 of those 19 chairmen have treated the blue slip as a single-Senator veto. According to the Congressional Research Service, until the 1950s, no Judiciary Committee chairman treated a negative blue slip as a single-Senator veto. Home-State Senators could express their objections in confirmation hearings, and the Judiciary Committee might report a nomination to the Senate with a negative recommendation, but in each case the process moved forward. Senator James Eastland, who was chairman when I first joined the Judiciary Committee--a Democrat--was the first chairman to treat a negative blue slip more like a veto. Since then, according to CRS, the blue-slip policy has been modified to ``prevent a home-state Senator from having such absolute power over the fate of a nominee from their state.'' Under Chairman Ted Kennedy, for example, a negative blue slip did not stop consideration of a nominee. Chairman Joe Biden actually put his policy in writing in a letter to President George H.W. Bush in early 1989. A negative blue slip, wrote Chairman Biden, would not be a veto if the administration had consulted with home-State Senators. When I became chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1995 and again in 1997, I wrote the White House Counsel that I would continue the Biden policy. The second thing to remember is the purpose of the blue-slip process. As I wrote in both 1995 and 1997, it is ``a courtesy the Committee has established to ensure that the prerogative of home state Senators to advise the committee of their views is protected.'' Nearly two decades later, in the 2014 op-ed I wrote for The Hill, I said the same thing-- that highlighting the views of home-State Senators encourages genuine consultation with the Senate when the President chooses judicial nominees. The history and purpose of the blue-slip process will help identify when it is being used properly and when it is being abused, and, believe me, confirmation abuses have occurred. Before 2001, for instance, only 1 percent of judicial nominees with no opposition were confirmed by a time-consuming rollcall vote. Under President George W. Bush that figure jumped to 56 percent. Before 2001, there had been four filibusters of judicial nominees and no majority-supported judicial nominee had ever been defeated by a filibuster. Under President George W. Bush, Democrats conducted 20 filibusters and ultimately kept multiple appeals court nominees from being confirmed. In July, we held another unnecessary cloture vote on a district court nominee. After voting 97 to 0 to end the debate that no one apparently wanted in the first place, Democrats forced us to delay the confirmation vote by 2 more days. This was the first time in history that a unanimous cloture vote was not followed immediately by a confirmation vote. What is going on here? What is wrong with our colleagues on the other side? Why are they doing this? They could have taken a few hours but instead took 2 weeks from the filing of the cloture motion to the final unanimous confirmation vote that took place here. Now, this is not the only time Democrats forced cloture votes to slow consideration of nominees they end up supporting. What was the point of all that? It is simple. Democrats want to make confirming President Trump's judicial nominees as cumbersome and time-consuming as possible. At this point in President Obama's first year, when Republicans were in the minority, the Senate took cloture votes on less than 1 percent of the executive and judicial branches--1 percent of all the nominees that we confirmed. This year, with Democrats in the minority playing confirmation spoiler, the Senate has been forced to take cloture votes on more than 27 percent of the nominees we confirmed. In fact, including those we take this week, Democrats have forced us to take 51 cloture votes on President Trump's nominees so far this year. That is seven times as many as during the combined first years of all nine Presidents since the cloture rule has applied to nominations. These were the nominations under Obama and this is President Trump. What is going on here? That is seven times as many as during the combined first years of all nine Presidents since the cloture rule applied to nominations. In 2013, Democrats abolished the ability of 41 Senators to prevent confirmation. Today, they are demanding the ability of just one Senator to prevent confirmation. If that is not an abuse of the confirmation ground rules, I don't know what is. It would be a mistake to do to the blue-slip process what has been done to other elements of the Senate's advice and consent role. This can be prevented by following the less partisan guidance of history and purpose to chart our way forward. The blue-slip process exists to highlight the views of home State Senators and of course to encourage the executive branch in this country--whoever is the President--to be open to the feelings of the home State Senators and to consult with them when choosing judicial nominees. If it is serving those purposes, the blue-slip process should not become yet another tactic for hijacking the President's power to appoint judges. What we have going on here today with President Trump's nominees is hypocritical, and it is wrong. It is debilitating to the courts, and it is unconstitutional. It bothers me that my colleagues on the other side are doing this when they, themselves, were treated much more fairly by our side--not just much more fairly but absolutely more fairly. This is really pathetic. I hope we can somehow or other bring ourselves to treat each other on both sides better. With regard to judges, whoever is President ought to be given great consideration for the choices. That is what we do when we elect a President. I know it is tough on the other side that President Trump is the President, but he is the President, and he is picking really excellent people for these judicial nominations. I hope we start changing this process and get it back to being a reasonable, effective, honest, and good process. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of my amendment No. 1144. This legislation is designed to do two things. It is important for us to consider this. First, it would protect Medicaid for our Nation's most vulnerable citizens, namely, low-income children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with disabilities. Those are important vulnerable citizens, as far as I am concerned. In addition, it would strengthen Medicare in order to help protect health benefits for current and future beneficiaries. Make no mistake. Our Nation faces a growing entitlement crisis, and Medicare and Medicaid are at the heart of it. Under ObamaCare, Medicaid enrollment has increased by about 28 percent due to the expansion of the program in 32 States. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, expansion States received about $79 billion in Federal funds. The problem is that even before ObamaCare, Medicaid was plagued by quality issues, and States' hands were tied whenever they tried to advance innovative solutions to improve patient care. Of course, even before ObamaCare, Medicaid spending on both the Federal and State levels was growing at an astronomical rate. Contrary to popular myth, ObamaCare did not fix this. It made things worse. As chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid, I have been working with a number of my Republican colleagues as well as State officials, stakeholders, and the American public to find solutions that will improve the quality and ensure the longevity of the Medicaid Program. That work will continue into the future. Medicare is a separate problem entirely. Everyone knows that when it comes to Medicare, we are on a collision course with fiscal economic catastrophe facing us. Over the long term, Medicaid faces more than $33 trillion--that is with a ``t''--in unfunded liabilities according to the independent actuaries at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In the nearer term, the Medicare trustees project that Medicare Part A, which deals with inpatient hospital payments, will be officially bankrupt in 2029, resulting in steep benefit cuts for seniors relying on the program. Even a number of prominent Democrats who recently served as Medicare trustees have recommended swift legislative action to ``minimize the impact on beneficiaries, providers, and taxpayers.'' To put it simply, we need to address the fiscal challenges facing these programs if we are going to preserve them for future generations. Despite the claims of a number of my Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we can't even make a dent in these problems by focusing solely on the tax side of the equation. I know many like to claim that every wrong would be righted and every problem would be solved if we simply raised taxes on rich people. Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes looking at the fiscal condition of our Federal health programs will tell you that is preposterous. The money just simply isn't there. The Republican budget acknowledges this reality. My colleagues have argued that the budget would cut Medicare spending, but that isn't true. In fact, under the budget, Medicare spending would increase every year, though at a slightly slower rate, in order to introduce some level of fiscal sanity into the process. All told, the budget would slow Medicare's rate of growth by about 1 percent compared to the CBO baseline. Furthermore, the budget resolution does not propose any specific programmatic changes to either Medicare or Medicaid, even though my friends on the other side of the aisle like to argue otherwise. Let me be clear on another point. Despite a number of claims to the contrary, the budget resolution does not rely on savings from Medicaid in order to provide tax relief. My colleagues, the ranking member of the Budget Committee and the senior Senator from Florida, have proposed amendments to dramatically increase taxes to the tune of about $1 trillion for Medicaid and half a trillion dollars for Medicare over the next decade in order to double and triple down on this particular set of problems, the failed policies that have made these programs unsustainable in the first place. These are not serious proposals. They are poison pills designed only to give the other side a round of partisan talking points that are really ridiculous. A vote for my amendment is a vote for a stronger, more fiscally sound safety net that preserves Medicaid for our most vulnerable citizens, keeps our promises to Medicare's current beneficiaries, and strengthens the program for those who will need it in the future. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment. It is a good amendment. It is the right thing to do. It makes us better prepared for the future. It seems to me that every one of us would be proud to vote for it and to solve these problems that the amendment will solve. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I yield back our time.

Mr. HATCH

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