Marco Rubio

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 1 p.m. on Sunday, January 21; 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 the House message to accompany H.R. 195.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. 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. RUBIO

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I would like to have printed in the Record an article that was published in today's Miami Herald, ``What makes a classroom click? Meet four great teachers who make it happen,'' and recognize the finalists for the annual Miami-Dade County Teacher of the Year contest. I wish them, and all nominated teachers from around the State the best of luck and commend their hard work and dedication to Florida's students. The material follows: What Makes a Classroom Click? Meet Four Great Teachers Who Make It Happen (By Kyra Gurney) What's the secret to being a great teacher? The four finalists for Miami-Dade's annual Teacher of the Year contest--chosen from the county's roughly 18,000 public school teachers--have some ideas. Inspiring students takes passion, hard work and perseverance, they said. Above all, a great teacher finds a way to connect with each child as an individual, not as a test score. The winner of the 2019 Francisco R. Walker Miami-Dade County Teacher of the Year will be announced on Jan. 25 along with the rookie teacher of the year. The awards dinner will be held at 6 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Miami Airport & Convention Center at 711 NW 72nd Ave. The winner will compete for the state title. Here are the finalists: North Region: Molly Winters Diallo, Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High Molly Winters Diallo grew up in a family of teachers, so going into education ``felt like it was the natural route to take,'' she said. Her first teaching job was at a private school in the British Virgin Islands. In the early 2000s, Winters Diallo moved to Miami because she wanted to teach in the Haitian community. She spent five years at Miami Edison Senior High before transferring to Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High, where she teaches Advanced Placement Human Geography and Psychology and Honors U.S. History. Winters Diallo said she encourages every student to take advanced classes, like the college-level Advanced Placement courses she teaches. ``I believe that regardless of students' backgrounds, they should be able to take advanced coursework and they should see college as an attainable goal,'' she said. In 2016, Winters Diallo was selected as a Bezos Educator Scholar--one of 12 teachers chosen nationwide to participate in a leadership program funded by the Bezos Family Foundation, which was created by the parents of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. As part of the program, Winters Diallo and a student created ``Branch Out'' at Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High, an effort that brings together students from diverse backgrounds who might not ordinarily socialize. At one ``Branch Out'' event, students wore masks and wrote how society views them on the outside of the mask and how they view themselves on the inside. ``I try to create a welcoming environment for my students and a safe place,'' Winters Diallo said. ``I want my students to feel comfortable in my classroom and express themselves.'' Winters Diallo was excited to learn that one of her former students, Karen Fernandez, won rookie teacher of the year at Melrose Elementary School in Miami this year. ``This is coming full circle, and it's a beautiful thing,'' she said. Central Region: Aaron Taylor, Henry E.S. Reeves Elementary Aaron Taylor was working on a degree in criminal justice when he started substitute teaching to make some extra money. At the time, Taylor planned to join the FBI or the Secret Service after he finished his degree. But Taylor quickly became a popular sub and before he knew it, he had a teaching gig lined up for every day of the week. After seeing him in action, one school principal encouraged Taylor to become a full-time teacher. ``It was like I had this gift,'' he said. ``I fell in love with it.'' Taylor went on to get two master's degrees, one in educational leadership and one in special education, and certifications in gifted education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). ``You never know what kind of student you're going to get so I try to prepare myself to deal with all types of students,'' he said. Taylor currently teaches fourth-grade reading and language arts at Henry E.S. Reeves Elementary. He also serves as the school's site director for the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project, a mentoring program for at-risk boys. Taylor participated in the program when he was a student at Miami Central Senior High and said it had a positive impact on his life. Now, he's planning college tours for the students he mentors. Taylor said it's important to show each child in his class that he cares about them. He makes a point of eating lunch with his students--and not talking about schoolwork. ``They're not just a test score,'' he said. When a student knows his or her teacher cares, ``everything else follows.'' South Region: Katina Perry-Birts, Florida City Elementary Katina Perry-Birts didn't set out to be a teacher, but an experience volunteering in her son's kindergarten class sparked an interest in education. `` `Hey, I can do this and impact the students,' '' she remembers thinking. ``It reminded me what I learned at an early age about the power of education.'' That was roughly 20 years ago. Perry-Birts first worked as a substitute teacher for five years before completing her education degree in 2005. Then she got a job at Florida City Elementary, where she has taught ever since. Many of her fourth-grade students face significant challenges at home, Perry-Birts said. More than 95 percent of the children at Florida City Elementary are low-income. Perry-Birts said she tries to instill in her students the power of change and teach them that they don't have to be a product of their environment. In her classroom, the mantra is a Muhammad Ali quote: ``Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it.'' ``I embed that in my students,'' Perry-Birts said. ``I tell my kids that on a daily basis.'' She also works with Real Men Read, a national program that recruits men from the community to read to students. Recent guests at Florida City Elementary included a congressional staffer and a clergyman. For Perry-Birts, teaching isn't just about learning gains. She also tries to develop a personal connection with her students. ``You've got to have a heart and a passion for the kids,'' she said. ``You have to have that passion and if you have that passion, you can motivate them.'' Alternative Education: Judy Rodriguez, C.O.P.E. Center North Judy Rodriguez's previous job could not have been more different. Before she became a Miami-Dade teacher, Rodriguez worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a quality assurance auditor, ensuring that batches of medication were safe to release. Then Rodriguez had a son and her whole world changed. When she started looking for a daycare, she came to a frightening realization. ``It was like an awakening for me that I was going to have to trust somebody with my child,'' she said. Rodriguez started teaching business part time for an adult education program before becoming a full-time business teacher at Miami Northwestern Senior High. Along the way, she's carried that realization with her. ``I've always tried to treat my students as I would want my son to be treated,'' she said. For the past eight years, Rodriguez has taught at C.O.P.E. Center North, a school that serves teen moms and pregnant teens. She currently teaches entrepreneurship, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and on-the-job training. ``It's extremely challenging, but it's extremely rewarding because you're impacting two generations simultaneously,'' she said. The best part about her job, she added, is ``when you ignite their fire for learning.'' One of her students, a teen mom with a baby, recently traveled to New York to compete in a national business plan competition. When the student placed 12th, Rodriguez was worried that she would feel discouraged. But the experience had the opposite effect. ``Miss, so now what's next? `Shark Tank?' '' she asked Rodriguez after the contest, referring to the entrepreneurship TV show. ``My heart was full because she got it,'' Rodriguez said. ``There's always something next.''

Mr. RUBIO

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

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as I try to do every year, if time permits--this will be my seventh year in the U.S. Senate; sometimes our work here finishes in a different fashion, but if possible, I try to come on the last day of the legislative year and give a speech to kind of recap the year behind us and outline the challenges of the year ahead. For me, it was, obviously, an eventful year, a productive one, and I believe it has been one for this Chamber, as well, in what is a unique political environment in which politics today is practiced and covered in ways we have never seen before--almost like entertainment. Nevertheless, it was a year that we got a lot of good things done, and I wanted to highlight some of them in the hope that this gives us momentum into the new year. This has been my first experience with a new President--obviously, not just a new President but a new administration that brought with it a set of individuals in different positions, so I think for all of us it was a transition in that regard. It also was the beginning of a second term, which, at one time, I didn't know I was even going to pursue. In arriving here earlier this year and getting to work, we slowly but surely got going on a number of key priorities that we had been working on for a very long time. The first one that happened was the VA accountability bill. This was a bill that I had been working on for a number of years. It basically gave the Secretary of the VA the power to fire people at the VA who are not doing a good job. It is that simple. It is not anything more complicated than that. It made it easier to fire people who were not doing a good job. They still have due process to defend themselves. For the better part of 3 years, there were a lot of objections to that proposal from the previous administration and some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Then everything lined up this year. Senator Tester and Senator Isakson, who are the ranking member and chairman of that committee, came onboard and really helped to push this and to move it forward. It passed in both Chambers and was signed into law by the President. This was a substantial achievement. What is interesting about it is that because it was bipartisan, because there was cooperation, and because no one was fighting with anyone on it, it didn't get a lot of press coverage. But it happened, and people need to know about it. Does it make the VA perfect? No. Are there still challenges that need to be confronted? Absolutely. This is something that has to do with accountability and the ability to get rid of people who were not doing a good job. It is something that, for years, could not get done because someone always objected and found a way to stop it. Then it came together with people working across the aisle to make it happen. Today, it is the law. Today, there are people who were not doing a good job who are no longer employed at the VA, thanks to this. That is an important thing that people need to know. I always remind everyone that the overwhelming majority of people who work at the VA are doing a good job. The ones who are not are the ones we need to replace. The year went on, and I had an opportunity to interface and interact with the National Security Council and with the White House on two foreign policy issues that didn't really require legislation but that I am grateful and excited about having the opportunity to help craft. The first was the new direction on U.S. policy toward Cuba. The previous administration had basically changed our policies toward Cuba--opened it up to much fanfare and, quite frankly, a lot of editorial board excitement. It was the enlightened position, apparently, to argue that doing more trade with Cuba was going to somehow help Cuba transition to a democracy. But after 2\1/2\ years, it has become apparent that this change has done nothing other than flow more dollars into the hands of that regime and help them in their efforts to normalize. When President Trump was elected, one of the things he wanted to talk about was what we needed to do to change that relationship back to something that favored the Cuban people and not the Cuban regime. Those changes came about. They were announced earlier this year at an event in South Florida. To cut to the chase, what it does is this: It says that people can still travel to Cuba. Americans can still go to Cuba as part of a group or as an individual going to support the Cuban people. But if you go to Cuba, whether off a cruise ship, an airplane, or if you are there in support of the Cuban people, you have to spend your money at places that are owned by Cubans--by everyday Cuban people--not by the Cuban military, which is trying to create a monopoly. For the first time in the history of that tyranny, there is a U.S. policy that places individuals in Cuba--private individuals in Cuba--in a favored position in comparison to the military and the Castro government. I believe this law will slowly but surely pay dividends as it becomes abundantly clear to the small, independent, private sector in Cuba that the reason they are aren't growing--the reason they aren't attracting more customers--has nothing to do with U.S. policy. It is because their own government does not want to allow them to be able to grow their businesses. The Cuban Government feels threatened by private business, No. 1, because they are Communists and, No. 2, because they don't want people in Cuba to be able to support themselves. They want people to be dependent upon them; that is how they control politically. We will see what decision the Cuban Government makes in the months and years to come, but here it is abundantly clear that there are people--Americans--who, under our law, can travel to Cuba, can spend money in Cuba, and they will have to stay at an Airbnb or in a private home or even, if the Cuban Government allows it, a hotel that is owned by a private entity. Where they cannot stay is in places controlled by the Cuban military or companies controlled by the Cuban military. The second foreign policy issue that we were able to get involved in is another tragedy in our hemisphere; that is, what is happening in Venezuela. To cut to the chase, we have a tyrant who is afraid that he won't get reelected. He lost control of the National Assembly, which is their legislative body. His name is Nicolas Maduro. So what does he do? He basically figures out a way to create an alternative Congress called the Constituent Assembly, basically modeled after the fraudulent Cuban constituent assembly-like model. What it basically does is it guarantees that certain sectors in society have seats of representation. Instead of seats in Congress by a district or state, they are represented by different sectors, like labor, electricians, you name it. But here is the funny part about it: The only people who can run for it are the people they allow to run for it, and they also get to count the votes. As you can imagine, that fraudulent Constituent Assembly basically votes 100 percent in favor of whatever he wants, literally with very little dissent. It is not democratically elected. Meanwhile, the legitimate, democratically elected Congress, to use terms that we use here, has basically been intimidated and stripped of their power. Maduro doesn't allow them to be paid anymore; they don't staff anymore; all sorts of things of that nature. We encourage the President of the United States to pursue first individual sanctions. We encourage the President to grow the list of individuals in Venezuela who are sanctioned and no longer able to benefit from ill-found gains here in the United States and ultimately to prevent them from continuing to do something they have been doing for far too long. For far too long, they have been stealing the oil from Venezuela. They are selling it in global markets at a discount. Then they use those--to use rough numbers, they take $1 million worth of oil and sell it for half a million dollars. Then they will take some of that half a million dollars and use it to pay the interest on the debt they already owe. Then the rest of that cash, they use for themselves, and they sprinkle a little bit of it to some of the elites around them just to keep them loyal to the regime. Those are the midlevel or high-level military officials who decide, well, things aren't great in Venezuela, but at least my family is better off than everybody else because we are loyal to the regime. The President moved to stop that. Today, U.S. entities can no longer trade in these fraudulent, illegal bonds that are stolen from the people of Venezuela. This is a tragic situation. This is not an embargo. This is not economic warfare, which is what Maduro calls it. This, basically, is preventing them from continuing to steal. I would add one more point to this. I encourage every one of you, if you can, to read an article in the New York Times that appeared last weekend, a pretty extensive series on starvation. Children are literally starving to death in Venezuela. Venezuela is the richest country in the hemisphere, the richest country in South America, in terms of being one of the most oil-rich countries in the world. Venezuela is a nation with a long history of stable economics and even the longest democratic tradition in South America. There are children starving. We see images that we normally associate with other continents at other times in our history--children starving to death in Venezuela. Meanwhile, he looks as though he weighs more than he ever has before, and all the people who surround him in his government are heavier, fatter than they have ever been before. People are starving because of that. It is not because of U.S. policy. It is not because of sanctions. There is no one in the world, other than his handful of cronies, who would argue that it has anything to do with sanctions. It is because of them, because in addition to being incompetent, they are criminals. The Venezuelan Government, from the top down and everywhere in between, is filled with narcotraffickers, with people who allow narcotraffickers from Mexico and from Colombia to fly into and use airports in Venezuela to traffic drugs. Just imagine for a moment, in this country, if our elected officials said to certain drug dealers: If you pay us, not only will the DEA not stop you from trafficking in drugs, but they will help you move it. That is what happens in Venezuela. Imagine for a moment if the Department of Defense went to drug dealers and said: If you pay us, not only will we allow your planes to fly, we will tell you what time to take off and we will escort you in our airspace. That is Venezuela--state-sponsored narcotrafficking at every level. By the way, they offer another service. If you don't pay them, they will tell you: Don't worry, we will arrest the rival drug dealer, but we will protect the ones who pay us. There are some very wealthy people in that government. In addition to corruption and stealing from the people of Venezuela, they are narcotraffickers. The Vice President of Venezuela is a narcotrafficker, sanctioned by the United States as a drug kingpin, and it goes on from there. The Vice President of the party, who controls their intelligence services--a thug by the name of Diosdado Cabello--is a drug trafficker. The nephews of the President of Venezuela, the nephews of his wife, the First Lady, were just convicted and sentenced last week, in a court in New York, for drug trafficking. By the way, in their testimony, it is all filled with evidence. I hope in the new year that we can find a way to continue to support the brave people of Venezuela and a better way forward. We would hope, by the way, that even in the Venezuelan Government, even in that fraudulent Constituent Assembly, we would hope that there are people there, like Hugo Chavez, who believed in the stuff he believed in--but they would have to see that this is a disaster, that this incompetent man is destroying their country and starving their children, and that there is no future in the direction they are headed. We hope this situation improves in the years to come. Senator Cardin was on the floor yesterday discussing this, and I want to reiterate that I hope that early next year, we can move on a bill that we introduced together called the Venezuelan Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act of 2017. This helps address this problem. It puts in place a plan to help with this humanitarian crisis. We need a government that allows us to do it. But knowing that the United States, working with Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Spain, and the European Union--knowing that these countries are ready to step in and help might be an incentive for decent people still left in that government to step forward and begin a process of transition. It was an interesting year, and one more legislative initiative that we took on was the RACE for Children. It is a pediatric cancer initiative. There are not enough innovations in pediatric cancer when you compare it to adult cancer. This law requires pharmaceuticals to begin testing adult drugs on pediatric populations so that hopefully we can develop more pediatric medicines. I worked on that with Senator Bennet of Colorado. We got it passed and signed into law. Again, it is not something that got a lot of attention because it was bipartisan and not controversial, but it is important. We are proud of the good work we accomplished this year in that regard. We had hurricanes that impacted Florida not once but twice, first Hurricane Irma and then Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico and had an impact on Florida as well. Approximately 200,000 U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico have moved to Florida because there is no electricity, because the island had already been hit previously, and because it is facing a financial disaster, and now it got hit by the storm. We were very involved in helping there. In particular, we worked with Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez, who is a true and dedicated public servant to the people of Puerto Rico, No. 1, in getting the right response. It took a little too long for the response to get going, but it finally started moving. But there is still so much to be done. The estimates are that it will be another 8 months before power is restored. A disaster like that is never good news, but for the first time at least in 7 years, I feel as though my colleagues know more about Puerto Rico than ever before. They understand the challenges it faces because of its unique status. They understand the preexisting challenges it faced before the storm, and they understand what lies ahead. I don't mean this disrespectfully, but there was a time when people sometimes would talk to me about Puerto Rico as though it were a foreign country. We have to remind them that these are U.S. citizens. On a per capita basis, they volunteer to serve in the Armed Forces as much as or more than anyone else in the United States. I hope that in the year to come we will redouble our efforts, particularly in disaster relief, to ensure that Puerto Rico doesn't just recover but is rebuilt stronger than ever so that we don't have to continue to revisit this in the future when the inevitable happens, because they will face a storm again. Of course, just a few days ago, we passed tax reform. Not everybody likes it, but I think more people will as they start to see its true implications. By March of this year, the overwhelming majority of Americans are going to notice that their paychecks are bigger than they were a year ago, and if they didn't get a raise, it will be solely based on tax reform. If I were king for a day, the law would look a little different. But we don't have kings in America; we have a constitutional republic in which making things better is our goal. Sometimes if you get 70 or 80 percent of what you want, that is certainly a victory. Sometimes if you get 50 percent of what you want, that is a victory. Most change in America happens incrementally through our constitutional republic. Every now and then, we can take major steps forward. Here is the bottom line: America's Tax Code today is better than it was before this bill passed. Do I think we went a little too far in the direction of multinational corporations? Perhaps--not that it is going to hurt the economy. But I thought some of that could have been geared toward working families through a further expansion of the child tax credit. But over all, I do believe it will help grow our economy, and more importantly, I do believe it will leave more money in the hands of Americans to be able to spend it on their families. It is their money. It is not ours. The best way to look at it is, if I came here and said that I wanted to spend $2 trillion over the next 10 years--borrowed money--to give it to the government so the government could stimulate the economy, there would be a lot of support from the other side of the aisle and from the press. They would call it genius and enlightened for a Republican to think that way. But if we say we want to leave $1.5 to $2 trillion in the hands of the American people and the private sector so they can stimulate the economy instead, it is a disaster and it is irresponsible. It is just a philosophical difference of opinion. There is a role for government. We must fund it. We have to rebuild our military. We talked about disaster relief. There are important things for government to do. But by and large, a dollar spent by the private sector or by an individual family is going to generate more growth than a dollar spent by the government. We fund government not to grow the economy but to help sustain it and protect it and keep us safe and the food that we eat and the airplanes we travel on and certainly from threats foreign and domestic. Economic growth is a function of the private sector and of individuals, and tax reform helps to achieve it. That alone won't be enough. One of the singular challenges in America today that we must confront in the new year, hopefully, is the skills gap. It is not just a throwaway phrase; it is the fact that the best paying jobs, the ones that actually pay enough to raise a family and save for retirement-- those jobs require skills that our schools aren't teaching. Those jobs require skills that millions of Americans do not have. We have to change that. We have to make it easier not just to graduate people at 18 years of age ready to work, we have to make it easier for people at 45 to be able to go back to some sort of school and acquire the skills they need for a better paying job. That will lead to economic growth. That will help fill the 2 million to 3 million unfilled jobs that we cannot find people in this country with the right skills to fill. That is how people get a raise as a part of economic growth, and I hope the new year provides an opportunity for that. I would add that, in addition to that, the new year will provide us an opportunity to focus on infrastructure, which is critical. My State of Florida is particularly impacted by not just storms but sea level rise in coastal areas, and there are things we can do to mitigate against it. We need to restore the Everglades, and, of course, we need roads and bridges and to improve our infrastructure and airports. Hopefully, we can confront that as we work on infrastructure. Mr. President, 2018 will be a year that we will deal with the farm bill. I hope action will be taken to reform crop insurance, to ensure that my State's farmers are never in the position they were put in after Hurricane Irma, with neither a reliable safety net, nor a reliable commitment from the Federal Government to step in when Federal programs fail to meet disaster needs. Next year could be a water resources year, a water year. Again, it is an opportunity for us to do critical things for our infrastructure. In Florida, beach renourishment and intercoastal navigation projects are important not just to our way of life but to our tourism industry. There are harbor dredging projects with the expansion of the Panama Canal. It is important that these things get done next year. They won't get as much controversy or fanfare, but these are critical things that we can do. Another opportunity next year that we have heard some talk about is the ability to reform the social safety net. On that front, I would say that is an issue that I have pushed for for a very long time. But sometimes when you talk about reform, people think you are coming at it because you want to cut. For me, it is not so much about cutting; it is about improving the way we deliver the same services. How can we use the money we are already spending in the safety net but in a better way? I believe in the safety net. I actually don't believe free enterprise works unless we have one. People are not going to take risks, people are not going to strive if they think that if they fall, the consequences will be economic devastation. You have to have a safety net to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves--the permanently disabled, the elderly and the like--but you also have to have a safety net for people who have come upon tough times until they can get back on their feet and try again. But I fear--in fact, I realized long ago--that our safety net programs treat the symptoms of poverty, but they do not cure it. That is why I hope that if and when we tackle the social safety net--and I hope we will in 2018--it will not be so much about cutting as it will be about reorganizing and improving. Yes, we will take care of people in their emergent and immediate needs. But we will also make it easier for you to go back to school and get a degree or a technical certification so that you can find a job and never again rely on the government. If we do that for enough people, it will save us money because fewer people will be on the social safety net. But that should not be the reason we tackle it--not as a cost-saving exercise, but as a way to lift up more Americans. We are in a global competition, and our chief geopolitical competitor in the economic space in the 21st century will be China. China has over three times as many people as we do, and we have to compete against them. They have 1 billion, and we have 380 million or 400 million people. We are competing against an economy with three times as many people. We need everyone. We are not a nation that can afford economically to leave anyone behind, and we are a nation in which leaving anyone behind would be a betrayal of our founding principles. That is why I hope we will tackle it next year--if we tackle the social safety net--with job training programs. In a few moments, the Senate will hopefully take up and vote on the continuing resolution. I know everyone is anxious to return to their States and homes for the holiday. I will say that I am disappointed we are leaving here at the end of this year not having taken on a disaster relief bill that I know the people in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, and--with the wildfires--out West need. I believe we will confront it in the early part of next year, along with a permanent extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program and other matters. Next year will bring an opportunity, as well, to deal with things like immigration security, the opportunity to deal with young people brought to this country, through no fault of their own, by their parents who now find themselves here, illegally, in the country. I believe there is a real chance next year to provide them certainty and the ability to stay in this country for the future. All these things are there, and they will happen in the early part of the year. But, at least when it comes to disaster relief, it is disappointing that we won't be able to do that--largely for legislative strategic reasons, not for policy ones. But I am confident we will deal with it in the early part of next year. I actually think that in 2018, despite it being an election year, if we allow the momentum that closed out this year to carry over to the new one, we will have a chance to do good things for our country. In the end, given our differences that exist in this country today, it is hard to imagine we will ever always agree that every idea is a good one, but I hope we can all agree that our job here is to make things better. Sometimes making things better means 1 step forward, and sometimes it means 50 steps forward. But as long as we are moving forward in a pattern of perpetual improvement, I think we should be proud of the work we are doing. I think, by and large, in 2017, despite the fits and starts, despite the controversies, despite the headlines every morning about the outrage of the day or questions in the afternoon that usually begin with ``How did you feel about the tweet on this or on that?''--despite all those distractions, I think 2017 will go down as a year of consequential improvement, where things happened in this Chamber and in this city that made America better, not worse. On that, I hope we can continue to work. I wish all the people of Florida, all my colleagues, all the people of this great country and around the world a happy Hanukkah, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. I look forward to working together and making things better in the year to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President: I wish to pay tribute to a member of my staff, Kris Tande, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of this year. This is not the first time he has retired from public service as retired Navy Capt Ludvig K. Kris Tande spent a career as a naval aviator prior to working for several legislators from the State of Florida. Captain Tande currently serves as my senior State military director, and I am the fourth Florida Senator to have had Captain Tande help me represent northwest Florida. Starting in 1998, Captain Tande served as regional director for Senator Connie Mack, later serving in the same position for Senators Mel Martinez and George LeMieux. Former Congressman Jeff Miller tapped Captain Tande as his district director from 2001-2005. Captain Tande has served the constituents of Northwest Florida for the past 19 years, a term that notably included the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which saw Florida gain vital military missions such as the relocation of 7th Special Forces Group from North Carolina and the standup of multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter training at Eglin Air Force Base. During my time, when our country lost one of its brave troops, Captain Tande helped connect me with the families to whom we owed a great debt. When disaster struck, Captain Tande was instrumental in assisting Floridians adversely affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that resulted in substantial economic damage in northwest Florida. Former Senator Mel Martinez has this to say about Kris: ``Captain Tande was one of the most valued members of my Senate staff. My service in the Senate came at the beginning of the `War on Terror'. Kris provided me valuable insight into the military issues we were confronting. He particularly helped me to understand the plight of military families impacted by long deployments, and the physical cost of war on our troops. He was much more than a regional representative. He was an integral part of my Senate life. Kris became a friend and trusted advisor and was a genuine pleasure to know. My visits to the Panhandle were always great because of good, cheerful company and a car full of snacks! Captain, enjoy a well-earned retirement and thank you for your many years of dedicated service to our country.'' For many people, this could be considered a full career. For Kris Tande, this was his second act. Captain Tande was designated a Naval aviator in 1970 and subsequently flew 4,000 hours in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft and deployed on several aircraft carriers. He is a plankowner of the amphibious ship USS Wasp LHD-1. Tande held several commands, most notably as commanding officer Naval Air Station Whiting Field, 1993-1995, in Milton, FL, and commander Training Wing Five (1995). His flight helmet sits in the reconstructed NAS Cubi Point Officers' Club, originally in the Republic of the Philippines, now at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. As he leaves the service of his country and heads into retirement with his wife of 47 years, J.J., his four children, and six beloved grandsons, I wanted to thank Captain Tande for his service to his country and particularly to northwest Florida. The business, military personnel, veteran and their families who make up so much of the Florida Panhandle will miss this good public servant's steady hand. Best wishes to Kris and J.J. as they embark on a well-earned retirement.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, due to my mother's hospitalization and illness, I must remain in Florida and missed today's vote.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, this has to do with the child tax credit. We had a debate about it last week. I want to explain to everybody why it is so important that we continue to focus on it. Irrespective of whether we agree with the final outcome and whether the numbers were high enough in the Senate bill--and I continue to believe they were not--they are significantly better than the House position on this matter. I want to explain why. The loss of the personal exemption hits middle-income families to the tune of about $600. That has to be made up for. If you add to that the fact that over the last 15 years because of inflation, the value of the child tax credit has declined by over $300, that leads you to the conclusion that the break-even point for a child tax credit that deals with the middle-income family hit and the erosion of the value of the credit due to inflation brings you to $1,900. As a result, if you wanted to actually help families be better off than they are today, which is the goal of tax reform, the $2,000 amount in the Senate bill is basically the break-even point, plus $100. The House, unfortunately, in their bill only calls for $1,600. The first part of this motion to instruct is to ensure that the increase in the child tax credit, to our conferees instructing, be no less. Maybe it is more, but it can be no less than the $2,000 that is in the Senate bill. The second part, which was the topic of our debate, is the impact on low-income workers or workers in the lower part of the income scale-- firefighters, teachers, police officers, construction workers, welders, home health aides. These are working people, the backbone of our country, the people who have suffered the most over the last 25 or 30 years, as the economy has made some people very profitable but left far too many American workers behind. Their anxieties, their daily concerns, the challenges they are facing really underpin a lot of the anxiety in our country, both electoral, political, and economic. Their primary tax liability is the payroll tax. If you make $40,000 a year, the biggest chunk of the taxes you pay is the payroll tax. By the way, when I hear people say that people making $40,000 or $30,000 a year don't pay taxes, they are wrong. They pay taxes. They take money out of your paycheck. They paid a tax. It is irrelevant whether it is a payroll tax or an income tax. Those are taxes. When I hear people say that, it is offensive. Working people across the income scale pay taxes. Unfortunately, that is not recognized in a lot of the debates that are going on here about working people. One of the things the Senate bill does do is it lowers the threshold upon which the tax credit begins to apply from $3,000 to $2,500. Again, not nearly enough, but it is certainly better than the House position. We can't regress on that point. The second part of this instruction is, it asks the conferees to ensure that the final bill expands benefits so more low-income, low- wage parents and workers will be able to benefit from the child tax credit. I remain surprised that there is not more consensus to support the reality that we need to do more to help working people in this country, and the child tax credit is one of the best tools to do it. I hope that what comes back from the conference committee is as good as or better than what we put out in the Senate. If it is worse, there are going to be problems. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as most of my colleagues know by now, we have been working for I believe about a year and a half--certainly throughout this tax reform process--to address the issue of the child tax credit in an effort to increase it. I am grateful that in this process, we have been able to increase the child tax credit to $2,000. That will help a lot of people. I have been asked by some people: Why isn't that enough? Why aren't you happy with that? The answer is that the people we most want to help are not going to be able to fully use it, and here is why. For them, for people who are making $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000--you are a construction worker; you are a teacher; you are a firefighter; you are a welder; you are a bus driver--the backbone of America's workers-- their main tax liability is their payroll tax. Unless you allow the tax credit to apply fully not just to their income tax--many of whom don't have a high income tax liability but a payroll tax--they are not going to enjoy the full benefit. The result is kind of absurd if you do one without the other. The result is, if you make $500,000 a year and you have enough kids, you can use the whole credit, but if you don't make that much money--if you make, say, $25,000 a year--you won't get nearly as much of the credit even though you have paid the taxes. It kind of doesn't make any sense, right? We are trying to help people with the cost of raising children by allowing them to keep more of their own money. It is the people who make less who need it the most, and when you only do half of it, which is the $2,000 increase, you only get it half right. So it is good, and there are people who are going to be helped by that, but we could have helped so much more. The bill we have today, which is before us here and will be before us in a few minutes when there is a substitute provided, cuts the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. A reduction in the corporate tax rate is something that I strongly support because I think it makes America more competitive and, in the process, is going to help a lot of these same people whom we are trying to help. I know that sounds countercyclical, but it does because when these corporations are able to save money in taxes, many of them will use some of that money to create new jobs and hire more people. That money--some of it will be reinvested and perhaps even flow toward workers in the form of higher wages over time. These are positive things, so I am not against a reduction of the corporate tax rate. In fact, I ran for President, for the Senate, and for reelection to the Senate on the promise of reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. So 20 percent goes well beyond that. However, in order to be able to pass something that pays for it, because you have to--and people don't know this back home, so I will just kind of explain it--this bill allows us roughly about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years of spending over revenue. Now, we think that the growth in the economy is going to more than offset that, but for purposes of the rules of the Senate, it has to be within those parameters. In order for us to offer an amendment that provides an increase in the child tax credit at a rate that we want to do it--about $86.9 billion--we have to find $86.9 billion somewhere in order to be able to do it. Initially, instead of cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20, we proposed cutting it from 35 to 22. It is still a massive cut. It is still well below the international average of 23. It still puts us in third place among the seven largest economies in the world. But that was met with significant resistance. We have always said that we would be open to an additional way or a different way of doing it, so today when the substitute amendment is offered, we are going to offer an amendment, Senator Lee and I. Instead of 22 percent, it is going to propose that we reduce the corporate tax from 35 to 20.94 percent. Basically, instead of a 15-percent reduction, it will be a 14.06-percent reduction, OK? The difference between what is in the bill and what we are proposing is less than 1 percentage point of reduction in the corporate tax rate--0.94 percent. With less than that 1 percent difference, we can make a huge difference in the lives of millions of Americans making between $20,000 and $50,000, as an example. That would generate about $87.4 billion, and we could use $86.9 billion of it to allow working families with children to keep more of their own money to pay for the costs of raising their children. I will remind you of who these people are. These are teachers, firefighters, welders, construction workers, truck drivers--the working class. We didn't even have to do that, to be frank. From last night to today, the leadership and those working on this--and they have worked very hard--found an additional approximately $260 billion to cut even more taxes for businesses. I have no problem with that. I want America to be super competitive. But somehow, through some political jiujitsu or some sort of magical formula, $260 billion appeared to provide even further cuts, and that is fine. I just wish that some of that jiujitsu and political magic had been employed on behalf of the millions of Americans making between $20,000, $50,000, and $60,000 a year because they need our help. What has been the opposition to this? Frankly, some of it is untrue. Some of it is offensive. Some of the opposition I have heard is that the people who would benefit from this tax cut don't pay taxes. They don't pay income tax or a lot of income tax, but they pay tax. If at 5 o'clock today you left your job as a construction worker and you received your paycheck, they took money out of your paycheck. When they take $200 out of your paycheck, it doesn't matter if it says FICA or if it says income tax withholding; it is $200. It is the same money, and you have $200 less of it. That is a tax. Anytime the government takes your money, it is a tax. I have had people tell me, including people in the administration, that they don't pay taxes. I have had people say that they don't generate economic growth, which is, in my mind, No. 1, not true, and No. 2, the wrong way to think about it. You see, our economy should be working for our people, not our people for our economy, and when you talk that way, you have it wrong. I also disagree that they don't generate growth because when you make $50,000, you spend every penny that you make. I know these people. I live in West Miami, FL, and West Miami is a small, little city. It is three-quarters of a square mile. I have lived there since 1985. The average income is $38,000 a year. If you make $38,000 a year, you spend every penny, especially if you are raising children. I do not care how much people tell you to put some money aside and save it for the future; you cannot because everything costs more and there are unexpected costs. You bought brandnew shoes in September for school, and by November they either have a hole or they no longer fit. You bought them a backpack in August for back-to-school, and by November or December, it has a hole in it or something broken and you have to pay for it. Costs constantly come up that you haven't anticipated. Where do they spend this money? In our economy. So, yes, maybe they don't generate as much growth as a Fortune 500 company, but they have to spend every penny of it, so they do generate growth. I have even heard terms used like ``It is a black hole'' and ``It is welfare.'' It is not welfare; it is their money. I heard one newspaper editorial say that it is anti-work. How could a tax credit that you can't get unless you are working be anti-work? I will tell you what is anti-work: a package of benefits from the government that you get-- which is worth more than this tax credit--that you are eligible for if you don't work. I want you to tell the worker at a Head Start facility--think about this. You are a teacher at a Head Start pre-K, and you make too much money for your children to go to Head Start, but you don't make enough to be able to afford child care for your own kids. That is happening all over this country, and somehow there are black holes that we can't even find $86.9 billion to help them just a little bit more. The second argument we have heard is that we can't cut the corporate tax rate because it is going to hurt growth. OK. You are telling me that if we have a corporate tax rate that goes from 35 percent to 20.94 percent, that is going to hurt growth. Twenty percent is the most phenomenal thing we have ever done for growth, but if you add 0.94 percent to that, it is a catastrophe. We are going to lose thousands of jobs. Come on--especially when you add that to the fact that they are going to be able to immediately expense their investments, when you add that to the fact that they are going to repatriate money abroad to the United States with the lower tax rates. When you add all the things that we have done, argue all you want, but don't please don't tell me that 0.94 percent is going to somehow lead to less economic growth because it is just not true. We are going to have a vote later today. I don't know how many votes they are going to make us have in order to pass this; there are all kinds of procedural things that happen here. But I can tell you that this is about a lot more than just tax reform. We have a big problem that perhaps this tax reform debate has revealed; that is, the only way forward in this country is one that is pro-worker and pro-growth, and you cannot have one without the other. I can tell you that in this country today, there are millions and millions of people who have been hurt by the new economy. The new economy is great. There is nothing we can do to turn it back. The future is here, and you cannot go back to the past. We should embrace the new economy. It has created extraordinary wealth for people who are innovators or people who have the right careers or right jobs. I don't begrudge it. I am glad that it is happening. But when you have a new economy, just as when we had the Industrial Revolution, there are some people who are going to be hurt and we have to help them in that transition because if we don't help them, we are going to break the social compact that holds our Nation together. I am not claiming that the child tax credit will solve that problem by itself. I am telling you that if we aren't even willing to do another $86 billion of allowing people to keep their own money--not even willing to do something as small as this--we are not willing to do anything for working people in this country, and that is a big problem. That is an enormous challenge for our Nation. These people have felt neglected and disrespected for a long time. I want to be very careful, but I want to be clear about what I am saying. The political debate in America today is either all about helping the very poor--and I support the safety net. I don't think free enterprise works without a safety net. It should be there to help people who cannot help themselves, to help people stand back up on their feet and try again. The political debate is also all about helping the business community, and I support that because we need vibrant economic growth to create jobs and opportunity. But what about everyone else? What about the people who make $50,000 a year? They make too much money for CHIP, for pre-K paid for them by the government through Head Start, for ObamaCare subsidies, too much for government benefits, but they don't make nearly enough to afford the cost of living. What about them? What is in it for them? Yes, there is going to be economic growth and there are going to be wage increases, but not for everyone, not in this new economy in which the haves and have-nots are largely divided between those who have the right skills and right degrees and those who do not, and that has gone unaddressed for a very long time. I am telling you, if we do not address it, we leave our Nation vulnerable to two dangerous political extremes--radical socialism on the left and ethnic nationalism on the right--and neither of them are true to the American principles that created the greatest Nation on Earth. Again, I am not here to tell you that the child tax credit solves that problem. I am here to tell you that if we can't even do that, it is evidence of our unwillingness to do beyond it the tasks that need to be done. We have a major challenge in this Nation. All we are asking for and all I implore my colleagues to vote for--I know that for people on the other side of the aisle, this doesn't go far enough. I understand it; I do. I know you want to get to a higher number; I know you want it to apply to more people. I promise you, I did too. I wanted it to be $2,500. I am trying to figure out in this constitutional Republic, which cannot be a zero-sum game, how we can make things better if we do not make them perfect. And on the other side of the aisle, I implore my colleagues to believe that this is not a black hole, and this is not welfare. These are the teachers, firefighters, neighbors, and friends who are struggling because everything costs so much more. Why can't we just help them keep a little bit more of their own money? Really, is a 20.94 percent corporate tax rate going to hurt growth, especially if it will help us provide a little bit more assistance for the people who, today, desperately need our help? I hope I can earn the support of as many of my colleagues as possible. It won't make this bill perfect. It doesn't go far enough for some, but it will make it better. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of this amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, this amendment would allow people making primarily between $20,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year--workers, firefighters, police officers--to keep more of their own payroll tax liabilities. In a moment, there will be a point of order, and the objection to this has been budgetary. This is paid for. Instead of cutting the corporate rate to 20 percent, it cuts it to 20.94 percent. Instead of a 15-point cut, we are asking for a 14.06 cut. Apparently, American corporations at 20 percent, America will be a corporate utopia, but at 20.94, it is a catastrophe. That is ridiculous. Voting against this today you are basically arguing that a 0.94 cut is something corporations can't afford, and that is more important to keep in place than giving American families an $800 child tax credit. That is ridiculous. Apparently, American companies are allowed to immediately invest their investment in equipment and in land, but American parents should not be allowed to immediately invest their hard-earned money in our children and in our future. I ask all of you to fight for the American worker. This isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now, and I ask everyone for your vote.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. One of them is my mother. If I were to cut her Medicare and Social Security, sir, I probably would never be able to see her again or go home. So the answer to your question is no. As I have been clear time and again, I believe that for future generations, like mine, there need to be adjustments made.

Mr. RUBIO. That has been the gold standard for a significant period of time. That is what I campaigned on. That is a promise I made, and I want it to be even lower than that, at 22 percent. By the way, if there is a better way to pay for what I am trying to do here, I am open to that. I want to make two more points of criticism. We already have too many people not paying income tax. This would create even more. In essence, it narrows the base. First of all, to the extent this credit takes people off the tax rolls at all, it isn't forever. It is until their children turn 17. The second argument--and I actually agree with this--is what we are doing here is going to make us more competitive in the world, and that is going to lead to economic growth. That is not just going to create more jobs, it is going to create pay. We have been told by the White House economists, by the Finance Committee, by multiple different experts that we can expect to see real wage growth, on average, up to $4,000. If you are going to be raising wages, then you are going to have people graduating to higher tax brackets or into the income tax range. In essence, what the people who make this argument are saying is, for purposes of economic growth and revenue, this is going to be dynamic, and it is going to grow the economy. I agree with that, but for purposes of the child tax credit, a bunch of people are not going to get pay raises. They are going to get stuck where they are today, and they will never pay income tax. It can't be both. It is either one or the other. I believe it is growth. I believe there are people making $50,000 now that one day may make $55,000 or $60,000 and continue to move up. By the way, once their kids turn 17, the credit goes away. The last argument, that it is not pro-growth, it is not stimulative. I know economists struggle to quantify it. I believe it is stimulus. Do you know what teaches me that? Not an economist or some book I read, real life teaches me this. Here is why. If you make $50,000 or $40,000 a year, and you get $800 back in your taxes, do you know what you are going do with that money? You are not going to put it under your mattress or in a coffee can and bury it in your backyard. You are going to spend that money. You are going to buy your kids clothes, shoes, and Christmas gifts. You may even be able to spend an extra day on vacation. You are going to spend it at the very businesses and into the very economy we are going to try to grow. People making $50,000 a year consume almost all of the money they make. They are going to spend it on their children, but they are also going to spend it into the economy. If you believe that leaving more money in the hands of businesses leads to growth--and I do. I also believe that leaving more money in the hands of families leads to economic activity, and that is a positive thing. The reason I am so passionate about it is--and I will close with this--I think one of the things we have been missing for too long is the working men and women of this country who have been hurt badly by the economic restructuring that we are going through--automation, outsourcing, and all sorts of changes in the American economy. I think about my parents who worked in the service sector. Thirty years ago, as a waitress, as a bartender, and as a maid, my parents were able to afford to own a home. You know for a fact that at least in Miami, FL, today, a bartender and a maid will struggle to own a home, not to mention afford the things that people need to afford living there. We need to do something to help people because they are being left behind. This new economy is great for a lot of people with the right degrees and the right industry, with the right skills. We are leaving millions of people stuck, and no one fights for them because they don't have a lobbyist, they don't have a trade association, and they don't have a newspaper that editorializes for them. We need to fight for them too. Leaving them a little bit more of their money that they earned by working is not too much to ask. We need a pro-growth and a pro-worker tax reform, and that is what we endeavor to do. I hope I can get, when the time comes to offer that amendment, the support of as many of you as possible. This will not make life perfect, but for hard-working families, firefighters, and construction workers, whatever little more we can let them keep is more than what they have now, and it is going to make their lives and their children's lives better than it is today. Ultimately, isn't that what we are here to do? With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO. I will yield, as long as it doesn't count against my time.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, just for clarification for the Senator from Vermont, I didn't speak to a group of people from Wall Street. I spoke at a POLITICO breakfast--POLITICO magazine, newspaper, whatever it is. I didn't know it had anything to do with Wall Street. The second point that I would raise on this topic is, this is not a debate on Social Security or Medicaid--which I am happy to have. It is an important program. I think if you are 50 years of age or older and near retirement or in retirement, there are not going to be any changes to that program. I think if you are 46 or 36 or 26, you should be worried that there won't be Social Security or Medicaid if it continues on its current track. That is an important debate, and I hope we will have it. But I want to talk today about something different, and that is the child tax credit. Yesterday, Senator Lee and I announced a plan that would expand it and make it fully refundable against payroll tax to help working families across this country, and it has been the subject of pretty significant criticism from some, including--the Senator from Vermont would be interested in hearing this--the Wall Street Journal, which editorialized against it today. So I want to address some of those criticisms because I think many of them are just not valid. They are all invalid, but a couple are actually disrespectful to American workers. Here is the first one that is not valid: We have already expanded the child tax credit to $2,000, and that is enough. Well, it is not enough, and here is why. Most families who make between $20,000 and $50,000 don't really benefit from that expansion. They don't make a lot of money, so they don't owe a lot in income tax, which is what the additional expansion in the child tax credit applies against. Since most of the $2,000 child credit applies only to income tax and their primary liability is payroll tax, they get nowhere near the $2,000 benefit. The cost of raising a child is not any cheaper for a family making $40,000 than it is for a family making $200,000, and I would argue the family making $40,000 needs the credit more than the family making $200,000. Yet somehow we have a provision in which the family making more gets more for their children than the family making less. That makes no sense. The second thing I heard today--and I hadn't heard this one before-- is that this is actually a negative tax; that people aren't just getting their taxes phased out, they are actually getting money on top of it. That is false because our plan is limited to your tax liability. You can't get any more credit than what you paid in taxes. If you owe $1,200 in taxes, the most your credit can be is $1,200. It can't be above and beyond your tax liability. The third one I have heard from a number of people is that this is welfare. This one is false. To call the child tax credit welfare is downright disrespectful to the American worker. Who are the people who would benefit from this? Let me tell you who they are: truckdrivers making $36,000 a year, welders making $39,000 a year, construction workers making $43,000 a year, firefighters making $48,000 a year. These are not freeloaders. This is not welfare. This is their money. These are people who are working and make too much to get welfare from the government, but they aren't paid enough to afford many things in life. This would be, for example, about 8.5 million working families who make between $20,000 and $50,000--if this graph lines up--of an average cut of $800, which is not a lot of money, but it is $800 more than what they have now if we were to expand it in this way. I alluded to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal that I generally agree with on most topics. They have never liked this child tax credit debate or idea. They claimed this provision is anti-work. That isn't just false, it is ridiculous. You can't get the child credit if you are not working. You can't apply it against payroll tax unless you have payroll taxes off your paycheck. How can a tax credit that you can only get if you are working be anti-work? That is not just false, it is ridiculous. The fifth argument is about the corporate rate. Our corporate rate is 35 percent. We proposed to cut it to 22 percent. Somehow, unless it is 20 percent, it is going to be a catastrophe for the American economy. That wasn't the case a few years ago. I campaigned for President and for U.S. Senate on a 25-percent corporate tax rate, and everybody said that would lead to growth. In 2014, Americans for Tax Reform, the group led by Grover Norquist, called for a 25-percent rate. It said a corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25 is badly needed. It moves the U.S. rate closer to the developed nation average, and it would help with growth. The Senate Finance Committee international tax bipartisan working group called for 25 percent. The Heritage Foundation in 2010 called for 25 percent. The National Association of Manufacturers in 2014 called for 25 percent. Speaker Ryan's Path to Prosperity 2013 budget called for 25 percent. The Alliance for Competitive Taxation called for 25 percent. I am saying 22 percent. By the way, this argument ignores all the other things that are in place--immediate expense, repatriation, all sorts of other things. It is not just the 13-percent tax cut or 15-percent tax cut, it is all the other things that come with it. By the way, if there is a better way to pay for what we are trying to do, we are open to it.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, it would surprise my friend to know that in Florida we have a lot of people on Medicare and Social Security.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on our side?

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to enter into a colloquy with my colleague, the Senator from Utah.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I hope that in tax reform, we will try to do what we should do in all of our policies; that is, come up with ideas that are both pro-growth and pro-worker. There are a lot of good things in this tax bill, but we need to make it better. We can make it more pro-growth and more pro-worker. Senator Lee from Utah and I have a plan that helps us move in that direction. I will describe it briefly, and I want him to have the opportunity to weigh in on this as well. On the pro-growth side, it is about becoming more globally competitive, and we do so by lowering the current corporate tax rate. The current corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent; we would reduce that to 22 percent. Now, the current bill has it at 20, but 22 percent is just as competitive as 20. Here is why. Just like the current bill, it would be lower than the global average rate of 23 percent. Just like the current bill, it would move us from last place to third place among the G7 countries. So it is just as pro-growth. It makes us just as competitive, but it allows us to do the pro-worker reform that we desperately need. Here is what it allows us to do. It allows us to change the child tax credit in the current bill to help working families even more. No. 1, it would make it fully refundable up to the amount you pay in payroll tax. No. 2, it would eliminate the marriage penalty, meaning you pay more in taxes if you are a married couple than you do if you are an individual. No. 3, it would index the tax credit to chained CPI, which basically means that as inflation grows and the cost of living goes up, the credit doesn't lose its value because it doesn't go up. The one thing I want to emphasize is, Who does this help? I have had some people in the past and even today ask: Why are you doing this? This is like welfare. I find that offensive. I find it offensive not because I am offended by people who need the help and are in the safety net program because they have come upon difficult times but because the people we are trying to help are not on government assistance. They are workers. You have to work to get this credit. In essence, the credit applies against their tax liability, be it payroll tax or income tax. A lot of people who are working don't make enough money to be paying a lot of income tax, but they pay up to 15.3 percent of what they make in payroll tax. It is their primary tax liability, and if you don't allow the credit to apply toward that, you are not helping them. Who are they? Who are the kinds of people we are talking about? In essence, who are these workers? Well, this chart tells you who they are. They are the waitresses making about $20,000 a year. They are not fully benefiting from this credit right now. If we do it the way Senator Lee and I are talking about doing it, they would. They are the home health aides. They are the office clerks. They are the welders making $35,000 a year. They are the truckdrivers. They are the nurses. They are the firefighters making $48,000 a year. These are working people, the backbone of our country, the ones who have been left behind for over three decades because no one fights for them. They have been ignored and disrespected in our public policy, and they are not accounted for in this bill. They are raising families, our future taxpayers. It costs money to raise a family. The more children you have, the more expensive it is. Our Tax Code should recognize that, and we make a reasonable proposal in that regard. Now I would like to turn to Senator Lee and ask him to expound on the importance of this for America's workers and why, if we are truly going to have a pro-worker reform, the expansion of the child tax credit and applying it toward the payroll tax the way we have described is essential.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Damiani Stores on their 30th anniversary of providing south Florida with exceptional service and quality men's clothing. With three locations serving the south Florida area, Damiani is an example of a successful local business, one that started by selling suits out of the owner's vehicle in 1987. They uphold a strong, longstanding reputation of prestige in our community, and I have no doubt they will see many more years of continued success.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I know we are scheduled for a vote in a few minutes. We will have plenty of time to talk about this in the days to come. I think one of the core things that I hope tax reform will be about is empowering the American worker. By ``the American worker,'' I mean the people whom they don't make Netflix series about and we don't see movies about too often anymore. There was a time when the American worker was a hero in our country. People looked up to the American worker and idealized them. Today, obviously, entertainment focuses on other professions. There is nothing wrong with that, but we have forgotten about their hard work and the millions and millions of Americans across this country who truly remain the backbone of our economy and our Nation. There are hard-working men and women who are struggling to get by, not because they are not working hard but because everything costs more--something you quickly find out as your family begins to grow. That is why I have spent so much time talking about the child tax credit. A lot of people confuse that with the childcare credit, which is important as well. The child tax credit takes into account the reality that raising children is an expense. It is a blessing, but it costs money. At the end of the day, it doesn't always matter only how much you make; it also matters how much you spend. And when you are raising children and raising a family, the costs are often out of your control, and they increase substantially every single year. So perhaps the best way to illustrate to my colleagues the impact that tax reform has on working families is to talk about real people and their real lives--how much money they make and what tax reform would mean for them. I want to start with a real family, a particular family my staff has been communicating with; that is, the Starling family, Richard and Emily, a very young family from Jacksonville, FL. They have a 2-year- old daughter, and they are expecting their second child in March. Richard is a pastor, and he works part time at Starbucks. He makes about $25,000 a year. His wife Emily stays home and cares for their daughter while he is at work. Because of their income, the Senate tax bill's nonrefundable child tax credit increase would actually be worth very little to them. A lot of people have said to me: Well, we have increased it to $2,000. Isn't that great? It is. But what it means that people don't understand is, if the majority--if all the taxes you pay are payroll taxes, it doesn't help a lot. I, frankly, get offended when I hear people say: These are Americans who don't pay taxes. They do pay taxes--not income tax, but they pay payroll taxes. They take it out of your check every month. Trust me, it is a tax. It is less money than what was supposed to be there after the tax. So the tax credit, while we increased it to $2,000--and that is great for a lot of people--it does nothing for them. The total effect is only about $115 for the family. That is how much they will be saving in their taxes from the current year--$115. But here is where it gets worse. The Senate bill--which I am largely supportive of, but I just want to tell my colleagues what the numbers are so we can see where the changes need to be--the Senate bill would actually increase taxes in March when they have a child. You say: How can that be? Well, for some families in their income range, the nonrefundable increase for the child tax credit is less valuable than the current lost personal exemption. So we take away the personal exemption and we put in this additional child tax credit, but it is nonrefundable. They can't get to that tax credit because they are not paying income taxes, and the result is that if they make $26,000 instead of $25,000, the Senate bill would actually take away $15 from their per-child tax cut. So these families work hard and pay their taxes, they raise children, they are contributing an extraordinary amount to our country, and they need our help more than ever before. There are a couple other examples, and I will go to the first chart. Let's take for example a tire changer and a preschool teacher with two children in Gainesville, FL--the home of the university in Florida, the finest learning institution in the Southeast--an editorial thing, but it is a matter of fact. But I digress. Let me get back to chart No. 1 and talk about this family. The husband, as I said, works at a local auto shop as a tire changer. His wife is a preschool teacher. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with these two jobs, their combined income would be $28,300. Because the increase to the child tax credit is nonrefundable--the extra money we put in--this family wouldn't nearly have enough income tax liability to take advantage of the full credit. So the bill as it is currently written gives them a tax cut of $200-- about $50 per person. But what if we did what Senator Lee and I are proposing, which is to make the child tax credit fully refundable, even against payroll tax. Well, then their tax cut would not be $200, it would be $1,570. Trust me when I tell you that for a family making $28,000 a year, a $1,500 pay increase in real cash matters. It matters. It doesn't solve all of their problems, but it helps. Here is another one. Take this example. The husband is a private in the Army National Guard, and his wife is a waitress at a local restaurant. They have three children. He is on Active Duty at Camp Blanding in Starke, FL. She works full time. They have a combined income of $33,832, according to the National Guard base pay. Because the increase, again, is nonrefundable in the child tax credit, they don't have enough income to take full advantage of the tax credit. The bill as currently written cuts their taxes by $388. The proposal that Senator Lee and I have outlined would cut their taxes by $2,100. So a $2,100 pay increase for this working family in cash will matter. It will matter. It doesn't solve all of their problems but, trust me, $2,100 for this family, more than what they have today, will help them a lot, and it rewards the work they are doing. What about a single mother. Let's say she is a childcare worker. She has one child and is living in Miami, FL, where I live. She works full time. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for that job is $14,800 a year. She gets a tax cut under the current bill of about $100. If we do what Senator Lee and I are talking about doing, she will get a $1,000 tax cut. I am not telling you that $1,000 solves all of her problems, but a $1,000 pay increase for a single mother making $14,800 a year will matter. How about a loading dock worker and a cashier in Northwest Florida after having two kids. Here is what we point to: a glaring blind spot in the way this is structured. Again, for many working families, because the child tax credit is nonrefundable, it will actually be less valuable to parents than the dependent exemption and the existing child credits are under current law today. I think this is the opposite of pro-family policy. Let's look at this example. He works as a freight mover at a lumber warehouse, and she works as a cashier. They both work and live full time in Live Oak, FL. Their average combined income is about $28,650. Under the current Tax Code, the way the law is today, if they have two kids, their tax cut would be $2,776. That is what they would save. Under the current bill, their tax cut would be $2,656. So, in essence, under the way the bill is structured now, they would be getting $120 less--or keeping $120 less--than what they would under the law today, for a family making $28,000 a year. We can fix it, because under the proposal Senator Lee and I will have, they are going to see a tax cut of $4,000 for having that additional child. That is $1,200 greater than the current law. That is a raise of $1,300 more than would happen under the bill as it is currently structured. I don't think this is an intended consequence. But this is a working family. They work. They pay payroll tax. They make $28,000, $29,000 a year. Trust me when I tell you this money will matter. It won't solve all of their problems, but it will help. It is a pay raise. Last but not least, I live in West Miami, FL. I have lived there since 1985. It is a working-class neighborhood. According to the census, the average family income in West Miami, where I live, is $38,000--let's say $39,000. That doesn't mean that West Miami is poor. I know the people there. They work hard. They pay their taxes. They raise their children well. They go to work 5 days a week for 8 or 9 hours a day, sometimes on the weekends. But because it is a working- class town, the nonrefundable increase we put in for the child tax credit doesn't do much. As an example, based on the census data for West Miami, for that ZIP Code that I live in, more than 2,500 children in this ZIP Code--meaning more than half of the total number of children living in that area-- would be receiving less than the full credit than they would otherwise be eligible for. Why? Because for their parents, their primary tax liability is the payroll tax. And you cannot help working families with a tax cut if you do not allow the cut to apply to the payroll tax. It is as simple as that. We have to do that. If we want to help people in this country, if we really want to help them have a little bit more in their pocket, then let's implement the proposal that Senator Lee and I have put forward. By the way, I hear these economists and other people say: Well, it won't do anything for growth. You really don't understand how working Americans live. Someone who makes $38,000 a year or $35,000 a year basically spends every penny they make. They have to. If you make $38,000 a year, with two kids, you are spending every penny you make and then probably having to put the extra on your credit card, unfortunately. This proposal will drive consumer spending. It will allow them to pay for some things they can't buy now. These kids outgrow their shoes so fast. The bookbags don't make it through a year. There are so many things we could be helping families with, and our tax reforms should do that. Everybody in this town has a trade association, has a lobbyist, has newspapers that write about them. Who writes about them? Who writes about these working Americans--working Americans, not people asking for anything from the government. They go to work. They work hard. They work every day. Who fights for them? Who talks about them? Who represents them? That is supposed to be us. If we are serious about representing them, then let's prove it. Let's amend this bill and change it so we can give working Americans the raise they deserve, and that they need, to strengthen our country and strengthen our families. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete my remarks.