John Thune

Mr. THUNE

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Lieutenant Commander Wendy Lewis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, who has served as a fellow to the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee for the past 3 years. I thank Lieutenant Commander Lewis for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the entire committee. Lieutenant Commander Lewis has had a significant impact during her time as a fellow. Her expertise as a ship driver and manager of our Nation's natural resources has meaningfully informed the committee's efforts. She has worked on several pieces of legislation that have become law, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Act and the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017. Her contributions have enhanced the ability of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to carry out its missions and bettered the lives of those who work there. I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Lieutenant Commander Lewis for all of the fine work she has done and for her continued service to our Nation. I wish her success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, relief for American families is on the way. Last week, the Senate passed our version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a tax reform bill that will provide immediate, direct relief to hard-working Americans. Our legislation doubles the standard deduction, it doubles the child tax credit, and it lowers rates. Under our bill, a family of four making $73,000 a year will see a $2,200 tax cut, or a reduction in taxes of about 60 percent over what they are paying under current law. A single parent with one child making $41,000 will see his or her taxes drop from around $1,865 today to just $488 under our bill, a reduction of nearly 75 percent over what they are paying today. That is just the beginning. The tax bill before us today is going to provide immediate relief to hard-working families. It is going to immediately lower their tax bills. It is going to immediately mean more money in their pockets. But this bill is about much more than that. This bill isn't just about helping Americans today--although it is most certainly going to do that--the bill is about helping Americans for the long term. It is about giving Americans access to the kinds of wages, jobs, and opportunities that will set them up for a secure and prosperous future. The way we do that is by improving the playing field for American businesses. In order for individual Americans to thrive economically, we need American businesses to thrive. Thriving businesses create jobs, they provide opportunities, and they increase wages and invest in their workers. But our current Tax Code hasn't been helping businesses thrive. For years now, our tax laws have left businesses of all sizes struggling under the burden of high tax rates and an outdated tax system that has left American businesses at a disadvantage in the global economy. Small businesses employ nearly half of American workers and create a majority of the new jobs in this country. But right now, small businesses face high tax rates that can make it difficult for these businesses to even survive, much less thrive and expand their operations. Our bill will fix this. To start with, our bill implements a new deduction for passthrough businesses like partnerships, LLCs, and S corporations. This deduction will allow them to keep more of their money, which will allow them to reinvest in their operations, increase wages, and hire new workers. Our bill also reforms current provisions in the Tax Code that frequently leave small businesses with very little cash on hand. Under our legislation, small businesses will be able to recover the capital they have invested in things like inventory and machinery much more quickly and, in certain cases, immediately. This, in turn, will free up capital that small businesses can use to expand and to create jobs. Our legislation also includes provisions that I helped develop that will simplify accounting rules for small businesses, which will also help reduce their tax burden, leaving more of their earnings to reinvest in their businesses and their workers. In addition to providing relief to small businesses, another thing our bill will do to boost Americans' wages is lower our massive corporate tax rate. Our Nation's corporate tax rate today is the highest in the industrialized world, which puts the United States at a major disadvantage next to our international competitors. Reducing the corporate tax rate will enable American businesses to compete on a more level playing field, which will, in turn, free up money that U.S. businesses can use to create jobs and increase wages. The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that reducing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, as our bill does, will increase wages for U.S. households by $4,000 annually. That is money that families can use to save for retirement, help pay for a child's education, replace an aging vehicle, or invest in a new home. Our bill will also boost wages and increase opportunities for Americans by ending the outdated tax framework that is driving American companies to keep jobs and profits overseas. Our Nation currently operates under a so-called worldwide tax system. That means that American companies pay U.S. taxes on the profits they make here at home, as well as on part of the profits they make abroad once they bring that money back to the United States. The problem with this is that American companies are already paying taxes to foreign governments on the money they make abroad. Then, when they bring that money home, they could end up having to pay taxes again on part of those profits and at the highest tax rate in the industrialized world. It is no surprise that this discourages businesses from bringing their profits back to the United States to invest in their domestic operations and new jobs and increased wages. Our bill replaces our outdated worldwide tax system with a territorial tax system. Under our legislation, American companies will no longer face the double taxation that has encouraged them to send their investments and their operations overseas. Instead, U.S. companies will have a strong incentive to invest their profits at home in American jobs and in American workers. All in all, the Tax Foundation estimates that in addition to increasing wages, our bill will create nearly 1 million new jobs for American workers and boost the size of the economy by 3.7 percent. I don't need to tell anybody that American families have had a tough time in recent years or that our economy as a whole has stagnated, with weak economic growth, almost nonexistent wage growth, and a lack of opportunity that has become the norm for way too many families. But this tax bill marks the beginning of the end of the Obama-era economy. The tax bill we just passed will usher in a new era of dynamism in this country. It will let Americans keep more of their earnings right now, and it will improve Americans' economic situation for the long term. It will send a message to the world that America is serious about competing and succeeding and winning in the 21st century economy. Under this bill, American companies will compete and win globally, and American businesses, large and small, and the American people will thrive as a result. I look forward to going to conference with the House of Representatives and getting a final, comprehensive tax reform bill to the President. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity--literally, a once-in-a-lifetime chance--to make a real difference in the lives of literally millions of Americans. It is time to get this bill across the finish line. It can't happen soon enough for the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are about to embark upon a vote that I think will be historic, a once-in-a-generation opportunity, in my view. The last time we did major tax reform in this country was 1986, 31 years ago. Believe it or not, I happened to be a staffer here back then. Although my boss was not on the Senate Finance Committee, I was the tax LA in the office, and so I had the opportunity, in a very small way, to be a part of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, which at that point was landmark legislation, very historic, very far-reaching, and had a profound impact in a positive way on the economy. Well, here we are 31 years later--long overdue, I might add, to get to the point where we once again can do something fundamentally about a tax code that is completely outdated, completely antiquated, and puts us at a competitive disadvantage with countries around the world with whom we have to compete. So we have an opportunity today--and we will have an amendment process here that will get started very soon in which Members will have an opportunity to lay down their amendments, to debate them, and to get them ultimately voted on, but when it is all said and done, I believe we will have a final product that moves us fundamentally in a different direction when it comes to our tax policy, in a direction that is good for jobs, that is good for growth--economic growth--and that is good for wages in this country for hard-working families and people who have been living paycheck to paycheck for a really long time. We didn't get here overnight. There has been a lot said about how this is all of a sudden rushed to the floor. I have to tell you that I got on the Senate Finance Committee in 2011, and since 2011 when I joined the committee, we have had 70-plus hearings on tax reform. We have had 70 hearings examining different aspects of the tax reform, listening to recommendations about how it might be changed, how it might be modernized, how it might be updated, and how it might be improved. It has been a long, methodical process to get us to where we are today. Two years ago, in 2015, the chairman of the committee, Senator Hatch, created five working groups, and each of the working groups had a specific area of responsibility to look at different elements of the Tax Code and come up with a series of recommendations for how it might be improved. I was privileged to chair one of those working groups, along with Senator Cardin. We had both Democrats and Republicans participating in that process. At the end of it, each of the working groups submitted recommendations, many of which, I might add, are included in the mark we are going to be voting on later today. A lot of those ideas came from those bipartisan working groups. So there are a lot of Democratic and Republican ideas that have been incorporated into this legislation. I would hope, in the end, that there might be some Democrats who ultimately will vote for it. But I think it is important to note, for those who believe that perhaps this was somehow rushed in here, that there has been a lot of thought over a long period of time. There were not only months but years--literally years--of work that has gone into bringing us to where we are today. When the bill was introduced--the mark was put out there by the chairman--that put in place a process in the committee where we had a markup. So we spent 23 hours over several days marking up the bill. We voted on 63 Democratic amendments in all 69, or thereabouts, amendments on the bill while it was being marked up before it was reported out here to the floor. Since it was reported out of the committee, there have been a number of changes that have been made in response to concerns and issues that have been raised by individual Senators on both sides of the aisle. And that brings us to where we are today. I say that by way of context to let people know that this has been a long process--an arduous process, I might add--and frankly one that is really overdue. I happen to believe profoundly that it is high time that we undertake the important work of readapting and readjusting our tax policies to reflect an economy and a marketplace that is very different from the last time this was done in 1986. So that gets us to where we are today. In trying to figure out how to modernize, how to update our Tax Code, there are a couple of things that clearly needed to be dealt with. One is that we have a tax system that has the highest rates among businesses in the industrialized world. We have a 35-percent rate for corporations. When we look at every other industrialized country around the world--look at the OECD average; it is down around 22 percent. A number of countries have gone well below that. We continue to hemorrhage jobs and businesses and profits to other places around the world because our tax rate, our Tax Code, frankly, isn't competitive. We operate in what is known as a worldwide tax system in which not only do you pay a tax in a country in which the income is generated, but you also pay a tax when it comes back into the United States at the higher level, at the 35-percent rate. So that also had to be adapted, and we are moving now more toward what is called a territorial tax system in which the income is taxed in the jurisdiction in which it is generated. I believe that will make us a much more competitive economy globally and make America a much more attractive place to do business. We get the corporate rate, the business rate, down to 20 percent. And when I say businesses, that is what we call C corporations. There is a slightly different treatment for passthrough businesses. Those are your partnerships, LLCs, and sole proprietorships, things like that. But we also significantly reduce rates on small businesses. We believe that is important to growth. This needs to be a pro-growth bill. We want to grow our economy at a faster rate because a faster growing economy, an economy growing at rates that are more normal to historic averages, means that we are creating better paying jobs. That means we are lifting wages in this country. Wages have been flat for so long. For the last decade or so, the American people have rarely had anything that could be characterize as a pay raise. That is why we needed to update our business tax rates, our business tax code, so that we can get the economy producing and growing at a faster rate to generate those good-paying jobs and provide higher wages to American families and American workers. We believe this bill does that. I think the changes that have been made in addition to lowering the rate--allowing for expensing of capital investments allows businesses to recover their cost of investment faster, accelerate that cost recovery, which enables them to get that capital they can use to expand and grow their operations and thereby, again, create those better- paying jobs. Those are key changes that are fundamental to greater economic growth, better jobs, and higher wages in our economy. There have been a lot of analyses and studies that have been done that demonstrate how, in fact, that might work. If you look at what the President's Council of Economic Advisers says, they suggest that lowering the rate on businesses will generate $4,000 in additional average household income on an annual basis. That is an additional $4,000 in the pockets of families in this country as a result not just of the tax reductions, which I will get to in just a moment, but the changes we made on the business side of the code generate an additional $4,000 annually per household. There is another study out there by Boston University. They conclude that it would increase the average household income by $3,500, which is slightly less than $4,000. It is safe to say that families in this country, households in this country, and people in this country are going to benefit, because when you create a more favorable environment, favorable conditions for investment and creating jobs, you get competition for labor. Competition for labor raises the price of labor. When the price of labor goes up, companies have to pay higher wages. That means bigger paychecks for American workers. That is precisely what these particular studies have shown. Let me say, too, because I think that as I have listened to our colleagues on the other side--they consistently make the argument that somehow these are tax cuts for the rich, which I don't think is any surprise. That is normally what they say anytime we have a debate about reducing taxes. My experience here, in the time I have been in Washington, both as a Member of the House of Representatives and now as a Member of the Senate, has been that, generally speaking, Democrats like to grow government. We like to grow the economy. We believe the best way to lift all boats--to generate better paying jobs, to improve the quality of life and standard of living for American families--is to get a stronger economy that is creating those better paying jobs and raising wages in this country. Suffice it to say that our colleagues on the other side have attacked this bill, as they do most bills. This is no exception. Most of the attacks are on reform bills for delivering too much relief to high- income earners. I have to say that I take issue with that because I think, if you look at the actual content, the substance of the bill, you will come to a very different conclusion. I said this before, and I mean it sincerely: I hope people don't take it from me. Sit down and look at your own tax situation. Plug in the changes that we are making here, and find out if you come out better or worse than you are today. I will tell you that if you look at the average family of four with a combined annual income of $73,000, you are going to see that they are going to see a $2,200 tax cut. A $2,200 tax cut is what your average family of four making $73,000 in this country is going to see. What does that represent to them? That is a 60-percent reduction, a 60- percent tax cut relative to what they are paying today under current law. By reforming the Tax Code and putting these changes in place, the average family of four with a combined annual income of $73,000 will see a $2,200 tax cut or about a 60-percent reduction in what they are paying today. Why does that happen? Well, it happens because we are making some changes that provide significant relief in the Tax Code relative to families when they file their taxes. The first, of course, is we double the standard deduction. The standard deduction is the amount that people can deduct from their income right away, from their adjusted gross income. That lowers the amount that is actually taxable to start with. Under our legislation, the standard deduction for both married couples and those who are filing single--they actually get a doubling of the standard deduction. The second thing we do in our bill--and if you are raising kids, this will dramatically reduce the tax burden you will have--is we double the child tax credit, which under current law is $1,000 per child. Under this legislation, that will double to $2,000 per child. The other thing we do is we lower rates. We have a significant rate reduction through all the different brackets in the code. The combination of doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, and lowering rates means that middle-income families are going to pay less in taxes. We think we have found the right balance in designing a bill that delivers tax relief to hard-working, middle-income families in this country. At the same time, we are reforming the business side of our Tax Code in a way that unleashes our economy and unleashes those job creators and a lot of that investment that has been sitting on the sidelines and allows our small businesses and our larger businesses to expand their operations, and as they do that, they will have to hire more workers and pay those workers higher wages. We think the combination of those features of this bill makes this a bill that is very beneficial to middle-income families in this country. Those are just a few of the features of the bill that lead to, as I said earlier, an average tax cut for a typical family of four of $2,200 or about a 60-percent reduction over what they are currently paying. As we have listened to the debate from the other side, they attacked it as being a tax cut for the rich. They attacked it for being rushed out here. They attacked it for being a windfall for corporations. It is very predictable. There is nothing new in any of these arguments. I have been around here long enough to know in advance what the other side is going to say. But in this case, these arguments simply don't comport with reality. They just don't fit the facts. They don't fit the data. With respect to the issue of who pays, we pay a lot of attention--and we should--to tax burdens in this country. One of the things this legislation we will be passing today does is it maintains in the law the progressivity in our Tax Code. We have the most progressive Tax Code, I would argue, in all the world. So we paid very close attention to this to make sure that the tax burden, when all is said and done, doesn't change very much from where it is today. So people of different income groups, income categories, continue to pay similar burdens to what they are paying today. What this shows is that those in the $20,000 to $50,000 category today pay about 4.3 percent of the entire tax burden, the taxes collected in this country. People who earn between $20,000 and $50,000 pay about 4.3 percent. Under our legislation, that will go down to 4.1 percent. Those in the $50,000 to $100,000 category--earners in that group today pay about 16.9 percent of all the taxes collected. That is their share of the tax burden. Under this legislation, that will go down to 16.7 percent. Again, that is a slight reduction in the overall tax burden relative to what they have today. Those making $100,000 or more actually will see their taxes tick up a little bit--not a lot but a little bit. They are currently paying 78.7 percent of the tax burden in this country, and that will go up to 78.9 percent. So those at $100,000 or more are paying almost 80 percent of all the taxes that are paid or collected in this country today, and that number is very similar to what it would be--up a little bit. But that is really the only category that is going to pay more relative to what they are paying today. To me, that is a demonstration, clearly, of how--when we went through this process, we committed to ensuring that there was fairness in the code, and we paid attention to the tax burden to ensure that people continue to pay their fair share and that particularly those in the upper income categories pay their fair share. Another argument that has been made by our colleagues on the other side--which is interesting to me because it is a revelation to many of us that all of a sudden they are concerned about deficits--is that somehow this is going to blow up the deficit. Well, we did allow for a net tax cut in this. There is about $5.5 trillion of tax cuts overall, about $4 trillion of which is offset by what we call base broadeners, or killing and getting rid of preferences and loopholes and deductions in the code, and the balance of which will be made up through economic growth. There are debates about how much growth will occur in the economy, but I think it is fair to say that this is going to grow the economy. Even the Joint Committee on Taxation, which uses numbers that, to me, are completely inaccurate--I mean, it is hard to feature that over the course of the next decade, our economy isn't going to grow at more than 1.9 percent, but that is what they assume. Just by way of example, over the last two quarters, it has grown to 3.3 and 3.1 percent. If we can continue to build on that, we will more than pay for and have lots of revenue left over when this is all said and done. So if you assume modest amounts of economic growth--about two-tenths, three-tenths of 1 percent of additional growth in the economy per year--it more than covers what we are talking about here in terms of the shortfall of forgone revenue associated with this tax legislation. We have a bill that is based upon reasonable assumptions about growth. We have a bill that, if our economy really does pick up--and I believe it will if we put the right policies in place that encourage investment, track investment into this country, and provide the right incentives for businesses to expand their operations--we will see an entirely new economy where 1.9 percent growth, which has become the normal for too many people--there are too many people in this country who don't know anything but 1.9 percent growth. We can do so much better than that. This is America, the greatest economy on the face of the Earth. We ought to be able to get up to that 3 to 3.5 percent growth rate. If we do, this economy will take off, American businesses will start, entrepreneurs will start creating jobs, and we will have higher wages and bigger paychecks for American workers. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote later today on this. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, how much time is left on our side?

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, our country has always been about opportunity. The American dream is the hope that your kids and your grandkids and those who come after you will have a better life than you have had. One of the ways we do that is that we get a growing, expanding economy that creates better paying jobs, more opportunity, and higher wages. When you get higher wages, you improve that standard of living, and you improve that quality of life. That is what Americans aspire to. That is what all American families--moms and dads--aspire to for their kids and those who are going to come after them. I would say to our colleagues on the other side, who, like I said, have a newfound interest in deficits and debt, that one of the ways in which you deal with deficits and debt is to grow the economy. When you get an expanding economy that is creating better paying jobs, more people are working, more people are investing, more people are taking realizations, and more people are paying taxes. What history has shown is that when you have a vibrant, growing economy, you get more government revenue. Of course, the official scorekeepers, whether you use the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation, both agree that you are going to get more revenue when you get more growth in the economy. There might be a slight difference of opinion about how much. The CBO, I think, says that for every one-tenth of 1 percent increase in the GDP, you see an additional $273 billion in tax revenue that is generated over a decade or, to put it a different way, almost $3 trillion for every percentage point increase in gross domestic product. If you want to get serious about dealing with America's fiscal problems, you have to restrain spending, which there hasn't been much appetite for around here in the time that I have been here. You also have to get the economy growing and expanding. That is what this exercise--what we are going through here in reforming our Tax Code--is really all about, because 2-percent growth is not good enough. This 2-percent growth is not and should not be the new normal for the American economy. That is what we have had for the last 8 years. During President Obama's entire time in office, we didn't have a single year--not 1 year--in which the GDP was more than 3 percent--not 1 year. If you go back historically--literally to the end of World War II, about 1948-- and roll forward to today, the average in the American economy has been 3 to 3.5 percent, but there has not been a single year in the last 8 years in which we have had 3 percent growth in the economy. What does that mean? That means that, without that kind of growth, businesses are not expanding. They are not investing, they are not hiring new workers, they are not paying those workers more, and you end up with flat wages. We have had, literally, a decade now of flat wages, where American families and individuals have not seen any growth in their incomes. What we hope to accomplish through all of this will be changes made to the Tax Code that will increase investment through lowering rates on businesses, allowing them to recover their costs of investment faster, and accelerating their cost recovery. Those are changes--those are reforms in our Tax Code--that will help unleash this economy and get us back, closer to normal, when we were creating those good-paying jobs. Then, we can start doing something, at the same time, about spending around here, and we will start seeing those deficits go down. The best thing that can happen for the American economy, the best thing that can happen for the American family, and the best thing that can happen for the American worker is to have a growing, vibrant economy. To my colleagues on the other side who consistently get up and say there is no benefit to this that will be delivered to middle-income families in this country, again, I will say what has already been said by my colleagues from South Carolina and from Pennsylvania, which is to look at a typical family of four with a combined annual income of $73,000, who under this tax cut bill will receive a tax cut of $2,200-- a 60-percent reduction over what they are paying today under current law. That is what that average family of four will see. Now, the Senator from Colorado said that he doesn't believe that Colorado Republicans are for this. I can tell you who is going to be for this--the people, the families, who get the $2,200 tax cut. That is $2,200 they are going to have in their pockets. You heard my colleague from South Carolina talk about that family that lives paycheck to paycheck or about that single mom who wants a better future for her kids. How do we help them? One of the ways we help them is to reduce the burden--the take--that their government takes from them every single year and to allow them to keep more in their pockets. Let's give them bigger paychecks, and let's let them decide how to spend the money. That is a fundamental difference that we have had around here for a long time. We come here believing that the way you help American families is to start growing the economy rather than growing the government, allowing the American people to make decisions that are in their best interests and in the best interests of them and their families about how they want to save for retirement, how they want to help their kids get college educations, how they want to improve their lives, rather than sending the money to Washington, DC, and letting Washington spend it. That is, fundamentally, the difference, I think, that we are talking about here. As to the arguments that have been made by the other side, they just aren't based on facts. The data tells a different story as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out. Look at the chart. Look at the percentage of tax cuts. Who benefits? We have worked very, very hard on this bill to maintain progressivity in the Tax Code so that we have tax relief delivered to those hard-working American families, to those hard-working American taxpayers who need a break, who are living paycheck to paycheck. Honestly, I hope, when this is all said and done, that not only will we be able to pass this bill but that, maybe, we will get a few Democrats who might decide that it will be in the best interests of their constituents to help their families and their States realize more income in their pockets and bigger paychecks and, hopefully, an opportunity to live out their versions of the American dream for them, for their kids, and for their grandkids. That is what the American experience and the American dream are really all about. When we take more and more here in Washington, DC, that means that American families have less with which to help themselves and to plan for their futures. Our time has expired.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, Senator Scott and I and the Senator from Pennsylvania were all there at what we call the markup.

Mr. THUNE. My recollection is like his, and, frankly, my recollection, when it comes to all the work that went into getting us to where we are dates back a long way. I joined the Senate Finance Committee in 2011. I am not sure when the Senator from South Carolina joined or the Senator from Pennsylvania, but it was shortly after that, I think. Since I have been on the Finance Committee, we have had 70-plus hearings--70-plus hearings on tax reform. We have looked at every facet, every aspect, every element of the Tax Code. We even went so far 2 years ago, in 2015, to create five working groups. We all participated in those, along with, I might add, our Democratic colleagues, each of whom had a key role in helping with the final recommendations that were put forward. A lot of what is in this bill is based upon the work that was done by those working groups. There isn't a single shred of the Tax Code that we haven't covered and haven't studied in great detail. Then, of course, as the Senator from South Carolina pointed out, when it came time to mark the bill up, we spent several days--23 hours debating back and forth, listening to each other, and in some cases arguing. In some cases, those were very spirited arguments. The Democrats offered 63 amendments, all of which got votes in the Senate Finance Committee. So for anybody to suggest that this has been anything but a transparent process based upon years of work and buildup and lead-up to get us to where we are today is absolutely misstating the facts. I think the work we have done in advance of this has led to a product that is the culmination of a great deal of thought, a great deal of input, and a great deal of research from not only experts in the field but fellow Members--Democrats and Republicans--Senators and staff--who have gotten us to where we are today. I think the fact, which has been pointed out many times, that a family that is living paycheck to paycheck will now get the benefit of a doubling of the standard deduction and a doubling of the child tax credit, frankly, I happen to believe--contrary to my colleague from Pennsylvania--is a pretty big deal. If you are a family who has any sort of tax liability, that tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar credit against that tax liability. An increased portion of that is refundable under this legislation. If you look at the lower rates we have in the bill, that middle- income family in this country stands to benefit significantly as a result of this to the tune of--if you are a family of four with a combined annual income of $73,000--an additional $2,200 in your pocket. That is $2,200 in the American family's pocket that they get to decide how to spend. As the Senator of Pennsylvania pointed out, don't take our word for it. You can sit down, if you like to, and look at the features of the bill. Look at your individual tax situation. Plug in these changes, and I think you will find you are going to see a pretty significant reduction in your tax liability. When January rolls around when this passes, people will get their check. When they look at their withholdings, they will realize they have a lot more money. That paycheck is bigger. The paycheck is going to be bigger. Why? The amount taken out in terms of Federal taxes is going to be significantly smaller. That is a good thing for the American family. That is why this debate and the bill we have before us are so important, not only to those families who are trying to build a stronger, brighter, and more prosperous future for themselves and their families but also for this American economy. With the other changes that are made in the bill, it is going to lead to better paying jobs and higher wages that are going to lift the boats of all Americans. Americans haven't had a pay raise, literally, in about the past decade. We haven't had a single year in the Obama years of 3 percent growth, which has been the historical average going back to the end of World War II. We are growing at 1.5 to 2 percent. We don't happen to believe that is good enough. We think we can do better. That shouldn't be the new normal. The American economy is the greatest economy on the face of the Earth. We ought to be able to grow at 3 to 3.5 percent. I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the average middle-income family in this country is not only going to get a big tax cut--which means they are going to get a bigger paycheck and have more money in their pocket--but they will get the benefit of the higher wages coming with a growing, more dynamic economy that it reflects. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for outlining and highlighting what are, I should say, some of the many reforms that are included in this legislation. Now, what he talked about is critically important. If America is going to be competitive in the global marketplace, we have to change our Tax Code because it is completely outdated, completely antiquated relative to any of the countries with whom we compete. So, as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out, the reforms we make in this bill allow American companies to compete and win against those other countries around the world--the Chinas of the world, the Russias of the world. Those countries in which America has to compete on a daily basis have a huge advantage over American companies today simply because we have a tax code that doesn't recognize and reflect what is happening in the global economy, and that is why modernizing and updating our tax code was such a critical part of our tax reform effort. I was listening to my colleague from Vermont, and I think this is a really great day in the U.S. Senate. We are getting close to the finish line on this tax bill. Over the past 24 hours, I think we have made a really great bill even better with more middle-class tax relief and more relief for small businesses. We have moved our bill closer to the House's bill in key areas, which I think will help us get this bill to the President's desk in the very near future. I am excited about what this tax bill is going to do for the American people. America has always been about opportunity, a place where you could start from nothing and become anything. Generations of people have come to this country to build a better life for themselves and an even better one for their children. My grandparents were those people. They came here from Norway back in 1906, started a small merchandising company after they had learned the language and worked for a while on the railroads that were being built across this country. It later became a hardware store, and to this day in Mitchell, SD, there is still a store that goes by the name of Thune Hardware. The family is not associated with it, but it is an example of the millions of Americans or millions of people who came to this country, came to America in search of opportunity. Unfortunately, in recent years, those vast horizons that so many people came to this country for seemed to shrink. The American dream has grown dim. Getting ahead has been replaced by getting by. We have watched idly as our jobs get shipped overseas, as other countries drop their business tax rates to better compete in the global marketplace, as emerging economies and developed nations grow faster than the United States. Americans now frequently spend more time worrying about their future than looking forward to it. We are turning that around starting today with this tax bill. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's Presidential ad noting that ``It's morning again in America.'' Well, it may not be morning yet, but the dawn is peeking over the horizon. The tax bill before us today is going to provide immediate relief to hard-working Americans. It is going to immediately lower their tax bills. It is going to immediately mean more money in their pockets, but this bill is about much more than that. This bill isn't just about helping Americans today, although it is most certainly going to do that. This bill is about helping Americans for the long term. It is about restoring the American dream. It is about giving Americans access to the kinds of wages, jobs, and opportunities that will set them up for a secure and more prosperous future, and it is about sending a message to the world that America is finally serious about competing for 21st century jobs and innovation. For years, our tax laws have kept American businesses at a disadvantage in the global economy. As other nations have changed their Tax Codes to strengthen their businesses, our Tax Code has kept American businesses struggling, but that ends now. This legislation makes a tremendous investment in American businesses and American workers. Under this bill, American businesses will no longer face the double taxation that has kept them at a disadvantage next to their foreign counterparts and has pushed them to keep jobs and investment overseas. They will no longer face the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. They will no longer be playing catchup with their foreign competitors. Instead, American business will have money to invest in American workers. They will be able to expand their domestic operations, and they will be able to compete with and beat their competitors around the globe. What is the result of that? It means more growth here at home, more jobs, more opportunities, higher wages, and an America that can lead the world in innovation, job creation, and economic growth. America may have been through a rough patch lately, but she is coming back stronger than ever. America led the world in the 20th century, and this tax bill makes it clear that she is going to do the same in the 21st century. I hope our colleagues, when it comes time to vote on this tonight, will vote in favor of tax relief for middle-income families, vote for a stronger, growing, vibrant, robust economy that is creating better paying jobs, raising wages for American workers and American families, and a brighter, better, and more prosperous future for future generations of Americans. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, let's keep in mind that the State and local tax, or SALT, deduction disproportionately benefits wealthy taxpayers in high tax States. More than 70 percent of American families currently take the standard deduction, so they will not even be impacted at all by this bill's treatment of SALT. Let's also keep in mind that our improving amendment strikes a compromise on SALT. It includes, as does the House bill, a deduction of up to $10,000 for property tax paid to State and local governments. Democrats insisting on keeping the entire SALT deduction in place should explain why they have prioritized a tax deduction for wealthy taxpayers over middle-class tax relief. Our bill addresses this issue in an appropriate way, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this motion. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. All right.

Mr. THUNE. And, too, some of our colleagues--and I count myself, and I am sure the Senator from Ohio does as well, among those of us who consider ourselves fiscal conservatives--realize that in order to deal with debt and deficits, yes, we have to get our arms around out-of- control Washington spending, and we have to do something to make those programs that are driving that out-of-control spending more sustainable in the long run. We also have to do the other side of this, which is to restrain spending. But in order to deal with debt and deficits, we really need that growth in the economy because higher growth, the economy growing at a faster rate, means people are working, people are paying taxes, people are taking realizations and paying taxes, and government revenues go up. So we need growth, and that is what this bill will accomplish. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, a lot of our colleagues on the other side have come to the floor today and have talked about why they don't like our tax reform bill. Many of those arguments have been focused on who benefits from it. Of course, as is usually the case when you start talking about any kind of an attempt to reduce taxes on the American people so they can keep more of what they earn, keep more dollars in their pockets so they can decide how to spend it rather than send it to Washington, DC, Democrats complain that it is tax cuts for the rich. Well, again, I want to point out--and this, of course, is based upon the Joint Committee on Taxation, which was just alluded to--where they find the benefits of the tax relief goal. As you can see from this chart, these represent different income groups. The highest percentage tax cuts actually go to those in the lower and middle-income groups. If you look at who benefits from this, every income group gets a significant tax cut, but middle-income Americans do particularly well percentagewise under this tax reform proposal. So the argument, again, that this is somehow simply a tax cut for the rich just doesn't pass the smell test. It doesn't comport with reality. Clearly, the numbers tell a very different story. The other point I wish to make is that if we look at what we tried to accomplish in the design of this tax bill, we see that we tried to maintain the existing progressivity in the tax bill. We have one of the most progressive tax codes in the world. We have a lot of people in this country who don't have any income tax liability and some who benefit from refundable tax credits that help to eliminate or partially eliminate their payroll tax liability as well. But this chart shows who, under our bill, when it is all said and done, bears the tax burden in this country--in other words, the percentage of the tax liability paid by each different group in different income groups. When we look at this, we can see that those in the $20,000 to $50,000 range--this is their tax burden as a percentage of the entire tax burden levied on Americans around the country--the rate drops from 4.3 percent to 4.1 percent. So those in the $20,000 to $50,000 income group, as a percentage of tax burden in the country, pay less under our proposal than they do today. If we look at the group from $50,000 to $100,000, that income group also, as a percentage of the entire tax burden borne by Americans, pays less under our proposal than they do today. They pay 16.9 percent today, and under our proposal they will pay 16.7 percent of total taxes in this country. Those, on the other hand, making $100,000 or more will pay slightly more of the overall tax burden. Today they pay 78.7 percent, and under our proposal they will pay 78.9 percent. So people under $100,000 are going to be paying less as a share of the overall tax burden than they currently do today. I don't know how anyone can, with a straight face, argue that somehow this is a tax bill that benefits those in the upper end. With respect to the arguments that are being made right now regarding the Joint Committee on Taxation release of the dynamic score, I would say the same thing that my colleague from Texas said. I think the good news in all of this is what it demonstrates is that what we are trying to do actually generates economic growth. It actually generates additional revenue for the Federal Treasury. We can argue about how much. We happen to think that the assumptions used by the Joint Committee on Taxation are not accurate because they assume that we are going to continue to grow for the next decade--our economy--at 1.9 percent. Historical averages in the American economy going back to the end of World War II show that we have averaged somewhere between 3 and 3.5 percent growth. So if we take the assumption that we are never going to do any better than 1.9 percent growth in the economy, then perhaps their estimate could be accurate. We happen to believe we are going to do a whole lot better than that. We believe that if we put the right policies in place and we make America an attractive place in which to invest, we are going to see considerably higher growth than 1.9 percent. So what does it take to cover the number that we created in this tax bill that would have to be paid for with additional growth in the economy? Well, it takes about four-tenths of 1 percent of growth-- increase in average annual growth--over the next decade. What does that mean? That means that instead of growing at 1.9 percent a year for the next decade, we are going to have to grow at 2.2, 2.3 percent-- somewhere in that ballpark--to not only cover this but actually start generating revenue above and beyond what the impact of the tax cut would be on the Federal budget. What I would simply say to my colleagues is that when we look at these various models that are done and the assumptions that are made, remember that the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office--the numbers they are using assume 1.9 percent economic growth. I can't believe that we wouldn't have more confidence in the American economy that we could generate higher than 1.9 percent economic growth. That is the straitjacket that constrains their models. There are other models out there that have looked at the same information, the same data, looked at the same tax bill, considered the behavioral effects of that, how it would affect the entire economy, and come to a different conclusion. In fact, the Tax Foundation has suggested that the tax bill we have in front of us today would generate an additional $1.26 trillion in revenue over that same time period because of the additional growth that would come with it. What we tried to do is design a tax bill that not only delivers tax relief to middle-income families--I think the two charts I just showed demonstrate that we do--but secondly to put policies in place that will create conditions that are favorable to economic growth so we can get growth back up to a more historic level. When the economy is growing at a faster rate, it means that companies and businesses are creating better paying jobs. And if there is a competition for labor in this country, and I believe there will be--when companies start to expand, start to grow their operations, it increases the demand for labor, and the price for labor goes up, and wages go up. That is what we want to see. That is the other thing about this bill that doesn't get talked about enough. The reduction in rates on businesses means that they have more to invest in their businesses, and one of the byproducts of that is that it goes into higher wages for their employees. The President's Council of Economic Advisers suggests that that impact would be about $4,000 a year in additional income for average households in this country. There is another study done by Boston University in which they have concluded that it would result in $3,500 a year in additional income per household in this country. So the impact of the tax cuts is really twofold. One is that American families would have more in their pockets. Why? Because we double the standard deduction. In our bill, we double the child tax credit. We lower rates. All of those actions impact lower and middle-income families in this country. Those are all features they can take advantage of that generate additional benefits to them. Those benefits, by the way, if you are an average family in this country--a typical family of four with a combined annual income of $73,000--result in a $2,200 tax cut. That is a 60-percent tax cut over what they would pay under current law. So that is $2,200 in that family's pocket that they will be able to spend on themselves and their families instead of sending that to Washington, DC, and having somebody decide how to spend it here. We happen to have a lot of confidence that the American people are better prepared and better equipped to decide how to spend their own money rather than the Federal Government. So that is a direct benefit, No. 1. Secondly, as I said earlier, if you give the benefit of not only a tax cut that comes to middle-income families but also the additional growth in the economy that generates better-paying jobs and generates higher wages, that increases your overall household income. That is how American families benefit directly from the legislation we are considering today. My colleague from Ohio is here, and he pays a lot of attention to economic trends. I think it is interesting to note that the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Tax Committee, which, in their analysis, assume 1.9 percent growth in the economy for the next decade--we think we can do a lot better. I ask my colleague from Ohio, aren't we already starting to do better economically? I think we have seen a significant improvement in growth in the economy just in the last couple of quarters. If we continue to stay on that track or a similar track, which I think this tax reform legislation helps enable, we might be able to get to a point where we are growing at a more historic rate. What was the growth rate, for example, just in the last couple of quarters that we have seen in this country?

Mr. THUNE. We are already seeing that, right? The economy is already starting to pick up.

Mr. THUNE. I reserve the right to object, Mr. President. Let me just clarify. I think the ranking member of the Committee, who is managing the bill, also wanted some time. Is that correct?

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, that is based upon an assumption that the growth rate in the economy for the next decade is going to be 1.9 percent.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize the hard work of my Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee law clerk Lucy Kelly. Lucy hails from Seattle, WA, and is a second-year law student at American University. While clerking for the Commerce Committee, Lucy assisted the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security. She is a dedicated worker who was committed to getting the most out of her clerkship. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Lucy for all of the fine work she did for the committee and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I know I don't need to tell anybody that American families have had a tough time in recent years. Weak economic growth, stagnant wages, and a lack of opportunities have left many Americans struggling just to get by. To put a fine point on that, during the entire years of the Obama Presidency, there wasn't a single year wherein the growth rate and the economy exceeded 3 percent. If we go back to the end of World War II, average economic growth in this country has averaged somewhere in the 3 to 3.5 percent range. So in the entire 8 years of the Obama Presidency, there was not a single year--not one year--where economic growth exceeded 3 percent. What did that mean for American workers? It meant that their wages stayed flat. In many cases, up until just recently, American families haven't had a pay raise for the better part of a decade as a result. It has been a sluggish, anemic, slow-growth economy that wasn't creating the kind of good-paying jobs or the wage levels that enabled American families to benefit from increasing incomes. A recent survey found that 50 percent of Americans consider themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck. That makes perfect sense if we look at the economic statistics, economic record of the past 8 years. About one-third of those same Americans say they are just $400 away from a financial crisis. Real help is on the way. This week, we will bring the Senate version of comprehensive tax reform to the Senate floor. The legislation we have produced will provide immediate, direct relief to hard-working Americans, but that is not what we are hearing from Democrats. Here is what we are hearing Democrats say about the Senate plan--and I will just contrast that with the facts, what is really true. Here is what we have heard: The Republicans have somehow drafted this secret tax plan behind closed doors and are forcing it through the voting process much too fast. No doubt we have heard this as well: The Senate tax bill raises taxes on lower and middle-income, middle-class Americans while cutting taxes for the rich. Here is an interesting attack that is coming from my colleagues on the other side as well who have, in the past, not been considered budget hawks: The Senate tax bill somehow is a budget buster that irresponsibly increases the deficit. First off, let me address that question. The answer to the deficit question is that this is a $5.5 trillion tax cut. Seventy percent of the tax cut is paid for by ending loopholes and special exemptions in the Tax Code today--what we call base broadeners--broadening the base by doing away with some of the preferences that exist in the code today. The Joint Committee on Taxation says that with a static score, we will have about a $1.4 trillion delta to cover. Assuming that we use current tax policy--and we normally do extend current tax policy--we believe the remaining cost of the tax cut will be covered through increased economic growth. What does that mean? What kind of growth do we have to achieve in the economy in order to have the kind of growth that would enable this tax relief above and beyond what we have done in terms of base broadeners and pay-fors to be covered? Just to put it in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office is assuming and forecasting 1.8 percent growth over the next 10 years. Again, as I mentioned earlier, we didn't have good growth over the last 8 years in the Obama administration. We were averaging 1.5 to 2 percent growth. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting currently 1.8 percent growth for the next 10 years. Well, I can't believe that growth rate would be acceptable to people in this country--the greatest economy on the face of the Earth growing at less than 2 percent a year. That cannot be the new normal. We have to do better than that. If we get just 2.2 to 2.4 percent growth with this bill, we will have covered the remaining cost of the tax cut. The amount I pointed out earlier is not covered in terms of base broadeners and pay-fors and offsets, but it assumes a certain reasonable amount of growth--just the growth necessary to cover the cost of that tax cut--which is 2.2 to 2.4 percent. Again, to put it in perspective, going back to the end of World War II, the economy in this country has averaged 3 to 3.5 percent growth. It is only in the last decade, where we have had heavy taxes and heavy regulations and policies that have created conditions that are not favorable for that kind of growth, where we have gotten stuck with this malaise of 1.5 to 2 percent. So if we can just get 2.2 to 2.4 percent growth in the economy, we will cover the remaining cost of this tax cut. In reality, when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that this is going to add to the deficit, they are saying our country cannot grow at 2.2 to 2.4 percent a year over the next 10 years. They have gotten used to the low, slow, sluggish, anemic growth and have accepted that as the new normal. I don't accept that as the new normal, and the American people shouldn't accept that as the new normal because we are selling our country--the greatest economy in the world--woefully short when we find it satisfactory that the economy can grow at less than 2 percent. As I said, since World War II, we have averaged over 3 percent growth. After such a long period of stagnant growth, I understand how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are resigned to accept this as the new normal, but I think I can speak for all of our Republican colleagues here when I say we can do much better than we did during the Obama years. We can and we will grow at a faster rate on account of this tax reform bill. Why? Because when you reduce taxes, you allow people to keep more of what they have earned. Instead of growing the government in Washington, DC, you start growing the economy. When you reduce taxes on businesses, those businesses invest. They expand their operations. When they expand their operations, it means they have to hire new people. The demand for labor raises the price of labor. Wages go up. Paychecks get bigger. That is what happens. It also means the government generates more revenue. When the economy is growing at a faster rate, people are working, paying taxes; people who have invested are taking their realizations, and that raises tax revenues in this country. We can and will grow at a faster rate if we can put the right economic policies in place, starting with this tax reform bill. We can create those new, good-paying jobs, keep existing jobs from moving overseas, and we can see wages in this country go up and finally give Americans a much needed break in their paychecks. We can get the economy growing again and generate enough revenue to cover the remaining 30 percent cost of this tax reform bill. This bill has been put together after many years of hearings and work. Democrats argue that this was somehow cooked up in a short amount of time. I joined the Senate Finance Committee in 2011. Since I have been on the committee, we have had 70-plus hearings on tax reform. Two years ago, in 2015, the chairman of that committee, Senator Hatch, created a number of working groups to examine various aspects of the Tax Code. I had the privilege of chairing one of those groups along with Senator Cardin, a Democrat on the other side of the aisle. We looked at and examined the business part of the Tax Code to try and determine what sorts of recommendations we could make that would get the economy growing at a faster rate and generate better paying jobs. There were five groups like that, all of which made recommendations, much of which formed the basis for the tax bill we are considering today. We have been working on this for years to get to where we are today. It has involved a lot of thought, a lot of analysis, a lot of work has gone into the legislation that we will be voting on later this week. We made a focus of this tax reform legislation delivering meaningful tax relief to middle-income families who we believe know better how to spend their money than the Federal Government here in Washington, DC. If we can make American families' paychecks bigger, they can decide what they want to do to help themselves and their families, such as save for college education, perhaps save for a more secure retirement, or take care of the daily needs they have in their lives. The fundamental premise is, we trust the American people to make those decisions. We believe, after the last decade of stagnant wages and a slow and sluggish economy, that they deserve a pay raise, that they deserve to have a bigger paycheck than they do today. So reducing tax rates, doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, which are all features of the Senate bill--all benefits of this Senate bill-- are things that will help allow these families to keep more of what they earn. The average family in this country, under this legislation that we will consider--when I say ``average family,'' a typical family of four--with a combined annual income of $73,000, will receive a $2,200 tax cut as a result of this tax legislation. That is a 60-percent tax cut over what they are paying today under current law. So if we look at the way this impacts middle-income families in this country, doubling the standard deduction, doubling the child tax credit, and lowering rates are all policies that will inure to the benefit of middle-income families in this country. We believe middle- income families deserve to keep more of what they own. They deserve bigger paychecks. This tax bill will do that for them, in addition to creating the growth in the economy that we need to see if we are going to get those better paying jobs generated and get wages back up to where American families are enjoying a higher standard of living and a higher quality of life than what they have today. We need to get back to normal. We need to get back to 3, 3.5 percent growth. We can do that with the right policies, and it starts by passing the kind of tax reform we have before us today that will lower rates on businesses, lower rates on families, double that standard deduction, double that child tax credit, and allow American families and American workers to get the benefit of keeping more of their paychecks, more of their hard-earned money in their own pockets, and the benefit of higher wages that will compliment a stronger, more robust economy that is growing at a faster rate than what it is today. That is what is at stake in the discussion over tax reform. I hope, before the week is out, we will get the votes that are necessary to pass this and then go to conference with the House of Representatives, which has already passed their version of tax reform, and then put a bill on the President's desk that he can sign into law before the end of this year that moves us in a direction that provides meaningful tax relief for middle-income families in this country, as well as creates conditions that are favorable to that economic growth that will create better paying jobs and higher wages. The American people deserve better than 1.5 percent growth. They deserve a pay raise, not a pay cut, and that is what this tax reform bill will help accomplish. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to note last night's strong bipartisan vote of 90 to 7 to confirm Derek Kan's nomination. I am very happy that Mr. Kan is now able to take up the duties of Under Secretary for Transportation Policy at the Department of Transportation after a long, entirely unnecessary delay. As I stated on the floor last week, it is truly unfortunate that it took 4 months and the engagement of the cloture process to confirm this well- qualified nominee, who obviously has strong bipartisan support. I hope that last night's vote will signal to those who are holding other well-qualified nominees to the Department--including the nomination of Ronald Batory to be Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration and the nomination of Adam Sullivan to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Legislative Affairs--over funding for the multibillion dollar Gateway Project in New York and New Jersey that their strategy is misplaced and depriving the Department of the very expertise needed to make progress on Gateway and a host of other critical issues. Mr. President, I have also sought recognition to voice my strong support for the nomination of Steven Bradbury to be general counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Mr. Bradbury has had an extraordinary legal career in both the private and public sector, and he is well prepared to address the many challenging legal questions that will come before the Department. Mr. Bradbury is currently a litigation partner at the Dechert law firm here in Washington, DC, and his practice focuses on regulatory enforcement and investigations, rulemakings, and judicial review of agency actions, as well as appellate cases and antitrust matters. From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Bradbury headed the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, the office that provides essential legal advice to the President and the heads of executive departments and agencies. In that role, he received the Edmund J. Randolph Award and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, among other awards. Before serving in the Justice Department, he worked in private practice for 10 years and clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge James L. Buckley on the D.C. Circuit. On June 28, 2017, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on his nomination, and we reported his nomination favorably on August 2. Last night, the Senate invoked cloture on his nomination. At his nomination hearing, a number of our Democrat colleagues raised concerns over Mr. Bradbury's suitability for this position, mostly focusing on a number of opinions he wrote regarding interrogation policies while at the Justice Department. I do not doubt the sincerity of those who question the Bush administration's approach to detainee treatment in the wake of the horrific attacks of 9/11. I know that these concerns are not limited to a single party. Nevertheless, I would suggest that Mr. Bradbury has demonstrated a willingness to reexamine the difficult decisions made at that time in a manner that underscores the thoughtfulness he would bring to the position to which he has been nominated. For example, after he became the head of the Office of Legal Counsel in 2004, he participated in decisions to withdraw and supersede previous legal opinions addressing interrogation policies that had been issued by his predecessors. In response to questions for the record from some of my committee colleagues, Mr. Bradbury elaborated on this topic. Specifically, he said: I support the McCain-Feinstein Amendment, enacted by Congress in 2015, which mandates that all agencies of the U.S. government are limited to use of the Army Field Manual in the interrogation of detainees and which prohibits the use of physical coercion. I believe the McCain-Feinstein Amendment represents a historic policy decision and a moral judgment for the United States, and it reaffirms America's leadership on interrogation policy and practice. The clear mandate of the McCain-Feinstein Amendment appropriately elevates and vindicates the compelling principle of reciprocity in the treatment of captured U.S. service men and women. Mr. Bradbury went on to say: Twelve years ago, when I was called upon to advise on the legality of proposed interrogation policies for use by intelligence officers, the McCain-Feinstein Amendment had not been enacted, and it was understood at that time that intelligence agencies operated under a different, less well defined, legal regime from the U.S. Armed Services. I did my best to pull back previous OLC opinions that were overly broad or otherwise flawed; to limit OLC's advice to the narrowest grounds necessary and avoid reliance on expansive interpretations of presidential power; to spell out very clearly the specific factual assumptions on which the advice depended, including the particular conditions, limitations, and safeguards that were required as part of the policies; and to describe in detail the specifics of those policies so that the senior decision makers on the Principals Committee of the National Security Council would be fully apprised of precisely what they were being asked to approve. The OLC opinions I prepared on these issues are no longer operative, and the law has changed. I welcome the statutory changes enacted by Congress. In sum, I believe that Mr. Bradbury has fully addressed these concerns. It is also worth noting that Mr. Bradbury's nomination has received the endorsement of many bipartisan leaders. During his confirmation process, the committee received letters of support signed by more than 50 former government officials, including former Transportation Secretaries Rodney Slater and Norm Mineta; former Attorneys General Ed Meese, William Barr, and Michael Mukasey; former counsel to the President Fred Fielding; former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley; former Solicitors General Ted Olson, Paul Clement, Greg Garre; and many others. He also received the support of nearly 20 State attorneys general from across the country. Finally, I would also like to address the concerns raised about Mr. Bradbury's representation of the U.S. subsidiary of Takata in connection with the airbag inflator ruptures before the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Mr. Bradbury has agreed to go beyond the requirements of his ethics agreement to recuse himself from all aspects of the Takata airbag inflator recalls for the duration of Mr. Bradbury's tenure as general counsel at the Department of Transportation. Because Mr. Bradbury has agreed to go well beyond what is required by federal ethics laws and regulations, and well beyond the ethics agreement he signed with the Office of Government Ethics with respect to the Takata airbag inflator recall, I am satisfied that he has more than adequately dealt with conflict of interest concerns and recusals. Moreover, as I have noted, Mr. Bradbury has received bipartisan support for his nomination, including from former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and former Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support the nomination of Steven Bradbury to be general counsel for the Department of Transportation.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to the Kan nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise today to voice my strong support for the nomination of Derek Kan to be Under Secretary for Transportation Policy at the Department of Transportation. The Commerce Committee held a hearing on his nomination on June 8, 2017, and reported his nomination favorably out of Committee on June 29, 2017, by voice vote. It is now November 9--over 4 months since the nomination was reported out of Committee. This noncontroversial, well-qualified nominee has been languishing in the Senate for far too long. It is truly unfortunate that we have to go through the cloture process on this particular nominee, who is well known to many of us in the Senate due to his previous work as a Senate staffer. To illustrate how noncontroversial and well-qualified this nominee is, less than 2 years ago, Mr. Kan was confirmed by voice vote in the Senate to be a director on the Amtrak Board of Directors. The only thing that has changed in the 2 years since Mr. Kan was previously confirmed is that some on the Democratic side have decided to hold this nomination hostage, as well as the nomination of Ronald Batory to be Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration--a very important position, I might add--and the nomination of Adam Sullivan to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for legislative affairs, pending assurances that the Trump administration will approve and fund the multibillion dollar Gateway project in New York and New Jersey. While no one questions the importance of this corridor, there are many other important projects that are also awaiting approval and funding at the Department. No project should get to cut the line based on the machinations of a handful of our Democratic colleagues. As I mentioned, Mr. Kan previously served as a director on the Amtrak Board of Directors, and before that, he served as a general manager for Lyft, the transportation network company. Earlier in his career, he served as a staffer to the Republican leader and as chief economist for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Before becoming a Hill staffer, Mr. Kan served as a Presidential Management Fellow at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Once confirmed, Mr. Kan will be Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao's chief policy adviser on legislative and regulatory matters across all modes of transportation at the Department. With the ambitious agenda that has been laid out before the Department under the Trump administration, I believe Mr. Kan will be well positioned to address the many challenges before the agency, including approving and funding important projects. Now that we have had to go through this multimonth process to have a cloture vote--again, the vote was just recorded; it was 87 to 9--I urge my colleagues to support his nomination to be Under Secretary for Transportation Policy at the Department of Transportation. Getting these important positions staffed and filled is long overdue, and it is high time the games and politics that are being played with these nominations come to an end. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it is a good day here in the Senate because today we released our tax reform legislation, and soon we hope to have a final bill on the President's desk. When you first think about coming to Washington to serve, you dream about fixing big problems and making a real difference in people's lives. Well, today we get to make a big difference. When I look at the Chamber, I hearken back to 1986, which was the last time tax reform was actually passed through the Senate and signed into law by the President. Senator Hatch, the chairman of our committee, was a Member of the Senate at that time; Senator McConnell, the Republican leader; Senator Grassley, whom you just heard from--they were all here to vote on that. I was here as a young staffer. At that time, I didn't have kids of my own, and today I am a grandfather. So a lot of time has passed, and tax reform is long overdue. The whole point of this exercise is to give hope to future generations of Americans, to give them a better opportunity at a better life, to improve their standard of living and their quality of life. In order for that to happen, we need to be taking the steps here and putting policies in place that will create the conditions that are favorable to economic growth and to the creation of better paying jobs and higher wages. Today we get to bring relief to the parents who are wondering if they will be able to afford a new car that they need to fit their growing family. Today we get to bring relief to the single mom who is wondering how she is going to pay the rent next month. As our colleague from South Carolina talked about, those parents and families who are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Today, we get to bring relief to the middle-aged couple worrying about a secure retirement, to the small business owner who doesn't know how he will meet his tax bill and still make his mortgage payment, to the family farmer who is worried that he will not be able to pass down his farm to his daughter. The comprehensive tax reform legislation we have introduced today will provide immediate, direct relief to hard-working Americans. It will immediately increase their take-home pay. It will immediately simplify the Tax Code so that it is easier for Americans to figure out what benefits they qualify for so they don't have to spend a lot of time and money filing their taxes. That is really just the beginning. Our bill is also going to reform the business side of the Tax Code to give Americans access to the jobs, the wages, and the opportunities that will set them up for a secure future. We are going to make it easier for small businesses to raise wages and to hire new workers. We are going to end the outdated tax framework that is driving American companies to keep jobs and profits overseas, and we are going to make it easier for companies to invest in American jobs and American workers. It has been a rough few years for our economy and for the American people. A lot of Americans haven't had a pay raise literally in almost a decade. But with this tax reform legislation, we can ensure that it doesn't stay that way. The American people deserve a tax code that works for them and not against them, that grows their paychecks instead of shrinking them, that expands their opportunities instead of eliminating them, and that is exactly what we are going to give them starting today. Mr. President, I yield the floor.