Floor Statements

Mr. President, I want to thank my friend, former roommate, and colleague in leadership for, as usual, his articulate and on-the-money remarks about the tax bill.

Mr. President, we have a long to-do list before the end of the year, and time is running short. We had hoped to make progress with the administration on these issues in a meeting this afternoon. Unfortunately, this morning, instead of leading, the President tweeted a blatantly inaccurate statement and then concluded: ``I don't see a deal.'' The President said: ``I don't see a deal'' three hours before our meeting, before he heard anything we had to say.

Given that the President doesn't see a deal between Democrats and the White House, Leader Pelosi and I believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress, instead. Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that will not result in an agreement from a President who doesn't see a deal, we have asked Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan to meet with us this afternoon.

We don't have any time to waste addressing the issues that confront us. So we are going to negotiate with Republican leaders who may actually be interested in reaching a bipartisan agreement. If the President, who already earlier this year said that ``our country needs a good shutdown,'' isn't interested in addressing the difficult-year agenda and wants to make the government shut down, we will work with those Republicans who are interested in funding the government, as we did in April.

We have so many things to do. We have to fund the government. We have DACA. We have the Children's Health Insurance Program. We must reinstate cost sharing for health premiums and out-of-pocket costs. We have to deal with disasters. We have to fund our defense and our nondefense sides of the government in a reasonable way. There is so much to do. We are eager to get that done in a bipartisan way. Obviously the President isn't, but hopefully Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan are, and we look forward to sitting down with them to resolve this in an amicable way, as we did in April. When the President wasn't involved, we got it done.

On the Republican tax bill, we are only a few days away from a final vote, but from all reports, the Republicans are still debating significant changes to the text of the bill. Some are angling for a change to the passthrough provisions, feeling that a gargantuan new tax loophole for many high-income individuals needs to be widened even further. Right now, it is reported that 70 percent of these passthroughs go to the top 1 percent. The changes that are being proposed would make it even worse.

Help small business, yes. Don't open a giant loophole for wealthy hedge funds, big-shot law firms, and lobbyists. We don't need that.

Others are rightly worried about the impact this bill would have on the deficit and debt. What I would remind my Republican colleagues is that, with any more changes, it is virtually certain you will be voting on a bill without any expert analysis of its impacts; you will be voting without any estimate of whether it will grow or shrink the economy; you will be voting without a good sense of the long-term impacts of the changes you are making to the Tax Code.

Certainly, 1 week of markup in the Finance Committee, with only one expert witness, is not a satisfactory process, particularly considering the changing nature of this bill. Changing the Tax Code in broad brush is a difficult thing. There are so many unintended consequences.

If our Republican colleagues should pass this bill and it becomes law--and I hope it won't--week after week, we are going to find new things in this bill--some intended, some not intended. The people who voted for it are going to regret it. The public will ask: Why didn't you know? With a tax bill, it is impossible to know all these things unless you let it sit out there in the Sun and bake so that people, experts from around the country--there are tens of thousands of tax lawyers paid to figure out ways around our Tax Code and help the wealthy, who are their clients. Unless you examine the bill carefully in sunlight, unless you have a lot of hearings, unless you hear from all kinds of witnesses, the result is usually quite bad for America, with so many unintended consequences.

Our Republican colleagues, in their rush to get a bill done, are legislating in an irresponsible way, especially when it comes to something as important and complex as the Tax Code. If the product were a great one, that would be one thing. We all know this is not a great product. We don't even hear our Republican colleagues bragging about this product, with a few exceptions. Everyone says this could be better, that could be better.

Every independent analysis has shown that the tax bill will end up raising taxes on millions of middle-class families, despite the early intentions of the President and Republican leaders. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 60 percent of middle-class families will see a tax increase--60 percent of middle-class families will see a tax increase--by the time the bill is fully implemented, while folks making over $1 million a year would get an average tax cut of over $40,000.

Some would say: Well, they are making more money; they should get a bigger tax break. No. I would like to take every dollar of that $40,000 a millionaire gets and give it to the middle class. They are the ones who need the help, not the wealthy people. They are the ones who buy the products and keep the economy humming. They are the ones who, throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, created the best economy America has ever had, not just the few millionaires. It is astounding.

If the President and Republicans in Congress set out to pass a middle-class tax cut, as they claim--if that is where they set out, this bill completely misses the mark. Meanwhile, the big winners--big corporations, the very wealthy--are doing great already. Estates worth over $11 million get a tax break? Why is that? Why is that, when average middle-class people are struggling? Corporations get a permanent reduction in their rates, while individual tax breaks expire after a few years. The bill would even open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because this tax bill wouldn't be complete unless they help Big Oil too.

All of this to saddle the next generation of Americans with larger deficits, even larger debt--something many of my friends on the other side of the aisle have labored against their whole

careers. We have heard so many speeches from the other side about deficit reduction. I think my colleagues were sincere. Why are they abandoning it now?

Every one of our colleagues knows that we could do a lot better job in a tax bill at reducing the deficit than we have here. From the very beginning, Democrats have told our Republican colleagues that we want to work with them on tax reform, we want to lower taxes on the middle class, we want to reduce burdens on small businesses, we want to erase the incentives that send jobs overseas and bring jobs back home, and we want to do all these things in a way that doesn't add to the deficit.

From the very beginning, Republicans have said to us: We are not interested in working with you. We are going to draft it ourselves and use reconciliation so we don't need your votes, and you can vote for our bill if you want.

That is not bipartisanship, what the Republican leadership has done.

I know there are some Republicans on the other side who wish we could work together. Well, we can. Today at 11 a.m., I think more than a dozen--certainly a large number of Democrats went to the Press Gallery and said: We want to work with our Republican colleagues to create a better bill.

They came and visited me last night. I encouraged them to do it. This leader--this leader--is not going to stand in the way of bipartisan reform that meets the goals we have talked about: helping the middle class, reducing the deficit, not unduly or in any way aiding the 1 percent.

Bipartisanship and compromise are very possible on tax reform. It is an issue crying out for a bipartisan solution. There are a lot of areas in which we agree. We have to work to find a middle ground that is acceptable to both parties. I daresay it would be a better bill for the American middle-class than the one we are looking at right now.

Finally and briefly, Mr. President, because I know my colleagues are waiting, on the Katsas nomination, the DC Circuit is often called the second most powerful court in the Nation because it adjudicates so many highly charged political issues, including cases that deal with the limits of Executive power and regulations issued by Federal agencies. As examples, major cases on climate regulations, the CFPB, and gun safety laws in the District of Columbia are now before that court. On such a court, we should prize independence and moderation and look warily at candidates with highly political backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Gregory Katsas has been intimately involved in a number of the most partisan and legally dubious Executive orders of the current administration. He was involved in the President's controversial travel ban, his decisions to terminate DACA, to end transgender service in the military, and to establish an election integrity commission based on the lie that 3.5 million people voted illegally in the last election.

His tenure and views in the Trump administration raise important questions about his independence and moderation, particularly on a court that will likely hear cases related to the very same issues he worked on in the White House. He appears to be another example of the Republican majority pushing judges from a political extreme of their party as a way of advancing their interests in lieu of a legislative agenda, which has floundered.

I will vote no on his nomination and urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded

Madam President, I welcome you and the Senator from Texas, and all of our colleagues, back after our Thanksgiving break. I had my parents, 94 and 89, at our Thanksgiving dinner with all of their children and grandchildren and cousins and ``thises and thats,'' so I have a lot to be thankful for. I am blessed to have my mom and dad see their whole family and be so happy about it.

But now, Madam President, we are back, and we have a lot of work to do before the end of the year and precious little time to do it. Funding for the government expires a week from this Friday. Eight hundred thousand Dreamers are waiting to hear whether they can live and work in the only country they have ever known. Almost 9 million children are waiting for us to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, and millions more are waiting for us to restore funding for community health centers--the most cost-effective, and often only, healthcare lots of people can get.

We also need to fund the cost-sharing program that holds down premiums and out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans because the administration refuses to do so. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are desperately in need of additional aid to recover from the natural disaster that God brought on them.

Also, the debt ceiling must be raised again, and in short order.

So we need to come to agreements on all of these issues, and quickly.

To that end, the four leaders will meet with the President tomorrow. Hopefully, we can make progress on an agreement that covers those time- sensitive issues and keeps the government running and working for the American people.

We could be working on all of these issues this week, but, instead, the majority is pursuing a partisan tax plan at a breakneck pace. Since the Republicans released their first draft of the tax bill a few weeks ago, we have had 1 week of markup in the Senate Finance Committee during which the bill shape-shifted on several occasions.

Aside from the testimony of one representative from the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Senate hasn't heard from any expert witness in a hearing room. Can my colleagues believe that? A major tax bill in front of the American people, changing lives dramatically--no expert witnesses, except the JCT witness. And the bill is likely to change drastically again on the floor of the Senate, with little time for Senators of either party to grapple with the consequences.

The Republicans are moving so fast, the Joint Tax Committee will not have time to produce a full analysis of the economic impact of the bill until after the bill is voted on. Is that backward--or what?

The Republican tax bill will affect every taxpayer and business in America, and my colleagues will not know many of its impacts before they vote on it.

Two things about this bill, however, seem certain. First, it will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families in every State of the Union. Second, it will explode the deficit. Every independent analysis of the Senate tax bill shows that millions of families making under $200,000 a year will eventually pay more, not less, in taxes under the Republican plan. The most recent Tax Policy Center analysis showed that about 60 percent of middle-class families--those making between $28,000 and $155,000--would see a tax increase at the end of the day. Most middle-class families, by the time the 10-year window is up, will see a tax increase of 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.

While middle-class people are struggling--they either get a small decrease in taxes or an increase--folks making over $1 million a year will get an average tax cut of over $40,000--more than many Americans make in a whole year.

The tax breaks for individuals all expire; the tax breaks for massive corporations are permanent. Because the individual mandate is repealed, the tax bill would cause 13 million fewer Americans to have health insurance; meanwhile, couples with estates worth over $11 million get a tax break.

This bill is terrible for the country. It is a massive transfer of wealth to the already wealthy. It would exacerbate inequality and set the middle class back at the worst possible time.

At the same time, it would increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion, at the very least. Some of my Republican friends are saying that future consequences will extend the middle-class tax breaks that are now set to expire. Well, that would increase the deficit even more significantly. You can't have it both ways. Either the bill socks it to the middle class or it blows a giant hole in the deficit--a ``Scylla and Charybdis.'' No one wants either. The tax bill gives us that awful choice.

Some of my Republican friends say the tax bill will unleash such economic growth that the tax cuts will pay for themselves and the deficit will evaporate. It is curious to me that those same Republicans are rushing the bill so fast through the Joint Committee on Tax that it will not have time to assess the economic impact. Of course, they are afraid of what it will say. They know it is going to say nothing close to what our Republican optimists are predicting. According to a former JCT economist: ``There is good reason to expect the estimate of current legislation will show less than flattering growth affects.'' So one has to wonder: Are the Republicans afraid that the experts will find that the Republican promises of economic growth are pure fantasy? It sure seems that way.

The majority shouldn't be ramming through such an ill-conceived, backward bill. They shouldn't be breaking all the traditions of this body--busting the deficit, hurting millions of middle-class families-- when there is so much potential agreement between our two parties on tax reform. We could come up with a good, bipartisan bill--not through reconciliation, through regular order--and we would all be the prouder for it.

We Democrats want to lower middle-class taxes. We Democrats want to reduce the burdens on small businesses. We Democrats want to encourage companies to locate jobs here instead of shipping them overseas, and we want to do all of these things in a deficit-neutral way. Those thoughts probably have a majority on each side of the aisle. It is a shame that the Republican leadership has chosen reconciliation, which means no regular order, no hearings, no sunlight, and no Democratic input into the bill. If Republicans turn their backs on a deeply flawed approach-- and I plead with the handful who haven't committed yet--we can work together on bipartisan tax reform that delivers real relief for everyone in the middle class.

Mr. President, as the Senate Finance Committee continues to mark up the Senate Republican tax bill, the House will take a vote this afternoon on their version of the bill.

There are plenty of reasons for House Republicans to vote against this bill. For those who care about deficits, you should vote no because the bill increases deficits by over $1.5 trillion, likely more. Any deficit hawk should be against this increase.

Any defense hawk should be wary of this bill for the same reason. High deficits make it harder to fund important priorities like the military. This morning, three former Defense Secretaries--Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter--penned a letter warning that the Republican tax plan could result, in their words, in a ``hollowed-out military force'' wracked by cuts to training, maintenance, flight missions, and other vital military programs.

I spoke to General Mattis yesterday. He is definitely afraid of a CR because a CR is at sequestration levels. If we pass this tax bill with its huge deficit, we will have no choice but to go back to sequestration, and the fears of our defense leaders that they cannot fund the military adequately will be very real. So my shout-out is to all of those who care about defense, particularly our defense hawks: If you vote for this bill, you are going to be voting for a ``hollowed out military force,'' as three former defense secretaries have written to us this morning.

For those House Republicans who represent middle and upper class suburban districts, you should vote no because this bill will raise taxes on a

high number of your constituents. Members of Congress from New York, New Jersey, Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia know that State and local deductibility is crucial to working families in their districts. Today, House Republicans in many districts will take a vote to raise taxes on their constituents. And the compromise--the first three-quarters of the break is rescinded even with the compromise over in the House, but, second, the Senate, so desperate for money, has not even included the compromise here. You can be sure when it comes back, that compromise will not be in the bill--certainly not as generous as it is now. It was not very generous to begin with.

According to the New York Times, the House bill would raise taxes on a third of middle-class taxpayers next year and almost half by 2027. The rich, meanwhile, will do just fine.

The Senate bill, similarly, would raise taxes on 20 million middle- class Americans by 2027. Meanwhile, folks making over $1 million will get an average cut of $50,000. People say: Well, they have more money; they should get a bigger tax cut. No. The wealthy are doing great. They don't need any tax cut. Give the money to the middle class.

The number of middle-class families who would lose money from this bill may even be higher now, considering the 10-percent increase in premiums that will occur as a result of the Republican plan to repeal the individual mandate. That 10-percent increase in health premiums could more than wipe out the tax cuts received by some folks in the middle. All the while, 13 million fewer Americans get health insurance.

My friend, Senator Graham, recently said: ``I hope every Republican knows that when you pass a repeal of the individual mandate . . . [healthcare] becomes your problem.'' Lindsey Graham is very politically pressured. He is telling his Republican colleagues that if they do this, every problem in healthcare will be on their backs.

The whole idea of taking money from the pockets of hard-working Americans, of taking money out of their healthcare and giving it to big corporations and those at the very top is so backward, so wrong, that the American people will reject it, and the blame will fall on Republican shoulders. If the Republican tax bill should pass, it would make our economy, so unfairly tilted toward the top as it already is, even more unbalanced and unfair.

Over the past three decades, as technology has changed our economy and our world has become ever more interdependent, our economy has grown. Yes, it has grown; there is a lot of growth. But that growth, more than at any time in history, has been captured entirely, almost, by big corporations and the top 1 percent and particularly the top 0.1 percent of our country. We don't begrudge them. We are glad people work hard. With new ideas and hard work, people should become wealthy, but they don't need a tax break.

At the same time, middle-class families have muddled along. Median income has barely nudged up in three decades. The costs of college, healthcare, prescription drugs, cable, and the internet have skyrocketed as corporations have consolidated in their industries, reducing competition and driving up prices.

For the middle-class families in the suburbs, for the working parent in the city, for the young millennials just setting off into the workforce after college, for the single mom raising two children, it is about as hard as ever to balance your income with ever-rising costs. In such an economy, tax reform could really matter to those folks, but only if it is done right.

Instead of focusing all their efforts on improving the condition of those working Americans, Republicans have directed the lion's share of the benefits to the already wealthy, the already powerful--corporate America and the very rich.

There is perhaps no better example than President Trump and his family, for whom this bill would be an express mail gift from Heaven: Repealing the estate tax, they have a big one; repealing the alternative minimum tax--the Trumps pay a lot of alternative minimum tax; dropping the rate on passthrough entities like the Trump Organization, a huge tax break for Donald Trump.

So scrapping middle-class deductions while maintaining loopholes for real estate businesses, golf course owners--who do you think came up with this plan? Not the average middle-class guy or gal. All of these things contained in the House Republican bill would likely pile more on top of President Trump's fortune while millions and millions of middle- class families end up paying more.

I am not sure any family in America feels it is right to subsidize tax cuts for folks like President Trump and his family, and their voices will be heard during the debate on this bill and afterward.

This bill will be a huge burden for Republicans to carry on their backs over the next year, make no mistake about it. So we hope they will vote down the bill in the House and in the Senate. I want to assure my friends in the Senate on the other side of the aisle that if the bill goes down, Democrats are ready, willing, able, and eager to work with Republicans on a bipartisan reform.

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

Mr. President, the Republican tax plan, even before yesterday, would exacerbate income inequality at a time when it is already spiraling out of control, helping the rich get richer and big corporations get bigger while the middle class is left stuck in neutral. Many millions of middle-class families would wind up paying higher taxes at the end of the day--13 million in 2019 and 20 million in 2027--under the Senate plan.

That is the wrong approach for our economy. It betrays the American worker and the American family, who deserve tax relief, because it concentrates more of our country's wealth at the very top--just what the American people don't want, but so many of those who fund the Republican Party do. For most of my colleagues and most of the American people, that is reason enough to oppose the bill, and the American people do, by large numbers.

But yesterday Republicans made two last-minute changes to their bill that make it even worse. First, Republicans decided to throw the mother of all monkey wrenches into the bill: repealing the individual mandate. My friend the majority leader called this provision ``helpful'' to the bill because it raises revenue. I would remind him and all of my Republican colleagues that

the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it would lead to 13 million fewer Americans with health insurance. So we are taking 13 million people off of health insurance to give tax cuts to the wealthy.

Also, according to CBO, it would lead to a 10-percent increase in premiums. Each year, they would be 10 percent higher than they otherwise would be. So the Republican bill says: Raise the premiums on average Americans' healthcare by 10 percent so we can give the wealthy a tax cut.

This is the same thing they did in the healthcare bill until the public outrage forced them to back off, and, of course, it lost. Now they are doing it again because the Republican belief is to reduce the healthcare safety net for middle-class Americans so they can give more tax cuts to the wealthiest and most powerful amongst us.

If Republicans had their way, younger, healthier people would flee the market, making the risk pool older and sicker. If you are 50 to 64, this is very bad news for you. That is why the AARP is against this bill and yesterday denounced the new change.

I would remind my Republican colleagues that the provision raises $400 billion in revenues because it throws Americans off insurance, and $179 billion alone is saved because people wouldn't sign up for Medicaid. So the Republican bill takes $400 billion out of help for healthcare and gives it to the wealthy and the powerful for even more tax breaks. Does any American support that? A handful maybe, but it seems a lot of people in this Chamber might.

So when the Republicans say this provision in their bill is helpful, they don't mean it is helpful to Americans. It may help Republicans in the Senate give a larger tax break to the rich, but it hurts millions of Americans seeking affordable health insurance. Many will lose insurance. Many more will pay an increase in their premiums, while our colleagues have always promised to make premiums lower.

One other point. I have heard some on the other side say they would be willing to pass the bipartisan Alexander-Murray health compromise as sort of a salve after they repeal the individual mandate. I am here to tell my colleagues that won't work. You don't attempt to blow up the healthcare system and then say: We are going to make a few tweaks to make it better. We are not falling for that, and my Republicans friends shouldn't, either. They are completely contradictory ideas. Alexander- Murray is meant to stabilize markets and lower premiums; the Republican plan destabilizes markets and raises premiums in a way that Alexander- Murray could never repair.

Furthermore, Alexander-Murray would not survive under the rules of reconciliation. Too many of its provisions are under the HELP Committee, not the Finance Committee, so anyone who thinks they can justify the changes the majority leader has said he will put in the bill by saying: OK. We will then pass Murray-Alexander, is wrong on the substance and wrong on the politics because it will not pass.

When Alexander-Murray was negotiated, it was in good faith by the chairman and ranking member of the HELP Committee as a compromised healthcare bill. Republicans cannot expect to pass their own separate ideological healthcare provision and then turn around and ask Democrats to vote to pass Murray-Alexander. Again, you can't create major injury to the healthcare system and hurt millions, and then say: Please give us a bandaid. That is not what is going to happen. That is not the right thing to do.

Any Republican Senator who thinks they can pass the individual mandate and then turn around and get Murray-Alexander passed is dead wrong. It is clear the dark tradeoff at the center of the Republican policy agenda is back--cutting healthcare in order to fund tax giveaways to the very wealthy and very powerful. Democrats will not go for it. So that is one reason this provision is a bad one.

The second change the Republicans made to their tax bill was to have many of their tax provisions for individuals expire while corporate tax breaks remained permanent. With this new proposal, Republicans have put themselves between a rock and a hard place. The provisions that help individuals--and not enough middle-class folks were helped--expire by 2025. The corporate tax cuts to the wealthiest of corporations above all are permanent.

Why did our colleagues do this? For one, they favor the big corporate, powerful interests over the middle class, but the second is, they had a huge deficit problem. They had to figure out where to reduce the deficit, and so they took it out on the crumbs they gave to the middle class in the earlier years in this bill.

One of two things will happen. Some of our Republican colleagues are saying, ``Don't worry. We will extend the middle-class tax cuts after 2025,'' but that will create a huge deficit. So I say to my colleagues--particularly the deficit hawks--you can't have it both ways. You cannot say we are going to protect the middle class after 2025, and we are going to reduce the deficit. This bill is a deficit budget buster. We all know what will happen. We all know the deficit will skyrocket after 2025. We can't allow the sort of tricks that are put into this bill to dissuade us from the fact that this bill dramatically will increase the deficit.

There are two problems with this tax bill. One is inside the confines of the bill, and one is with the public after the bill passes--should it pass, which I think it will not. Inside the bill, as I mentioned, Republicans are stuck between raising taxes on millions of middle-class families or busting the deficit. There is no choice. You can't have it both ways. The bill is a dramatic exposition of being between a rock and a hard place. There are two choices the bill gives people: raise taxes on the middle class or dramatically increase the deficit.

Outside the bill, with the public, Republicans have a dilemma as well. If they don't pass the bill, they look feckless and unable to govern--and that is what is motivating most of my colleagues--but if they pass the bill, there is going to be public outrage, and they are going to pay a real price in 2018. They know it.

Outside the bill, the Republicans have two bad choices too. Outside the confines of the bill, in broad-brush strokes, our Republican colleagues can fail to pass the bill and look unable to govern or they can pass the bill--dramatically unpopular--and pay a price at the polls. These are not enviable choices. They are a Gordian knot that my Republican friends will not be able to slip out of. If they pull on one part of the knot, they tighten another part of it.

The reason my colleagues are caught in this lose-lose situation is, they have elected time and time again to eschew bipartisanship. Passing legislation of this magnitude with the votes of one party is divisive and demanding. A small number--say the Freedom Caucus--can demand almost all the tax breaks go to the very wealthy or they will not vote for the bill. That gives the rest of the Republicans a difficult choice: hurt the middle class or blow a hole in the deficit.

On the other hand, if our Republican colleagues had worked with us, that Freedom Caucus would have no say. They wouldn't have the votes to kill the bill because there would be lots of Democratic support.

Passing legislation of this magnitude, with votes of only one party is divisive and demanding. It has meant Republicans have produced legislation that appeals to only a small number of Americans, and, probably in their heart of hearts, even a minority of Republicans. We are a fiercely divided country. Legislation that is crafted to appease the extremes of only one political party is never going to be broadly popular with the American people and, frankly, will not work.

That is why we should pursue bipartisan legislation, both parties accepting the credit of success and the blame of failure. The American people are clamoring for us to work together in such a fashion, and working together doesn't mean a bill crafted behind closed doors under reconciliation, which basically says to Democrats: Take a hike. We don't need you.

I say to my Republican friends, there is a way out of this mess, and it is simple: reject your Faustian bargains and come to work with Democrats on a real bipartisan reform bill. You will not have to choose between blowing up the deficit and hurting the middle class. You will not have to choose between unpopular legislation and legislative

failure. Just like Alexander-Murray proved, we can produce legislation on the thorniest of issues that will receive bipartisan support and improve the conditions of working and middle-class Americans.

Why don't we give this a try on tax reform as well--because the choices you are giving yourself now, you will regret.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, let me thank my dear friend and colleague from Illinois. As I have always maintained, he is one of the most articulate and eloquent Members of this Senate, on either side of the aisle, and it is a joy to listen to him--not the subject but the way he articulates it, the subject we are interested in but not happy about, which is the tax bill.

Now, Mr. President, Senator McConnell always comes down and says: I hope the Democrats will join us in the tax reform bill. Mr. Leader, Mr. Republican leader, we want to join you, but that doesn't mean you write a bill behind closed doors and then say support it.

The way we have done tax reform successfully in the past--I was there in 1986--is Democrats and Republicans sat down together and came up with a bill that maybe a few in each party wouldn't support, but the mainstreams of both parties would. It avoids the secrecy. It also avoids one or two Members saying: Unless I get this, I am not going to be for the bill--which pulls the bill in many different directions.

So, Mr. Leader, yes, Democrats do want to join this, but it is totally disingenuous, not honest of you, to say that without letting us sit at the table, without letting us see the bill. So let's knock it off. You want to do a bill with just Republicans, fine. You tried it with healthcare. You are trying it with tax reform. It is a lose-lose. You will either not pass the bill or you will pass the bill that was enshrouded in secrecy that will have so many problems every Republican who votes for it will regret it.

Yesterday's markup in the Finance Committee indicated the same thing. The markup of the Republican tax bill wasn't the actual bill. It was ``a preliminary draft.'' How do we know it wasn't the real bill? Well, today the Finance Committee has notified us that instead of continuing the markup as usual, the committee will recess after a morning session because the Republicans are not ready with their replacement bill--the real one.

This is crazy. The President, who doesn't know what is in the bill-- we all know that--has set an arbitrary deadline, and to meet that deadline, our Republican colleagues are sacrificing the integrity of the process and the quality of the bill.

We are 2 days into a markup, halfway, and Democrats haven't even seen a real bill yet. In their desperate rush to get this bill through Congress, Republicans started by marking up a bill that is not even the one they intended to pass. It is a bait and switch. It is the perfect example of the problem with rushing a bill of this magnitude through Congress.

Republicans can't keep up with their own reckless, breakneck pace, and they are going to have to delay the markup. This same problem is going to repeat itself over and over again on issues of greater complexity and consequence.

What happens when Republicans realize their new international tax regime encourages scores of new tax savings and avoidance schemes? What happens if the independent analysts say their new loophole for passthrough businesses doesn't have enough guardrails? What happens if the House and Senate are unable to reconcile their disparate approaches to slashing State and local deductions?

In the New York Times this morning--I commend all my Republican colleagues to read it--they identified new potential problems in this Republican tax bill, problems the writers hadn't thought about, but corporate lawyers by the dozens, by the scores, by the hundreds will find a way to walk through these loopholes, even though our Republican colleagues didn't intend those loopholes to exist. You can be sure that for every 1 of these loopholes, these misadventures, the Times identified, there are 5 or 10 more lurking in the print, in the fine print. The only question is whether our Republican colleagues find them now or find them out later when it is too late after the bill passes.

Instead of rushing through a bill of such enormous complexity, sunlight is the great fermenter of this type of legislation. If it lies out there for a little while, people come in and say: This is wrong or that is wrong. Those will be individuals, those will be pundits, those will be the companies our Republican friends are trying to help. They will say: Wait a minute; this doesn't quite work because no one has had a chance to really see it, examine it, and let it stew.

Now we are asked for other significant changes. What happens if, as we have seen, every few days President Trump tweets, asking the Republicans to change their bill, and this time they repeal the individual mandate and drop the top rate, as he asked them to do yesterday? Each of these decisions has enormous, drastic consequences for American families and American industries.

President Trump's crazy idea to repeal the individual mandate as a part of this bill, according to CBO, would boot 13 million people from the health insurance rolls and cause premiums to skyrocket, all to pay for a bigger tax cut at the top bracket--the wealthiest people in America. What a toxic idea. Are any Republicans going to go home and campaign on that? We are going to get rid of the individual mandate, kick 13 million people off healthcare, and raise premiums so we can lower the top rate when no one--no one but the hard right--is clamoring for it?

Income distribution is a problem in America. We all admit that we have different solutions for it. So be it. But I haven't heard, as I did in the 1980s, 1990s, or even the early 2000s, a clamoring to lower the top rate, even among those who pay it. They know they are doing well. Wealth has gone way up in America, and it has gone to the top. That is not what we need. It is a toxic idea. Yet Republicans may have to consider adding it to the bill to placate a restless and uninformed President, who, we all know, knows very little of what is in this bill. He just tweets. Somehow our Republican colleagues, instead of ignoring the tweets, pay attention to too many of them.

Yesterday, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said that they would not be able to properly analyze the effects of the Republican tax bill in the time they have planned for it. So we are not even having the JCT--nonpartisan, respected for decades--analyze the bill before we are going to vote on it in the committee and maybe on the floor.

Again, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate will ask their Members to vote on a major bill without knowing the consequences. In no world is this proper legislative procedure. No party has ever done this before--Democrats, Republicans, Whigs, Anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, Federalists. We have never seen this before. It is so wrong.

We see so many things that ail this country, and I have to say a lot of them stem from the top--from the President. Yet our Republican colleagues are still fearful of ignoring him, of not listening to ideas they know are ludicrous.

The rush is because my Republican friends, fearful of the President and his self-imposed deadline, are trying to hide a bill that would transfer even more wealth to the superwealthy while raising taxes on millions of middle-class Americans.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, of all taxpayers making less than $200,000 a year, 13 million would see a tax hike in 2019, and 20 million would see a tax hike by 2027. Both Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan said that they would not raise middle-class taxes. They had to back off. For working Americans who do get a tax cut, the average is so small compared to what folks at the top are getting. Americans making $40,000 to $50,000 a year get an average cut of $480, while folks making over $1 million will get a tax cut of $50,000--100 times more than what working families get. They can say: Well, that is because the wealthy are richer. But that is not what we need in America right now. The wealthy are getting wealthier. They are doing fine, even under the present

tax regime. Middle-class people's median income has been going down over the last decade. It is harder for middle-class people to average-- it shouldn't be OK for them to get $500 and the wealthy to get $50,000. We ought to be directing the tax cuts at the middle class.

Republicans--Trump's organization--had an ad on TV. They said that wealthy people's tax rates remain the same, while the middle class gets a cut. That is false advertising because, when we compare apples to apples, the wealthy get a much larger cut than the middle-class people.

We have known for weeks that the longer this bill is in effect, the worse it gets for the middle class. To stay within deficit numbers, the JCT confirmed that under the revised House bill, entire middle-income groups will see a tax hike, on average, just a few years down the road. Speaker Ryan and other Republicans say that those tax hikes will not happen because future Congresses will extend certain tax breaks in perpetuity. If that is true, all the deficit hawks ought to pay attention. There is a gigantic hidden cost to the bill if we are going to make these tax cuts temporary in this bill and then make them permanent.

The scores this week will say that these bills blow a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit over the next decade. That is bad enough. But if a bunch of breaks, deductions, and expansions that are now temporary are made permanent, as the Speaker says they will be, the real cost will be hundreds of billions, if not trillions, more. All of my Republican friends who care about the deficit should be wary of this gain.

We do need permanence. We need corporate America in particular to be relying on a permanent change. But you can't do a permanent change without blowing a hole in the deficit, so you do a temporary change. There is a simple solution, which, if Democrats and Republicans work together, we could do: Close corporate loopholes, lower the top rate, keep the corporate reduction deficit-neutral and permanent. My guess is most corporate leaders would prefer that. They would prefer less of a tax decrease and more permanence because you can't build a factory or make a major investment if you know that the decrease is going to vanish.

We shouldn't be rushing through such an ill-conceived, backward bill--breaking the fine traditions of this body, busting the deficit, breaking the backs of millions of middle-class families, making the funding of defense far more difficult when there is so much agreement between our two parties on tax reform. On healthcare, it is hard to agree; the visions are diametrically opposed. But on tax reform, that is not true. Our Republican friends are just bollixing this up. Somehow they had in their heads that they had to do it through reconciliation. They had to do it without Democrats, and the result is a very poor product that most Americans already don't like and even more will not like as they learn more about it.

We all want to reduce the burden on small businesses. We all want to encourage companies to locate jobs here. We could put together a bill that does those things. This bill doesn't.

If Republicans turn their backs on this deeply flawed approach, my commitment to so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle-- who I know are squirming about this bill--is that we will come together and put a good bill together that a majority of both parties can support--both parties. That is how it ought to be done.

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

Madam President, I am going to spend the bulk of my time this afternoon focusing on the tax plan, but first I must address President Trump's trip to Asia.

Without exaggeration, the President's trip to Asia has been one of the most embarrassing foreign trips a President has taken in my memory. It shows when it comes to foreign policy, President Trump is not ready for prime time.

After a campaign in which he routinely criticized China--rightly, in my opinion--for rapacious trading practices that have stolen American jobs and depressed American wages, President Trump went to China and gave them a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead of speaking sternly and truthfully to the Chinese leaders about the realities of our unbalanced and unfair trade system--where we play by the rules, and they do not; we lose jobs, they gain them--President Trump tried to appease the Chinese and their leader.

Instead of demanding concessions on trade, instead of demanding the same equal access to markets we provide Chinese firms, instead of addressing the sordid history of intellectual property theft and extortion, President Trump was eager to let China off the hook, saying it was ``not their fault'' but rather the failure of American Presidents. Imagine blaming America for the Chinese trade imbalance and letting China get off scot-free. Is that putting America first?

President Xi flattered President Trump, and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. From each of his interactions with President Xi, President Trump has only gotten flattery, pomp, and circumstance but nothing for the American worker--nothing.

If he keeps this approach up with a growing economic power like China, President Trump will be the author of a new international reality: America second.

Concerning the situation on the Korean Peninsula, instead of working toward a new meaningful understanding of how to best deal with North Korea, President Trump traded petty barbs with the President of North Korea on Twitter. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine if this was the way Roosevelt behaved toward Stalin or Eisenhower toward Khrushchev or Kennedy toward Castro. This is below the dignity of the Office of President of the United States, and it erodes America's power in the world.

Worst of all, again, President Trump seemed to instinctively accept the word of President Putin against 17 U.S. intelligence agencies about whether Russia interfered in our election. We know that Russia interfered with our elections. Our entire intelligence community--17 agencies--has concluded it. Why does President Trump continue to give President Putin the benefit of the doubt while discrediting and demeaning American intelligence officers? It is shameful, unpatriotic-- deeply unpatriotic--and he only halfheartedly walked back his comment after the fact. Every American should wonder why President Trump goes to such great lengths to avoid criticizing President Putin.

After 8 years of Republicans questioning President Obama's toughness with foreign leaders--an attack that I give no credence to by repeating--it seems that President Trump, not President Obama, is the one who is afraid to take on America's adversaries. He forgives China and cozies up to President Putin.

For the steelworker in Ohio or in Upstate New York whose job is on the line

because China is dumping cheap steel and aluminum into our markets, that is not good enough. For every American concerned about the sanctity of our elections, that is not good enough. When it comes to standing up for the needs of the American worker, for American firms, and for American consumers, when it comes to standing up for American democracy, this President needs to wake up and toughen up.