Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Levin) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, before I speak on a different topic, let me acknowledge my colleague and friend from Iowa and thank him for a lifetime of service in the House of Representatives and the Senate. He has announced his retirement at the end of this year. That is a loss for our great institution and for our country.

Tom Harkin, more than any other Senator today, as much as any other Senator, has been a clarion voice for the disabled across generations and across country borders for decades. He has changed America and he has changed the world. There are not many people who serve in this Chamber who can say that. But when he joined with Bob Dole, a Republican World War II disabled veteran from Kansas--when this Democratic Senator from Iowa, a Navy veteran himself, joined with Bob Dole and passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, it held America to a higher standard. It guaranteed that our values we express so often would be values we live by.

Now he is calling on us to join a family of nations that have admired our leadership in disability rights and wonder why we have not approved this basic treaty or convention on disabilities. I was honored today to vote for that in the Foreign Relations Committee again. We had bipartisan support. We are going to continue to strive for it.

I thank the Senator for his unmatched contribution when it comes to speaking out for the disabled across America and around the world.

The Tax Code

Dickens wrote ``A Tale of Two Cities.'' I come to the Senate floor this evening to tell a tale of two Illinois corporations. One of them is a corporation which I visited recently called Wheatland Tube in Chicago. It is a division of JMC Steel. It employs about 2,000 people nationwide, 600 in Chicago, which I represent. JMC Steel is a good company. It is more than good; it is a great company. The average starting wage at Wheatland is $15 an hour. The company offers generous health care benefits with low deductibles. It offers various retirement benefits. Newer employees get a 401(k) with a company match up to 6 percent.

I tell this story because I want to salute a company that takes its mission seriously and treats its employees fairly. I believe a company such as JMC Steel and Wheatland should be encouraged and rewarded when it comes to our Tax Code and our laws.

We are hearing a lot from our Supreme Court across the street. They have come up with a new theory about businesses and corporations in America. Time and again they have told us that they now view corporations to be virtual flesh-and-blood citizens entitled to constitutional rights. They decided corporations have freedom of speech under the Bill of Rights and that corporations could spend unlimited amounts of money in an effort to elect or defeat candidates. They even went so far to say closely held corporations had religious freedoms that needed protection to the point where the owner of a closely held for-profit corporation could determine the contraception and birth control programs available to the employees of that company under their health insurance plans.

So we are told over and over by this Supreme Court that we should view corporations in a human context. Well, I am going to stick with that chain of thought for a moment and talk about another company that is much different from Wheatland Tube, which I have just described. It is a company known as AbbVie. That is the new name; it used to be known as Abbott Labs. It is roughly the eighth largest pharmaceutical company in America. It is headquartered in Illinois, in the city of North Chicago. AbbVie recently made the news because its board of directors sat down and made a decision about the future of this company.

First, let me tell you a little bit about AbbVie as a pharmaceutical company. AbbVie is a company which, like virtually every other pharmaceutical company, relies a great deal on our Federal Government. The National Institutes of Health--the leading biomedical research agency in the world--does basic research that our pharmaceutical companies use to develop new drugs and products. We pray that they will. When they find these drugs and products, pharmaceutical companies such as AbbVie go to the patent office run by our Federal Government to protect their property rights in their discoveries and their drugs. When they turn around to sell these drugs in America, after approval by a Federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration, they by and large sell them to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid--government- supported insurance programs.

The reason I tell this background is that AbbVie recently made a decision that they were going to renounce their American corporate citizenship and, in fact, at least on paper, move their corporate headquarters to an island off Ireland. Why would a great American corporation, the eighth largest pharmaceutical company, want to pick up and move to an island off Ireland? To avoid paying U.S. taxes. To avoid paying U.S. taxes, AbbVie is engaging in something known as inversion-- in other words, relocating their corporate headquarter offices and declaring themselves to no longer be an American corporation. Does it not strike you as strange that a company that makes billions of dollars in profit based on America and the strength of our own system of government now is deserting America?

This inversion is not unique to AbbVie. We estimate that 50 or 60 corporations are doing the same. I think it is time for us as Members of Congress to put an end to this. These companies that are deserting America and heading overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes have to be stopped.

Allan Sloan, whom I have heard a lot on radio and other places, is a writer for Fortune magazine. On July 7 he published an article in Fortune magazine entitled ``Positively un-American tax dodges.''

I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record after my remarks.

Let me quote one paragraph from Allan Sloan about these ``Positively un-American tax dodges,'' such as the inversion planned by AbbVie of North Chicago. Here is what Sloan writes:

Inverters don't hesitate to take advantage of the great

things that make America

America: our deep financial markets, our democracy and rule

of law, our military might, our intellectual and physical

infrastructure, our national research programs, all the

terrific places our country offers for employees and their

families to live. But inverters do hesitate--totally--when

it's time to ante up their fair share of financial support

for our system.

Exhibit A: AbbVie, a company that has been profitable and made billions of dollars in America, now wants to lessen its American tax bill by moving overseas--on paper.

I think this has to come to an end. I think that when we sit down and make decisions about a tax code and tax policy, we need to be rewarding companies such as Wheatland Tube. Wheatland Tube, with 600 employees in Chicago, is an American corporation and proud of it. They are not planning on moving overseas. They are not trying to cut corners when it comes to their employees. They are treating them fairly. They are getting a good work product for it.

What I propose is called a patriot employer's tax. If you have a corporation that is, in my view, patriotic, with its headquarters in America, that has not moved employees overseas, that pays its employees at least $15 an hour--why did I pick $15? Because at $15 an hour, most American workers would not qualify for government benefits.

Perhaps the WIC program is one exception, but the only one I can think of. But these are employees who are paid enough in the workplace that they don't qualify for food stamps to supplement their income. So we chose $15 an hour. We said if the company goes on to provide good health insurance, a good retirement plan, where the employer contributes at least 5 percent of an employee's income toward retirement, and the company will give a preference to hiring veterans, I think that company is entitled to a patriot employer tax credit. Wheatland Tube isn't the only company in Illinois that would qualify nor the only company in this country.

So should we be bending our Tax Code today so AbbVie and the other corporate deserters get a break by moving overseas or should we be changing our Tax Code to encourage good companies, such as Wheatland Tube, to stay in America, to pay a fair wage, to make a good product and make us proud. It seems a pretty simple choice as far as I am concerned. We are going to start debating that on the floor of the Senate this week--at least we are going to try.

There is going to be a bill coming before us that has been offered by Senator John Walsh of Montana and Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan called the Bring Jobs Home Act. It is a variation on the theme that I just spoke of, but the bottom line is the same--to create Tax Code incentives for companies to bring jobs back into the United States. I can't think of a higher priority than to create and keep good-paying jobs in America.

We are going to vote on moving forward on this bill, creating an incentive to bring jobs home.

Here is what it will do. If a company moves a production line, trade or business outside of the United States back into the United States, it is eligible for a tax credit under the Walsh-Stabenow bill--a credit for the cost of moving the jobs back home.

To pay for it, companies that ship jobs overseas--jobs going in the wrong direction--will no longer be allowed to deduct the costs associated with outsourcing U.S. jobs from their tax bill.

Why would we want to incentivize a company to ship American jobs overseas? Why would we want to create a deduction to make it easier and cheaper to do that? It defies common sense.

The Walsh-Stabenow bill reverses it and says we will no longer incentivize shipping jobs overseas; we are going to incentivize shipping jobs home from overseas. It is pretty simple.

I would like to take that basic question to any town meeting in any town in my State and ask the folks sitting there whether they think that makes sense. I am very confident they will agree that it does. This is a commonsense approach to reward companies that are doing the right thing and eliminate tax breaks for companies that are doing the wrong thing.

The patriot employer tax credit I hope I can offer as an amendment. I want to give a break to those companies that pay a good wage, keep the jobs in the United States, and don't ship their headquarters overseas. I think they deserve an incentive to stay.

I guess I am old-fashioned, but a lot of Americans are old-fashioned the same way.

I like walking into the store and seeing products that say ``Made in the U.S.A.'' Sure, I buy things made overseas. It is hard to avoid them. And I don't consciously avoid them. But given a choice, I would love to see the ``Made in the U.S.A.'' label on these products so I have a choice to make this country stronger. That is what the Walsh- Stabenow bill does. That is what the Patriot Employer Tax Credit Act does. And that is what we need to do when it comes to these inversions.

There was an article that was printed in Fortune magazine after Allan Sloan's article on July 15 the following week. It quoted a man whom I have come to know and once worked with in Chicago. His name is Jamie Dimon. Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

It turns out JPMorgan Chase is the investment adviser to AbbVie, the company I mentioned earlier. They have been advising them about moving overseas to avoid tax liability.

Mr. Dimon, in this Fortune magazine piece said: `` . . . it was inappropriate for anyone to moralize against deals in which U.S. companies seek lower tax rates through mergers.''

And then he went on to say ``an inversion.'' He characterized moving your corporate headquarters overseas to avoid taxes as basically saying it is an acknowledgment how bad our Tax Code is today. It is a way of protesting what the Tax Code is doing to corporations.

Our Tax Code today has resulted in the highest corporate profits in history. Our Tax Code today has resulted in paychecks for Mr. Dimon and other CEOs unparalleled in the history of the world. For Mr. Dimon and the corporate CEOs to argue about this unfair Tax Code as a reason or rationale for picking up and deserting America doesn't square with the reality of corporate compensation or corporate profits.

Some people critical of what I have spoken to today will say: Well, now, don't go picking winners and losers in the Tax Code.

I have news for you. The Tax Code is all about picking winners and losers. Sadly, the losers too many times are working families in this country and the winners are the people in higher-income categories and the largest corporations.

Look at what the Tax Code incentivizes. It incentivizes drilling for oil, building wind turbines. It incentivizes holding stock for a longer period rather than a shorter period. It incentivizes saving for your retirement. It incentivizes buying health insurance. The Tax Code is full of incentives.

So let's rewrite that Tax Code. Let's create an incentive to keep jobs in America. Let's create an incentive to make sure that companies which pay a fair wage and make sure their operations are good for working people get a tax break, and let's disincentivize the effort to move American jobs overseas and to move American corporate offices overseas.

That to me is a Tax Code with the right incentives for building not only a strong American economy with good-paying jobs here at home but building our middle class and our working Americans into a strong entity, a strong force for progress and economic growth.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the articles I referred to earlier.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill), and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, I rise to address the horrific series of events which have occurred in Eastern Ukraine within the last week. The shooting down of a civilian Malaysian airliner and the killing of 298 innocent people is an unspeakable tragedy and one that, frankly, speaks out for us to address in terms of the responsibility.

In this situation in Eastern Ukraine there are armed thugs who are in control of the territory where this plane was shot down. They have been armed, financed, and inspired by Vladimir Putin and the Russians. That is the grim reality. All signs point to the fact that Putin, the Russians, and their supporters in Eastern Ukraine are responsible for this terrible tragedy--the loss of 298 lives.

I was in Ukraine a few weeks ago with Senator McCain and others, and it was at a time when Crimea was about to fall. It was clear then the Ukrainians did not have the capacity to stop this effort by Putin to take over territory--and he did. Then that wasn't enough. He had to reach into Eastern Ukraine for even more territory, stirring up problems, creating havoc, and, sadly, bloodshed in the process.

It is bad enough the Ukrainian citizens themselves were victims, but now 298 innocent people on a civilian airliner were shot down over this territory. As I have said, the evidence points directly to Moscow and its complicity in this horrible event.

This is a photo which has been distributed showing pro-Russian separatists holding up some of the personal effects of the victims of the Malaysian airline flight that was shot down. What is happening there since the crash is also nothing short of horrific.

At this moment in time in virtually any other place in the world, save perhaps North Korea, international inspectors would be on the scene determining the cause of that plane's crash and, of equal or even greater importance, making certain the recovery effort of the victims of this crash was done by the standards of civilized nations. But the Eastern Ukrainian separatists, inspired by Putin and Moscow, have refused to allow these people in.

What we are hearing in reports is horrible. The corpses of these victims are being taken and placed in refrigerator cars on trains. Imagine the anguish of the families associated with those victims as they hear this--a loved one shot out of the sky in a civilian airliner apparently because of some folly by Eastern Ukrainian, Russian-inspired thugs and now they cannot even recover the remains of the people they love--let alone a serious objective investigation about the cause of that crash.

It is hard to imagine that Vladimir Putin could let it reach this point and harder still to imagine that he doesn't own up to his responsibility. It is horrifying that we have reached this point where this terribly tragic scene goes from bad to worse as Putin's thugs go through the personal effects of the people who were shot down.

There is a list of those who were lost. I know the Presiding Officer from the State of Indiana has a particular attachment to one of the victims--this one--Karlijn Keijzer, a student at Indiana University. This was well publicized in the Midwest--that we lost this beautiful woman, a victim of this tragic crash.

There were more--297 more--who died. They included Quinn Lucas Schansman, a 19-year-old U.S.-Dutch citizen who was born in the United States but whose family moved back to the Netherlands when he was young. He was on his way to visit his grandfather in Indonesia.

This is Joep Lange, a renowned Dutch AIDS researcher traveling with his partner to the International AIDS conference in Australia.

I mentioned Karlijn Keijzer, doctoral student at Indiana University in Bloomington. She was going on vacation with her boyfriend when this plane was shot down.

Sister Philomene Tiernan was a 77-year-old Roman Catholic nun who was returning to her school in Australia where she had taught thousands of students over her 30-year vocation.

Andrei Anghel, 24, was a Canadian medical student going on vacation with his girlfriend.

Sri Siti Amirah, an 83-year-old, was step-grandmother of Malaysia's prime minister. She was heading to Indonesia to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Shazana Salleh, 31 years old, was a flight attendant on the plane. Her father told the media this was her dream, to be a flight attendant.

And this heartbreaking photo is of Shuba Jaya, 38 years old, Paul Goes, and their 1-year-old daughter Kaela. Shuba was a Malaysian actress, her husband a Dutch businessman. They were returning to Malaysia from Holland after showing their daughter to her husband's parents.

These victims of Mr. Putin's recklessness and their grieving families deserve more than the tragic and revolting actions occurring now in Eastern Ukraine. The Russian people--not the leadership but the people of Russia--deserve better.

The Russian people have a proud history of accomplishment in so many different fields. But President Putin has created a climate of fear in his country, where those who dissent to his policies will be punished. His use of Soviet-style propaganda and intimidation, shutting down of independent media and voices, and his strong-arming of other peaceful nations are, sadly, an insult to the great achievements and legacy of the Russian people.

I hope Mr. Putin still sees the importance of being a responsible world leader. There is little evidence of it in recent weeks. He can start almost immediately by calling off his shameful proxies who are so disrespecting the victims and their families at this crash site--the site for which he is most certainly responsible.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims.

To our Dutch friends who suffered such an overwhelming loss of life in this crash, I express my deepest condolences. And to the people of Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, and everywhere else facing Russian bullying, we stand with you in your desire for democracy and peaceful relations with the West and Russia.

Earlier this evening we considered three nominations and two passed by voice vote. One of those passed by voice vote was Michael Lawson of California for the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service as representative of the United States of America on the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

The reason I bring that to the attention of the Senate is he was nominated last September and reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee in May. Mr. Lawson has been sitting on the calendar. There was no objection to him. No one had any objection to him, but he was sitting on the calendar because of objection on the Republican side of the aisle. Why was his name called today? Because of this tragedy-- because this tragedy pointed out the fact that the United States would not have its representative before this important organization which investigates these airline crashes.

It has reached a point where almost 30 Ambassadors to organizations and nations are being held up on the floor of the Senate over and over until something happens--an upheaval, a tragedy--and then they are brought for a vote.

The United States of America is a better nation than that. We shouldn't be holding up in the Senate these fine men and women who are willing to serve our Nation. I urge my colleagues to reconsider this approach. Let us release these ambassadorial appointments by President Obama. For those that are controversial, so be it; let's hold them. But the vast majority of these are not controversial. Let's give them a chance to serve our Nation.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Alex Rosenberg, an intern on the Judiciary Committee staff, be granted floor privileges for July 22, 2014.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 509, which was submitted earlier today.

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

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 22, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business until 10:45 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees; that at 10:45 a.m. the Senate proceed to executive session as provided under the previous order; further, that following the vote on the deGravelles nomination, the time until 12:30 p.m. be equally divided and controlled in the usual form; and finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

At 10:45 a.m. there will be a series of three cloture votes on the following nominations: Andre Birotte, Jr., to be United States district judge for the Central District of California; Robin L. Rosenberg, of Florida, to be United States district judge for the Southern District of Florida; and John W. deGravelles to be United States district judge for the Middle District of Louisiana.

If cloture is invoked on these nominations, at 2:15 p.m. the Senate will proceed to vote on confirmation of each of the nominations.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.