National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. President, last week I came down to the Senate floor to talk about the need for tax reform. One of the most important things we can do to help our economy and American families recover from years of economic stagnation under the previous administration is to reform our Tax Code.

The Tax Code affects every aspect of our economy. It affects how much money you have left over to save or invest. It affects whether a new business can get off the ground. It affects whether an existing business might have the money to raise wages or to hire new employees.

It is often the determining factor in whether American jobs go overseas. Right now our Tax Code isn't doing much to help anybody. It is increasingly strangling our economy, depressing job and wage growth and new business creation, pushing American jobs overseas, and is placing a heavy burden on working families who see far too much of their paychecks going to Washington, DC.

That is why Republicans are making tax reform a priority this fall, and we are hoping the Democrats will join us. Last week I mentioned the five principles that will guide any Republican tax reform legislation.

Any bill we pass will have to do these things: No. 1, result in increasing wage and economic growth; No. 2, provide tax relief for the middle class; No. 3, keep good-paying jobs here at home; No. 4, increase American competitiveness in the global economy; and, finally, it has to simplify the Tax Code.

Last week I spent some time discussing the first principle, which is increasing wages, jobs, and economic growth. This week I would like to take a few minutes to focus on the second; that is, providing tax relief for the middle class.
Hard-working Americans have had a hard time of it in recent years.

Wage growth was almost nonexistent during the Obama administration. A recent survey found that 50 percent of people in this country consider themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck. Families who once looked forward to a secure future have found themselves wondering where the next mortgage or rent payment is coming from or if they will be able to afford to put anything toward their kids' college savings or toward their retirement. Fortunately, there are a lot of tax relief measures we can take that will help middle-income families, and any plan for relief has to start with lowering tax rates for the middle class. The Federal Government is simply taking too much money each month from working families.

We need to fix that. American families can do a much better job spending their money than Washington bureaucrats. Any new tax bill needs to leave more money in Americans' wallets--money they can put toward their family's needs in paying for a child's braces or saving for college.

Relief for American families starts with lowering the tax rate, but it doesn't end there. There are other things we can do to help hard- working families. Closing loopholes and ending a variety of special interest tax breaks will boost our efforts to significantly lower rates. Also, simplifying family-focused provisions of the Tax Code will make them easier for families to access.

We need to look at provisions like the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit to make sure they are delivering the tax relief Congress intended and to look for ways to make them more efficient and effective.
Education tax benefits are another example of an area in which tax reform can deliver for middle-income families. Currently, there are more than a dozen separate tax provisions relating to education, from the American opportunity tax credit to 529 savings accounts, and, of course, these provisions come with approximately 100 pages of IRS instructions, special forms, and schedules, not to mention the professional tax preparer whom too many families have to hire to figure it all out. We can certainly do a better job than that. Simplifying and possibly consolidating the education provisions of the Tax Code could allow more families to take advantage of these provisions, and it could significantly reduce the time families have to spend in trying to obtain these benefits.

Another thing we can do is make sure the Tax Code encourages savings and investment. We will be taking a look at the tax treatment of retirement savings to ensure that it maximizes the ability of individuals to achieve secure retirements.

Another thing we need to do is to finally do away with the alternative minimum tax. This tax, which was originally designed to hit the very wealthiest Americans, eventually ballooned to ensnare huge numbers of the middle class.
While Congress has partially fixed this problem, too many families still have to waste time in calculating their taxes twice--once for their regular returns and once to see if they have to pay the alternative minimum tax. Imagine the frustration of having to do this extra calculation, only to find out that you do not owe the alternative minimum tax. But if you do not spend the time or hire a professional to figure it out and decide to take your chances, you will certainly hear about it from the IRS if you guess wrong, usually with penalties and interest.

While Congress has acted to protect a lot of middle-income taxpayers, there are still middle-lass families who find themselves having to pay the alternative minimum tax. It is time to eliminate this tax, which has long outlived its original purpose.

There are a lot of other things we can do to make the Tax Code better for middle-lass families, and throughout this process, Republicans are going to make sure that hard-working Americans are at the forefront of our efforts. We know that American families do the best job of spending their own money, and any tax reform bill we pass will allow them to keep more of their hard-earned dollars.

Mr. President, before I close, I would like to spend a couple of minutes talking about the National Defense Authorization Act, which we are considering here this week. Our military often got the short end of the stick during the Obama administration, and we have a lot of work to do in order to bring our military back up to full readiness and to modernize our resources.

Recent events, from the increased aggression of the North Korean regime to the anniversary of September 11, remind us of the importance of making sure our military is ready to meet any threat.

A key element of keeping the peace is in making sure we have the military strength to deter aggressors. Take North Korea. Our main focus needs to be on a diplomatic solution to the growing tensions in the region, but, as the President has made clear, the full strength of the U.S. military is and has to be at the ready to protect American interests and those of our allies. The Air Force has conducted show-of- force exercises, which have featured B-1 bombers from South Dakota, to deter North Korean aggression.

While we continue with our diplomatic efforts, we need to make sure we project the kind of overwhelming strength that would make North Korea think twice before trying to engage the United States. Needless to say, we also need to maintain robust capabilities on the defensive side. That is why I have submitted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to require that we test our ground-based midcourse defense anti-ballistic missile system twice a year. Yes, tests may fail, but an increased test pace will lead to improvements and will ultimately ensure the reliability of our missile interception defenses.

In addition to North Korea, we are still dealing with continued threats and instability in the Middle East. U.S.-led efforts against ISIS have had significant success on the ground, especially in Iraq, but ISIS's recruitment networks remain active and ever more dangerous, as evidenced by attacks in Europe. There are also still complex security challenges on the ground in Syria and Afghanistan, and we are continuing to deal with an Iran that has grown more defiant in the wake of President Obama's nuclear deal.

On top of all of this, Russia and China continue to take advantage of regional instability to project power and challenge the United States and its allies. Russia continues to occupy Ukraine and challenge NATO, and it has propped up the Assad regime in Syria. Meanwhile, China is only halfheartedly working to keep North Korea in check, all the while expanding its presence in the Pacific by militarizing reefs in disputed waters and building up its forces.
All of these threats underscore the importance of restoring our military readiness and modernizing our capabilities, and this year's National Defense Authorization Act takes significant steps toward achieving those goals.

This bill sets policy and authorizes significant resources that will work to strengthen our military readiness. It includes critical funds for combat aircraft and munitions, new ships, and advanced technology development and next-generation capabilities to ensure that our military is the strongest fighting force in the world. It also includes critical funding to boost the end strength of the Army and the Marine Corps.

This bill also authorizes a 2.1-percent across-the-board pay raise for the dedicated men and women of our military, and the bill contains a number of measures to improve the quality of life for soldiers and their families and Department of Defense civilian employees.

This legislation also ends troubled and redundant programs and reduces unnecessary expenditures to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being wasted and to free up funding for military priorities.

I have introduced two other amendments to this bill to help further boost readiness. The first of these amendments seeks to optimize special use airspaces for our military pilots. My amendment would require a report on the management of special use airspaces and their use for training, with the goal of improving the coordination and utilization of these airspaces in order to meet current and future training needs.

Additionally, so as to better position the United States to meet ever-changing cyber threats, I have introduced an amendment to establish a pilot program for a cyber ROTC. With the President's elevating CYBERCOM to a combatant command, it is essential that the Department of Defense establish additional pipelines to train more men and women in uniform in order to counter the mounting cyber attacks we are facing.

I am grateful to Senator McCain and other Senators on the Armed Services Committee for their work on this bill. This bill is an important step forward in making sure our Nation is secure and capable of meeting and deterring threats.
I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source