National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 -- Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today I would like to talk about a topic that most of us don't want to discuss, and that is taxes, except today is different. This time, you don't have to groan over spreadsheets and calculations or worry about how much of your hard-earned pay you are going to have to send to Uncle Sam. Today, leaders in the House and in the Senate will unveil their core principles for tax reform. The President will travel with our colleague Senator Young to announce his support for these core principles.
Taxes can be confounding and complicated and painful to deliberate, but for folks back home, what I believe describes our tax principles is to say more take-home pay, and that works for everybody. In other words, you actually reduce your living costs because Uncle Sam takes less of your paycheck, meaning you get to keep more of it and take that home and spend it on things that you would prefer to spend it on. So more take-home pay is our bottom line.
I look forward to working with the chairman of the Finance Committee, on which I have the privilege of serving, and Speaker Ryan and Chairman Kevin Brady of the House Ways and Means Committee--another good Texan-- on their ideas, which I know were born from many long hours and tough conversations.
But this is going to be a national conversation, starting with the President kicking this off this afternoon in Indiana. He is going to invite the American people to express their views on what tax reform should look like.
For me, in addition to more take-home pay, I am looking for a tax code which is shorter, simpler, and which makes us more competitive in the global economy.
It is a great relief, believe me, to have a President who understands how taxes and the uncertainty they place on job creators stifles economic growth. The reason economic growth is so important is that when the economy grows, more jobs are created, and for the jobs that exist, the people who have them will actually earn more money and be able to pursue their dreams.
Just as importantly, though, this President understands that the job creator is not the enemy. A former colleague of ours, Gordon Smith from Oregon, once told me that the problem with some of our Democratic friends is that they claim to love the worker, but they hate the job creator. To me, that sort of summarized it pretty well. I know he didn't mean ``hate'' in the traditional sense, but he did mean Congress--and particularly our folks on the Democratic side--likes to implement additional burdens, such as higher taxes or more regulation, more obstacles in the way of our job creators, when we should be tearing down those walls, reducing that regulation, and lowering taxes so that they can be successful, and in the process, we can all succeed.
Well, this President understands that our economy, too, is crucial but extremely fragile, and he joins all of us in wanting to do everything he can, and everything we can, to ensure that we continue to be the strongest economy in the world.
Here is why tax reform is so important in the first place. In the words of Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, the American Founders promised not just happiness but the pursuit of happiness. That is, of course, in the Declaration of Independence. I think Arthur is onto something. I think that is a good way of putting it. It means that all of us, based on our country's original vision, should be free to follow our dreams without government getting in our way or making our burdens heavy. We should be free to pursue happiness.
Average American citizens should not be numbed or stifled by mandatory participation in a system that depletes their energy and discourages them, and that is what our Tax Code does today. It exhausts people when it comes to fully complying with our arcane and convoluted and complex laws because they are so difficult. So many people simply outsource that by hiring some lawyer or some accountant to prepare their taxes because it is so complex. We can do better than that. We can make it simpler and fairer and flatter.
Today, many of the obstacles that exist prevent the average American from pursuing their dreams and reaching their full potential, which ought to be what joins us all together. One of those is an outdated and highly convoluted tax system that actually penalizes hard work, stymies ingenuity, and enriches the lawyers and accountants that people have to hire in order to just comply with all of its convoluted complexity--so- called compliance costs. Call this the terrible tedium of taxes. It zaps our energy rather than unleashing it. It erodes our work ethic, because if you work harder and harder only to see more and more money go to the Federal Government, what does that do to incentivize people to work harder? It erodes our work ethic, as we see less reason to labor for what ultimately gets taken from us.
The mission of the so-called Big 6 committee, which has been asked to put together a blueprint for reform, has been to protect American jobs and make the Tax Code simpler, fairer, and lower for average American families. In a sense, it is all about putting families first. Families build individuals, and families mold character. We have to give every opportunity to families who need to thrive. We have to keep the uninvited guest of government away from the front door, constantly begging for more money, more time, and more attention, and constantly throwing a wrench into their plans.
I also believe we should provide tax relief for small businesses because small businesses are literally the engine of our economy. It is not the Fortune 500 that creates the vast percentage of jobs in this country. It is small businesses, which often face an unyielding regulatory state. We should lower taxes for all American businesses so they can compete with foreign ones.
As the so-called Big 6 committee has said, the goal of any new plan should
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be, first and foremost, to reduce tax rates as much as possible. Let's make sure this ``first cut is the deepest,'' as the song goes, but also to place a priority on permanence, to create a system that encourages American companies to bring jobs back from overseas, along with the profits they will not bring back because they will be taxed twice, and to put more money back in the pockets of all Americans.
As Ronald Reagan said, there is one simple fact you have to keep in mind when it comes to taxes: ``The problem is not that the people are taxed too little, the problem is that the Government spends too much.'' This is not just about sheer wealth we are after but about earned success--the ability of mothers, fathers, and families to work a long day and to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks to use as they please--to save it for their retirement, to spend it on their house, or even to dote on their children. When families get to keep more of the money they earn, they are more inclined to take advantage of or to create their own opportunities, including new businesses. Social mobility increases and so does room for charity.
The United States is the most charitable and generous country in the world. People don't just turn to government for help during times of need. We saw that in Hurricane Harvey and in Hurricane Irma and now in Hurricane Maria. Many, many Americans generously dip into their own resources to help provide for their fellow human beings in need during times of tragedy. It is our prosperity that comes from job creation-- getting to keep more of what you earn and pay the government less--that makes that possible.
When Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States, shortly after our country's founding, in his book ``Democracy in America,'' he pointed out that one of the unique things about America--certainly much different than Europe--was the organizing and voluntary associations.
These often are charitable organizations--whether they are churches or synagogues or mosques or just community organizations--that as part of their good work provide charitable benefits for our fellow man and woman. We ought to encourage that.
Of course, none of us is an island. It is not that lower tax rates translate to everyone looking out exclusively for No. 1. Oftentimes, that is the way our friends across the aisle will depict lowering taxes. They say: You are lowering taxes for the rich.
We want to lower taxes for everybody--not because it benefits an individual but because it benefits the country and it benefits all Americans. It makes us more competitive globally. It creates more jobs and opportunities for Americans who are looking for those jobs and opportunities. It creates incentives for investment so that the entrepreneur can start a business, come up with a new idea, change the world, and create jobs and opportunities for other people at the same time.
We know that social obligations are still important. It is just that there are many ways of meeting them other than just cutting a big paycheck to the Federal Government every April. In fact, the higher taxes we pay, the easier it is for citizens to assume that, well, I have paid the Federal Government; so let the government take care of it.
That is not who we are. That is not who we have been. That is certainly not how we began. We began as a government that believed in the individuality and the importance of all individuals, and we all collectively benefit when each of us is free to pursue their dreams because that increases the prosperity and the opportunities for all.
We will never become, I hope and pray, a country that says: It is the government's job when it comes to taking care of a man or woman or a family in need. Yes, government has a role to play, but I hope we will always be the generous sort of country that we started out to be and that we still are today, with neighbors helping neighbors.
Middle-class Americans have experienced a decade of higher taxes, more regulation, and stagnant economic growth under the last administration. It is time to break out of that cycle, and this is our time to do that.
Every American knows we can do better. If you ask them: Are your taxes hard to prepare, is it complicated, are you confused, or do you feel like the Federal Government is getting a bigger bite out of your paycheck than it should, I think you would get near unanimity that the Tax Code is too complex, the Federal Government is too voracious when it comes to taking a bite out of your paycheck, and people would welcome the ability to keep more of what they earn.
It is time for us to show that we understand the plight of hard- working American families and people of all economic levels, that we are hearing them when they say they want to keep more of the paycheck they earn and they want us to lower their cost of living by lowering the tax bite out of the paycheck they do earn.
Americans are wondering what our tax reform policies will be. For me, here are some nonnegotiable items. The Tax Code must be simplified. Job creators must be incentivized to keep well-paying jobs here at home in the United States. American competitiveness in a global economy must be increased by lowering business tax rates.
The result should be a new, retooled system that will put more money in the pockets of middle-class families and reenergize our economy. It will benefit Americans in every State across the country. It will also make it possible for us to meet our other priorities, as the Federal Treasury also will benefit from more people working, earning better wages, and helping to support their government. It will make it possible for us to spend more money on our priorities, like national defense, which right now is underfunded, or medical research or other priorities that the American people may have.
By delivering on these principles, we can restore prosperity for this generation and many generations to come, and we can keep the promise of the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Ultimately, that is what we are talking about when we talk about tax reform. We shouldn't just be wearing green eyeshades, getting out our spreadsheets, and counting the numbers. This is about keeping the promise of the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with an unalienable right to pursue happiness.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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