National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2018--Motion To Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I was presiding when the colloquy started with my colleagues here to talk about tax reform. I had not intended to speak today, and I am sure my staffers are scrambling, wondering what the boss will say. I want to weigh in with this discussion mainly because of the personal perspective of a leader who has seen the positive impacts of having the courage, focus, and discipline to deliver on tax reform.

Back in 2011, I was in my third term. Republicans had the majority, and I became speaker of the house. When I came in February of 2011, it was reported to me that we had a $2.5 billion structural deficit. We had the fourth highest unemployment rate in the Nation and we had 6 months to figure out how to balance the budget. So it was counterintuitive to a lot of people that we would spend time on regulatory reform and tax reform--particularly tax reform--reducing the amount of revenue coming in at the same time we were in a deficit ourselves. But in the first 6 months that we were in the majority, we cut the sales tax. Then we went over a 2-year period, even with that $2.5 billion structural deficit, to make the changes in the corporate tax and the income tax. It took North Carolina from the 44th most taxed State--in other words, there were only 5 States ahead of us for the highest tax burden in the United States--now down to No. 12. It was one of the worst growing economies, and it now ranks in the top five in the Nation, and it is one of the fastest growing economies in the Nation. We created over 250,000 jobs and actually put North Carolina on the map by all references--CEO measures and by independent organizations. It is the State where businesses want to set up and do business.

We took the corporate tax from 6.9 down to 2.5. We took personal income tax rates from 7.75 down to 5.49. We got people back to work.

Along the way, we had our challenges. Everybody in Washington is for tax reform. They are for tax relief. They will come into your office and tell you: Let's get her going. Then on the side they will say: except for that one righteous exemption I may need. We have to have Members who have the courage to do tax reform that helps working families, that creates jobs, and that silences the people who want to take this exemption or that exemption away, so we do what is right for the generation that is about to look for jobs and the people who need a job today.

They want their businesses to grow. They want their economies to thrive. They want the United States to be the strong, great economy that it can be. It is going to take courage. It is going to take discipline. It is going to take time--but only so much time.

I believe this Congress, this Senate, over the course of a few months, if we focus on it and with the support of the President and in collaboration with the House, can get this done. We have to get it done. We promised the American people last year that if we had majorities, we would do what we had to do to deliver on this promise.

It can be done. A lot of times, people ask me what keeps me up at night. I tell them two things: coffee and the national debt. Coffee is for the obvious reasons, but why the national debt? I will tell you why. Because when I have people on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service chiefs come into the Senate Armed Services Committee and say the single greatest threat to our national security is our debt, we should take notice. These are people who are skilled in warfare. They are people who know how to take the fight to the enemy. When they think the greatest threat to this Nation is our national debt, we had better take that seriously.

How do you resolve the national debt? You grow the economy. How do you grow the economy? You create jobs and help businesses throughout.

How do you do that? You do that through tax reform. You also take criticism that is going to be waged by some people on the far left when we talk about corporate tax reform. They are going to say: How could you favor the big guy over the little guy? I don't know about you all, but I worked for companies before in my life. When I was 19 and living in a trailer park, I was working for a corporation. I was a little guy working for that corporation. Fortunately, in the 1980s, we had a President who had the wisdom to know that, if you reduced the tax burden on corporations, more little guys like me--that 19-year-old living in a trailer park--could get a job--a better-paying job--and, ultimately, have enough money to put himself through school.

So when we get into this argument, don't take the bait by some people who will say that because we are focusing on corporate taxes and reducing the tax burden on businesses, that is somehow a guy in a suit trying to help out a business. That is a guy who has worked his way from that trailer park now into the U.S. Senate and benefited when Congress had the courage to reduce taxes and get the economy back on track. That is what we better do. That is what we promised. That is what we are here to do today. The time is now to get it done.

The President has shown wisdom in the blueprint--and our leadership here, in terms of the broad strokes about what tax reform needs to look like. Now it is our job--each and every individual Member of the Senate and the House--to deliver on the promise to produce tax reform to help the little guy and to get this economy going to be the great economy that it has been in the past, and I have every reason to believe that it will be so in the future.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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