Tax Reform

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on one final matter, for 8 years under President Obama, our economy didn't perform as well as it should have. America's wages and salaries hardly grew. Many job creators sat on the sidelines, wary of new tax increases or heavy-handed regulations. Washington had its foot on the brake. Last year, all that changed.

President Trump and this Republican Congress set out to make life easier for workers and for job creators. We cut regulations and passed tax reform to give middle-class families immediate relief and set the stage for more hiring and more wage growth in the years ahead.

I recently heard from a small family-owned inland river shipyard in Ashland, KY, along the Ohio River. They build and repair commercial barges. Here is what their president wrote. He said: ``Thanks to the tax change and optimism of our customers, we are at long last able to replace equipment which has been used way past [its] life expectancy and possibly add two more production workers.''

Last week a Louisville employer dropped by to tell me how he is using his tax reform savings: $1,000 bonuses for more than 100 Kentucky employees.

Small companies and big business alike are thrilled that they finally have a 21st-century tax code. It makes them more competitive with overseas rivals and frees up more money to invest right here at home, and middle-class workers are reaping the rewards. Major national companies like Pfizer and Home Depot, which together employ more than half a million Americans, have announced hundreds of millions of dollars in employee bonuses--again, thanks to tax reform.

Just this week, MetLife announced a major new investment in 50,000- plus employees. The company is raising its minimum wage, enhancing benefits, boosting retirement contributions, and creating a skills development fund. In short, MetLife is betting big on U.S. workers, and so are the more than 300 other companies that have already announced major investments in their employees and in their facilities--right here in America, right here, thanks to historic tax reform.

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