Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, ever since President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on December 22, we have seen how one law can literally transform the economic landscape across the country. The New York Times has reported that there is a wave of optimism surging among job creators.

Let me just footnote that the New York Times was certainly a skeptic as to what the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would be, but they now report that a wave of optimism is surging among job creators.

Since January 2017, 2.3 million jobs have been added in the United States, and unemployment is at a 17-year low. U.S. weekly jobless claims are at their lowest since 1969. Many people who thought that stagnant growth and flat wages were the new normal have been surprised--and maybe a better word is ``gratified''--to see what the impact of this policy has been on their take-home pay, on their confidence in their future, and on investments and new jobs. It is pretty exciting. In 2017, average unemployment rates decreased in 32 States according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mr. President, 186,000 manufacturing jobs have been added over the last 12 months. I know the President and all of us are concerned about manufacturing moving offshore because the cost of doing business in some places around the world is much lower than it is in the United States, but we should all be excited about the fact that 186,000 manufacturing jobs have been added in the last 12 months.

As I mentioned, consumer confidence is now at its highest level since November 2000, and real disposable incomes have seen their biggest gain since April 2015.

According to a National Federation of Independent Business survey, more small businesses than ever now believe it is a good time to expand. This is a very important part of the equation, and I will say more about small businesses in just a moment.

In Texas, where I am from, a survey of Houston businesses found that 2 out of 3 companies there will increase hiring and wages, while nearly 9 out of 10 said they expected to see an increase in their revenue. The head economist of the bank that conducted the survey didn't waste any words, saying that ``something real is happening in the economy.'' I agree. The positive gains from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are real and undeniable.

Recently, my office heard from one of my constituents by the name of Judy Patton. Judy lives in Cleburne, TX, which is roughly an hour from Dallas, down U.S. Highway 67. Judy owns a plumbing company called P&P. She said that her plumbing company will be giving both raises and bonuses to all of its employees this year because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and she just wanted to let us know that she appreciates what we are doing.

Well, all of us who have the honor of representing constituents here in the Senate hear from our constituents from time to time, and they don't always give us an ``attaboy'' or words of encouragement. Frequently they say ``Can't you all do better'' or ``You have done this, and I don't like that much.'' So it is nice to hear from people like Judy the encouragement that she has given us for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I can say, for my part, to Judy that we are thrilled you decided to pay the savings forward to other folks in the Cleburne area. Plumbers are a good example of the untold stories on tax reform.

Here in Washington, we are not always conscious of the ripple effect--the way in which the changes we have enacted affect small businesses and individual lives. Judy reminds us of the positive impacts that are felt all over. It is not just the big players, the Fortune 500 companies with thousands of employees and operations around the world; it is small businesses like P&P in Cleburne, too, that are busy helping out those small communities and making lives better. Those examples are just as important as those in the Fortune 500. Fix NICS Bill

Mr. President, another issue I will continue to be focused on concerns a bill that I cosponsored with the junior Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy, called Fix NICS. The President, when we were over at the White House last week, said: Well, maybe you need a better name for the bill. I had to explain that NICS was the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and that we believed it was broken and needed to be fixed; hence the name ``Fix NICS.'' But I take the President's point--maybe we ought to do a better job branding what it is we are selling here, and what we are selling is something vitally important that will save lives.

The Fix NICS bill will fix holes in the background check system that is utilized when firearms are purchased by individuals in the United States. As we know, when you go buy a gun at a gun store, there is a background check that has to be conducted. That is current law. When federally licensed firearm dealers like McBride's Guns, Inc., in Austin, TX, that I patronize--when you go in to buy a new shotgun to go bird hunting or something like that, they will run a background check. Of course they ask you to answer the questions, but the problem we discovered in Sutherland Springs is that not everybody is performing their responsibility and uploading the information that would show that people who are purchasing guns are lying on their background check and are legally disqualified from purchasing those firearms.

For many, the aftereffects of the shooting last month at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, still resonate--I know that is true for all of us--and the pain and frustration aren't going away. I always worry, though, after one of these events occurs, that given the relentless carpet-bombing of news and other information that we all sustain here in Washington, in the Nation's Capital, it is too easy to begin to lose sight of our objective to make things different and to improve outcomes when it comes to terrible events like this. Sometimes we get distracted and we move on to other topics, but we can't allow ourselves to do that. We have heard from Stoneman Douglas students themselves who are angry and deserve to be so.

Last week, the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, and I met with Andrew Pollack, the father of a victim who lost her life at Stoneman Douglas. Mr. Pollack's daughter isn't coming back, sadly, but the least we can do is to prevent others like her from losing their lives in similar incidents in the future.

I wanted to tell Andrew that steps have already been taken, and I wanted to say: This will not happen again. Your daughter and other future victims have pushed us, finally, to change.

But I couldn't do that, not with a straight face, and I still can't. Here we are almost a week after the meeting and we have taken zero steps forward, even though the Fix NICS bill is now cosponsored by 50 Senators on a bipartisan basis. The majority leader, a Republican, and the minority leader, a Democrat, are cosponsors of the bill. Senator Murphy from Connecticut and Senator Cornyn from Texas--we are the principal cosponsors of the bill. We agree about very little in other areas of public policy, but we agree in this case that this is simply too important of an issue and that we really need to demonstrate our competence and to try to regain the public's confidence in our ability to actually function in a way that will save lives in the future.

Well, unfortunately, much like the DACA debate, people want to make this bill a Christmas tree, trying to decorate it with other legislative ornaments that look nice to their political base but stand no chance of passing this body or the House. I think we have to call that what it is--political posturing. It is not about getting a result. It is not about passing a bill that will actually improve the background check system to prevent people like the shooter at Sutherland Springs, for example, from actually purchasing a firearm by lying on the background check.

Thankfully, Andrew Pollack sees all this with clear eyes. He has said to me and Senator Rubio that we need to focus on what is achievable. He, himself, is focused on school safety, and I certainly support that.

I know my colleague Senator Hatch has introduced a bill that is bipartisan and widely supported by all sides, which I support.

Another reform that is achievable today, if we were allowed to vote on it, is Fix NICS--to fix our broken background check system. We should start with what is achievable and what will actually save lives, and that describes the Fix NICS bill. It will help prevent dangerous individuals with criminal convictions and history of mental illness from buying firearms. This bill could easily pass the Senate. It has already passed the House. The President would sign it, as he told me when he called me last Thursday night. He said he supports the Fix NICS bill. There are other things he would like to do. There are other suggestions people have made, but we need to do what is achievable, and we need to do that as soon as we possibly can.

Several publications have endorsed the Fix NICS bill, saying it is a commonsense proposal that is a ``test of [Democrats'] sincerity.'' Do our colleagues really want to work together to prevent further shootings at churches and schools? Voting on this bill would be one way to do it.

The New York Times calls Fix NICS a ``rare piece of gun legislation that has no meaningful opposition and that has bipartisan support.'' That is one of the most maddening things about working here in Washington, DC--when there are bills that have no meaningful opposition and have bipartisan support and they still don't go anywhere.

The Dallas Morning News said the bill ``keeps deadly weapons away from people already prohibited from owning them.'' The San Antonio Express News calls Fix NICS a ``relatively easy place to start.'' That would be wonderful if it were true in the Senate. The Express News calls the bill ``narrow'' and ``necessary.''

I am not suggesting it is a panacea, but why don't we want to take the first step in the direction of passing legislation, which essentially enforces existing law and one that will save lives?

If the shooter at Sutherland Springs had run into the FBI background check system in the Air Force, in that case, and they uploaded his felony conviction as well as his conviction for domestic violence, where he fractured the skull of his infant stepson--if they had uploaded that information into the background check system, he would not have been able to legally purchase a firearm, but he did purchase those firearms, and he used them to walk around a little Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs one Sunday morning when people were worshiping inside. He didn't go inside at first. He shot through the wall. It wasn't a stone building. It wasn't a brick building. It was made out of wood. It was a simple little Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. People were gathered to worship, and 26 of them were gunned down. He walked into the church, after he shot dozens of rounds through the building, and he went inside and shot them and killed them--26 people. There were 20 more wounded. Fortunately, they did not die from their wounds.

I believe, with all my heart, that those 26 people would be alive today if we made sure our broken background check system worked by enforcing current law and passing a bill like Fix NICS. I believe that would have saved their lives, and it would have stopped the change that the 20 who were wounded are now going to experience as a result of their life-altering injuries.

I told myself, at that time, I am not going to come back to that small community and look those families in the face unless I have done everything humanly possible to change the outcome in the future. How can any of us, in good conscience, look our constituents in the face, those who lose their loved ones to incidents like this--how can we look them in the face, in good conscience, and say we have done our duty, when we failed to act where we could on an achievable bill, with no opposition and broad bipartisan support?

The Waco Tribune says: ``Second Amendment advocates who regularly stress the need to enforce existing gun laws rather than forging new laws should welcome'' the bill. This bill is supported by the whole political spectrum when it comes to guns and the Second Amendment, from the NRA to people who say, well, they really have reservations about law-abiding citizens owning guns even for their own defense or for recreation or hunting purposes. The whole political spectrum agrees this is a commonsense, achievable bill, and so do 49 colleagues in the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats.

I have said it before, but I am here to say it again: Let's pass Fix NICS now. Andrew Pollack and the rest of the Nation are waiting for a sign that we are serious about preventing wanton acts of violence that should not and cannot continue.

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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

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