Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, later this afternoon President Trump plans to announce sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs. Let me say once again, I believe the President's instincts on China are correct. All those who are trying to push him away from his instincts will allow China over the next decade to become the dominant economic power and greatly hurt American jobs and American prosperity as well. So I would say: Mr. President, stick to your instincts.

But while the President's instincts are correct, the execution on these tariffs is poor. That is the difference here--not the instinct, not that we shouldn't go after China, and not that we have to do more to bolster American wealth and American workers against rapacious policies of China's. China will stop at nothing, nothing, nothing, to steal our intellectual property and to manipulate its currency to exclude American companies from being there.

China has been rapacious about trade, and I have spoken about this problem for years. Early on--I think it was 2004 or 2005--Senator Graham and I discovered that China was manipulating its currency. I heard it from Crucible steel up in Syracuse, NY.

The great thinkers said: They don't manipulate their currency. This is protectionist.

In the same week--I was quite proud of this--the New York Times editorial board, which is liberal, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which is conservative, both said: There is no such thing as currency manipulation, and Schumer and Graham ought to back off.

Of course, we proved to be right on that and other issues.

China is rapacious. If we don't stop China, America will be a weaker place with fewer good-paying jobs, with less wealth, less strength, and we probably won't stay the greatest country in the world--although we deserve to because we play by the rules.

President Trump has identified the right opponent--China--much better than both the Obama and Bush administrations did. Both Democrats and Republicans have been blind to this issue, and Trump isn't. Good. But I would say to the President: Don't swing blindly and wildly at our foe, China. Establish a well-placed jab at China. Set them back. Let them know we mean business.

President Trump ought to rethink his plan so it actually achieves what he says he wants it to achieve.

U.S. steel and aluminum workers have been battling heavily subsidized products from China for decades. I know. I have Nucor in my State, in Auburn and in Chemung County. On aluminum, I have Alcoa in my State, in Massena. Our steel and aluminum workers deserve a more level playing field against these countries like China that heavily subsidize their products or other countries that purchase Chinese steel at artificially low prices and ship it to the United States. A targeted trade action against China would be very helpful not only in providing relief for the steel and aluminum workers in New York and around the country, but it would send a strong shot across the bow to China for the first time in decades: We mean business. We are not going to let you prey on us any longer.

Targeted trade against China and against countries that allow China to sell them steel at artificially low prices and then send it here, go after them, but instead of getting right at China, the President's across-the-board tariffs will cause more damage to key allies and other domestic industries. I not only have steelworkers in Upstate New York, I have a lot of autoworkers. For instance, we are so proud of the GM plant in Tonawanda near Buffalo and the Ford stamping plant also in Western New York. We are so proud of our agriculture.

Incidentally, the President is right, Canada has put in certain restrictions on American dairy going to Canada that has hurt companies like the Cayuga cooperative in Central New York and O-AT-KA in Genesee County.

We have to protect and help our workers in auto manufacturing and our farmers who do export and who do good things. China doesn't let our auto products in, in a fair way, but other countries do--Canada does.

So the President's proposal does more harm to Europe and other allies like Canada than it does to China. That is what is wrong with it. It is so typical of this White House. Even when they have a good idea, they mess it up because they don't think it through, and the President acts only by his instincts. You have to act by your instincts and put a thought process on top of it.

The goal of the President to go after China was not really achieved very well in his proposal. The haphazard way these tariffs were put together has caused policy to miss the mark. It seems no one is at home in the White House right now. President Trump makes up his mind one day, changes it the next, and meanwhile trade policies, foreign policies, gun policies, immigration policies are all in chaos because he says one thing one day and another thing the next. So we need the President to follow his instincts but then allow the people who know this issue to craft something smart.

The President and I may agree on trade. As I said, we are closer on this issue than I have been with either the Bush or Obama administrations, but the slapdash way these tariffs were constructed have few of us cheering, even those of us who really have wanted to go after China long before politics was a gleam in President Trump's eye. Well, maybe that is not true; it may have been a gleam in his eye but before he ran for anything.

I strongly urge the President to rethink these tariffs and focus his policy more directly at China and countries that ship cheap Chinese steel to the United States. On the flip side, I am sure some of our business interests will tell the President do nothing on trade.

The chamber of commerce--they are interested in the bottom-line profits of their big companies, and they don't care if they make those profits at the expense of American workers. They are not a barometer here, and President Trump is right to ignore them. We have to be smart about this--not just tough, but tough and smart. We need to get tough and smart on China, and the right approach is targeted action against China's most flagrant abuses. Republican Tax Bill

Mr. President, on tax, since the Republican tax bill passed last year, nearly every day there has been a new story about a corporation choosing to pass along the savings from the tax law to wealthy shareholders and corporate executives because they buy back their stocks. They use this new tax money not to help their workers but to buy back their stocks. In January, there was an initial flurry of all these bonuses. They have been totally overwhelmed with stock buybacks. What Democrats said is proving to be true. The vast majority of this tax break is for the wealthy, by the wealthy, used by the wealthy to help themselves, not help workers. That has been the history when you give these corporations lots of money, when they have so much money already, without pointing it in the direction of helping workers.

Yesterday, Chevron joined the parade of those with stock buybacks. It was Chevron who announced that while it was making no changes to workers' compensation or benefits, it would be restarting its dormant stock repurchasing program. Do you know how much Chevron got from this tax bill? Mr. President, $2 billion. Do you know how much they are giving their workers--or benefits--out of that $2 billion? Nothing. Nothing as of now. Do you know what they are using it for? Stock buybacks. Let our Republican friends come to the floor and defend those stock buybacks. Let them do that.

Today, another oil company, Hess, announced it would be purchasing back $1 billion of its stock by the end of the year. Since the start of 2018, just in the last few months, the cumulative total of share buybacks has passed $200 billion. Let me repeat that, $200 billion has been used for stock buybacks. The month of February set the 1-month record for share buybacks, and analysts at JPMorgan--hardly a liberal think tank--says they ``expect total buybacks in 2018 to surpass $800 billion, way up from the $530 billion last year and demolishing 2007's all-time high that came in a bit below $700 billion.'' That is not Chuck Schumer or CPAC or any of these liberal think tanks, that is JPMorgan Chase.

So our poor Republican friends had hoped this tax bill would send them on a trajectory to win elections and, by February, the numbers are starting to turn against them again. Look at the Quinnipiac poll of yesterday. Why? Because, as this tax bill plays out, what Democrats said all along; that the vast majority of the benefits are going to the wealthy, it increases the deficit, and it increases the clarion call of many on the Republican side to cut Medicare and Social Security to pay for the deficit they created--it is not going over too well. We will match our argument against theirs now in October and November. We are confident we are going to win that argument, and that is why already the enthusiasm about this tax bill is fading.

The massive deluge of corporate share buybacks is proving to be the principal legacy of the Republican tax bill--not benefits to workers, not bonuses, not wage increases, not even new equipment or investment in R&D. I would welcome that. Nope, corporations are spending the bulk of the savings from the tax bill on themselves, their corporate executives, and their wealthy shareholders.

Guess how much of the capital companies have earned from the tax bill has been allocated to their employees, the workers who were going to get such huge benefits from this bill--6 percent. No, no, it is not 60; it is 6. Sixty is the percentage that has gone back to corporations in the form of stock buybacks--a 10-to-1 ratio. It doesn't make much sense. The American public is beginning to realize that. Those are the numbers according to Just Capital.

As I said, the American people are starting to catch wind of the truth. Three separate polls yesterday--I mentioned Quinnipiac, and there are evidently two others. Three separate polls show the popularity of the Republican tax bill was significantly underwater and has lost ground since the last round of polling. I predict those numbers will continue to slip as more Americans learn that their hard- earned taxpayer dollars were used to give a tax break to corporations who hoard the savings for themselves. It is no wonder their candidate in a hard-fought race in Southwest Pennsylvania has abandoned the tax argument. It is not going over well with his working-class constituents because they get a tiny, little bit, and everyone else gets so much more.

Mr. President, Democrats have a plan to rein in these buybacks and put the middle class first. Yesterday, Senator Baldwin and I announced an amendment to the pending banking bill that would rein in corporate buybacks by giving the SEC the authority to reject buybacks that come at the expense of workers. Who will object to that? I hope not my colleagues. They say the buybacks will benefit workers, so they shouldn't be objecting to our bill. Senator Baldwin's bill and my bill would require company boards and their executives to put their money where their mouth is and certify that the buyback is in the best long- term financial interest of the company.

We are going to make this one of the top amendments to the banking bill, and I hope it gains Republican support. If Republicans mean what they say about their tax bill helping workers, they should join Senator Baldwin's amendment. The glut of corporate share buybacks highlights precisely how the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put to ill use. Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, or raising pay, corporations are spending the lion's share of the tax savings on goosing their stock.

Let's not forget, these buybacks are relatively new. A ruling by the SEC in the early eighties said they could start doing these. Before that, the heyday, when corporate America dominated the world, profits were great, jobs were growing, and wages went up, the safe harbor provision wasn't there. Corporations had to go through a lot of proof before they could buy back their stock, and that made sense, but once our Republican colleagues got in power, they did what the corporate leaders want them to do and look what happened.

The amendment to say no buybacks unless they can prove it is really going to benefit their workers and be in the long-term financial interest of their company, that amendment is going to be one of the top amendments to the upcoming bill. I hope it gains Republican support. I really do. If Republicans mean what they say, they should join Baldwin's amendment, as I said before, but I want to repeat it for the benefit of all my good Republican friends.

Now, the glut of corporate share buybacks highlights precisely how the corporate tax cut in the Republican bill is being put to ill use. Rather than stimulating the economy, creating jobs, raising pay, corporations spend the lion's share of the tax savings on goosing their stock. Americans are just scratching their heads, wondering why we put ourselves in deeper debt so corporations could further enrich themselves. Why do we tell our children and grandchildren they are going to pay for the pay raise of the CEO of Exxon or the increase in value because his stock is going up? That doesn't make any sense at all. There are much better uses for the money.

Yesterday, Democrats announced our plan to help build a trillion dollars of desperately needed infrastructure in America. How do we pay for it? We unwind some of these tax cuts for the biggest corporations to pay for a massive infusion of Federal funds in infrastructure--job- creating infrastructure, which is desperately needed. Just by putting the top rate on individuals where it was, reinstituting the AMT and the estate tax, which goes only to the very wealthy, and setting the corporate rate at 25 percent--you may recall it was the Business Roundtable that asked for 25 percent. Oh, no, for our Republican colleagues and Donald Trump, that wasn't good enough. Make it lower-- even though the 200 biggest businesses in America said 25 percent was certainly an adequate drop. Many on my side wouldn't even think that is good.

In any case, the BMT asked for 25 percent. We go to 25 percent, along with these other changes, and guess what we do with $1 trillion. We create infrastructure jobs--millions. We create new roads and bridges, new water and sewer. We say that every rural home in America should get broadband just as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s said every rural home should get electricity. We update our power grid so all this new energy coming from other places can go to the most populated centers. It would be a huge shot in the arm for jobs in America, for prosperity in America, far more than this slanted tax bill aimed so much at the few wealthy who are so tight with this new Republican Party.

I daresay our proposal is a much more effective use of taxpayer dollars than a handout to the biggest corporations and will create far more good-paying jobs in the process.

I hope our Republican colleagues will rethink things. Their path is a path to a cul-de-sac, to great losses in the election. Rethink that tax cut. Don't allow these buybacks. They are doing no good for anyone but a handful, and that is where 60 percent of the money is going on the corporate rate.

Join us in taking some of that money to do what the Federal Government has done since Henry Clay proposed it in the 1820s: Put that money into infrastructure, jobs, good-paying jobs, efficiency. Let's not let China or another country become the leader in infrastructure. They invest. The Chinese Government, the Japanese Government, the European Government invest in infrastructure, and so did this government, until Donald Trump became President and the hard right gained a stranglehold over the Republican Party. Let's reverse course before it is too late.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source