Tax Reform

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, today is tax day, the deadline for most Americans to file their tax returns. For many middle-class households, that means sending too much of their hard-earned money off to the IRS--hardly cause for celebration. But this year, the gray clouds of tax day have a silver lining. Today is the very last time that American families will have to file under the unfair, outdated Tax Code that Congress and the President got rid of a few months ago. Out with the old and in with the new.

Republicans' historic overhaul cut taxes for families and small businesses. We doubled the standard deduction, expanded the child tax credit, and lowered rates as well. And we accomplished all of this while preserving key middle-class provisions, such as the mortgage interest deduction. The upshot of all of this is simple: major tax relief for middle-class families and a big shot in the arm for the U.S. economy, which will lead to more--and higher-paying--homegrown American jobs.

Already, tax reform has given American workers a raise, since less of each paycheck needs to be withheld for the IRS. When all is said and done, the Treasury Department estimates that our tax cuts will leave 90 percent of wage-earners with more take-home pay--that is 90 percent of wage earners with more take-home pay as a result of our tax reform measure.

In addition, millions of Americans are receiving special bonuses, pay raises, or new benefits from their employers as a direct result of tax reform. Thousand-dollar bonuses for workers at Kansas City Southern Railway in Missouri; a higher starting wage at First Farmers Bank & Trust in Indiana; higher wages and new job opportunities at CSS Distribution Group, a small business packaging and distribution company in Kentucky; billion- dollar investments in pension plans for UPS and FedEx workers--the list goes on and on.

My Democratic colleagues from New York and San Francisco scoff publicly at the idea that a $2,000 tax cut or a $1,000 bonus would make a difference for American families. They have called these things ``crumbs.'' Something tells me they haven't tried that talking point around many middle-class kitchen tables. I suspect they would be laughed out of the room.

And these are just the first fruits. Tax reform laid the foundation for a more prosperous future with more good-paying American jobs. That is because we made sending jobs overseas less appealing. We created new incentives for businesses to invest, expand, build, and hire right here at home. We gave overseas competitors something to worry about--a healthy, competitive U.S. economy. Already, job creators of all shapes and sizes are investing more and expanding. For example, a furniture store in Ohio is planning a 4,500-square-foot expansion, a craft brewery in Iowa is planning to open a new production line, and a deck and patio builder in Virginia is hiring 10 new employees to meet rising demand, just to name a few.

Republicans designed every piece of tax reform to benefit middle- class families and small businesses, both right now and in the years and decades ahead. That used to be a bipartisan priority, but this time, Democrats chose to put political posturing ahead of America's best interests. Every single Democrat in the House and every single Democrat in the Senate voted to block tax reform--and by extension, every bit of this good news--from happening. Later today, in fact, some of our colleagues across the aisle will be demonstrating against the law right here on the grounds of the Capitol. I wonder whether they are protesting all the new jobs, or maybe it is the big family tax cuts, or maybe they are protesting the bonuses and wage hikes or all of the small business expansions. Their first mistake was voting to block all of this in the first place. Now, even as the economy is starting to thrive, they want to repeal these historic tax cuts and literally claw back the money. But make no mistake--Republicans will continue to stand and fight for the American people.

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