Tax Reform

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on another matter, it has been a little over 6 months since the passage of tax reform delivered measurable relief to working families and job creators, 6 months since Republicans implemented a simpler 21st century framework to help unleash a new generation of success stories, and 6 months since updated tax brackets and withholding tables provided for some 90 percent of American wage earners to take home more pay.

Thanks to lower tax rates, the IRS is withholding less of workers' paychecks. Because we doubled the standard deduction, married couples will benefit from what amounts to a new zero-percent tax bracket for the first $24,000 they earn. And parents are looking forward to the bigger child tax credit they can claim going forward--up to $2,000 per qualifying child.

These tax cuts are just the shot in the arm our economy needed, and they are exactly what middle-class families and workers deserved. At least that is what Republicans believe.

Our Democratic colleagues seem to see things quite differently. They don't think that $2,000--that is the average estimated tax cut this year for a family of four earning the median family income--seems like very much money, as far as they are concerned.

After all, every single Democrat voted against giving American families these tax cuts. They figured Washington knew how to spend the money better than the taxpayers who earned it. Of course, the bill became law without Democrats' help. Since then, they have set about trying to persuade middle-class families that getting to keep more of their own money is a terrible thing, so they should support Democrats' efforts to repeal tax reform.

I am glad I don't have to try and make that case. It looks like more take-home pay for workers is already beginning to have ripple effects throughout the U.S. economy. Fueled in part by our Republican policies, consumer confidence in 2018 reached its highest level since November of 2000.

Sure enough, just last month retail sales growth doubled the gains that experts had forecast and shot up at the fastest pace in half a year. Here is the L.A. Times headline: ``Retail sales post sharp gains in May, signaling a surge in U.S. economic growth.'' That is the L.A. Times.

That is more take-home pay for American taxpayers, more prosperity for American retailers, more demand for American goods and services, and thus, more demand for American workers.

This is what we call a virtuous circle, and Republicans' commonsense agenda is helping to make it happen. Our Democratic colleagues may want to put Washington's foot back on the brake by repealing tax reform and piling up more regulations, but they aren't just arguing with those of us across the aisle. They are arguing with the facts. They are arguing with the data. They are arguing with American families who are keeping more of their own money. They are arguing with the prosperity our agenda is already helping to unleash.

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