Protecting Family and Small Business Tax Cuts Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, before comments, this was my first term on the Ways and Means Committee. I will tell you that, both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, is a group of very special Members, having been on other committees, even in moments like this, where we see the world very differently. Everyone is freaky smart, incredibly respectful, and if they could see what goes on in the back where we actually get along, it is a very special committee. But the fact of the matter is we sort of see the world very differently.

Have you ever had that moment where you were walking up to the podium and you were going to read something? I was going to originally read the comments from a number of Members, particularly on the other side, who were incredibly critical of the fact that many of these tax cuts expired and now they are complaining that we are extending them. We do have this sort of body where we race to whatever the current argument is. But that would actually be a little hard to do, right after saying such nice things about everyone. So let's actually have a couple of comments on the reality of what we see in the math.

Do you remember when the tax bill passed, the math was that we needed a 0.4 percent growth in GDP over 10 years and the tax reform paid for itself? How are we doing so far?

We have had, now, multiple revisions upward. Something is working out there in our society when you see more jobs than workers; when you see, in my community, the populations that have had a really rough decade with the growth recession of the last decade, they have jobs. There are good things happening.

You would think there would be almost this joy on both the left and the right when you see job training in our Arizona prisons. We actually brought one of the three-time convicted felons to testify in the Ways and Means Committee. It is so hard for this body to actually give a little and say: Look at the great societal things that are happening right now.

Also, we have the backup on the math. If we do not have substantial economic growth this decade and next, we can't keep our societal promises.

I would like to argue, when we get beyond this, we have the conversation of: What does tax reform do for future economic expansion? Again, yes, we are going to have to talk about a lot of difficult things to keep that economic expansion, but the baseline math--and I know we are only 8, 9 months into the data--it is working. Could we at least have a little sound of joy for what is working?

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