releases: https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/bloomberg-portman-highlights-wins-ohio-funding-bills-how-passing-usmca-will
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.portman.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/bloomberg-portman-highlights-wins-ohio-funding-bills-how-passing-usmca-will | On Bloomberg, Portman Highlights Wins for Ohio in Funding Bills & How Passing USMCA Will Strengthen Our Economy & Create Jobs | 2019-12-18 | 2019 | 2019-12 | Republican | House | OH | Rob Portman | P000449 | www.portman.senate.gov | legacy | On Bloomberg, Portman Highlights Wins for Ohio in Funding Bills & How Passing USMCA Will Strengthen Our Economy & Create Jobs December 18, 2019 | Press Releases In an interview with Bloomberg's Daybreak Americas with David Westin this morning, Senator Rob Portman discussed the wins he helped to secure in the final FY 2020 funding bills and FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference report. Among other things, Portman secured an important tax extenders package that will help small business in Ohio and boost the economy; the bipartisan SECURE Act, which includes a number of Portman's initiatives designed to help more Americans save for their retirement; the bipartisan RURAL Act, which will help to preserve jobs and encourage infrastructure development by providing certainty to tax-exempt cooperative organizations that accept government dollars for services such as the deployment of rural broadband; and important funding for Ohio's military installations and operations. Senator Portman also highlighted the economic benefits of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) Trade Agreement, which will strengthen our economy and support American workers, farmers, and manufacturers. Portman supports the USMCA because it will create new jobs, expand opportunities for agricultural trade, encourage new opportunities for auto jobs in America, and add a new section on digital trade to make online sales easier. Portman has actively called for Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats to bring USMCA to a vote in the House. Finally, Senator Portman discussed the upcoming impeachment vote in the House of Representatives. Portman has made clear that he plans to listen to both sides as a juror in the Senate, but based on what has been presented there is nothing that rises to the level of removing a president from office and the extreme measure of overturning an election. Meanwhile in Ohio, early voting in the presidential primary begins mid-February and the general election is less than a year away, so those who want to remove the president from office should do it through the democratic election process. Excerpts of his interview can be found below and a video can be found here. PORTMAN ON WINS HE HELPED SECURE IN THE FUNDING AGREEMENT: Finally we have all of the spending bills put together. It should have been done back on September 30th so it's taken a long time, but it's a lot better than just having what's called a continuing resolution, meaning the spending from last year, because we can put reforms in there and we can be sure that we are providing the military what they need, which is a slight increase in spending now, now that we've got the military back on its feet. But it also has some really good things in it. One thing in the appropriations bills themselves is the tax extenders package which provides more business certainty, helps farmers a lot our ag communities were hit really hard as you know by tough weather, but also this tariff battle, and this provides the ag community with a few very specific needs they wanted badly. And so, this helps our rural areas, it helps with regard to our farmers. It also helps with business certainty in other ways because it provides some clarity on issues. There's a provision in there regarding craft brewers and craft distillers, vineyards and so on, where they had an excise tax increase that was going to hit them hard in January. It would have meant a lot of lost jobs. So that's good, we provided assistance there to be sure that excise tax relief continues. And then just general clarification, there were certain things in the tax bill that weren't actually very clear, particularly again in the rural areas, that will be helpful on broadband deployment because there was something called the RURAL Act that was included that will help to say that co-ops can now provide broadband access. So, a number of good things in that legislation that help in terms of business certainty. Finally, there is the SECURE Act, which is a piece of legislation that has to do with retirement. And it's a good deal for small businesses because that lets them band together to provide retirement plans and lower their administrative costs, lower their liability. It also helps with regard to seniors, not to have to take money out of their IRA and pay taxes on it at age 70 and a half but rather it bumps it up a couple of years, and then says they can continue to contribute if they are still working. There's some good things in there that help business certainty, help our farmers and help in terms of retirement savings. PORTMAN ON HOW THE SECURE ACT WILL HELP AMERICANS SAVE FOR RETIREMENT: It does about 20 different things that basically says we want you to save more for your own retirement. Right now we have a real problem with savings, particularly my generation, the Baby Boomer Generation, is not saving enough for retirement so it allows people to put a little more away for retirement. It also helps small businesses to be able to offer plans because we've seen over the years that the biggest problem is the smaller businesses. As we have increased 401(k)s in larger businesses, increasingly those employees who work in the smaller companies are being left behind. So it gives them a larger tax credit to be able to put more money aside for a 401(k). It also helps in some other ways that are important for part-time workers. One of the issues that we found is that that is one of the areas where there is less and less savings, and retirement savings in particular, so it encourages companies to provide part-time workers with savings by allowing them to qualify with fewer hours. So, there are a number of things here that are helpful to try to get people to save more for retirement, which is a huge issue right now in our country. And by the way, in terms of the economy, it also helps because it increases the savings rate. PORTMAN ON IMPEACHMENT: Well, I've listened carefully to the hearings, and obviously seen a lot of reports and read a lot of testimony, and I have said from the start that we ought to be transparent about what happened. This all comes out of, as you know, a conversation with the President of Ukraine and the President of the United States. That transcript is now out there. People can see what it says. I don't think that calling on a foreign government to help investigate someone who was going to become a political rival potentially is a good thing. I've said that. But I've also said that doesn't rise to the level of removing a president from office. And I have seen no additional evidence since then that would convince me of that. So that's how I go into it, saying what I've heard so far, I don't see the evidence that leads to that. However, as you say, I am a juror, and I am keeping an open mind and I'm listening and we'll continue to hear what the House managers, which is the Democrats, will present. We'll also hear what the president's team will present because now they'll have a chance to present their side of the argument, so we will see what happens. Here we are, David, in the middle of a reelection, so the American people have the opportunity to look at all of this, see it all transparently, and be able to make a decision themselves. I think that should be taken into account, too. Ohio will be voting in less than three months. We've got presidential primaries coming up, we've got a presidential debate on us now. We're already kind of into the presidential campaign, so my hope is that will be considered as well, although I would be surprised if the House does not vote for impeachment today from what I've heard. PORTMAN ON WHY USMCA IS GOOD FOR OHIOANS AND ALL AMERICANS: I suppose, although this agreement is very popular, and the reason is, it is a replacement for NAFTA, which is the existing agreement between Canada and Mexico that is 25 years old and outdated, and so it improves it in a number of ways. Some people have expressed concerns about USMCA from the right and the left, but I think very few of them would say it is worse agreement than the status quo, which is what you have if you vote against it. The reason it is a better agreement is it opens up more markets. I mentioned the ag community earlier. They are very excited about this because it increases access for dairy products for individual commodities, for wheat, as an example, into Canada. So there's some very positive things for the ag community. It also helps in terms of intellectual property protection, which is important to us. A big thing in here is that is has new digital protections. The digital economy wasn't around 25 years ago, and so there's no provisions in the current NAFTA accord. For my home state of Ohio, we do a lot of trade with Canada and Mexico. Canada, by far, number one trading partner. A lot of it is digital, a lot of it is people selling things online, and right now they are not protected. Tariffs can be assessed to this as compared to the USMCA, which does not allow tariffs to be put on digital economy. And, it increases the threshold for customs duties to be applied, so it reduces the burdens. It reduces the cost, and basically just provides protections that aren't there now. Also it has labor and environmental protections that are enforceable, so it's a better agreement than the status quo. PORTMAN ON THE ISSUES HE HEARS FIRSTHAND FACING OHIOANS: You and I just talked about four pretty big things that Congress is dealing with right now. We talked about the spending bills finally coming together and what's in there. That is very important for a lot of Ohioans. For our military bases, as an example, there were some huge wins. We talked about the tax extenders in the tax relief that's provided there, and the certainty that is provided. They care about that. A lot of small business owners, I mentioned the craft brewers and the farmers, but so many other people care about that. We talked about retirement savings and the importance of people being able to save for their retirement. One of the top issues you see in the polls constantly is people nervous about whether they are going to save enough, whether they're going to outlive their retirement savings. And then we talked about the fact that we can expand jobs and trade. This USMCA will create about 170,000 plus new jobs. So frankly, I hear about that stuff a lot more than I hear about impeachment when I am home, and yet, thanks to you, you've had it on the show this morning, but I read very little about it in the media I read a lotabout impeachment in the media. I think people have kind of made their mind up about this president. They will have a chance to vote on that very soon. But really, what people care about is kitchen table issues and how is it affecting them and their families. ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |