releases: https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D533E3C5-7244-42A2-BBF4-FC578E01C59D
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D533E3C5-7244-42A2-BBF4-FC578E01C59D | On Senate Floor, Portman Discusses Historic Tax Reform That Will Help Middle Class, Boost Jobs, Increase Wages | 2017-12-22 | 2017 | 2017-12 | Republican | House | OH | Rob Portman | P000449 | www.portman.senate.gov | legacy | WASHINGTON, D.C.In a speech on the Senate floor last night, U.S. Senator Portman Rob Portman (R-OH) discussed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, historic tax reform legislation that was signed into law by President Trump today. Portman, who served as a conferee on the House-Senate conference committee, discussed how the bill will help the middle class, create jobs, and boost wages for American workers. Transcript of his remarks can be found below and a video can be found here. Mr. President, Im standing heretonight to talk about a couplethings.First is the tax legislationthat was passed this week inCongress.This is going to help everybodyI represent because its goingto help our entire country.Its going to lift up ourcountry in ways were alreadybeginning to see.There have been a lot of peopleto thank, and today I was at thesigning ceremony where SpeakerRyan and President Pro temporeOrrin Hatch signed it and its onits way to the president for hissignature.I want to start by thankingthem, Speaker Ryan, ChairmanHatch and Chairman Brady of theWays and Means Committee withwhom I worked closely.He is a gentleman, always looking for ways tosolve problems and to get toyes.I commend him for that.I also want to thank some of thecolleagues on the FinanceCommittee who I worked closelywith.This core four group includingSenator John Thune, Senator PatToomey, Senator Tim Scott andmaybe most importantly is thestaff. We had an enormous undertakinghere and it was ambitious to tryto meet the goals that were setout early on of realmiddle-class tax cuts andenergizing the economy byhelping small businesses andchanging the whole internationalsystem so we could level theplaying field.There was a lot to do and ittook a lot of expertise, time,and effort.Mark Prater, Jay Khosla, BrendanDunn, who led that effort,we all owe you our thanks.Then of course a slew of otherstaff, including Zach Rudisill of mystaff who just spent hours andhours and put his heart and soulinto this.Thank you, all of you, forhelping us to get to this point. You know, for years, Mr.President, Democrats andRepublicans alike have calledfor middle-class tax cuts.We talk about it in campaigns.Im proud to say that this weekwe delivered on it.And I know some of my Democraticcolleagues have been critical ofthe legislation and some havesaid, well, these are not reallymiddle-class tax cuts becausethey expire.Yes, they expire after eightyears.We wish they didnt, but thatsthe rules, the budget rules here,but thats the same thing thathappened with the 2001 tax cuts,the 2003 tax cutsand Congress worked toextend those using the samebudget rules for about 95 percent ofthose taxpayers.Im strongly hoping that we willdo the same thing, and I believe we will, but this is real tax relief.And for families in Ohio, medianincome, the average saving will be justover $2,000 every year.That helps a family budget.Thats a little money you canput aside for retirement.Maybe thats money to use for avacation you didnt have.If youre living paycheck topaycheck, which is true with alot of people I represent,thats a big help.Its a big help.Thats from doubling the childcredit.Thats from doubling thestandard deduction, essentiallycreating $14,000 of a zeroincome bracket. By the way, doing those sorts ofthings in this bill means aboutthree million Americans or moreare going to be leaving the taxrolls all together.These are people who have taxliability now and under the newbill starting in a couple ofweeks, they will not have anincome tax liability.Theyll be out from under theIRSand theyll be able, as they movemany of them from welfare towork or from a federal programinto gainful employment, not toworry about the tax man.Thats really important, too.So I am proud of the legislationbecause I think its going toreally help the people Irepresent in an immediate way.And people will see it in theirpaychecks.The proof is in the paychecksbecause theyll see it probablystarting in February the withholding will change. The IRS has to go through aprocess on that.I wrote a letter to themyesterday encouraging them tomove on that quickly becausepeople want to see that in theirpaychecks.So the tax relief starts in acouple of weeks, January 1.It will be in the paychecks whenthe withholding changes, hopefullysometime late January or February.People will see less money beingheld from their paycheck becauseof the tax cuts that enable themto have a healthier familybudget.But Ive got to tell you, Mr.President, I believe that thisis going to go well beyond thatfor the people I represent. As important as thosemiddle-class tax cuts is whatwere doing to stimulate moreinvestment in this economy.And thats through the changesfor small businesses who willnow be able to put more moneyinto their business rather thanpaying more taxes.Many of these businesses,so-called pass-through companies,which is most of the businessesin America, they pay taxes asindividuals.They dont pay the business taxrate.They pay the individual taxrate, and many of them do take adividend.They take money out of thecompany every year for onepurpose and thats to pay theirtaxes.To the extent theyre not takingthe money out as much to paythose taxes because of thechanges we made here for smallbusinesses, theyre going to be able toinvest more in their people,more in their equipment, more intheir plants, and Im hearingthis from small business peoplearound the state of Ohio. Last weekend I was with a numberof them and theyre excited about thisbecause they want to be able toinvest more in their business.They want to be able to investmore in their people.They want to be able to givepeople who work for them theopportunity to have a higherwage.Right now, wages are flat, they reallyhave been for the past coupledecades when you take inflationinto account.This has the incredibleopportunity for us not just toprovide middle-class tax cuts,which are important, not just tohelp businesses invest, butactually to help get wages up sothat people will see that ifthey work hard and play by therules they are going to seehigher wages, the ability to getahead, and have more hope forthemselves and for their kidsand their grandkids.Everyone regardless of economicstatus, region, or party isgoing to see the benefits ofthis tax reform bill. By the way, some workers arealready seeing the benefit as wetalk today because there are abunch of companies thatannounced today that, because ofthe tax reform and tax cutlegislation, they are alreadytaking steps to increase the payof their employees, increasebenefits, or invest more moneyin building plants, equipment, oradding more jobs throughinvestmentor both.These companies include some bigcompanies youve heard of likeComcast.It includes other companies likeWells Fargo, Boeing, and AT&T.Theyve made these announcementstoday.One company that announced todayis in my hometown.Its Fifth Third Bank, kindof an unusual name, Fifth Third,but that makes them distinctive,right?They said today, were going tostart paying our people a higherentry-level pay.Instead of 13-something an hourit will be 15 bucks an hour andprovide bonuses to employees notaffected by that.And theyre going to do it rightnow, and theyre doing it becauseof the tax reform legislation.So to those who say, gosh, whatabout me?I would just say look at yourpaycheck, and if you work for oneof these businesses thatsalready made an announcement, ofcourse youre feeling good aboutit, but even if you work foranother company that maybe is alittle quieter about whattheyre doing, maybe theyre notgoing to make a bigannouncement, trust me itsgoing to be in their interestnow in a competitive market outthere to invest in thosecompanies, to invest in theirpeople, to invest in training,to invest in better equipment,better technology, and those arethe sorts of things that overtime, Mr. President, are goingto make the biggest difference, Ithink, in this tax bill. If you look at whats happeningin our economy today, the reasonwages are flat, and by theway, expenses are not flat.Expenses are up and wages areflat. Thats called the middle-classsqueeze.Whats the biggest expense formost people?Health care.The way to deal with that is toget the economy moving andspecifically to increase theproductivity.Thats what economists say.When you have low productivity,you have low economic growth.Thats not the America I grew upin and thats not the America Iwant my kids to grow up in.By making these investments inbetter technology, in betterequipment, in better training,what happens?You get more productivity.You get higher efficiency.You get the opportunity toincrease your business and,therefore, hire more people andthats something I think overtime will play out and willcreate the opportunity to liftup everybody. John F. Kennedy, who was aDemocrat, but had a lot ofthings to say that sound morelike what Republicans aretalking about today.One was he said that a risingtide lifts all ships. A rising tide.In the 1960s, he did cutcapital gains, by the way, thatand that increased economic liftactivityRonald Reagan put in tax reform,along with a bipartisan group inthe United States Congress, thatended up with strong economicgrowth in the 1980s and 1990s. But that was 31 years ago.Thats the last time we madethese kinds of substantive,comprehensive changes in the taxcode.Its past time to do it again.The final thing I will say aboutthe tax reform proposal is thatwhen you talk to businesses thatare competing globally, which ismore and more companies,including a lot of smallercompanies now, the globaleconomy is upon us.People say, gosh, I wonder whenthe economy is going to affectme globally.Well, it does.It affects all of us, because inyour town, wherever it is, inyour business, wherever you work,youre probably competingdirectly or indirectly on aglobal basis. Ill give you an example.There is a little company in myhometown called Standardtextile.Its a great company.They make linens.Its a company that competesevery day globally.And, in fact, a lot of thecompanies they compete with, asyou can imagine, are companiesthat make these linens somewhereelse, say, in Asia, where,traditionally, people have beenable to find lower costs.Guess what they are looking atnow with this tax reform bill?The ability to invest more herein America.American workers, American-madelinens.And they tell me, as do othercompanies, that this is going togive them a better competitivesituation because no longer areyou going to have a tax codethat has the highest businessrate in the entireindustrialized world and aninternational system that saysif you keep your money overseasrather than bringing it back,when you earn money, you cansave on your taxes.Thats whats resulted in$2.5 trillion to $3 trillionbeing locked out of America andbeing kept overseas. This tax reform proposal unlocksthat. It allows us to bring thatmoney back.People call it repatriation.I guess thats accurate, repatriation.I wish it had never beenunpatriotriated in the firstplace.If youre a patriot, you shouldwant that money to be spent herein America.Thats whats going to happenwith this tax reform proposal.So it is about the tax cuts forworking families, hardworkingfamilies who deserve it, who arenow stuck in a situation whereits tough to get ahead.This will help immediately.It is about helping smallbusinesses and other companieshere in America to be able toinvest more, being able to writeoff equipment when they buy itright away, as an example, havinga lower rate.But its also about levelingthat playing field and sayingthat America once again is goingto reposition itself as theleader in the world, once againbe that beacon of opportunitythat other countries look to and say, we would like to be likethat, a free market economywhere people who work hard andplay by the rules can get ahead.You cant say that now with ourcurrent tax code because workers are competing on anun-level playing field with onehand tied behind their backsbecause of our tax code. Three times as many Americancompanies were purchased byforeign companies last year asopposed to the other way around.4,700 U.S. companies becameforeign companies over the lastdecade or so because of our taxcode.Thats based on an Ernst &Young study that came outrecently that said if this taxreform proposal that we have nowpassed had been in place, those4,700 companies would still beAmerican companies.All of us are patriots here inthis body.All of us should want to bringback those jobs to America,repatriate those profits toAmerica, give American workersthe ability to compete on alevel playing field.I know there were somedifferences of opinion in this legislation.We have heard a lot of it onthe other side of the aisle.But on this issue, its beenbipartisan in the past, and Ihope it will be bipartisan goingforward, to hold these reformsin place so that we can showthat we have confidence andfaith in American workers.We have confidence that if wegive them the right toolsinthis case, the right tax code towork with, they can compete andthey can win. I think were going to see that,I think, again. With the hopefulsigns we have seen even today ofcompanies providing better payor benefits or making additionalcommitments on investments, evenwell beyond that, were going tosee, maybe quietly and maybespread out all over the countryin ways that wont be as obviousof decisions that are going to bemade, business budgets that aregoing to change as a result ofthis tax reform bill.Im hearing it from smallbusinesses.Im hearing it from the biggercompanies that compete directlyglobally.And Im certainly hearing itfrom families who are happy tosee a little tax break to beable to help them as we go intothe holidays. Mr. President, thats all good news, and I think passing that legislation is really going to help the people I represent. ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |