Motion to Discharge--H.R. 3
Floor Speech
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Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise in celebration of the 6-month anniversary of passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I know there were a lot of remarks about the benefits of tax cuts right out of the gate, but many of the benefits from the reform of the old, broken, and outdated Tax Code will accumulate over the long run.
I rise to talk about some of the benefits from the new Tax Code that can be witnessed by hard-working families right now. For example, the typical family of four making the median family income of around $75,000 a year is right in the middle of the first year of our cuts. Those typical families are going to see their taxes cut by more than half.
We also doubled the child tax credit and expanded its refundability to benefit more working families. The Tax Code also makes filing taxes easier and more straightforward for the typical middle-class family. That is because the standard deduction was nearly doubled.
Taken all together, provisions like these are the reason the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the overall distribution of the new tax bill is directed toward the middle class. This is happening everywhere.
Take my home State of Utah, for example. According to some recent numbers from the Tax Foundation, citizens of Utah can expect, on average, a tax cut of nearly $1,500, or 2.4 percent of their income.
Take advantage of those hundreds of dollars and start paying off your car a little sooner. Maybe go out to see a baseball game or take your family on a road trip to see some of the beautiful national parks around our country and especially throughout the State of Utah. All of those things are now that much more possible because of our tax reform.
Those direct tax cuts are just a part of the larger picture ushered in by tax reform. More broadly, tax reform has provided a shot in the arm to a long-ailing economy. After cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, businesses have been able to reinvest, build new facilities, hire new workers, and start innovating now more than ever.
Recent polls by the National Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, Gallup, and the National Federation of Businesses show that optimism, and plans to expand hiring and growth for businesses of all sorts and sizes are at alltime highs. This optimism, along with lower costs of increasing investments and doing business, has already started to result in real changes for the middle class.
Take, for example, the list of more than 100 different utility companies that have cut their rates across the country. According to one compilation, the American people are on track to pocket more than $2.8 billion just this year off those savings.
Some might also argue that this is a normal period of expansion and growth in the economy. As one journalist recently noted, tax reform has poured ``jet fuel'' on a growing economy.
According to the most recent reports in June, the total number of workers receiving unemployment benefits is running at the lowest levels in 44 years, and that is just in terms of numbers of people drawing unemployment benefits, not even taking into account the massive population growth since December 1973.
For the first time since record-keeping began in 2000, the number of available positions exceeded the number of job seekers, according to the information from the Department of Labor. This is just the initial boost. I tend to think positive economic outcomes are most often created by hard work and good policy, like our tax reform package.
That is why activity in the labor market has been especially robust, with more than 1 million jobs already created in this year alone. That is why wage growth has been trending upward, and that is why business investment has been robust. More Americans now have access to more of their own hard-earned money. As Republicans predicted, we are already seeing the middle class and the economy generally benefit.
Mark my words, there is a lot more growth we should anticipate coming down the pike as more and more people start to realize how much tax reform actually does, and will, affect their families, their businesses, their communities, and our country as a whole.
As business investment and productivity pick up due to higher expected aftertax returns from investment, wage growth, too, will continue to pick up. All told, these changes are creating a paradigm shift. More than ever before, Americans can expect things to be better tomorrow than they are today.
Personally, I am more excited than ever for my great-grandchildren, my grandchildren, and my children. I am grateful to everyone who has made this possible. After all, major tax reform like this is truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity for all of us.
Just 6 months in, we have seen so many positive results from the tax reform that the list is too long to cover in just one speech. Make no mistake, the list of positives from tax reform for American families and businesses will continue to grow larger and longer.
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