Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I rise this afternoon to offer a path forward on the SECURE Act--the way that I think we could actually do some legislating around here and pass a constructive bill.
A little brief history, I think, is in order and helpful for context. About 3 years ago, the Senate Finance Committee passed a reasonably similar legislation out of committee unanimously. It was never considered on the Senate floor. The House took up some of these ideas and passed their own legislation.
My own view is that most of the substance of this legislation is very constructive. Most of what it does is it makes it easier for middle- class families to save for their retirement. That is constructive. However, the bill that came over from the House is different from the bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee and was never considered on the Senate floor. The House bill dropped a number of provisions that had bipartisan support. They added some provisions that had never been vetted by anybody on the Senate side, at least not in a procedural way.
There is a proper way to resolve these kinds of differences, and that is to put this bill on the Senate floor, open it up for amendments, and allow the Senate to work its will. The Senate will almost certainly pass some version--probably very similar to the House bill--and then we can iron out whatever little differences there are.
This is the way we legislate. That is what I am suggesting we do today. To do otherwise would be to treat this body as just a rubberstamp for the House, and that is not the purpose of having two legislative bodies.
I should also note that our Democratic colleagues have frequently criticized Republican leadership and the Republican majority for not legislating. Sometimes they have a point. The minority leader has said that the Senate is a legislative graveyard. He has criticized Leader McConnell for not putting bills on the floor and at one point Senator Schumer said:
We want to debate these other issues. . . . We are not saying our Republican friends are going to think exactly as we do, but let's have a debate and vote.
I couldn't agree more. I think we should have a debate. I think we should have a series of votes. I think we could bang this out in a day, at the end of which we would pass the SECURE Act, preferably after considering amendments from both sides. That is what I am proposing. In fact, we have been proposing this for weeks.
We have shared with our Democratic colleagues several amendments that the Republican Senators would like to offer. One is mine. I have other colleagues who would like to offer them. We have been asking our Democratic colleagues for their list of amendments. What things would they like to do? What amendments would they like to consider? We have restricted our amendments to those which affect the Tax Code. We have suggested that they do likewise.
Amazingly, to me, we haven't heard a single suggestion yet from our Democratic colleagues. It is amazing because I have heard plenty of criticism about our Tax Code from our Democratic friends, including criticism about the limitation we put on State and local tax deductions. I know there are Democratic colleagues who would like to extend the electric vehicle credit. There are some who have proposed new taxes on wealth. Chairman Wyden has a proposal to put a tax on unrealized market-to-market gains on assets. There is a long list of ideas we have heard from the other side.
This is the opportunity to have some votes and find out whether there is support and to what extent there is support for these things. On our side, we are willing to vote. Every Republican Senator is in favor of this proposal that I am going to suggest in a few moments, whereby we would have specific amendments on our side and allow the Democrats to have an equal number on their side. I don't know what could be more reasonable than this approach.
Quickly, my amendment fixes a technical drafting error in our tax reform. It is called the QIP. It is the acronym that is used for it. It stands for ``qualified improvement property.''
Here is the problem. Due to a drafting error, businesses are now forced to recognize the cost of improvements over a long period of time rather than to expense them in the years in which the expenses occurred. It was a drafting error. Everybody acknowledges it was a drafting error and was unintended.
Thirteen of my Democratic colleagues are cosponsors of my legislation to fix this, and every Republican Senator supports fixing this error. Those are 66 Senators right there. I am not asking for a guaranteed outcome. I am just asking for a vote. Let's have a vote on it. I have other colleagues who would also like to have votes on their amendments. As I said, our proposal is that the Democrats pick an equal number of items that are important to them, and let's have votes on those. It would look a lot like legislating. It would be good to get back to legislating. In a moment, I am going to make a unanimous consent request to do exactly that.
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Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Ohio.
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Mr. TOOMEY. 1994, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, the SECURE Act, which is at the desk.
I further ask that there be a period of general debate on the bill to be limited to 10 hours, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the only amendments in order on the Republican side be the amendments to be offered by Senators Toomey, Lee, Burr, Braun, and Cruz or their designees, the texts of which are at the desk, and five amendments that propose changes to the Internal Revenue Code to be determined by the Democratic leader, with the concurrence of the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Finance.
I further ask that debate on each amendment be limited to 30 minutes, equally divided between proponents and opponents, and that each amendment, unless it would be considered germane postcloture, be subject to an affirmative 60-vote threshold and that following the use or yielding back of time on each amendment, the Senate proceed to a vote on each amendment.
Finally, I ask that following the disposition of those specified amendments, the bill, as amended, if amended, be read a third time and that the Senate vote on the passage of the bill, as amended, if amended, with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. TOOMEY. What we are hearing from our Democratic colleagues is that the Senate is supposed to be a rubberstamp for what the House has done. We are not supposed to consider and deliberate ourselves as a body. We are not supposed to, apparently, entertain amendments--equal numbers from both sides--to attempt to reflect our constituents' interests and get to a legislative solution that would inevitably have broad bipartisan support. I am very disappointed.
Of course, I would reiterate, no Republican has ever asked for a guaranteed outcome on any amendment. All we are asking for is a vote, and apparently that is asking too much, according to our Democratic colleagues.
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