without objection Mr President and colleagues if I started the workday with the opportunity to help 16 million kids from lowincome families make America more competitive with China build affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of Americans and pay for it all by cracking down on fraud I'd call that a hell of a good day at the office tomorrow we're going to find out if Senate Republicans agree the vote on the tax bill tomorrow has been more than six months in the making in fact I've been working on this in a completely bipar way for two full years the only reason this didn't get done a long time ago is delay on the part of the Senate Republicans so no more delay it's time to vote everybody is going to see where each Senator stands and over the next 45 minutes or so I'm going to have a number of my colleagues talk about why this bill is so important so I'm going to start with just a few key points for starters the bill was designed with balance in mind for every dollar in tax cuts for business The Joint Committee on taxation which is the official scorekeeper of these matters they have told us that an equal amount goes to Children's and families as goes to business our Focus on families is on those that are walking an economic tight rub 16 million kids are going to benefit from the bill half a million lifted out of poverty a huge accomplishment and it's especially important for the families with modest incomes families with two three or four kids under the current rules they get discriminated against because those big families get only a single child tax credit regardless of how many kids they have think about that federal law tells these struggling families that if you got a hard family we try to figure out how to get by by splitting a single child tax credit and figure out how three or four kids can split a pair of shoes three or four kids can't do that they can't split a single me meal this economic discrimination against large families in America ought to end there's been a lot of talk about who's really looking out for the families my view is that's going to become clear when the Senate votes tomorrow we'll see who's actually on the side of the families that need a boost the families who are facing that kind of economic discrimination I just outlined I know that my colleagues on this side want to make sure that families can get the assistance they need and we want to end the discrimination against large families there's so much in this bill that ought to bring the two sides together that's certainly what happened in the house 357 votes for example the bill builds2 200,000 new affordable housing units the lack of affordable housing is a nationwide crisis it's not just blue states and cities it's everywhere on housing you can call me a supply cider we've got to build and build and build 200,000 new units in a minute or two we'll hear from my colleague from Washington State who has single-handedly led the effort to meet housing needs in America the bill invests in research and development so we can out compete China changes Republicans made to the tax code back in 2017 slash the value of the tax incentives for research and development it's worth only 20% of what it used to be Republicans have said in 2018 and 2019 and 2020 and 2021 and 22 and 23 and 24 they would fix the research and development tax credit mess that they single handedly created tomorrow's going to be their chance according to the treasury Department 4 million small businesses would benefit from this bill picture that Mr President 4 million small businesses startups ones that depend so much on research and development to compete with China many of them are in fields that compete directly with China and other countries they want to know why in in the world why would Congress put this off until 2025 a lot of them say Ron we're not going to be around in 2025 if you all don't act the bill also provides help to families and businesses hit by megga storms and mega wildfires this is so important to the people in my state I've told them at Town Hall meetings I've had almost 1100 of them Mr President we're going to get this done because in Oregon and virtually everywhere in our country so many of our communities have been devastated as I touched on 357 votes in the house Mr President doesn't happen by osis You by and large on a normal day you can't get 357 house members to agree to order a piece of apple pie but that's the kind of support this tax bill had left leaning groups like like it right leaning groups like it family organizations like it faith-based organizations like it pro-life groups pro-choice groups across the political spectrum and in the next day or so we're going to see if the Republicans who talk so much about these issues help for small business help for families building housing preventing fraud my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about it constantly now we're going to find out if anybody wants to actually follow through on the rhetoric I know we do we believe with the Senate voting now we've got a chance as I touched on at the beginning Mr President to have a real day at the office a day when you help the kids when you help the families and the small businesses and people who need housing and people who've been devastated with disasters get all that done tomorrow Mr President that's one hell of a day at the office I yield my time now to my colleague from Washington State our leader on the housing issues and many others