Rob Portman: “I am here on the floor of the Senate today to talk about our economy, talk about the new massive tax hikes that…”

“I am here on the floor of the Senate today to talk about our economy, talk about the new massive tax hikes that Democrats in the House of Representatives have now proposed to pay for the $3.5 trillion spending spree that is called ``reconciliation.'' I want to talk about why it is bad for American workers, why it is bad for our economy, bad for small businesses, and bad for American families. They call it the Build Back Better plan, but it is really tearing down what helped us to be better and what helped to make us a more fair economy and an opportunity economy, by getting rid of the positive aspects of the 2017 tax reform and tax cut legislation and, instead, putting in place massive new tax increases. By the way, these tax increases go even beyond eliminating the tax relief that was provided in 2017. In many cases, it provides additional tax increases even higher than we had before 2017. We had a historically strong economy leading up to COVID-19, in large measure because of this 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which focused on expanding opportunities for businesses to grow; for families to take home more of their hard-earned cash; and for the United States, as a country, to be able to compete globally. It made us more competitive. As a result, before COVID-19, we saw record growth in jobs and wages. In February of 2020, as we were getting into the COVID-19 pandemic, we had 19 straight months of job growth and wage growth of over 3 percent annualized.…”