Courtesy that brings about constructive change. Grant our senators a tolerance so that they may not be quick to condemn ideas that differ from their own. Lord, give them such integrity so that their work may be their best whether there is anyone to see it or not. Bless and keep us all. Shine your wisdom upon us, doing for us more than we can ask or imagine. We pray in your great name, amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell as we all know, the senate has been quite busy. Legislatively, weve been hard at work on everything from budgets to Disaster Relief to Consumer Protections to tax reform. On the nominations front, weve taken strong action to strengthen the judiciary, including confirming a slate of very wellqualified nominees in recent days. This week were continuing our work to staff up the rest of the government as well. This is one of the senates most important functions and one we take seriously. Were currently considering men and women who have been nominated to serve in many different roles at many different agencies. The one thing they all share in common is this theyre ready to get to work, and the sooner we confirm them, the sooner they can get on with the job for our country. First well vote to confirm john gibson as deputy chief management officer at the department of defense. Hell be responsible for increasing efficiency throughout the departments business operations. Afterward, the senate will continue its consideration of steven engel who will serve as the Deputy Attorney general in the department of Justice Office of legal counsel. And then the next nomination we will consider is that of peter robb to serve as the general counsel of the National Labor relations board. For most of its 80year existence, the nlrb has had the important responsibility of supporting stable Labor Relations by acting as a fair and impartial umpire in the resolution of labor disputes. Unfortunately, that changed under the previous administration, which wielded its board majority as an antimajority political cudgel. Instead of the boards historic commitment to impartially applying the law, the nlrbs obamaappointed democratic majority put forward policies that diminished the righ rightst the expense of workers and the middle class. Thankfully you this senate recently confirmed a new majority to the nlrb that is already beginning to undo the damage of the past eight years. Now we have the opportunity to build upon that good work with the nomination of mr. Robb. The nlrbs general counsel is responsible for investigating cases of unfair labor practices and for advancing cases before the board and its members. Mr. Robb will fulfill these duties under the aegis of a new board majority that is returning the nlrb to its true mission once more. Labor policy is not simply some theoretical abstraction. For mr. ; he knows what it moo for mr. Robb, he knows what it meanings to work as a hospital orderly, forklift operator, or highway sign maker because he himself has worked in all these jobs before. After law school, robb gained valuable experience in employment law. His previous leadership roles including as an nlrb regional field attorney and chief counsel to a board member contribute to making robb an ideal candidate to serve as the boards general counsel. I look forward to voting to advance this nomination, and i urge my colleagues to join me in helping retort nlrb to the to restore the nlrb to the umpire of labor disputes it was meant to be. Our complex tax code is in desperate need of reform. We now have a onceinageneration opportunity to reform it. We all want an economy that reaches for its potential again. We all want to support Small Businesses and the middle class. Tax reform represents the single most important action we can take today to advance goals like these. Ive heard from many kentuckians calling for relief from our outdated and burdensome tax code. Listen to this Small Business owner from murray, kentucky be, who wrote to my office about his struggles under our current tax code. This is what he said. Im writing to stress the importance of tax reform to Small Businesses. As a Small Business owner, ive been saddled with tax burdens since i began my business eight years ago. Tax reform for Small Business and families needs to be done immediately, he continued, so we can have some economic hope once again. Small businesses just like this one are calling out for relief. So are families. So are middleclass workers all across our country. Instead of better opportunities, our tax code gives them a complicated web of schedules, deductions, and religions, a by and regulations, a byzantine system thats impossible for many to understand. Its time for a system that actually helps the middle class succeed and actually encourages Small Businesses to grow, invest, and hire. We want to help families plan for their future. We want to get the economy going again and growing again p. Most of all, we want to take more money out of washingtons pockets and put more money in the pockets of the middle class. To accomplish these goals, both the house and the senate are continuing to move forward to deliver tax reform. Yesterday the house ways and Means Committee completed its first day of discussing the house legislative proposal unveiled last week. That bill, the tax cuts and jocks act, builds upon the unified tax reform framework and reflects goals shared by president trump, republicans in the house, and our conference here in the senate. Priorities shared by americans in both parties all across our country. Later this morning a group of senators, administration officials, and tax reform advocates will highlight the benefits for families, Small Businesses, and the american economy. Theyll share their constituen constituents calls for tax reform. The Senate Finance committee will continue its work on this important issue as well. Chairman hatch will continue to lead the committee through an open proficiency giving members the open process, giving themselves the opportunity to offer amendments and Work Together to take another big step forward. Im grateful for the work of both chairman brady and chairman hatch to get us to this point. We still have a lot of work to do. But we are committed to passing tax reform to help our nation reach its full potential. The presiding officer under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. Under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business for debate only until 11 00 a. M. With senators permitted to speak therein. The clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Schumer mr. President. The presiding officer the democratic leader. Mr. Schumer later this week the presiding officer the senate is in a quorum call. Mr. Schumer i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Schumer now on taxes, later this week, the house will begin marking up the republican tax plan. Record speed. No hearings. No real discussion. And unfortunately Senate Republicans are mimicking the house in trying to rush through their bill as well. And it is said that the Senate Republicans will unveil the plan of their own. Although i dont expect there to be that much difference between the two. Now, what has united the republican tax reform effort so far in this congress has been a stubborn desire to reduce taxes paid by big corporations and the super rich. Thats the core. The middle class ends up with the leftovers, and shockingly, millions in the middle class will actually see a tax increase. Not just a handful, but a large number. This mornings New York Times did an analysis. According to them, onethird of all middleclass families would pay more in taxes next year under the house bill, and by 2026, half, half, nearly half of all middleclass families would pay more in taxes. Almost half. Heres the newspaper article. This is the New York Times, and they defined Median Income and middle class as households between 50,000 50,000 and 160,000. The backbone of america. Here is their med line. I dont know if you can see it. Republican plan would raise taxes on millions of middleclass families. Heres the headline again. Printed a little larger so everyone here in america can see it. Republican plan would raise taxes on millions of middleclass families. Thats the case. They did their analysis. And by the way, you say well, thats mainly in the coastal states. Even if its not onethird, its probably about 20 in the poorest of states. Large numbers of middleclass taxpayers in every state in this union, coastal, noncoastal, new york, california, but also wyoming and utah, would pay nebraska, would pay a significant tax increase. Looking at the house bill, you can see why. Republicans either reduce or eliminate several middleclass Tax Deductions. The elimination of the personal deduction, for example, which lets families deduct roughly 451 for each person in their household would be costly to families of three or more. Its sort of if if you have a lot of kids, this bills bad for you. Taxwise, if tax policy influences behavior, theyre trying to discourage bigger families. What does that say . Ending the personal exemption makes the republican tax plan an antilarge family bill. In many cases, the new benefits provided to the middle class are insufficient to fill the gap created by the loss of popular deductions. And worse, many of the benefits are temporary, expiring after several years. So while some in the middle class may get an initial tax break, down the line the break disappears and taxes start to go up. As pointed out by david kamen, a professor of law at n. Y. U. , and they have a great department, republicans have reduced the value of middleclass tax breaks significantly over time. To meet their desires not to increase the deficit by too much, although 1. 5 trillion is a heck of a lot, instead of reducing the tax breaks on the biggest corporations or the very wealthiest, they reduced them on the middle class. So in five years time, the 300 person Family Credit is gone. The child tax credits, unlike the personal exemptions which they replace, loses value over time because theyre not indexed. They dont increase with inflation. And the republicans use the same gimmicks to make the value of middleclass deductions like the standard deduction lose value over time. So while some middleclass families may see a tax decrease in the very short run, a considerable number see a hidden tax increase a few years later. They have frontloaded the benefits to disguise a tax hike in the outyears. Look at this chart. Now, our republican colleagues picked the perfect family to benefit from their tax break, middleclass family when they proposed it, a family of making 59,000 a year. Well, the institute for taxation and Economic Policy looked at the republican plan and found over one in five taxpayers, those earning between 56,000 and 150,000, the heart of the middle class, would see an average increase of 1,350 by 2027. Here it is. This is not a family that has medical expenses or kids in college. They lose those deductions, or a large mortgage or from a state with high personal and personal income and sales taxes. This is the plain vanilla handpicked family chosen by the republicans to highlight the benefits of their plan, and it is true. In the first year, they get a break, around 1,100. But over the years, they get an increase, so by 2027, even this handpicked republican family gets a tax increase. The bottom line, the republican tax plan is like a ticking time bomb for many hardworking middleclass families. Working and middleclass families see a tax increase because the republican plan reduces their benefits over time. Meanwhile, tax giveaways for the wealthiest americans and huge corporations get better over time. The estate Tax Exemption goes up from 11 million to 22 million for a couple, and then is permanently repealed by 2023. The corporate rate cut and passthrough cut also stays permanent, a boon to wealthy shareholders. The middleclass Tax Deductions and credits expire. Deductions for corporations and the wealthiest are permanent or even get better. As mark mazer, the director of the independent Tax Policy Center said, you can create a plan that just cuts taxes for middleclass people. Thats not what this is. Thats his quote. Yet thats how republicans are selling it. A few days again, a few days ago on the lou hewitt show, my friend, the majority leader, said quote this is his quote at the end of the day, nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase under the republican bill. Again, mitch mcconnell. Nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase. Well, if leader mcconnell was referring to the house bill, thats just a boldfaced lie, and he ought to retract it. But to give my friend the benefit of the doubt, maybe he is referring to the Senate Tax Bill still under consideration. Lets see. Is the republican in the republican bill, will nobody in the middle class get a tax increase . Were waiting and seeing. If past is prologue, i doubt it, because house leaders said no middleclass person would get an increase, and then their bill walloped the middle class. The third get an increase immediately. The middle class get an increase over the next ten years. I would remind my Senate Republican colleagues that their House Republicans sold their bill as a middleclass bill, a middleclass tax cut, and then put together a plan that raises taxes on millions of middleclass families. A third of all families making between 65,000 and 150,000. If the senate bill follows the same path, promising universal middleclass tax cuts but delivering smoke and mirrors and hidden tax increases, it will get clobbered in the court of public opinion, as it would deserve. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call quorum call quorum call quorum call c quorum call quorum call mr. Murphy mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Murphy i ask to dissuspension with the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. The senate will consider the following nomination. The clerk nomination, department of defense, john h. Gibson, ii, of texas to be deputy chief management officer. The presiding officer there will be 60 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. The senator from connecticut. Mr. Murphy thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , we are grieving yet again today. Theres been another horrific mass shooting in texas in a church in texas. 35 dead, we were barely past our stage of grief when 30 people were shot dead and 500 injured at a Country Music concert in las vegas. Every single night parents, brothers, and sisters go to bed having lost their loved ones. 90 people die every day from gun violence. This is not something that we should accept. We are not impotent or helpless to try to change the scope of tragedy that is crippling for families that have to go through this. I just want you to take a quick look at this Pretty Simple chart. The United States has more guns and more gun deaths than any other developed country, and it is not close. We are not even in the neighborhood of any of our other g20 competitor nations. And while the president told us the other day that this was a Mental Illness problem, you cannot explain this outlier status through Mental Illness because none of these other countries have any lower rate of Mental Illness. There are just as many people who are mentally ill in these countries as there are in our country. You cannot explain it by the attention we pay to Mental Illness. We spend more money on treating Mental Illness than these countries do. This isnt a Mental Illness problem. Weve got to do better in treating people who have psychological disorders in this country, but the reason ta we are an outlier nation when it comes to the number of gun deaths and the epic scale of our mass tragedies is explained by something else. Heres a quick story for you. Here are the states that have background check requirements on all gun sales in the private sector. Heres the states that have no background check laws beyond those that are required in federal law. Its a fundamentally different story when it comes to gunrelated homicides. In states that have background check laws, the average rate of homicide is substantially lower substantially lower than in states that have background check laws. Thats because in this country, with the loosest, laxest gun laws in the industrialized world, with private citizens able to get their hands on weapons designed, not for hunting, not for shooting for sport, but to kill, these tactical assaultstyle weapons that are being used over and over again in these mass tragedies more people end up in harms way. Smarter gun laws, just making sure that the right people have gun, not the wrong people, leads to less gun deaths. And so its time for us to admit that this is a uniquely american problem, and it deserves our attention rather than our silence which has been our response every single session that i have been a member of congress. These are but a few of the faces that have been lost to gun violence in this country. My small town of sandy hook is a broken c