Republicans Report on New Tax Law’s Benefits at Finance Committee Hearing

Americans across the country are continuing to see Republicans’ promises of higher wages, more jobs and stronger economic growth come to life as tax reform is implemented. From higher wages in South Dakota, the creation of opportunity zones in distressed communities, and renewed small business optimism, Senate Finance Committee Republicans are excited about the outcomes of the biggest tax overhaul in more than three decades. Take a look at what they had to say at yesterday’s hearing on the initial results of the new law:

CHAIRMAN ORRIN HATCH (R-Utah) on how tax reform has spurred workforce investment:

“More than 500 companies have announced wage hikes, increased benefits, more jobs, and increased investment or expansion in the United States thanks to the new law. For example, in the past month, Kroger announced it will spend $500 million on employee compensation; Verizon is doubling its commitment to STEM education—helping hundreds of schools and millions of students; and a new study by the National Association of Manufacturers shows that 93 percent of manufacturers are optimistic about the future—in large part thanks to a tax code that works for American innovators and manufacturers.”

SENATOR CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IOWA) on fixing the international side of the tax code:

“An important aspect of tax reform was fixing our broken corporate tax system. As a result from tax reform, at least one company, Assurant, has announced that it will no longer invert and will remain a U.S. company. Several recent Canadian news particles highlight how U.S. tax reform will make inversion transactions such as the 2014 transaction involving Burger King and Tim Horton and it would make that less likely. One recent article went as far to say that, “the U.S. tax reform will end new corporation inversion in Canada.’”

SENATOR JOHN THUNE (R-S.D.) on tax reform’s benefits in South Dakota communities:

“While much of the media attention has been on the response from the nation’s largest companies, we’re seeing the positive outcomes from our local businesses, even in places like my state of South Dakota. Aladdin Industries in Elk Point South Dakota, Great Western Bank Corp in Sioux Falls, South Dakota which are increasing their base wages for their employees, Black Hills Energy in Rapid City South Dakota, which is passing benefits from tax reform along its utility customers. This is welcome news for the hard-working middle-class families that we had set out to benefit through tax reform.”

SENATOR ROB PORTMAN (R-OHIO) on how the new pass-through deduction is sparking small business optimism:

“PNC Bank does a survey every year…they’ve never seen the levels of optimism as high in small and medium sized businesses. And NFIB, which represents the smaller businesses…They’ve never seen more interest in investing in the history of their survey, as they do now. In terms of this issue of optimism, again, they’re seeing it off the charts. Now, again, that’s because small businesses are taking advantage of this [deduction]…I’ve done 15 visits now with businesses around Ohio, we’ve had another half dozen roundtables with small businesses, and I can’t find one who is saying this is not good for them.”

SENATOR TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) on the creation of opportunity zones to spur investment in distressed communities:

“A bipartisan coalition of senators from Sen. Coons to Sen. Booker to myself all supportive of the Investing in Opportunity Act, which was a part of the tax package, that provided for opportunity zones to be created to attract more private sector capital back into some of the distressed communities. More than 50 million Americans live in distressed communities across the country. Using the new market tax credit as the definition of distressed communities, we were able to figure out where to target the resources to further development in distressed communities.

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