Speaker Ryan on Tax Reform, STOP School Violence Act

“I’ll admit: It seems like it was a long time ago, but you have to remember, we’re just shy of three months of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passing. So much has happened in those intervening three months. But it was only three months ago that this occurred. “In this very short period of time, the success that we have seen as a result of this law exceeds our greatest expectations. What have we been seeing? We have seen utility bill savings in more than 40 states around the country. Over 40 states, because of the tax law, are lowering their rates for utilities. That’s real money in paychecks, especially for the people who’ve been living paycheck-to-paycheck. We’ve seen more than six million employees receive bonuses from hundreds of companies. We’ve seen a vast majority of Americans have already seen bigger paychecks because the withholding tables have changed. So now, people are opening the mail or going online and seeing that their paychecks are bigger as a result of this law. “Now, we can add another tax reform effect to the list. Cathy just mentioned Washington state. Reinvestment in our nation’s health insurance market is now taking place because of the tax cuts. This week, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska—the state’s only private insurance provider—announced that it would reinvest $50 million of the tax savings that it received back into the state’s health insurance market. How’s that for an unexpected benefit of tax reform? So you got Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska saying because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we’re putting $50 million back into our state for health insurance. “There is more good tax reform news every single day. Yesterday, the National Federation of Independent Business released results from a new survey that found that for the first time since 2006, taxes received the fewest votes as the number one business problem for small businesses. Let me repeat that: our tax system is now helping, not hurting, small businesses. “So we are really seeing, as Kevin mentioned, labor force participation. We’re getting people who are not working, who are not looking for work, who are on the sidelines, now getting up and going into the jobs market. So we’re beginning to see people getting on the ladder of life because of the economic growth that is occurring, because of the higher wages, because of the new jobs that are being offered. So we’re seeing phenomenal results from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And it’s just really a stark difference to me that not a single Democrat voted for this. And now they’re saying they want to raise taxes, and they want to void all of this great progress that we’ve made in our economy.”