Ted Cruz Takes Victory Lap After Senate Passes 'No Tax On Tips' Bill

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In Senate floor remarks, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) celebrated the bipartisan vote for a bill eliminating taxes on tips.

Transcript

00:00Madam President, the senator from Texas, you know, I remember as a kid in Sunday school

00:11thinking what it would have been like to live in Israel in the age of the apostles in the

00:18time of miracles. And yet, perhaps we had been transformed to another time of miracles.

00:25Yesterday, I was at the White House where President Trump signed into law bipartisan legislation,

00:33my legislation, the Take It Down Act, that I authored with Senator Amy Klobuchar to protect

00:39women, to protect teenage girls, to protect young people online from non-consensual intimate

00:44images. We saw both parties come together and pass landmark legislation. And just a moment

00:51ago, 24 hours later, we saw the same thing happen.

00:57And so I thank my colleague from Nevada for moving for this to pass by unanimous consent.

01:05And I want everyone to reflect on what you just saw happen because it is consequential.

01:10Last year, in the midst of the presidential campaign, President Trump at a rally in Las

01:15Vegas announced his policy proposal of no tax on tips. And, Madam President, you will recall

01:23that the week after he announced that he came and had lunch with the Republican senators and

01:27he told us the back story of where the idea came from. And he said he was sitting at a hotel

01:35in Las Vegas getting ready to go to his rally. And he said he was having lunch there. And he

01:39said a waitress came by. And he said she was beautiful. She was beautiful, which I believe

01:45him. And he said she was complaining about the burden and the paperwork of paying taxes

01:50on tips and how challenging it was. And he said he pulled out a pad of paper and he just

01:55wrote on the pad of paper, no tax on tips. He said, what do you think of this? She said,

02:00great. And he went to the rally and he announced it. And as he told us, the entire crowd went nuts.

02:07Now, I gotta say, when he announced that policy, I thought that was policy genius. The next week,

02:17I drafted legislation to implement no taxes on tips. And I introduced it in the Senate the very next

02:23week. And within days, both senators from Nevada joined my bill as co-sponsors. As the senator from

02:31Nevada just described, she told me on the floor, she said, 25 percent of all workers in the state of

02:37Nevada are tipped workers. And this is common sense, bipartisan tax reform. Look, I think we

02:46ought to be fighting for waiters and waitresses. We ought to be fighting for bartenders, taxi cab drivers,

02:52Uber drivers. We ought to be fighting for beauticians and nail salon workers. We ought to be fighting for

02:58all the men and women who are working and working hard. We ought to be fighting for casino workers.

03:03Sorry to leave them out. As a longtime poker player, I certainly don't want to leave them out.

03:09But we ought to be fighting for blue collar workers across this country. And I will say,

03:15I had been urging, I've urged the House of Representatives, I've urged the White House,

03:21that we should take up no taxes on tips in the House and pass it. And I said, look, if the House passes it,

03:28I think there's a very real chance the Senate will pass it. It's bipartisan legislation.

03:33And what we just saw is the Senate passing no tax on tips 100 to nothing.

03:41Every Democrat voted yes. Every Republican voted yes. And by the way, the back story, just kind of

03:47pulling the curtain back on how this process operates. The way the process operates is when

03:53you're seeking to pass something by unanimous consent, you circulate what's called a hotline.

03:58And every senator gets the chance to say, are you going to object? And on the Republican side,

04:05every senator said, nope, goodbye me. And on the Democrat side, every senator said, nope, goodbye me.

04:13And so this is now passed and we're sending it to the House of Representatives. Here's the good news.

04:17Here's the good news. With what we just saw now, the certainty that we will see no tax on tips become

04:25the law of the land, I think is very close to 100%. As the senator from Nevada mentioned, it is included

04:32in the House's one big, beautiful bill. And whether it passes freestanding or as part of the bigger bill,

04:38one way or another, no tax on tips is going to become law and give real relief to hardworking Americans.

04:47So I'm proud of what the Senate just did. And I commend Democrats and Republicans, even in a time

04:52of partisan division, coming together and agreeing on this common sense policy. I think that's terrific

04:59for workers in all 50 states. And with that, I yield the floor.

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