“Four out of five studies agree – the Republican tax plan will deliver the kind of economic growth that the American people want and that the American economy needs. A strong, healthy, and growing economy.”

Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s remarks.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor on how an overwhelming majority of economists agree that the Republican tax plan will grow our economy by more than 3 percent.

Excerpts of Senator Barrasso’s remarks:

“I come to the floor today to talk about the tax-relief, tax-reduction legislation that the conference committee is currently working on.

“To me and to all Americans, this is a very important piece of legislation.

“I think it’s going to get even better as the House and the Senate work to hammer out the differences to help lower the tax rates for American families.

“When you look at this legislation, there are so many policies that will help to make America’s economy grow.

“Families across the country will get a tax break – it’s what they need – it’s what they’ve been looking for, for a long, long time.

“Main Street businesses will also get a tax break.

“When people get a raise like that, they invest in their families and they invest in their communities.

“They create jobs, wages go up, the economy grows, and our nation gets stronger.

“You don’t have to take my word for it.

“Respected, mainstream economists are saying exactly the same thing.

“They agree that our economy needs to grow – and they agree that the legislation we’re working on will – that passed the Senate, passed the House, being joined together – will deliver the growth that our nation needs.

“In October, the Council of Economic Advisers put out a report looking at some of the ideas for tax relief.

“This is a group that advises the president on economic issues.

“Their report found that the tax plan like the one Republicans wrote will grow the economy between 3 percent and 5 percent.

“That’s real growth, it’s strong growth, and it’s good news for America.

“There was another study that came out in October.

“That was by a group of economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University.

“They did their own calculations, used their own numbers, and they found the exact same good news for the American economy.

“Just like the other report, this one said that the Republican tax plan would grow the economy by between 3 and 5 percent.

“A third study came out in November – it was by the Tax Foundation.

“Again, it’s a respected group of economists who study this kind of thing for a living.

“They looked specifically at the legislation as it was introduced in the Senate Finance Committee.

“This group found that the plan would increase the size of the economy by 3.7 percent.

“Then there was a fourth analysis, by one more group of nine respected, independent economists.

“This group wrote about their conclusions in a letter to the Treasury Secretary on November 26.

“They wrote that they expect this tax relief plan to boost the economy by 3 percent over the next 10 years.

“So we have four different entities, four different estimates, four different groups of prominent economists.

“They looked at the tax relief plan – looked at it different ways.

“They all found that it would grow America’s economy by very similar amounts – all by at least 3 percent.

“Now, there was one other study out there that some people have been talking about.

“This was an estimate by a group called the Joint Committee on Taxation.

“This group predicts that growth under the Republican plan will increase, but by just 0.8 percent over the next 10 years.

“That works out to roughly eight one-hundredths of 1 percent a year.

“All of these other groups say at least 3 percent – maybe 5 percent – and this other group says less than 1 percent over a decade. Hard to believe.

“So why is this group, that is being quoted often by the Democrats, so far out of line, out of the mainstream of what other economists are saying?

“The reason they reach such a different conclusion is that they did their analysis very differently from the other groups.

“This committee combines a few different economic models into their estimate.

“When we look closely at the models they combine, we find that they counted the most pessimistic models much more heavily than they did of more realistic models.

“So of course they’re going to come up with an overly pessimistic conclusion.

“I think that it can be useful to take these more negative numbers into view, and take them into account.

“Nobody thinks that we should just pick from the rosiest scenario – or base our policies on one prediction.

“That’s not what’s happening here.

“Here we have four different groups of economists that predict strong growth of at least three percent.

“This one outlier, much more cautious.

“Another thing to remember is that even this very cautious estimate says that our economy will get bigger because of the Republican plan than if we did nothing at all.

“Even the pessimistic group says yes, the economy will grow under the Republican plan. And they say that it will reduce deficits by an additional $400 billion over the next 10 years.

“I think we’re going to do a whole lot better than that – because our economy is going to grow much faster.

“Under President Obama and Washington Democrats, we had eight years of policies that held back our economy, and caused it to grow at a very tepid, slow pace.

“Economists looked at these policies and they said that if things continue on that path we can expect the economy to grow by about 1.8 percent we’ve been seeing throughout the Obama administration.

“With Republicans setting the agenda, those policies are history – and so is the slow economic growth that had been created during the Obama years.

“Look at what’s just happened in the past two economic quarters of this year.

“Over these six months, our economy grew at a pace of more than three percent.

“The economy has created more than 2 million jobs since President Trump was elected a little over a year ago.

“The economy is responding to the policies that Republicans have been talking about and what we’ve been doing.

“When we pass legislation like this tax relief act, it will give businesses confidence that we’re keeping our promises.

“It gives them confidence that they can keep hiring, keep investing, and keep creating more jobs.

“So when someone comes out with an estimate about economic growth and they don’t account for all of these different things, I think that maybe they’re living in the past.

“I think maybe they got so used to the anemic growth that we had in the Obama years, that they’re still expecting that to continue into the future.

“They’re not taking into account that things are different now that Republicans are passing our economic plans and that the burdensome regulations and red tape has been cut.

“They’re not taking into account that President Trump is in the White House.

“Those things make a very big difference when it comes to sustaining this progress that we’ve seen over the past year.

“Four out of five studies agree – the Republican tax plan will deliver the kind of economic growth that the American people want and that the American economy needs. A strong, and healthy, and growing economy.”

###