Senate Works Through August to Build on Accomplishments

There have been many accomplishments this last year and a half, but perhaps the greatest has been the new energized state of our economy.

This positive economic news is complemented by the tax reform package I mentioned a moment ago that we passed last December which has become perhaps the biggest game changer of all, opening doors and offering new opportunities for American workers.

One of the most important things we have done since we have been here during the Trump Administration is repealing overly burdensome Obama-era regulations through something called the Congressional Review Act. We've used this device 16 times to eliminate agency rules that were sometimes snuck in in the waning hours of the Obama Administration.

We made Obamacare voluntary by eliminating the individual mandate, which was a tax on middle and low-income people.

The fourth major accomplishment, I believe, is providing relief to America's community and midsize banks and credit unions, which have been hit hardest by some of the one-size-fits-all rulemaking approaches under the Dodd-Frank bill.

We've restored America's defense with the greatest investment in the military in decades, including the largest troop pay raise in nearly ten years.

It's important to keep our commitment to our veterans when they take off that uniform, and we did that this year in passing the V.A. Mission Act, which makes significant reforms to the Department of Veterans Affairs, strengthening the health care and community care options that are available to America's veterans.

We've taken steps to rebuild and protect our local communities. We passed nearly $147 billion in disaster relief for storms like Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Texas one year ago this month. On top of that, we've enacted the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, which provided resources to fight the rape kit backlog, and improve school safety by a bill I sponsored called Fix NICS.

These are just a handful of ways we are doing what we told the American people we would do if they would entrust us with the great privilege of being stewards of that public trust.

We put money back in Americans' pockets. We've rolled back regulations that have made their lives easier, we've strengthened the military, we’ve given health care flexibility to our veterans, and we’ve protected our communities from harm. But of course there's more work that needs to be done.