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Pat Toomey looks back at his Senate years, gives his thoughts on taxes, the filibuster and Trump

By Evan Jones, The Morning Call
Published: January 2, 2023, 2:09pm

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — In his 12 years in the U.S. Senate, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Pat Toomey considers his part in getting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed his biggest accomplishment.

The act was the first sweeping federal tax legislation since Ronald Reagan was president during the 1980s. Most notably, it reduced the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and the top personal income tax rates from 39% to 37.5%.

For the Upper Milford Township resident, who was in the banking industry and a restaurant owner in Allentown before entering politics and a persistent advocate for conservative economic policies, it’s natural that he’s proud of that achievement.

“Sen. Toomey’s record in Washington indicates areas of policy where he was particularly active, with his efforts most impactful on tax policy and the major reforms during the Trump administration,” said Christopher Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College “Fiscal policy was clearly his comfort zone and passion and both his formal committee roles and more informal leadership in the Senate were concentrated in this realm.”

Toomey decided not to run for a third Senate term in 2020. He will be replaced Jan. 3 by Democrat John Fetterman, who defeated Republican Mehmet Oz in November.

As he was winding down his term in Washington, Toomey recently spent a half-hour talking with a reporter from The Morning Call about his years in the Senate, including his role in tax reform, what he would tackle if he had more time, political polarization and former President Donald Trump.

The biggest achievement

Toomey was quick to point to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as the crown jewel of his time in Washington.

“I was part of a small group of Republican senators who all served on the finance committee, but we broke off and it was myself, Rob Portman, Tim Scott and John Thune,” he said. “And we really developed the tax reform and then began to share it with our colleagues throughout the Republican conference and work with colleagues who had concerns and iterate our way to a final product that I think has been enormously successful and also helped to get it passed.”

The bills passed 51-48 in the Senate and 224-201 in the House without a single Democratic vote. Trump signed it Dec. 22, 2017.

“We didn’t have many votes to lose at the time. Our Democratic colleagues didn’t want to participate,” Toomey said. “So we had to do it exclusively with Republican votes. And that’s what we did. And the results have been fantastic.”

Toomey said the bill led to the country’s lowest unemployment rate in 50 years in 2019 when the program had its initial impacts.

“We had strong economic growth,” Toomey said, “with a 50-year low unemployment rate, all time record low unemployment for African Americans … for Hispanic Americans. Wages were growing faster than inflation.

“So people’s standard of living was improving,” Toomey said. “Wages were growing faster for low-income workers than they were for high-income workers. They were growing for everyone, but they were growing faster for low-income workers. So we were narrowing the income gap.”

The Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank founded by Republican and Democratic tax specialists, in a report on the immediate aftermath of the act that was updated in 2020, said it appeared the economy received a modest boost in the short run, though the jury is out on long-term effects.

The center said the economy was influenced by a raised demand for goods and services because more households had additional income. Companies were, thus, able to increase production and invest in improvements.

Those short-run effects have likely been limited because much of the tax cuts flow to higher-income households or to corporations, whose stock tends to be held by the wealthy.

“Higher-income households tend to spend less of their increases in after-tax income than lower-income households,” the report said. “Second, the tax cut was enacted at a time when unemployment was low and output was near its potential level. Therefore, the increase in demand has been offset by tight monetary policy, as the Federal Reserve held interest rates higher than they otherwise would have been to avoid rising inflation.”

Even with the economic downturn brought by the COVID pandemic, Toomey said, the federal tax revenue has been on the rise.

“Fast forward to 2022 and federal revenue was coming in very high well above what was projected,” he said. “Prior to the tax reform, corporate inversions really made American business competitive again. So these were all very, very good consequences of the biggest tax reform in 30 years.”

Unfinished business

In his final two years in the Senate, Toomey wanted to create regulatory guardrails for cryptocurrency.

“We should have legislation that defines and regulates stablecoins,” he said. “We should have a regulatory regime on exchanges, and we ought to do this in a way that allows this space to thrive because the underlying technology here, I think, is very important and could be very, very constructive. So I’m disappointed. As much as I tried, I was not able to persuade my colleagues to join me in an effort to get some legislation down.”

A reason for the confusion is a hodgepodge of regulatory agencies keeping an eye on crypto.

“One of the problems we have is competing regulators who all claim to have jurisdiction in this space,” Toomey said, “but then we get no clarity on what that jurisdiction results in. So the regulatory uncertainty is driving entrepreneurs and developers offshore, and they end up going to places like FTX and so do consumers.

“So I would support a much lighter regulatory touch than many of my colleagues would,” he said. “But I think having some kind of regulatory framework would actually provide certainty and legal protection against these sorts of surprise enforcement actions by the SEC, for instance. So yeah, I do think there’s a role for sensible, careful regulation.”

Polarization

Toomey says politics are “definitely” more polarized now when compared with his three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1999-2005 and when he arrived in the Senate in 2011.

He said it’s harder for ordinary legislation to work its way through committees and then to the floor for amendments.

“The old textbook approach actually was quite good in a number of ways,” Toomey said. “It did result in legislative ideas getting thoroughly vetted, and it allowed the Senate to discover whether and where there was a consensus on whatever the topic might be, and in the absence of that legislative activity, we don’t get to have that discovery because we’re not voting. So that’s been a big change.”

Toomey said he got along with the vast majority of his colleagues during his time, finding common ground on such things as sports.

“Even on the Banking Committee, I’m the most senior Republican, the most senior Democrat (Sherrod Brown of Ohio) is the chairman,” he said. “And if you listen to our opening comments, you would conclude that these guys are the polar opposite extremes in the Senate, in how they view policy. But after we’re finished with opening comments, you know, we lean over and we’re talking about politics and baseball and … we get along very, very well.”

As for his fellow Pennsylvania senator, Democrat Bob Casey, Toomey said the two had a good working relationship. In his farewell address, Toomey pointed out that in 12 years, the two have teamed up to get 33 federal judges confirmed to the bench in Pennsylvania. Only California and Texas have had more judges confirmed and neither state had split delegations in that period.

“If I see Bob Casey, absolutely, we say hello to each other,” Toomey said. “We stop, we chat. We ask about each other’s wives. It’s very friendly. And that’s what it is with most of my colleagues.”

In a statement, Casey said the goal was to work together for the good of Pennsylvania.

“It’s no secret that Pat and I disagree on many things,” Casey said. “However, we’ve always recognized each other’s sincerity and sought to find areas where we can work together on behalf of the Commonwealth. Together we worked on nursing home oversight to ensure that seniors receive quality care that offers them the dignity they deserve. I wish Pat and his family well in their next chapter.”

Borick said despite a mostly partisan and conservative record, Toomey was willing to cross the aisle on some high-profile issues, such as his support for gun control.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, recalled his work with Toomey on gun control after the Sandy Hook school shooting in December 2012.

“I saw a different side of Pat on December 14 of 2012 when 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook, 20 of them were children, and I saw the heart of Pat Toomey,” Manchin said in a recent floor speech after Toomey gave his farewell address. “I had to do something. I couldn’t live with it. And I come from what we call a very friendly gun environment — a gun friendly environment in West Virginia. I decided that I wanted to introduce a bill. I needed a partner, I needed a true partner that believed, and Pat stepped forward, and we had the Manchin-Toomey background check.”

Manchin said he and Toomey believed that school should be the safest place for children and that parents shouldn’t have to worry about their safety.

“Seeing what they went through, and I think we bonded with all the parents, we still today talk to them, and our hearts and prayers are …. with them,” Manchin said. “But Pat was with me side by side. It was a tremendous beginning many years ago that could have prevented a lot of the senseless tragedies that happened.”

The Manchin-Toomey expansion of background checks was voted down by the Senate in April 2013.

“In a number of high-profile matters, and in his style and rhetoric, there is evidence of bipartisanship and more moderate positions,” Borick said. “In terms of actions his efforts on gun control and vote for impeachment put him at odds with a majority in his party. And while he often voted in ways that aligned with Trump’s agenda, Toomey’s statements and reactions to Trump indicated a tension between the two that continued from the 2016 primaries through the 2022 midterms.”

Keeping the filibuster

One aspect of legislating that Toomey wants to keep is the filibuster. He reasons that it prevents the body from tipping too far to the left or right.

“The worst thing we could do would be to get rid of the filibuster; that would be absolutely devastating to our country,” Toomey said. “It is the only mechanism that really forces bipartisan consensus. It is the mechanism that diminishes the likelihood of governing from extremes that are not really representative of the country. By forcing a bipartisan consensus, you have much more durable legislation and [are] much less likely to have huge policy swings which are extremely disruptive for our constituents.”

Toomey warned that getting rid of the filibuster would greatly deepen polarization.

“Oh, and you want to talk about polarization, get rid of the filibuster, and you’ll see polarization on steroids,” he said. “So the filibuster is not the problem.”

There are other solutions to make the process more amicable. One way is to get rid of unanimous consent in which a single senator can thwart debate on a proposed amendment, Toomey said.

“In most cases, any senator who wants to offer any amendment to almost any legislation literally needs the permission of the other 99 senators,” Toomey said. “Well, that didn’t use to be a problem because it was accepted around here that you would never prevent your colleague from the opportunity to have an amendment even if you disagreed with it. You’d work to defeat it but you wouldn’t forbid the person from having the vote.

“Now, if it’s a policy you claim to oppose, your opposition will be highly suspect by some if you merely oppose the amendment, you have to prevent the amendment from even being offered,” he said. “So the result is it’s almost impossible to get 99 senators to agree to allow you to offer your amendment.”

Toomey suggested raising the number of objectors needed to stop an amendment to a number greater than one.

“I’m not religious about what the right number is, maybe it’s 20. Maybe it’s 40. Maybe it’s 50,” he said. “But allowing any one senator to prevent any and all amendments has contributed to our inability to function normally.”

Donald Trump

Toomey gives Trump credit for speeding up the wave of blue collar workers switching to the GOP.

“That was a well-established trend,” Toomey said. “But Donald Trump accelerated it.”

Otherwise, Trump used his presidency to pass “conventional, orthodox Republican policies,” including the tax reform bill.

Toomey voted for Trump in 2016 — famously waiting until Election Day to announce his support — and again in 2020. However, Toomey said Trump’s conduct after the 2020 election means he shouldn’t hold public office ever again.

Toomey was one of a handful of Republicans to convict Trump in the 2021 impeachment after the events of Jan. 6.

“Rolling back excessive regulation, nominating judges who believe that the Constitution actually means what it says,” Toomey said. “There’s a lot of success, but I think as far as his legacy, I think he will mostly be remembered by history as the first president that ever tried to overturn the results of an election so that he could stay in power. And I think in doing so, he disqualified himself from ever holding public office again, in my mind.”

Toomey said Trump’s failure to acknowledge that he lost that election will wear thin with voters who aren’t fans of the former president.

The 2024 presidential election

As for who should be the GOP nominee in 2024, Toomey said he’s looking at several candidates.

“I don’t have a single choice,” he said. “I think we have a very deep bench. I have a half-dozen colleagues here in the Senate that certainly have presidential ambitions at some point. And several of them, I think, would make great presidents. I think we have governors across the country, (Florida’s) Ron DeSantis being one of them, who looks like a very strong candidate if he decides to pursue that.

“There will be others,” he said. “There were people from the Trump administration. There’ll be people whose names are not necessarily household names at the moment, but they will emerge. I think we’ll have a crowded field in ‘24 at least at the beginning. It’s impossible to know at this point who’s going to win it.”

Borick said it would behoove Republicans in the state to look for candidates like Toomey in the future if they want to win elections.

“Toomey’s style and interests do not seem to easily fit with the populist nature of much of the contemporary GOP, and this lack of alignment may have helped nudge him away from seeking another term,” he said. “What I do find interesting is that over the past 12 years, he is the most successful GOP candidate at the statewide level in Pennsylvania, and that as he exits the scene, his style and approach may be the best fit for Republicans to have success in the state in upcoming years. I’m not sure such candidates can easily emerge through GOP primaries, but as the dust settles on the 2022 midterms it seems Republicans may need to find candidates in his mold to find success here.”

Helping the environment

Toomey has a beekeeping hobby, and he’s aware of the changing environment, saying that businesses need to be stewards of it. Some people who claim to defend the environment, he said, go too far.

“I think we have a responsibility to make sure that if you’re in business, and that your business is responsible to the environment,” he said. “The effect on the environment is an externality of economic activity. It’s reasonable for society to say, ‘We’ve all got to breathe the same air, so we’re going to have standards about how we keep the air clean and breathable,’ and likewise for our water and so on. And that’s all good and sensible and necessary.

“Now, some people have used those powers like when environmentalists use the courts to prevent us from building pipelines parallel to existing pipelines,” he said. “They just don’t want people to be consuming natural gas. Well, we need natural gas. So there’s definitely abuse of some of our environmental laws and procedures, but I would absolutely insist on defending clean air and clean water in a clean environment.”

What’s next?

Besides beekeeping and his family, Toomey doesn’t know what’s coming next in his life.

“I don’t know what’s next,” he said. “I don’t have anything lined up. I made a conscious decision to wait till after I’m actually out of office. Before I even had any discussions about what’s next, I didn’t want to have any conflicts or, or distractions. I’ve got a lot of work to do even now. It’s just you know, less than two weeks to go I think. We never know for sure when the final bill gets passed. But, I’ll have plenty of time in January and thereafter to figure that out.”

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