Working Families Tax Cuts Act

  Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, our country was founded on the belief
that all Americans have the right to pursue life, liberty, and
happiness. It is fundamental to who we are as Americans, and these are
the building blocks of the American dream. We live in a nation of
opportunity. We live in a nation that enables kids to have it better
than their parents. We live in a nation that believes that hard work
leads to success. For over 250 years, people from all backgrounds have
been able to work hard and achieve the American dream.
  Here, in the U.S. Senate, I am fighting to renew the American dream.
  One of the ways that we have done that with my Senate Republican
colleagues is in the Working Families Tax Cut that we passed last year.
The Working Families Tax Cut invests in American families and in
American children. It invests in the next generation. With my Senate
colleagues on the Republican side, we are building a path for another
250 years of opportunity for this great Nation and for the children and
families of this great Nation.
  The Working Families Tax Cut was great for families. One of the ways
that it was great for families and for Nebraskans in my State is with
the Trump Accounts that were part of that overall package. These are
investment accounts that will kick-start the American dream for kids
all across this Nation. You can download the app right now.
  Starting on July 4, Nebraskans and all Americans will be able to
start opening up these accounts. All American kids under the age of 18
will be eligible to have one of these accounts. And those born between
January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, will also be able to enroll and
automatically have $1,000 put into their account, courtesy of the U.S.
Treasury, to be able to help kick-start that American dream.
  Parents and guardians will be the custodians of these accounts, but
the children will own them. And when those kids turn 18, they will be
able to take possession of those Trump Accounts.
  These accounts work like traditional retirement accounts. Up to
$5,000 a year can be put into these accounts--these Trump Accounts--and
it can come from your parents, your grandparents. It can come from
communities, come from churches, come from governments, come from
nonprofits. Employers can contribute and help build that foundation for
those young people to be able to achieve the American dream.
  Many have already committed to contributing to Trump Accounts. For
example, Michael and Susan Dell have donated $6.25 billion to the first
25 million American kids who sign up for these accounts who also reside
in ZIP Codes with median incomes below $150,000. That means that each
one of those kids will get about $250 on top of the thousand dollars
that the Treasury is putting in.

  Charles Schwab has said he will match the government's $1,000 with
another $1,000 for all the people who work at his company.
  These are just a couple of examples of how philanthropists are
working together with the U.S. Government to be able to kick-start
young people's American dreams through these Trump Accounts.
  In my home State of Nebraska, our State government is going to open
accounts for all the foster kids in Nebraska. These Fostering the
Future Accounts will work just the same, making sure that young
Nebraskans in foster care have a little extra financial help. This
money is so that these young Nebraskans can put it toward college,
buying their first home, or starting a business.
  For children whose accounts start with $1,000, additional
contributions will not be required. The accounts will still grow, and
these accounts will help launch those kids into their future.
  Another way we are investing in our children and families is with the
expansion of the child tax credits. In the Working Families Tax Cut, we
increased that child tax credit to $2,200 and made it permanent. It was
set to fall to $1,000, but Senate Republicans made it permanent and
took it up.
  The child tax credit will benefit over 239,000 Nebraska families.
Increasing the child tax credit allows these families to have more
money in their pockets, and we want to encourage Americans to work hard
and support their families. This is what keeps the American dream
alive.
  The Working Families Tax Cut also provides an increase in the child
and dependent tax credit. We increased the maximum credit from 25
percent up to 50 percent, and we took the increased tax deduction up
from $5,000 to $7,500.
  We made the first ever permanent paid family medical leave credit,
based on legislation from Senator Deb Fischer. This will encourage our
businesses to offer that benefit to families all across the Nation.
  We expanded the tax credits for employee-provided childcare and
created new credits for small businesses to be able to create childcare
at work.
  We also extended the ABLE accounts, which otherwise would have
expired in 2025. These accounts help individuals with disabilities to
save and invest through tax-free savings, without losing eligibility
for Federal programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.
  These are real investments in American families and the next
generation.
  And similar to my colleague from Wyoming who pointed this out, every
single Democrat--every single one--voted against these provisions that
would help young Americans be able to achieve the American dream. Every
single Democrat voted against it.
  Senate Republicans, by contrast, are fighting in the U.S. Senate to
renew opportunity for our kids' futures and supporting families in our
country. We are encouraging and supporting the American dream, and we
are making it possible for the good life to be more attainable for all
Nebraskans.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The Senator from Delaware.

                               America250

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, 50 years ago this Saturday, our Nation
celebrated its bicentennial--its 200th anniversary of that day on the
4th of July, in 1776, when a group of Delegates from around the then-
Thirteen Colonies gathered to declare their independence from Great
Britain.
  This coming Saturday, July 4, 2026, I will once again be gathering
with a whole group of friends and family in the small town of
Hockessin, DE, where I celebrated our bicentennial.
  In 1976, we had what some might think of as a sad small gathering
that celebrated the Fourth of July. It wasn't huge. It didn't have tens
of thousands of people. It didn't have great fireworks. But it was the
heart of the town I grew up in.
  We had a parade. We had firetrucks. My Boy Scout troop marched. I
played the bugle as a group from a local church raised a flag at the
new Swift Memorial Park in downtown Hockessin, a small rural farming
town of then about 1,500 people.
  And this coming Saturday, I will conclude the Fourth of July by, once
again, marching in the annual parade, where we will have firetrucks
from our volunteer fire company, children from different Scouting
groups, different church youth groups, different things like the 4-H
and the Grange, and thousands of people, gathering with family, on
either side of Old Wilmington Pike to view the parade go by.
  I love the tradition of the Fourth of July parade in my hometown of
Hockessin, and I wanted to just take a moment and reflect because, as I
have talked to my team here in Washington and at home in Delaware, some
of them see so much division in our country that they aren't excited
about our semiquincentennial, our 250th. Some of them are distracted,
as in some ways I think many in America are, by fighting, squabbling
between our President and our Congress, between different political
parties. And it is too easy to be distracted.
  I will remind you that, 50 years ago, on our bicentennial, our
country was also in a period of division and political controversy,
that we had just come out of the end of the Vietnam war and Watergate,
that there had been protests and disagreement, that there were
different rights being asserted and tumult in our politics.
  My recollection, as a child, was that that day, that period of the
bicentennial, was actually a moment for the American people to stop and
reflect and think about what brings us together. And so today, I will
briefly reflect on what I think we ought to be stopping and reflecting
on as we celebrate our 250th.
  Mr. President, 250 years ago, where we are right now was part of
Great Britain, was part of the English Empire. In looking back, it
might seem inevitable, but at that time, it was uncertain which way we
would go. Ultimately, we chose liberty, we chose independence, and we
had to fight for it in what became a long and brutal, internally
divisive conflict.
  Ultimately, the American story is not simply one story. We are a
nation founded not on one ethnicity or one language, one religion or
one history, but on an idea--an idea embodied in the second sentence of
the declaration: