GENERAL KELLY: Well, thanks a lot. And it is a more serious note, so I just wanted to perhaps make more of a statement than an -- give more of an explanation in what amounts to be a traditional press interaction.

Most Americans don't know what happens when we lose one of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, our Coast Guardsmen in combat. So let me tell you what happens:

Their buddies wrap them up in whatever passes as a shroud, puts them on a helicopter as a routine, and sends them home. Their first stop along the way is when they're packed in ice, typically at the airhead. And then they're flown to, usually, Europe where they're then packed in ice again and flown to Dover Air Force Base, where Dover takes care of the remains, embalms them, meticulously dresses them in their uniform with the medals that they've earned, the emblems of their service, and then puts them on another airplane linked up with a casualty officer escort that takes them home.

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Reported Justice Department Gag Orders Prevent Accountability of Controversial Obama-Era Deal with Russian Entities

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is calling on the Justice Department to lift a reported non-disclosure agreement preventing a former FBI confidential informant from speaking to Congress about the handling of a criminal probe linked to a controversial deal that ceded ownership of U.S. uranium assets to the Russian government. Despite an ongoing criminal investigation into officials working for subsidiaries of Rosatom, the Russian government entity seeking to acquire ownership of U.S. uranium, the Obama Administration approved the deal. The Justice Department has reportedly threatened to prosecute the informant if he discloses details of his involvement in the investigation.

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Operation Cross Country, the FBI’s annual law enforcement action focused on recovering underage victims of prostitution and drawing the public’s attention to the problem of sex trafficking at home and abroad, has concluded with the recovery of 84 sexually exploited juveniles and the arrests of 120 traffickers.

Now in its 11th iteration, Operation Cross Country has expanded beyond the United States, with Canada, the United Kingdom, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand undertaking similar operations. Their efforts were coordinated with the FBI and its local, state, and federal law enforcement partners—along with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)—during the four-day law enforcement action that ended October 15.

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“Lower taxes on American business means higher wages for American workers, and it means more products made right here in the USA.” – President Donald J. Trump

PAY RAISE FOR AMERICANS: The tax relief and tax cuts supported by President Donald J. Trump will boost wages for hardworking Americans.

• The average American household income could increase between $4,000 and $9,000 a year in wages and salary alone by cutting the Federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, according to an analysis by the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA).

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Floor Speech of Sen. Chuck Grassley
The Goals of Tax Reform
Delivered Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017
The budget we are debating this week paves the way for fundamental tax reform.

For more than a decade, both sides of the aisle have talked about the need for tax reform that provides tax simplification, tax fairness, and increases our economic competiveness.

Under President George W. Bush, we had the Bipartisan Tax Reform panel. Under President Obama, we had the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. Individual members have also authored their own plans, including a bipartisan bill authored by Finance Committee Ranking Member Wyden and former Senator Coats.

The Senate Finance Committee has also had countless tax reform hearings over this period. The Committee also held a series of bipartisan options papers discussions under then Chairman Baucus. Additionally, under Chairman Hatch we had the bipartisan tax reform working groups.

All this work has laid the foundations and informed the Unified Framework released by the so-called “Big Six.”

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Today, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report on the relationship between the corporate tax rate and wage growth. Please see below for the executive summary.

Wage growth in America has stagnated. Over the past eight years, the real median wage in the U.S. rose by an average of six-tenths of a percent per year. But even as Americans’ real wages stagnated, real corporate profits soared, increasing by an average of 11 percent per year. The relationship between corporate profits and worker compensation broke down in the late 1980s. Prior to 1990, worker wages rose by more than 1 percent for every 1 percent increase in corporate profits. From 1990-2016, the pass-through to workers was only 0.6 percent, and looking most recently, from 2008-2016, only 0.3 percent. The profits of U.S. multinationals are still American profits, but, increasingly, the benefits of those profits do not accrue to U.S. workers.

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