kwanza, whatever it is you're celebrating, enjoy your friends. my colleague coming up now is a humanist. i don't know what i say to him. but enjoy your family and friends. this is the advice i give my colleagues, recreation and re-creation. you have to go home and recrea e recreate. y don't feel guilty about recreation. it's part of your re-creation to affect the fight for the american people. happy holidays to all of you. thank you. >> are the democrats going to vote for the disaster supplemental --

[ inaudible conversations ] house and senate republican leaders are gathering for an enrollment ceremony for the tax reform bill. paul ryan and mitch mcconnell officially signed that legislation and sent it to the white house for president trump's signature. [ applause ].

>> congratulations. >> congratulations. [ inaudible conversations ] >> well, good morning. what a good morning this is. a fantastic day, christmas coming early for the american people. the house and the senate working together, putting aside all differences with one clear objective, making sure the american people are heard. making sure that small

businesses have an opportunity to grow. we have seen a tremendous victory through this process. and it is because of committed leaders behind me entrusted with the confidence of their voters to bring forth a tremendous victory. i am thankful that we are led in the senate by leader mcconnell, who's done a fabulous job of bringing 52 cats all working in different directions together for one purpose, to serve the american people. [ applause ]. >> thanks. this is a happy day indeed for the american people. these middle class tax cuts are resonating already. we've used examples of single parents making $41,000 a year getting a 73% reduction in their taxes. but it's not just on the individual side. i was pleased to see america's

corporations standing up almost immediately and saying that employees are going to benefit from this great tax cut. led off by at&t with $1,000 christmas bonus to 200,000 employees, echoing other corporations standing up and saying what people like speaker ryan have been predicting for a long time. this is going to provide great opportunities for the employees of our country. it's a great christmas season, happy to be here. with that, the chairman of the ways and means committee, a leader on this issue all along the way, kevin brady. [ applause ]. >> leader, thank you again so much for your leadership and speaker ryan's as well. you're seeing this bill signed today, this final historic tax form bill is one of the biggest

highlights for many of us in our time in congress and maybe even in our adult lives. one of the main reasons so many of us ran for congress was to do exactly this, improve america's broken tax code and take away the pain it was having in causing on our country and on our economy. we all want to make it simpler, fairer, flatter, rewarding hard work, making america competitive again and leapfrogging america to the lead. that's exactly what we accomplished in this bill. this is an incredible day for the american people. we would have never got here but for the leadership of paul ryan, our speaker, and without the leadership of the senate, mcconnell hatch a, hatch and ot. as proud as i am of this bill, i am equally proud of the 24

members of the house ways and means committee who worked long hours to be ready to deliver this tax reform plan. i'd be remiss if i didn't think our team led by our tax counsel who just did remarkable work. [ applause ]. >> i cannot wait to see this new life that springs up in our economy in the united states as we deliver more jobs, fairer taxes and bigger paychecks for the american people. thank you. [ applause ]. >> and i'm proud to introduce the chairman of the energy committee in the senate, senator murkowski. >> i had to come from behind my congressman for all alaska, don young, who has been with us on

the anwar fight for 37 years now. so while i was able to be the architect of title ii in the senate and proud to do so, i think it is only appropriate that i recognize the dean of your house, congressman don young, who has done an extraordinary job for us. [ applause ]. >> but as tax reform has been long awaited, so has opening the 1002 area to limited exploration and production, an area of extraordinary resource that can be accessed with a minimal footprint, something that alaskans have been fighting for for 38 years. you don't give up on something when the cause is right, when you know you have so much to contribute. so to colleagues who have stood with us as the alaska delegation, with those who have stood with alaska, with those

who have stood for american energy production, today is indeed a bright, bright day. we thank you for your continued alaska will make you proud. thank you. [ applause ]. >> well, this is a bright day for the united states, because america is rejecting the economics of envy and embracing the economics of opportunity. there's a real buoyancy to that and there's a brightness to that. i think america is longing for brightness in our public life. if you think about the impact of this vote, it has an impact on every american. and if you're having an impact on every american, that means you're having an impact on the globe. the world longs for the united states to be a strong diplomatic power. in order for that to be true,

the united states has to be a strong military power. and in order for that to be true, the united states has to be a strong economic power. at its foundation is the ability now to project american values around the world. this is much bigger than an economic picture. it is casting a vision for what our future looks like. and we're choosing brightness and opportunity. [ applause ]. >> this is an exciting day for america and for almost every single person in it that works. i had a person say we're not going to know whether this tax helped us or not for another year, until april 15th of the following year. i said, no. companies are going to get the

new withholding tables by the first of february. so the first checks to come out in february, people are going to be able to see the reduction in the amount of withholding they had to do to pay their taxes. they will see a benefit come february. i've been overjoyed with calls this morning from small businesses and some international businesses. i worked on the international tax piece. and i've already heard from some companies that are going to move their business back to the united states, build a couple more manufacturing plants here. one of them was talking about a thousand more employees. but i've heard from small business too, one who said this is going to be the biggest investment we ever made. we're going to put 15 million -- that's a big number to a small business. 15 million into new plants. i think we're going to hear a lot of examples of that. of course, every new plant needs employees to do it. employees increase the competition among workers.

increased competition among workers raises wages. we're going to see higher wages and more jobs in the united states, which is exactly what we set out to do in this bill. i'm glad the budget committee was able to play a role in this to get the reconciliation so we could get through to the final stage and do it. thank you. [ applause ]. >> you know, i've told this story a couple of times before, but a while back i was grocery shopping on a weekend at about 11:00 at night and a mom came up to me, she had her handful of coupons and said, when is it going to get better. my electricity has gone up, health care costs have gone up. when is it going to get better. bypassing this bill and signing it into law, it just got better for that family. in my home state of south dakota the average income is $54,000

per year. for that family, they have about an $830 tax liability. with the passing of this bill, they will get a 700 dollar $700. that's a $1600 difference. as i came to the table as a ways and means member and a final negotiator on this package, i came to that table as a farmer, as a rancher, but most importantly as a mom who wanted to see those families get some relief. this is a wonderful day for us. not only did we meet family needs, but we also gave tools to farmers and ranchers and small businesses across the country, interest deductibility, expensing, a new small business low tax rate. those are going to pay off and build strong families and also a strong future for this country. the bottom line is this, that people have worked hard for their money. it's about time that people in

washington, d.c. respect that and let them keep more of their minute and make their lives and futures better. thank you, chairman brady for your work on this bill. what so impressed me throughout this process is chairman brady let us be legislators. i served in our state legislature. this chairman let us be legislators. he let us negotiate, craft policy and i absolutely loved the fact that he gave us that opportunity to truly be a part of forming this bill so it worked for our districts and our states and for this country. now i want to spruce tintroduce who gave such an inspirational speech at the white house. chairman hatch will speak next. [ applause ]. >> what a privilege it is for me to stand here with these

wonderful leaders in the house and the senate. i'm so proud of paul ryan and mitch mckponconnell and the chan of the ways and means committee and the other members and the people on the finance committee. this was a landmark day. and i can say that if we can keep going, we'll get this country going like it's never been going before. i'm grateful to stand here with these great leaders. i'm grateful for the influence they've had and i'm grateful for the influence they've had throughout the country. this is the greatest country in the world, bar none. we don't want it to slip. and it won't as long as we have top leaders like this and we have a congress like this where every member really cares and they care for the right reasons. so god bless the united states of america. thanks so much. [ applause ].

>> so many of us have been working on this issue for a long time. and as a former chairman of the ways and means committee, i have to tell you how so many men and women here have fought for this moment. i also want to echo what kevin brady said. i want to thank the staff for all their hard work. i want to thank george callus on our staff who came to the ways and means committee with so many other people to make this possible. we come to these jobs to try and improve the lives of the people we represent. and this bill more than so many other things we've ever tried to do does that. so we're very thankful and hopeful. because when we've been working on this issue for so many years,

we can see on the horizon the great potential for our people and our economy. we know this is the greatest country on earth and we know that america has better days ahead and we know that america has so much more potential to tap. this bill taps that potential. just look at the state of wisconsin. the average income family of four in wisconsin is going to get in excess of a $2,000 tax cut. that's real relief for real people living paycheck to paycheck. we're heartened that hours after this bill passed we're seeing companies across the country given bonuses to their employees. one company in philadelphia, $50 billion in capital improvements and investment over the next five years because of this tax bill. we're encouraged that this is going to get the american economy the jolt of energetic needs to give people the opportunity they deserve. so we're so excited about this

opportunity and we're so thankful to the men and women of this country sent here to work on their behalf and that we are able to actually deliver this generational defining reform and this moment. so i'd like the senate pro tem senator hatch to joining me in signing this legislation. [ applause ] >> just wait for people to line up. >> we put a few hours in.

[ applause ] >> thank you, everybody.

>> "the hill" writing this

morning president trump is slated to sign the new republican tax overhaul bill into law january 3 according to a house republican who says the timeline will prevent automatic spending cuts to some programs, including medicare. the president touted the cuts on twitter this morning. "the massive tax cuts which the fake news media writes badly about so as to please their democrat bosses will soon be kicking in and speak for themselves. companies are already making big payments to workers, dems want to raise taxes, hate these big cuts." saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, american university professor aaron bell talks about privacy laws and federal surveillance of civil rights leaders. >> here's the head of the co-intel operations william sullivan after the march on

washington after martin luther king's famous "i have a dream speech." we must mark king now if we have not before as the most dangerous negro in the future of this nation from the standpoint of communism, the negro, and the national security. >> sunday at 4:30 p.m. eastern, former members of congress and vietnam war veterans reflect on lessons learned and ignored during the war. >> we learned the limits of military power during the vietnam war. we learned that as a society, as a culture, that you can't kill an idea with a bullet. >> american history tv, this weekend, only on c-span 3. next, we'll take you to kansas city, missouri, for a discussion on the history and/or gin of the american cowboy. michael grower, the curator at the panhandle plains historical museum examines the myths and misconceptions created by hollywood's iconic image of the cowboy.