An unidentified member of the House Ways and Means committee opened the session, praising the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and defending recent Republican tax legislation as drivers of domestic investment and job growth.

The speaker said the 2017 law was "the greatest tax reform seen in decades," and credited it with making the United States "the best place in the world to build, to invest in, and to create jobs." He also stated that ‘‘we had 0 inversions after [the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act],’’ presenting that claim as evidence the law reduced corporate relocations.

The opening statement moved from that history to current Republican priorities. The speaker said Republican members worked to make the 2017 policies permanent and announced that, he said, President Trump signed the "Working Families Tax Cuts Act" on 07/04/2025 to expand the tax base and promote long-term domestic investment. "This new new bill ... secured good jobs for Americans far into the future," he said. He also asserted that the legislation "protects and creates over 7,000,000 American jobs." Those figures were presented by the speaker as part of his policy case.

Turning to international tax policy, the speaker criticized Democratic support for what he identified as "Pillar 1 and Pillar 2" of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Citing analysis he attributed to the Joint Committee on Taxation, he said a global minimum tax proposal would have cost the United States about $120,000,000,000 in revenue over 10 years and argued that such deals would "diminish the economic security of our country." "If you can't convince them, confuse them," he added, characterizing the technical language used in international negotiations.

The speaker further alleged that President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had bypassed Congress in prior international-tax negotiations and said President Trump reversed those policies on his first day in office; he thanked administration officials for recent work seeking a stronger deal. He urged European partners "to come to the table" and framed the committee's posture as protective of U.S. competitiveness.

"We will not go quietly into that dark night," he said, concluding his remarks before yielding to Ranking Member Thompson for the ranking member's opening statement.

The statements reported here are drawn from the committee opening remarks in the transcript. Numeric claims and references to analyses were presented by the speaker as supporting evidence; the transcript does not record independent verification of those figures during this segment.