Hatch Opening Statement at Finance Committee Markup of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act #

• Source Text: [The United States Senate Committee on Finance]((https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/hatch-opening-statement-at-finance-committee-markup-of-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/)

November 13, 2017

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Level 1: Lexical and Semantic Frame Analysis #

1. Lexical Unit: "relieve the tax burden"

• Quote Context: "...relieve the tax burden on American taxpayers, with a focus on middle-class families."
• Evoked Frame: BURDEN / AFFLICTION. This frame conceptualizes a negative physical weight or ailment that must be lifted or cured.
• Frame Elements:
  • Bearer: "American taxpayers," "middle-class families"
  • Burden: "tax"
  • Reliever: The "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," Senator Hatch and his colleagues
• Conceptual Metaphor: TAXATION IS A BURDEN. This metaphor maps attributes of a heavy physical load (weight, difficulty, struggle) onto the abstract concept of taxation.
• Role Assignment:
  • Beneficiaries: Middle-class taxpayers who will have their "burden" "relieved."
  • Cost-Bearers: Concealed. The frame does not mention who might pay for this relief (e.g., through future service cuts or increased national debt).
  • Agents: The Republican lawmakers crafting the bill.
  • Victims: Taxpayers under the current system.
• Salience Mechanism: Repetition and emotional appeal. Phrases like "tax relief," "tax cut," and "bigger paychecks" are repeated throughout, reinforcing the sense of being freed from a heavy load.
• Invited Inferences: Taxes are an oppressive weight, not a civic contribution. The primary goal of tax policy should be to reduce this weight. Anyone opposing this "relief" is in favor of keeping people afflicted.

2. Lexical Unit: "economic stagnation"

• Quote Context: "...those in the middle class who have struggled to get through the past eight years of economic stagnation."
• Evoked Frame: DISEASE / STAGNANT WATER. This frame presents the economy as a living organism or a body of water that has lost its vitality, become sick, or is no longer flowing.
• Frame Elements:
  • Patient/Body: "the economy"
  • Ailment: "stagnation"
  • Sufferers: "the middle class"
  • Cause: Implied to be the policies of "the previous administration."
  • Cure: The proposed legislation.
• Conceptual Metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A BODY. This maps properties of a biological system (health, sickness, growth, stagnation) onto the economy.
• Role Assignment:
  • Beneficiaries: The American people, who will benefit from a newly vitalized economy.
  • Cost-Bearers: Those who benefited from or were responsible for the previous "stagnant" state.
  • Agents: The Republican legislators acting as "doctors" to cure the economy.
  • Victims: The "middle class who have struggled."
• Salience Mechanism: It is positioned as the historical context and justification for action, linking a negative past to the proposed positive future.
• Invited Inferences: The past eight years were economically sick and unproductive. Drastic intervention (the bill) is required to restore economic health. The problem is not cyclical but a specific condition caused by prior policy.

3. Lexical Unit: "chasing companies and economic activity offshore"

• Quote Context: "This is a drag on our economy and is one of a few factors continually chasing companies and economic activity offshore."
• Evoked Frame: HUNTING / PREDATION. The tax code is framed as an active predator or hostile force driving away its prey (companies).
• Frame Elements:
  • Predator/Chaser: The "current 35 percent corporate tax rate," "our current worldwide system."
  • Prey/Fugitive: "companies," "economic activity," "jobs," "investment."
  • Territory: The United States.
  • Safe Haven: "offshore."
• Conceptual Metaphor: THE TAX SYSTEM IS A PREDATOR. This personifies the tax code as a malevolent agent from which rational actors (companies) must flee.
• Role Assignment:
  • Beneficiaries: American workers, who will benefit when companies are no longer "chased" away.
  • Cost-Bearers: Foreign countries that will lose the investment that returns to the U.S.
  • Agents: The bill's authors, who are creating a safe environment.
  • Villain: The current tax code.
• Salience Mechanism: Vivid, active language ("chasing") creates a sense of immediate threat and loss that must be stopped.
• Invited Inferences: Companies are not leaving by choice but are being forced out. High taxes are the direct cause of job loss to other countries. The solution is to make the U.S. a "safe" place by lowering taxes.

4. Lexical Unit: "modernize our archaic international tax system"

• Quote Context: "Finally, the bill modernizes our archaic international tax system, moving us more toward a territorial tax system."
• Evoked Frame: PROGRESS / OBSOLESCENCE. This frame situates policy on a timeline moving from an outdated past to an efficient future.
• Frame Elements:
  • Obsolete Object: "archaic international tax system," "our broken tax code."
  • Modern Solution: The "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," a "territorial tax system."
  • Agents of Modernization: The Republican committee members.
  • Goal: The "21st Century."
• Conceptual Metaphor: POLICY IS TECHNOLOGY. This maps attributes of technological development (old vs. new, obsolete vs. efficient, outdated vs. modern) onto tax policy.
• Role Assignment:
  • Beneficiaries: All Americans, who will live in a country with a modern, efficient system.
  • Cost-Bearers: Those who defend the "archaic" system.
  • Agents: The bill's proponents, positioned as forward-thinking modernizers.
• Salience Mechanism: The stark binary of "archaic" vs. "modern" leaves no room for debate; modernity is inherently preferable.
• Invited Inferences: The current tax system is as obsolete as a steam engine in the digital age. Opposition to the bill is a backward-looking stance against progress itself. The proposed changes are not ideological but are a necessary and inevitable upgrade.

Level 2: Functional Framing Analysis (Entman) #

1. Define Problem:

• Primary Statement: The American tax code is an "archaic," "broken" system that imposes a heavy "burden" on middle-class families and "chases" jobs and investment out of the country, causing "economic stagnation."
• Supporting Quotes:
  • "...relieve the tax burden on American taxpayers, with a focus on middle-class families."
  • "...middle class who have struggled to get through the past eight years of economic stagnation."
  • "The current 35 percent corporate tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world. This is a drag on our economy and is one of a few factors continually chasing companies and economic activity offshore."
  • "...our broken tax code..."
  • "...modernize our archaic international tax system..."
• Linked Lexical Units: "relieve the tax burden," "economic stagnation," "chasing companies," "archaic."
• What Is Concealed: The role of other factors in economic performance (e.g., globalization, automation, trade policy). The potential negative impacts of tax cuts, such as increased national debt or reduced funding for public services. The fact that many corporations pay effective tax rates far below the 35% statutory rate.
• Counterframe Contested: The problem is not high taxes on the middle class but rather growing inequality and a tax system that disproportionately benefits the wealthy and corporations.

2. Diagnose Cause:

• Primary Statement: The cause of America's economic problems is an uncompetitive, outdated tax code with excessively high rates. A secondary cause is the political obstructionism of Democrats who refuse to engage in good-faith reform.
• Supporting Quotes:
  • "...by being so out of step with the rest of the industrialized world, we put American companies... at a major disadvantage."
  • "Our current worldwide system is another element of our tax code that chases jobs..."
  • "Essentially, our colleagues demanded that we empower them to kill any potential tax reform bill before they’d even begin talks."
  • "...it was the Democrats’ own preconditions that kept them from engaging on tax reform."
• Linked Lexical Units: "chasing companies," "archaic... system."
• What Is Concealed: The role of Republican "preconditions" (e.g., revenue neutrality, distributional effects). The historical context of rising national debt under previous tax cuts.
• Counterframe Contested: The cause of economic hardship is decades of policy favoring corporations and the wealthy, leading to wage stagnation and weakened public services. The legislative process is being rushed and is inherently partisan.

3. Make Moral Judgment:

• Primary Statement: Providing "tax relief" to hard-working middle-class families and making America economically competitive are moral imperatives. It is wrong to maintain a system that punishes success and sends jobs overseas. Democrats' refusal to participate and their defense of deductions for the wealthy are acts of bad faith.
• Supporting Quotes:
  • "That’s real money that will help a tens of millions of American families make ends meet..."
  • "Our goal with this effort is to provide tax relief and bigger paychecks to low- and middle-income families..."
  • "...why their deaths should be considered a taxable event when they choose to pass their life’s work..."
  • "...why they want to forego middle class tax relief in order to preserve a tax deduction that overwhelmingly benefits the taxpayers at the very high end..."
• Linked Lexical Units: "relieve the tax burden," "economic stagnation."
• What Is Concealed: The moral argument for progressive taxation as a means of funding social goods and reducing inequality. The moral argument that those who have benefited most from the economic system should pay a larger share.
• Counterframe Contested: It is immoral to pass a bill that gives massive tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy while potentially raising taxes on some middle-class families and increasing the national debt that future generations must pay.

4. Suggest Remedy:

• Primary Statement: Pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to lower rates for individuals and corporations, simplify the code by expanding the standard deduction, and "modernize" the international system to encourage domestic investment.
• Supporting Quotes:
  • "This legislation... would make a number of important reforms to our nation’s tax system..."
  • "On the business side, our bill will permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent."
  • "...the bill nearly doubles the standard deduction..."
  • "Finally, the bill modernizes our archaic international tax system, moving us more toward a territorial tax system."
• Linked Lexical Units: "modernize," "relieve the tax burden."
• Bridging Language:
  • Phrase 1: "I’m quite certain we’ll hear a lot about supposed process fouls... Let me set the record straight..."
    • Moves from: The specific content of the tax bill.
    • Redirects toward: The legislative process and the alleged bad faith of the opposition.
    • Why it serves the frame: It preemptively reframes criticism not as substantive disagreement but as procedural complaints from an unreasonable opponent, thereby inoculating the bill against process-based attacks.
  • Phrase 2: "Another claim I expect to hear is that our bill is a massive tax cut for the so-called rich. This claim is false."
    • Moves from: A general description of the bill's benefits.
    • Redirects toward: A direct refutation of the primary counterframe.
    • Why it serves the frame: It seizes control of the narrative by defining the opposition's main argument and attempting to debunk it with selected data (share of tax burden vs. absolute dollar cuts), shifting the debate onto the speaker's preferred terrain.
• What Is Concealed: The long-term effects of the bill, particularly after individual tax cuts are set to expire. The full distributional analysis, including the impact of repealing various deductions. The scale of the benefit flowing to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in absolute dollar terms.
• Counterframe Contested: The remedy is not tax cuts but targeted investment in infrastructure, education, and healthcare, funded by a more progressive tax code.

Level 3: Ideological and Metaphorical Synthesis #

• Dominant Frames:

  1. BURDEN: Frames taxation as an oppressive weight on individuals and families, making "relief" a moral necessity.
  2. COMPETITION: Frames the global economy as a race where America is falling behind due to a disadvantageous tax code.
  3. MACHINE/TECHNOLOGY: Frames the tax code as a "broken" and "archaic" machine that needs a "modern" fix, casting the bill as a technical upgrade rather than an ideological project.

• Frame Hierarchy: The master frame is GLOBAL COMPETITION. The need to "fix" the broken tax code (MACHINE) and "relieve" the tax "BURDEN" are presented as necessary steps to make America competitive again and stop "chasing companies offshore." The stakes are national economic survival in a hostile global marketplace.

• Coherent Narrative: For years, America has been hobbled by a broken, archaic tax system that burdened its families and chased its businesses away, causing economic stagnation. This bill is a long-overdue modernization that fixes the machine, lifts the burden, and makes America competitive again, creating jobs and prosperity for the middle class.

• Underlying Moral System: Strict Father Morality.

• Moral System Justification: The framing is built on core Strict Father values. Discipline: The market is the ultimate disciplinarian; the tax code should enable, not hinder, competition. Self-reliance: The goal is to let people keep more of their own money ("bigger paychecks") to "make ends meet" on their own, rather than relying on government programs. Moral Hierarchy: It prioritizes "job creators" (businesses) whose success is seen as the prerequisite for everyone else's prosperity. Competition: The world is a competitive, dangerous place, and America must be strong to win.

• Metaphorical Architecture:

  1. TAXATION IS A BURDEN: Creates the problem at the individual level.
  2. THE ECONOMY IS A SICK BODY: Justifies the need for urgent intervention.
  3. THE TAX CODE IS A PREDATOR: Explains why businesses are "fleeing."
  4. GLOBAL ECONOMY IS A RACE: Establishes the high stakes and the ultimate goal. These metaphors work together: We must cure our SICK economy by stopping the PREDATOR tax code from chasing away jobs, which will relieve the BURDEN on families and help us win the global RACE.

• Frame Interaction: The frames are mutually reinforcing. The individual pain of the BURDEN frame provides emotional resonance for the abstract necessity of winning the COMPETITION. The MACHINE frame makes the proposed solution seem rational and non-ideological, a simple repair job needed to address the other problems.

• Agenda-Setting Effects:

  • Questions on the table: How can we make America more competitive? Are Democrats obstructing progress? How much "relief" will the middle class get?
  • Questions off the table: Should corporations and the wealthy pay more in taxes to fund public services? What is the long-term impact of this bill on the national debt and social programs? Are there other ways to help the middle class besides tax cuts?

• Power Distribution: Agency is overwhelmingly allocated to Republican legislators ("we will act," "our bill") and to businesses ("job creators," "investors"). The middle class is positioned as a passive beneficiary of "relief." Democrats are cast as obstructionists with no legitimate agency.

• Reasoning Implications: A citizen who accepts these frames would believe:

  • Nature of the problem: The problem is an inefficient, uncompetitive government system (the tax code).
  • Responsibility: Blame lies with the outdated code itself and with Democrats who protect it.
  • Appropriate solution: The only logical solution is to cut taxes and simplify the code to unleash the power of the market.
  • Moral stakes: The moral imperative is to help self-reliant families and businesses, not to expand government programs.

• Frame Effectiveness: These frames are highly persuasive to audiences who already hold a Strict Father worldview, are skeptical of government, and believe in supply-side economics. They will be far less effective for audiences with a Nurturant Parent worldview, who view taxes as a collective investment in society (empathy, social responsibility) and are more concerned with inequality and the social safety net.

Rhetorical Analysis & Conclusion #

Paragraph 1 - Frame Strategy Overview The overall framing strategy of this statement is to present a deeply ideological and partisan piece of legislation as a common-sense, technically necessary, and morally urgent solution to broadly accepted problems. The core rhetorical move is pre-emptive reframing: the text anticipates the strongest counterarguments—that the bill is a giveaway to the rich and a partisan sham—and attempts to neutralize them by casting opponents as bad-faith actors protecting the wealthy and obstructing progress. This is achieved by weaving together three dominant semantic frames: the tax code as a BURDEN on families, a BROKEN MACHINE in need of modernization, and a handicap in a fierce global COMPETITION.

Paragraph 2 - Mechanism of Persuasion The persuasive effect is achieved by making abstract economic policy feel concrete and personal. The TAXATION IS A BURDEN metaphor does the heaviest lifting, creating an emotional desire for "relief" and casting the bill's authors as benevolent rescuers. The BROKEN MACHINE and PROGRESS frames depoliticize the proposal, making it seem like a technical upgrade rather than a choice with winners and losers. Bridging language is used masterfully to pivot from defending the bill's substance to attacking the opposition's motives, for instance, by shifting the debate from process fouls to Democrats' "preconditions." The critical mechanism of concealment is also at play; by focusing exclusively on tax rates and a simplified "burden," the frame hides the massive consequences for the national debt and the long-term distributional effects, which are the primary vulnerabilities of the legislation.

Paragraph 3 - Cognitive Activation This text is designed to activate a Strict Father cognitive model of the world. It appeals directly to the values of discipline, self-reliance, and competitive success. The language assumes an audience that believes individuals, families, and businesses are best helped by being freed from government constraints ("burden") so they can succeed on their own. It taps into a deep-seated fear of national decline ("stagnation," "chasing companies offshore") and presents the bill as a tool to restore American strength and dominance. The repeated mentions of bipartisanship in the past serve to frame present-day Democratic opposition as a radical break from a reasonable, collaborative norm, further isolating them.

Paragraph 4 - Implications for Public Deliberation This framing profoundly narrows the space for public deliberation. It pre-defines the problem as "how to cut taxes" rather than "how to create a fair and effective tax system." By framing the bill as a technical modernization, it makes opposing views seem Luddite and irrational. Alternatives, such as using tax revenue for public investment in education or infrastructure, are rendered unthinkable because the core frame establishes taxation itself as the problem, not the use of its revenue. It distributes agency to corporate "job creators" and legislators, positioning the public as passive recipients, thereby discouraging a deeper debate about the kind of economy and society citizens want to build.

Paragraph 5 - Frame Vulnerabilities The framing is most vulnerable at the nexus of its claims and concealed realities. The central assertion—that corporate tax cuts will directly translate into "better wages" and "more jobs" for American workers—is an economic theory, not a proven fact, and is highly susceptible to a counterframe based on historical data showing decades of corporate profit growth without commensurate wage growth. Furthermore, the framing completely ignores the national debt. A counterframe built around FAMILY BUDGETS (e.g., "Republicans are running up the national credit card, leaving our children to pay the bill") could effectively challenge the Strict Father model's tenet of fiscal discipline. Finally, its claims of seeking bipartisanship are transparently weak given the use of the reconciliation process, opening it to attacks on its procedural hypocrisy.

Paragraph 6 - Audience Effects These frames will be most compelling to a conservative, pro-business audience that already subscribes to supply-side economics and the Strict Father moral worldview. For this group, the text will resonate as a clear, forceful articulation of self-evident truths. Conversely, the framing will be strongly rejected by audiences with a Nurturant Parent worldview, who see taxes as the price of a caring and functional society. They will interpret the "burden" metaphor as a selfish refusal to contribute to the common good and will view the focus on corporate tax cuts as confirmation that the bill is, in fact, a "massive tax cut for the rich," making the speaker's pre-emptive denials ring hollow. The text is therefore an excellent example of political messaging designed to solidify the base rather than persuade the uncommitted.