[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 117 (Thursday, August 2, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5658-H5681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PATHWAY TO JOB CREATION THROUGH A SIMPLER, FAIRER TAX CODE ACT OF 2012

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 747, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 6169) to provide for expedited consideration of a bill 
providing for comprehensive tax reform, and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 747, the bill 
is considered read.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6169

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Pathway to Job Creation 
     through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds that the following problems 
     exist with the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (in this section 
     referred to as the ``tax code''):
       (1) The tax code is unfair, containing hundreds of 
     provisions that only benefit certain special interests, 
     resulting in a system of winners and losers.
       (2) The tax code violates the fundamental principle of 
     equal justice by subjecting families in similar circumstances 
     to significantly different tax bills.
       (3)(A) Many tax preferences, sometimes referred to as ``tax 
     expenditures,'' are similar to government spending--instead 
     of markets directing economic resources to their most 
     efficient uses, the Government directs resources to other 
     uses, creating a drag on economic growth and job creation.
       (B) The exclusions, deductions, credits, and special rules 
     that make up such tax expenditures amount to over $1 trillion 
     per year, nearly matching the total amount of annual revenue 
     that is generated from the income tax itself.
       (C) In some cases, tax subsidies can literally take the 
     form of spending through the tax code, redistributing taxes 
     paid by some Americans to individuals and businesses who do 
     not pay any income taxes at all.
       (4) The failure to adopt a permanent tax code with stable 
     statutory tax policy has created greater economic 
     uncertainty. Tax rates have been scheduled to increase 
     sharply in 3 of the last 5 years, requiring the enactment of 
     repeated temporary extensions. Additionally, approximately 70 
     other, more targeted tax provisions expired in 2011 or are 
     currently scheduled to expire by the end of 2012.
       (5) Since 2001, there have been nearly 4,500 changes made 
     to the tax code, averaging more than one each day over the 
     past decade.
       (6) The tax code's complexity leads nearly nine out of ten 
     families either to hire tax preparers (60 percent) or 
     purchase software (29 percent) to file their taxes, while 71 
     percent of unincorporated businesses are forced to pay 
     someone else to prepare their taxes.
       (7) The cost of complying with the tax code is too 
     burdensome, forcing individuals, families, and employers to 
     spend over six billion hours and over $160 billion per year 
     trying to comply with the law and pay the actual tax owed.
       (8) Compliance with the current tax code is a financial 
     hardship for employers that falls disproportionately on small 
     businesses, which spend an average of $74 per hour on tax-
     related compliance, making it the most expensive paperwork 
     burden they encounter.
       (9) Small businesses have been responsible for two-thirds 
     of the jobs created in the United States over the past 15 
     years, and approximately half of small-business profits are 
     taxed at the current top 2 individual rates.
       (10) The historic range for tax revenues collected by the 
     Federal government has averaged 18 to 19 percent of Gross 
     Domestic Product (GDP), but will rise to 21.2 percent of GDP 
     under current law--a level never reached, let alone 
     sustained, in the Nation's history.
       (11) The current tax code is highly punitive, with a top 
     Federal individual income tax rate of 35 percent (which is 
     set to climb to over 40 percent in 2013 when taking into 
     account certain hidden rates), meaning some Americans could 
     face a combined local, State and Federal tax rate of 50 
     percent.
       (12) The tax code contains harmful provisions, such as the 
     Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which was initially designed 
     to affect only the very highest-income taxpayers but now 
     threatens more than 30 million middle-class households 
     because of a flawed design.
       (13) As of April 1, 2012, the United States achieved the 
     dubious distinction of having the highest corporate tax rate 
     (39.2 percent for Federal and State combined) in the 
     developed world.
       (14) The United States corporate tax rate is more than 50 
     percent higher than the average rate of member states of the 
     Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 
     (OECD)--a factor that discourages employers and investors 
     from locating jobs and investments in the United States.
       (15) The United States has become an outlier in that it 
     still uses a ``worldwide'' system of taxation--one that has 
     not been substantially reformed in 50 years, when the United 
     States accounted for nearly half of global economic output 
     and had no serious competitors around the world.
       (16) The combination of the highest corporate tax rate with 
     an antiquated ``worldwide'' system subjects American 
     companies to double taxation when they attempt to compete 
     with foreign companies in overseas markets and then reinvest 
     their earnings in the United States.
       (17) The Nation's outdated tax code has contributed to the 
     fact that the world's largest companies are more likely to be 
     headquartered overseas today than at any point in the last 50 
     years: In 1960, 17 of the world's 20 largest companies were 
     based in the United States; by 2010, that number sank to a 
     mere six out of 20.
       (18) The United States has one of the highest levels of 
     taxation on capital--taxing it once at the corporate level 
     and then again at the individual level--with integrated tax 
     rates on certain investment income already reaching roughly 
     50 percent (and scheduled to reach nearly 70 percent in 
     2013).
       (19) The United States' overall taxation of capital is 
     higher than all but four of the 38 countries that make up the 
     OECD and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China).
       (b) Purposes.--It is the purpose of this Act to provide for 
     enactment of comprehensive tax reform in 2013 that--
       (1) protects taxpayers by creating a fairer, simpler, 
     flatter tax code for individuals and families by--
       (A) lowering marginal tax rates and broadening the tax 
     base;
       (B) eliminating special interest loopholes;
       (C) reducing complexity in the tax code, making tax 
     compliance easier and less costly;
       (D) repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax;
       (E) maintaining modern levels of progressivity so as to not 
     overburden any one group or further erode the tax base;
       (F) making it easier for Americans to save; and
       (G) reducing the tax burdens imposed on married couples and 
     families;
       (2) is comprehensive (addressing both individual and 
     corporate rates), so as to have the maximum economic impact 
     by benefitting employers and their employees regardless of 
     how a business is structured;
       (3) results in tax revenue consistent with historical 
     norms;
       (4) spurs greater investment, innovation and job creation, 
     and therefore increases economic activity and the size of the 
     economy on a dynamic basis as compared to the current tax 
     code; and
       (5) makes American workers and businesses more competitive 
     by--
       (A) creating a stable, predictable tax code under which 
     families and employers are best able to plan for the future;
       (B) keeping taxes on small businesses low;
       (C) reducing America's corporate tax rate, which is 
     currently the highest in the industrialized world;
       (D) maintaining a level of parity between individual and 
     corporate rates to reduce economic distortions;

[[Page H5659]]

       (E) promoting innovation in the United States;
       (F) transitioning to a globally competitive territorial tax 
     system;
       (G) minimizing the double taxation of investment and 
     capital; and
       (H) reducing the impact of taxes on business decision-
     making to allow such decisions to be driven by their economic 
     potential.

     SEC. 3. EXPEDITED CONSIDERATION OF A MEASURE PROVIDING FOR 
                   COMPREHENSIVE TAX REFORM.

       (a) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term 
     ``tax reform bill'' means a bill of the 113th Congress--
       (1) introduced in the House of Representatives by the chair 
     of the Committee on Ways and Means not later than April 30, 
     2013, or the first legislative day thereafter if the House is 
     not in session on that day, the title of which is as follows: 
     ``A bill to provide for comprehensive tax reform.''; and
       (2) which is the subject of a certification under 
     subsection (b).
       (b) Certification.--The chair of the Joint Committee on 
     Taxation shall notify the House and Senate in writing 
     whenever the chair of the Joint Committee determines that an 
     introduced bill described in subsection (a)(1) contains at 
     least each of the following proposals:
       (1) a consolidation of the current 6 individual income tax 
     brackets into not more than two brackets of 10 and not more 
     than 25 percent;
       (2) a reduction in the corporate tax rate to not greater 
     than 25 percent;
       (3) a repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax;
       (4) a broadening of the tax base to maintain revenue 
     between 18 and 19 percent of the economy; and
       (5) a change from a ``worldwide'' to a ``territorial'' 
     system of taxation.
       (c) Expedited Consideration in the House of 
     Representatives.--
       (1) Any committee of the House of Representatives to which 
     the tax reform bill is referred shall report it to the House 
     not later than 20 calendar days after the date of its 
     introduction. If a committee fails to report the tax reform 
     bill within that period, such committee shall be 
     automatically discharged from further consideration of the 
     bill.
       (2) If the House has not otherwise proceeded to the 
     consideration of the tax reform bill upon the expiration of 
     15 legislative days after the bill has been placed on the 
     Union Calendar, it shall be in order for the Majority Leader 
     or a designee (or, after the expiration of an additional 2 
     legislative days, any Member), to offer one motion that the 
     House resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on the 
     state of the Union for the consideration of the tax reform 
     bill. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on 
     the motion to its adoption without intervening motion except 
     20 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     proponent and an opponent. If such a motion is adopted, 
     consideration shall proceed in accordance with paragraph (3). 
     A motion to reconsider the vote by which the motion is 
     disposed of shall not be in order.
       (3) The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. 
     General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not 
     exceed 4 hours, equally divided and controlled by the chair 
     and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and 
     Means. At the conclusion of general debate, the bill shall be 
     read for amendment under the five-minute rule. Any committee 
     amendment shall be considered as read. At the conclusion of 
     consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall 
     rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as 
     may have been adopted. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to 
     final passage without intervening motion except one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions. A motion to reconsider 
     the vote on passage of the bill shall not be in order.
       (d) Expedited Consideration in the Senate.--
       (1) Committee consideration.--A tax reform bill, as defined 
     in subsection (a), received in the Senate shall be referred 
     to the Committee on Finance. The Committee shall report the 
     bill not later than 15 calendar days after receipt of the 
     bill in the Senate. If the Committee fails to report the bill 
     within that period, that committee shall be discharged from 
     consideration of the bill, and the bill shall be placed on 
     the calendar.
       (2) Motion to proceed.--Notwithstanding rule XXII of the 
     Standing Rules of the Senate, it is in order, not later than 
     2 days of session after the date on which the tax reform bill 
     is reported or discharged from committee, for the majority 
     leader of the Senate or the majority leader's designee to 
     move to proceed to the consideration of the tax reform bill. 
     It shall also be in order for any Member of the Senate to 
     move to proceed to the consideration of the tax reform bill 
     at any time after the conclusion of such 2-day period. A 
     motion to proceed is in order even though a previous motion 
     to the same effect has been disagreed to. All points of order 
     against the motion to proceed to the tax reform bill are 
     waived. The motion to proceed is not debatable. The motion is 
     not subject to a motion to postpone.
       (3) Consideration.--No motion to recommit shall be in order 
     and debate on any motion or appeal shall be limited to one 
     hour, to be divided in the usual form.
       (4) Amendments.--All amendments must be relevant to the 
     bill and debate on any amendment shall be limited to 2 hours 
     to be equally divided in the usual form between the opponents 
     and proponents of the amendment. Debate on any amendment to 
     an amendment, debatable motion, or appeal shall be limited to 
     1 hour to be equally divided in the usual form between the 
     opponents and proponents of the amendment.
       (5) Vote on passage.--If the Senate has proceeded to the 
     bill, and following the conclusion of all debate, the Senate 
     shall proceed to a vote on passage of the bill as amended, if 
     amended.
       (e) Conference in the House.--If the House receives a 
     message that the Senate has passed the tax reform bill with 
     an amendment or amendments, it shall be in order for the 
     chair of the Committee on Ways and Means or a designee, 
     without intervention of any point of order, to offer any 
     motion specified in clause 1 of rule XXII.
       (f) Conference in the Senate.--If the Senate receives from 
     the House a message to accompany the tax reform bill, as 
     defined in subsection (a), then no later than two session 
     days after its receipt--
       (1) the Chair shall lay the message before the Senate;
       (2) the motion to insist on the Senate amendment or 
     disagree to the House amendment or amendments to the Senate 
     amendment, the request for a conference with the House or the 
     motion to agree to the request of the House for a conference, 
     and the motion to authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on 
     the part of the Senate shall be agreed to; and
       (3) the Chair shall then be authorized to appoint conferees 
     on the part of the Senate without intervening motion, with a 
     ratio agreed to with the concurrence of both leaders.
       (g) Rulemaking.--This section is enacted by the Congress as 
     an exercise of the rulemaking power of the House of 
     Representatives and Senate, respectively, and as such is 
     deemed a part of the rules of each House, respectively, or of 
     that House to which they specifically apply, and such 
     procedures supersede other rules only to the extent that they 
     are inconsistent with such rules; and with full recognition 
     of the constitutional right of either House to change the 
     rules (so far as relating to the procedures of that House) at 
     any time, in the same manner, and to the same extent as any 
     other rule of that House.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 3 hours, 
with 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking 
minority member of the Committee on Rules, and 2 hours on the subject 
of reforming the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 equally divided and 
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  After debate, it shall be in order to consider the amendment in the 
nature of a substitute printed in part A of House Report 112-641, if 
offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) or her 
designee, which shall be considered read and shall be separately 
debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the 
proponent and an opponent.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

                              {time}  1230


                             General Leave

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on 
H.R. 6169.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  An exorbitant amount of ink has been spilled chronicling the many 
divisions here in the United States Congress. I was just speaking a 
couple of hours ago in the well about the bipartisan consensus we were 
able to put together on the trade issue. And I've got to say that the 
differences of opinions between and within the Democratic and 
Republican Parties are extraordinarily well documented, and too little 
attention is focused on the kind of bipartisanship that we've had on 
issues like the one that we were debating earlier today. But, having 
said that, even though it doesn't get much attention, there are a 
number of issues, Mr. Speaker, on which we can all agree.
  We all agree, for example, that dramatic reform of our budget process 
is needed. We may diverge significantly on the kinds of reforms and the 
manner in which they should be implemented, but none of us looks at our 
skyrocketing deficit, anemic economic growth rate, or persistent 
unemployment and thinks that the status quo, when it comes to the 
Federal budget process, is acceptable.
  I, personally, believe very strongly in the notion of our going to a 
2-year

[[Page H5660]]

budget cycle so that we could have both the Appropriations Committee 
and the other authorizing committees expend time, energy, and effort 
meeting their constitutional responsibility of oversight.
  So again, there are a wide range of views as to how we deal with the 
issue of budget process reform, but there is a consensus. Democrats and 
Republicans alike believe that it is necessary.
  We also all understand that budget challenges must be addressed 
within two specific areas: both taxing and spending. Again, we disagree 
greatly on the level and the structure of both, but we agree that it 
needs to be addressed. We know that meaningful budget reform must 
consist of both reform of the budget process, itself, as well as reform 
of the tax structure.
  Mr. Speaker, the exponential rise in spending in recent years infused 
our reform agenda with a great sense of urgency, which is why we, as 
Republicans, have focused so intently on reversing that trend and 
bringing about meaningful spending cuts. In fact, when I announced that 
I would be leaving here at the end of this year, one of the things that 
I had wanted to accomplish was that I made the choice, even though I 
wasn't originally planning to run again--this was 2 years ago. One of 
the things I said we had to do was reverse that trend we'd been on with 
an 82 percent increase in non-defense discretionary spending that we'd 
seen the years before. Well, I'm happy to say that we have been able to 
at least begin the process of reversing that trend.

  Now we face a new level of urgency on the tax side of the equation. 
As we face the prospect of stark tax increases at the end of this year, 
while unemployment is stuck, as we've had pointed out to us by the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Camp, an unemployment 
rate in excess of 8 percent, which has gone on for more than 40 
months--and we've just gotten the report at the end of last week that 
our GDP growth rate was revised downward from 1.9 to 1.5 percent. 
Tomorrow we're due to get these unemployment numbers. We all hope and 
pray that we will see improvement. But even if we do see some 
improvement, we know that the length of this challenging economic 
period is something that needs to be dealt with, and one of the best 
ways to deal with it is meaningful tax reform.
  The legislation that we have before us, H.R. 6169, represents one-
half of our two-pronged approach for preventing the enactment of 
catastrophic tax increases that would further paralyze our economy. The 
first step that we must take, Mr. Speaker, is to put a stop to the tax 
increases looming at the end of this year, which is precisely what this 
institution, the House of Representatives, did yesterday with the 
passage of H.R. 8. That bill will keep in place our current tax rates, 
as we all know, for 1 additional year. Now, that's an essential step.
  The President of the United States has said increasing taxes during 
difficult economic times is bad policy. In fact, not just President 
Obama, but even the traditional Keynesian economists will argue that 
the notion of increasing taxes during slow economic growth is a 
prescription to exacerbate the economic downturn.
  So it's very important that we do that. Again, that's one very 
important step. But on its own, it's just a stopgap solution, what we 
have done yesterday, here, for that one period of time.
  Mr. Speaker, the second part of our two-pronged approach creates a 
pathway to a long-term solution. Now, this legislation puts in place a 
structure that will facilitate consideration and passage of meaningful, 
comprehensive tax reform.
  Again, Democrats and Republicans alike regularly say they are for 
meaningful tax reform. We have talk from both sides of the aisle about 
it. What we're doing here with this compromise that we have is putting 
into place a structure that can lay the groundwork to have action taken 
rather than, simply, simply talk.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we all know that our Tax Code is not working for 
the American people. I think that it's another point on which we can 
all agree. I would say to my friend from Worcester, he knows very well 
that the Tax Code that we have today is not working. We believe on our 
side that the Tax Code we have today is not working. It's unfair, and 
it is Byzantine in its complexity. And we all know, too, that the Tax 
Code that we have, Mr. Speaker, is clearly a drain on our economy.
  I'd like to make a couple of points on this.
  Since 2001, that's basically a decade plus a year, a little over a 
decade, there have been nearly 4,500 changes made to the U.S. Tax Code, 
so within that decade, 4,500 changes made to the Tax Code. Now, Mr. 
Speaker, that works out to one change a day, one change a day over that 
10-year period of time. Now, the resulting complexity leads nearly 9 
out of 10 families to seek assistance in filing their Federal income 
taxes. And at the same time, Mr. Speaker, the majority of small 
business owners, small business men and women in this country, 71 
percent, 71 percent of all unincorporated businesses are forced to pay 
someone else to prepare their taxes.
  Now, dealing with the Tax Code under these circumstances forces 
individuals, families, and employers in this country to spend--are you 
ready for this, Mr. Speaker?--over 6 billion--6 billion--hours, costing 
over $160 billion every single year in an effort to faithfully comply 
with the burdensome and complicated Federal tax system.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I've talked to tax attorneys and accountants--tax 
attorneys and accountants--and they acknowledge that these wasted 
resources are a drain on economic growth and on our shared bipartisan 
quest for job creation.
  Furthermore, the current system is injecting a great deal of 
uncertainty in our economy. Many of us like to point to the fact that 
uncertainty is the enemy of prosperity.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, let's look at the uncertainty that has existed over 
the past several years. Tax rates have been scheduled to increase 
sharply in 3 of the last 5 years, requiring the enactment of repeated 
temporary extensions. What does that create for job creators and for 
investors out there? It creates that uncertainty. And that uncertainty, 
again, is the enemy of prosperity.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, as you know, dozens of other major tax provisions 
expired in 2011 or are currently scheduled to expire by the end of this 
year. Working families and small business owners are not able to plan 
for the future or make rational business decisions, including hiring 
decisions, in this extraordinary environment of uncertainty.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, all of these challenges argue forcefully for 
comprehensive reform. Unfortunately--unfortunately--real results in 
this quest have proved, so far, to be elusive. We are all aware of the 
challenges of moving comprehensive legislation through the Senate. Here 
in the House, we have, as we all know, a majoritarian body where a 
simple majority is able to work its will.

                              {time}  1240

  The nature of the Senate is fundamentally different, far slower, far 
slower, by design. Frustrating though its inactions may often be, I do 
believe that the Framers of our Constitution were actually right to 
structure these two bodies differently.
  However, at times throughout our Nation's history, we've recognized 
the need to come together, the two institutions to come together to 
facilitate decisive action on critical matters. And, Mr. Speaker, 
that's exactly what we are doing here today, recognizing that the 
imperative for tax reform, something that has been discussed for 
literally decades, is going to be able to have something other than 
just talk, but action. And we're going to facilitate that with this 
effort here.
  This legislation, Mr. Speaker, lays out a roadmap for reform and 
helps to ensure its timely consideration in both the House and the 
Senate. It provides for consideration of a bill that is introduced by 
the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee by April 30 of next year, 
and then incorporates five key pillars of comprehensive reform.
  First, the reform package should provide individual filers with much 
needed clarity and simplicity by consolidating the current individual 
income tax rates into no more than two brackets, 10 and 25 percent.
  Second, it should spur job creation and growth by limiting the 
corporate

[[Page H5661]]

tax rate to no more than 25 percent. And again, focusing on the 
bipartisan nature of this, I've regularly said that I appreciate the 
fact that President Obama has come forward and called for a reduction 
in the top rate on corporations in this country.
  Third, it should protect middle class families by repealing the 
alternative minimum tax. We all know how onerous that has been, and we 
all know that more and more Americans have, unfortunately, been drawn 
into this alternative minimum tax, which was designed to focus on very, 
very few people.
  And fourth, Mr. Speaker, it should broaden the tax base to maintain 
revenue between 18 and 19 percent of our gross domestic product. And 
so, as we look at our economy, the goal of 18 and 19 percent.
  And finally, one of the things, again, I was talking about earlier is 
our global leadership role. We need to make sure that we shift from a 
worldwide to a territorial system of taxation to have greater equity, 
to allow for those who want to invest and participate to be able to do 
so on a global basis.
  These are broad outlines of the tax reform agenda, Mr. Speaker, and 
they're an outline that I think will lay the groundwork, again, for the 
details to be put into place. The legislation provides for expedited 
procedures in the House and the Senate, so that comprehensive reform 
can receive its due consideration.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, in the House, under this structure, any committee 
that receives a referral on the tax reform bill must report the 
legislation to the House within 20 calendar days. Failure to do so 
within that time period will result in an automatic discharge of that 
legislation. Our Rules Committee will then have 15 legislative days to 
provide a special order for consideration of the bill before the 
majority leader is automatically empowered to offer a motion to proceed 
with floor action.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, to underscore how important the right of every 
member of this institution is, after 2 days, any Member of the House 
will be able to do so if action has not been taken by the majority 
leadership. These procedures will help to ensure that no committee or 
Member has the power to prevent or indefinitely delay consideration of 
comprehensive tax reform.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, in the Senate, which is where this is really needed 
because, of course, we have a Rules Committee here in the House and so 
it's not absolutely essential that we do this. But in the Senate, where 
this is really needed, the bill, tax reform bill must be referred to 
the Committee on Finance, understandably, which will then have 15 
calendar days to consider and report the bill before the legislation is 
automatically discharged.
  Mr. Speaker, in the Senate, the Majority Leader can then offer a 
motion to proceed to the bill. After two more days, any Senator will be 
empowered to do so, again, ensuring that people will not be able to 
stand in the way of moving ahead with tax reform. Now, that motion will 
not be debatable, and cloture is not required before a vote on a motion 
to proceed; basically meaning, Mr. Speaker, that a super majority will 
not be necessary to allow to move ahead on the debate on tax reform in 
the Senate.
  Now, each amendment will be limited to 2 hours of debate in the 
Senate, and cloture will also not be required before votes on 
individual amendments. However, cloture, a very important power that 
does exist in the Senate, cloture on the underlying bill may still be 
required prior to the vote on passage of the bill.
  So what this does, Mr. Speaker, these procedures ensure timely 
consideration in the Senate, while maintaining that last hurdle of a 
potential cloture vote on to final passage.
  I believe very strongly, Mr. Speaker, that this agreement strikes the 
right balance between facilitating action while preserving the very 
core nature of the Senate process. The magnitude and the urgency of our 
current economic challenges demand that we create this clear pathway to 
comprehensive tax reform.
  Our proposal provides a real solution to the uncertainty, the 
complexity, and the burdensome nature of our Tax Code. And, Mr. 
Speaker, it unleashes a powerful source of new revenues.
  Now, you know this very well, Mr. Speaker. There is a common 
misperception out there, and you hear it reported from people in the 
media, and I don't believe that it's normally meant as a pejorative, 
but what they say is, Republicans don't want to increase revenues. 
Republicans don't want new revenues to the Federal Treasury. We hear 
this drumbeat over and over again.
  I'm here to say, Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the 
truth. Republicans want new revenues to the Federal Treasury. We 
absolutely must find a way to bring greater revenue. We've got to find 
a way to bring revenue into the Federal Treasury. We all decry the $15-
plus trillion national debt that we have and the massive deficit 
spending. We've got to have greater revenue to the Federal Treasury.
  Where we diverge, between the two political parties, my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle, is the manner in which we see these new 
revenues actually achieved.
  Rather than raising tax rates on any one set of individuals or 
businesses, we want to raise revenues through greater gross domestic 
product growth. We want to expand the overall size of our economy, 
creating opportunity for all Americans. We've done this as a Nation 
many times in the past.
  I always like to point to President John F. Kennedy, who pioneered 
this approach by cutting marginal tax rates and growing revenues as a 
result. Now, I acknowledge the marginal tax rates when President 
Kennedy did this were significantly higher than they are today, when he 
was able to reduce marginal rates for individuals and reduce capital 
gains. But we still can put into place pro-growth tax policy.
  Mr. Speaker, President Reagan did the same thing 20 years after John 
F. Kennedy did it, and we all know what happened. We all know what 
happened, Mr. Speaker, when President Reagan, with the support of many 
Democrats, through what was known as the Conable-Hance tax package, it 
was a Democrat and a Republican, a then-Democrat and Republican. Mr. 
Hance has since seen the light and become a Republican, but he was a 
Democrat at the time. He offered this measure that brought about major 
marginal rate reduction. And what did that do?
  During the decade of the 1980s, contrary to so many reports, we saw a 
nearly doubling, a nearly doubling of the flow of revenues to the 
Federal Treasury, bringing even greater results than we saw following 
President Kennedy's cuts. So, Mr. Speaker, we want to follow the 
Kennedy-Reagan tradition of expanding the Federal Treasury by 
implementing pro-growth tax reform.
  Now, we all know that our friends on the other side of the aisle do 
take a different point of view. I wish that they would follow President 
Kennedy's great example on this. But, unfortunately, the leadership on 
the other side of the aisle does take a different point of view, which 
brings me to the final point on which we all agree.
  The Democratic approach to the considerable economic challenge we 
face is to raise taxes. I mean, we all agree that that's what our 
friends on the other side of the aisle are arguing. I've been watching 
television ads with President Obama on there talking about increasing 
taxes on working Americans. Yes, they're in the upper income, but these 
are people who are creating jobs and investing, and he wants to 
increase the tax burden on those people.

                              {time}  1250

  They readily admit that their solution is to allow a large portion of 
the tax increases to proceed. They want the tax increases that are 
scheduled to go into place in January to succeed.
  So I come back to my points on the fact that uncertainty is the enemy 
of prosperity, and the statements of President Barack Obama, who as we 
all know has in the past agreed to an extension of these tax cuts to 
keep the economy growing. We also know that Keynesian economists have 
again made it clear that increasing taxes during a slow economy is a 
prescription for disaster.
  So this is where the disagreement lies.
  Democrats and Republicans alike recognize that Democrats want to 
increase marginal tax rates and that we

[[Page H5662]]

as Republicans want to grow the economy to enhance the flow of revenues 
to the Federal Treasury. We as Republicans argue that making the Tax 
Code more burdensome for some and more complicated for all is not the 
solution. Raising taxes when our economy and our job market are 
flagging is not the solution. The only way for us to create opportunity 
for all Americans is to reignite our engines of economic growth, but we 
cannot spark new growth without addressing both the immediate crisis of 
impending tax increases and the long-term need for comprehensive tax 
reform.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this very, very 
critical legislation.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  It is true that Democrats believe that we need comprehensive tax 
reform. There is no doubt about that.
  But I want to say to my good friend from California, when he used 
words like ``bipartisan,'' ``consensus,'' and ``compromise'' in the 
context of describing this piece of legislation, I have to respectfully 
disagree with him. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Those words 
do not apply to what we are talking about here today.
  This is a very, very partisan bill. This bill was referred 
exclusively to the Rules Committee. I am a member of the Rules 
Committee. I don't recall the gentleman ever reaching out and asking my 
opinion on what a bill like this should be about. Perhaps my invitation 
to join the discussion was lost in the mail. If that's the case, I 
certainly will give the gentleman a pass, but I'm willing to bet that 
Ranking Member Slaughter was never consulted, that Mr. Hastings from 
Florida was never consulted, that Mr. Polis from Colorado was never 
consulted. In fact, this bill was given to us less than 48 hours before 
we considered it in the House Rules Committee, and every single 
amendment the Democrats had to try to influence this bill was defeated 
on a strictly partisan vote--every single one of them.
  So this is not in any way shape or form about bipartisanship or 
consensus or compromise. This is a very partisan bill. I regret that 
very much because we do need tax reform in this country, but this 
approach of shutting out the minority party entirely, I think, is the 
wrong way to go.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this very partisan 
Republican bill. Actually, I use the term ``bill'' very loosely here 
because this isn't really much of a bill. It's a press release 
masquerading as a meaningful piece of legislation.
  H.R. 6169 would create expedited procedures for the Republican 
version of comprehensive tax reform. It lays out a whole bunch of 
criteria that tax reform has to meet in order to get fast-track 
protection in both the House and the Senate. It's sort of like 
reconciliation, but my Republican friends don't like to admit that. 
There are two very big problems with the Republican approach here.
  First, there is nothing--nothing--in this bill that would prevent 
their version of ``comprehensive tax reform'' from containing anything 
else they want to do: Turn Medicare into a voucher program or eliminate 
Medicare altogether? That would be allowed. Repeal patient protections 
under the Affordable Care Act? Yes, they could do that, too. Eliminate 
the Department of Education? Sure, that would get special treatment. Or 
they might want to privatize Social Security--one of their oldies but 
goodies. It is absolutely outrageous.
  The second big problem is that, under this bill, the Republican 
author of the tax passage, as the chairman of Ways and Means and as the 
person who is supposed to certify that the package is eligible for 
expedited process as chair of the Joint Committee on Taxation, can and 
likely will be the very same person. Now, I like Chairman Camp--I think 
he's a terrific guy--but I do not believe he should be allowed to serve 
as prosecutor, judge, and jury on the issue of tax reform. You don't 
put the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse.
  But this debate is about much more than the terrible process outlined 
in this bill. This debate is about priorities. The choices here are 
very simple, and the contrasts are very clear.
  Democrats want to give every American family a tax break. On the 
first $250,000 of income, everybody--including Donald Trump and 
including all of those friends of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle who give millions and millions to Super PACs--gets a tax 
break on the first $250,000 of income. The problem is the Republican 
approach to tax reform is to raise taxes on millions of American middle 
class families--raise them.
  Democrats want the wealthy to keep some of their tax cuts, but we 
believe during this time of budgetary crisis that we all have to 
sacrifice, including the millionaires and the billionaires. So we are 
asking them to contribute just a little bit. Everybody else is 
contributing. They should, too. Republicans say, no, that they want to 
protect those tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and increase 
the deficit--in order to protect, again, the 2 percent wealthiest 
Americans in this country.
  Democrats want to pass a tax cut bill that has already passed the 
Senate. That's the one I was talking about, the one that gives 
everybody a tax break on the first $250,000 of income. We want to pass 
that. It could be on the President's desk at the end of the week, and 
we could actually have done something for the American people. 
Republicans want to hold that bill hostage. There is an old saying that 
you don't have to agree on everything to agree on something. I mean, it 
seems to me--again, if I am to believe the rhetoric on the other side 
of the aisle--that there is no objection to protecting tax breaks on 
the first $250,000 of someone's income.
  If there is consensus on that, then we ought to get that done, and 
then we could have the other fight about whether or not Donald Trump 
and Sheldon Adelson and all those other guys get tax breaks. We could 
have that debate later, but we could actually do something before we 
recess for August that would actually help people in this country. What 
a radical idea in this Republican Congress to do something to help 
somebody--to help middle-income families. We could do that, but they 
are saying no. We all agree that the economy continues to struggle. Of 
course the Republican strategy of rejecting President Obama's jobs bill 
and manufacturing a debt ceiling crisis contributed greatly to this 
economic crisis that we are in right now.
  My Republican friends like to talk about tough choices, about how 
there needs to be sacrifice in order to get our fiscal house in order. 
But why is it, time and time and time again, that their tough choices 
always seem to hurt the most vulnerable Americans? Why does their idea 
of sacrifice always mean poor people getting less food, or students 
getting less help with their tuition, or States getting less help with 
their roads and their bridges? It takes no political courage--zero--to 
say to the very wealthy, You can keep all of your tax cuts, all of your 
special tax breaks, and we're going to protect all of those loopholes. 
It takes no courage. It takes no guts to help out millionaire hedge 
fund traders who write giant checks to shadowy Super PACs.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a debate about fairness. That's what this debate 
should be about. It's about standing with the middle class instead of 
always standing with the millionaires and the billionaires.
  If my Republican friends were so certain about the rightness of their 
priorities, they would put the so-called ``principles'' in this bill 
into legislative language and bring it to the floor. I think the 
American people would cringe once they saw what those numbers would 
mean, but they have the ability to do that. I should remind them--and I 
regret this very much--but they're in charge, they run the House right 
now. The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee could come up with a 
comprehensive tax reform bill--he could have at any time the 
Republicans have been in control and brought it to this floor. My 
friends on the other side of the aisle have enough votes to pass 
anything. They could have done it. If they did, and if it were clear 
what the priorities of this Republican majority really were, and if it 
were there in print, I think the American people, quite frankly, would 
be horrified.

                              {time}  1300

  Democrats stand ready, willing, and able to work with Republicans and 
all

[[Page H5663]]

of our colleagues to enact meaningful, fair tax reform. This bill 
doesn't get us an inch closer to that goal. If my friends on the other 
side were sincere about achieving comprehensive tax reform, they would 
reach out to us in the drafting of a bill like this. They would have 
consulted with us. As I said, this legislation before us was referred 
exclusively to the House Rules Committee. Not a single Democrat on the 
House Rules Committee was consulted about this bill. My guess is not a 
single Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee was consulted about 
this bill. We will go through this exercise today. My friends on the 
other side of the aisle have the votes to pass it. But I'm going to 
tell you, Mr. Speaker, this is much ado about nothing because this is 
not meaningful tax reform. This is a very partisan approach to this 
issue, and I regret that very much.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I'm 
prepared to close. If my friend has speakers, I'd certainly sit here 
patiently and look forward to hearing any thoughtful comments that they 
might make.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).
  (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, today we have the opportunity to talk about our vision 
for the future and the path our country must set upon in order to 
remain competitive in the global economy and also to get our fiscal 
house in order.
  The tax reform proposals that we are debating today could not be in 
starker contrast. Today, I will vote against the Republican plan that 
is before us, and instead I will vote for the Democratic plan which I 
believe is a balanced approach to move our country forward. It gives 
everyone the opportunity to succeed.
  Mr. Speaker, this debate is about choices. The Republicans want to 
give more tax cuts to the wealthy, quite frankly, at the expense of 
everyone else. Democrats, on the other hand, propose a balanced plan 
that asks the wealthiest to sacrifice just a little bit more so that we 
can provide tax relief for the middle class taxpayers, we can bring our 
debt down, and invest in economic growth. We will protect our most 
vulnerable. We will repeal the alternative minimum tax. We will 
discourage tax haven abuse and eliminate the tax breaks that ship jobs 
and profits overseas.
  Far too many of us, Mr. Speaker, have experienced the hardship and 
loss of employers shuttering their operations in our districts, and we 
know that when a business closes, it's not just direct jobs that are 
lost. It is an entire community which is affected. The grocery store 
has less business, people don't go to the movies, they're not going out 
to eat at the local diner, they postpone home repairs, and they don't 
buy that new car. This is as a result of Republican tax policies that 
have, quite frankly, incentivized companies moving jobs overseas.
  Democrats propose to change that. That's why we've made promoting 
domestic manufacturing such a top priority. We want to rewrite the Tax 
Code in such a way that it incentivizes job creation here or bringing 
jobs back from overseas. That means that not only are we going to 
create jobs in that particular business that comes back to America or 
that starts up here in our country, but also the ancillary jobs that 
are created as a result that filter out into the community. Some 
estimate that for every one job that is created in manufacturing, for 
example, there's at least four or five jobs that are created in other 
industries.
  We all agree that comprehensive tax reform is urgently needed. Where 
Democrats and Republicans fundamentally disagree is how we get there. I 
urge my colleagues to vote against the Republican plan that is before 
us and vote for the Democratic substitute to reduce our debt, protect 
the middle class, promote American products that are made by American 
workers, and invest in our national priorities: infrastructure, 
education, research, and security. Let's keep America competitive and 
create jobs the right way, right here at home.
  With that, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman has no more speakers, I 
will close.
  Let me repeat some of what I said in my opening statement, because I 
think it's important for my colleagues to understand this.
  The Republican pathway to this tax reform is a path, as I said, for 
the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee to draft and to certify a 
bill that would receive extraordinary fast-track procedures with 
virtually no limit on what can be contained in it. Republicans have 
promised that its fast-track bill would contain at least four proposals 
based on the Ryan budget, in addition to the repeal of the AMT. 
Together, these four provisions would shift the tax burden from the 
wealthiest to the middle class, and it would ship jobs overseas.
  Let me just read one of the proposals in this bill. The Republican 
proposal is ``a consolidation of the current six individual income tax 
brackets into not more than two brackets of 10 and not more than 25 
percent.'' What does this mean? It means that the average millionaire 
would lock in an annual $331,000 tax cut under the Ryan plan. To pay 
for these tax cuts, the Ryan plan would potentially eliminate 
provisions that are vital to the middle class, including tax deductions 
for mortgage interest, State and local taxes, and charitable 
contributions, as well as the tax exclusions for employer-sponsored 
health insurance and contributions to 401(k) plans. The source of this 
is the Joint Economic Committee. And the plan would necessarily have to 
raise taxes on middle class families by approximately $4,500.
  Another proposal in this bill is ``a reduction in the corporate tax 
rate to not greater than 25 percent.'' What does this mean? It means 
eliminating every corporate tax credit and deduction would generate 
only enough savings to reduce the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. To 
get to even 28 percent, the Republican tax plan would require wiping 
out every provision in the Tax Code that encourages domestic job 
creation, investment, and innovation. In order to raise additional 
revenues for a corporate tax cut, the Republicans will go after 
individuals or small businesses.
  Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle have made 
their priorities known in the budget that they all voted for. I think 
it's a radical approach to our economy. It's an approach that I believe 
and my colleagues on the Democratic side believe will be devastating to 
middle-income Americans. It is really unfortunate that we are here not 
in the spirit of bipartisanship, not in the spirit of compromise or 
trying to find consensus, but in a very partisan way moving this bill 
forward. At the end of the day, we're leaving here really doing nothing 
for the American people.
  I was listening to the debate on the drought relief and listening to 
Democrats and Republicans both lament that there's no farm bill. We're 
going on vacation, and there's no farm bill. There's no jobs bill, no 
jobs agenda, no tax cuts for the middle class. We all agree that we 
should preserve the tax breaks on people earning up to $250,000. We 
seem to agree on that. My Republicans friends are saying, No, we're 
going to hold that hostage until you make sure that Donald Trump and 
the people that give these exorbitant amounts to super PACs, they get 
their tax breaks. We could agree on that. We could actually do 
something for the American people, and we're leaving. No farm bill, as 
I mentioned, no Violence Against Women Act, no cybersecurity plan, no 
bipartisan plan to prevent sequester.
  I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle complaining about 
the sequester which, by the way, they caused that terrible idea to be a 
reality when they brought this economy almost to a collapse during the 
debt ceiling debate. But we're leaving. We're leaving town today to 
give away tomorrow. We're leaving town with all this unfinished 
business. We're leaving town not doing anything meaningful for the 
American people, especially for those in the middle and those 
struggling to get into the middle.
  This has to be one of the least effective, least productive 
Congresses, I

[[Page H5664]]

think, in the history of our country. When you read these public 
opinion polls, there's a reason why Congress is held in such low 
esteem. It's because people are watching what we're doing here and 
wondering why we're not on their side. People who are struggling to 
hold on to their jobs or to get jobs are wondering why aren't we moving 
forward with a jobs agenda, why aren't we passing a middle class tax 
cut. Instead, we are here basically to pass a press release that says 
that at some point we're going to do tax reform, and they don't want to 
tell you the details of the tax reform because they think that would be 
very unpopular and would frighten a lot of people in this country when 
they see the devastating impact on the middle class.

                              {time}  1310

  So having said that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' 
on this bill.
  And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my distinguished Rules Committee 
colleague for his very thoughtful, warm, and loving mischaracterization 
of where we stand on this issue.
  This is not about Donald Trump. This is not about Donald Trump at 
all. We continue to hear the two words ``Donald Trump'' invoked in the 
tax debate.
  What this is about, Mr. Speaker, is the 253,484 women-owned small 
businesses in this country who are seeking to ensure that they can 
continue to have the ability to hire people and grow their businesses. 
This is about the potential of losing 710,000 jobs, based on the Ernst 
& Young report that has come forward. This is about ensuring that we 
turn the corner on our economy.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, when I came here in 1981, one of the first bills 
that I introduced was a bill calling for a flat rate tax. People talked 
about that all the time. I mean, there was a standard joke out there. 
It was, well, the simple tax form asks, How much did you earn last 
year? The second line was, Send it to Washington. I mean, those are the 
kinds of things that people have said might be in the direction of tax 
reform. But what we need to do is we need to recognize that everyone 
has talked about the problem of taxes. Famously, the former chairman of 
the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Long, would say, Don't tax you. 
Don't tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree.
  We all know, Democrats and Republicans alike, that there is a desire 
to make this happen. There is always talk from Democrats and 
Republicans. Again, President Obama has said we need to bring about tax 
reform. President Obama has said we need to reduce the top corporate 
rate from that 35 percent level. I congratulate him for acknowledging 
that we have the highest corporate tax rate of any nation on the face 
of the Earth, now that Japan has lowered theirs, Mr. Speaker.
  Everybody talks about it, but the question is: How do we actually get 
it done? Now, my friend said that if we really wanted to do it, we 
could have done it. Well, there are specifics in this measure. There 
are specifics. We have five of them. Included among them: ensuring that 
we repeal the alternative minimum tax, and everyone acknowledges how 
terrible that is; ensuring that we have two rates of not more than 10 
and 25 percent; and, yes, doing what President Obama has said we need 
to do, and that is reducing the top corporate rate, this calls for 35 
to not more than 25 percent; and then also dealing with the global 
aspect.
  This has specifics in it. And what it has, Mr. Speaker, at the end of 
the day is: Let's get the job done. Action, action, action. We can 
continue to hear all kinds of talk--press releases and all this sort of 
stuff, talk about what this is. This is about actually doing what 
Democrats and Republicans say needs to be done.
  I think that by working with our colleagues in the Senate--we 
ensured, by the way, under this structure that no Democrat is denied 
the opportunity to offer amendments. My friend said that we don't have 
this great bipartisanship. Well, we're pursuing a bipartisan goal of 
comprehensive tax reform and the structure to make that happen. But as 
this process begins, we will have, clearly, amendments in both the 
House and the Senate offered by any Member who wants to participate in 
this process at the committee level as it goes through.
  I see we have the ranking Democratic member of the Ways and Means 
Committee, my very dear friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Levin), here on the floor. I'm sure that as we proceed with tax reform 
under this structure that Mr. Levin will be offering many thoughtful 
amendments to this measure. His right is guaranteed under these 
expedited procedures.
  So what we're arguing, Mr. Speaker, is that we need to make sure 
that, rather than simply talking, we get things done. And I think we've 
got a chance to do that now.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this measure. We're 
going to go into a debate now with our friends on the Ways and Means 
Committee; and from there, we will have a vote on the substitute, which 
I'm happy to say that we made in order, that will be offered by the 
distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules; and 
then we will proceed with a vote on this measure.
  So I urge my colleagues to support action, action, action over talk, 
talk, talk when it comes to the imperative of growing our economy and 
reforming taxes.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6169, the Pathway to Job 
Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012.
  Yesterday, House Republicans, joined by 19 House Democrats, voted to 
extend current tax policies through the end of next year. That was an 
important, responsible step to provide Congress the time to pass and 
enact comprehensive tax reform without risking further damage to a 
fragile economy.
  The failure to stop the tax hike that's looming at the end of the 
year could push us over a jobs cliff. I know many Democrats want to 
raise taxes, but an independent study by Ernst & Young shows the 
Democrat tax hike would eliminate over 700,000 jobs. We can't afford to 
lose more jobs in the United States, and that is why we voted to extend 
the current tax policy.
  Instead of raising taxes on small businesses and making it harder to 
create jobs, as the Democrat plan did, Republicans are focused on 
creating jobs, reforming the Tax Code to make it simpler and fairer for 
all Americans, and strengthening our economy. The bill before us today 
provides a pathway to that goal.
  This bill forces Congress to do its job, something I think all 
Americans will support. It provides a specific time line for the House 
and the Senate to act next year on a comprehensive tax reform bill. It 
also ensures an open process. A bill is introduced and then the 
appropriate committees may amend it. Democrats and Republicans, alike, 
will have an opportunity to debate and offer changes.
  And this bill tells the American people exactly where we want the 
debate to start. We say that tax reform should: eliminate special 
interest loopholes to reduce rates for families and employers, reducing 
the current six tax brackets down to just two (10 and 25 percent); help 
America be competitive in the global economy by setting a corporate 
rate of 25 percent and updating a 50-year-old international tax code to 
a modern and more competitive territorial system; and get rid of the 
alternative minimum tax that's currently looming over 31 million middle 
class families.
  We also don't think we should ask taxpayers to bail out Washington's 
wasteful spending. Tax reform should not result in the Federal 
Government taking more out of the economy and more out of taxpayer 
pockets than the tax system historically has.

                              {time}  1320

  Tax reform is not about making the government bigger, it's about 
creating jobs. That's why this bill says Federal tax revenues should 
remain within historic norms of 18-19 percent of gross domestic 
product.
  Independent economists have noted, when paired with appropriate 
government spending cuts, comprehensive tax reform that includes these 
policies could lead to the creation of 1 million Americans jobs in the 
first year alone.

[[Page H5665]]

  Compare that to the Democrat plan offered yesterday--a tax hike that 
would eliminate over 700,000 American jobs. The choice could not be 
clearer. Do we want and does America need Democrat tax hikes that 
destroy jobs? Or do we want, and does America need, Republican-backed 
tax reform that creates a simpler, fairer code and 1 million jobs in 
the first year alone?
  Today, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have one more 
opportunity to stand with families and job creators by joining House 
Republicans to demonstrate their commitment to passing and enacting 
comprehensive tax reform next year. We can and should work together to 
revive our economy and get the unemployed back to work.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to vote in favor of this legislation. And in doing so, take an 
important step to creating a simpler, fairer Tax Code and more jobs for 
American families.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. LEVIN. Yesterday, Republicans voted to make tax cuts for 
millionaires their priority over giving 114 million middle class 
Americans certainty.
  Today, they are doubling down on that agenda. The so-called 
principles laid out in this bill would rig tax reform to shift the 
burden of taxes further onto the middle class and ship jobs overseas.
  The Joint Economic Committee analysis--it's described here--found 
that the average millionaire would get another $331,000 in tax cuts, 
while middle class families making less than $200,000 would see their 
taxes go up by an average of $4,500. For millionaires, a tax break of 
$331,000; for middle class families, a tax increase of more at $4,500. 
That's the Joint Economic Committee's analysis.
  Why? Because the only way to finance these massive tax cuts for the 
highest earners is to eliminate or significantly curtail provisions 
that support the middle class. These are not loopholes. These are 
policies that in many cases help made the middle class of this country. 
Seventy percent of the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction, for 
example, goes to those who make less than $200,000. And 82 percent of 
the benefit of the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance 
goes to those making less than $200,000. And likewise, the provisions 
relating, for example, to education.
  Republicans like to say they will eliminate loopholes--and we just 
heard that language--and special interest provisions to pay for lower 
rates. But the provisions I mentioned are not loopholes. They are the 
policies that helped to build the middle class of America. They are 
basically middle class provisions, and now they are on the chopping 
block under this Republican plan. One way, among other ways to describe 
it, H.R. 6169 is Grover Norquist on steroids.
  We need tax reform, but not as a tactic to sock it to the middle 
class and help the very wealthy. Yet that is exactly what Republicans 
in Congress want to do.
  We recently received an analysis of the plan of Governor Romney. It's 
also a plan highly offensive to the middle class. A report from the 
nonpartisan Tax Policy Center yesterday made no bones about what it 
would do to the middle class. They wrote that it is not mathematically 
possible to write a plan like the one drafted by Governor Romney ``that 
does not result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net 
tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers.''
  The House Republican plan to lower the corporate rate to 25 percent 
would require eliminating every provision that encourages American 
manufacturing--the R&D credit, accelerated depreciation, and the 
manufacturing deduction. Every one of those.
  And, the Joint Committee on Taxation has found that even if you 
eliminated everything, you could only lower the rate to 28 percent on a 
revenue-neutral basis.
  We need tax reform--indeed, we do--but not a tax rewrite that 
discourages companies from making it in America and that would move us 
to a territorial system that taxes no businesses' offshore income and 
helps to ship jobs overseas.
  Well, surely a plan this radical--and that's really what it is, a 
radical Republican proposal--should be subject to the full scrutiny of 
regular order and full debate. But not under this bill. Under this 
bill, the pathway Republicans are setting up is really a railroad to 
shift the tax burden onto the middle class and ship jobs overseas.
  It creates a tax czar, and I'm opposed to any of us being a tax czar, 
Republican or Democrat, Mr. Camp, myself, or anybody else. It would be 
a tax czar who creates the plan and then certifies their plan, that it 
achieves their goals. It would allow him or her to add any other 
proposal to this high-speed train through Congress. Social Security 
privatization, that could become part, not of this fast track, but this 
railroad. Repeal of health reform, or anything else.
  We should reject that path and adopt the Slaughter substitute, which 
would articulate principles for tax reform that would strengthen the 
middle class, create jobs in the U.S., and reduce the deficit.
  You know, we continue to hear about small businesses. 97 percent 
would receive the full tax benefit under what was rejected yesterday 
and that we put forth. And in terms of this report about 700,000 jobs, 
every fact checker has said it's essentially bogus. And I think that's 
how bankrupt the majority is.
  Coming forth, I'd like them to answer the Joint Economic analysis.
  I'd like them to answer the study that came out from three people 
about Governor Romney's proposal. One of the Romney spokespersons said: 
It's a liberal think tank that analyzed it that way. Oh, no; two of the 
three authors served in Republican administrations. It's not a partisan 
analysis, it's a bipartisan analysis, and it shows essentially what's 
being proposed here, and what Governor Romney is proposing, is, sock it 
to middle class America in order to help the very, very wealthiest. 
That isn't the America that we want.
  I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1330

  Mr. CAMP. I yield myself 15 seconds.
  I would just say to my friend that I don't know whose plan that is. 
Somebody made that up because that's not our plan. A plan that 
increases middle class taxes isn't something that I could agree with.
  What we envision is an open process that Republicans and Democrats 
can offer amendments on. But the point is this: comprehensive tax 
reform that creates jobs and gets the economy moving and gets us back 
on track can be accomplished.
  I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Trade 
Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Chairman, as vice chairman of the Joint 
Economic Committee, I would point out that that was a partisan report--
very partisan report on the Republican tax proposal developed by the 
Ways and Means Committee and included in the Republican budget.
  But let me ask you this, because here's the real question: As 
hardworking Americans, when you open the mailbox and see a letter from 
the IRS, what do you think? How frightened are you? If you're a small 
business owner and you get a call from the IRS saying it's time to 
audit you, how fearful are you?
  The truth of the matter is, Americans are frightened of their own tax 
law, of their own Tax Code. They know it's unfair; they know it's too 
complicated. They know if they make a mistake, who knows how damaging 
it would be for them.
  We now have one full of special loopholes so complicated the best tax 
lawyers in America--including the IRS--don't quite understand it. And 
now we've gone from first to worst in the world. America's tax rates 
are the worst among our competitors. So this is why jobs are going 
overseas. And you will hear Members of Congress, you will hear the 
President, you will hear candidates for Congress say we need to fix 
this Tax Code, but they don't do it. House Republicans are going to act 
to fix this broken Tax Code.
  The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp, has held 24 
very thoughtful, very solid hearings to find ways to move forward on 
tax reform. Today, the House has the opportunity to lay out principles 
for a far

[[Page H5666]]

more simple Tax Code, a far more fair Tax Code, one that doesn't 
frighten us to death and one that doesn't frighten our jobs overseas.
  More importantly, in this bill is a simple provision that says: 
Congress, you also have to do your job. It sets up a timetable for the 
House and Senate next year to have a guaranteed up-or-down vote on 
comprehensive tax reform.
  So no more stalling, no more delaying, no more talking about the need 
to fix this Tax Code. In the House today we will act to guarantee that 
Congress must take this up. And it's about time because we are losing 
jobs, we're dragging our own economy down, we're frightening 
hardworking taxpayers who are just trying to live by the law, but no 
one actually understands this Tax Code. We're determined to act; and 
when we do act, both today and next year, at fundamental reform that is 
lower and fairer and simpler, our economy is going to grow, this Nation 
is going to grow, and we're going to be back on top of the world when 
it comes to the best business climate and strongest economy in the 
world. But today we first have to act.
  I strongly support this bill, and I encourage Members of this House 
to do so as well.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The gentleman from Texas talks about loopholes. Is the mortgage 
interest deduction a loophole? Is the charitable contribution deduction 
a loophole? State and local taxes a loophole? Municipal bonds a 
loophole? The health care provision a loophole? You keep using that 
word, I think, demagogically.
  I now yield 4 minutes to another distinguished member of our 
committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives is a 
wonderful body. It's one of the most amazing places in the whole world. 
It's where we make decisions for 300 million people, and we make them 
for a lot of other places that we're going to influence around the 
world. And every once in a while you sort of come here and say, I think 
I've seen everything, and then we've got one more.
  Here we are today, the last day of the session, with no debate 
whatsoever on this bill--anywhere. It's just brought out here de novo. 
I guess it came from God, or from the Speaker's Office, or someplace. I 
don't have any idea where it came from. But it seems to me that the 
House of Representatives is working hard to forget every positive 
lesson we have learned in the history of governing this country about 
how to get things--big things--done for the American people.
  Today's bill sets up a process to ram through whatever bill 
Congressman Levin writes in 2013, because he'll be chairman of the Ways 
and Means Committee. He will sit in a closed room, using arbitrary 
rates, with no input and no debate. It will be a disaster. Did I say 
Levin? I meant Camp. What am I talking about?
  It would be a disaster to have one person sit somewhere in a room and 
decide what the bill is and bring it out. And this power grab will 
destroy any attempt that we have or any chance we have of having tax 
reform. We used to know better.
  I got here in 1988--that was 2 years after the tax reform of 1986. 
Now, roll back the clock a little further. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won, 
44-State mandate. He was in power. But there were also strong 
majorities on the Democratic side in the Congress, just like today.
  In 1980, just like today, the government was divided. And just like 
today, both sides wanted to get tax reform done. It wasn't any 
different in 1980 when President Reagan came in. But today we're 
debating a power grab bill where it's introduced by one Republican 
Member--I guess he didn't have time to get anybody else to sign it 
before he had to drop it in to bring it out here and discuss it--scored 
by one Member and given an up-or-down vote by one Member. In every 
case, unfortunately, the lot falls to Mr. Camp.
  I don't think Mr. Camp did this. This isn't Mr. Camp. I know him. 
This isn't the kind of bill he would sit down and write, because we've 
seen him when he writes bills. This was written somewhere, and this is 
how we're going to ram through the House of Representatives, and the 
point of the sword is Mr. Camp.
  Now, this appalling breach of procedure is the worst try to get 
anything done in the House of Representatives. I can't be more clear: 
comprehensive tax reform simply will not happen if the process and the 
bill are autocratic and rabidly partisan. That's the end of it right 
there.
  Back in the 1980s, both the Republicans and the Democrats knew that 
this was true. Tip O'Neill sat up here, he was Democratic Speaker of 
the House, and Ronald Reagan sat down at the end of Pennsylvania as the 
President. They fiercely disagreed with each other on just about 
everything when they started, but they knew that they had to find areas 
of agreement and compromise to get anything done as big as tax reform.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. These two were not cut from the same piece of cloth. 
Tip O'Neill was a working class Irishman. He was passionate about 
fairness, knew how to get things done, and, well, he liked to have a 
glass of whiskey now and then. Ronald Reagan believed in a pure sense 
of individualism. To Ronald Reagan, tax reform was about lowering 
taxes. He also liked to tell jokes and occasionally have a glass of 
whiskey. They both liked to play golf.
  Then there was Rostenkowski. He was the chairman of the Ways and 
Means Committee. He also played golf, and he liked a glass of whiskey 
occasionally. They all got to know each other. They pulled other people 
in. They discussed issues in detail. It was bipartisan. It was not done 
on one side or the other or simply by one person--wouldn't, couldn't, 
never would have happened in those days. They did the people's business 
that way.
  Now, lots of voters are angry these days. They don't think Washington 
works. Well, it doesn't work when you get this kind of legislation 
brought out here.

                              {time}  1340

  If people from both sides can't sit down--it took Ronald Reagan and 
Tip O'Neill and Rostenkowski 6 years, from 1980 to 1986, talking about 
this issue by the time they finally got it all done. And here we have a 
bill that, I guess this could pass by--well, when we get back from 
Labor Day I suppose it will be a couple days and then it will be 
through the House.
  That's not going to happen. You know it's not going to happen, and I 
know it's not going to happen. And the public is angry about this 
because Washington is not dysfunctional because Members of Congress 
aren't extreme enough. They're not getting things done because we're 
not working together.
  To do tax reform well, to do it right, in fact, to do it at all, we 
will have to work together. It will take time, it will take debate, and 
it will take thoughtful consideration. There is no other way.
  This bill we are considering today guarantees failure. It's bad for 
America. I ask Members to vote ``no.''
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 3 minutes to a distinguished members 
of the Ways and Means Committee and chairman of the Budget Committee, 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the Chair for yielding. And I enjoyed 
listening to the stories of lore from my colleagues who hearken back to 
the good old days when we had smoke-filled backroom deals where laws 
were written. That's not what we are interested in achieving here. What 
we want to achieve is a process done in plain view, transparent to the 
public, that maximizes the opportunity for Congress to actually fix the 
mess that has become the United States Tax Code.
  At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, I think there's a difference in 
philosophy here. One side likes to think of the idea of everybody 
sending their money to Washington, then we go into a backroom and we 
slice up the money and then we send it out to favored groups, favored 
constituents, and people that we want to be as winners versus those who 
might be losers.
  We've got to get out of the game of Washington picking winners and 
losers

[[Page H5667]]

in the Tax Code. Because what we do is we stifle that entrepreneur who 
has an idea, who might not have connections, but can actually have an 
idea and make a business grow. We want to remove those barriers to 
opportunity. We want to remove those barriers to upward mobility. We 
want a system of entrepreneurs where we have true entrepreneurial 
capitalism, not this crony capitalism.
  Mr. Speaker, both political parties are guilty of this. Republicans 
and Democrats for decades were party to the process of tucking into the 
Tax Code all these various special interest loopholes which end up 
rewarding a few while raising tax rates on the many. Well, we've got to 
get through those days, because if we haven't noticed, we're in global 
competition. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers live in 
other countries. If we want to have a good, strong growing 
entrepreneurial economy, we need to make things here in America and 
sell things overseas. But if we keep taxing our successful small 
businesses, our businesses all around at much higher tax rates than our 
foreign competitors tax theirs, they win and we lose.
  I come from Wisconsin. We're a manufacturing State. That's how we 
survive. We grow things, and we make things in Wisconsin. Our chief 
competitors right over Lake Superior are the Canadians. Canada just 
lowered their tax rate for all of their businesses to 15 percent last 
January. Well, the substitute that the gentleman brought to the floor, 
the substitute that the President is asking for, will bring the 
effective top tax rate for those most successful small businesses in 
Wisconsin to as high as 44.8 percent.

  Mr. Speaker, how on Earth are our businesses, our manufacturers, our 
successful small businesses going to compete when we're taxing them at 
a Federal level almost as high as 45 percent and our competitors are at 
25 or 15 or lower? We won't. That's why we want to reform the tax 
system.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. The difference in philosophy is this. Some 
here like the idea of bringing more money out of people's paychecks, 
more money out of our successful small businesses, and then parceling 
it out in favors. We prefer the opposite. Let people, let families and 
let businesses keep their money in the first place so they can decide 
what they want to do with it.
  By having high tax rates with lots of loopholes, all we end up doing 
is we say, you can have some of your money back if you do what we 
approve of in Washington. Even with the best of intentions behind such 
ideas, it gets corrupt. The powerful and the connected are the ones who 
call the shots.
  So, yes, we need to clear the brush out. And, yes, there are popular 
provisions in the Tax Code, and that is why we want to have a process 
in front to debate those things. There will be fiscal space left for 
things like charities and such the like. Let's have a clear--in public, 
not a backroom--process where we debate just how best to go forward. 
And what we want is a clean up-and-down vote so that we can get this 
country going again, we can get this economy back on track, and we can 
look at our children and know that we left them better off.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 15 seconds.
  The Republican bill indeed picks winners and losers. The winners are 
the very wealthy, and the losers are the middle class Americans of this 
country.
  I now, with pleasure, yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first, I note that the 
chairman of the Budget Committee said that we want to get this out of 
the backrooms. Then I reread the bill, and the bill says that one 
person, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, will draft this 
bill, certify it, and present it to the Congress with very limited time 
to debate. So it is true. They do want to replace the backroom, but 
with a telephone booth. Now, that's hard to do because there aren't 
that many phone booths left. But there will apparently be one in which 
the chairman of Ways and Means will single-handedly draft this bill 
without a great deal of input.
  What is it they're going to draft? What we're told is it will include 
reductions in the rates paid by the wealthiest, and it alludes in the 
most--not even close to specific terms--to getting rid of some 
loopholes. But we don't know what those are. This great courageous 
effort to deal with the special interests begins by ignoring it, by 
promising goodies to the wealthiest people will reduce your taxes, and 
we'll somehow make it up in a vague way. With how they don't know, 
because they don't want to say.
  Procedurally and substantively, the bill is a disaster. That's the 
bad news. The good news is that no one thinks it is a serous 
legislative effort. This is one more bumper sticker from the gang that 
cannot legislate. We are here today with the Republican leadership 
having backed down on passing a bill that the Agriculture Committee 
came forward with.
  Now, it's popular on the Republican side to talk about the Senate. 
Oh, the Democrats run the Senate, and they're choking everything off. 
Exactly the opposite is the case. The Senate passed a transportation 
bill. The House couldn't. The House couldn't even take one up because 
there is such division within the Republican Party. So here, in a 
procedural maneuver that smacks of a very undemocratic way, they 
sneaked into conference--a conference report came with the Senate 
transportation bill, the only bill that passed either House, and then 
Members obediently passed an omnibus bill, including a transportation 
bill, that this House never got to concede.
  But even that looks good compared to postal issues. The Postal 
Service is now in default. Yeah, it is de fault--it's de fault of de 
Republicans, who are, again, so ideologically driven, so unable to deal 
with the basics of government because of their dominance by a faction 
that does not understand the role of our coming together to do things 
in a society, and the post office, that's a pretty controversial one. 
That radical George Washington set it up. It's a great unifier in this 
country, and it continues to be. One of the things we do here, people 
scoff at it, we name post offices. But those are great symbols of the 
community. And I've got to say, with all of the new communications, no 
one has ever asked me to name an iPod after anybody. We use the post 
offices.
  But what happened? The Senate passed a postal bill. This House can't 
take one up, once again, because this Republican Party is so divided 
between their extremist wing and other people that--so we got 
transportation, we have postal, they can't do a postal bill, and the 
Postal Service is now in default while we debate this bill that no one 
takes seriously, that the chairman of Ways and Means will single-
handedly put on his cape and fly down here with this bill that will 
help the rich, and it will do some unmentioned things regarding popular 
tax breaks, because they don't want to mention them. And then we have 
the agriculture bill.

                              {time}  1350

  So on the fundamental functions of government, an agriculture bill, a 
transportation bill, and a postal bill, the party that couldn't 
legislate didn't legislate, again, because they cannot get people on 
their own side to understand what we need in this society.
  We need a postal service. We need transportation. We need an 
agriculture bill; although, I'd like to see one different than the one 
the committee brought out. But we didn't even get a chance to vote on 
them. Instead, we get a bumper sticker. Oh, we're going to cut taxes 
for the wealthy.
  And I did notice, too, they said they're going to get the taxes to be 
18 or 19 percent of the GDP. We have Mr. Romney committing that we will 
spend 4 percent of the GDP on the military, whether that's what's 
needed or not, whether we go to more wars or not.
  So look at what's left. Take what they want to put in taxes, take 
what Romney wants to commit to the military, and there's no room for 
anything else. There's not much room for a good Medicare program. 
Social Security gets squeezed, the environment, clean water, 
transportation.
  That's why they can't legislate, because they're locked into an 
ideological mindset that reduces, they say,

[[Page H5668]]

the revenues and increases the military beyond what is needed and 
leaves us unable to do those things which a civilized society wants to 
come together to do.
  So, yeah, the bad news is that this is a crazy bill, but the good 
news is that after today's bumper sticker waving, no one will pay 
attention to it.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).
  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, every single day we see more proof of the President's 
failed economic policies. We just have heard that last quarter's GDP 
was revised down. It's probably two-thirds of what it ought to be. 
Forty-one straight months of 8 percent-plus unemployment. Millions 
can't find jobs; millions more only can find part-time work. Real 
disposable income of working families down under this President's 
failed policies.
  And because his policies have failed, he resorts to the politics of 
diversion, division, and envy. Change the subject. Let's talk about 
taxes. Let's divide Americans into smaller groups and make them envious 
of each other.
  So the President comes and says, Let's increase taxes. Let's increase 
taxes on a million small businesses.
  Fact: Ernst & Young has said this will cost our economy 700,000 jobs.
  Fact: Small businesses now say, for the first time in almost 4 years, 
the greatest threat is not lack of sales; it's taxes. And that's why 
House Republicans voted yesterday to stop the tax increases. Stop the 
tax increases.
  Today we take the next step, and that is to create a process for a 
fair, flatter, simpler, and more competitive Tax Code, one that will 
assure that the family budget doesn't go broke paying for the Federal 
budget, one that ensures that the success of working families depends 
on how hard they work in their hometowns and not the size of their tax 
loopholes in Washington, D.C.
  Now, my friends from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, they 
have great theories that we're going to tax our way into economic 
growth. If only we will tax small businesses more, then somehow they'll 
create more jobs. Beatings will continue until morale improves is their 
theory.
  Well, we have history. We have history. Go to the Coolidge 
administration, the Kennedy administration, the Reagan administration, 
the Bush administration. Every time we have lowered marginal rates, 
every time that we have simplified the Tax Code, not only have we 
ignited economic growth, but we've actually received more tax revenues.
  And yet my friends from the other side of the aisle and the 
President, they want to defend the status quo, only more so. And now I 
wake up this morning to discover that, as they defend the global 
system, that even our Olympians are going to be taxed on their Olympic 
medals. So we've had a President who told every small business man in 
America, every small business woman, You didn't build that, by 
defending this global system, they now tell our Olympians, You didn't 
win that. That belongs to the Internal Revenue system.
  This is what it is about today: less taxes and more jobs; more taxes, 
fewer jobs.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thompson), a distinguished member of our committee.
  Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I rise in opposition to this bill.
  It's interesting. Today's the 1-year anniversary of the enactment of 
the Budget Control Act, and that came about and left us with this 
impending sequestration. So let's remember why we passed the Budget 
Control Act.
  We passed it because it was a compromise reached in order to raise 
the debt ceiling, which the House majority was refusing to allow to be 
raised. They were refusing to raise the debt ceiling because they said 
that they were concerned and they cared about our Nation's debt.
  But just yesterday, that same House majority passed a bill that will 
add over $400 billion to our national debt in just 1 year, a bill that 
continues tax cuts that added $3 trillion to our debt over the last 
decade and that history has shown didn't help economic growth. Now we 
have this bill on the floor to mandate strict parameters of tax reform.
  I want to do tax reform, Mr. Speaker. There isn't any one of us who 
doesn't want to do tax reform, but this is the wrong way to go about 
it. Locking in certain rates and certain rules is not how tax reform is 
done and can lead to very serious unintended consequences, like 
exploding our national debt.
  Yesterday, the Tax Policy Center released a review of Mitt Romney's 
tax plan, which is not dissimilar to the principles in this underlying 
bill. The study found, and I quote:

       It is not mathematically possible to design a revenue-
     neutral plan that preserves current incentives for savings 
     and investment and that does not result in a net tax cut for 
     the highest-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for 
     lower- and middle-income taxpayers.

  The Joint Economic Committee confirmed today that the plan in this 
bill would mean that people who make under $200,000 a year would see 
their taxes raised, in this case, by about $4,500, while millionaires 
would see tax breaks of over--hold on to your hat--$300,000. And 
there's nothing in this bill that says that tax reform will not 
increase our debt.
  We should do tax reform, and we should do it in a deliberative, 
thoughtful way, rather than by passing bills saying that we should do 
tax reform. For this reason, I strongly urge everyone to vote ``no'' on 
this piece of legislation.
  Mr. CAMP. I would just yield myself 15 seconds and say that the plan 
the gentleman refers to is a made-up plan. What we're looking at is the 
model set up in the Bowles-Simpson Commission, which has been endorsed 
in a bipartisan way, that will be an open process that will allow 
amendments so we can debate these ideas in that process, not this made-
up bill that they went and are discussing on the floor today.
  At this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Herger), the distinguished chairman of the Health Subcommittee.
  Mr. HERGER. Yesterday, this House voted to stop the job-destroying 
tax hike that threatens to hit every American taxpayer at midnight on 
December 31. Today, we have an opportunity to build on that. We have an 
opportunity not only to do the right thing for jobs and job creators in 
the short-term, but to begin building the foundation for a more stable 
and prosperous economy in the future.
  Few would argue that our current Tax Code is ideal. It's far too 
complicated, with taxpayers spending over $160 billion each year just 
to figure out what they owe. Even the Commissioner of the IRS has 
acknowledged that he hires a professional tax preparer to do his own 
taxes.
  It's often unfair, with some taxpayers enjoying the benefits of 
narrow tax breaks that are not available to others. It has increasingly 
become a patchwork of temporary rules that fail to provide America's 
small businesses and job creators with the certainty they need to plan 
for the future.

                              {time}  1400

  Many of its features actually penalize the work, investment, and 
savings that are necessary to economic growth. Furthermore, an outdated 
international tax system, combined with the highest corporate tax rate 
in the developed world, places American companies at a disadvantage 
against their competitors based in Europe and China.
  The bill before us lays out a pathway to a simpler, fairer, and more 
pro-growth Tax Code. With the right kind of tax reform, our Tax Code 
can become a means to support job creation rather than an obstacle 
standing in the way. In fact, it has been estimated that the tax reform 
would free up American businesses to create as many as 1 million new 
jobs in the first year alone.
  I want to commend Chairman Camp for his outstanding leadership on 
this issue and for making it clear that House Republicans are serious 
about tax reform. Today's vote will send a strong message that tax 
reform is moving forward. I urge all Members to vote ``yes.''
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 5 minutes to a veteran of negotiations on 
taxes and tax reform, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

[[Page H5669]]

  (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. RANGEL. First, let me thank Ranking Member Levin for giving me 
this opportunity, and let me thank the chairman for bringing up the 
idea that this Congress is concerned about taxes. I say that because 
some of us will go home, and our friends and constituents will say, 
Well, how long are you going to be home? I guess we have to say for 
close to a month.
  They say, Do you mean that Thursday, today, was the last day for over 
a month?
  Yes.
  So what were you doing?
  I'll say, We were doing taxes.
  Oh. What were you doing about taxes? Were you talking about reforming 
it?
  I would say, I heard the word ``reform'' being used, but no. We are 
being asked by the Republican majority to vote for a pathway to reform.
  I wish I had some of the Republican statements on this floor stapled 
to my press release so that I could explain what the heck is a 
``pathway to reform.''
  Since 1986, what we had thought ``reform'' was was to cut out from 
that Tax Code obscene provisions--some shouldn't have been in there, 
and certainly there is no reason for them to be in there now--to save 
trillions of dollars and to take that savings by reducing the high rate 
that we pay corporations and so that we can be competitive in the 
international market; but someone outside of the Congress said that to 
close these loopholes and to raise revenue are the wrong things to do. 
I don't know where this wiggly path is to reform, but I know one 
thing--we're not going to be dealing with this path in August or in 
September. It's hard for me to believe that we're going to do it this 
year.
  So what the heck do we need a path for when the American people are 
jobless and looking for a way to some type of relief and when the only 
thing they believe is that, somewhere along the line, the Republicans 
want to get rid of Obama and don't care how they get rid of him? The 
Republicans don't care whether it's jobs, education, science, air 
pollution. Don't let the Congress be cooperative and be involved with 
anything that's good for the country as long as the President gets a 
chance to sign it for the United States of America.
  Now, how in the heck can we be on a path to reform when basically 
what we're talking about is that tax reductions that were supposed to 
be temporary expire at the end of this year? What reform is there for 
those people who see a dramatic increase in their taxes in order for 
liberals and conservatives to say, We don't want that to happen? If we 
don't want that to happen, why don't we do something about it today so 
that they and businesses will know what tomorrow is going to look like 
beyond today, which for all practical purposes is the end of our 
legislative session?
  It is my understanding that 98 percent of the people will get 
dramatic increases under this pathway, this roadway. Their taxes will 
go up. Now, we have to admit there are some wealthy people who belong 
to the less than 2 percent. It's abundantly clear, if the reason they 
have to hold hostage the 98 percent is that they have created all of 
the jobs, well, they certainly haven't proved it in the past; they 
aren't proving it now; and very few of them hold small businesses so 
that they will be adversely affected. I would assume that that is the 
controversial 2 percent. I would assume that that's what we should 
fight about.
  I would hate to be a Republican who has to go back home to his 
district and explain that the reason 98 percent of hardworking 
taxpayers are going to get an increase in their taxes is that we felt 
so strongly about the top wealthiest people that we said, The heck 
with them. We're not giving that up until we make certain that you are 
protected.

  Wow. Sometimes the party asks too much of its members, and I really 
hope that somewhere along the line the hatred and animosity for this 
President at least will be reduced to the voting booths and not to the 
country.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chaffetz). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. RANGEL. Someone once said that the goal of the Republican Party 
is to get rid of Obama and to make him a first-term President.
  I understood that. I started saying these things about Nixon and 
Bush--all of those things--but I never dreamed that it meant having the 
country go down with the captain. I never dreamed that it meant that 
you don't let the President increase the debt ceiling. I never dreamed 
that it included millions of jobs and tax relief for people as it seems 
that they mean. I hope things change in September.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of 
the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam).
  Mr. ROSKAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I was listening to the gentleman from New York, and I sincerely 
appreciate his warm, heartfelt advice for the Republican Party.
  I am amazed at the characterization of being in opposition to a 
President's policies as somehow being in opposition to the country. I 
fundamentally reject that. I think that that is a gross 
characterization. I think, on behalf of everybody on the GOP side, that 
that is an absurd argument.
  I want to pick up on a thread and a subtext of what we heard from our 
friends on the other side of the aisle. It's a very interesting thing, 
and I'm not being sarcastic. It is a very hopeful thing, which is this, 
Mr. Speaker:
  Did you notice today that there is nobody who is defending the status 
quo of our current Tax Code? Nobody. We will not hear any voice from 
our friends on the other side defending the current Tax Code. We will 
hear no voice today on this side or on the other side among all of 
those Members--and I haven't listened to our friends on the other side 
of the dome, but I'm hunching that there is nobody--who is defending 
the status quo.
  So what does that mean for us today?
  That means there is an unbelievable opportunity. There is an 
opportunity that is born of recognition of a failed system. Some 
characterize it as ``crony capitalism,'' which is, if you're connected, 
if you're somebody of means, if you're able to come into this town and 
with a sharp elbow insert something into the Tax Code and manipulate 
it, then you get an economic win at the expense of everybody else.
  The gentleman from New York asked a rhetorical question a couple of 
minutes ago, and I jotted it down. He asked: What do we need a path 
for?
  We need a path to get out of this. That's what we need a path for. 
With all due respect to the President, the President is not leading on 
a pathway that shows us how to get out of this.
  So what do you have the chairman of the committee and the GOP in the 
House doing right now?
  They're saying, look, let's not defend the status quo. Let's instead 
completely transform this debate, and let's focus in on one word, and 
that is the word ``competitiveness.'' How do we create in this country 
the most competitive tax jurisdiction in the world?

                              {time}  1410

  Could you imagine how great it could be? Could you imagine what it 
would be like if our Tax Code were a foundation upon which--what could 
happen? You could have entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks 
because there is a possibility of reward in the future. Right now, 
they're being told from this town that if you built it, you didn't 
really build it, and we don't want to have you take credit for it. 
That's ridiculous. That's absurd. That's a world view that we should 
shun and reject and move away from.
  We need to pass this. We need to pass this urgently, and I urge an 
``aye'' vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 4 minutes to another distinguished member of 
our committee, Mr. Neal of Massachusetts.
  (Mr. NEAL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. NEAL. In quick reference to the previous speaker, I don't know 
how you can say how do we get out of this, and then simultaneously 
embrace the Romney tax plan, which is $5 trillion more of tax cuts and 
propose at the same time the extension of the Bush tax

[[Page H5670]]

cuts. That's a $7 trillion tax cut proposal. Has anybody heard about 
those million new veterans we have, the 45,000 that have been wounded? 
What's going to happen to the veterans system for years to come? It's a 
$4 trillion cost of the war in Iraq when you factor all of that 
together.
  We've had some really good hearings this year on both sides. We've 
talked fundamentally about the best path forward to tax reform, and we 
all agree that the current system is creaking of its own weight. But 
that's contrary to the idea of fast-tracking, what needs to be a 
deliberative procedure for understanding what the elimination of some 
of these expenditures really means.
  Despite the talk here today, I'll bet you a year from now that we 
will not have eliminated the homeowner deduction, and a year from now 
we will not have eliminated employer-based health insurance, and we 
will not have eliminated the tax expenditure for charitable deductions. 
The question is: What's the framework that we're taking up today? The 
response to that is: not much.
  Let me start by saying that what's striking about this proposal is 
that we all acknowledge that over 6 billion hours a year and $160 
billion is too much in trying to comply with the current system. My 
favorite target is the alternative minimum tax. I've proposed 
eliminating that tax for a decade and actually have come up with pay-
fors for addressing it, by shutting down some of the off-shoring 
accounts that currently companies who decide to expatriate and give up 
their American address take advantage of. They are not former citizens 
of the United States. They are current citizens of the United States. 
Sophisticated tax avoidance should be addressed.
  The AMT, it was enacted in response to--by the way, there were only 
two Republicans in Congress who voted against it. It was a bipartisan 
assault on AMT when first addressed; 155 high-income individuals 
weren't paying any taxes, so Congress responded. President Reagan also 
embraced the idea that people ought to pay something. Today, 30 million 
middle class families are caught in the alternative minimum tax, and we 
patch it each year.
  Here's where the American people really should get upset. Since 2001, 
this is what the patch has meant. I want you to listen to this number. 
We have spent $400 billion patching alternative minimum tax. The Romney 
proposal, coupled with the Republican proposal to extend the Bush tax 
cuts, will take us in 2012 and 2013, when surely we're going to patch 
this again, to $600 billion of patches for a $1.2 trillion problem. 
We've spent $50 billion of patching it. You know what that's like? 
That's like taking a credit card and saying you're only going to make 
the minimum payment every month and trying to figure out why the 
principal has not been reduced.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman from Massachusetts an additional 1 
minute.
  Mr. NEAL. The point here is that if we all agree that tax reform 
needs to take place and we need to assess what current expenditures 
mean in the system, but also have some enthusiasm for taking up the 
off-shoring issue, and taking up those that willfully hide money 
overseas in bank accounts and they don't want the IRS to know what 
they've set aside, that's part of fundamental tax reform.
  There's an opportunity here to do something similar to what Ronald 
Reagan and Speaker O'Neill did in 1986 in a bipartisan fashion with 
both sides getting together in an effort to figure out what to do about 
building a tax system that keeps America, as the former speaker noted, 
``competitive going forward.'' This is not the procedure, Mr. Speaker, 
to undertake that sort of initiative.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Democrats' middle class 
tax cut substitute that would extend tax cuts for 98 percent of 
Americans--and in opposition to the Republicans' legislation that would 
extend all of the Bush tax cuts.
  Congress has a responsibility to protect middle class Americans from 
getting hit with a big tax hike next year--a tax hike of $2,200 for the 
typical family. Last week, the Senate passed a bill that would extend 
for one year the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. And now 
it's up to us in the House to provide certainty to middle class 
Americans that their taxes will not go up next year.
  But instead of doing what's right for middle class families and 
extending the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, the 
Republicans are holding these tax cuts hostage until we extend tax cuts 
for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. If the middle class tax cuts 
expire, it would result in a tax hike for over 100 million American 
families, including 2.5 million families in Massachusetts. Let's not 
let that happen.
  Even more troubling, the Republican tax package ends President 
Obama's tax cuts that make college more affordable and help working 
families with children. So not only are our Republican colleagues 
holding the middle class tax cuts hostage to extending tax cuts for the 
wealthiest, the Republicans would actually raise taxes on 25 million 
families with an average tax increase of $1,000.
  I introduced legislation last week that would extend these 
enhancements to the child tax credit and earned income tax credit. But 
the Republicans' tax package fails to include many of the enhancements 
in my bill and, therefore, would raise taxes on millions of low and 
moderate-income families next year. Even though the Republicans tell us 
that they're against raising taxes, what they really mean is they're 
against raising taxes on the wealthy. I ask the American people--does 
this seem fair to you?
  I urge my colleagues to learn from past experiences. We tried the 
Republicans' approach to taxes for 8 years during the Bush years and it 
didn't work. Let's stand up for middle class Americans and pass the 
Senate-passed tax extension bill. We all agree that we should extend 
the middle class tax cuts--so let's put aside politics and pass this 
important bill and provide certainly for American families.
  I'd like to close by talking about one final issue that's very 
important to Massachusetts--the AMT. I've been a long time advocate of 
addressing the problems with the AMT. The first AMT was enacted in 1982 
to ensure that the wealthiest Americans paid their fair share. However, 
because the Bush Tax Cuts decreased tax rates without making 
corresponding changes to the AMT, millions of Americans become subject 
to the AMT each year even though they do not make a lot of money. To 
avoid this result, for the past few years, Congress has enacted an 
``AMT patch'' that prevents these higher taxes from hitting middle 
income families.
  Unfortunately, the most recent AMT patch expired at the end of last 
year. And so millions of middle class families could pay thousands more 
in taxes when they file their returns in April 2013 if we don't enact 
an AMT patch for 2012.
  This is a huge deal for my home State of Massachusetts. About 975,000 
families in Massachusetts, including about 80,000 in my district, will 
be hit with the AMT if we don't enact a patch for 2012. This includes 
about 785,000 middle income families who make less than $200,000 a 
year.
  To address this issue, both the Democratic and Republican tax bills 
include AMT patches. But we need to move beyond the patches and really 
address the problems with the AMT. Since 2001, we've spent about $407 
billion on AMT patches--and if we pass a two year AMT patch for 2012 
and 2013, we'll have spent about $600 billion on patches. Repealing the 
AMT would cost about 1.2 trillion--so for the amount of money Congress 
has spent on patches over the past few years, we could have paid for 
half the cost of repealing the AMT. I call on my Republican colleagues 
to work with me on a bipartisan basis to address the AMT problem.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
distinguished gentleman from Virginia, the majority leader of the 
House.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. Speaker, the choice before us is very clear. The priority for all 
of us is jobs, and the choice of how to best create an environment to 
create jobs is are we going to have taxes go up or not. Mr. Speaker, 
the House Republicans have put forward solutions to stop the tax hike 
so we can help create jobs for small businesses and beyond.
  Given that economic growth has stalled under President Obama's 
policies, it is downright puzzling that he and our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle would push for raising taxes on working 
families and small business owners. Nearly 2 years ago, President Obama 
opposed the same small business tax hike he now supports. Back then, he 
acknowledged that raising taxes was the wrong thing to do if you want 
to bring about job creation in a tough economy.
  This raises the question: Does the President actually think that the 
economy is doing so well that we should now tax job creators? Our 
Democratic colleagues offered their own tax proposal. Instead of 
offering a plan that

[[Page H5671]]

would spur economic growth, the minority put forward the President's 
small business tax hike. As we saw, Mr. Speaker, the only plan with 
bipartisan support that passed this House this week was the plan to 
ensure that taxes do not go up on any American.
  As many on both sides of the aisle have made clear, the last thing 
small businesses need right now is a tax hike. There's no mystery as to 
how small business owners will respond when faced with higher taxes 
from Washington. They're rational actors, Mr. Speaker. And when 
something costs more, you get less of it. With less money to the bottom 
line, small businesses won't be able to grow as much, and they will not 
be able to expand as easily.
  As was said before by my colleagues from Michigan and Illinois, I 
think all of us agree on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of 
the Capitol that we need tax reform. This bill before us paves the way 
for pro-growth tax reform. This measure puts us on a path toward a 
simpler, flatter, fairer Tax Code. If you support comprehensive tax 
reform that will spur economic growth and make this country more 
competitive, you will vote for the bill. It's that simple.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan and for his 
leadership this week and in many others in his shepherding the movement 
for tax reform in this body. Ultimately, today's vote on this bill 
should be the easiest vote we take all year. Do we believe small 
business owners are the backbone of our economy? Do we want them to 
grow their businesses and create jobs? If the answer is ``yes,'' then 
you will support this bill.

                              {time}  1420

  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The majority leader continues to use a tool of propaganda, grabbing 
small business as his mantra. I want to repeat a fact given to us by 
Joint Tax: under our bill, 97 percent of small businesses would keep 
all of their tax cuts--97 percent.
  I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a 
member of our committee.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Reviewing this Republican bill before us, I found that 
there were many of its findings and purposes with which I fully agree. 
``The Tax Code is unfair.'' . . . ``The Tax Code violates fundamental 
principles of equal justice.'' . . . ``Exclusions, deductions, credits, 
and special rules make up tax expenditures that amount to over $1 
trillion per year. . . .''
  And then I reflected on who has been in charge of this Tax Code for 
14 of the last 18 years, and it is the very people who offer us this 
bill today. And of the other 4 years, in 2 of those, President Bush was 
``the decider.'' So they've had ample opportunity to correct these 
deficiencies in our Tax Code. But the problem is that rarely over the 
course of the last couple of decades have they met a lobbyist peddling 
a loophole to whom they could say ``no.''
  They talk to us about a fast track. Well, that would, indeed, be a 
new track for them because they've had almost two decades to put in 
place a Tax Code that would resolve the problems about which they 
complain today, and they've been inactive through that period.
  Oh, yes, there was a time when Republicans controlled essentially all 
three branches of the American Government, and they flirted with a flat 
tax. It had great appeal to the Flat Earth Society that dominates the 
Republican caucus on most issues, but they couldn't make it work.
  Then they said they wanted a Fair Tax, and a fair tax sounded like 
something all of us could support. The only problem was that it would 
hike the cost of just about everything we buy--from food to a car to a 
home--by over 20 percent. And when you really get into the details, it 
wasn't all that fair, except to those at the top who have already 
benefited so much from the existing Tax Code.
  So Republicans have been in charge now for another year and a half in 
this Congress. They've had an opportunity to come forward not with a 
pathway to something they would do after the election but with a 
specific plan of how they would reform our Tax Code. And instead of 
that specific plan for this Tax Code that has grown by hundreds, if not 
thousands, of pages under Republican rule of complexity and with 
exceptions for those lobbyists who were powerful enough to have their 
voice heard and acted upon in this Capitol. Instead, they come forward 
with this flimsy little bill, principles with which most Americans 
could agree; it's just the action that counts. And they say, We want to 
go on a fast track, but we'd rather wait until after the election to 
start the track. Well, haven't we heard that story before when they 
were talking ``fair,'' when they were talking ``flat''? Today they're 
just talking about what they might do in the future.
  So we have to look for clues within this flimsy little bill of what, 
in fact, they would do if they were in the majority with President 
Romney, heaven forbid. And we got clue number one yesterday when they 
approved a bill to extend all of the tax breaks that President Bush 
approved for the very most privileged people in our society. And the 
effect of what they proposed and the approach they took was that those 
who were sitting comfortably on top of the economic ladder, they would 
gain. If they were a millionaire, they'd gain by more in their tax 
break than a police officer or a nurse or a small business owner in San 
Marcos or Schertz or New Braunfels or Lockhart--more than they make in 
a whole year, these privileged few would get for themselves in lower 
taxes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield an additional 2 minutes to the eloquent gentleman 
from Texas.
  Mr. DOGGETT. But the marine corporal, the single mom who is trying to 
get her daughter or son through college, they would actually see their 
taxes go up under this simplified fast-track Republican approach.
  So those who are trying to get their toehold, their foothold into the 
first or second rung of that economic ladder, they end up having to pay 
for more tax breaks for those at the top.
  And now today, through this bill, we see that what Mitt Romney was a 
part of in exporting jobs abroad, he was really just getting started 
because what they propose is a ``territorial'' tax system. What is 
that? A territorial tax system is when you create jobs in somebody 
else's territory.
  Here's how it works. Here's the plan that they're talking about: you 
are a manufacturer, and you are trying to decide, where will I create 
my new plant and locate it? I could locate it in San Antonio, Texas. I 
could locate it in Shanghai. Under their territorial plan, if you 
locate it in Shanghai, it's tax free.
  Guess where the incentive is under their plan to create new jobs? 
It's not in Texas. It's not in America. It's someplace else. That's 
what the territorial tax system is all about. But of course with all 
the loopholes that their lobbyists have been able to get through the 
decades, many, many corporations aren't paying the 35 percent statutory 
tax rate.
  Many of our largest corporations, like General Electric, they're not 
only paying a lower tax rate than the hardware store in Lockhart or in 
Austin that's selling their products, but they're paying a lower tax 
rate than the cleaning crew that cleaned up the board room at General 
Electric. Because they found all these loopholes, we have hundreds of 
large no-tax corporations that are paying next to nothing in terms of 
their taxes already. They would simply expand that with great inequity.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I would just say that the gentleman from Texas just described current 
law as long as you don't bring it back. So what we're looking for is 
really--we are in a crossroads. I agree with him on that. We really 
have a choice. Do we follow their path of a tax hike that costs us 
700,000 jobs, or do we follow our path of comprehensive tax reform that 
grows our economy and creates up to 1 million jobs?
  At this time, I will yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman 
from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
  And I also ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Tiberi) be permitted to control the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?

[[Page H5672]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I rise today in support of the underlying bill. And I think that the 
American people expect us to have a debate here in Washington that is 
about better policy and not one-upmanship and various 30-second sound 
bites.
  But we know that there are many barriers in our economy. There are 
barriers to moving our economy again and going forward, and we know 
that comprehensive tax reform is one of the most important issues we 
need to face. It isn't always the most popular issue. It is not always 
the most tangible issue. But we know, whether it's farmers or 
ranchers--incidentally, from my district, small businesses everywhere, 
or anything relating to the economy--we know we have work to do.
  We know that our current Tax Code, as we have heard most recently, is 
very costly, confusing, and complicated. The current Tax Code is 
comprised of more than 10,000 pages of ever-changing laws and 
regulations. It is a patchwork of various credits, deductions, 
exemptions, tax hikes, and expiring provisions. This makes responsible 
business and financial planning next to impossible.
  The cost of compliance is obviously a burden. Compliance costs with 
the current Tax Code falls disproportionately on small businesses, 
which spend an average of $74 per hour on tax-related compliance, 
making it the most expensive paperwork burden they will encounter.
  Additionally, our onerous, excessive system is a system with an out-
of-control spending addiction that has dominated Washington for far too 
long under both parties, I would add. It is time for a system which 
lowers the rate, broadens the base, and addresses global 
competitiveness.

                              {time}  1430

  The Ways and Means Committee has held a series of hearings soliciting 
input on tax reform, and we will continue in that direction toward 
fundamental tax reform. The bill before us today provides an important 
path forward to ensure Congress acts in a timely manner to reform this 
convoluted Tax Code, and it outlines a framework for comprehensive 
reform. I urge my colleagues to support the Pathway to Job Creation 
Act.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, it is now my real pleasure to yield 4 minutes 
to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), a veteran of many 
battles on this floor.
  Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman.
  As Americans watch their Olympic favorites this week, House 
Republicans are handing out gold medals to all their favorites right 
out here on the House floor.
  In London, speed, agility, and strength determines who gets the gold. 
But in the Republican-controlled House, it's the wealthiest Americans 
and the most profitable corporations who secure all of the gold medals.
  Two weeks ago, Republicans awarded the gold to America's defense 
contractors by actually increasing defense spending. Despite 
sequestration, despite our ballooning deficit, despite the looming 
fiscal cliff, they increased defense spending.
  Then last week, oil companies scored a gold medal by securing new 
drilling rights off of America's coastline, off of our beaches in 
California and New England and Maryland to drill. And the Republicans 
refused yet again, even though Big Oil's margin of victory was enormous 
on that issue, Republicans refused to end $4 billion in annual tax 
breaks to the oil companies we cannot afford, despite the fact that the 
oil companies made $137 billion in profits last year, the most 
profitable industry in the history of the planet.
  And today, it's millionaires and billionaires who will cross the 
finish line and secure the biggest gold medal of all, as the 
Republicans double down on the Bush tax cuts by rewriting the Tax Code 
to include $331,000 in additional tax cuts for the average millionaire 
in this country, a tax break they do not need and America cannot 
afford.
  House Republicans are setting a world record in rigging the tax 
system for the ultra-rich while cutting middle class priorities like 
education and investing in good American jobs. The big losers in the 
Republican Olympics: the middle class, whose taxes will go up. The 
middle class, where the Medicare guarantee for millions of seniors will 
ultimately be destroyed. The big losers: investment in finding cures 
for Alzheimer's and cancer and Parkinson's, which will have to be 
drastically cut so the Republicans can crown billionaires, Big Oil, and 
nuclear bomb builders the big gold medal winners. The losers: the 
American people, and their families' health and well-being.
  Vote ``no'' on this fixed Republican Olympics. Vote ``no'' to take 
care of the billionaires in our country as ordinary families suffer. 
Nostalgia for a past that never existed has overtaken the idealism 
which should animate our debates here on the House floor. For the poor, 
the sick, and the elderly, the past is just a memory and the future is 
their hard reality. And this Republican budget makes that future all 
the more difficult for the middle class in our country. Vote ``no'' on 
this fixed Republican Olympics.
  Mr. TIBERI. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Kansas (Ms. 
Jenkins).
  Ms. JENKINS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Tax reform may not be as exciting as watching Team USA win a gold 
medal, but for a CPA who specialized in tax, comprehensive tax reform 
is the Olympics, and we want to win a gold medal for the American 
taxpayers.

  Our Tax Code is a disaster. At around 15,000 pages, it 's too long, 
it's too complicated, and it's chock-full of loopholes favoring some 
taxpayers at the expense of others. Temporary tax provisions alone have 
increased from 14 in 1986 to 132 today. U.S. taxpayers and businesses 
spend 7.6 billion hours simply complying with the code. Tax compliance 
as an industry is one of the country's largest, requiring 3.8 million 
workers. That's just too much.
  We need a code that is more fair, equitable, and efficient. We need 
to broaden the base, lower rates, and ignore special interests who 
fight to block reform, reform that will save us billions of dollars and 
create a million jobs.
  Our friends across the aisle believe increasing the top rate will 
restore fairness. But how can further complicating the code with more 
exclusions for certain folks while making it more complicated for 
others make it more fair?
  We have the means and the tools to reduce the tax rates here, and we 
need to get busy. Overhauling the entire Tax Code is the only way to 
restore fairness. What we've learned from the 1986 reforms is that 
broadening the base, eliminating loopholes, and lowering the rates will 
grow the economy and raise revenues.
  This bill not only supports comprehensive tax reform, but it lays out 
a plan to ensure that it actually happens. Tax reform is a no-brainer. 
It's a win/win for the economy, our businesses, and our hardworking 
American families.
  Mr. LEVIN. It's now my real pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member of the 
Budget Committee.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Levin for all of his good 
work here.
  Mr. Speaker, let's start with a point of agreement. We should 
simplify the Tax Code. We should reform the Tax Code. It's an overly 
complicated mess, and it needs to be streamlined and reformed. We could 
start with some really simple things like getting rid of the special 
tax breaks and giveaways to Big Oil companies, but our Republican 
colleagues on this House floor have voted time and again against that.
  What we should not do is what we are hearing from a lot of our 
colleagues today, which is use the language of tax reform as a Trojan 
horse to provide another huge windfall to the wealthiest Americans at 
the expense of the rest of America, and yet that is exactly the 
direction that this bill takes us in.
  The main principle enshrined in this bill is the old Republican 
principle of trickle-down economics, the failed idea that we need to 
give more tax cuts to the folks at the very, very top, and somehow 
those benefits are going to trickle-down to everybody else.
  The problem, Mr. Speaker, is the American people have seen this movie 
before. That's no longer a theoretical idea. We ran a real-world 
experiment on that idea. It was called the 8 years

[[Page H5673]]

of the Bush administration. We had tax cuts that disproportionately 
benefited the very wealthy in 2001 and 2003. At the end of those 8 
years, what was the state of the economy? Net loss of private sector 
jobs, less than zero.
  The one number that did go up, it wasn't jobs, it was the deficit. 
That number went through the roof, and the rest of the country is left 
to pick up the tab. And that's what the American people are beginning 
to focus on, Mr. Speaker: that these tax cuts for the wealthy are not a 
free lunch for the rest of the country but that they come at the 
expense of everyone and everything else. Because the math is pretty 
simple. If you refuse to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay one penny 
more for the purpose of deficit reduction, for everybody else it gets 
harder. Seniors on Medicare have to pay more even though their median 
income is under $23,000. It means deep cuts to investments in our 
economy and our kids' education, in science and research, and in 
infrastructure.
  Now with today's bill, our Republican colleagues, as Mr. Levin said, 
are doubling down on an idea that we know does not work.

                              {time}  1440

  They're providing another round of tax cuts to millionaires and 
directly asking middle class taxpayers to pick up the tab.
  Let's do the math. Let's do the math--that's what we try and do in 
the Budget Committee. When you drop the top tax rate from 35 percent to 
25 percent, first of all, you provide huge breaks to the folks at the 
very top, but that loses $4 trillion over 10 years, in other words, the 
deficit grows by $4 trillion.
  Now, our Republican colleagues say, Oh, no, we don't want to do that. 
We really care about the deficit. We're going to make up those $4 
trillion through tax reform. Of course they won't tell us one thing 
about what they would do in tax reform.
  But the good news is the Tax Policy Center, an independent group here 
in Washington, has told us what the Romney plan would do, a plan very 
similar to this plan. What they make clear is that when you start 
removing all those deductions and all the benefits, for example, for 
health plans or for mortgage interest deduction, what you end up doing 
is providing a big tax increase to middle-income taxpayers, financing 
tax breaks for the folks at the top by increasing the burden on----
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That's the simple math of the situation.
  Now, I know that we've heard from the Romney campaign that that's a 
liberal think tank. Well, here's what the Romney campaign spokesman 
said about an earlier analysis from the same Tax Policy Center when 
they liked the results. Then they called it an ``objective third-party 
analysis''--Romney spokesman of an earlier Tax Policy Center analysis.
  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a group here in Washington that does 
good, nonpartisan work, and that is the result that they found. And it 
makes common sense; you're trying to make up $4 or $5 trillion through 
tax reform, you're going to switch that burden.
  Now, we've also heard that this is somehow going to help ``make it in 
America,'' that this is going to incentivize companies to do more 
business here in America. The reality is just the opposite in this 
bill. You move to a pure territorial system, your slogan might as well 
be ``Make It Overseas: Offshore American Jobs.''
  Again, let's just look to the analysis done by another nonpartisan 
group. Mr. Levin has talked about the Joint Committee on Taxation 
analysis. They've already said that if you move to a pure territorial 
system, ``you will erode our domestic tax base and increase our 
deficits.''
  Why will you erode our domestic tax base? Because more companies will 
ship their investments and operations overseas. That means more 
American jobs overseas.
  In fact, another nonpartisan study found that this particular 
proposal, Republican proposal, which Mr. Romney also supports, would 
create 800,000 jobs. The problem is they found it would create 800,000 
jobs overseas, not here in America, by setting up companies in places 
like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say: Let us come up with a 
tax reform plan that works for all of the American people. Let's come 
up with a plan that will help grow our economy from the middle out, not 
this failed idea of trickle-down economics from the top down. That is 
what this debate is all about. Because what we want to do through tax 
reform is empower the middle class and empower small business men and 
women.
  You do not empower the middle class by creating a situation where, by 
giving tax breaks to the wealthy, you increase the deficit for the rest 
of the country. Because when you increase the deficit, you're asking 
everybody else to pay for those breaks at the very top. And people will 
pay by fewer investments in education, fewer investments in science and 
research, fewer investments that are important to empower our economy. 
And everybody else will be left to pick up this deficit tab while folks 
at the very top get another break. Let's not do that.
  Mr. TIBERI. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland is attacking two Republican 
plans that are not our plans. The gentleman knows that, for instance, 
the proposed territorial system that we have proposed is not a pure 
territorial system, for instance; it has anti-abuse rules. And we can 
broaden the base by getting rid of deductions and credits without 
impacting middle class taxpayers.
  I yield, with that, Mr. Speaker, 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), the new acting chairman of the Income Security 
Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Speaker, that little word ``tax'' that we've been 
talking about today is really, in reality, 3.8 million words that make 
up the entire U.S. Tax Code. Over the past 10 years alone, Congress has 
made over 4,428 changes to the Tax Code, averaging about one change 
each and every single day. It's time, Mr. Speaker, that we find 
consensus and provide a simpler, fairer, and more competitive Tax Code 
for everyone.
  Over the past 2 years, the Ways and Means Committee has held over 20 
hearings laying the groundwork for comprehensive tax reform. We've had 
meetings jointly with the Senate as well. This legislation that we will 
vote on today now gives us a path forward that will allow small 
businesses and all American families the opportunity to have a simpler, 
fairer, and more competitive Tax Code, not one that actually picks only 
winners and losers.
  We need to close loopholes. We need to eliminate and reduce the 
number of expenditures and deductions and exemptions that bestow 
preferential treatment for varying interest groups and primarily only 
benefit a few.
  Business leaders and economists across the country agree that, in 
order to create more jobs, we've got to make sure that America stays 
globally competitive, but the complexity of the Tax Code has put 
America at a disadvantage.
  Back in 1960, 85 percent of all the top 20 world firms were in the 
United States; by 1985, there were only 13; by the year 2010, this 
number was cut in half again to a meager six. Putting it simply, Mr. 
Speaker, the Tax Code's antiquated features have diminished the 
attractiveness for the United States to become the premier country in 
which to locate and found and start a business. This means fewer small 
businesses, it means less manufacturing, and it means fewer jobs.
  Today's vote shows that we are serious about moving forward on tax 
reform to help get our economy back on track. Let's make the United 
States the number one destination for entrepreneurs, for innovators, 
and job creators. Let's put this motion in place to pass this measure.
  Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TIBERI. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. 
Berg), a member of the Ways and

[[Page H5674]]

Means Committee and a distinguished member of the Select Revenue 
Subcommittee.

  Mr. BERG. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this critical piece of legislation to 
stop the tax hike.
  We have a choice to make here: We can support job creators like small 
business men, farmers, and ranchers that have made North Dakota's 
economy so strong, or we can abandon them and allow our Nation to go 
over the so-called ``fiscal cliff.''
  I have to remind my friends on the other side, this is something we 
talked about in a recent Ways and Means hearing. Small businesses are 
not ``the wealthy.'' They are not pocketing huge profits. They are 
trying to grow their businesses by reinvesting back into their 
business. That's what's creating jobs.
  At a time like this, we need to create jobs. We can't afford the 
Democrat plan which will increase taxes and decrease over 700,000 jobs. 
We need stability. We need certainty. And we need to pass this 
legislation so we can provide stability and certainty to our job 
creators until we complete comprehensive tax review.
  Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TIBERI. Mr. Speaker, could I ask how much time each side has 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio has 30\1/2\ minutes, 
while the gentleman from Michigan has 9 minutes.
  Mr. TIBERI. With that, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to 
another distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee and a 
member of the Select Revenue Subcommittee, the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Reed).

                              {time}  1450

  Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to stand in strong support of the proposed 
legislation before us this afternoon. The reason why is we have to stop 
with the rhetoric down here in Washington, D.C.
  Hardworking taxpayers across America demand that we get this right 
and we get the business of the people done. We need to listen to our 
fellow Americans that our Tax Code that we both, on each side of this 
aisle, have argued for the last hour, have agreed is broken. It's time 
to set a path forward.
  I have a picture here, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to display for 
all of us in this Chamber and across America. There's a clear path 
forward that we need to go down. And it is a path to go forward on a 
Republican plan that sets forth comprehensive tax reform in an open and 
honest fashion and makes sure that we get the comprehensive tax reform 
done in the upcoming year and do it in a way that brings the American 
people into the debate and we listen to the American people.
  We no longer can pick winners and losers in our Tax Code. We need to 
focus on a Tax Code that is simple, that is fair, and that is 
competitive because, like it or not, we live in a world economy in 
which our hardworking Americans have to compete. Our Tax Code needs to 
be updated to make sure that we put our individuals and our 
corporations in the most competitive position possible so that when 
they go out on the world economic stage that they can compete and win, 
and that we stand with them rather than engage in the bitter rhetoric 
and partisan divide that is on display, in my opinion, today.
  So, Mr. Speaker, with that, I ask support for the underlying 
legislation, and I ask my colleagues to join us and join hands and 
engage in a substantive spirited debate, but at the end of the day come 
up with a comprehensive tax reform package that is going to protect 
Americans and preserve America for generations to come.
  Mr. TIBERI. Mr. Speaker, with that, I would like to yield 3 minutes 
to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schock), a distinguished member of 
the Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. SCHOCK. Mr. Speaker, here we are 20 months removed from December 
2010 when we last had this debate, 20 months removed from when the 
President, 91 current House Democrat Members, and 39 sitting Democratic 
Senators all agreed that our economy couldn't survive a new round of 
tax increases; 20 months removed from unemployment of 8.9 percent that 
has continued, quarterly GDP growth of just 2\1/2\ percent; and 20 
months from a President who proclaimed it wasn't wise policy to raise 
taxes during a recession.
  Well, what has changed, Mr. Speaker? Not much. Unemployment is still 
over 8 percent, GDP growth has actually worsened to 1.5 percent, and 
politicians and Presidents from both sides of the aisle are, once 
again, saying it is not wise economic policy to increase taxes.
  Yet one thing has changed. Earlier this summer, the President 
reversed his decision, decided our economy had undergone some sort of 
significant improvement and called for massive tax increases on 
American small businesses, a call which Senate Democrats responded to 
and which, according to independent analysis, would shrink our economy 
by 1.3 percent.
  The rhetoric used to advocate for increasing taxes by the other side 
is the same populist grandstanding we have been hearing for years: 
everyone needs to pay their fair share.
  We need to increase taxes on those millionaires and billionaires.
  Only 3 percent of America's job creators will be affected.
  Well, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said:

       Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is 
     not entitled to their own facts.

  Just like before, none of the claims made by my friends on the other 
side are supported by fact but, instead, only by campaign commercial-
made opinion.
  Here are the facts by independent analysis. According to the 
independent Joint Committee on Taxation, 900,000 small businesses will 
be subject to these higher taxes, 53 percent of small business income 
would be hit by these tax increases, 710,000 fewer jobs in America if 
this tax increase is implemented. And investments, many of which senior 
citizens live on, dividend income, will increase by as high as 40 
percent with this tax increase.
  Simply put, there is no bigger ``pants on fire'' argument than that 
being put forward by our President proclaiming that these proposed tax 
increases would only affect 3 percent of our Nation's small businesses.
  Now, look, the decision is very clear. We can vote ``no'' on both of 
the proposals, H.R. 8 and H.R. 6169, to follow the President and the 
Senate Democrats towards a vision that has been proven to cost our 
economy jobs and growth, or we can alternatively vote ``yes'' on these 
two proposals which will ensure that the Bush-Obama tax rates stay in 
effect for a year and we get the comprehensive tax reform we're looking 
for.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Michigan will control the balance of the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia for the 
purposes of a colloquy.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  I want to say to you, as I said to you in the Rules Committee 
yesterday, how much I appreciate your leadership on fundamental tax 
reform.
  I've been watching this body for 20 years, and I think some of the 
criticisms of my friends on the Democratic side were right on target. A 
lot of lip service has been paid to doing it, but the action has not 
happened. But what you have been able to accomplish in your committee 
in 18 months truly makes me believe that fundamental tax reform is now 
right around the corner for all Americans, and I'm grateful to you for 
your work there.
  I had two questions about the bill that's before us today, this 
expedited procedures bill. It does lay out a framework, but it seems to 
me to lay out a framework that is broad enough that we will have a 
robust discussion about how to bring and what to bring in terms of 
fundamental tax reform to the floor.
  Do you view this framework as one that is broad enough to have a full 
discussion on fundamental tax reform?
  Mr. CAMP. I do, Mr. Woodall. I envision with this framework an open 
debate, as I've said on the floor, one that will entertain a variety of 
proposals and one that will include amendments

[[Page H5675]]

so that we can move forward as a Congress on enacting comprehensive and 
bipartisan reform.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman. And I know that in the Ways and 
Means Committee you will always have a robust debate. As you know, I'm 
a big fan of the Fair Tax proposal. I thank my colleagues on the 
Democratic side of the aisle for mentioning it earlier. I hope it made 
it out across the airwaves. But even if we can't all win in terms of 
our different ideas, America will win in the end if fundamental tax 
reform is passed. But lots of those competing ideas, even as only one 
idea, can be certified within this framework to begin in your 
committee, you view even after that introduction, that certification by 
the Joint Tax Committee, a full and robust discussion that would 
include ideas like consumption taxes in your committee.
  Mr. CAMP. Absolutely, there will be a full and robust discussion 
because, as I said, there will be amendments in committee, and there 
will be an opportunity for Members to weigh in. And, obviously, this 
will be a national debate. So this is about getting us on that path and 
moving forward. Because as we know, the alternative is, do we have 
taxes go up and cost us 700,000 jobs, or do we try to get us on a path 
of reform that will create the million jobs that we need to get this 
country moving again? So absolutely.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank the chairman. I appreciated my colleagues' chart 
down there of that path of two futures. There is no question that our 
future is in good hands with our chairman on the Ways and Means 
Committee.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).
  Mr. HURT. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership on this 
issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the House plan to stop this 
massive tax hike on the American people that is set to take place at 
the end of this year.
  The people of central and Southside Virginia know that our economic 
outlook is bleak. Spending is on the increase, unemployment is high, 
high fuel prices have left lasting damage to our economy, and the 
government take-over of health care is raiding our pocketbooks at a 
time when we can least afford it.
  And now, Mr. Speaker, they want more. Now the President and the 
Senate say that they want to raise taxes and dig deeper into the 
pockets of the hardworking American people.
  I have said time and again that we have a spending problem in D.C. We 
don't have a ``we don't tax people enough'' problem. This is now more 
clear than ever as our national debt ticks upward towards $16 trillion.

                              {time}  1500

  Now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone. It will only lead to 
more job loss and more spending at a time when the American people are 
counting on us to get our economy back on track. And while we have 
addressed this tax issue in the House for today, it is equally pressing 
that we address the issue of our long-term prosperity.
  This country has long needed comprehensive tax reform. History has 
shown that temporary tax extensions will not fix the problem; they 
simply apply a Band-Aid. That is why the House plan has taken a 
thoughtful approach to stopping the impending tax hike and laying out 
our framework for reforming the Tax Code in a way that will make it 
simpler and fairer.
  The House plan also puts in place expedited procedures to insure that 
Congress does its job once and for all and addresses the dire need for 
comprehensive tax reform.
  I was proud to support the legislation yesterday to stop the massive 
year-end tax hike, and I am proud to support this bill today to reform 
our Tax Code. It's the right thing to do for our country, and it's the 
right thing to do for our children and grandchildren.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, we just have one final speaker to close, so I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I can be very brief, in part, because so many of us have come forth 
on the Democratic side with real conviction, with real passion, and not 
basically reading from prepared speeches that simply go over and over 
the same themes, but really talking about what's at stake for this 
country and why this proposal is worse than flawed; it's flagrant.
  I bring back that chart. No one has refuted it. It's based on the 
work of the Joint Economic Committee.
  Essentially, what this bill would do is to say to America, if you're 
very wealthy, you get a $331,000 tax cut. But for the typical family, 
it's a $4,500 tax increase. And so tax cuts for the very wealthy is, 
essentially, this Republican plan.
  Tax increases for the middle class, more and more deficits, jobs 
overseas instead of making it in America, this is the Republican plan 
and, essentially, it's Governor Romney's plan. It's, as I said, worse 
than misguided. It would be a terrible mistake for this House to adopt 
it, and even a worse mistake for the American people to embrace it.
  I don't have confidence in the House Republicans. I have confidence 
that the American people will say ``no.'' Vote ``no'' here today.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tiberi), a distinguished member of the Ways 
and Means Committee.
  Mr. TIBERI. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership. You have 
done more to advance the cause for comprehensive tax reform and 
stopping tax increases on Americans than anyone in America, and we 
certainly appreciate your leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois reminded us that after the 
election in 2010, the President of the United States said, in this 
economy, we cannot let tax rates go up for any American because the 
economy was too weak.
  Well, today, ladies and gentlemen, the economy is weaker than it was 
in December of 2010. In fact, it's been weaker the last 4 months than 
it was, with little hope that it will get better soon.
  Ladies and gentlemen, Americans are long overdue in having 
comprehensive tax reform. They want it, 9 out of 10 Americans. Nine out 
of 10 Americans now use a tax preparer. My father, a retired 
steelworker, my mother, a retired seamstress, use a tax preparer.
  And ironically, Mr. Speaker, my father came to America, my mother 
came to America for a better life. And when I got my first job, my 
first job at McDonald's, when I was 16 years old, my dad said, Son, we 
have a really crazy Tax Code that doesn't encourage you to save, that 
doesn't encourage you to invest. And you know what? You're going to 
save a little bit of that paycheck because it's the right thing to do, 
even though we have a crazy Tax Code.
  Well, my immigrant dad today thinks we have even a crazier Tax Code 
than we did back in the early 1980s, and it's time that we change that. 
The process in this bill will force people in this town to do what we 
haven't done for over 25 years, and that's fix the Code.
  There's been talk on this floor about small business owners. I was a 
realtor. I had small business income. I didn't employ anybody. I'm 
proud of what I did.
  But there's a guy that I know. His name is RJ. He's a small business 
owner. He would be impacted tremendously, and so would his 50 
employees, if we allowed his taxes to go up on January 1.
  Or William, a small retailer who hires people. He would see his taxes 
go up.
  Ladies and gentlemen, House Republicans believe that jobs are created 
not in Washington, D.C., but by entrepreneurs and risk takers 
throughout America. And there are two roads that we can choose to go 
down. And this chart couldn't be better in showing everybody out there 
those two roads. One road leads to danger. One road leads to a failing 
and falling economy with 700,000 jobs to be lost. We don't want to go 
down that road. We've seen too much misery already.
  No, Mr. Speaker, the road that we want to go down, led by our 
chairman of our committee, is the one to the right, now hiring, in 
green, with a million new jobs, not created in Washington, but created 
by people like RJ and William, entrepreneurs, risk takers and, ladies 
and gentlemen, people like

[[Page H5676]]

my dad who came to America with nothing, who understand that hard work 
and risk taking should be rewarded, not penalized.
  That's why, today, the process that this bill puts in this motion 
will lead us finally to say to the American people, yes, we heard you, 
loud and clear, and we're going to simplify our Tax Code. We're going 
to simplify it for every American taxpayer so we can have an economy 
that creates jobs, doesn't pick winners and losers, and, ladies and 
gentlemen, gets us to a place where we have a Tax Code that people like 
my mom and dad don't have to go hire a tax preparer to do their taxes.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I oppose H.R. 6169, a partisan bill that 
would put in place a contrived and expedited procedure for tax reform, 
a challenging issue that would benefit from a full and robust debate.
  Tax reform is a very complicated, very difficult endeavor. This bill, 
which attempts to limit debate in both the House and the Senate, will 
not become law. It wastes time that the House could better apply to the 
multitude of challenges facing our country.
  Over the past several years, taxes have been lower than at any time 
since the 1950s. Yet the United States--with military commitments 
around the world, a badly underfunded commitment to domestic 
infrastructure, and growing obligations to the Baby Boomer generation--
also faces a substantial budget deficit. We are also grappling with a 
yawning gap between our wealthiest and our neediest. Tax expenditures 
have grown faster than the rate of inflation and now give away nearly 
half of all income that the income tax would otherwise collect.
  It is imperative that Congress begin the difficult work of tax reform 
in earnest. This bill represents a failure to have an honest 
conversation about tax reform and for that reason, I oppose this 
legislation and had I been present, I would have voted no.
  Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 6169, the 
Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act. This 
bill will allow for expedited consideration of a bill that lays out tax 
reform.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill lays out a schedule for an early introduction 
and swift markup and consideration of a tax reform bill in the 113th 
Congress. While this would be effective in ensuring that a bill gets 
passed in a reasonable amount of time, the expedited consideration 
provided in H.R. 6169 only applies to tax reform bills that contain 
certain key components.
  One requirement for this tax reform bill is that it consolidates the 
current six individual tax brackets into two brackets of 10 and 25 
percent. This provision would allow for an additional $331,000 tax cut 
for the average millionaire, while American families earning less than 
$200,000 would see their taxes increase by an average of $4,500. For 
the sake of reducing rates for the wealthy, this tax reform bill would 
vastly curtail tax provisions that benefit the middle class.
  Another required component of the future tax reform bill is a 
reduction of the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. In order to achieve 
such a significant reduction, this plan would require eliminating every 
provision in our current tax code that encourages domestic job 
creation, investment, and innovation.
  My Republican colleagues assert that this component of the 
legislation will create jobs by allowing corporations to hold onto a 
larger portion of their profit. However, this new tax code would 
provide no incentive to purely domestic businesses or investors, and 
would result in an increase in the off-shoring of jobs and income. This 
will stifle our country's economic recovery, and contribute to a 
continually high unemployment rate.
  Mr. Speaker, not only will the proposed requirements of this future 
tax reform bill unfairly benefit wealthy households and corporations, 
it will plunge the United States deeper into a budget deficit. If my 
colleagues across the aisle are so committed to reducing our nation's 
debt, they should be working on bipartisan legislation to promote 
progressive and productive tax reform. Instead, they have introduced a 
H.R. 6169, which expedites future handouts to corporations and the 
wealthy under the guise of tax reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to getting the opportunity to vote for 
true, progressive tax reform when it is brought to the House floor. 
Until then, I urge my colleagues to join me in continuing to oppose 
attempts to unfairly burden America's working class, now and in the 
future.
  Thank you. I yield the balance of my time.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, supporters of low taxes and limited government 
should enthusiastically embrace most of the principles of tax reform 
laid out in H.R. 6169. However, one tax reform principle contained in 
this bill contradicts the goal we all share, namely lowering the 
American people's tax burden. I'm referring to the bill's finding that 
seems to imply tax reform should aim to maintain federal tax revenue at 
18-19% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
  The historical average of tax rates as a percentage of GDP in the 
post World War Two era is 17.7%. Thus, the current tax bill says that 
the total amount the federal government takes from the American people 
should be higher than the amount the government took during the time 
when the federal government was fighting the Cold War and establishing 
the programs of the so-called Great Society! Of course, this is 
reasonable only if one assumes Congress will never, or should never, 
consider reducing the federal government's size and scope.
  H.R. 6169 is thus further proof that if one is serious about reducing 
taxes one must be willing to reduce federal spending in all areas. 
Instead of trying to ensure that the federal tax collection is set at a 
level to ensure a perpetual stream of revenue for the welfare-warfare 
state, Congress should stop spending trillions on an interventionist 
foreign policy, shut down unconstitutional federal bureaucracies, and 
begin to wind down federal welfare and entitlement programs.
  While the ultimate goal of supporters of liberty is to reduce the 
federal government to constitutional size, the fact is that Congress 
need not shut down the entire welfare-warfare state to achieve 
meaningful tax reduction. In fact, the federal government could 
eliminate income taxes on individuals and still fund all of its current 
functions simply by reducing federal spending to Clinton-era levels!
  Unfortunately, the sad fact is that neither party truly wants to cut 
spending consistently. Anyone who doubts my analysis should examine the 
hysteria over the relatively minuscule ``cuts''--which are merely 
reductions in projected rates of spending--contained in the sequester 
legislation scheduled to go into effect this January. One party screams 
that a failure to increase military spending enough will leave America 
vulnerable to her enemies, while the other party cries that even 
minimal reductions in the rate of growth of welfare spending will 
create poverty of Dickensian proportions. Until this mindset changes, 
any efforts to reduce or eliminate federal income and other taxes will 
remain an effort in futility.
  Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 6169, the 
Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012. 
This bill serves as the bridge to tax simplification in 2013.
  As families and businesses across America know all too well, our tax 
code discourages work, burdens entrepreneurship, deters savings and 
investment, and distorts the allocation of capital. The best growth 
agenda for America is not a short-term policy fix. What America needs 
is a clear, long-term policy path that minimizes economic uncertainty 
and delivers results.
  H.R. 6169 does just that. This bill provides for ihe enactment of 
comprehensive tax reform next year. Taxpayers deserve a tax code that 
is simpler, flatter, fairer and easier. This bill isn't just a nice 
gesture--it's a common sense solution that, according to some 
economists, will create 1 million jobs in the first year.
  I am proud to support, and urge my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to support, this bill that bridges tax reform for our country.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.


    Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute Offered by Ms. Slaughter

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. FINDINGS REGARDING COMPREHENSIVE TAX REFORM.

       Congress finds that--
       (1) legislation to reform the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 
     is both necessary and desirable, and
       (2) the House of Representatives and the Senate should move 
     quickly under regular order to proceed with a bill which--
       (A) identifies revenue sources that in conjunction with 
     targeted spending reductions will provide the long-term means 
     to reduce the national debt significantly and make 
     investments in national priorities such as infrastructure, 
     education, research, and defense that are critical to future 
     American competitiveness and job growth,
       (B) adopts a rate structure that distributes the tax burden 
     in a more progressive manner,
       (C) discourages tax avoidance, including tax avoidance 
     accomplished using entities or accounts in tax haven 
     jurisdictions,
       (D) preserves and improves those provisions of the Internal 
     Revenue Code of 1986 that support middle class home 
     ownership, education, retirement savings, and healthcare,
       (E) repeals the alternative minimum tax (commonly known as 
     the AMT),

[[Page H5677]]

       (F) retains and improves refundable tax credits that 
     encourage work and education while lifting millions of 
     Americans out of poverty,
       (G) eliminates tax breaks for businesses that move jobs and 
     profits overseas in combination with a reduction in tax rates 
     for American manufacturers, which are vital to innovation and 
     job growth, and
       (H) preserves and improves incentives for small business 
     investment and growth.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 747, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) and a Member opposed each 
will control 10 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York.

                              {time}  1510

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  We all agree that the Tax Code needs to be updated and reformed--and 
my Democrat colleagues and I are ready to work in a bipartisan manner 
to accomplish that goal--but the flawed and entirely partisan 
priorities reflected in this majority's bill make a very bad start. 
Their principles seem to point in one direction: less fairness and less 
of the burden shouldered by the people who have the most; fewer 
brackets, lower top rates, lower corporate taxes, less revenue, and 
higher deficits.
  My Democrat colleagues and I have a different vision for tax reform, 
a vision that is reflected in our alternative proposal today. My 
amendment would replace the principles found in the majority's bill 
with a different set of priorities for a fairer and simpler Tax Code. I 
would like to take a minute to outline these priorities.
  First, we must identify sources of revenue that, in combination with 
smart and targeted spending reductions, will provide the long-term 
means to reduce the national debt significantly while making 
investments in national priorities such as infrastructure, education, 
research, and defense, which are critical to the future of American 
competitiveness and job growth.
  I would note that nothing in the Republican bill says tax reform 
needs to lower the deficit or to even hold it level. On the contrary, 
there are indications that Republican tax reform would make the deficit 
worse. I think that they believe, along with Vice President Cheney, who 
memorably said, ``Deficits don't matter.'' My Democrat colleagues and I 
disagree with that approach.
  Second, we believe that there should be a rate structure that 
distributes the tax burden in a more progressive manner. We support a 
Tax Code that discourages tax avoidance, including the use of entities 
and accounts in tax haven jurisdictions, such as Swiss bank accounts or 
assets hidden in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, all done simply to 
avoid paying United States taxes.
  We believe in preserving and improving the provisions of the Tax Code 
that support middle class homeownership, education, retirement savings, 
and health care. In addition, we agree that the time has come to repeal 
the alternative minimum tax, and we want to retain and improve 
refundable tax credits that encourage work and education while lifting 
millions of Americans out of poverty.
  We support eliminating tax breaks for businesses that move jobs and 
profits overseas in combination with a reduction in tax rates for 
American manufacturers, which are vital to innovation and job growth--
in other words, reward the people who stay here.
  Finally, we want to preserve and improve incentives for small 
business investment and growth. These businesses are the engine of job 
creation, and we must do all we can to support their success.
  Mr. Speaker, this Republican bill can be explained in one sentence: 
House Republicans want special procedures that allow them to force 
their rightwing legislative agenda through the Senate.
  Why are we wasting time in trying to change the rules of the Senate--
trying to force the other body to accept partisan Republican 
priorities--rather than just sitting down together and working out a 
bipartisan path forward?
  It's a major question, I think, in this congressional term that, like 
others have said, is the most poorly productive in history. Our 
amendment would remove the flawed expedited procedures and misguided 
Republican principles, and it would replace them with the principles 
that I have laid out.

  Let me end by expressing my utter disbelief at how difficult House 
Republicans are making it to pass the middle class tax cuts right now. 
They make clear they intend to hold the middle class tax cuts hostage 
to the tax cuts for the top 2 percent of Americans, though we agree 
that earnings of $250,000 and below should not see any tax increases.
  Yesterday, I offered a simple amendment that would say we would delay 
our departure for the August break until we got this proposal signed 
into law. It was defeated. Cutting taxes should not be that hard, and I 
hope my colleagues will join me to support my amendment and to help in 
our effort to create a fair and simple Tax Code that works for all 
Americans.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition to 
the gentlewoman's amendment.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 10 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by extending my 
congratulations and to associate myself with the very thoughtful 
remarks of my dear friend from Rochester, the distinguished ranking 
minority member of the Committee on Rules. As she at the beginning 
said, Democrats and Republicans alike agree on the need for 
comprehensive tax reform.
  She is right on target when she says that, Mr. Speaker, and that's 
exactly what we're doing. The problem that we have is that the 
amendment that she is proposing undermines the ability for us to get 
that done.
  Now, as I think about this issue that is before us, we have virtually 
everyone talking about the need to get this done. We have Democrats 
talking about it, and we have Republicans talking about it. We have the 
President of the United States talking about it. In fact, it's very 
interesting. As I heard my friend characterize the ``misguided 
principles'' set forth by the Republicans, I am struck by the fact that 
at least one of those principles has been called for by President 
Barack Obama. President Obama has said that we need to reduce the top 
corporate rate from 35 percent. He acknowledges the fact that we have 
the highest corporate tax rate of any nation on the face of the Earth 
now that Japan has very wisely reduced its top corporate rate. So what 
my friend from Rochester describes as ``misguided'' is actually one of 
the proposals submitted by President Obama.
  So, again, talk is great. I've talked about tax reform myself for the 
three decades that I've been privileged to serve here. My friend has 
just talked about the need for tax reform, but there is a time, Mr. 
Speaker, when we need to step up to the plate and take action.
  The Framers put into place a very, very good structure, a 
differentiation between the rules and operations of the House and the 
Senate. We know that the House of Representatives is the coffee cup 
into which the coffee simmers. As President Washington said so 
eloquently to Thomas Jefferson as they were sitting down at the Willard 
Hotel and were describing the Senate--Jefferson was the really smart 
guy, but it was Washington who was describing to Jefferson what that 
``saucer'' is. It's where the simmering of the coffee takes place, and 
he said that that's what the Senate is. That was a great vision put 
forth by our Framers, Mr. Speaker, but there comes a time on some 
important issues when we need to streamline operations, expedite 
procedures, and that's what we're doing.
  What my friend from Rochester said is absolutely right. We need to 
put into place comprehensive tax reform. I totally agree with that. Now 
let's get it done. Yes, we put forth some guidelines. We say two rates, 
no more than 10 or 25 percent. I mean, let's deal with the 
globalization issue by shifting from a worldwide to a territorial tax 
system. Let's do what we can to obliterate the alternative minimum tax, 
which we all know has impacted so many of our fellow working Americans 
who are struggling to make ends meet. It was never designed to do that. 
And as President Obama has said, let's reduce that top corporate rate.
  Mr. Speaker, as we look at this issue, we can talk about tax reform 
until we are blue in the face, but this structure

[[Page H5678]]

is one that's going to actually get it done. I say very sadly that this 
measure that is being proposed by my friend is a measure which simply 
extends the talking, and it undermines the ability for us to actually 
take action.
  Let's move ahead. Obviously, we need to make sure that we maintain 
the tax structure for everyone, the tax cuts for all. We did that 
yesterday. There is this notion of saying let's just proceed with what 
we all agree on, which is that we all agree on keeping taxes low for 
those in the middle class. Well, if we do what it is that they're 
saying, what we would end up doing is actually imposing a massive tax 
increase on job creators. So we can't come to an agreement on that 
because, as President Obama again has said, increasing taxes during 
difficult economic times is bad public policy.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this measure.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1520

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, all this discussion is 
about priorities. As I said, we all agree the Tax Code has to be 
reformed, but the majority has not come to the floor today with a 
serious proposal to get us there.
  My amendment would put us all on record in favor of the priorities of 
the middle class: more fairness, a simpler Tax Code, a lower deficit, 
and incentives to keep jobs here in the United States. I ask my 
colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to say 
that I've said it all.
  With that, I urge a ``no'' vote on my dear friend's amendment, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the previous question 
is ordered on the bill and on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman 
from New York (Ms. Slaughter).
  The question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from New 
York.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 176, 
noes 246, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 550]

                               AYES--176

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barber
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonamici
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Israel
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--246

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cooper
     Costa
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Donnelly (IN)
     Dreier
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kissell
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     Matheson
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paul
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schiff
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Akin
     Black
     Cardoza
     Cohen
     Fleischmann
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Waxman

                              {time}  1546

  Mr. LABRADOR, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Ms. HAYWORTH, Ms. GRANGER, Messrs. 
ROONEY, CULBERSON, and COSTA changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Mr. TOWNS changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.


                           Motion to Recommit

  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at 
the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. In its current form, I am.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Bishop of New York moves to recommit the bill H.R. 6169 
     to the Committee on Ways and Means with instructions to 
     report the same back to the House forthwith with the 
     following amendment:
       In section 3(a), strike ``and'' at the end of paragraph 
     (1), strike the period at the end of paragraph (2) and insert 
     ``; and'', and add at the end the following:
       (3) which does not repeal, reduce, or otherwise eliminate 
     the existing deductions for mortgage interest or charitable 
     contributions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H5679]]

                              {time}  1550

  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to 
H.R. 6169. It will not kill the bill nor will it send it back to 
committee. If adopted, H.R. 6169 will immediately proceed to final 
passage, as amended.
  My amendment is simple and straightforward and is a reasonable, 
additional parameter to a bill, the purpose of which is to set the 
parameters for tax reform during the 113th Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, my amendment simply preserves two of the most important, 
popular, and widely supported deductions in a future tax reform package 
to be considered under expedited procedures in the House: the mortgage 
interest tax deduction and the charitable contribution tax deduction.
  The mortgage interest tax deduction helps millions of American 
families achieve that most celebrated and sought-after part of the 
American Dream: homeownership. Nearly every Member of this body 
benefited from this deduction and nearly every homeowner in our 
districts has utilized this critical tax deduction to buy a home for 
their family and become part of the larger community. In fact, 199 
Members, including 114 Republicans, are cosponsors of H. Res. 25, a 
resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the mortgage interest 
tax deduction should not be restricted in any way.
  I will submit for the Record a list of the cosponsors of H. Res. 25.
  As we head home for the August work period, I urge every Member who 
votes against this amendment, especially those Members who are 
cosponsors of H. Res. 25, to return to their districts and tell their 
constituents, many of whom still struggle to pay their bills or to put 
a child through college, why they oppose protecting the mortgage 
interest tax deduction.
  As Chairman Camp recently suggested, it is critical that we do 
nothing to undermine the housing market as our economy marches toward 
recovery. Because the value of the mortgage interest deduction is 
capitalized into the price of housing, curtailing or eliminating it 
would reduce the value of housing across the United States, put more 
homeowners underwater, and take the wind out of recovery. Simply put, 
this Congress should not be throwing up obstacles to the American 
Dream.
  Mr. Speaker, my amendment also seeks to preserve the charitable 
contribution deduction that is essential to the economic viability of 
thousands of organizations, both large and small, national and local, 
to advance important causes or provide critically needed services to 
our most vulnerable constituents. From the neighborhood church to the 
local food pantry to international organizations like the Red Cross and 
the Salvation Army, these organizations play a crucial role in the 
lives of millions of Americans as well as the international community.
  We've heard many times from our Republican colleagues how charitable 
organizations can and should relieve the Federal Government of some of 
its responsibilities, especially those responsibilities of assisting 
the most vulnerable Americans. With thousands of families slowly 
regaining their footing after the housing crisis, now is not the time 
for Congress to make it more difficult for charitable organizations to 
provide meals, clothing, job training, temporary shelter, and other 
vital aid to our struggling neighbors.
  Repealing the charitable tax contribution could result in a loss of 
as much as $150 billion, or 69 percent, of annual charitable giving. By 
one report, private giving must already multiply more than tenfold by 
2016 just to keep up with the proposed House Republican budget cuts.
  If a Member votes against my amendment, I would urge that Member to 
go home to his or her district and visit a local food pantry or place 
of worship and tell their volunteers why they will need to slash their 
programs and reduce their outreach to the community.
  Our Republican colleagues have proposed deep cuts to SNAP, to 
childhood nutrition programs, affordable housing, and job training. 
Will they now vote to create another obstacle for organizations that, 
by their own reckoning, should fill the void of reduced Federal 
investment for social programs?
  My Republican colleagues can't have it both ways. The Republican 
budget claims that it will lower everyone's taxes in a revenue-neutral 
fashion by closing loopholes and capping or eliminating deductions. 
However, when pressed for details about which deductions they plan to 
cap or eliminate, they refuse to give specifics. Now is the time for 
specifics.
  The underlying bill establishes the parameters of the upcoming tax 
reform debate. Will my Republican colleagues protect homeowners and the 
Nation's most vulnerable, or will the richest Americans enjoy another 
tax cut at the expense of the middle class? There is one way to find 
out. A vote for my amendment is a vote for protecting the middle class.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                        Bill Summary and Status

                               H. Res. 25

     Latest Title: Expressing the sense of the Congress that the 
         current Federal income tax deduction for interest paid on 
         debt secured by a first or second home should not be 
         further restricted.
     Sponsor: Rep Miller, Gary G. [R-CA-42] (introduced 1/6/2011)
     Cosponsors: 199
     Committees: House Ways and Means
     Latest Major Action: 1/6/2011 Referred to House committee. 
         Status: Referred to the House Committee on Ways and 
         Means.
       Cosponsors, By Party [* = original cosponsor]:
       Cosponsor Statistics: 199 current (includes 5 original)
       Rep Andrews, Robert E. [D-NJ-1]--4/6/2011; Rep Baca, Joe 
     [D-CA-4-3]--1/6/2011*; Rep Barrow, John [D-GA-12]--6/23/2011; 
     Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [D-GA-2]--1/18/2011; Rep 
     Bordallo, Madeleine Z. [D-GU]--4/4/2011; Rep Boswell, Leonard 
     L. [D-IA-3]--7/6/2011; Rep Braley, Bruce L. [D-IA-1]--3/31/
     2011; Rep Brown, Corrine [D-FL-3]--2/10/2011; Rep Capps, Lois 
     [D-CA-23]--4/1/2011; Rep Cardoza, Dennis A. [D-CA-18]--2/10/
     2011; Rep Carnahan, Russ [D-MO-3]--3/3/2011; Rep Chandler, 
     Ben [D-KY-6]--5/12/2011; Rep Christensen, Donna M. [D-VI]--5/
     2/2011; Rep Cicilline, David N. [D-RI-1]--2/13/2012; Rep 
     Clay, Wm. Lacy [D-MO-1]--7/18/2012; Rep Cleaver, Emanuel [D-
     MO-5]--5/3/2011; Rep Connolly, Gerald E. ``Gerry'' [D-VA-
     11]--3/29/2011; Rep Costa, Jim [D-CA-20]--2/14/2011; Rep 
     Courtney, Joe [D-CT-2]--5/23/2011.
       Rep Cuellar, Henry [D-TX-28]--5/23/2011; Rep Cummings, 
     Elijah E. [D-MD-7]--2/14/2011; Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [D-OR-
     4]--2/10/2011; Rep Donnelly, Joe [D-IN-2]--5/16/2012; Rep 
     Engel, Eliot L. [D-NY-17]--5/25/2011; Rep Eshoo, Anna G. [D-
     CA-14]--3/31/2011; Rep Farr, Sam [D-CA-17]--2/10/2011; Rep 
     Filner, Bob [D-CA-51]--2/10/2011; Rep Green, Al [D-TX-9]--1/
     12/2011; Rep Green, Gene [D-TX-29]--3/3/2011; Rep Hahn, 
     Janice [D-CA-36]--2/28/2012; Rep Hanabusa, Colleen W. [D-
     HI-1]--4/6/2011; Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [D-FL-23]--5/23/
     2011; Rep Heinrich, Martin [D-NM-1]--5/10/2011; Rep 
     Higgins, Brian [D-NY-27]--4/4/2011; Rep Hinchey, Maurice 
     D. [D-NY-22]--5/12/2011; Rep Hinojosa, Ruben [D-TX-15]--1/
     6/2011 *; Rep Hirono, Mazie K. [D-HI-2]--5/10/2011; Rep 
     Hochul, Kathleen C. [D-NY-26]--6/20/2012; Rep Holden, Tim 
     [D-PA-17]--6/14/2011.
       Rep Holt, Rush D. [D-NJ-12]--5/2/2011; Rep Honda, Michael 
     M. [D-CA-15]--3/29/2011; Rep Inslee, Jay [D-WA-1]--5/31/2011; 
     Rep Israel, Steve [D-NY-2]--5/23/2011; Rep Jackson Lee, 
     Sheila [D-TX-18]--2/10/2011; Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [D-
     TX-30]--5/23/2011; Rep Johnson, Henry C. ``Hank,'' Jr. [D-GA-
     4]--3/3/2011; Rep Keating, William R. [D-MA-10]--5/23/2011; 
     Rep Kildee, Dale E. [D-MI-5]--5/12/2011; Rep Langevin, James 
     R. [D-RI-2]--1/24/2012; Rep Larsen, Rick [D-WA-2]--5/10/2011; 
     Rep Lewis, John [D-GA-5]--3/29/2011; Rep Loebsack, David [D-
     IA-2]--3/20/2012; Rep Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-16]--5/12/2011; Rep 
     Lujan, Ben Ray [D-NM-3]--2/2/2012; Rep Matheson, Jim [D-UT-
     2]--5/16/2012; Rep McCarthy, Carolyn [D-NY-4]--5/3/2011; Rep 
     McGovern, James P. [D-MA-3]--6/14/2011; Rep McIntyre, Mike 
     [D-NC-7]--3/3/2011; Rep McNerney, Jerry [D-CA-11]--2/18/2011.
       Rep Meeks, Gregory W. [D-NY-6]--1/6/2011 *; Rep Miller, 
     Brad [D-NC-13]--5/23/2011; Rep Napolitano, Grace F. [D-CA-
     38]--2/14/2011; Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC]--5/2/2011; 
     Rep Owens, William L. [D-NY-23]--12/6/2011; Rep Pallone, 
     Frank, Jr., [D-NJ-6]--3/11/2011; Rep Pascrell, Bill, Jr., [D-
     NJ-8]--2/29/2012; Rep Payne, Donald M. [D-NJ-10]--5/2/2011; 
     Rep Perlmutter, Ed [D-CO-7]--5/25/2011; Rep Rahall, Nick J., 
     II [D-WV-3]--3/31/2011; Rep Reyes, Silvestre [D-TX-16]--5/23/
     2011; Rep Richardson, Laura [D-CA-37]--2/10/2011; Rep Ross, 
     Mike [D-AR-4]--2/14/2011; Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [D-CA-
     34]--5/12/2011; Rep Rush, Bobby L. [D-IL-1]--5/23/2011; Rep 
     Sanchez, Linda T. [D-CA-39]--3/7/2012; Rep Sanchez, 
     Loretta [D-CA-47]--1/31/2012; Rep Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA-
     29]--5/10/2011; Rep Scott, David [D-GA-13]--2/10/2011; Rep 
     Sherman, Brad [D-CA-27]--2/10/2011.
       Rep Sires, Albio [D-NJ-13]--3/3/2011; Rep Slaughter, Louise 
     McIntosh [D-NY-28]--5/23/2011; Rep Tonko, Paul [D-NY-21]--3/
     11/2011; Rep Towns, Edolphus [D-NY-10]--5/23/2011; Rep 
     Waters, Maxine [D-CA-35]--3/3/2011; Rep Wu, David [D-OR-1]--
     4/8/2011; Rep Akin, W. Todd [R-MO-2]--5/2/2011; Rep Amodei, 
     Mark E. [R-NV-2]--12/5/2011; Rep Austria, Steve [R-OH-7]--2/
     14/2011; Rep Barletta, Lou [R-PA-11]--3/3/2011; Rep Bartlett, 
     Roscoe G. [R-MD-6]--2/10/2011; Rep Barton, Joe [R-TX-6]--4/8/
     2011; Rep Biggert, Judy [R-IL-13]--7/8/2011; Rep Bilbray, 
     Brian P. [R-CA-50]--1/18/2011;

[[Page H5680]]

     Rep Bilirakis, Gus M. [R-FL-9]--9/13/2011; Rep Bishop, Rob 
     [R-UT-1]--5/3/2011; Rep Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN-7]--4/4/2011; 
     Rep Brooks, Mo [R-AL-5]--5/3/2011; Rep Brown, Paul C. [R-GA-
     10]--11/14/2011; Rep Burgess, Michael C. [R-TX-26]--8/1/2011.
       Rep Burton, Dan [R-IN-5]--3/16/2011; Rep Calvert, Ken [R-
     CA-44]--1/6/2011*; Rep Capito, Shelley Moore [R-WV-2]--5/23/
     2011; Rep Chabot, Steve [R-OH-1]--7/8/2011; Rep Chaffetz, 
     Jason [R-UT-3]--2/10/2011; Rep Coble, Howard [R-NC-6]--4/8/
     2011; Rep Coffman, Mike [R-CO-6]--3/29/2011; Rep Conaway, K. 
     Michael [R-TX-1]--2/18/2011; Rep Crawford, Eric A. ``Rick'' 
     [R-AR-1]--6/14/2011; Rep Crenshaw, Ander [R-FL-4]--6/23/2011; 
     Rep Culberson, John Abney [R-TX-7]--5/12/2011; Rep Denham, 
     Jeff [R-CA-19]--3/31/2011; Rep Dent, Charles W. [R-PA-15]--3/
     31/2011; Rep Duncan, Jeff [R-SC-3]--11/2/2011; Rep Fincher, 
     Stephen Lee [R-TN-8]--5/23/2011; Rep Fitzpatrick, Michael G. 
     [R-PA-8]--3/16/2011; Rep Fleischmann, Charles J. ``Chuck'' 
     [R-TN-3]--5/10/2011; Rep Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. [R-NJ-11]--
     7/6/2011; Rep Gallegly, Elton [R-CA-24]--1/12/2011; Rep 
     Gardner, Cory [R-CO-4]--5/31/2011.
       Gerlach, Jim [R-PA-6]--5/23/2011; Rep Gibbs, Bob [R-OH-
     18]--7/28/2011; Rep Gibson, Christopher P. [R-NY-20]--5/23/
     2011; Rep Gingrey, Phil [R-GA-11]--3/3/2011; Rep Gohmert, 
     Louie [R-TX-1]--6/22/2011; Rep Granger, Kay [R-TX-12]--4/6/
     2011; Rep Graves, Sam [R-MO-6]--5/10/2011; Rep Graves, Tom 
     [R-GA-9]--9/8/2011; Rep Griffin Tim [R-AR-2]--2/14/2011; Rep 
     Grimm, Michael G. [R-NY-13]--3/16/2011; Rep Guthrie, Brett 
     [R-KY-2]--5/10/2011; Rep Hall, Ralph M. [R-TX-4]--5/23/2011; 
     Rep Heck, Joseph J. [R-NV-3]--2/18/2011; Rep Herrera Beutler, 
     Jaime [R-WA-3]--4/15/2011; Rep Huizenga, Bill [R-MI-2]--5/12/
     2011; Rep Hultgren, Randy [R-IL-14]--4/15/2011; Rep Hunter, 
     Duncan D. [R-CA-52]--2/10/2011; Rep Johnson, Bill [R-OH-6]--
     5/23/2011; Rep Johnson, Timothy V. [R-IL-15]--11/14/2011; Rep 
     King, Peter T. [R-NY-3]--4/25/2012.
       Rep Kinzinger, Adam [R-IL-11]--5/23/2011; Rep Lance, 
     Leonard [R-NJ-7]--5/23/2011; Rep Latham, Tom [R-IA-4]--8/9/
     2011; Rep LaTourette, Steven C. [R-OH-14]--3/3/2011; Rep 
     LoBiondo, Frank A. [R-NJ-2]--2/10/2011; Rep Long, Billy [R-
     MO-7]--2/14/2011; Rep Luetkemeyer, Blaine [R-MO-9]--2/10/
     2011; Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [R-IL-16]--1/6/2011*; Rep 
     Marino, Tom [R-PA-10]--5/12/2011; Rep McClintock, Tom [R-CA-
     4]--6/21/2011; Rep McKeon, Howard P. ``Buck'' [R-CA-25]--3/7/
     2012; Rep McKinley, David B. [R-WV-1]--1/12/2011; Rep 
     McMorris Rodgers, Cathy [R-WA-5]--5/23/2011; Rep Meehan, 
     Patrick [R-PA-7]--5/23/2011; Rep Miller, Jeff [R-FL-1]--1/20/
     2011; Rep Murphy, Tim [R-PA-18]--4/8/2011; Rep Myrick, Sue 
     Wilkins [R-NC-9]--4/1/2011; Rep Noem, Kristi L. [R-SD]--3/31/
     2011; Rep Nugent, Richard [R-FL-5]--1/19/2011; Rep Nunnelee, 
     Alan [R-MS-1]--5/23/2011.
       Rep Palazzo, Steven M. [R-MS-4]--5/23/2011; Rep Paul, Ron 
     [R-TX-14]--3/31/2011; Rep Pearce, Stevan [R-NM-2]--7/11/2011; 
     Rep Petri, Thomas E. [R-WI-6]--5/31/2011; Rep Poe, Ted [R-TX-
     2]--5/10/2011; Rep Posey, Bill [R-FL-15]--1/18/2011; Rep 
     Rehberg, Denny [R-MT]--5/12/2011; Rep Rivera, David [R-FL-
     25]--5/17/2012; Rep Roe, David P. [R-TN-1]--5/12/2011; Rep 
     Rogers, Mike D. [R-AL-3J--4/6/2011; Rep Rogers, Mike J. 
     [R-MI-8]--3/7/2012; Rep Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana [R-FL-18]--5/
     23/2011; Rep Ross, Dennis [R-FL-12]--2/10/2011; Rep Royce, 
     Edward R. [R-CA-40]--9/8/2011; Rep Runyan, Jon [R-NJ-3]--
     3/16/2011; Rep Scalise, Steve [R-LA-1]--5/10/2011; Rep 
     Schilling, Robert T. [R-IL-17]--5/31/2011; Rep Schmidt, 
     Jean [R-OH-2]--7/6/2011; Rep Scott, Austin [R-GA-8]--3/16/
     2011; Rep Scott, Tim [R-SC-1]--3/29/20110.
       Rep Sensenbrenner, F. James. Jr. [R-W1-5]--4/6/2011; Rep 
     Sessions, Pete [R-TX-32]--5/23/2011; Rep Shuster, Bill [R-PA-
     9]--5/2/2011; Rep Smith, Christopher H. [R-NJ-4]--3/29/2011; 
     Rep Southerland, Steve [R-FL-2]--6/14/2011; Rep Stivers, 
     Steve [R-OH-15]--3/3/2011; Rep Terry, Lee [R-NE-2]--2/14/
     2011; Rep Tipton, Scott [R-CO-3]--5/10/2011; Rep Turner, 
     Michael R. [R-OH-3]--3/3/2011; Rep Upton, Fred [R-MI-6]--5/2/
     2011; Rep Walberg, Tim [R-MI-7]--6/2/2011; Rep Walden, Greg 
     [R-OR-2]--5/2/2011; Rep Walsh, Joe [R-IL-8]--5/3/2011; Rep 
     West, Allen B. [R-FL-22]--4/6/2011; Rep Westmoreland, Lynn A. 
     [R-GA-3]--4/15/2011; Rep Whitfield, Ed [R-KY-1]--5/23/2011; 
     Rep Wilson, Joe [R-SC-2]--1/25/2011; Rep Wittman, Robert J. 
     R-VA-1]--5/31/2011; Rep Young, C.W. Bill [R-FL-10]--1/25/
     2011; Rep Young, Don [R-AK]--3/11/2011.

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, nice try. Let's not be drawn in by this kind 
of gimmick. Vote ``no'' on the gentleman's amendment.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair 
will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on 
the question of passage.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 188, 
noes 235, not voting 7, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 551]

                               AYES--188

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barber
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bonamici
     Boren
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Duncan (TN)
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Israel
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schmidt
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--235

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Himes
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paul
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns

[[Page H5681]]


     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Akin
     Black
     Cardoza
     Cohen
     Fleischmann
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)

                              {time}  1612

  Messrs. BOREN and SHULER and Ms. HAHN changed their vote from ``no'' 
to ``aye.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 232, 
noes 189, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 552]

                               AYES--232

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NOES--189

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barber
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bonamici
     Boren
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gibson
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Israel
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paul
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Ross (AR)
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Akin
     Black
     Blumenauer
     Campbell
     Cardoza
     Cohen
     Fleischmann
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes 
remaining.

                              {time}  1620

  Mr. BUTTERFIELD changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mrs. BLACK. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 552 for final passage of 
H.R. 6169, I am not recorded because I was unavoidably detained. Had I 
been present, I would have voted ``aye.''
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 10 of House Resolution 
747, H.R. 6169 is laid on the table.

                          ____________________