    [Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 10, 2018)]
    [House]
    [Pages H85-H86]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                             TAX BILL RAMIFICATIONS

      The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
    Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
      Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, one of the phrases one often hears is,
    ``I hate to say I told you so.'' And it is delivered with a feigned
    sincerity, but usually people actually like to say, ``I told you so.''
      I must confess that I have some of those feelings myself, as
    repeatedly during the few hours the Ways and Means Committee met,
    rushing through the massive tax cut, the largest transfer of wealth in
    our Nation's history, which will be paid for on the backs of our
    children and grandchildren with increased debt and benefiting people
    who in the main don't need it--I said at the time that each week after
    this bill passed, if it did, we would have a series of embarrassing
    stories about mistakes and oversight and special interest provisions
    that were stuck into it.
      Well, actually, the fact is that that was somewhat understated
    because we are seeing, literally, every day people understand what was
    tucked in the bill: mistakes, oversight, and special interest
    provisions.
      For example, there is a provision in the bill that was, we were told,
    designed to help small craft brewers. That is important to me and the
    people I represent, and there is broad support for minor provisions
    that would be able to help them by reducing their tax liability. But
    the provision that ended up in the final bill has massive opportunities
    to benefit large producers--a little bit for small craft brewers, but
    for large, international distillers, an opportunity to reconfigure how
    they do business to take advantage of multiple opportunities for that
    tax break.
      There was an article yesterday talking about how the tax rate for
    American companies that manufacture overseas, the tax on that activity
    will be half as much as if they were manufacturing in the United
    States, providing an incentive to offshore jobs at a time when most of
    us would like to make sure that it is, here at home, at least, a level
    playing field, not to disadvantage people manufacturing here at home.
      And, of course, there is another story in today's Wall Street
    Journal, ``Tax Law's Effect Fuels Farm Outcry,'' because there was a
    provision inserted in the bill that would give farmers a more lucrative
    deduction when they sell agricultural products directly to farm
    cooperatives. There is a story about one gentleman in there who felt
    that this could put him out of business. It is going to sting large
    agribusinesses like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. The new
    provision could reshape parts of the agriculture economy and sharply
    reduce many farmers' taxes as well as scrambling these individual
    businesses.
      John Power, a North Dakota accountant who was the accountant for the
    small grain operator who is going to be hammered, said: ``It is kind of
    hard to imagine they intended to make farming tax free. Fixing it
    becomes difficult because they don't think it's something that can be
    fixed with regulation.''
      There are a variety of these provisions that are a result of not
    following what we call ``regular order,'' without having hearings on
    the provision, of allowing lobbyists and staff to be able to draft the
    bill on the fly without having members of the committee--not just
    Democrats, but Republicans--fully know what was in it. That is
    legislative malpractice. It is one of the reasons why, despite giving
    over $3 trillion of tax cuts, the bill remains unpopular.
      Americans are nervous about increasing our national debt over $2
    trillion, and they know that the benefits for average citizens are
    going to go away in a few years and some are actually going to see tax
    increases, but the benefits for the top 1 percent and the largest
    corporations are permanent.
      People know that it is not fair, that it is unnecessary, and that it
    is going to have more and more problems here, not just in States like
    mine where citizens are no longer going to be able to fully deduct
    their State and local taxes, property taxes, resulting in significant
    inequity, in scrambling property values, not just in Oregon, but it is
    across the country where people are going to be facing these problems.

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