[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3069-3077]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 4, COMPREHENSIVE 1099 TAXPAYER 
 PROTECTION AND REPAYMENT OF EXCHANGE SUBSIDY OVERPAYMENTS ACT OF 2011

  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the 
Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 129 and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 129

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 4) 
     to repeal the expansion of information reporting requirements 
     for payments of $600 or more to corporations, and for other 
     purposes. All points of order against consideration of the 
     bill are waived. An amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     consisting of the text of the amendment recommended by the 
     Committee on Ways and Means now printed in H.R. 705 shall be 
     considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) two hours and 
     30 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways 
     and Means; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from South Carolina is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate 
only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their 
remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from South Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 129 
provides for consideration of H.R. 4, the Small Business Paperwork 
Mandate Elimination Act of 2011.
  If you are looking for a prime example of government regulation 
which, first, is an unnecessary intrusion on small businesses, second, 
enlarges government bureaucracy at the expense of taxpayers and 
entrepreneurs, and, finally, creates a mountain of mind-numbing 
paperwork which has the net effect of killing jobs, then look no 
further.
  Section 9006 of the health reform bill does all of that by requiring 
businesses to report every expense that they incur over $600; not just 
wages to their employees, but even for payments to other businesses and 
for merchandise.
  Imagine, if you will, a small business that picks up a couple of 
dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme on a weekly basis. At the end of the 
year, they must send a 1099 to Krispy Kreme. Think about a small 
business owner, as I have been for the last 14 years, who buys stamps 
from the post office, and now you have to send a 1099 to the U.S. Post 
Office. What about if you buy a printer for your office or blinds for 
your office? Here comes more, another mountain of new paperwork. So now 
you're spending tax time preparing 1099s for Krispy Kreme, Office 
Depot, Walmart, Costco, Starbucks, and the list goes on and on.
  It's one thing for a large corporation with an in-house tax 
department. It's another thing completely for a small business which 
spends an average of $74 an hour--that's $74 an hour--on tax 
compliance, the most expensive paperwork burden that the Federal 
Government imposes on all small businesses.
  Then, to make matters worse, last year the President signed the Small 
Business Jobs Act, which expanded this onerous 1099 requirement to 
anyone who rents out property. How did this happen? Well, after the 
bill has been passed, we are learning more about it. We had a Congress 
that passed a bill through backroom deals shielded from the public view 
without reading them.
  The American people have seen what's in this bill, and they don't 
like it. They don't like it one bit. That's why they sent all of us to 
Congress, to repeal, to defund, and to dismantle the health care 
reform. My Republican colleagues voted to repeal this bill 245-189, 
with a 49-vote greater margin than the original vote to pass it. That 
is also why two Federal judges have already ruled that national health 
care reform is unconstitutional.
  And I am proud to be handling this rule on the House floor. H.R. 4 
will remove an unnecessary burden from small businesses, so that 
instead of creating 1099s for their expenditures, they can create W-4s 
when they hire new employees.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, today the Republicans are breaking a promise that they 
made to the American people, a promise not to raise taxes. The new 
majority came in promising a growth agenda. Instead, under the guise of 
giving administrative relief to small businesses--relief that we all 
agree is necessary and the majority of this body last session voted to 
provide with a different way of paying for it--the Republicans are now 
increasing taxes on middle class Americans and punishing workers.

[[Page 3070]]

  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have also broken their promise to this 
body. The people's House was promised an open legislative process. Over 
and over, the leadership has told the American people they want to 
create an open process, create jobs, and lower taxes. Yet here we are 
debating the second closed rule of the week on a bill that calls out 
for new and better ideas, a bill that in its current form will increase 
taxes and punish employees.
  We all agree that the 1099 reporting provision of the Affordable Care 
Act needs to be fixed. Just last Congress, we brought a bill to the 
floor to do that. H.R. 5982 would have repealed the 1099 requirements. 
But the measure failed because our Republican friends did not believe 
that ending incentives for companies to outsource jobs overseas, which 
is the way we paid for fixing this administrative burden at the time, 
would protect American jobs and wouldn't raise taxes on individuals. 
They didn't believe that that was the correct way to offset the 
legislation. Instead, in this Congress, they are seeking a tax increase 
on middle class families as somehow preferable as a way of paying for 
something we all agree is important rather than ending incentives to 
shift American jobs overseas.
  Now, we won't get into an argument about semantics. There will be 
those who somehow argue that this is not a tax increase. Well, if it 
looks and smells like a tax increase, it is a tax increase. A tax 
increase by any other name would smell as bitter.
  Indeed, under this bill, hundreds of thousands of American families 
will receive an extra bill from the IRS to the tune of $3,000, $5,000, 
particularly middle class families, families earning $80,000 a year and 
$90,000 a year. The heart of what makes up the American middle class 
face the largest tax increases under this bill.

                              {time}  1230

  This bill would raise taxes, harming workers that should be 
protected. As the Joint Committee on Taxation points out, the 
Republican proposal would increase taxes for a family of four by an 
average of $3,000 a year. And, yes, that is a bill from the IRS. That 
is taxes. T-A-X-E-S is what the Republicans are seeking to increase 
under this bill.
  Let me give another real-life example. One of the issues we want to 
correct with regard to the 1099 bill and work with our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle to find a good way to pay for, is that 
currently people who have rental property are going to be classified as 
being in the business of renting property, and being subject to 
additional paperwork under the 1099 provision. So this could be a 
family of four earning maybe $60,000 a year in salary; they earn 
another $20,000, $25,000 from a rental property. They work hard. They 
keep up that property. Maybe it was formerly a family home, or maybe 
they saved up over 10 or 15 years to buy it.
  With the 1099 paperwork problem, we are saying hey, you put a new 
refrigerator for $600 in that rental home, you have to fill out 
additional government paperwork that makes you responsible for taxes on 
that, okay? That's what we want to save people from, Republicans and 
Democrats. We're saying: You know what, we don't want to burden that 
family. You make $60,000 a year, you're getting $20,000 from a rental 
property, we don't want you to jump through hoops to put a new 
refrigerator in your rental property.
  But you know what? To that family, they say we don't want to do that 
extra paperwork, but if it's between that paperwork and paying a $5,000 
bill to the IRS, I'll do the darn paperwork. I'll do the darn 
paperwork.
  Who are we trying to help here? Who are we talking about helping? If 
they don't want the help, if this is actually harmful, who are we 
talking about helping?
  According to Families USA, House Republicans wish to decimate what 
remains of the safe harbor that protects individuals and families from 
substantial tax penalties. The Affordable Care Act provides built-in 
flexibility to consumers and protects them by capping the tax penalty 
if the monthly premium credit received during the year exceeds the 
amount of credit due based on unexpected income or family status.
  So again, how can unexpected or unplanned for income or family status 
change? It could be a bonus, it could be a raise at work, it could be a 
divorce, or it could be a marriage. There are a number of ways these 
things change and put people in a higher category where the IRS will be 
sending them, because of this bill, $3,000 to pay, $5,000 to pay. 
That's what American families are going to be on the line for.
  These provisions of the Affordable Care Act recognize that forcing 
middle income individuals to repay the entire amount would dampen their 
willingness to sign up for insurance in the first place. It would 
penalize them if they found a new job, or penalize them if they 
received a raise. This process of reconciling the actual income versus 
tax credits is often called a true up.
  Now, last December, as part our bill to prevent the SGR payment cuts 
from going into effect, we changed the true-up policy for the better. 
We converted it to a graduated income approach to protect those with 
middle income levels and enable us to ease away from the cliff that 
people face when they reach the 400 percent level.
  Now, let's talk briefly about health care reform. I know there is a 
lot in health care reform that my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle don't agree with, but I like to think there is some they do agree 
with as well.
  One of the most important provisions of health care reform from a 
market perspective is the incentive it gave middle class families to 
work and get off of government health care. Let me explain.
  Before this House and the country took up health care reform, there 
were many families that were right at the cutoff point for Medicaid, 
okay. Let's say they are earning $10 an hour. If they got a raise to 
$10.50 an hour, they might lose thousands of dollars in government 
benefits. And I've met constituents who've said this. They've said: 
Look, I'm earning $9.50 an hour. I can't even take a raise at my job. I 
can't work another 20 hours a week at a side job because I actually 
lose money. So the government was telling them they couldn't work 
harder. The government was telling them we're going to trap you into a 
cycle of dependency. The government was telling them if you earn any 
more money, we're cutting off your health care.
  We replace that in the Affordable Care Act with something that I like 
to think has support from both sides of the aisles, and that is a 
sliding scale of reductions. So there is an actual incentive to get off 
of government health care, to get off of Medicaid, to better yourself 
and take that 50 cent raise, realizing you may not keep all 50 cents, 
you might lose a little bit. But, you know what, we're going to let you 
keep 30 cents of that, and 20 cents will go to decreasing your 
government benefits. And eventually you've weaned yourself off of 
government aid entirely and you're able to support health care. That is 
another misconception. It's not that people want to receive Medicaid or 
government health care; what they want is to be able to afford, to earn 
enough money to afford to have private insurance. That's the goal here. 
The Affordable Care Act helps them get there.
  This would strip that provision back and provide a disincentive for 
families making $75,000, $80,000 a year, depending on the size of the 
family, to work harder.
  America was built on a strong work ethic. We all, on both sides of 
the aisle, have a strong awareness of the market-based system we live 
in and the power of incentives. We should provide an incentive for 
middle class families to earn more, not earn less. Why do we penalize 
those who succeed? Why are the Republicans seeking to raise taxes on 
middle class families who are seeking to do a little bit better? We 
should encourage them to get that second home and make some rental 
income, to work another 10- or 20-hour-a-week job so they can send 
their kids to a good college. That's what this body should be 
discussing. Yet instead, we're about to present to the middle class in 
this

[[Page 3071]]

country an enormous tax hike. Now to fund something we all agree, and 
that is why if this was an open process, as Republican leadership has 
repeatedly promised, we could come together around better ways to pay 
for it. Okay, you didn't like the way the Democrats proposed paying for 
it last year. And you know what, by the way, a lot of those pay-fors 
wound up in statute anyway paying for other bills, but let's work 
together to do that. Consistent with the cut-go proposal, let's make 
cuts in government expenditures somewhere to pay for closing this 1099 
loophole. Let's not put it on the backs of middle class families 
earning $80,000, $90,000 a year, those who are least able to pay for a 
tax increase.
  You know, I was proud to support the continuation for 2 years of the 
Bush tax cuts at the end of last year, and let me tell you why. I think 
it would be unthinkable to raise taxes on families making under 
$250,000 a year. Now, I supported letting them expire for families 
making over $250,000 a year. You don't take pleasure in that, but it 
was because I felt we needed to do that to close the deficit. We 
couldn't leave that revenue on the table. But I felt it was so 
important to make sure that families making $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 
a year didn't get a tax increase that I was willing to support no tax 
increase for millionaires as well as part of the package.
  And yet here we are in the third month of the Republican Congress 
with an enormous tax increase on those Americans who can least afford 
it, the very families who are making $80,000, $90,000 a year who form 
the backbone of the American middle class, facing a $3,000, $4,000, 
$5,000 tax increase because of the way the Republican majority has 
chosen to pay for what we all agree is a worthy cause: reducing 
paperwork for small businesses and home renters.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Nugent).
  Mr. NUGENT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 129 and the 
underlying legislation, H.R. 4.
  Last year's health care law was rammed through without the 
opportunity for the American public to let their voices be heard. At 
the time, then-Speaker Pelosi said Congress had to pass the bill to 
know what is in it. Now we know. Even Democrats are realizing how many 
problems there are in this bill.
  One such example is the 1099 reporting requirement. This requirement 
forces businesses to report nearly all expenses exceeding $600 to the 
IRS. This results in a new, onerous burden on small businesses. The 
requirement means 10 to 20 times more paperwork for small businesses. 
The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates the 1099 tax 
compliance will cost small businesses $800 per employee annually.
  Small businesses are the economic backbone, and the 1099 requirement 
is breaking their back. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
will tell you H.R. 4 is a Republican tax increase on middle America. 
That couldn't be further from the truth.
  The offset we are using here today prevents individuals from 
receiving health care subsidies that they aren't entitled to. We are 
preventing people from defrauding the Federal Government. We aren't 
taking money away from people; we are protecting taxpayer dollars by 
ensuring they're being used the way they're meant to be used.
  Moreover, the subsidies we're talking about today don't even take 
place until 2014, which gives taxpayers ample time to know the facts. 
The 1099 requirement is affecting small businesses today. Anybody who 
calls this rule an attack on the middle class isn't telling you the 
truth, Mr. Speaker.
  We are here today because the Republican majority is committed to 
jobs and protecting and creating jobs for the American people.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 
seconds.
  Mr. NUGENT. The Democrat-passed 1099 reporting requirement is a job 
killer. We want to make sure that small businesses can use their hard-
earned profits to expand their businesses, open new storefronts, and 
bring on new employees, not spend their time reporting to the IRS.
  If we're going to create jobs, we need to create an environment where 
small businesses can succeed. H.R. 4 is an important step in fostering 
that environment. With that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to 
support this rule and support H.R. 4.

                              {time}  1240

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  This is not, as my colleague from Florida indicated, about fraud. The 
law has strong penalties for fraud already.
  Now, there's agreement to close this extra paperwork on the 1099. 
What we are supporting is an open process that would allow the majority 
to work with the minority to find a way to pay for solving this 
increased administrative overhead without raising taxes on American 
families.
  With that, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Florida who just spoke 
said that the Democrats were going to attack this proposal or the pay-
for for this proposal by saying that it's an assault on the middle 
class, and that's exactly what I intend to say.
  Unless I misunderstood my colleague from Florida, he seemed to 
suggest that the health care subsidies, that people who are in this 
$80,000 or $90,000 income bracket was something that they were not 
entitled to; I suppose because he thinks that somehow they're too rich. 
Well, let me tell you, if you have a family of four and you're making 
$80,000 to $90,000 a year or something like that, certainly in my State 
of New Jersey but in a lot of parts of the country, it's very difficult 
for you with a family of four to be able to buy health insurance, to 
pay your premium, without some help. And that's exactly what we're 
talking about when we talk about people who are middle class. People 
who are middle class could be making $25,000 a year, $40,000, $50,000, 
$80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year. It's not easy to be able to afford 
your health premiums if you have a family of four and you're in that 
income bracket.
  I regret what's happening here today, because the bottom line is 
there was bipartisan agreement on the main goal of repealing this 1099 
reporting. Doing away with it is something that the Democrats actually 
put on the House floor and voted on last session. But what we had 
during the 111th Congress is a repeal bill that basically was paid for 
by closing tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas, and we 
weren't able to get that passed because it was on suspension and only 
two Republicans joined with us. It was actually endorsed, the pay-for 
and the bill, by the National Federation of Independent Business, but 
the Republicans wouldn't support it. There's no question here that we 
want to repeal the 1099 reporting requirement, but we don't want to pay 
for it on the backs of the middle class. We should pay for it by 
closing these loopholes for taxes for companies that take jobs overseas 
so that we can create more jobs here at home.
  I just can't believe what the Republicans are saying. They have this 
offset that would essentially eliminate protections for middle class 
families and cost them about $6,000 or more in payments to the IRS. So 
the average middle class family is either going to have to pay more to 
the IRS in order to get some kind of benefit on their premium or just 
decide to go uninsured. The whole point of the Affordable Care Act was 
to try to deal with those middle class families that can't afford 
health insurance. If you're very poor now, you get Medicaid. If you're 
over 65, you get Medicare. But if you're a working person, you can't 
afford your health insurance a lot of times because what happens is you 
have to go and buy it on the individual market because your employer 
simply doesn't provide it. That's these middle class people that we're 
trying to help with the Affordable Care Act, those that need a little

[[Page 3072]]

help so that they can afford their premium. And these are the very ones 
that you're saying, ``No, it's too bad now. We're not going to help 
you.''
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Lungren).
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I appreciate the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we are bringing H.R. 4 to the floor. 
This is a bill that I introduced in its original form last April 26 
when we looked at the health care bill that had passed and saw that 
this, which has absolutely nothing to do with health care, this new 
burden on businesses, this double-edged sword against small business, 
was put in that bill supposedly to pay for part of the health care 
bill.
  Now, we have our Democratic friends talking about the pay-for here. I 
happen to think that we don't even need a pay-for because I think there 
is a game that is played in this place, which is we will put something 
in the health care bill that virtually nobody knows is in there. I bet 
you 99 percent of the Members of the House and the Senate who voted on 
that bill didn't even know this provision was in there. We then have it 
scored as somehow gaining $19 billion for the Federal Government over 
the next 10 years, which I happen to think is made out of whole cloth 
because you have to assume that virtually everybody cheats in order for 
you to come to that conclusion. And then if we say we now want to get 
rid of this unnecessary burden, which, by the way, when I introduced 
this last April, I couldn't get a single Democrat to join me on. I was 
told by Democrats that the leadership had said, Don't get on that bill; 
don't dare do anything like that because that will be the first repeal 
of the health care bill. After a while I finally got some to join me 
and now there are 38 Members, I believe, on the other side that have 
joined so that we now have a total of 278 Members, I believe, that have 
cosponsored my bill, H.R. 4.
  But the point is, we bring this new obligation in, this new paperwork 
obligation, we claim it's going to gain us $19 billion, and then what's 
the joke on the American people? If we dare repeal it, we're 
responsible for somehow coming up with $19 billion in additional taxes.
  Now I know what the Ways and Means Committee has done. They've added 
this to the bill, a pay-for, and I understand the justification for it. 
But frankly the rules are such that they're gamed against the average 
American citizen. You come up out of whole cloth to create this new 
obligation in your bill, and then once you do and see what the actual 
implication is and small business said this is a job killer, you say, 
``Okay, we'll allow you to bring it to the floor but only if you pay 
for it with new taxes in some way.''
  Well, our side has looked at it and said, instead of that, why not 
say those things that are not to be given to folks under this bill 
ought not to be given to folks under this bill? That is, overpayments 
ought not to be allowed. As Secretary Sebelius said when your side 
brought up a very similar provision last year, she said, basically, 
this is a way to recapture funds.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 
minute.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. And so I would just like to get 
away from the confusion that is being displayed on the floor today and 
just get back to the essence of this bill. It is to repeal a provision 
that was put in the health care bill that virtually no one knew about, 
that is a job killer, that is recognized as being a job killer, that 
the other side with the majority could have at any time last year 
gotten rid of, which finally the President recognized in his State of 
the Union address is an excess in this health care bill, and let's not 
make it a political football now and say, well, now it's a tax, or now 
it's this, or now it's that. Frankly it is an attempt to try and repeal 
a section of the health care bill that never should have been there in 
the first place, that has erroneous premises on which it was developed, 
a suggestion that somehow most Americans involved in business cheat. 
That's the only way you can justify $19 billion coming back to the 
Federal Treasury. If you believe that the average American businessman 
and businesswoman, particularly small businessmen and small 
businesswomen, are cheaters, I never have accepted that. I won't accept 
that today. And, frankly, we ought not to allow this kind of debate to 
stop the repeal of this provision of the health care bill.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield myself a minute to respond to my good friend, the 
gentleman from California.
  I agree with much of what you said, particularly when you said we 
don't need a pay-for. I agree with you that to a certain extent the 
gains are illusory. Yes, they're used as a pay-for; yes, there's a 
shell game; yes, on paper it looks like so much money. There's times 
that you and I might both disagree with the CBO, for instance, and this 
might very well be one of those. But the answer, and I hope my friend 
from California agrees, is not instead of doing no pay-for or perhaps 
allowing an amendment under this rule that would allow us to eliminate 
the pay-for, the answer is not to raise taxes on the middle class.
  With that, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule, because hidden 
deep in this bill is language that indeed will increase income taxes on 
middle class American families by thousands of dollars a year.

                              {time}  1250

  My Republican colleagues claim the bill is not a tax increase on the 
middle class. They argue that Grover Norquist says it's not a tax 
increase. They say Democrats have, and I quote, ``decided to dance the 
Washington two-step,'' claiming this bill contains a new income tax on 
working families.
  In hearing all that, I have one simple question:
  If the Republican plan is not that of a massive, new income tax 
increase, then why did the Republican majority refuse to allow a vote 
on the amendment which I offered?
  My amendment simply said that no section of this bill would take 
effect if it raised taxes on any American family of four earning less 
than $110,250 a year. That's all it said. It just makes it clear you 
can't raise taxes on the middle class. That's all it said. It is a 
straightforward and simple amendment. If the Republicans actually 
believed their own rhetoric of cutting taxes, they would have accepted 
my amendment and allowed a vote on that amendment on the floor.
  We took Joe Crowley's amendment and accepted it because we believe 
this bill will not raise taxes on the middle class.
  That's what my colleagues could have said.
  The Republicans refuse to allow a vote on my amendment. They refuse 
to debate it. They refuse to even discuss it. Why? Because they know 
their bill raises taxes on the middle class by thousands of dollars. 
It's not just me saying it. The Committee on Joint Tax states that this 
bill will raise $25 billion in new revenue, which is shorthand for 
taxes. It doesn't come out of the sky. You just can't take that $25 
billion out of the air. Somebody has to pay that, and that entity is 
the middle class of our country.
  Even Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform has written, and I 
quote, ``Americans for Tax Reform has always followed the Committee on 
Joint Tax's methodology.''
  He follows the Joint Tax methodology. So, if Joint Tax says it's a 
tax, Grover Norquist has to agree it is a tax. The best example, 
though, is a real-life example on how this bill will raise taxes on 
middle class families. By the ``middle class,'' I mean families with 
children, earning no more than $110,250 a year, not the millionaires 
the Republicans were trying to protect when they held these same 
taxpayers hostage in December while demanding tax cuts for the richest 
1 percent of Americans, those earning over $1 million a year.

[[Page 3073]]

  Here is how this bill will raise taxes on middle class families:
  If you're a family of four, earning $88,000 a year, which is 
approximately 398 percent of the Federal poverty line, the Democratic 
health care law caps the amount of health care premiums you will be 
forced to pay annually at no more than 9.5 percent of one's income. In 
this example, that is $8,360 a year on a typical family policy valued 
at $13,000.
  So the family receiving private health care insurance would pay 
$8,360 in annual premiums, and the Federal Government would provide a 
tax credit valued at $4,640, with these funds going directly to the 
insurance carrier, from Treasury to the insurance carrier. The money 
does not go to the family. The family doesn't touch it. The husband and 
wife, they don't touch that money. It goes right to the Treasury.
  If this family were to get a $250 bonus at the end of the year, say 
in December, and if the boss asks the husband or the wife or whoever 
the bread earner in the family is--maybe it's both--to come in and he 
says, ``You know what? You're doing such a great job that we think you 
have management potential, and we want to give you a bonus''--and 
you're like thinking ``a bonus''--``We're going to give you a $250 
bonus. Go out and buy the family a little dinner for the holidays,'' 
that $250 bonus will bounce up that family to 401 percent of the 
Federal poverty level.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from New 
York.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Under the Republican bill being debated now, this family 
would be required to refund the government the entire $4,640. Talk 
about making work pay. Talk about getting a bonus for doing hard work 
and making work pay: Oh, here's 250 bucks. Please give us 4,640 bucks 
back.
  Let's remember that the $4,640 in tax credits never actually goes to 
the family. The Treasury cuts a check to the insurance companies, so 
the insurance companies are fine. They keep the money. It's the poor 
schlep--the middle class man or woman--who has to pay that money back.
  So in essence, this bill, H.R. 4, is charging families, families who 
play by the rules--not tax cheats, not people who are trying to scam 
the system but those who play by the rules--thousands of dollars in new 
taxes. These are not families getting so-called new taxes. These are 
not families getting so-called ``overpayment checks'' or cash from the 
government. These are honest, hardworking families who are just trying 
to get ahead.
  The adoption of my amendment would have stopped the Republican tax 
increase on middle class families. It would still allow for the repeal 
of the onerous 1099 reporting requirements on owners of small 
businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from New 
York.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Democrats want to enact the repeal of the 1099 reporting 
requirements. We passed a bill in July of 2010 that didn't raise taxes 
on anyone. Instead, it closed loopholes that allowed for the exporting 
of U.S. jobs overseas.
  Guess what happened to that bill? Your side blocked it. The 
Republicans blocked it.
  That wasn't the only time Democrats did this responsibly. Recently, 
the Senate passed a bipartisan, deficit-neutral repeal of the onerous 
1099 business reporting requirements. Let me make it clear: Democrats 
are ready to repeal 1099 reporting requirements, but we will not do it 
on the backs of hardworking middle class Americans.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta).
  Mr. GUINTA. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding 
this time.
  I rise to add my voice to those calling for the repeal of the 1099 
provision.
  H.R. 4, very simply put, Mr. Speaker, is about protecting small 
business owners, job creators in New Hampshire and across our Nation, 
from onerous paperwork burdens. Simple as that. Nothing more. Nothing 
less.
  Currently, this piece of legislation, a component of the health care 
legislation, requires those small business owners to comply with the 
Federal Government every time they spend $600 with an individual vendor 
over the course of a calendar year. I've talked to many small business 
owners in my home State of New Hampshire, who have told me specifically 
how this would hurt their small businesses.
  We should be here to encourage small business owners to innovate, to 
expand. We should make sure that we give them the predictability of 
this House through public policy that will allow them to create jobs. 
The heart of New Hampshire's economy is the small business owner as 80 
percent of our economy is reliant on them.
  I ask that my colleagues join me in repealing the 1099 provision.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. 
Langevin).
  Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I have always looked for opportunities and ways to 
support our Nation's small businesses. We all know that they are the 
real job creators in our country.
  Today, I strongly support repealing the enhanced 1099 tax reporting 
requirement established under the Affordable Care Act. Businesses 
across my home State of Rhode Island and the country have made it 
crystal clear that this is a highly problematic requirement that will 
result in serious logistical and financial burdens if it is not 
addressed before next year's implementation.
  We passed the Affordable Care Act, in part, to ease the burdens of 
health care costs on small businesses, not to replace them with onerous 
tax provisions. This is an opportunity for lawmakers, regardless of 
party affiliation, to come together and fix a problem in the health 
care reform act that will protect businesses of all sizes.
  Now, I was proud to vote for the repeal of this provision last year, 
and was equally disappointed that it did not garner enough votes to 
pass in either the House or the Senate. It is my sincere hope that 
Democrats and Republicans will take this opportunity to set aside their 
differences and agree to repeal this provision in both a fiscally and 
socially responsible way.
  As currently drafted, this repeal would be paid for by raising taxes 
on middle class families, making it harder for them to afford private 
health insurance when the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2014. 
This is unacceptable. Surely, we can find a better way to pay for a 
bill that lessens the tax burden on businesses than by increasing the 
tax burden on middle class and low-income families.

                              {time}  1300

  To that end, I ask my colleagues to support this measure, but to 
consider an alternative way to pay for this bill when the House 
resolves its differences with the Senate. Businesses everywhere are 
counting on us to come through for them, as is the middle class; and we 
can't afford to let them down.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Georgia, my cousin, Mr. Scott.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. I would like to thank the gentleman from 
South Carolina. I'm looking forward to visiting the family at 
Christmas.
  Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of this House and this great 
country, as I traveled to cities like Covington, Warner Robins and 
Tifton, Georgia this past week, the main issue I heard from 
constituents was their growing fear of the size of government's 
regulatory burden on their business and their way of life.
  Now, I find it laughable that today Democrats say that they didn't 
know this 1099 provision was in this bill. The fact is this 1099 
provision was part of a continuous assault by the Democratic Party on 
small businesses across this

[[Page 3074]]

country. Now, eliminating this provision will further reduce the 
government's burden placed on these businesses.
  As a small business owner myself, I know from personal experience 
that passing this resolution will allow employers the time necessary to 
focus on creating jobs rather than dealing with the burden of 
government paperwork.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my fellow colleagues to vote in favor of 
repealing this overbearing, burdensome, job-killing 1099 provision that 
the Democrats put into that bill. And as Thomas Jefferson once said: 
``When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the 
government fears the people there is liberty.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to liberate our people, our small businesses 
from the burdens of this 1099 provision.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Does section 4 of H.R. 4 violate the rules of the House by 
proposing a tax increase?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman asking about the underlying 
bill or the pending resolution?
  Mr. POLIS. The inquiry is regarding the underlying bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill is not yet pending. In any case, 
the gentleman is asking for an advisory opinion. The Chair will not 
issue such an opinion.
  Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think this is a question of how cleverly--or perhaps 
deviously--the majority party constructed the rules of the House with 
regard to a test as to whether presenting a family earning $80,000 a 
year with a bill for $3,000 from the IRS is a tax increase or not. It 
would take some pretty fancy tap dancing to say that a $3,000 or $4,000 
bill from the IRS to a middle class family is not a tax increase. If it 
looks like a tax increase, if it smells like a tax increase, it is a 
tax increase. And it is contrary to the rules of the House to allow a 
tax increase in this kind of bill.
  Now, I understand there's some fancy dancing and semantics around it, 
but I think the American people and the voters of this country have a 
great deal of common sense with regard to this matter. When you get a 
$3,000 bill from the IRS that you have to pay--and if you don't pay, as 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle liked to point out during 
the debate on the health care bill, you could face going to prison--
that's a tax increase. That's a tax increase.
  What this bill does is tell hundreds of thousands of middle class 
families, particularly right on that cusp--we talk about this 400 
percent of poverty rate, again, that's an arbitrary level, but it's a 
real level for families; it's X dollars. Now it depends on the size of 
the family and it depends on the State, but we're talking $80,000, 
$90,000 a year, right in that range. You earn, as my friend from New 
York pointed out, 250 bucks more, the IRS sends you a bill, $3,000, 
$4,000, $5,000; and if you don't pay it, you face going to prison.
  I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. I thank the gentleman.
  I was attempting to ask the gentleman from Georgia to yield so I 
could ask him a question: What part of what I said about the family of 
four earning $88,000 and getting a bonus of $250, and their exposure 
then to $4,460 in taxes was untrue? He was on a diatribe of his talking 
points about small businesses.
  We understand small businesses, the burden that was placed there. We 
are trying to remove that from them, but not to place it on the backs 
of the middle class. I understand he wanted to remove the burden from 
small business, but to place it on the backs of the middle class, that 
was the question I've asked.
  And by the way, I haven't heard one colleague from the other side of 
the aisle refute what I said about that family of four. Not one person 
has stood up and said, you're wrong, Mr. Crowley. That will not take 
place; that potential will not take place if this bill passes. The 
silence is deafening from the other side. They know it's a tax increase 
on the middle class, Mr. Polis.
  Mr. POLIS. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I thank my colleague from South Carolina 
for yielding.
  This is great. You know, it's very interesting to listen to this 
concern. When I was actually out on the campaign trail, I talked to a 
lot of small business owners. These small business owners were fired 
up. This is exactly what they're saying is wrong with Washington--more 
and more government regulation, more and more paperwork--and this is 
exactly what we have to clean up now after 4 years of what we've been 
dealing with.
  Mr. Speaker, as a new Member I was not in the body when the previous 
Democrat majority passed this job-destroying regulation, taxes on every 
sector of our economy. But as I did go around, I heard from businesses 
like Mussman's Back Acres in Kankakee County in my district, and I 
heard about the illogical burden that this would place on them, the 
people they would have to hire just to take care of this requirement--
one of the most illogical requirements I can say of the health care 
bill. It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.
  The 1099 requirement impacts small businesses disproportionately by 
requiring them to file and collect 1099 tax forms for any business 
transaction--any one--over $600 or more per year, these new 
requirements at a time when businesses can't afford it.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Actually, if you would allow me to keep 
speaking, I would appreciate that.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation to strip the 1099 
requirement on business. This body will continue to remove the undue 
burden on small businesses, the undue burden on society in general that 
was placed out of this body for the last 4 years.
  It is high time that the Republican majority, and, frankly, with many 
colleagues on the other side that have said it's time to make small 
business work again--it's time to give them the freedom to hire people 
back. It's time to take our country back, get people back to work, rein 
in government spending, and put government where it should be: limited, 
effective and efficient.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 20 seconds to my friend from New York 
(Mr. Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. Once again I asked the gentleman to yield. He refused to 
yield because he has no answer. But I'm correct. The example that I 
gave of a family of four making $88,000 would have a huge tax increase 
because of this bill of $4,460.
  You refused to yield because you know you cannot refute what I'm 
stating here on the floor.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren).
  Mr. HULTGREN. I thank the gentleman.
  Today, I rise in support of H.R. 4. This bill will repeal one of the 
most egregious and anti-jobs, anti-growth provisions contained in last 
year's health care law. This 1099 provision threatens our small 
business owners with an avalanche of paperwork and bureaucracy when 
Congress should instead be doing everything in our power to help 
employers create jobs.
  My constituents have told me loud and clear what this means to them. 
One small business owner in my district told me that just last year 
alone she had more than 500 transactions that she would have had to 
report under this provision, the expense and enormous regulatory burden 
on her and her employees. She called it ridiculous, and I think she is 
understating things.
  I hope Congress will overwhelmingly pass this bill. Let's liberate 
our small business owners from the mountain of paperwork and instead 
let them get back to work, creating jobs and moving our economy 
forward.

[[Page 3075]]


  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Nevada, Dr. Heck.

                              {time}  1310

  Mr. HECK. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, today I also rise in support of H.R. 4, the Small 
Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011. There is no doubt 
this job-killing 1099 hidden tax deserves repeal.
  Nevada's unemployment rate is a Nation-high 14.5 percent. We need to 
create jobs. Eighty percent of Nevada's employees work for small 
businesses. So I asked small business owners what the government should 
do to create jobs.
  Paul Beehler, a small business owner, operates Midas shops throughout 
southern Nevada, buys multiple auto parts from multiple venders, said 
regulations and hidden taxes, like the 1099 hidden tax, keep him from 
hiring new workers.
  You know what? More than 170 small business organizations Nationwide 
agree with Paul and have called for the 1099 hidden tax's repeal.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HECK. No, Mr. Speaker, I shall not yield.
  Washington said it wants to hear job-creating ideas from the business 
community. Here is one that they are screaming about.
  Nevada's families are hurting. American families are hurting. It's 
time to end the job-killing 1099 hidden tax and get Nevadans back to 
work.
  Mr. POLIS. Since the gentleman from New York has been unable to enter 
into a colloquy with the several gentlemen he has sought to, I yield 45 
seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. I appreciate the time from the gentleman from Colorado.
  I've attempted so far again to ask two more gentlemen from the other 
side of the aisle to yield for the purposes of answering a question. 
I've noticed that not a single one as of yet has refuted the example 
that I gave of a family of four earning $88,000 a year getting a $250 
bonus being pumped up over the 401 percentile of the Federal poverty 
level and being exposed to a $4,460 tax.
  I wonder when the gentlemen were out campaigning last year and 
talking to small businesses, did you talk to the middle class about the 
increase in the tax that you would propose when you came to the floor 
of the House? One of the first bills, number four, the fourth bill to 
increase taxes on the middle class. Did you talk to those folks? Did 
you let them know what you were doing to them? I suspect not. You have 
two more speakers to refute what I've said. I'm waiting.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rigell).
  Mr. RIGELL. I thank my friend and the gentleman from South Carolina 
for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, as a business owner for more than 20 years, I know 
firsthand that excessive tax paperwork and compliance matters are 
already major expenses to our small businesses. And the new reporting 
requirements included in the health care law will substantially 
increase those costs. These new requirements impose yet another burden 
on small businesses forcing them to devote more resources to filing 
taxes instead of going out and doing what they do best, which is to 
create jobs.
  You know, in Virginia alone, small businesses make up nearly 98 
percent of all business establishments and account for----
  Mr. CROWLEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RIGELL. No, I will not. The gentleman's question that he is 
persistent with is not germane.
  And account for more than 75 percent of new job growth. And according 
to a study by the Small Business Administration, the cost of complying 
with the Tax Code is 66 percent higher for small businesses as compared 
to large businesses.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia controls his 
time. The gentleman apparently refuses to yield.
  Mr. RIGELL. You know, these reporting requirements are a classic 
example of laws that are passed by people who have no clue what it 
means to go out and create a job and that put precious capital at risk. 
They're created, these laws, by people who have never met with a banker 
and have been told by a banker, ``No, I can't help you.''
  So this bill, H.R. 4, is a step in the right direction to help our 
small business owners. I strongly urge my colleagues to stand with me 
in voting in favor of it.
  Mr. POLIS. After continuing to be amazed that the gentleman from 
Virginia somehow said that a tax increase is not a tax increase and is 
not germane, I am happy to yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from New 
York.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Not germane. That's the answer. A $4,460 tax increase is 
not germane to this debate we're having right now. What is? The $25 
billion doesn't fall out of the sky, out of the air. It has to come 
from somewhere. It is a tax increase on the middle class.
  You know it. We all know it.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Andy Harris.
  Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, as if businesses weren't struggling enough 
with the worst recession since the Great Depression, some Washington 
bureaucrat decided it was a good idea to distract the real job creators 
of our country from doing what they do best--create jobs.
  To the gentleman from New York, that's what this debate is about, 
whether that hypothetical family actually has a job. But whether they 
should be distracted from creating jobs by requiring them to fill out 
mountains of 1099 paperwork. Obviously, the individual who came up with 
this brilliant idea has never had to meet a payroll or deal with the 
day-to-day operations of a small business.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Maryland controls the 
time. The gentleman, by his silence, is not willing to yield.
  Mr. HARRIS. Small business owners all over my district have told me 
that the 1099 provision would hurt their business. Trish Date, who co-
owns Rittenhouse Fuel Services with her husband and Perry Hall, said it 
would be ``an administrative nightmare that would cost me thousands of 
dollars to implement.''
  Last year, she used over 250 individual vendors that will now require 
1099 forms to be printed, copied, mailed, completed, and sent to the 
venders and the IRS. Her small family-owned business simply does not 
have the resources or capacity to handle this onerous regulation.
  Another business owner, Karen Oertel, whose family owns and operates 
the Harris Crab House on the eastern shore, said this 1099 mandate 
would be ``overwhelmingly burdensome on my family business.''
  Mr. Speaker, the 1099 provision is simply a job-destroying regulation 
that wastes precious time, labor, and money. If we want to create jobs 
tomorrow, I urge my colleagues to join me in repealing this awful 
provision now by supporting H.R. 4.
  Mr. POLIS. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from California, the chairman of the Rules 
Committee, Mr. Dreier.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me first say that we all know why we're 
here. There is a bipartisan consensus that the 1099 provision in this 
bill is flawed. It's a mistake. And what it says to me is that the 
health care bill is badly flawed.
  And we all recall the very famous statement that was made, ``We have 
to pass this bill before we can understand what's in it.'' I'm trying 
to remember who said that. Somebody said that. Somebody very prominent 
said that.
  So here we have a measure that is badly flawed. There is bipartisan 
consensus--278 cosponsors of Mr. Lungren's bill. And as Mr. Lungren 
said at

[[Page 3076]]

the outset, Democrats were discouraged from cosponsoring it because by 
cosponsoring the measure they admitted that this outrageous health care 
bill was flawed.
  Well, it got to the point where the President of the United States in 
his news conference right after the election said the bill needs to be 
fixed, the 1099 provision needs to be fixed. So he was acknowledging 
right there that it was flawed. Now, we have this big debate on CutGo 
and how we're paying for this.
  And I would be happy to yield to my friend who has been requesting 
time to ask the question that I know he's going to ask me because I've 
heard it a million times over the last few minutes.
  I yield to my friend from New York (Mr. Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. No. The last time, Mr. Speaker, was for the purpose of a 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. DREIER. I'm yielding to my friend. The Speaker doesn't need to 
yield.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Thank you.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason for my asking for my colleagues to yield was 
to inquire as to the procedures of the House.
  Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I yielded to the 
gentleman to ask me a question.
  Mr. CROWLEY. I will ask that as well.
  What of the example I gave you of a family of four earning $88,000 a 
year who gets a bonus--how many here have heard of a bonus of $250? 
They get a bonus because they worked hard. They get that bonus and they 
are in the 401 percentile of the Federal poverty level. They get a bill 
from the IRS for $4,460. What part of that is not a tax increase?
  Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I will answer my friend 
by saying the following: It is a subsidy that has provided that 
opportunity for that taxpayer. It is a subsidy.
  This is scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DREIER. Could I finish the answer to the question? Because I know 
the gentleman has been interrupting, repeatedly, Members, and I, 
usually, as I ask people to yield, try not to do it more than three 
times. And the gentleman has asked three, four, five times. Some of our 
Members yield when they're doing 1-minute speeches.
  So let me just say that this is scored by the Congressional Budget 
Office, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  1320

  It is scored not as a tax increase; it is scored as a spending cut. 
And I know what the Joint Committee on Taxation has said, but they rely 
on the Congressional Budget Office as they look to this. And so the 
fact is what this comes down to is returning an improper government 
subsidy. And that is not a tax increase.
  So if I could complete my statement, Mr. Speaker, now that I have 
answered the question posed by the gentleman, this bill itself is in 
fact a badly flawed measure, the Obama health care bill. And for that 
reason, it is absolutely essential that we provide the kind of relief 
that every small business in this country deserves. And so we are in a 
position where we have done this in, I believe, the most proper way.
  The gentleman's amendment doesn't comply with the CutGo provision 
that we have. So for that reason, Mr. Speaker, I am going to encourage 
my colleagues to support this rule.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Look, in a climate of a fragile economic recovery, the last thing we 
want do is punish people for getting a raise or earning a few extra 
dollars by working an extra job.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, this bill is intended to help small businesses, and 
that's something we all agree with. I ran a small business before I was 
elected to Congress, and there is great support from both sides of the 
aisle to making sure that we reduce the 1099 reporting requirements for 
small businesses and people who happen to have a rental home.
  But this is a situation of thanks, but no thanks. Thanks for saying I 
don't have to fill out an extra form because I bought a $600 
refrigerator for my rental property, but no thanks because you are 
giving me a $5,000 bill from the IRS.
  This Republican proposal undoes a bipartisan agreement that passed 
overwhelmingly last Congress. Under this Republican pay-for, an average 
middle class family could find out in January that they have to come up 
with $12,000 by April to send to the IRS with their tax return, or they 
could face going to prison. An extra $100 in overtime here and a $500 
holiday bonus there could send a working family towards tax court.
  During the last Congress, the Republican Party complained of being 
left out of the process; and while we didn't always have an open rule, 
every major piece of legislation came to the floor under a structured 
rule. Members of both parties come to the Rules Committee and have 
their amendments vetted. Now, why aren't we through this rule offering 
the good idea that the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. 
Lungren) offered? He said why don't we remove the pay-for from this 
bill and simply disagree with CBO and see if we can pass it on that 
ground? Why are we not allowing the amendment from my friend from New 
York, who offered an amendment that would repeal the middle class tax 
increase proposed in this Republican bill? The Crowley amendment would 
protect the middle class and maintain the bipartisan agreement that we 
had last year.
  Mr. Speaker, we all agree that the 1099 provisions in the Affordable 
Care Act need to be addressed. There has been excellent points made in 
that regard from Members from both sides of the aisle, but this is not 
the way to do it, not on the backs of the middle class, not with a tax 
hike during a recession.
  Republicans are proposing a substantial tax hike for the middle 
class. Not only is that bad policy, but it's also a violation of the 
pledge that many of them signed committing to oppose all tax increases. 
A tax increase is a tax increase. When you get a $3,000, or $4,000, or 
$5,000 bill from the IRS that you have to pay the IRS, it's called a 
tax increase. A tax increase. There is nothing else to call it.
  No fancy dancing, no fancy words can change the fact that a bill from 
the IRS is a tax increase. And families making $80,000, $90,000 a year 
will receive substantial tax increases under the Republican version of 
paying for this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an 
amendment to the rule to make in order Mr. Crowley's amendment to the 
bill. That amendment simply says that nothing in the bill will apply if 
it would result in a tax increase on anyone whose income is less than 
500 percent of the Federal poverty line.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the 
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately 
prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Colorado?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. POLIS. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today 
about the cost and about taxes, about tax increases. We must be working 
from very different mathematical systems. They keep saying that we are 
raising taxes, and there is nothing further from the truth than the 
statements I have heard from the left.
  You have consistently posed a question that all of America needs an 
answer to: Is this in fact a tax increase? Well, according to the Joint 
Committee on Taxation, this is in fact a net tax cut of over $20 
billion over the next 10 years, and it will reduce the deficit by $166 
million over the same period of time. Let's also keep in mind that 
these cost savings come from the government recouping money that the 
recipients should not have gotten in the first place.
  That is not a tax increase. Let me say it one more time: that is not 
a tax

[[Page 3077]]

increase. If we were looking for the way to actually get rid of this 
problem, there is a simple way to do that: let's repeal the entire 
health care law. Because the problem that we see today comes in the 
package of the health care law itself. So consistent with reality is 
the fact that the Democrats have put us in this position. So we are 
working in a bipartisan fashion through the 1099 repeal to eliminate 
this problem.
  Finally, we should all bear in mind that while this resolution is a 
closed rule, the opposition was offered an opportunity to submit a 
substitute bill. They declined. We have also expanded debate to 2\1/2\ 
hours.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Polis is as follows:

      An Amendment to H. Res. 129 Offered By Mr. Polis of Colorado

       (1) Strike ``the previous question'' and all that follows 
     and insert the following:
       The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the 
     bill, as amended, and on any amendment thereto to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) two hours and 
     30 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways 
     and Means; (2) the amendment printed in section 2, if offered 
     by Representative Crowley of New York or his designee, which 
     shall be in order without intervention of any point of order, 
     shall be considered as read, and shall be separately 
     debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by 
     the proponent and an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit 
     with or without instructions.
       (2) At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 2. The amendment referred to in the first section of 
     this resolution is as follows:
       At the end of the bill, insert the following:

     SEC. __PROHIBITION OF TAX INCREASE ON AMERICA'S MIDDLE CLASS.

       Any amendment made by this Act shall not apply to any 
     taxable year beginning during any calendar year if such 
     application of such amendment would result in an increase in 
     the tax imposed by chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 for any taxpayer whose household income is less than 500 
     percent of the poverty line for the size of the family 
     involved for a taxable year of the taxpayer beginning in such 
     calendar year (compared to the tax which would be imposed 
     under such chapter for such taxable year determined without 
     regard to such amendment).
                                  ____

       (The information contained herein was provided by the 
     Republican Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 
     110th and 111th Congresses.)

        The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an 
     alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be 
     debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican 
     majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is 
     simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on 
     adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive 
     legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is 
     not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican 
     Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United 
     States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). 
     Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question 
     vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not 
     possible to amend the rule because the majority Member 
     controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of 
     offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by 
     voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the 
     motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the 
     time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering 
     the previous question. That Member, because he then controls 
     the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for 
     the purpose of amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Republican 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield back the balance of my time, and 
I move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________