Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I am a member of the majority.
When the majority brings a bill to the floor, you normally start off with ``yes'' and hope to stay there. In this case, I started off with ``likely'' and didn't arrive at a ``yes.'' So, reluctantly, I am going to vote ``no'' on this bill.
I am not going to vote ``no'' because of what it seeks to do. I am certainly not going to vote ``no'' knowing that we need to fund our troops in the field in a war that has dragged on for 15 years and now has re-ignited.
But I am going to vote ``no'' because of how this bill is paid for. I have done as much as I can as long as I can to tolerate how we ``score'' things.
At the risk of being wrong, I will remind people that I am only as good as the information that my staff has given me. But according to CBO, $2.5 billion worth of this pay-for comes from premium payments that are accelerated, meaning we are robbing from the future to pay for today.
Another one comes from extended pension smoothing, $9 billion. This is a time-shifting on money over 10 years. Again, we are robbing from the future to pay for this year.
Another one, $4 billion, comes from Social Security disability. But it is a double count. It has already been scored elsewhere previously.
And $5 billion comes from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will be the third time this year that we have brought a bill saying we are going to sell this oil at its low price.
Ultimately, the real question is: Aren't we selling off an asset today to pay for current expenses?
$3.5 billion will come from FCC bandwidth sales. I can live with that. I'm not thrilled with it. I think we should make more bandwidth available to the public so that, in fact, space we can all use without paying would be available.
But here is the one that really broke me: Extending the Medicare sequester rate saves $14 billion, but the one-time saving is based on an occurrence in the year 2025.
So, in closing, Madam Speaker, I will not sell our future for this year's budget; and, therefore, I recommend a ``no'' because of the pay-fors on this budget.
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