Providing for Consideration of H.R. 6275, Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008
Floor Speech
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Vermont, for not only yielding me this time to discuss the proposed rule for consideration of the alternative minimum tax, but I want to thank him for his friendship in the committee and the professional nature of the way he conducts himself.
Mr. Speaker, today we are going to debate a tax increase on America. No surprise. The American public has gotten used to this. The tax-and-spend Democrat Congress, the new Congress, the new way to run Washington, D.C. has resulted in not only economic failures here in this country the last 18 months but also higher gas prices, the inability that we have to control the flow in energy that comes into this country and has made us now more than ever to where we have to go get our energy overseas, send our money overseas, and not be able to be energy sufficient here in this country.
But now I find out that the excuse for raising taxes on Americans today is that there's a loophole in the tax law--a loophole--and unintended consequences. The bottom line is that it's the tax law, it was therefore reasoned, and the opportunity for us to grow our economy and build jobs and have job creation and to protect the American consumer is why these were parts of the tax law.
It is not unintended consequences, it is not a loophole, it is the law, the tax law of the United States that I am very proud of, and I am disappointed to see that the Congress today will be debating new tax increases on the American people.
So I rise in strong opposition to this closed rule, yet another closed rule by this new majority that we have here, and to the underlying legislation, which takes the baffling approach, once again, of raising taxes on Americans and on the American economy during a downturn of our economy, rather than taking a way to prevent a tax increase on hardworking and unsuspecting middle class taxpayers, which sets the stage for even more job-killing tax increases in the very near future just to prevent the current low-tax policies that Republicans in Congress worked so hard to pass and to support on behalf of American taxpayers.
I think it's interesting, Mr. Speaker, that when Republicans bring tax bills to the floor of the House of Representatives, we are able to tout how many jobs our tax bill will create, how many jobs the economy will create. I have never, ever heard of a Democrat tax-and-spend bill that then touts how many jobs will be created, because they don't. They kill jobs. They kill jobs in America every time we do what we are doing today with the new Democrat majority to raise taxes on America.
Under the Democrats' flawed policy of pay-as-you-go logic used to defend this legislation, in just 2 short years--when a number of critically important tax policies like the $1,000 Republican tax credit and the Republican lower tax rate on income and capital gains and dividends are set to expire, that created job growth--the new Democrat majority pay-as-you-go rules will require more than $3.5 trillion in tax increases, and that is what they stand for today, increasing taxes on the American people, killing jobs all across the country, and yet they want to blame President Bush. Just incredible.
It makes no sense to me why we are hamstringing our economy and saddling working families with higher taxes when revenues aren't the problem. Washington is already collecting more taxes as a percentage of GDP than the historical average over the last 40 years.
We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. What Washington really has is a spending problem that this new Democrat majority can't fix and can't solve because they are all about taxing and spending. Federal spending is higher by nearly $530 billion more than the Congressional Budget Office's 2000 projection for the year 2007. So going back to 2000, and they projected how much money we would need to spend, we are $530 billion more this year, thanks to a new Democrat majority, making increased spending the main reason why 99 percent of our Nation's worsened budget picture over the last 7 years is occurring. We have got a downturn in the economy because we are raising taxes and spending to support a bloated government.
Mr. Speaker, the American people have known for a long time that Republican Members of Congress support an economically responsible solution to solving the alternative minimum tax problem. Just contrast this year's Republican budget proposal, which prevented expansion of the AMT for the next 3 years and achieved full repeal in 2013, with the Democrat budget. If you compare them, the Democrat budget, which jammed a $70 billion tax increase into our economy to pay for simply a temporary 1-year fix, and did nothing about AMT for the next 5 years after that. A 1-year fix, raising taxes $70 billion, rather than fixing the problem.
Mr. Speaker, taxpayers are already aware that last month, House Republicans unanimously supported a clean AMT patch without tax increases to prevent more than 25 million families--including 21 million families who didn't owe AMT in 2007--from paying an additional $61.5 billion that's going to come due this next April, just like we did in December of last year and just like we will continue to do if Republicans once again become the majority party in Congress.
What taxpayers may not realize is that House Democrats used to be for the same thing--at least that was until they won the majority. And with it came the opportunity to salivate, to get all this money, and to couple what used to be a bipartisan, commonsense tax prevention policy with massive, unnecessary tax hikes that burden this country, and for 18 months we have seen the promise of higher taxes, and it's killing our economy. As recently as last December, the House passed a ``clean'' AMT patch, without crippling the economy with tax increases, by an overwhelming majority of 352-64.
The only thing worse than House Democrats' tax-and-spend flip-flops on this issue is the fact that their comrades in the other body--including Finance Chairman MAX BAUCUS--have already recognized the reality that at the end of this day, the AMT patch will not be paid for, and that this cynical exercise meant to provide political cover is in fact dead-on-arrival the moment it passes this House. But let it be said: It's another opportunity for the new Democrat majority to show how much they want tax increases to ruin our economy.
The cost of this political gamesmanship is really quite simple: the exposure of millions of middle class taxpayers to an average tax increase of $2,400, and the increased likelihood of a repeat of last year's mismanaged process in which the late enactment of the patch prevented the IRS from processing AMT-affected returns until about 4 weeks into the filing season. It was a disaster this year as a result of the new majority.
What is worse, Mr. Speaker, is how the Democrat Congress proposed to raise the additional $61 billion of additional taxes just to prevent this tax increase. That's right. We are going to have a tax increase on the tax increase on middle class families who were never intended to pay this.
First, and rather unsurprisingly, this Democrat ``Drill-Nothing'' Congress helps repeal a tax deduction that helps American companies to produce energy for American consumers, but they are going to take that advantage away from consumers. It will only hurt energy exploration in this country, and now what we are going to see is that the American consumer will pay more at the pump.
While this proposal is laughable at best for everyone tuning in on C-SPAN across America today, it is about par for the course for the Democrat Party that also thinks that suing OPEC, not increasing the supply of American energy, will help bring down prices for consumers.
Second, this bill increases taxes on entrepreneurs that create jobs and improve failing companies, and raises the long-term capital gains rate on them from 15 to 35 percent, or even higher. So the people that are the ``goose that are laying the golden egg'' are once again slaughtered by this new Democrat proposal.
Once again, I know that most people around this country watching this debate understand that raising taxes on job creators reduces jobs and hurts our economy. But don't worry. You can blame President Bush for that, for the actions of this Congress.
Unfortunately, this proposal is not a surprise, coming from a Democrat Congress that believes when real estate and credit markets are at their weakest, that is the optimal time to raise taxes and send our economy over the edge.
Finally, the bill goes back on America's word by increasing taxes on transactions with treaty countries by mandating a new reporting requirement on private companies so that the IRS can know directly how much is being paid to merchants every year, including the Social Security or tax identification numbers associated with those transactions.
Mr. Speaker, I have got to hand it to the new Democrat majority. Every single week, they find out a new way to assault the taxpayer, every single week they find a way to raise taxes, to increase spending, and more rules and regulations. They did it again this week. Congratulations to the new Democrat majority.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this tax increase, and I will tell you that I will continue to stand up on the side of taxpayers and middle class Americans who say enough is enough.
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