Empowering Employees Through Stock Ownership Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. ESHOO. I thank the gentleman from New York, my good friend, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant opposition not to the legislation-- because I am a cosponsor of it and I think it is a very good bill and I think it is an important bill--Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act.

The underlying policy of this bill--it is bipartisan, as has been stated--is to allow employees of privately owned companies to be able to defer taxes owed on exercised stock options for up to 7 years.

I think that there is unanimity on this. I know something about stock options. I have represented Silicon Valley for 24 years. I led the House in a battle many, many years ago on stock options. And I won that, by the way. So I know how stock options work, and I think that it is very important for nonpublic entities--the startups, first of all-- to be able to attract people. When they attract these talented employees, the option of stock options with a deferred tax status would be very, very important. It is a magnet.

We always want new businesses to be born. We want them to grow. We want them to go public. We want them to employ more people. That is the way our economy works. I think that it is a very, very important policy to support. But I also think that--as we recognize the responsibility to take a step to help to expand our economy, I also think it is responsible to think about how we conduct our finances. I wish I had a dime or a nickel for every time someone has come to the floor, especially from the other side, pounding their chest about the national debt.

So here we have a combination of good policy and irresponsible fiscal policy.

Now, Mr. Crowley and I went to--I couldn't make it, but it was our amendment at the Rules Committee to pay for this. The Joint Committee on Taxation says it is going to cost over $1 billion over 10 years.

Now, when first responders who got sick after the dollars were expended and we wanted them covered because they were, essentially, dying, they were over at the Energy and Commerce Committee, the majority said we are not doing this bill unless it is paid for. That was a national emergency, but you couldn't find the time or the way to take care of that.

When are we going to stop charging things to the national debt? Why do you think it is all right to do it this way? I really wonder if you want bipartisan support.

The American people want bipartisanship. They want it done responsibly. But they also want us--don't your constituents ask you how you are going to bring the debt down? Come on. This is like political cross-dressing here.

Why wouldn't the Rules Committee say: You know what? These Members are right, and they are offering a very sensible way to pay for this bill.

We gave you the pathway for it. We give you the answer for it. We say we will support the policy. We want it paid for. Why do you turn that down?

So I think it is sad, I really do. And all of this happy talk that comes to the floor about innovation, and we know and we are doing and whatever, I have represented it for 24 years, and I think one of the values of my constituents is fiscal responsibility as well as good policy, and that is what we offered.

So I urge my colleagues to examine the two prongs, not just the one. This could have been bipartisan and you could have passed it on a voice vote, for heaven's sake, if you had it paid for. And that is why I am on the floor to object to the way this is done, not to the policy, but that it isn't paid for.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source