Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROSKAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in his opening remarks, the chairman said that there was no excuse to vote ``no'' on this bill. Well, I want us to revisit that assertion because I think there might be. I think the excuse might be when the job creators themselves, Mr. Speaker, say that we need to be watchful and wary and oppose this.

When the job creators use words like, this will jeopardize the jobs of American manufacturing employees, we have an excuse to vote ``no.'' Or when they say this will stifle our fragile economy, we have an excuse to vote ``no'' or that these tax increases are Draconian, or it will hinder job creation or decrease the competitiveness of American businesses, or deter economic growth, or harm our worldwide American economic competitiveness, all excuses to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the committee said that we had seen these ideas before and there is no reason to vote against them because we've seen them before. And that's true. We've seen them before. We've had hearing after hearing after hearing in the Ways and Means Committee on substantive sideshows, comparatively, that don't address the fundamental question of the difficulty of the American economy.

On Monday morning of this week, Mr. Speaker, I hosted a job fair in Addison, Illinois, and in 4 hours' period of time 2,000 of my constituents walked through those double doors looking for work. They are underserved by this Congress, they are underserved by a tax code that we are 7 months into that is completely ambiguous.

I have business leaders in my district, Mr. Speaker, who have said we're not going to put money into this economy, Congressman, because we don't know what the ground rules are. We don't know what the ground rules are that are in the tax code, we don't know what the ground rules are on all the health care rules that are going to be promulgated.

Mr. Speaker they say they don't know the ground rules on cap-and-trade, where the EPA is doing an end run around this Congress, and they certainly don't know the ground rules as it relates to a whole host of other issues that are pending before this Congress.

Uncertainty is as bad as bad news comes. And what we've got to do is make sure we're not throttling worldwide American companies. And this bill will have an adverse impact disproportionately on American companies, Mr. Speaker, American companies that are trying to compete in the worldwide marketplace.

There are plenty of excuses to vote ``no.'' There are plenty of excuses to turn to certainty and not create an albatross on companies that we need to make sure thrive, and are dynamic, and create jobs in our economy. We should vote against this bill.

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