Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4, Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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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.
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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 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.
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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 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.
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