Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I would like to say a few words about the next vote, which is the Cantor amendment.

The Cantor amendment, just to review, would give a 20-percent deduction to all businesses that employ fewer than 500 people. The 20-percent deduction is calculated on U.S. source business income and is limited to 50 percent of the W-2 wages paid. In other words, the business must be paying at least twice the amount of the deduction in wages. In addition, taxpayers cannot get both this deduction and the 90-percent manufacturing deduction; the main point being this Cantor bill is a gross giveaway. It gives businesses a 20-percent deduction for simply earning income. They do not have to do anything, just earn income and get a 20-percent deduction.

The amendment allows businesses to avoid paying taxes on about one-fifth of their profits as long as they employ fewer than 500 people. That is virtually 99 percent of all American companies. Worse still, it provides a temporary reduced tax rate. This would incentivize businesses to defer making investments, hiring new employees or increasing wages in order to increase profits. That is because the larger the profits, the larger the tax deduction under this bill.

Rather than creating jobs or investing in business, the Cantor bill incentivizes the opposite. It incentivizes businesses to sit and wait rather than to invest in people or equipment. It does not make any sense to spend $46 billion for only 1 year of the provision, as proposed in this bill.

This is a giveaway, frankly, to almost all companies--99.6 percent of the companies in the United States--to hedge funds, to partnerships, and private equity firms. Almost all employ fewer than 500 employees. It is absolutely the wrong policy for this Nation to adopt.

I move to table the amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source