Jobs for America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill. It will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage.

Mr. Speaker, my straightforward amendment adds three important provisions to the underlying bill that, unfortunately, continue to be ignored by the majority.

First, this amendment declares that any company engaged in the offshoring of American jobs will be ineligible for Federal tax breaks.

I think that every Member of Congress can agree that if a company wants to ship domestic jobs overseas, U.S. taxpayers should not be expected to pick up the tab; yet H.R. 4, as currently written, does nothing to prevent outsourcers from receiving Federal tax breaks. My amendment addresses this egregious omission.

Second, the amendment prevents hardworking American families from subsidizing so-called inverted domestic corporations. It is important to remember that an inverted domestic corporation is a business that used to be incorporated in the United States but whose leaders have chosen to incorporate overseas.

These businesses typically reincorporate on foreign soil in order to avoid domestic taxes by finding tax shelters on unregulated shores of places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Since 2012, these corporate bad actors have been banned from contracting with many agencies of the Federal Government, including the Department of Defense, NASA, and the GSA; still, American taxpayers are subsidizing this corporate tax evasion to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

I commend my colleagues, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), for their leadership in introducing legislation responding to the rapidly increasing frequency of inversions by limiting tax breaks to corporations carrying them out by tightening section 7874 of the IRS Code.

This Congress has the opportunity to make clear that it will not tolerate Tax Code manipulators taking advantage of tax breaks and sticking the middle class with the bill.

Finally, my amendment allows the House to move the economy forward by bringing up for consideration components of the Democratic jump-start agenda: pay equity, an increased minimum wage, student loan refinancing, paid family sick leave, and early childhood education.

These policies have the overwhelming support of the American people and are needed if we are to take seriously the goal of strengthening the middle class and making it possible for families to get their slice of the American Dream. Unsurprisingly, the House has taken no action on addressing any of these pressing issues, but we can today, by passing this amendment.

Rather than take up these important issues, the Republican majority instead prepares to adjourn the House for a 54-day recess. This impending recess is in addition to the 38-day recess from August 1 to September 8 from which the House just returned.

In fact, the U.S. House of Representatives will have been in session for a grand total of 8 days in the 101-day span between August 1 and November 12. The American people sent us here to work and find solutions facing their family each and every day. This is simply unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, more work needs to be done. Let's pass this amendment and actually get to work on addressing the mounting and diverse needs of our constituents. The time for political games is over, and the time for action is now.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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