Jobs For America Act

Floor Speech

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from New York for all his good work on these issues.

Just to underscore what he said with respect to Mr. Davis' proposal, we would love to have that proposal on veterans come before the floor as a stand-alone bill. Of course it has been wrapped into a much larger package that has nothing to do with jobs and everything to do with rewarding special interests at the expense of middle class families and taxpayers. It is a continuation of the failed strategy that responds to every economic challenge with more tax breaks to corporations and more breaks to folks at the very top of the economic ladder, the old, failed trickle-down theory of economics.

There is nothing to raise the minimum wage, nothing to achieve pay equity for women, nothing to invest in America's infrastructure or our education system. Instead, it is a collection of tax cuts that together would add $572 million to the deficit over the next 10 years--no attempt to offset that cost.

That is a lot of work in one afternoon, to add over half a trillion dollars to the deficit, totally in violation of the Republican budget that was brought to the floor.

Nor is this a bill that attempts to reform the Tax Code. I have great respect for the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he did a credible effort in coming up with a reform plan. It wasn't perfect, lots of things that a lot of people don't like, but it was a credible effort.

This bill takes us in the opposite direction. When the chairman introduced that bill, the Speaker of this House ran away faster than anybody else from that proposal, and this proposal runs away from it as well.

Let me give you one example. The reform bill that was proposed by Mr. Camp repealed bonus depreciation. This bill adds $270 billion to the deficit by making bonus depreciation permanent.

Mr. Camp's proposal was revenue-neutral in the first 10 years. This one adds over half a trillion dollars to the deficit, and it doesn't close a single corporate tax loophole.

Look, if we are going to provide over a half a trillion dollars in tax breaks to large corporations, you would think that our Republican colleagues would at least deal with the issue of inversions, this sweep we see toward more and more corporations changing their address offshore to avoid their tax obligations to the American people. But, no, nothing to deal with inversions. In fact, this bill rewards a number of companies that have recently engaged in inversions.

I want to call attention to section 701 of the bill because it says a lot about the priorities reflected on the floor today. That section repeals the excise tax paid by medical device companies that was put in place to help finance health care reform.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. RANGEL. I yield the gentleman from Maryland 30 more seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So it repeals that--no effort to replace that. So it adds $26 billion to the deficit, just that provision. Not only that, but it repeals it going forward, and it also gives a rebate going backwards. So a company, Medtronic, which is right now moving its tax address overseas to avoid its tax obligations to the American people, is going to get a $200 million plus interest tax bonus.

So here is this bill in a nutshell: do nothing to boost the middle class.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.

Mr. RANGEL. I yield the gentleman as much time as he may consume to close.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So just to wrap this up, because I hope people will focus on this, the bottom-line message of this is: sorry to see you leave our shores, but you know what? As a good-bye present, we are going to hand you $200 million in tax breaks.

That sums up the problems with this bill, Mr. Speaker. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source