Sander Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will close just briefly to reiterate, this is a product of months and months of work across the aisle, our staffs working together many, many hours, I think, probably at various hours of the day and night, maybe even as late as it is tonight on other days. So I think we should be proud of this product, and I hope all of us will support it. I thank Mr. Brady for his work on this. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I urge we defeat the previous question for two reasons, and I want to speak to one of them. Right now, corporations can move their tax address overseas and avoid or lower their U.S. taxes. Middle class and other typical families cannot do that at all. They can't simply change their address and lower or eliminate their taxes. Since the beginning of this year, more than a dozen large corporations have announced their plans for inversion. And yet, they will continue to benefit from being headquartered in our country, taking advantage of everything this country has to offer, whether it is our wealth of educated workers, government funding of basic research, tax credits like R&D, or our robust financial markets. They will pay less in U.S. taxes, so much that the American tax base is expected to lose $20 billion over the next 10 years if we do nothing to address the issue. And who will make up this difference? Basically, middle class taxpayers. The Republican answer? To do nothing, leave town next week, or, some say, to wait for tax reform at some undetermined time. Republicans are taking the President to court for use of executive authority, his executive authority. At the same time, Republicans in this House fail to use their own authority, failing to do their job. Addressing this issue cannot wait. This is an immediate problem that requires an immediate legislative solution. Voting ``no'' on the previous question provides all of us an opportunity to do just that and will allow us to bring up legislation to address this problem. If you vote to move the previous question, essentially you are saying, I rubberstamp this inversion process where corporations essentially move their address and lower or eliminate their taxes. No one should be doing that.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Well, Republicans today are choosing lawsuits over legislating. They are choosing to sue the President rather than pursuing legislation to support American families. There is no shortage of legislation awaiting action: immigration reform, a bipartisan Senate bill held up by the Speaker who has just spoken; unemployment insurance, a bipartisan Senate bill has never gotten a vote in this House held up by this Speaker; the employment nondiscrimination bill, the Senate bill not brought up here and held up by the Speaker; paycheck fairness, not brought up; a minimum wage bill, not brought up; Ex-Im, caught in controversy within the Republican conference; a highway bill, another patch, the inability of House Republicans to face up to the need for a long-term highway bill; and a voting rights reform bill sponsored by a senior Republican, held up by the Speaker of this House and the conference of the Republicans. The Republicans in this House are suing the President because they conjure up that the President did not adopt what Republicans argue is the correct implementation of a law they have tried 50 times to destroy. It is the House Republicans who should be sued, if that were possible, for their abdication of their responsibilities to the people of this Nation.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. What you say is totally wrong. You make permanent under your provision a child tax credit for a couple making $160,000, while you do not make permanent the refundable tax credit for families making much, much, much less. That is a fact.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel). (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), another member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz), another distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I say to my friend from Texas, this isn't politics. This is 5 million children, and the estimate is that 4 million are citizens of the United States. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), another member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), another member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional minute.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. So under the Republican approach here, they make permanent a child tax credit for families making $150- to $205,000, while refusing to do the same, a refundable tax credit for 12 million people, including 6 million kids, and 400,000 veterans and their families, and they make permanent cutting off another 5 million kids. The estimate is 4 million of them are American citizens. This is why the Statement of Administration Policy says this: ``If the President were presented with H.R. 4935, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.'' What the Republicans are doing, making permanent a tax cut for families making $150- to $205,000 while refusing to do that for families making much less, this takes the mask off of their rhetoric about poverty. It takes off that mask. Vote ``no.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Yesterday on the topic of poverty, Congressman Ryan spoke. Today, he and his House Republican colleagues, will vote. Actions speak louder than words. And at every turn over the last 3 years, the actions House Republicans have taken have cut programs for low- and middle-income families. Funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program-- slashed in the Ryan Republican budget. Social services block grants--eliminated. Food assistance, Pell higher education grants, job training, and housing assistance--dramatically scaled back. And extension of unemployment insurance and a raise in the minimum wage--both blocked by House Republicans. The new Republican rhetoric on poverty is no match for the deeply troubling actions they have repeatedly taken, and continue to take with this legislation today. This bill leads to harm for millions of low- and middle-income families and their kids. It completely ignores the need to extend the 2017 expiration of the expanded refundable portion of the child tax credit, which, if allowed to occur, would push 12 million people, including 6 million children, into poverty or deeper into poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Republicans may say that such an extension could be done later, as they claimed in our discussion at the Rules Committee, but that talk about future action is made incredulous when Republicans this week add another $187 billion to the deficit, bringing the total they have passed in unpaid-for tax cuts to more than $700 billion. This comes after Republicans have slashed nondefense domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level on record as a percentage of GDP. In contrast, this bill expands and makes permanent the availability of the child tax credit to many new, upper middle-income families whose incomes are too high to qualify under current law. Under this legislation, a married couple making $160,000 with two kids would get an additional $2,200 in their 2018 tax refund, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while a single mother of two making $14,500 would see her refund cut by $1,750. But it gets still worse. Republicans this week inserted a provision into this legislation requiring recipients of the child tax credit to provide their Social Security number, a change that could lead to the loss of this credit for families of 5 million children, 4 million of whom are U.S. citizens. In all, 400,000 veterans and Armed Forces families will lose all or part of their credit. That is the reason that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposes this requirement, because it is deeply flawed and would leave millions of families with children behind. Ben Franklin once said: Well done is better than well said. Today it is even truer that well said cannot obscure what is harmfully done. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What Republicans are, in essence, trying to do here and elsewhere, if I might say so today, is to soften their image. But they can't run away from the hard reality that at every turn, over the last several years, they have sought to pass laws making life more difficult for middle- and low-income families. On the Republican chopping block, unemployment insurance blocked for 3 million Americans. Food assistance for low-income Americans would be cut by nearly 20 percent in the Ryan Republican budget, and a minimum wage increase hasn't occurred in 5 years, yet Republicans refuse to provide an increase. Medical assistance for Americans would be slashed by the Ryan Republican budget, with funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program cut to the tune of 26 percent within 10 years. Social Services Block Grants, which provide flexible funds for States to help vulnerable populations, are eliminated under the Ryan Republican budget. Pell grants would be reduced by 400,000 under the Ryan Republican budget. Job training funding was targeted for deep cuts in the 2011 spending bill the House Republicans passed, and housing assistance would end for 800,000 low-income families in the Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill House Republicans just passed. Indeed, hard-hearted actions contradict the soft rhetoric of today. We should be very skeptical when zebras try to change their stripes. Today's legislation is part of a set of 14 tax provisions that Ways and Means Republicans have marked up and made permanent without offsets at a cost of $825 billion to taxpayers. By the end of this week, the total that House Republicans will have passed on the floor is more than $700 billion, not a dime offset. It is kind of easy to come here and say this is what we want to do when we don't pay a dime to do it. Let it be clear in terms of this call on bipartisanship. All the Democrats on Ways and Means voted against this bill, and the Statement of Administration Policy says it opposes it. Let me give some details. In simplifying education provisions within the Tax Code, this bill leaves behind numerous undergraduate students, graduate students, and lifetime learners. It replaces the Hope Scholarship credit and repeals both the lifetime learning credit and the now-expired deduction for qualified tuition expenses, and it limits the overall deduction for the first 4 years of schooling. It harms students across the board. Undergraduates who take longer than 4 years to complete their degrees would be impacted, a change that loses sight of the fact that the median length of time that it takes undergrads to get their degrees is, today, more than 4 years. Adult learners would face higher costs. Three in four students are adult learners, who tend to take much longer to complete their degrees because they work full-time, have dependents, serve in the military, or have some combination of the foregoing and take longer to complete their degree. Low-income and middle-income graduate students would lose out. In 2013, the lifetime learning credit, which this bill eliminates, served nearly 2 million students with incomes at or below $75,000, including 1 million with an income of $40,000 or less. Two years ago, one-quarter of all graduate students earned less than $11,000. During the same year, 31 percent of the 1.3 million master's degree students received no financial aid. Two years ago, one-quarter--one-quarter--of all graduate students earned less than $11,000. During the same year, 31 percent of the 1.3 million master's degree students received no financial aid. In 2011, nearly 2 million tax returns claimed the qualified tuition deduction, which expired at the end of this year and this bill does not extend. That is one reason we have a letter from the American Council on Education. Here is what they say: However, as we discussed in our attached letter of April 4, 2014, to Ways and Means Committee members, there are a number of other changes in the legislation which cause us great concern. Even as reported, the bill would negatively impact many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit under current law. It also would harm graduate students and lifetime learners who utilize the tuition deduction or the LLC. Because we continue to have serious concerns about the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, we cannot support--we cannot support--the bill as currently written, even in the form as reported. This is sent on behalf of the following: the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Governing Boards, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. That letter so much speaks to this issue. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I include a letter from the American Council on Education with all of the signatories in the Record. American Council on Education, Washington, DC, July 17, 2014. Re Student and Family Tax Simplification Act (H.R. 3393) Dear Representative: On behalf of the higher education associations listed below, I write to express concerns about H.R. 3393, the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, and encourage further improvements to this important legislation when it is considered on the House floor next week. We have long supported reform of the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), the Hope Scholarship Credit, the Lifetime Learning Credit (LLC), and the tuition deduction. All of these currently are overly complex and difficult for students and their families to correctly use. We believe a consolidated credit can simplify the higher education tax benefits while retaining positive aspects of the present credits and deductions to better serve low- and middle-income traditional and nontraditional students now and in the future, helping them attain an associate or bachelor's degree or pursue post-baccalaureate education or lifelong learning. Overall, H.R. 3393 takes several important steps forward to create a simpler, single tax credit. We applaud the fact that the bill increases refundability and includes an important fix to better coordinate the AOTC and the Pell Grant. We are also very pleased that the bill was amended at markup to maintain the AOTC's current income phase-out limits. However, as we discussed in our attached letter of April 4, 2014 to Ways and Means Committee members, there are a number of other changes in the legislation which cause us great concern. Even as reported, the bill would negatively impact many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit under current law. It also would harm graduate students and lifetime learners who utilize the tuition deduction or the LLC. Because we continue to have serious concerns about the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, we cannot support the bill as currently written, even in the form as reported. As a result of our strong support for reforming these credits, we have had many discussions with tax staff over the past months about ways to implement reforms that address our concerns. We believe the legislation could be modified to ensure students who are currently eligible for a federal tax benefit could still receive some benefit. For example, one improvement we support is replacing the bill's proposed four- year limit for the AOTC with a lifetime dollar cap that would allow part-time, full-time, and graduate students to take advantage of the credit. We remain deeply committed to continuing to work with the authors of the bill and the Ways and Means Committee to improve the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act to better serve traditional and non-traditional low- and middle- income students, now and in the future. Sincerely, Molly Corbett Broad, President. On behalf of: American Association of State Colleges and Universities American Council on Education Association of American Universities Association of Governing Boards Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Association of Public and Land-grant Universities College and University Professional Association for Human Resources Council for Christian Colleges & Universities Council of Graduate Schools Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of our committee.