Jim McCrery

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today's bill, Mr. Speaker, represents a clear difference between the two parties in the House when it comes to tax policy. Republicans believe that Congress should not raise taxes on one group of taxpayers in order to prevent a tax increase on another set of taxpayers. To say that another way, we don't believe we ought to have to raise taxes to preserve something that's already in the Tax Code. Now, we are certainly for continuing to patch the alternative minimum tax. That's been the practice for the last several years. The President, in his budget for the last several years, has had an AMT patch in his budget without increasing taxes on somebody else. So we are certainly for that. But we are not for imposing a tax increase in a like amount on another set of taxpayers. That just doesn't make sense to us. Without this patch, another 21 million families would come under the AMT, and their average tax increase would be about $2,400 per taxpayer. So we certainly want to prevent that. But in 2007, we had the patch in place; so we did not collect the AMT revenue from those 21 million taxpayers. And yet we collected, last year, in revenues to the Federal Government, about 18.7, 18.8 percent of gross domestic product. The historic average of revenues coming into the Federal Government for the last 40 years has been about 18.3 percent of GDP. So last year with the AMT patch in place, those 21 million taxpayers protected from the AMT, we brought in substantially more in revenues to the Federal Government than we have historically. So why, then, should we be so intent on increasing taxes to prevent those 21 million taxpayers from paying $2,400 apiece more in taxes in 2008? The only explanation is somebody just wants to get more revenue into the Federal Government. Now, they may say, well, we want to do that because the deficit is really high and we want to get the deficit down. Well, I wonder, if we took a poll across America, how many Americans would say, ``Yes, I want to get the deficit down and I want to do it by raising taxes'' and how many Americans would say, ``Yes, I want to get the deficit down, but I want to do it by controlling spending''? My guess is more Americans would say, ``I want to get the deficit down by controlling spending.'' But the PAYGO rules that are in effect, while they give us the opportunity to reduce spending to ``pay for'' all of these things, not once have we seen a cut in spending being offered by the majority to pay for any of these items. It's always a tax increase. So, yes, if you want to get the deficit down to zero, you can do it by increasing taxes, and under the PAYGO baseline, if we were to follow it, we would continue to increase the take of the Federal Government from American taxpayers until at the end of a 10-year window we'd be taking in 20.5 percent of GDP, an historic high, or pretty close to an historic high, and certainly only a couple times in our Nation's history have we even approached that level of revenues coming into the Federal Government. Now, I think it's a legitimate question as to what is the appropriate level of GDP that we should bring in to the Federal Government, and Chairman Rangel alluded to that in his statement by saying that, I believe he said, the President hasn't offered a tax reform plan. That's true, I guess, he hasn't. But you know what? Under the Constitution, the President can't even introduce a bill, much less pass one. That's the job of the Congress. So if we want to do tax reform, which I think is appropriate, we ought to have this discussion about what is the appropriate level of revenue that we should bring in? What is the appropriate take of the Federal Government of everything that Americans make? Is it 18.3 percent, the historic average? Is it 18.7 percent, what we took in last year? Or is it 20.5 percent? I don't know what the magic number is, but that's a legitimate debate, and we ought to have that debate in the context of writing a new tax system for the United States that is more modern, more efficient, and more competitive. So I hope that the chairman will, in his constitutional prerogative as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, undertake that task, have that debate, so that we can solve this problem once and for all of the AMT, the complexity of the code, and the continuing diminution of competitiveness that we enjoy with our tax system, vis-a-vis our competitors around the world. This bill employs some pay-fors, some tax increases, that I believe would be onerous and would add to the lack of competitiveness in our Tax Code. For example, there is a provision that would, for the first time, ignore tax treaties that we have entered into in good faith with other countries around the world and would impose upon companies doing business, foreign companies doing business, through a United States subsidiary in this country, creating jobs in this country, a 30 percent tax, despite the fact that we have a tax treaty that says that company would get a deduction for that income and would not have to pay that 30 percent tax because they'd be paying taxes in the country where we have a tax treaty. Now, yes, they say, well, but the ultimate parent is somewhere where there's not a tax treaty, but that still violates the spirit of the tax treaty that we have with the country where the immediate parent of the United States subsidiary resides. That change in our Tax Code would discourage at the margin that capital from coming to this country, being invested in this country, and creating jobs in this country. Those companies that I'm talking about employ a substantial number of Americans; 5.3 million Americans are employed by those kinds of companies. Do we want to jeopardize those jobs? And 19 percent of all United States exports, helping us a little bit to get the balance of trade going our way, 19 percent of all exports come from companies like that. And just last year they reinvested nearly $71 billion back into their United States operations. That's capital, that's investment that we should want here and not discourage through tax changes like the one in this bill. So, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the Members of this body that we ought to reject the majority's offering that they put forward today to save 21 million taxpayers from coming under the AMT because they would impose a like amount of tax increase on another set of taxpayers. Let's not increase taxes on any set of taxpayers, certainly not in this fragile economy. We will later offer a motion to recommit that corrects the error, that strips the bill of the pay-fors, and it would allow this body to vote on a clean AMT patch to save those 21 million taxpayers from the increased tax burden but not increase taxes on somebody else. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill on the floor today. I have some prepared remarks that I am going to submit for the Record, but rather than reiterate the problems that we have with the process that brought this bill to the floor, let me say my good friend Mr. Stark has been talking with us all along about this problem. We have all been aware of it. And, frankly, it was our understanding in talking with the distinguished chairman of the Health Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee that we were going to try to let the Senate, our colleagues in the Senate, work out a bipartisan solution to this take that we could then embrace and bring to the floor. They were not able to do that at first in the Senate, so we frankly were kind of scrambling to figure out what we were going to do. But now we are told that our friends in the Senate have indeed reached a bipartisan compromise on this issue. They hope to bring it to the floor within the next day or two. At that time, we could take that bill on a bipartisan basis in the House and embrace it and pass it and get this problem behind us. So why are we doing this today? I am not really sure. It baffles me. This is a bill that does not have bipartisan support. It did not get 60 votes in the Senate. It couldn't even come up on the floor for a vote. The President would veto it. It is clear this bill is not going to become law. So I think we are wasting our time here today, to be frank. We ought to be joining arms and hoping that the Senate gets that bill to us, the new compromise bipartisan bill, in a timely fashion so we can get it done this week and avert the drastic cut to reimbursements for physicians, as well as the other things that will occur with caps on services to seniors and the like. So, Mr. Speaker, I would urge us to defeat this bill today on a bipartisan basis, and then get about the serious business of passing a bipartisan bill later this week that can become law. I rise in opposition to H.R. 6331. The Majority notified us at 10 o'clock this morning that they have made a number of changes to the bill that they told us would be on the floor. Members have had just one hour to review this 278-page bill, which moves tens of billions of dollars around in the Medicare program. The limited time for review of such an important measure should give every Member pause. For six months now, the Democratic Majority in the House has known that physicians face a looming 10.6 percent cut to their Medicare payments. Now with just six days left before this cut is scheduled to take effect, they are bringing a bill to the floor that we all know will never be signed into law. The Senate considered a similar bill 2 weeks ago and they could not even get the 60 votes necessary to be able to debate the bill. We also know that the President would veto this bill, because of the changes it makes to the Medicare Advantage program. Yet here we are, playing games with less than a week before physicians' Medicare reimbursements are scheduled to be cut, therapy services for some seniors will be ended, and billions of dollars that assist rural physicians and hospitals will be terminated. Once this bill fails today, we'll still be faced with the same expiring Medicare policies, but we will have one less day to fix them. If anyone actually believes that this bill is a serious effort to fix these problems, they need only look to page 253 of the bill. Here you'll find a ``Sense of the Senate'' provision. Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, this is the House of Representatives. This raises the question of whether, in their rush to bring this bill up for a vote, the Majority even read their own 278-page bill, which they introduced an hour ago, or if they simply copied the failed Senate bill word for word. Well, my staff has read the bill, and here's what else they found. The bill cuts approximately $50 billion from Medicare Advantage. CBO predicts that more than 2 million seniors would lose access to their Medicare Advantage plan if this bill were enacted. The President has said repeatedly that he would veto any bill that contained these reductions. Thankfully, he won't have to, because the Senate already rejected these cuts two weeks ago. Mr. Speaker, if the Majority was really serious about helping Medicare beneficiaries and providers, we would take up the compromise bill that Senators Baucus and Grassley have worked out. That bill will eliminate the physician payment cuts in 2008 and 2009, extend rural payment add-ons and the existing exceptions process for therapy services and fully pay for these changes without changing the rules governing private fee for service plans. I believe that bill will pass the Senate, and then we in the House will have an opportunity, on a bipartisan basis, to protect physicians from the looming drastic cut in their reimbursement.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I submit the following: Description of Request: This $1.2M authorization authorizes appropriations for the continued research and development of EMB001, a novel treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Biomedical Research Foundation in collaboration with Embera Neuro Therapeutics, Inc. (Shreveport, LA) are seeking federal assistance to develop a collaborative research plan with the Department of Defense to test the effectiveness of EMB001 for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related neuropsychiatric disorders. Cost breakdown: $850K Direct Costs associated with research initiative, $350K for Overhead/ Personnel.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I submit the following: Requesting Member: Congressman Jim McCrery (LA-04). Bill Number: H.R. 5658, FY2009 National Defense Authorization Act. Account: Research and Development, Air Force. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: U.S. Air Force Cyberspace Command (Provisional) which will administer funds to Louisiana Tech University, Ruston LA. Address of Requesting Entity: Barksdale Air Force Base, Bossier City LA/Louisiana Tech University, Railroad Ave, Wyly Tower 1629, Ruston, LA 71272. Description of Request: This $4M authorization authorizes appropriations for continued research and development of the Remote Suspect Identification (RSI) initiative, a cyber security program that directly supports the Air Force's Cyberspace Command (Provisional) and the Eighth Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, LA. Funding will be utilized exclusively for research and development costs and well as associated administrative costs.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I submit the following: Requesting Member: Congressman Jim McCrery (LA-04). Bill Number: H.R. 5658, FY2009 National Defense Authorization Act. Account: Research and Development, Air Force. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Distributed Infinity, Inc. Address of Requesting Entity: 1382 Quartz Mountain Drive, Larkspur, CO 80118. Description of Request: This $3M authorization authorizes appropriations for continued research and development of the Cybercraft initiative, a cyber security utility that will ensure secure communications between warfighters over computer networks. Research is presently underway on Cybercraft at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome NY. Project is supported by the Air Force Cyberspace Command (P), Barksdale Air Force Base, Bossier City, LA.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I assure the gentleman from Illinois that despite the fact there might be 9,300 permits to drill out there that aren't being utilized, I am sure there are good reasons for not utilizing those permits. I can assure the gentleman that if we opened up ANWR, if we opened up the Continental Shelf and more parts of the Gulf of Mexico, we would have domestic oil companies taking advantage and drilling to produce.

Mr. McCRERY. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. McCRERY. I don't agree with that.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished minority whip, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the legislation before us today and urge all of my colleagues to vote against it today. Most critically, the bill claims to be a package of tax extenders, but fails to deal with the biggest and most pressing extender in the code, the AMT patch, the alternative minimum tax patch. This is a missed opportunity. We should have included that in this bill of other expiring provisions in the code. The majority's failure to extend this patch for 2008 would mean an additional 21 million--mostly middle class--individuals and families would be ensnared by the alternative minimum tax. As a result, affected families will pay an additional $61.5 billion in taxes for this year. This oversight--this neglect, I think--is the single largest flaw in the bill. The majority, I'm sure, will claim during today's debate, just as they did during committee markup, that they will address the AMT before adjourning this year, just not now. Surely our experience from 2007, when the AMT patch wasn't enacted until the day after Christmas, suggests that maybe we ought to begin acting on this now and not just run down the shot clock. Mr. Speaker, it simply does not make sense to vote to extend dozens of tax provisions, some for several years, without also dealing with the biggest and most far-reaching expiring provision, the AMT patch. The bill also clings to the mistaken view that the House's PAYGO rules require us to raise taxes in order to prevent tax increases. I was pleased last year that, when the House finally did pass the AMT patch, we recognized the foolishness of applying PAYGO to expiring tax provisions, and I'm disappointed that that bipartisan approach is not being followed here today. Simply put, we shouldn't have to pay to extend current law. This is not paying for a new tax cut in the main. Most of this bill is extending current law. As we stare at the prospect of a more than $3.5 trillion tax increase baked into the budget by the majority's misguided PAYGO rules, I think it will become even more obvious in the years to come why Congress should not have to raise taxes to prevent a tax increase. If the majority was ever willing to offset tax provisions with spending cuts, I might view this a little differently. But this bill shows once again that the only tool the majority has to meet its PAYGO requirements is the hammer of tax increases. It's little wonder, then, that to them every problem looks like a nail. As I documented many times last year and during our committee markup last week, Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. We're getting enough revenues. We're already collecting more in taxes as a percent of our GDP than the historical average of revenues coming into Washington. That's not the problem. The problem is spending. So how many times have we had PAYGO rules be adopted and followed in this House using spending cuts to pay for extending current tax law? Zero. Mr. Speaker, the continued use of tax increases to pay for extending current law is unacceptable to this ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, and I hope will be objectionable to a majority of the Members of this House. In fact, this bill not only contains tax cuts, it actually does increase spending. There are items in this bill that score as spending--expanding refundable tax credits, the New York Liberty Zone project. Those score as spending. So we're increasing spending in this bill, and we're paying for that with tax increases. In addition to those two provisions, the bill contains numerous other new temporary and permanent provisions, undermining the claim that the bill is merely extending current law. Some of the new provisions might be meritorious, but a few of those I think deserve closer examination. For example, some of my colleagues may be surprised to know that there is a nearly $1.6 billion special tax break for trial lawyers in this bill. The provision overrides developing case law and lets lawyers using certain types of contingency fee arrangements to deduct sooner their expenses. CBO's Joint Tax Committee scores this as costing the taxpayers $1.6 billion over the next 10 years. Now, this provision was not the subject, that I'm aware of, of any hearings or examination by the committee, and yet it's in this bill today. I would hope that before we make such a significant change in tax law costing taxpayers $1.6 billion, all going to one very narrow set of people in this country, trial lawyers, that we would want to have a hearing on that and flesh it out to see if maybe it could be crafted better, or whether, in fact, it's of any value at all to the country. This bill also revisits the ``green pork'' tax credit bonds that were much discussed during the energy debate in 2007. These are the same bond proceeds, remember, that could be used for all sorts of dubious projects, maybe hybrid snowmobiles in Aspen, or maybe a new Wal-Mart with a couple of solar panels out front. State and local governments using the bond proceeds don't even have to certify that the projects will reduce fossil fuel consumption or greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the majority rejected a sensible fix for this oversight when this was offered last year. We know how this is all going to end. It will end with the passage of an AMT patch without offsets, like last year, and probably many extenders being approved without tax increases. More than 40 Senators have signed a letter pledging to oppose a package such as the one before the House today. And even if it somehow squeaks by the Senate, the President has indicated he would veto this bill. Mr. Speaker, it's unfortunate that the majority has chosen against moving a bill on expiring provisions that could have had bipartisan support and instead have opted for the measure before us. Given that its fate has already been sealed--it won't become law--I am comforted to know that we will have another chance to consider this legislation this year. I hope it's sooner rather than later so that we're not here in December once again scrambling to deal with these issues. We can do better than what's before us today. Let's get rid of this, start over, and bring a good bill back. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, in fact, I agree with much of what the gentleman just said. I'm happy to hear him endorse many provisions that we, I think wisely, put into the Jobs bill several years ago when we were in the majority. So it's not those provisions that I oppose, it's the tax increases in the bill to pay for just extending current law that I'm opposed to. And I want to make that clear. I like the provisions the gentleman mentioned. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. McCRERY. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

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

Mr. McCRERY. Reclaiming my time, I don't quarrel that that may be correct. But it's beside the point. There may be legitimate reasons why those particular permits are not being utilized. But the fact is, by law our companies cannot drill in ANWR, they cannot drill in the Outer Continental Shelf beyond a few areas in the Gulf of Mexico. And that is wrong. Look, my 14-year-old son this morning, I am driving him to school and the radio report came on that oil hit $130 a barrel, and my son says, Dad, why don't we just tell OPEC to produce more oil? Well, he's a pretty smart kid. That would help. But I said, Son, if we told OPEC to drill for more oil and then they turned it around and said, Well, why doesn't the United States drill for more oil.

Mr. McCRERY. No, I've already given you some time.

Mr. McCRERY. What if they told us, Why doesn't the United States drill for more oil, what would our answer be? We don't know, because Democrats for years have blocked every sensible environmentally sound plan to explore and develop known resources here in this country, and that is a shame. We ought to have a balanced energy policy. Yes, alternative sources that we Republicans put in legislation several years ago, passed the bill, I believe, in 2005, and began a lot of these credits that we are extending today. We agree with that.

Mr. McCRERY. Let us develop the resources we know we have, the proper fuel resources that can help immediately.

Mr. McCRERY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, if my good friend Mr. Larson's description of the tax increase in the bill were correct, I wouldn't have any quarrel with it. However, the provision affects more than just offshore hedge fund managers. It affects any employee working for a company based offshore in any business. So it is much broader than the gentleman described, and that is the main reason that I oppose that provision in its current form. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, since the majority has so much more time left than the minority, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I was driving my 14-year-old son to school this morning, listening to the radio, and it mentioned that the price of oil had increased to over $130 a barrel. My son said, Dad, why don't we just tell OPEC to produce more oil? I thought about it and I said, Well, son, as a matter of fact, President Bush was over in Saudi Arabia the other day and asked if Saudi Arabia would increase its output. But I suspect that the leaders of OPEC might turn that question around on the United States and say, Why doesn't the United States increase its output of oil? The answer is Democrats have blocked every commonsense effort to expand production in this country for years now, and it's time for that opposition to stop and face reality. We need a balanced energy program in this country, one that recognizes that for the immediate future we are going to need oil and gas, and, yes, we need to develop alternative fuel sources as well. But you can't do just one. You have to do both.