Earl Pomeroy

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I ask for 2 minutes of my time back that I yielded.

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I will speak under Mr. Flake's time, and thank you for yielding. The reason I yielded back was because I thought this was about ready to draw to a close. There are a couple of points that I do want to make and believe the record needs to make clear. First, under the last farm bill, we haven't added billions. We've reduced billions from the baseline for agriculture. Because we stopped the ad hoc disaster response when prices collapsed, we had a provision in the farm bill to respond when prices collapsed. Guess what? Prices did not collapse, and the farm bill did not need to extend itself to help farmers. The market took care of the farmers. That saved, over the last farm bill, $18 billion off of the baseline in commodity payments. Now, what happens as we try to build the farm bill this year? It means we have $18 billion less to do it. We have come up with a farm bill that has additional spending, every dollar of it paid for without raising taxes. And so this farm bill is a very tightly constructed, paid-for farm bill in contrast to the last farm bill where $73 billion was added to the baseline, none of it paid for, under the Republican majority that previously ruled this Congress. The final point I would make is that we are going to have disasters. They will threaten the very continuation of family farms across this country. It depends who happens to be afflicted with the disaster at a certain point in time. The option before this Congress is we're either going to prefund, pay for, and budget a disaster response anticipating these losses, or we're going to continue to rely on ad hoc, off-the- budget responses, which we believe is a less responsible way to proceed. I thank the gentleman for yielding and allowing me to make these rebuttal points.

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Essentially, we didn't have the funding in place to support a paid- for disaster bill. Later, negotiations between House and Senate negotiators, and I have been right in the middle of it, found ways to fund the bill, and at that point in time, the disaster title came back in.

Mr. POMEROY. If I just can respond briefly.

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, the ad hoc disaster programs that we have passed did not figure into the agriculture baseline so they have not counted. Additionally, the baseline that we're operating under for this farm bill is below the baseline that we operated under for the last farm bill.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming the time----

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the motion to instruct.

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the Speaker. We agree that under normal circumstances a farm bill considered at this time ought to be scored on the March, 2008, baseline. But let me emphatically emphasize there has been nothing normal about the development of this farm bill. We're moving into our 17th month of intensive work on this farm bill. I'm telling you we have encountered every barrier you can possibly imagine, and we are almost done. We have almost got this to conference committee and to the floor. As the majority leader indicated, we are hopeful it will be on the floor next week. During the period of time we have been working on this bill, the House passed this farm bill July 27, 2007, and it took nearly 5 months in addition before the Senate passed its bill, December 14, 2007. If they would have gotten their bill done earlier, we probably could have concluded this. This wouldn't even have come up. We would have had the farm bill out of here by now. The Senate-passed bill, however, is 1,876 pages long; the House bill, 160 pages long. That alone will tell you we had an awful lot of work to reconcile these two bills. The Senate uses a different rule relative to determining baseline, a rule used by the House in the construction of the 1996 farm bill as well as the 2002 farm bill. This principle is pretty simple: If you have done most of the work on the legislation under the old baseline, you can conclude the work. It would undo everything to suddenly have the new scoring requirement. And if the Senate didn't go along, you would have the crazy situation of trying to do one baseline for the House, another baseline for the Senate, trying to meld those in conference committee, and you will never get this thing done. So the gentleman's motion to instruct has an intellectual basis for it, but the reality of this farm bill is we have worked now 17 months building the bill, most of that time under the 2007 farm bill. When we passed the bill in the House, we had no idea what the 2008 baseline would be; so it's not like we were forum shopping or trying to pick the most lenient number. It was just the only way we could proceed. And if we would at this point in time do a baseline shift, I'm telling you this project, so close to home, gets put back to square one. I have asked my friend and colleague Chairman John Spratt to join me in this discussion because, obviously, when it comes to budget matters, he has broad respect across both sides of the aisle and I believe he can advance a more detailed discussion on some of the rules at issue as we respond in opposition to the motion.

Mr. POMEROY. I would just like to point out one quick thing. This is what PAYGO accomplishes. In 2002, pay-as-you-go budget discipline was allowed to expire. The farm bill, when it was passed, added to the baseline $73.5 billion. I believe the gentleman from Wisconsin voted for that farm bill. I did. Now we have an important restoration of pay-as-you-go discipline, and under the 2007 baseline we have accounted for every dollar of spending in this farm bill. No deficit added, no deepening of the deficit, as figured on the 2007 baseline, compared to a very, very different situation in the 2002 farm bill. So the gentleman's motion involves, in my view, pointing out that this might not technically jibe with the House rule. I believe that we have learned a lesson from the gentleman's motion. We ought to have our rule like the old rule where the baseline on a discretionary call by the Budget Chair can continue to be the baseline under which you drafted the legislation, because otherwise all of this work could be lost. We need to get this bill done. And we are this close to getting it done. So with respect to my friend, Mr. Ryan, I would urge that we reject the motion. I will let this statement serve as the close. Let the Ag Committee finish its work; let's pass the farm bill. Let's reject this motion to instruct. I yield back.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman from Georgia's leadership of the Oversight Subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee. A couple of things to respond to. The matter before us involves a pay-for, because unlike much of the work of my friend, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, this majority pays for things that cost the Treasury. Now, the HSA issue he just raised involves tax-free accounts and savings accounts to be used for health care. We ask that there be some verification to show the money withdrawn was spent for health care. That's all. What drives us to this is a report that we had from one account manager that shows these funds being withdrawn for everything from body shop repair to fast food restaurants.

Mr. POMEROY. Sure I will yield.

Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time, and I only have 2 minutes, this HSA, I believe the gentleman would agree, in fact I think he said it in his comments, is for the cost of health care. It gives a tax incentive cost, a tax assistance to taxpayers for health care costs, not for body shop costs. We don't tax incent body shop costs. So we would like to shut that abuse down. The question is legitimately raised. Is this too onerous? Absolutely not. Many of us have flex savings accounts that are used for medical costs. Now, all we ask is that the same verification any Federal employee uses when they make a withdrawal in their flex savings account would be used to substantiate withdrawal from the health savings account. This isn't inventing something new. We've done it. It works well. Another feature of the bill that's drawn such objection is this business of putting out of business the whole notion of private bill collectors being loosed on our taxpayers to collect revenues owed the Federal Government.

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I refer my colleagues to the Washington Post, the front page story today, ``Collectors cost IRS more than they raise.'' We have had, in fact, kind of the bill collection version of the $600 toilet seat for the old Pentagon contract procurements. This was advertised to cost very little, $10 to $14 million, well now up to $70 million and counting, a multiple of what was initially advertised. That's the set-up cost. They said it was going to bring all of this money. Well, the reality is it has brought in only a fraction of the money advertised. And so on a net basis, this whole initiative to bring in money owed us has cost us money. We've been shipping more money to contractors. This is an administration and this is a minority that loves private contractors. And if it costs the Federal Government on the net balance, it doesn't matter because they just so ideologically love private contractors. We should pass this bill and end this failed experiment of private debt collection.

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the chairman for yielding. I want to begin my remarks by commending the fine job Mr. Reynolds has done today. He has indicated that this legislation uniquely affects him because many of the people at the Pioneer Call Center, a private debt collector hired to collect this debt, are in his district. And I think we all recognize he has done a fine job in fighting for that business activity in his district today. He has given it everything he has, and I commend him for the job he has done. But the reality in the policy context is summed up in a simple headline in today's Washington Post, ``Collectors Cost IRS More Than They Raise.'' Why in the world would we want to continue with an arrangement like that? But there are many other parts of this bill that are simplifying the process and are helpful to taxpayers. And that is why we have the support of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers, the National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Citizens for Tax Justice, National Consumer League, Consumer Federation of America, and a late-breaking one. In fact, this organization has been mentioned on both lists, the NFIB. Mr. Reynolds has indicated they were opposed to the bill. This is probably a development that broke later than Mr. Reynolds' information. But in fact, they are for the bill and indicate in a ``key vote alert'' that they will be scoring this as a key vote. They indicate that the ``provisions in this legislation seek to enact simpler tax rules and reduce the paperwork burden associated with tax compliance.'' They talk about a few provisions. One of them is that right now we have an onerous paperwork requirement on employers providing cell phones to employees for business purposes. I commend my Republican colleague on Ways and Means, Sam Johnson, for bringing this to our attention. I was pleased to cosponsor legislation with him now included in the bill that makes this paperwork requirement go away.

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And so including the Pomeroy-Johnson or the Johnson-Pomeroy bill in this I think was an important feature to the NFIB deliberation that this is indeed lessening paperwork requirements on small employers, and therefore they support it. They do cite a couple of other provisions, another provision of this legislation amending a recent change to the Tax Code that helps tax preparers better assist their clients by changing an established higher standard of reporting for preparers. That creates a potential conflict of interest between clients and themselves. That is addressed in this legislation. And they also talk about the legislation including a 1-year delay of the implementation of the 3 percent withholding requirement by Federal, State and local governments on payments for goods and services which puts both an administrative burden on all parties involved and a strain on the daily operating cash flow of small businesses. There are other provisions, as well, but I appreciate the NFIB's laying them out as they have done on this letter. In balance, this is a bill designed to help taxpayers. That is why we passed it out of the Ways and Means Committee. That is why it is before us on Tax Day. We urge its adoption.

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, we have just obtained the motion in terms of trying to sort through the tax provisions, with an eye, among other things, to wondering whether or not people holding bonds of municipalities could suddenly find themselves with taxes they didn't think they were going to have when they bought these bonds. Trying to work our way through these, one word jumped out on this motion to recommit that really has shut down all further analysis by us, and that is the word ``promptly,'' because this is yet another one of those motions to recommit that is designed for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to kill the bill they are trying to attach it to. That is because this would take the Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act that we want to pass than April 15th and pack it off back to the Ways and Means Committee, dispensing any possibility of passing it off the floor today. It is a procedural move by the minority to try and stop us from moving forward with this legislation. What is unfortunate about that is there are taxpayers that are going to be benefited, benefited substantially, by this legislation, small businesses that right now are subject to IRS audit exposure if they are not keeping detailed call records on cell phones that they give their employees. We want to take this relief away through this motion to recommit? I don't think so. We go through so many positive, taxpayer-friendly provisions in this bill, provisions that have received the support of so many diverse organizations, from the League of Cities, Association of Mayors, NFIB and Consumers Federation of America, it would take that and take it off the table today, preventing the House from moving this forward. Now, you think, why? What is the motive behind a motion like this? Why would they not want this taxpayer bill to move forward? Well, my friends, you can find it on the front page of today's Washington Post. Basically, they are trying everything they can to preserve private bill collectors hired by the IRS to chase after taxpayers. So here on Tax Day, April 15th, we are trying to stop private bill collectors from going after taxpayers on behalf of the IRS, an endeavor that has cost taxpayers millions and brought in not enough by any measure to cover the cost; a forgone revenue opportunity of $81 million, testified by the Taxpayer Advocate, if we simply took the money we sent to these private contractors and hired employees to go ahead and collect that debt. But they are so completely convinced that they have got to pull every trick out of their hat to try and stop our efforts to rein in these private bill collectors that they brought this motion to recommit. I would yield such time as I have remaining to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. POMEROY. I yield back the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I am also very pleased to speak in favor of H.R. 2464, the Wakefield Act. I wanted to bring you just a little bit of perspective in terms of the difference this act has made in one young man's life, and I think it's reflective of a number of children who have been saved by having medical appropriate services for traumatic and life-threatening injuries of kids. The Wakefield Act is called the Wakefield Act in recognition of a living memory of a family, the family of Tom Wakefield, who was involved in a horrible head-on traffic accident as they drove to the airport for a winter's vacation. A vehicle crossed the median and struck this vehicle head on, killing Tom and two of his children, one age three and one age seven. Twelve-year-old Lucas lost his arm in the accident and was almost lost as well. Emergency responders on the scene and thereafter saved his life and the life of his mother, Loy. I know this family, and I know their survivors, and I care deeply about them. They have certainly impressed upon me, as they would impress upon any of you, just how vitally important it is that we equip our emergency response to deal with any who may be hurt. And the 40 percent improvement in saving lives of children since the act was initially passed in 1984 shows just how critically important this reauthorization is. I'm very pleased that the Commerce Committee has done the work to bring it to the floor today, and I am grateful for the chance to speak on the bill. I was at an event just this weekend where Lucas, now fully recovering, adapted to his new circumstance. This is a young man that makes me very, very proud. And I believe the Wakefield Act, named in honor of his family, is a very appropriate commendation of the ongoing efforts to keep all our children safe.

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, on March 31, 2008, due to flight delays, I missed rollcall votes No. 147, 148, and 149. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner: Rollcall No. 147, ``yea;'' rollcall No. 148, ``yea;'' rollcall No. 149, ``yea.''

Mr. POMEROY

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3361) to make technical corrections related to the Pension Protection Act of 2006, as amended.

Mr. POMEROY. I will yield for a minute.

Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming my time, I am not putting this responsibility on the minority. What the gentleman has alleged, I am not currently informed of. I don't dispute it, but I don't know it, but I do know that others that were needed to address this issue, others on the majority side did not act. In the end, the majority has responsibility for what we bring in a suspension calendar like this. This majority didn't get the job done.