Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to say the gentlewoman understates the point. She is a perfectly fine fill-in for Mr. Larson. I congratulate my colleagues on the committee for seeing a problem and rushing to fix this problem. This is what we are supposed to do here. We are legislating a solution to make sure that senior citizens have access to the highest quality, lowest price durable medical equipment. There is a flaw in the law in how that is being done, and this bill rectifies that. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I simply want to, again, commend our committee, Republicans and Democrats, for working on a bipartisan basis to fix a problem in the Medicare Program that needs fixing. I want to specifically highlight Mr. Tiberi, a senior member of our committee from Ohio, along with Mr. Larson, a senior member of the committee from the Democratic side of the aisle, for working together to fix a very deep flaw in a competitive bidding system which needs a lot of work to be improved. At this time, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tiberi) for the purpose of describing and explaining the need for this legislation.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 284) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require State licensure and bid surety bonds for entities submitting bids under the Medicare durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) competitive acquisition program, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 284, currently under consideration.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to thank Mr. Barletta for bringing this to our attention. This is a problem with the law and, therefore, the law needs to change. It is insufficient that we have some regulatory forbearance from the administrative branch because the law has to be changed, and that is why this legislation is necessary. Again, I just wanted to thank Mr. Barletta for his leadership on this issue. We need to do right by our volunteer firefighters, and this does that. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1191) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that emergency services volunteers are not taken into account as employees under the shared responsibility requirements contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, it won't be all that much time. I just simply want to congratulate the gentlelady from Kansas on bringing this legislation forward. We brought this out of committee. We had no resistance because this is just a commonsense bill. This upgrades the law to reflect the realities of a college education. You ought to be able to buy a computer. You ought to be able to buy software with your college savings dollars because it is an essential ingredient to your education. More importantly, if a person gets a refund if they cancel a class, if for some reason the college rebates money to you, you ought to be able to put it back into your savings plan. These are commonsense ideas that make this important vehicle for savings more workable and reflects the common problems that people have in this 21st century. It is essential that we give people and families the ability to save for education. This bill also sends a signal: we believe in the 529 plans; 529 plans are going to stay; they are a good thing; we are not going to attack them; we are going to develop and grow them.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to have a little bit of a deja vu here today because we are going to be talking on yet another tax extender bill like we did yesterday. This one involves small businesses. Let me see if I can sort of lay out the case that is before us and the decision that we as Members of Congress are going to have to make. Small businesses are the engine of economic growth and job creation in this country. Eighty percent of all businesses in America file their taxes as small businesses under what we call subchapter S corporations or partnerships, and one of the critical ingredients to running a successful small business is to be able to buy equipment for your small business and to hire people to do things. One of the important provisions in the Tax Code to help do this is something we call section 179 of the Tax Code. Section 179 is really simple. It says to small businesses: We want you to be able to write off the purchase of equipment to run your small business so that you can be successful. Well, here is what happened. For a number of years, small businesses have been able to write off $500,000--a small business earning $2 million--to purchase equipment. The problem is, as of January 1 of this year, that ability to write off $500,000 to buy a couple of trucks and scaffolding and other kinds of equipment--maybe you want to buy a tractor if you are a farmer, maybe you want to buy a skid steer if you are a contractor--that $500,000 expensing limit has now gone down to $25,000. What typically happens is Congress says: We don't want that to happen. Let's get it back up to where it was so small businesses can plan and invest for their future. And here is what happened last year. Last year, this expired at the beginning of this year. So, we waited until December 11 to say: No, you can expense up to $500,000 for these small businesses to purchase things like tractors and all sorts of kinds of equipment. So this is what we did to the American small business men and women of America last year. We said: You don't know what is going to happen, and we will let you know on December 11, and you will have a few weeks to make all of these decisions before this expires. Just think about that. So from December 11 to December 31 of last year was the window in which American small business men and women realized they had this incentive to purchase and plan for equipment because on January 1 it went away. And that is where we are today. So we are saying: Let's stop this monkey business, let's stop this crazy notion of injecting all this uncertainty into small businesses and make this provision that is bipartisan--this provision that we know creates jobs--let's make it permanent so that small business men and women of America can plan their purchases. I remember talking to a dealer of Case tractors. We make Case New Holland tractors in Racine, Wisconsin. We call them Case Magnums. These are phenomenal tractors that increase the productivity of farmers and ranchers. They are also used for construction. Well, it is a pretty big purchase. It is about $200,000, $250,000 for a nice Case Magnum, and it is a big purchase that somebody needs to think about and plan. Case, the dealer in Janesville, Wisconsin, had to wait from December 11 to December 31 to be able to try and market these tractors as something that a small business person or a farmer could actually purchase. Think about the kind of uncertainty you are injecting into the economy when people cannot think and plan and invest in their businesses because of Congress. So what we are simply trying to do here is produce certainty so that the men and women on the line in Racine, Wisconsin, making Case tractors can make those tractors and so that the dealers selling those tractors can sell those tractors so the farmers and ranchers and construction contractors can buy those tractors, knowing that this incentive that has been here and not, up and down is there, and they can plan accordingly, so that we can grow the economy and create jobs. The purpose of all of this is to get people back to work. The purpose of all of this is to recognize that small business is the backbone of our economy, and one of the biggest things that is threatening small businesses, one of the reasons why we have this middle-income wage stagnation, one of the reasons why we have slower than average economic growth, is because we have all this uncertainty in our economy. We need to give businesses certainty. We need to help them plan for the future. We need to stop this crazy game of extending a tax benefit that has been on the books for quite some time one year at a time or retroactive one year at a time and give businesses certainty. This notion that not raising taxes is all of a sudden some tax cut that one must pay for is a notion that we just completely disagree with, which is a difference of opinion between ourselves and the other side of the aisle. And so I urge adoption of this Tiberi bill to extend the 179 limit to $500,000, to make it permanent and help small businesses grow and create jobs. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 636, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the distinguished House majority leader.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Will the ranking member yield?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. The budget resolution reflects law as it is. The budget resolution reflects the CBO as it gives us baselines and laws. What we are doing here are our policy preferences. What we are doing here is what we think that law ought to be, not what it is. The budget resolution is: here is the law, there it is. What we are trying to do here is fix the law because we think the law is broken. We think the law doesn't work.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tiberi), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the author of this legislation, be allowed to manage the time for our side of the aisle.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 101, I call up the bill (H.R. 636) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permanently extend increased expensing limitations, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I don't think I will use all that time. I appreciate the generosity of the gentleman. I am intrigued by this debate and the so-called admonishment from the minority as to how this jeopardizes tax reform and how it is not being bipartisan. Let me see if I can bring some clarity to this debate. I interpret what was just said as, if you don't agree with our higher taxes, if you don't--before negotiating tax reform--agree to our terms of the debate, then you are not being bipartisan. Look, when we were in the minority, we made similar arguments as well, which were: surrender your beliefs, surrender your principles, agree with us, and then we can be bipartisan. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night. That is not how negotiations occur. That is not how you find common ground. Finding common ground isn't surrendering your ground and agreeing to the other ground. Finding common ground is saying, where do my principles and your principles intersect, overlay, and what can we do? Just so you understand, Mr. Speaker, here is what this is about: the premise that the minority is offering is, these tax provisions that we all agree on, that we think are good, that we think help the economy, but that have, in law, expiration dates when they expire and those taxes go up, we don't think that is good. And the minority is saying: If these things expire and go up, we don't want that to happen. So we will work with you and make sure that they don't expire on a year-by-year basis. And we are fine. But if you dare try to make these things that we all agree on, that need to stay in the Tax Code, permanent, you are not paying for it. It is a budget- buster. You are being irresponsible. You are jeopardizing tax reform. Process, process, process. Here is the problem. What we are trying to do here, we are trying to grow the economy. We are trying to get people back to work. We are trying to increase take-home pay. We are trying to honor and respect the hardworking taxpayers who sent us here in the first place. So what we don't want to do is tell all those small business men and women in America, wait until December, and then we will let you know what your Tax Code is going to look like. What we want to tell the small business men and women in America is: Washington is out of your way. You can go plan, and you can grow, and you can invest, and you can hire. That is what we are trying to achieve here. And this idea that not raising taxes is somehow a big, giant tax cut is an idea and a premise that we don't agree with. What we are being told here is, if we don't agree with that, then we are jeopardizing tax reform. Baloney. The irony of this issue is compounded by the fact that the minority is telling us already--in their statements from the White House, in their budgets--that there are temporary provisions in the Tax Code that they like that aren't bipartisan, that they are saying make them permanent and don't pay for them. So they are cherry-picking, selective memory. It is an argument, quite frankly, that I don't think holds water because what we are doing here today, we are bringing certainty to the Tax Code. We are helping job creators and taxpayers and families. And we are doing it in a way that we think is honest, we think is fair, and we think advances tax reform. The way to find common ground is not to ask the other side to surrender their beliefs, surrender their principles, and agree with the other side, and then you can get along. That is not how you find common ground. That is not bipartisanship. That is surrender. Nobody is asking anybody to surrender, at least we are not. So what I would argue to my colleagues is, support this. Just show the small business men and women in your district that you are there for them, that you don't want to keep doing this to them, which is projecting all this uncertainty. The other point I would make--and my friend from Oregon, who really is my friend; he is a sincere legislator who does his job very well, cares very dearly about his district--the argument he makes about tax cuts expiring doesn't jibe with the spending argument he is making. Let me give you a case in point. Trade Adjustment Assistance, the farm bill, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, all of these are spending programs that have expiration dates, just like provisions in the Tax Code that have expiration dates. And when these things on the spending side of the ledger book expire and Congress extends them, it doesn't cost. It is not measured in the baseline as costing anything.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. But God forbid if something in the Tax Code expires, you had better raise taxes on somebody else if you want to keep that provision. So just understand the argument that is being brought to the floor here. They are saying, in order to keep taxes the same for charities and small businesses, you have got to raise taxes on some other hardworking taxpayer out there. That is the argument that is coming here. And if you don't agree with that, then you are not being bipartisan, and you are not facilitating tax reform. We just don't agree with that. So we are bringing our ideas to the floor. We are bringing our proposals to the table. And in the interest of growing the economy and finding common ground, this is what we are doing. We encourage the other side of the aisle to bring their ideas to the floor, to bring their ideas to the committee, to bring their ideas into the public sphere so we can see where they line up and what we can do and where common ground might exist.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. My friend got a little animated. Mr. Speaker, there was a lot there. I will just say this. Here is the question before us: Do we want to give businesses and charities certainty or not? If we would pass this motion to recommit and it went into law, then we will be right back here at the end of the year with the same old problem. We will be right back here. We will be right back here in the same old problem. They are saying, Let's just do 1 year. Let's just say it takes a few months to pass through the Senate and all of this, then we are back here at the end of the year saying, Oh, my gosh, all these charities are going to be in jeopardy in January. Let's get off this merry-go-round, Mr. Speaker. It is ridiculous. We all know this is good policy. We all know this is the right thing to do, and we all know that businesses and charities need the kind of certainty that we are providing, and most of us believe that not raising taxes is not the same as cutting taxes. With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), the distinguished member from the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I want to say to the gentlewoman, the minority leader, that I appreciate the tone and the temperament of her remarks. I thought that was well done. I disagree with the basic premise on baseline. I won't get into the details. I talked about that a little bit before. So I have some differences of opinion on the facts as she laid them out. I see it quite differently. But I thought that was a good tone and temperament that speaks well to the need for tax reform that is comprehensive. We believe that this helps move us in the right direction toward tax reform. I won't go to the baseline issues again, only to say I think this is a positive step in the direction toward comprehensive tax reform, which clearly the gentlewoman--meaning both parties--agree is something that we have to tackle. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I just want to keep on my time. Let me ask about the time allotment, by the way. Who is where.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 101, I call up the bill (H.R. 644) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permanently extend and expand the charitable deduction for contributions of food inventory, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.