Provding for Further Consideration of Senate Amendments to HR 22, Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENTS TO H.R. 22, HIRE MORE HEROES ACT OF 2015

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Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, we shouldn't be bragging about this
legislation today, boasting about this legislation. Let me give you the
perspective of 27 years here.

This used to be the easiest legislation to pass in this institution.
It created greater cost efficiencies. It created greater investment and, just as
importantly, it put people to work immediately.

There was no hearing held on the tax title portion of this bill.
There was no operation or opportunity for Members to offer amendments
in the Ways and Means Committee. Now, let me point out, for that 4-year
period when we were in the majority, I held those hearings; and then
after the loss of elections, during those 4 years, nothing ever came of
it again.

We have repeatedly urged the opportunity to talk about a genuine
mechanism for financing the Federal highway system, our airports, our
railroads; and the opportunity has not availed itself.

To point something out here that I think is noteworthy as well, this
financing is held together by bubble gum. How many times are we going
to sell the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Every time I turn
around, it becomes the pay-for these days. Is there any oil left in
there? That is how we are going to finance the Federal highway system?

A reminder, what I heard earlier that in some States people only want
to pay for services that they use, that was the revenue mechanism, the
user fee, the gas tax that allowed people to pay for the services that
they used; namely, driving along on the Federal highway system. Now,
how is that for a complication?

We are here today because we have not adequately addressed the
Federal highway system's responsibility and that begins in this House
of the Congress where all financing, according to our Constitution, is
supposed to originate. If the Ways and Means Committee isn't taking it
up, there is no opportunity for the House to take it up.

Don't brag about this rule today. It is a bad rule, and we should
vote it down and get on with financing the Federal highway system the
way it is supposed to be financed.

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Mr. NEAL. Will the gentleman yield?

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Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, we held the hearings. We went through it. We
had the Chamber of Commerce in, the American Trucking Association, and
we had organized labor in. We were set to go, and then we lost the
institution and that was the end of the discussion about the Federal
highway system.

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