Debt Management and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Amnesia. Amnesia, Mr. Chair, once again pervades this Republican Conference. Where were these great deficit hawks 2 months ago when they had an opportunity to vote on increasing the national debt? They were there raising their hand ``aye'' in favor of hiking the national debt. Today, they come forward with the audacity to say let's solve the runaway national debt problem; we want another government report to do it.

Yes, at Christmastime, these deficit hawks went on a spending spree right here in this House. Not a spending spree to provide more educational opportunity for our children, not a spending spree to provide more medical research dollars for our scientists and physicians, not a spending spree to do something about our crumbling roads or to build a competitive infrastructure, but a spending spree with tax expenditures from the Tax Code to stuff every silk stocking they could find. Anyone who had a powerful lobby, they were here to get an expanded or extended tax cut.

Here is what was said 2 months ago, and I quote:

``Budgeting in this country has pretty much become a joke. Members of Congress give heartfelt speeches''--the same kind we are hearing today--``about being responsible. . . . And then time and time again, they cast votes that add billions and even trillions of dollars to the debt. The rampant hypocrisy is quite galling.''

``How can lawmakers claim that their budget will achieve balance when they just passed a deficit-financed tax deal that blows a big hole in the budget?''

Those weren't the words of a Democrat. Those weren't the words of a progressive institution. They were the words of Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan organization. On their board is Mitch Daniels, Alan Simpson, and a host of Republicans.

That final bill that they voted for 2 months ago added $830 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years, as they borrowed money from abroad to give it to Wall Street and other special interests. It will cost us about $2 trillion over the next two decades.

One of the biggest items in that budget was a giveaway to Wall Street banks, the same Wall Street banks that helped bring this country to its knees in the economic crisis. Yet they came in and they got a tax break in order to encourage shipping more jobs overseas, which is what that particular tax break does.

They come back to us today, having added to the debt so much. Never seeing a tax break for a special interest that they didn't like--to borrow from Will Rogers--they come to us today and say give us a report, give us another speech.

When we had the Treasury Secretary in front of our committee all morning, our Republican chairman was candid. He was cordial, but he was candid in saying that everything that the Treasury Secretary was offering was dead on arrival, would never see the light of day.

This is a wasted endeavor that ought to be rejected.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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Mr. DOGGETT. I am.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, to address a problem that has impacted our country for generations, some of our problem-solving colleagues have devised a surefire remedy. They are demanding another government report. Instead of actually voting to prevent more debt when they had the opportunity, they want a report.

Approval of this motion will not kill the report, it will not kill the bill, nor will it send it back to committee. Rather, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended, but it will be a more complete report that more completely describes the problem with which we are dealing.

Some of my Republican colleagues have a near insatiable desire for tax cuts that don't pay for themselves. They don't mind borrowing from foreign sources to provide more tax preferences to Wall Street or the privileged few. This motion would simply expose the cost of this false ideology. It would add a requirement that the public just find out how much these special-interest tax loopholes cost.

Specifically, this report would be expanded to include inversions. These are schemes by which some multinational corporations are renouncing their American charter, their American citizenship, in order to dodge taxes, while continuing to remain in America and claim the benefits of being American, paid for by their business competitors and other taxpayers. We have had a recent string of these inversions, which are really perversions of our Tax Code by those who refuse to pay their fair share of the cost of national security and other vital services.

American corporation Johnson Controls, for example, has announced its intent to merge with Tyco. Tyco was once an American citizen, before it became a citizen of Bermuda, before it switched to become a citizen of Ireland--all the while being managed in New Jersey. And Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company, is seeking the luck of the Irish--the Irish taxes, that is--but it certainly refuses to charge Americans lower, more reasonable Irish pharmaceutical costs.

These are the same companies that are insulted by the notion that they ought to pay a higher rate on their earnings than the people who clean up the boardroom at night.

The Republican chairman of a Houston oil services company wrote me a long time ago rejecting this notion as unfair and unpatriotic.

He said:

We are proud of our country, and we are willing to pay U.S. taxes to receive the wonderful benefits of U.S. citizenship. My strongly held view is that if companies want to be headquartered in some tax haven, then the management should give up their U.S. citizenship and move there.

I agree. But that is not what happens. With our current tax loopholes, they don't have to move much more than a mailbox and few staff members.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court thinks that corporations are people for many other purposes, I agree with former Secretary Hillary Clinton's proposal to treat these charter-changing corporations as individuals like the super rich individuals who turn in passports and leave America. Apply an exit tax to previous profits that these corporations want to take out of the country.

There is much more that the Treasury Department can and should do now, since what it has done so far under existing legal authority has not accomplished very much.

Today, let's just get a report about it, about a giant rip-off of America. Corporations which are shipping their jobs and profits overseas while paying their lobbyists and their chief executive officers more than they pay the United States Treasury in taxes in any given year have made a pretty good investment for themselves, but it is not too great for the rest of us. They could not do it without enablers in this Congress.

American companies who stay in America and contribute to building American manufacturing in America deserve to have a level playing field. They help keep us secure at home and abroad, and they deserve to be treated fairly. In order to create more opportunity for all, we need more responsibility from all. Let's at least get a report about it.

That is all that this motion to recommit does is to ask for a report to go along with the report that they are seeking from the Treasury Department to tell us what is happening, how our middle class--our working Americans--are having to pay more because some others won't pay their fair share.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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