Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2009 -- Continued

Floor Speech

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009--Continued -- (Senate - March 12, 2008)

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise for two purposes: one, to speak about an amendment that will come up tomorrow dealing with the alternative minimum tax and, on a second point, to speak against an amendment that will be offered tomorrow on the H-1B program. First, I will discuss the amendments I intend to pursue on the budget resolution.

The first is similar to the amendment I offered in committee markup. Unfortunately, the committee did not adopt the amendment. The amendment is very straightforward. The amendment would exempt from the pay-go requirements an extension of relief from the alternative minimum tax. I want to explain the term pay-go. It means if you are going to offer something that has less income coming in from taxes, you have to offset it someplace else. Pay-go is a rule that applies to both taxes as well as expenditures. It is pay as you go.

I want to make sure this doesn't apply to the AMT because, quite frankly, it is silly to talk about offsetting revenue from middle-class Americans from whom it was never intended to be collected in the first place. And the alternative minimum tax, if we don't do something about it, has that negative impact. As everyone knows, if we do not act this year, about 25 million families, most of them middle-income families, will be faced with an alternative minimum tax increase of over $2,000 per family. The alternative minimum tax, which was meant to hit high-income people, filthy rich people, it now could happen that middle-income people would pay an increase in taxes of more than $2,000 per family. We cannot let that happen. It is a result no one in Congress can defend.

The alternative minimum tax was meant to apply, as I have said so many times, to a small group of high-income taxpayers who use tax preferences, legal ways of not paying taxes. There is nothing illegal about it.

The chairman of the Budget Committee has wisely recognized the reality and the importance of shielding these 25 million families from the unintended reach of the alternative minimum tax. To that end, then, his budget resolution has revenue room, about $62 billion worth, for an AMT hold harmless for the current year. Unfortunately, though the budget revenue baseline is adjusted for the AMT for this year, action on an AMT patch faces pay-go points of order unless offset. So my amendment would clear away the hurdle for this year as well as for future years.

My amendment would ensure that delivering relief from the AMT would trump an obsession with a tax increase notion of pay as you go. It is as simple as that.

My second amendment deals with fundamental tax reform. Everyone knows our tax system could be improved. The alternative minimum tax monster I just referred to is only one of the major reasons we need to undertake tax reform. Senator Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, has been very articulate on that point. So this is a bipartisan statement as well as a partisan statement. If we undertake fundamental tax reform on a revenue-neutral basis under the current revenue baseline, we could be backing into a major tax increase on virtually every taxpayer.

In 2011, the bipartisan tax relief bills of 2001 and 2003 expire or to use the terminology in Congress, they sunset. If we allow current law to continue--in other words, current law so that you have tax increases automatically without a vote of Congress--the tax burden on the American people as a group could be up to 10 percent higher than it is today. That would be well into the future after 2010, until Congress would reduce taxes. We should not have a tax increase without a vote of Congress, No. 1. But also we should keep taxes where they are now because it has been so good to the economy. You should not have a tax increase on the American people. That is what is going to happen if we don't make changes between now and the end of 2010.

Tax reform should not be a stealthy method, then, to raise taxes on the American people. When I say ``raise taxes on the American people,'' let me repeat, the biggest tax increase in the history of the country is going to happen without even a vote of Congress. The amendment from my friend from Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, with whom I have the privilege of working closely, makes the point that current law levels of taxation set to spring into effect in 2011 are intolerable on both sides of the aisle. My amendment seeks the same assurances, though in a complete manner, if we hopefully enter into a real legislative effort on fundamental tax reform.

Those are my remarks in regard to two amendments that are going to be voted upon tomorrow.

Tomorrow my friend, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Gregg, is going to offer an amendment or maybe has offered the amendment already to expand the H-1B visa program. I have nothing against the H-1B visa program. In fact, I value it as a legal channel for U.S. companies to bring in workers they need. That is under the assumption that we don't have workers in the United States to fill those slots. But I have to say, increasing the H-1B visa cap, which is the proposal, if we do that without reform, will only hurt U.S. taxpayers and American workers. The solution to increasing our global position in science and technology is, obviously, from the ground up, investing in American workers. We must strengthen educational opportunities for our American students, particularly in the areas of math and science. Such an investment will help reduce the trend in which 60 percent of the students in our U.S. STEM doctoral programs are foreign born.

According to recent statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security, foreign outsourcers top the list of companies bringing foreign workers to the United States under the H-1B program. In fact, it is this overwhelming--6 of the top 10 visa recipients in 2007 are based in the country of India. Senator Durbin and I made the same point about the visa approvals during debate in the year 2006. We found that the top 9 foreign-based companies in 2006 used nearly 20,000 of the total availability of H-1B visas, and there is a cap on the number of H-1B visas. It seems to me that that 20,000 is close to a third of all. They are used by nine foreign-based companies. You would think, of the thousands and thousands of companies we have in America, that you would not have H-1Bs clustered to such a great extent around nine companies and nine foreign-based companies.

We heard today that Microsoft, in testimony before the House of Representatives, wants an unlimited supply of H-1B visas. However, that company's visa approvals declined in 2007 from 2006. In 2006, Microsoft was approved for 3,117 H-1B visas. In 2007, it dropped from third to fifth place and only approved 959 visas compared to over 3,000 visas the year before.

This very day, as I have indicated, Bill Gates said that Microsoft was ``unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the highly qualified foreign-born job candidates that it wanted to hire.''

It makes me question, then, why visa approvals decreased very dramatically for Microsoft, from 3,000 in 2006, down to 900 plus in 2007. I think the statistics are very clear. Thousands of visas are going to foreign-based companies, leaving U.S. companies such as Microsoft scrambling for qualified workers. How can one explain the fact that most H-1B visas are going to companies based outside the United States? Do you think that increasing the cap, then, increasing the cap we have in current law, would actually benefit Microsoft and other companies? Answering these questions should lead one to the conclusion that the H-1B visa program is not working as originally intended. We need reform, even in conjunction with increasing the numbers.

I am not opposed to increasing the numbers if they need to be increased. But it won't do any good if we don't have reform, and not just the so-called reform, then, of increasing the visa supply, as proposed by the high-tech industry. Reforms are needed so that U.S. businesses, both large and small, can find, recruit, and hire the workers they need.

One of the major reforms needed to protect American workers is to require employers to make good-faith efforts to recruit U.S. citizens before hiring an H-1B visa holder. Only a small group of employers have to make this good-faith effort. We need to require all users of the visa program to first recruit Americans for these highly skilled, high-paying jobs, or at least attempt to find if American workers are available, because Americans should come first.

Another reform needed is to increase the investigative power of the Department of Labor over this program. The program is full of bad actors. Companies are using ruthless tactics to undermine the system and to pay lower salaries and benefits to foreign workers. Current law is handicapping Federal officials from rooting out more fraud. We need to give them the power to audit and the power to investigate abuse.

In addition to those two major reforms, we need to increase transparency for U.S. taxpayers to view job openings that are filled by H-1B visa workers.

We should require employers to better advertise job openings so American workers have a chance at the jobs before they are taken by foreign workers.

If we do not make changes in the H-1B program, foreign outsourcers will continue to import thousands of foreign workers to the detriment of U.S. businesses and opportunities for American workers to be hired first.

So I want my colleagues to know I cannot support an increase in the visa supply without reform--and I mean real reform or drastic reform--to the program. I have suggested some of those reforms. Like I said, raising the H-1B cap without reforms will only hurt American companies and American workers. American workers should come first.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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