Investing in American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman.

After 12 years of Republican rule, our tax code is riddled with loopholes. The small businesses on Main Street, the families that are struggling to get by with both spouses as wage earners, they all continue to shoulder a much heavier tax burden proportionately than the giant multinationals that operate around the world, that have operated here in Washington to lobby their way into one bit of special treatment after another. And many of these loopholes serve only to encourage multinationals to invest overseas instead of investing here at home to create American jobs. For some of them, their number one export is the export of American jobs instead of creating things here in America that we can then export to the world.

This particular bill promotes jobs in America in two ways. First, it recognizes that there is important work that needs to be done here in America, hard work that is worth doing. In Austin, Texas, Build America Bonds were used to build a police substation, to build a public safety training facility, public facilities that we need to protect our neighborhoods, built by private contractors, putting food on the table of private employees. This bill would encourage more of the same for America.

Second, this bill represents the next step in a long-standing effort that I've been a part of to crack down on multinational corporations that get Federal tax breaks only to ship their jobs offshore. It's long past time to stop letting these folks play games with our tax system that actually encourage the export of jobs. It's unfair to small businesses, it's unfair to families, those who are following the rules and paying their taxes in order to finance the tax breaks for those that dodge their fair share of responsibility for our national security, for our homeland security. And making these large corporations pay their fair share, stop the kind of dodges that aren't available to our small businesses, is pro-competition. This bill helps to level the playing field for small businesses across America.

I think you can assess this particular piece of legislation by its friends and by its foes. Those who build America, groups like the engineers, have endorsed this measure. Those who want to keep dodging their taxes and shifting jobs overseas, they're counting on Republicans to do the same thing they always do, and that is, assure special treatment for special folks.

It is the same kind of thinking that got us the Republican bank bailout. It's the same kind of thinking that's being used here today to defend loopholes that are indefensible when what we ought to be doing is focusing on creating American jobs.

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