Small Business Tax Cut Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Levin.
Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This bill provides a windfall tax break to hedge fund owners, to big Washington law firms, to the very wealthy, even if they don't hire a single person--not one. In fact, in a cruel hoax and twist on this, wealthy individuals can qualify for this tax break even if they fire people this year. And in some cases they can also get a bigger tax break if they do not make their investments this year.
Mr. Speaker, this place sometimes gets to be a fact-free zone. We have the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee say, The economic activity generated by this is so small as to be incalculable. That's why Bruce Bartlett, former economic adviser to President Reagan said, It will do nothing whatsoever to increase employment.
So what's this all about? It gives a big tax break to the wealthiest individuals while adding $50 billion to our deficit and debt.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this week highlights the unfortunate doublespeak from our Republican colleagues when it comes to the deficit. On the Senate side, a majority of Republicans voted against a bill to apply the Buffett rule, meaning that we were going to ask millionaires to pay the same effective tax rate as many of their employees paid and use that $50 billion toward deficit reduction. Here in the House, we're providing a $50 billion tax break that adds to the deficit, and this one is targeted disproportionately to very wealthy individuals.
There's another sort of strange irony. When we were debating the payroll tax cut for a year that would benefit 160 million Americans, our Republican colleagues dragged their feet and then said this was all a gimmick, it was a 1-year thing, it was a sugar high. Well, at least the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that it would generate economic activity. In fact, they ranked it near the top.
This is a 1-year thing that's going to give a great sugar high to the wealthiest individuals. They are going to be floating on this. But it's ranked near the bottom by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in terms of economic activity.
You want to know another irony? When it came to providing a tax break for 160 million Americans, payroll tax cut, we paid for it. We offset the cost of that. When it comes to providing a sugar high, $50 billion tax cut that disproportionately benefits the wealthy, we don't offset it. We put it on our national credit card. We increase the debt. Who pays for that? We've heard on a bipartisan basis that's our kids, our grandkids. We're all going to be paying for that debt.
So Mr. Speaker, this is worse than a gimmick. It's not good for the economy, it adds to the deficit, and I urge that we reject this bill.
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