Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Chair, that is very good to hear.

I join in supporting this amendment as a coauthor of it. Multinational corporations that do business around the globe have an even greater interest in world order and in national security. They should not be paying a lesser rate of taxes than corporations that focus their business right here in America.

Unfortunately, some of them scheme to avoid their fair share and to shift the burden to smaller businesses and to individuals. Some of these same companies have on more than one occasion paid more to their lobbyists to lobby this Congress and the Treasury to avoid paying taxes than they actually pay to the Treasury. It has been a pretty wise investment for them because our Tax Code is a mess. It is riddled with preferences and loopholes and one exception after another.

This amendment addresses one of the most egregious tax gimmicks. That is where a corporation actually renounces its American citizenship, declares itself a citizen of some other country, and then continues operations inAmerica, demanding the full protection of the laws and the military and the educational system that it refuses to contribute a fair share to pay for. Tax lawyers call it an ``inversion''; I call it a perversion of our tax laws.

To add insult to injury, some of these same corporations, which have abandoned their citizenship, then ask for American government contracts paid for with the very tax dollars from the small businesses and individuals to whom they have shifted the tax burden.

American companies that stay and contribute to building our country and keeping her strong at home and abroad deserve a level playing field, and that is what this amendment does.

The action that we take in approving this amendment today sends a message to executives that they can pretend that their company is located on some Caribbean beach to avoid paying taxes, but Congress is not going to put its head in the sand about this kind of tax dodging.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. This Congress has a constitutional obligation to approve military action before any President decides to shoot first and ask questions later. A 12-year-old resolution, enacted in the aftermath of 9/11, should not provide a basis for endless war.

Some of the same self-certified smart people who were talking about mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction are, once again, trying to stampede us into war. We have been there, and we have done that, and America is still paying a terrible, terrible price for their past failures, though they refuse to acknowledge them.

Protecting our Embassy in Baghdad is one thing--a true emergency--but if any President wants to launch offensive military action, they need to come and make a specific case to this Congress for authorization, just as President Obama said he would do last year on Syria, not some convoluted interpretation of a resolution from a different time and circumstance.

If there is a case for war, have the courage to come here and make it, but don't rely on an open-ended authorization of military force from long ago.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source