S Corporation Permanent Tax Relief Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, I think what I would like to offer to the chairman at this moment is to pose the following question: Are you going to surrender this morning, or are you going to surrender in November? Because, really, those are the two options that are before us today.

Let me retrace where we have been on tax reform. The chairman gets credit for a valiant effort at tax reform. Mr. Levin has acknowledged it; Mr. Van Hollen has acknowledged it. For 3 years, we studiously and aggressively undertook a genuine effort to do tax reform.

Now, what is interesting about it is the Democratic response to the chairman's draft was fairly tepid. Let's continue the conversation. Republicans released letters to the media, the Speaker poured cold water on the initiative, and a pretty good effort was cast aside. So we are back here this morning.

Let me offer a couple of, I think, economic facts that might defy consideration around here because, sometimes, they don't square with opinion.

There has been little wage growth for the average American worker since
2002. Downward pressure on wages is what we should be discussing.

In addition, a company located not far from where I live submitted a tax form last year of 19,000 pages. They have 11 full-time Internal Revenue agents on site daily. If this isn't a reason to go back to the table and negotiate tax reform, I don't know what is.

The chairman kind of cleverly suggested here this morning that, if we were to accept what is being proposed by the Democratic minority, might that be a path forward? It is a path forward. We are offering a 2-year extension of these provisions.

I hope Mr. Reichert or Mr. Camp returns and says: indeed, Mr. Neal has voted for these repeatedly. We are counting on you, Mr. Chairman, to point out how many times I voted for them.

Guess what? You are right, and we are going to vote for them again in November. This exercise in futility ill-serves the American people, other than to perhaps get to some messaging points.

I don't disagree with these. I disagree with the idea of breaking the budget to make them permanent this morning, but I, more importantly, disagree with the whole notion that we are giving up on tax reform if we make these permanent.

Some of the provisions in the Code need to be discarded. Mr. Chairman, I would remind you and the Republican staff that you removed 300 provisions, exclusions, deductions, and preferences from the Code. So we come back here this morning in this ill-conceived effort to embrace a couple of favorites?

The Tax Code in America has not been touched since 1986. I would remind you this morning, for all of you out here today, that was before the Internet was invented.

That is the question before us. A Tax Code for a modern economy, or do we go back to, well, Mr. Neal voted for this 8 times? Yes, he did. In fact, Mr. Neal has been on the Ways and Means Committee longer than the three previous speakers, so you can probably say Mr. Neal has voted for them 11 times because I think many of them work, in the absence of fundamental reform.

The last point, the chairman said he was going to 25 percent. The Democrats said go to 28 percent on the corporate side. We could have done all of this, had we gone to 28 percent, but ideology reigns, so we go to 25 percent. Even President Obama was at 28 percent.

This is not the way this institution is supposed to function, Mr. Speaker. The Ways and Means Committee is a privileged perspective on complicated issues. You don't do them like this when it comes to items in the Code.

So accept the notion that everybody dislikes the Code. Specificity in terms of what we are going to wean out becomes the problem.

Here is our last position--a 2-year extension.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to seeing you after the elections. You and I are going to shake hands, and as much as we all like to say, ``I hate to say, `I told you so,' '' I am going to say, ``As much as I hate telling you this, I told you so.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

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