Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2014

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Van Hollen.

To listen to the histrionics from the other side here today, you would think that we could run the Pentagon through charitable giving. You would think that if there was just a deduction for charitable giving, we would have people volunteering to give their money to the Pentagon.

The reality is that, in this institution, we have had time for Benghazi. We have had time for the IRS, and guess what, next week and the week after, we are going to find time to sue the President of the United States, but we don't have time to address the American Tax Code where, as Mr. Van Hollen has just described, 40 companies are lined up to leave.

Yesterday, the acting head of the VA said we are going to need $18 billion to straighten out the VA, based upon the men and women who have honorably served this Nation.

Mr. Camp said yesterday, in an email to The Wall Street Journal:

Our Tax Code is dysfunctional.

Let me refer to what the gentleman from Alaska said just a few moments ago. He blamed Democrats in this Chamber for thwarting tax reform. I guess he didn't vote for the Speaker of the House because the Speaker of the House looked at the issue and said ``blah, blah, blah'' about tax reform--even as $20 billion, in terms of base erosion, is about to abandon the United States.

If you want to do something about charitable giving--and everybody in this institution honors Tocqueville's description of what is known as habits of the heart, we do it naturally. It is the third largest expenditure in the American Tax Code.

Nobody is talking about disarming charitable giving. What we are saying is that Mr. Camp is correct in his email to The Wall Street Journal yesterday. The Tax Code is, in fact, dysfunctional, and we should be addressing it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source