Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3393, Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4935, Child Tax Credit Improvement Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of two measures, H.R. 3393, the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, and H.R. 4935, the Child Tax Credit Improvement Act of 2014.

The resolution provides a closed rule for consideration of these two measures, as is customary with tax legislation. In addition, the resolution provides for 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means for both H.R. 3393 and H.R. 4935. And it provides for a motion to recommit on each bill.

Finally, Madam Speaker, the rule combines both H.R. 3393 and H.R. 4935 before sending it to the other body.

Madam Speaker, with tuition prices continuing to climb, more Americans are struggling to plan for and afford higher education. Today's broken Tax Code makes it even harder to pay for college, with 15 complicated, overlapping education provisions that take the IRS 90 pages to explain.

We need to simplify education tax benefits so families can actually use them, and we need to get our economy back on track so students and families are earning enough to afford a good education.

H.R. 3393 takes a good first step. It consolidates four current tax benefits for higher education, the American opportunity tax credit, the Hope Scholarship credit, the lifetime learning credit, and the college tuition deduction into a new, simplified and, most importantly, permanent tax credit.

In addition, H.R. 3393 also includes strong antifraud provisions requiring taxpayers to include on their tax return the name and taxpayer identification number of the student and the employer identification number of the applicable higher education institution.

In addition, this rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4935, which modernizes and improves the child tax credit. Originally created in 1997 to help ease the financial burden that families incur when they have children, this credit has failed to keep pace with the cost of raising a child. Initially, it provided a maximum credit of $400 per child. However, under the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, this credit was expanded to $1,000 per child, was made partially refundable, and was indexed for inflation.

Unfortunately, some of these good changes expired in 2010. I would note for my colleagues that even with these increases, since 1960, the cost of raising a child has increased by approximately 4.4 percent a year.

H.R. 4935 would index the child tax credit for inflation, eliminate the marriage penalty, and would require an individual to include their Social Security number on their tax return to claim the refundable portion of the child tax credit.

Current estimates suggest that at least $13 billion in improper refundable tax credit payments are made each year. This provision would help to combat that growing problem.

Madam Speaker, the cost of raising children increases every year, but the current child tax credit fails to take these increased costs into account. In addition, the current tax credit penalizes married couples.

By making these commonsense changes, we can ensure that the credit truly serves its intended purpose.

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation, which continues our targeted approach to updating, improving, and modernizing the Tax Code.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my friend. We do agree conceptually on quite a bit in terms of the Tax Code. I think both of us individually, and both sides collectively, honestly want to do things that make it easier for people to pursue a higher education.

Certainly, I think we are all interested in eliminating the marriage penalty as well. So I think we are moving broadly in the same direction, even though we have some disagreement.

I will point out to my friend that it is not unusual that tax legislation would come to the floor in a closed rule. As a matter of fact, that is almost always the way it is done, simply because you have to be able to score the items, and you have to understand what the real cost of tweaking is.

So whether Republicans or Democrats are in control, a closed rule is usually the order of the day on any tax legislation.

I appreciate my friend's concern about the deficit, and in that I am quite sincere.

Now, I do also always like to point out to my friends that when they were in the majority, for 4 years in a row the deficit got greater each year. And since we have been in the majority the last 4 years the deficit has gotten smaller each year.

So I actually think that we not only have a rhetorical concern about the deficit, we have demonstrated over and over again that certainly this current majority is very, very serious about dealing with it and will continue to do that by reining in spending and putting forward thoughtful reform proposals, which I believe we have done.

I would also point out to my friend, and I think he would agree with me on this, this is a vehicle. This is not going to be the final product. My friend is exactly correct when he says there will be a negotiation.

Our concern has been, watching what has been going on on the other side of the rotunda, so to speak, is that there hasn't been very much serious work. We think they are going to look at the extenders package in terms of tax relief and basically just try and jam that through without any thoughtful pruning and without making elements of it which have been approved over and over and over again, and which are clearly popular on a bipartisan basis, permanent.

So that is what we are trying to do. I think we are constructing a platform to go into negotiation with the Senate. And I suspect what emerges will be somewhat different than what either side goes in with. That is pretty normal in the legislative process.

But I think the concepts here that we are moving forward on are correct and, I think, have broad popular appeal and bipartisan support. These are provisions--and we have done this over several bills now--that both parties have approved overwhelmingly, time and time again on a sort of yearly basis. And we want to take those things and make them permanent.

I suspect, in that process, some things that are less popular might be jettisoned. But again, that is for the negotiators to decide. We are simply trying to get to that conference.

We are marking out what our position is. We recognize the Senate will have to do the same thing, and from there we will move and, perhaps, at a later point in this process we can find ourselves actually on the same side.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my good friend from the State of Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my fellow Rules Committee Member and RSC president now, rapid ascent, to make whatever remarks he cares to.

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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we have opened quite a range of things to talk about with Mr. Woodall's remarks and Mr. Polis' response and my good friend from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell's proposal. Let me sort of take some of them up in order.

My friend from Colorado, who I know is sincere, talked a little bit about the need to reform entitlements, and I couldn't agree with him more, and that is a discussion I think we really, seriously need to engage in as a body.

I would invite my friend, if he has an opportunity, to look at a bipartisan bill that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Delaney)--from his side of the aisle--and I have on Social Security reform.

It doesn't really deal with a lot of the reform, but it is a process bill. It would send us down the road to have a bipartisan proposal which, I can assure you, would have things that your side doesn't like and things that my side doesn't like, and then we would have to vote on it up or down.

I think it is a thoughtful way to try to begin to deal with some of these, and it is genuinely bipartisan, so I would hope my friend from Colorado would look at that.

My friend from New Jersey mentioned the Ex-Im Bank. I couldn't agree with him more. I support it. I have consistently supported it, and I know there is a disagreement on our side of the aisle, I think, largely about that.

I hope that it is resolved in regular order--that is, that the committee votes on it and it comes down to the floor. When that happens, I look forward to working with my friend to enact that legislation.

I am intrigued by what my friend from New Jersey had to say about his tax proposal because I think, at the minimum, he has certainly put his finger on an important problem which is a real loophole that we ought to consider.

Now, I don't consider myself an expert on tax legislation. I am like my friend in the chair. I am an appropriator. That is the world I know. So I would hope that my friend's proposal would get appropriate consideration in our Ways and Means body and move through regular order because I think this is an area that we can cooperate on.

Frankly, we have got some bipartisan proposals in terms of stranded profits overseas that I think both sides could work together on, perhaps, and bring some investment back to our shores, but we do have to defend the process whereby we move legislation--that is it needs to come through the appropriate committee, we duly consider it, and it reaches here.

Again, while I may oppose the process by which my friend is moving, I am not at all prepared to say I oppose his product. I just simply haven't had a chance to look at it, but I think he is addressing an important issue.

The last area I do have to disagree with my friend on a little bit: I do like Walmart. I am a shopper at Walmart, and I am a stockholder at Walmart, and I think they are a great American company, but we live in a great country. My friend can shop where he chooses to, and I can shop where I choose to, and we will get down the road.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I care to consume.

Again, I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, I frankly have no objection to my friends' using the process to bring these ideas up for debate and discussion. I actually think that is helpful and that moves the process forward, and I applaud them for that. I don't disagree necessarily with what they are talking about in terms of tax deductions for jobs that are exported as opposed to jobs that could be imported. I think that is something we ought to consider.

But, it is not the subject of the legislation that is in front of us today. Those subjects are, one, what can we do to modernize the Tax Code and give students permanent certainty in terms of tax deductions that are available to educate themselves and give their families the ability to deal a little bit with the mounting cost of college. That is a good idea. Both sides can broadly agree at least in principle. And what can we do to make sure the marriage penalty disappears and that we can target appropriate tax relief to families with children at least up to a certain level of income, I believe $150,000, to give them a little break with the cost of raising children.

Those, to me, are modest steps, but they are important programs because they affect the daily lives of American workers. I am not suggesting that what my friends are proposing doesn't do the same thing. I just think this vehicle, we probably ought to work within the bounds of what Ways and Means has sent us.

I will say, I sense some of my friend's frustration in terms of moving legislation. We have got 321 bills sitting in the United States Senate that haven't been acted upon that this House has sent over there, so I know a lot about feeling shut out. I think if our friends on our side of the aisle in the upper Chamber were here, they would tell you that they have had fewer amendments this year than Democrats in this Chamber have gotten on any appropriations bill that we have brought forward. We don't have a broken Congress. We have a broken United States Senate, in my view.

But, having said that, we have got a chance, I think, here to take a step in the right direction, to thoughtfully consider things that have worked their way through the Ways and Means Committee, to position this Chamber to sit down at a later point and negotiate with our friends--Republican and Democrat alike--in the other Chamber and perhaps produce, toward the end of this year, some good and permanent changes in the Tax Code that, if an agreement is reached, I suspect we could have overwhelming bipartisan support for.

So, we are just at that point in the process where we need to develop and put forward our proposals. We would hope that our counterparts in the United States Senate do the same thing, and that we can sit down and again find common ground in between. We have done that on some occasions before. If we will just operate the way our procedures are set up, I am confident we can do that again.

So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me address a number of remarks my friend made in passing. Let me begin by reminding anybody who happens to be listening or following the debate this isn't an immigration bill. This is actually a tax bill, and it is really about trying to make some things that have had bipartisan support permanent.

We all agree that we need to, insofar as we can, help people that are educating themselves or members of their family and provide appropriate tax relief. That is what this bill does. It is simply that simple.

Number two, we all think that you shouldn't have a tax penalty for being married, and if we can do things to help you with the cost of raising a family, we ought to try and do those things because it has been tough. That is what this bill does.

Now, we can disagree about the merits, but I think the general thrust is something we probably broadly agree on. Making those items permanent within the Tax Code is important so people can actually get used to using the benefits, understand them--sort of internalize them--and make them permanent and predictable for families. So that is our goal with this legislation.

Finally, we would like to get, eventually, to a conference with our friends in the Senate who I suspect would share some of my friend from Colorado's concerns that might be in their legislation. He knows how the process works. We will sit down at that point and see if we can find common ground. If the two negotiating teams can, then I suspect we will come back with something that a great number of us on both sides of the aisle can support.

What my friend, Mr. Camp, the chairman of Ways and Means, is trying to do is actually make permanent some very good bipartisan ideas that I think we can rally around.

Now, my friend also mentioned the deficit, and I want to, again, laud his concern for that. I appreciate that. I genuinely do. I recognize this is a work in progress, not a final product, but I will point out again for the record, when my friends were in the majority, the deficit got worse every single year. It has gotten lower every single year since then. So I think we are serious about dealing with the deficit.

I would invite my friend, and I know he would seriously engage in this, let's find some areas on the part of the budget that I think need addressing--the entitlement area--where perhaps we can find some common ground.

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