Providing Consideration of HR 5771, Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014; Consideration of HR 647, Achieving a Better Life Experience
Floor Speech
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, as the calendar year comes to an end, America's small businesses and taxpayers are looking to Congress for certainty before they file their taxes in April of 2015. While far from perfect, the Tax Increase Prevention Act will provide certainty by extending for 1 more year a number of tax relief provisions that simply would have expired at the end of this year. Put simply, this bill will prevent tax increases on millions of families that would happen if we were not bringing it to the floor today.
And to Mr. Kingston, I thank you for your years of service to this body on behalf of the American people and the people of Georgia.
In an ideal world, Mr. Speaker, the House would be debating a more comprehensive approach to tax reform. We would be worried and focusing our activities on growing jobs in America and giving the American people more of their hard-earned money back so they could invest either in their family or in their business--an opportunity to grow our economy to keep America strong--but our Tax Code is holding back America from being competitive and from providing America with more jobs.
American taxpayers deserve what we are doing today, which is an opportunity to work incrementally on a better, simpler, easy-to-navigate Tax Code with certainty, but only for 1 more year. We should be making long-range plans by working with the United States Senate and the President to make sure the American people come up winners. The United States tax rate is currently the highest in the world, and I would prefer to be debating reform, but we are here today for 1 more year's worth of opportunity to keep America where she and her citizens are prepared for the future.
Thanks to the leadership of the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Dave Camp from Michigan, we almost had a chance to fix these issues today, but he came to the rescue and said, ``I am going to work with Republicans and Democrats and anybody who will work with me''--meaning the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee--``on helping American business be stronger.''
The bottom line is that I believe we are going to work together, and it starts in the House of Representatives to get that work done. So just like the deal that Dave Camp started, we are here for the process today of jump-starting American business for yet another year.
Sadly, reports tell us that the President's veto threat undermines these bipartisan negotiations. The things Chairman Dave Camp is working on to make American jobs stronger and a reality--and working on in a bipartisan effort--the President of the United States is threatening to veto that very legislation. So, today, despite the veto threat, we are here to do our work.
Today, you will see, Mr. Speaker, Republicans and Democrats certainly have things in the bill which are special and important to them but that, more importantly, are about the American people and opportunities to save and grow jobs.
Earlier this year, and certainly last year, the House passed a number of permanent extensions of these policies on a bipartisan basis. That means, Mr. Speaker, Republicans and Democrats tried to work together. But the failure of leadership on the Senate side meant those bills were not ever even brought before the Senate to debate them. Worse yet, the President of the United States opposes those efforts.
We are here for one simple reason today. By taking the leadership opportunity, we think we can gain the ability, on a bipartisan basis in the House of Representatives, to give the Senate and the President one more whack at it.
Let me be clear. Even if this legislation is not as ambitious as it could have been, it is still vitally important. I think what we are doing here, under the leadership of John Boehner, is to say to the American people that we know what our job is, even if we are not as wildly successful as we want to be. America's small businesses and families actually need, and rely upon, Congress to do its job.
Mr. Speaker, as the Representative of the 32nd Congressional District of Texas, which is essentially Dallas, Texas, and some suburbs, I regularly meet with small businesses--important businesses--that employ people. Earlier in the year, I met with Jamey Rentfrow of Ascend Custom Extrusions in Wylie, Texas. Jamey's company manufactures and designs custom aluminum extrusions for industry. It was a most interesting visit. They call this manufacturing in America.
On the same day, I also met with JoAnn Gardner, a young woman who owns Savage Precision Fabrication. They make parts for military aircraft. They count on us to be able to get our job done to buy the newest and best equipment. It goes to help not only aerospace and military but other civilian needs also. They know that if we do this, the option for them to expense 50 percent of the purchase price of their assets can be taken care of. They can write it off when they want to rather than when the Tax Code wants.
In March, I met with Frank Millsap. It was a most interesting visit. He runs a rod car store called Sachse Rod Shop. He explained to me how our onerous Tax Code prevented him from employing more people.
Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here today. We are here to make sure we take care of the people in our home districts, many of them companies that are small mom-and-pop shops, but others that employ hundreds of people.
The bill would also affect a minority-owned business called Aluma Graphics, which is located in Wylie, Texas, and owned by Randall Williams, a young man who played professional football. When he got out, he decided he was going to go into business. He is realizing how tough it is to manufacture labels and decals for industrial products. This bill would help him and his employees.
These businesses, not just in the 32nd Congressional District but all over our country, are important, as they provide people the honesty of hard work and the return of continuing to come to work the next day because their company can make the money to get it done.
What we are doing today will extend for only 1 more year the tax provisions, but it will help millions and millions of people.
Additionally, Mr. Speaker, this rule contains a great bill that's called the ABLE Act, which represents, I believe, what our country can do best when Republicans and Democrats and people who care in the United States Congress work together.
Almost every single person in America, I believe, knows someone with a disability: a family member, a best
friend, perhaps a brother or sister, or maybe even an aunt or uncle. But we all know that it is only fair that we pay attention to the people we dearly love.
So, today is a game-changer. Today, we are removing what I think is a glass ceiling for disabled people who are held at a disadvantage in our Tax Code. The ABLE Act would make 529 tax-free savings accounts available so that families can cover important expenses such as postsecondary education, housing, career development, and medical expenses not covered by private insurance, Medicaid, or other benefits that might be available to them offered by government.
These tax-free savings accounts will empower families so that their loved ones can have opportunities they have not had in the past. It is personal to me because as my father looks at all of his grandchildren, he can have the opportunity of helping out in their education, but not for Alex Sessions, his grandson with Down syndrome. He can help all the grandkids, but not Alex.
This happens millions of times in our country. There are millions of people with disabilities who count on going into a program or being enrolled in something that the Federal Government pays for, but we discriminate against them. When this gets signed into law, my father, Judge Sessions, will be able to treat Alex as he does his other grandchildren. What is amazing is that Alex needs it more than all of them combined, but he is the one that we wanted to keep in his place because he has a disability called Down syndrome.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is important. It is important to the people whom it impacts. It is important to our families. But more importantly, it is important to our country. The gentleman, Ander Crenshaw from Jacksonville, has worked on this bill for 8 years. We are finding a way to put it into a piece of legislation. To help millions of people with their jobs, it needs to pass.
Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here today. We are here doing important work for millions of people. It does matter, and I think we make a huge difference.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to take the gentleman from Vermont up on, really, his issues. We are going to have a Republican House, a Republican Senate, that is able to effectively work with each other, look each other in the eye and find progress for the American people. So I promise the gentleman, he is going to get what he wants and more so that we can grow our economy.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to have as our next speaker a gentleman who, for 8 years, has toiled on the ABLE Act. He is the chief sponsor. He is the young man who has made so many conversations and discussions, not just among our Members here, but also among people all around this country, disability groups.
I earlier accused him of being from Texas. He is actually from Jacksonville, Florida, so I am sure I will get lots of cards and letters about that. We wish he were a Texan, but he is from Florida.
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
It has been mentioned a couple of times today, but I also want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia, for your distinguished service, not only to the people of Georgia in your district, but also to the people--your friends--who are in this body, who have benefited from your service on the Appropriations Committee and who knew that you took time, just as we are doing here today, to deal with the intricacies of NIH, to deal with the intricacies of cancer, to deal with the intricacies of disabilities, to deal with the intricacies of our working together as a country and as a body and as Americans to make life better for people.
Mr. Speaker, your years of service here--some 20 years of service that you have given--have been of distinguished service. I have known you for a long time and have admired you.
I want to thank the gentleman, Jack Kingston, for his great service to America, which is exactly in line with what we are doing today.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate your hard work. Your being in the chair as we do this is not by accident. It is on purpose. With the distinguished opportunity that you have of serving as the Speaker pro tempore today, I appreciate your great service.
Mr. Speaker, we have made the case today of what we are trying to do. We are on the floor to bring certainty to the Tax Code for one more year. It is not perfect--the gentleman from Vermont noted that--but it is an opportunity as best as we can do in the environment that we are in, and that is what this is about. It is the knowledge that we are going to wake up and do the best that we can for the American people.
Today is about the American people and their Tax Code. Today is about the ABLE Act and about millions of people with disabilities who are attempting as best as they can to make due with what they have but who, tomorrow, can get fairness and equity in that process. It is about an opportunity for families not to question why but to dig in and help.
Today is yet another opportunity when not only the gentlewoman, Ms. Slaughter, and I may work together in our tutelage as chairman and ranking member of the Rules Committee but when we can have a common sense of purpose. This is not perfect, but the world can be better today and tomorrow.
I would ask my fellow Members to understand that we are here asking for everybody to vote ``yes'' on the rule. They can do what they want to do on the underlying legislation, but today is an opportunity to give thanks for the opportunities that lie ahead of us that are about others instead of ourselves.
Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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