Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, certainty, we are told, is the key factor
here--first words from Chairman Ryan in support of this bill. I think
the first certainty we have here is the knowledge that this bill is
part of a package that, approved through today, is certain to borrow
$317.5 billion. That is basically a request to this House and this
Congress that we approve the borrowing of $317.5 billion. And when you
look at other measures they have approved in the past, they are really
on a pathway to borrowing almost $1 trillion to finance these tax cuts.

I believe that certainty is important to taxpayers. I think that when
someone pays for Medicare and Social Security, they need to be certain
that it will be there. They need to be certain that the water that they
drink and the air they breathe is not contaminated. They need to be
certain that the food that they put on their family's table is safe,
that it has been inspected by a meat inspector or another type of
health inspector. They need to be sure when they drive home, they need
to have the certainty that the bridge that they drive over is not going
to fall down, as it did in Minneapolis a few years back. They need to
be certain that there is educational opportunity, quality education,
for their children. They need to be able to do all this without just
having to rely on charity.

This bill certainly selects a subset of tax provisions that benefit a
few Americans and gives them preference. And I like some of these
provisions. In fact, I am a cosponsor of some of these provisions, like
the conservation easement. But they are measures that can and should be
fully paid for instead of asking for another IOU. And because they are
select provisions, they exclude many working and middle class American
families.

For example, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which is based on
the principle that we want all Americans to be able to get
postsecondary education in a college or a trade school, but a choice
that they make and get $2,500 directly off of their tax bill to pay for
tuition and books; the child tax credit that so many American families
claim to help with their children; the earned income tax credit that
even President Reagan said was a key factor in getting people out of
poverty, those are key provisions that were left over on the side and
not selected for borrowing or for anything else.

It is certain that many Americans have been left out of this very
costly package. Working families do need to depend on more than
charity. They need to be able to depend on this Congress to respond to
their needs.

Now, there is seldom a week that goes by in the area of medical
research that there is not a group here on Capitol Hill concerned with
Alzheimer's research, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson's,
cancer, AIDS, or any number of dreaded diseases, basically saying: Find
a cure for my family member or my neighbor; find a cure before I get
this dreaded disease. There are groups that come here after the tough
droughts we had here last year saying the Forest Service and the
weather service need more resources in order to deal with the natural
disasters associated with climate change.

We have been unable to find the funds for our crumbling roads and
bridges. We do not have the investment we need from pre-K to
postgraduate in education.

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Mr. DOGGETT. When you dig another hundreds of billions of dollars--or
maybe $1 trillion--into debt, it provides an excuse for many of those
who don't believe in those programs to say: Gee, we would love to help
you with education for your children, and, yes, it would be good if we
had another meat inspector, but we just can't afford to do that.

So we get to the point that Mr. Ryan has raised: Why is it we should
raise taxes on some in order to maintain and renew some expired tax
credits for others? I think there are two reasons.

One is that some people are still not paying their fair share. We
have got some multinational corporations that don't pay as much as a
percent of their income as the people who clean up their offices. The
second reason is that it is for the same reason that we say, if we need
additional money for our national defense or for our educational and
retirement security at home, we have to come up with the revenues to
pay for that if we are to maintain any sense of fiscal responsibility.

There are some good provisions in this bill, but we need the
certainty that we will not be digging ourselves deeper into debt,
preventing our ability to meet other vital national needs for our
families.

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