American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to start by clarifying one thing. My friend from Wisconsin talked about what it means when you say ``paid for.'' What it means when you say ``paid for'' is you pay for the bill. There is a certain cost associated with any legislation that we do, and if we don't pay for it, then it is added on to our deficits. So when we raise concerns about whether or not this tax bill or any other bill that comes to the floor for debate is paid for, the concerns that we are raising are in direct correlation to the fact that it needs to be paid for, not it needs to be added to the deficit or it needs to be added to our national debt.
There is no debate on the issue of the merits of the R&D credit. A majority of my Democratic colleagues and I, too, believe in and support the R&D credit. It has proven to facilitate advancements in new technologies, sparked new innovations, and creates good-paying jobs for hard-working Americans, and it benefits hard-working American families. And it is critical to helping U.S. companies innovate and compete in a global marketplace.
However, what we do object to is the approach by which this is being done. As I said, it is unpaid for, and it is outside of tax reform.
Last year, the previous chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Camp, unveiled a tax reform proposal that made the R&D credit permanent; but the cost of the provision was paid for. He did it responsibly. It was responsibly offset. This bill, like all the other individual tax bills we have considered thus far this year, does not pay for any of them; it does just the opposite. It continues a helter-skelter approach toward tax extenders without any regard for paying the hundreds of billions of dollars it costs to make them permanent. Moreover, it poisons the bipartisan process that is going to be critical if we are, in fact, going to get tax reform done.
This political exercise that we are doing today shows the misplaced priorities of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Not only did they recently vote to raise taxes and cut programs for millions of hardworking American families in their budget resolution, they are also leaving behind important provisions to help them, like the expansion of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and the American opportunity tax credit.
When it comes to corporations and the wealthy, cost doesn't seem to be a problem. Yet programs vital to the well-being of hard-working families and communities are significantly cut or done away with.
What is particularly glaring is that we can't even pass a long-term transportation bill, which is, by far, more important to our national security, our economic growth, and our competitiveness. The reason we can't pass it is because the majority is unable to find a way to pay for it.
Yet here we are taking up a bill that costs $181 billion. Add that to the other unpaid-for tax cut bills that this body has already passed this year, and we will have added $586 billion to the deficit. That is almost half a trillion dollars. That is over half a trillion dollars.
And what do we have to show for it? The President has already said that he is going to veto this bill, so what is the point? Why are we wasting the time and expense of debating this? It is going to be vetoed anyway.
What we should be doing is working together to pass legislation that is vital to every congressional district's long-term transportation bill and comprehensive tax reform.
Mr. Speaker, we stand ready to work with the majority on these important things. Today's bill just takes us further away from that goal. Therefore, I ask that we vote ``no'' on this bill and make sure we vote for America.
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just want to point out that the President is standing with those of us who support the R&D credit, but he wants it done responsibly. He wants it paid for, and he wants it part of tax reform. Just like all of us, we support the R&D credit. We want it paid for, and we want it part of tax reform.
To suggest that voting against this is standing with China, I find somewhat an ironic statement made by my friend from Texas, given the fact that China already holds so much of the U.S. debt. All this does is empower them more, give them more of our debt.
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just want to point out that my friend who just spoke said that he, too, believes in transportation, that we should be working on transportation and tax reform, but that, today, we are talking about the R&D credit.
Mr. Speaker, the majority party sets the agenda. The reason we are not talking about transportation or tax reform is that they don't want to talk about it. They set the agenda. They are the ones who decided that today we were going to do this irresponsible tax bill rather than look at comprehensive tax reform or look at transportation funding for our crumbling infrastructure.
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that small businesses and the startups are disadvantaged if this bill passes. They can't take advantage of this real-world experience and business-world experience. I am here to tell you, as a small-business person, if you don't pay your bills, you go out of business. The leader had mentioned that this bill is going to cost $181 billion, but, Mr. Speaker and Members, if you add that $181 billion to everything else that the majority has passed in regard to unpaid-for tax cuts, that number jumps to $586.3 billion of unpaid-for tax policy.
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support, as I said earlier, of the R&D tax credit. My colleagues on this side of the aisle support the R&D tax credit. As we have been saying here today on the floor, it is an important credit that is vital to our global competitiveness, job and economic growth, and maintaining our position as the world's leader in innovation.
As I have also stated--and I will say it again--this bill isn't paid for. The majority is adding $181 billion to the deficit with just this one bill. This is fiscally irresponsible.
What I haven't been able to understand--and I am having trouble today trying to figure it out--is how we can pass bills that help corporations and the wealthy, adding the cost of that to the deficit, but then turn around and try to balance the budget and close the deficit on the backs of hard-working American families.
They are trying to do this by cutting the programs we need to grow our economy, like education and infrastructure. We have an infrastructure bill that we are still waiting for a hearing on, which we are still waiting to see scheduled.
It is a double standard; it is hypocritical, and it is harmful to the people that all of us represent. We are ready and willing to work with the majority to strengthen the economy, including progrowth reforms that benefit businesses and comprehensive tax reform that will benefit all of America, but this is the wrong approach, and we should not be party to this political gamesmanship that is taking place on the floor today.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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