Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have a concern. It is not about trade. Quite frankly, trade is one of the things we have done as a nation all along. We were free traders before we were a nation.

One of the grievances we had in the Declaration of Independence was the fact that King George was restricting our trade. We have always been individuals in a nation of trade.

My issue is particularly with this Preferences bill. Again, it is not about the protections in it; it is about the way we pay for it. Now, as odd as it sounds, while we are doing trade and while we are trying to engage in things, we can't lose track of this simple thing called deficit that is hanging out there as well.

We have basic rules on how we actually handle budget issues. For anything that we set out that is going to take several years to pay for, we have basic rules. Those rules include that it has to be deficit neutral in year 6 and it has to be deficit neutral in year 11.

The way that is set up and the reason that it is set up is so that you cannot game the system that way. You can't just backload the whole thing and say: We are going to be deficit neutral in the very last year, but every other year we are going to run up the bill and have some pretend pay-fors at the very end.

So the way this is set up is to have this basic gap. Halfway through, you are deficit neutral. At the other end of it, you are also deficit neutral. Well, this is what the Preferences bill does.

The Preferences bill sets up this unique something called the corporate payment shift.

So this is how it works. Six years from now, every corporation that has $1 billion or more in assets has a 5 1/4 -percent tax increase in year 6. In year 7, every one of those companies that has $1 billion or more in assets gets a 5 1/4 -percent tax refund.

Let me run that by you again. This is set up, in the way the bill is written, so that 6 years from now taxes go up on every company--that is 2,000 companies in America that have $1 billion or more in assets--by 5 1/4 percent, and in the next year they get a refund of that same amount.

Can someone help me understand why every company in America has to gear up, change the way they do all their tax policies, pay an extra tax that year, and so that the next year they can get a refund? That is additional cost. That is additional expense--only to help this body circumvent the basic rules that we said we are going to abide by.

Now, in all likelihood, those companies won't actually do that 6 and 7 years from now because, in all likelihood, this body will come through and will waive the corporate tax shift because it is now not years 6 and 7. Now, it is years 7 and 8, and so it doesn't apply.

This is ridiculous. This is a problem--that this body is playing a game in how we are trying to actually accomplish a basic rule.

Now, if anyone can stand in this body and say that is a good idea--that we are going to raise taxes 6 years from now on all these companies and refund the same amount in the 7th year--if anyone can actually tell me that is a good idea, please do. All that this is set up to do is to be able to help us in our CBO scoring.

This is what I think we should do. Option No. 1 is to have a real pay-for--not have some pretend and say this is a deficit-neutral bill, when it is not a deficit-neutral bill.

We have a $3.7 trillion budget. I think we can find a real pay-for to be able to put it into this bill. If you are lacking for any of those, my office can give you many options that are real pay-fors rather than something fake in year 6 and year 7.

This is option No. 2. At least admit that this is not a deficit-neutral bill and that these pay-fors are fake. There is something that this body has called a budget point of order, and it should apply in this sense because this is not a real pay-for.

Now, I have had these conversations with staff behind the scenes and with individuals in this body, and I have been told the same thing over and over: This is how we always do it. In other words: You are a new guy here. You don't know this is how the game is played on the budget-neutral deficit, eliminating bills that really don't do that.

Yes, that is true. I am the new guy here, and I have heard this is an old practice--and it needs to go away, because no one can defend this.

How about this. How about next week I try to go get a car loan, and I try to negotiate with the car dealer for a 5-year loan, and I tell him: I will pay all of my loan off year 4, but I want a full refund in year 5 for all that I have paid off.

Do you think I am going to get that car loan? No, I am not going to get that car loan because he is going to say: That is fake. And I will say: I have paid it off completely in year 5.

Yes, but we paid it all back in the next year.

We have to be able actually to have real accounting at the end of the day. This is not invisible money. This is debt that is being added. And with a $3.7 trillion budget, we can find real pay-fors.

This is a practice that has happened in this Congress and in previous Congresses that has to stop. We have the ability to do that.

I oppose this bill because it is not genuine in how we are actually paying for it. Saying that we pay for it in year 6 and refunding it in year 7 is not real, and we know it.

In the days ahead, I hope we can address this practice and not just eliminate it for this bill, but that we can eliminate it from ever being used again in any bill as a gimmick pay-for.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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