Electing officers of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rangel for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose H.R. 4, the so-called Jobs for America Act.

Six years ago this week marked the collapse of Lehman Brothers. That bankruptcy on Wall Street quickly spread across our country, bringing small business lending to a halt, causing a devastating number of foreclosures, and pushing far too many of our fellow Americans into personal bankruptcy.

In the wake of this devastation, Democrats in Congress worked diligently to put in place serious and comprehensive safeguards to prevent another collapse. And, today, my Republican colleagues continue their hard work to thwart that effort and roll back meaningful reform.

Indeed, this bill, H.R. 4, places significant additional administrative hurdles on our Federal regulatory agencies, particularly on our independent financial regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Certain provisions of this bill would impose requirements on our financial regulators to conduct onerous cost-benefit analysis, to submit their rules for review to the Office of Management and Budget, and to delay effectiveness of major rules until Congress enacts an unprecedented joint resolution.

Not only would these provisions limit the independence of our Wall Street sheriffs, it would also tie up their already insufficient resources and put them at even greater risk of litigation for every rule. In fact, this bill would create a constitutional crisis by allowing the ``do-nothing'' Republican Congress to intervene in the actions of our executive branch, which is diligently trying to implement critical portions of the Wall Street Reform Act.

The effect of this legislative effort would be to grind to a halt all meaningful regulation on everything from payday loans to mortgage services to the types of risky trading that caused the 2008 crisis. And, ironically, it would stop JOBS Act implementation dead in its tracks. Worst, this comes at a time when House Republicans want to hold funding for our financial regulators flat, despite their new responsibilities, the increase in the number of entities they oversee, and the growth in the complexity and size of U.S. financial markets.

With our economy still recovering from the $14 trillion financial crisis, we simply cannot, under the guise of so-called ``job creation,'' afford to destroy crucial reforms and hamstring our financial regulators.

I enter the following letter of opposition from Public Citizen into the Record.

Public Citizen,

Washington, DC

A Vote for the ``Jobs for America Act'' Is a Vote Against Public Health

and Safety

Republicans will have you believe that a vote for H.R. 4,

the ``Jobs for America Act,'' is not a vote against clean air

and water, against food safety, against safe consumer

products, against safe workplaces, and against a stable

financial system less prone to excessive risk-taking. But

that is false. The Impact of the ``Jobs for America'' Act is

clear and simple: it will lead to more polluted air and

water, more dangerous workplaces, more tainted and

contaminated food, more dangerous workplaces, and a

deregulated Wall Street allowed to gamble our economy into

the next financial crash. By taking regulators ``off the

beat'' and preventing them from updating and modernizing

basic health and safety protections, the public is once again

dependent on Big Business to ``self-regulate.'' Our public

has seen the disastrous impact of letting industry regulate

itself whether it's the BP Gulf Oil Spill, the West Virginia

Chemical Spill, The Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, oil

train derailment explosions, or the Wall Street financial

meltdown. The solution is not to make our public even more

vulnerable to deregulatory disasters that put Americans in

harm's way and damage our economy as the ``Jobs for America

Act'' would do.

The enormous costs of deregulation

a. West Virginia Chemical Spill: those who were hurt by the

damage caused by the spill are claiming 160 million in

damages from the spill. These include small businesses in

Charleston who were forced to shut down for days and the many

thousands of residents who were forced to buy bottled water

because of the severe water contamination. http:// www.insurancejournalcom/news/southeast/2014/08/12/337282.htm

b. Lake Erie Algae Bloom: a half million Ohio residents

were forced to buy bottled water because their water had

become so badly contaminated from algae. In 2008, the

government estimated algae blooms resulted in 82 million

dollars annually in economic damages: http:// www.cop.noaa.gov/stressors/extremeevents/hab/current/ econimpact 08.pdf the damage to Lake Erie can be directly

traced to successful attempts to roll back the Clean Water

Act by special interests. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ blogs/the-toledo-water-crisis-wont-be-the-last/ c. Oil Freight Train Explosions: Trains carrying highly

explosive crude oil are traveling through communities every

day without most of those communities even aware of the

threat. A massive oil train derailment and explosion in

Canada killed 47 people and will cost 2.7 billion in economic

damages over the next decade. http://bangordailynews.com/ 2014/04/17/news/state/after-end-of-the-world-explosion- Quebec-town-tries-to-find-hope/ d. Preventable Workplace Deaths and Injuries: Every day, an

average of 150 workers die from job injuries or occupational

diseases. Every year, the lack of effective workplace safety

protections costs our country 250 billion to 330 billion in

injuries and illnesses. http://www.aflcio.org/content/ download/126621/34645631/DOTJ2014.pdf

e. Climate Inaction: Blocking or delaying new carbon

emission rules from the EPA and other climate change measures

will cost our country up to 150 billion dollars annually in

economic damage in the future. http://fortune.com/2014/07/29/ white-house-in-action-on-climate-costs-150-billion-a-year/ f. BP Oil Spill: This massive environmental disaster in the

Gulf ended up costing more than 42 billion dollars. The oil

spill harmed thousands of Gulf Coast residents and destroyed

many local small businesses. BP has now been found ``grossly

negligent'' in causing the disaster and faces up to 18

billion in fines, some of which will go to Gulf Coast

restoration projects. http://www.edf.org/blog/2014/09/05/bp- oil-spill-ruling-could-jumpstart-gulf-coast-restoration-work

g. 2008 Wall Street Crash: The rampant deregulation that

led to the crash cost our economy anywhere from 6 trillion to

14 trillion dollars or 50,000 to 120,000 for every US

household. In addition, 8.7 million Americans lost their jobs

during or immediately following the crisis. http:// ourfinancialsecurity.org/blogs/wp-content/ ourfinancialsecurity.org/uploads/2012/09/Costs-of-The- Financial-Crisis-September-20142.pdf

The ``Jobs for America Act'' will not create a single job

The bill trades on the fallacy that deregulation leads to

job growth by freeing up capital to invest in labor. There is

simply no neutral, non-partisan empirical evidence to back

this up. In fact, journalists and academics who have

thoroughly studied this claim have concluded that regulations

have no overall effect on job growth. The claim that

regulations kill jobs is the very definition of a baseless

and fabricated talking point.

A thorough investigative report by the Washington Post

concluded that regulations

have no effect on jobs (highlights below): http:// www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/does-government- regulation-really-kill-jobs-economists-say-overall-effect- minimal/2011/10/19/gIQALRF5IN story.html.

Conservative thinker Richard Morganstern (Resources for the

Future): ``Based on the available literature, there's not

much evidence that EPA regulations are causing major job

losses or major job gains.''

Mike Morris, CEO of AEP, one of America's largest coal-

based utilities even admitted EPA regulations will create

jobs: ``We have to hire plumbers, electricians, painters,

folks who do that kind of work when you retrofit a plant''

Morris said. ``Jobs are created in the process--no question

about that.''

A recent and exhaustive exploration of the ``job-killing

regulation'' claim by Academics from across the political

spectrum concluded that regulations have no net impact on

jobs: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15183.html

The editors of ``Does Regulation Kill Jobs?'' Cary

Coglianese and Christopher Corrigan conclude: ``the empirical

work suggests that regulation plays relatively little role in

affecting the aggregate number of jobs in the United

States.''

Big business ``job-killing'' claims are always wrong

Big Business groups have been making hyperbolic claims

about regulations killing jobs for decades and it never comes

true. Not only is this talking point patently false, but it

also never dies despite being proven wrong every time. The

following examples are from Public Citizen's recent report,

``It's an Outrage: Regulations are Entirely to Blame for

Unemployment and a Leading Cause of Death, According to

Industry and Allies'' http://www.citizen.org/documents/ regulations-are-to-blame-unemployment-death-report.pdf

1974: OSHA bans the carcinogenic vinyl chloride. The

plastics industry claimed that the OSHA regulation would kill

2.2 million jobs. Those claims were proven completely false

and a new way manufacture vinyl chloride was developed within

a year without any jobs lost.

1975: NHTSA increases fuel efficiency standard. Industry

reports warned of 1.5 million jobs lost. By 1985, auto makers

had met the higher standard without losing any jobs.

1990: EPA sets new pollution standards under the Clean Air

Act. In response the Business Roundtable (BRT) and National

Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) responded with

doomsday hysterics, claiming up to 2 million jobs would be

lost. Those were proven entirely wrong. Instead, according to

the Investor's Business Daily, ``Pollution has been falling

across the board for decades, even while the nation's

population and economy have expand

1995: EPA removes lead from gasoline. A Monsanto official

testified to Congress that the regulation would cost up to 43

million jobs. The removal of lead is now considered one of

the biggest public health success stories while gas prices

did not dramatically increase and no jobs were lost.

The new industry-funded study on regulations doesn't pass the laugh

test

The study just released by the National Association of

Manufacturers (NAM) is not worth the paper it is printed on.

NAM turned to discredited economists whose last study was so

poorly done and inaccurate that it was roundly criticized by

observers in bipartisan fashion, including by the CRS,

Republican economists, and then OIRA Administrator Cass

Sunstein. The study brought so much negative attention that

the agency which commissioned it, the Small Business

Administration, had to formally and publicly disavow it.

Business Media Push Industry-Funded Study On Federal

Regulations Experts Call ``Bogus'': Reuters and CNBC

uncritically promoted a new report claiming that government

regulations cost the economy over $2 trillion each year,

ignoring any benefits of regulation. But the study uses the

same flawed methodology as an earlier report by the same

authors that was so widely panned that even the organization

that commissioned it distanced itself from it. http:// mediamatters.org/research/2014/09/11/business-media-push- industry-funded-study-on-fe/200732

NAM's ``Cost of Regulations'' Estimate: An Exercise in How

Not to Do Convincing Empirics: The bulk of these costs (75

percent) are estimated using a cross-country regression

analysis. This cross-country analysis, however, is completely

unconvincing and should be ignored. http://www.epi.org/ bloginams-cost-regulations-estimate-exercise/

The ``Jobs for America Act'' is a Broken Record

The ``Jobs for America Act'' is just a re-packaging of the

same old and tired legislation that the House has already

passed. Each of these bills, if enacted, will significantly

exacerbate the current problems in our regulatory system.

Collectively, these bills amount to a virtual shutdown of our

system of public protections by blocking federal agencies

from responding to public health and safety crises and

putting forth strong new safeguards to prevent the next one.

1. Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act

(REINS, HR): This bill is a blatant power grab by the House

GOP. Requiring Congressional approval of regulations before

they take effect means, in practical terms, that the House

GOP can unilaterally veto any regulation it opposes. Even

Congressional inaction would kill a regulation. This is a

recipe for extending the same paralysis and dysfunction that

has plagued our lawmaking process to the regulatory process.

2. Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA, H.R. 2122): This

bill would re-write dozens of critical public health and

safety laws, including the Clean Air Act, to require agencies

to choose safety standards not based on whether they are the

most effective but on whether they are the least burdensome

to regulated special interests. This bill is a backdoor way

of gutting laws that the GOP knows are too politically

popular to overturn directly.

3. Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act (RFIA, H.R.

2542): This bill is a small business bill in name only. It

does nothing to help small businesses directly. Instead, it

would delay or block rules that in many instances

disproportionately impact Big Business. For example, the bill

requires agencies to consider the ``indirect'' effects of

their rules on small businesses without ever defining what

constitutes an ``indirect'' effect. Ordering an agency to

discern all indirect economic impacts of any rule, however

small, is akin to ordering a meteorologist to discern the

effects on Washington, D.C. weather of a butterfly flapping

its wings in Japan. Even worse, agencies could be sued by

industry for not complying with this wholly undefined

mandate. Agencies will be forced to waste precious time and

resources looking for small business impacts where there

clearly are none. In the meantime, lives could be lost and

people could be needlessly injured.

4. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA, H.R. 899): Once

again, this legislation forces agencies to pick the least

costly rule to industry, rather than the rule that is most

effective at keeping the public safe. It also undermines the

independence of important agencies that are working to put

new Wall Street reforms and product safety standards in

place. Ironically, the new mandates in this bill do not come

with any additional funding for agencies, making them the

very definition of ``unfunded mandates.''

5. The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act

(H.R. 1493): This legislation targets citizen suits aimed at

spurring agencies to move forward with overdue and

congressionally mandated protections. Consent decrees and

settlement agreements have long been an effective tool to

provide citizens and the courts with a means of ensuring that

Congressional mandates are implemented, whether they are new

environmental safety standards or civil rights and

antidiscrimination measures. This bill would force them to

run a gauntlet of burdensome, time-consuming, and redundant

procedures--furthering slowing agency action. This bill would

weaken the power of citizens to ensure agencies follow the

law--and waste government resources in the process.

6. The All Economic Regulations are Transparent (``ALERT'')

Act (H.R. 2804): This legislation would add a blanket six-

month delay to most rules essential to protecting the health,

safety, and welfare of the American public. When the norm is

federal agencies missing Congressional and legal deadlines

for new public protections, rather than meeting or beating

deadlines, the last thing our public needs is more delays.

Bottom Line

A vote for H.R. 4, the ``Jobs for America Act,'' is a vote

against life-saving public health and safety standards and

will put American lives at risk without creating any jobs. We

need stronger public protections, not a weaker system of

safeguards. We need better enforcement of health and safety

and environmental rules, not more needless delays.

We urge you in the strongest terms to vote against the

``Jobs for America Act.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following:

Americans for Financial Reform,

Washington, DC, September 18, 2014.

Dear Representative: On behalf of Americans for Financial

Reform (AFR), we are writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 4,

the ``Jobs For America Act''. Division III of the legislation

contains a number of extremely problematic provisions that

would require regulatory agencies to satisfy dozens of

additional mandates prior to any regulation of Wall Street,

and which would create numerous additional opportunities for

large financial firms to block any government action in

court. AFR has joined the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards

and dozens of other civil society organizations in a joint

letter opposing these provisions.

We would also like to draw attention to Title I of Division

II of this legislation, the ``Small Business Capital Access

and Job Preservation Act''. This legislation would exempt

private equity fund advisors--who include some of the

wealthiest and most significant entities on Wall Street--from

registration and reporting requirements designed to allow

regulators to protect investors and the public and monitor

risk in the financial system.

Prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, hedge and private equity funds

received almost no regulatory monitoring, despite the fact

that they manage some $3 trillion in assets in total on

behalf of numerous investors, including many pension funds.

The Dodd-Frank Act created more transparency for this

previously dark portion of the markets, by requiring hedge

and private equity fund advisors to register with the

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), maintain a code of

ethics and a compliance program, and report basic financial

information relevant to systemic risk. This legislation would

effectively exempt all private equity fund advisors from

these requirements.

Since this legislation was voted on as a stand alone bill

in December, 2013 as H.R. 1105, the SEC has reported publicly

on its basic `presence examinations' of private equity fund

advisors pursuant to its new Dodd-Frank responsibilities.

These examinations found widespread evidence of abuse of

investors and violations of the law. In a recent speech,

Andrew Bowden, the SEC's Director of Compliance Inspections

and Examinations, stated that ``when we have examined how

fees and expenses are handled by advisers to private equity

funds, we have identified what we believe are violations of

law or material weaknesses in controls over 50% of the

time''. The speech details evidence of deception and abuse of

investors in other areas as well. Mr. Bowden also stated that

due to the opaque nature of the private equity model and the

limited information rights of investors, outside investors in

private equity funds ``often have little to no chance of

detecting'' these abuses on their own.

Given the findings of the SEC in its initial investigations

of private equity advisors, it is deeply disappointing to see

that the House is once again pursuing a broad exemption from

registration, reporting, and associated ethics requirements

for private equity advisors. The passage of ``The Small

Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act'' would

effectively remove the SEC's most effective tool for

addressing the evidence of widespread investor abuses

recently uncovered through their examinations. We urge you to

oppose this legislation.

Thank you for your consideration. For more information

please contact AFR's Policy Director, Marcus Stanley.

Sincerely,

Americans for Financial Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

It is awkward and embarrassing to stand on this floor to discuss something described as a Jobs for America bill.

Fortunately, we Democrats don't have to expend too much energy because of the lack of credibility that the majority party has with any type of legislation designed to help those people who are without employment.

The irony of this whole thing is that our distinguished chairman spent hours, days, weeks, and months putting together a tax reform bill that, even though it could be challenged in parts, all tax writers and people who respect the necessity of reforming the Tax Code lauded him for the work, the fairness, and, most of all, the lack of partisanship that went into that bill.

Indeed, many of the provisions that are in this bill that could better be described as an opportunity for corporates to avoid paying taxes, many of those provisions in this bill were repealed in the chairman's bill that he presented to the Congress to be considered for reform.

Let me strike that from the record. He did not bring it to the floor for it to be considered for anything. It was a strong political statement that he knew the majority of his party would not support.

Having said that, it was a fine piece of legislation that gained support by eliminating the very same violations of equity and fair play that are now in this bill.

$500 billion tab. $500 billion cost, not paid for, not a promise to pay for. And half of this is to make permanent the extension of bonus appreciation, which all economists, including those in the Congressional Research Service, say that in order to be effective, it should not be made permanent.

In any event, I think, as we go home, we should recognize that there will be opportunity when we come back to really get together and have an effective bill.

To do this, the Republican majority should not bring to the floor bills that have passed the House and been rejected already by the Senate, but should sit down with the administration, with the Senate, with the minority in the House and work out something that is for the good of all Americans.

This happened yesterday, where we had honest, serious disagreements. But at the same time, we came together as a Congress in the House at least on what is good for the country.

So, quite frankly, I don't think I will be using all of my time because what is before the House today is not a jobs bill but a public relations piece of political advertisement.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

If we were serious about passing a bill that has been rehashed in this House and no action has been taken upon it, common sense and reason would dictate that we would work with the Democrats, work with the Senate, and work with the President to get one passed.

This bill transcends over eight or nine different legislative committees, and the ranking member--one who has so much jurisdiction over this issue--would share with the House and the country what parts of this bill she believes would create jobs, if any part.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

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

Certainly, we all will be getting a lot of mail from the logging companies asking for this legislation in order to create jobs. I wish included in this package would have been the earned income tax credit, a bill that keeps people who work hard each and every day out of poverty by subsidizing their wages, but that is too much like creating jobs, and it is not in this package.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a distinguished and articulate Member who serves on the Judiciary Committee and has a ranking position on the subcommittee that has jurisdiction over part of this bill.

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

I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, my friend, who eloquently mentioned how the Congress should and could be working more closely together. Again, I say that yesterday proved it.

I am certain that the eloquent gentleman from Pennsylvania would have to agree that, if we were passing bills in the House and they were not going anywhere, any legislator would have to find out why.

It would seem to me that we would go to the minority party, we would ask

to sit down with the Senate, we would work with the Department of Labor and the administration, and we would do that just before we were going home to attempt to get reelected.

I don't challenge the sincerity of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but just bringing in bills that you know are not going to pass the Senate, bringing in bills the administration has already said that they would veto is not the way to success. It may be a good political statement, but it is certainly not the way to pass legislation.

I have the great honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), who has distinguished himself nationally in terms of being a legislator with a heart and common sense.

He is the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, that has attempted to show the entire country exactly what is going on and not going on in the Congress. I look forward to his eloquent remarks on this sensitive, important subject.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would not suggest to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois what he should be doing as a part of the majority, but if I had a bill as good as the one that he had, I certainly would not allow it to be included in this piece of political legislation. Because it would serve the veterans of this great country, I would say, give me a break and let the House and the Senate and the President give this legislation a chance.

But I am not in the majority, and I respect that you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with, and I respect you for that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Most Americans know, like with our family, he has the responsibility to suggest to this august body exactly how much we are spending, how much we owe, and which is the best way to bring some balance to it, and I am so proud to be able to serve with him.

I yield the gentleman from Maryland 30 more seconds.

I yield the gentleman as much time as he may consume to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Maryland to inform the gentleman from Georgia more about these corporations that are attempting to flee the United States, I would like to have good news for the distinguished chairman of the committee that this veterans bill has been so popular on the other side of the Capitol that it appears as though it is included in a Senate bill and, as we talk, is actually being attacked by the Republican minority on the other side. So, at least as relates to the veterans, if we can take it out of this hodgepodge that has politically been put together, maybe collectively we can do something for our beloved veterans.

As far as the gentleman from Georgia is concerned, he had a problem in identifying the U.S. company that is going to receive a bonus, that is fleeing their tax obligation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) so he can help clarify those issues to explain exactly how this provision is costing us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a hardworking gentleman on the Ways and Means Committee, one who has been outspoken on all of the issues that concern national security as well as the protection of our economy.

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), my friend and a distinguished, eloquent member of the Ways and Means Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), one of the hardest working members of the Ways and Means Committee.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as we close out on this bill, I would like to enter into the Record a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is an objective report on the subject that we have just talked about, and that is whether or not the Affordable Care Act has caused a loss in full-time jobs. This report clearly shows that we have had a rise in full-time work in connection with the health care reform bill.

[From Off the Charts, Sept. 17, 2014]

Census Report Shows Rise in Full-Time Work, Undercutting Claims by

Health Reform Opponents

(By Paul N. Van de Water)

Yesterday's Census Bureau report shows that the share of

workers with full-time, full-year work rose in 2013, while

the share with part-time, part-year work fell. This finding

further undercuts assertions that health reform is causing a

large increase in part-time employment--as proponents of a

House measure to change health reform's rules on covering

full-time workers claim.

Health reform requires employers with at least 50 full-

time-equivalent workers to offer coverage to full-time

employees--defined as those who work at least 30 hours a

week--or pay a penalty. Critics claim that employers are

shifting some employees to part-time work to avoid offering

them health insurance. But the data provide scant evidence of

such a shift.

To the contrary, part-time work became less frequent last

year. ``An estimated 72.7 percent of working men with

earnings and 60.5 percent of working women with earnings

worked full time, year round in 2013, both percentages higher

than the 2012 estimates of 71.1 percent and 59.4 percent

respectively,'' according to the new Census report. These

data are consistent with a recent Urban Institute analysis

that found little evidence that health reform has increased

part-time work.

The share of involuntary part-timers--workers who'd rather

have full-time jobs but can't find them--tells a similar

story. If health reform were distorting hiring practices, as

critics assert, we'd expect the share of involuntary part-

timers to be growing. Instead, as the chart (based on Labor

Department data) shows, it's down by 1\1/2\ percentage points

from its post-recession peak. My colleague Jared Bernstein

finds that this pattern is typical for this stage of a

recovery.

Later this week, the House will consider a proposal (part

of a so-called ``jobs bill'') to raise health reform's

threshold for full-time work from 30 to 40 hours. But this

step would make a shift toward part-time employment much more

likely--not less so.

Only about 7 percent of employees work 30 to 34 hours (that

is, at or modestly above health reform's 30-hour threshold),

but 44 percent of employees work 40 hours a week and thus

would be vulnerable to cuts in their hours if the threshold

rose to 40 hours. Employers could easily cut back large

numbers of employees from 40 to 39 hours so they wouldn't

have to offer them health coverage.

If you exclude workers at firms that already offer health

insurance and thus won't be tempted to cut workers' hours,

more than twice as many workers would face a high risk of

reduced hours under a 40-hour threshold than under the

current 30-hour threshold, according to New York University

economist Sherry Glied.

There's little evidence to date that health reform has

caused a shift to part-time work. There's every reason to

expect the impact to be small as a share of total employment,

as we have explained. And raising the cutoff for the employer

mandate from 30 to 40 hours a week would be a step in the

wrong direction.

Now, the gentleman knows also that in order to get a bill passed, it really helps if you get the cooperation of the President of the United States.

I would like to submit a statement for the Record from the administration which says that if this bill was to reach him that he would be forced to follow the advice of his administration specialists and veto it.

On the other hand, I think it is abundantly clear that the Speaker knows that the President has reached out to him and to the Senate to come together to create jobs.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 4--Jobs for America Act

(Rep. Camp, R-Michigan, and 4 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R.

4, which incorporates several bills that have previously been

passed by the House during this Congress, including a number

of bills for which the Administration issued Statements of

Administration Policy strongly opposing passage and

indicating that, if presented to the President, his senior

advisors would recommend that he veto them.

The Administration wants to work with Congress to make

progress on measures that strengthen the economy and help

middle class families, including pro-growth business tax

reform. The Administration continues to support tax proposals

that would benefit the Nation's economy and small businesses,

such as making permanent the research and experimentation tax

credit and increased expensing for small businesses. However,

making traditional tax extenders and costly business tax cuts

permanent without offsets, while at the same time allowing

taxes to increase on 26 million working families, represents

the wrong approach.

In addition, the Administration welcomes ideas to improve

the Affordable Care Act. However, H.R. 4 would undermine that

Act by shifting costs to taxpayers and causing fewer

Americans to have employer-sponsored health insurance

coverage.

Also, the Administration is committed to ensuring that the

benefits of regulation justify their costs and that they are

tailored to advance statutory goals in a manner that is

efficient, is cost-effective, and minimizes uncertainty.

However, H.R. 4 would throw all major regulations into a

months-long limbo, marking a significant departure from the

longstanding separation of powers between the Executive and

Legislative branches and, fostering uncertainty and impeding

business investment that is vital to economic growth.

Furthermore, the bill would impose other unnecessary

requirements on agencies that would seriously undermine their

ability to execute their statutory mandates.

Finally, the Administration is committed to sound long-term

management of Federal lands for continued productivity and

economic benefit, as well as for the long-term

health of the wildlife and ecological values sustained by

these holdings. However, H.R. 4 includes numerous harmful

provisions that would impair responsible management of

Federally-owned lands and undermine many important existing

public land and environmental laws, rules, and processes.

If the President were presented with H.R. 4, his senior

advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Lastly, I would like to say, as the distinguished chair moves on to his retirement from this august body, that for as long as the gentleman has been a member of this Ways and Means Committee that I have admired and I continue to respect the fine work that he has contributed to the committee as well as to this House, and that his honesty, candidness, sincerity, and hard work to make this a better Congress and a better country certainly is appreciated now and will be in the future.

And I would hope that the hard work that he has done on tax reform-- which is a very difficult, complex subject to deal with--that we might try to remember him for the fine work that he has done over these years, rather than on the eve of an election, where sometimes the leadership would want to make a political statement.

I, for one, will never associate him with this piece of legislation, but, rather, for the outstanding contributions that he has made year after year, session after session--not for Republicans, not for the committee, but for this great country. And I thank him for his friendship over the years.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 727, I call up the bill (H.R. 4) to make revisions to Federal law to improve the conditions necessary for economic growth and job creation, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 4.

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

Every day, honest, hardworking men and women are struggling. Far too many families haven't seen a pay raise in years, and many have lost hope and stopped looking for work entirely. H.R. 4, the Jobs for America Act, will strengthen the economy by creating more jobs with higher take-home pay.

The House has already passed dozens of bipartisan solutions that will break down burdensome regulations and promote policies that allow businesses, large and small, to do what they do best: grow, innovate, and hire new workers.

The bill we have before us today, the Jobs for America Act, includes provisions that have strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate.

The research and development credit, which has been around for over 30 years, is a proven way to incentivize U.S. companies to innovate, create new products, and invest in the U.S.

The United States is the only country that allows important pieces of its Tax Code to expire on a regular basis. Businesses cannot grow and invest when the Tax Code is riddled with instability and uncertainty.

Making the R&D tax credit permanent also supports good-paying jobs. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, 70 percent of research and development credit dollars are used to pay salaries of R&D workers.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that making the R&D credit permanent could increase the amount of research and development American companies undertake by up to 10 percent. That translates into more workers, higher wages, and increased innovation here in the United States.

This bill would also make permanent bonus depreciation and section 179 expensing at higher levels, allowing businesses, farmers, and ranchers to plan for the future and expand their businesses. The result of that is more jobs and higher wages for hardworking Americans. The Tax Foundation analysis found that permanent bonus depreciation would add $182 billion to the economy and increase wages by 1 percent, which creates 212,000 jobs.

Additionally, the bill would make permanent several expired tax provisions that benefit S corporations, a popular and important business structure that is used by millions of small businesses across the country.

This commonsense effort will give small businesses some much-needed relief from the burdens of the Tax Code, allowing them to invest and create new jobs.

This bill would also repeal some of the job-killing provisions of the health care law. The current 30-hour rule in the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate results in fewer jobs, reduced hours, and less opportunity for Americans.

By changing the definition of ``full-time work,'' ObamaCare places an unprecedented government regulation on workers. As a direct result, Americans across the country are having their hours cut at work and seeing smaller paychecks. At a time when the cost of groceries, gas, and health care keep increasing, lower paychecks are simply unacceptable.

Worst of all, the law hits lower-income Americans the hardest: 2.6 million workers with a median income of under $30,000 are at risk of losing jobs or hours; 89 percent of workers impacted by the rule don't have college degrees, 63 percent of which are women; and over half have a high school diploma or less.

So simply restoring the definition of ``full-time work'' to 40 hours will ensure the hardest-working Americans don't see their hours and wages cut as a result of the health care law.

This bill also ensures that small businesses that hire veterans returning from service overseas, who already have coverage through TRICARE or the VA, are not counted under the employer mandate.

And we repeal the onerous medical device tax, which is stifling medical innovation and hurting jobs. According to a survey by AdvaMed, the medical device tax has already resulted in 14,000 jobs lost in the industry and prevented 19,000 jobs from being created. This tax is contributing to lackluster job creation and hampering medical innovation.

We have strong bipartisan support for repeal of this tax, and for repealing it before even more detrimental harm is done to the workforce and medical community.

These are only a few among a long list of policies that will ultimately get Americans back to work and increase their quality of living. With better jobs, higher take-home pay, and a stronger economy, we can offer a brighter future for our youth and ease the everyday burdens felt by individuals nationwide.

It is time to create an America that works.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), the gentleman from the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

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

I would just say my friend from Maryland mentioned the Hire Our Heroes Act. That received virtually every Democrat vote and Republican vote on the floor but one. I certainly trust that the gentleman from Maryland has urged his two Democrat Senators in the Senate to take this bill up and pass it. It has been sitting in the Senate. It is blocked.

Certainly, we don't think those who fight for our country should be penalized when they come back to the United States in terms of getting their health care. This would certainly help tremendously, and it is something that has received large bipartisan support.

Every one of these provisions help create jobs, and certainly all of them have bipartisan support:

R&D, the research and development credit, 62 Democrat votes;

Section 179, extending, 53 Democrat votes;

The S corporation reform, 42 Democrat votes;

Bonus depreciation, 34 Democrat votes;

Repealing the 30-hour work week rule, 18 Democrat votes.

All of these have bipartisan support. They are all sitting in the Senate.

I heard the gentleman say maybe nothing is being done. Well, I would submit, my friends on the other side, other than voting for these bills, have done nothing to urge their colleagues who have the majority in the Senate to move something that will actually get people back to work and really bring the American Dream back in reach for millions of Americans, and it isn't now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).

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

I would just say to my good friend from Wisconsin that that was part of the story. Many of these provisions that are bipartisan job-creating provisions have been extended time and time again without being ``offset,'' without being ``paid for.''

Look at the research and development tax credit. It has been extended 15 times over a 33-year period. It has never been paid for, but it is temporary, so it doesn't have the impact on innovation and research and development. That is what drives economies. That is what grows jobs.

Let's make this permanent. Let's not be the only nation in the world with a temporary tax policy. Then we wonder why we are not growing. Then we wonder why median incomes are flat or are declining. Then we wonder why people aren't achieving the American Dream.

Some of my friends have talked about the Senate. They didn't pay for this. What did they do? They extended some of these policies backwards a year and forward 1 year. How can anyone decide to hire a worker, to build a new building, to buy equipment, to start a new production line on 1 year of policy? This is about permanency, and it is about growing jobs.

I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

I am prepared to close, so I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman from New York for those kind remarks and also for the work we have been able to do together over the years.

I remember the first legislation that we really worked together on was the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which was signed into law and has done a lot to move children from a temporary situation into a permanent loving home. And I want to thank the gentleman for his leadership on that and other issues on the committee.

And as a former chairman of the committee, you have sat in the chair I am sitting in right now and know what a challenge it can be at times. But we have done some great work together.

I do happen to believe, though, that this legislation would create jobs. And it is not just my opinion. These provisions have been analyzed by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, and that indicates that these are all important provisions.

There has been some reference to the fact that we are close to an election. And I think clearly what most Americans are sick of is the dysfunction in Washington, the lack of ability for the two parties to get together, whether it is the Republicans and Democrats in the House or Democrat majorities in the Senate and Republican majorities in the House. And these are all bipartisan provisions. These are all tax provisions that have had significant Democrat support and votes. In the case of the Help Hire Our Heroes Act, I think every Democrat but one voted for it. Clearly these are things that will help create jobs.

And not only do Americans want to see the dysfunction in this body end, but they would like to see something that will help move the economy forward, that will help make their lives better.

If you look at polling--there is certainly a lot of polling out there right now--a lot of Americans know that things are not as good as they should be. I mean, it clearly comes across in the polls how dissatisfied they are. And there are lots of reasons for that, largely because median incomes are declining.

But what is really troubling is that Americans don't believe that things are going to get better. They are worried that, for the first time, their children or their brothers and sisters or their family members or they will not have the same opportunities that many of their parents or some of their friends have had. That is a very troubling situation.

This is legislation that will help move the ball forward on getting some economic growth, some job creation, a stronger economy. And with that stronger economy comes more jobs, comes higher wages, comes benefits so that people can pay for food and gas and put something aside for their retirement and for their kids' education.

These are all things that have been extended repeatedly with bipartisan support. As I mentioned, R&D, 30 years; section 179, expensing for small businesses, 10 years; some of the S Corp perform, 12 years--seven times since 2006.

So let's not have a temporary policy. Let's make this permanent. Let's get this country moving again. Let's restore that faith that people have had in this country and in the American Dream. Let's vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are shutting down this House early today, and they are shutting it down with the same happy talk and tax cut hocus pocus that they began this Congress with 21 months ago, last January.

That is when Speaker Boehner reserved H. Res. 1 for a form of Miracle-Gro. They were going to sprinkle around Miracle-Gro tax cuts-- more special interest tax breaks on everyone--and they would grow money faster than it could grow on trees. They have given us so much talk and so many press conferences about how they would do away with all of these complex special interest provisions that Republicans have spent years writing into law for their buddies--into their Tax Code--and we would all have brighter smiles and, certainly, fatter wallets. All of that joy, all of those wonders, would be accomplished debt free. We wouldn't have to borrow another dime from the Chinese or the Saudis or from whoever would lend it to us. We would get all that and more with their proposal.

Unfortunately, their old time medicine show started brightly, but it fizzled out rather quickly.

No Democrat stood in the way of their introducing and voting in the Ways and Means Committee on a tax cut Miracle-Gro elixir. There is no reason they couldn't have brought it out here on the floor on any day the Speaker wanted to consider Miracle-Gro. Yet we are here today, closing out, and H. Res. 1 says on the Republican Web site that it is still reserved for the Speaker, as is most attention to any major issue in this country reserved, because these folks don't want to work here in Washington. Instead, we get to this sorry bill today that is before us that provides more debt, more complexity, and more sweetheart deals.

When we consider the difficult budget choices, Republicans claim that we just don't have enough money. As much as they would like to provide full funding for Alzheimer's research, for cancer, for multiple sclerosis, for diabetes, for Parkinson's, we just don't have the money. We would like to do more to prevent the many forest fires that are spreading across the country--wildfires of all types--and provide the National Weather Service better funding to deal with the dramatic changes in our climate and our weather, but we just don't have the money to do that.

And what about our roads and bridges? We can't figure out a way to fund them, even to this time next year, because we just don't have the money.

Yes, we would like each child to be able to accomplish their full, God-given potential, but we just can't afford to fund from pre-K to post grad. But somehow we can afford more Miracle-Gro today--$500 billion taken right out of the debt, added to the debt.

I am for--and I know the gentleman is for--a pro-growth, pro-job creation set of government policies that focus on workforce development, on having the research in medicine and technology not only to find cures but to produce another round of jobs.

If we lack the Federal resources to do that, we certainly don't have the Federal resources today to hand out one bonus after another, as their bill does, to corporations with special interest provisions that will ultimately fail our economy.

This bill that we have does everything that they said their tax elixir would not do. It borrows money from many to give money to a few who already have the most. This represents the first installment in new national debt, a big chunk of the more than $1 trillion that these Republicans told us they wouldn't bury us in, but they proposed the first big installment today. They continue a Tax Code that is riddled with special interest tax preferences and giveaways while making a bonus depreciation provision that even failed as a temporary stimulus measure.

The only jobs that this bill is really designed to protect--and the reason that it is here right now before they rush to the airport--are the jobs of the Republican Members of this House of Representatives, and they sure do a good job of trying to accomplish that.

We ought to reject this package that is motivated solely by a looming election for a Republican majority whose biggest contributions to job creation in America have cost us dearly. They stand steadfast against the proposal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and one business group after another tells us will grow this economy--that is immigration reform--because they can't overcome the Know Nothings within their party who stand against the reform that we know would grow so many jobs.

Of course, their major accomplishment that they can point to right now out of this Congress was when they put the country on Cruz control, and it cost us $24 billion in economic growth. Reject this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from New York for all his good work on these issues.

Just to underscore what he said with respect to Mr. Davis' proposal, we would love to have that proposal on veterans come before the floor as a stand-alone bill. Of course it has been wrapped into a much larger package that has nothing to do with jobs and everything to do with rewarding special interests at the expense of middle class families and taxpayers. It is a continuation of the failed strategy that responds to every economic challenge with more tax breaks to corporations and more breaks to folks at the very top of the economic ladder, the old, failed trickle-down theory of economics.

There is nothing to raise the minimum wage, nothing to achieve pay equity for women, nothing to invest in America's infrastructure or our education system. Instead, it is a collection of tax cuts that together would add $572 million to the deficit over the next 10 years--no attempt to offset that cost.

That is a lot of work in one afternoon, to add over half a trillion dollars to the deficit, totally in violation of the Republican budget that was brought to the floor.

Nor is this a bill that attempts to reform the Tax Code. I have great respect for the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and he did a credible effort in coming up with a reform plan. It wasn't perfect, lots of things that a lot of people don't like, but it was a credible effort.

This bill takes us in the opposite direction. When the chairman introduced that bill, the Speaker of this House ran away faster than anybody else from that proposal, and this proposal runs away from it as well.

Let me give you one example. The reform bill that was proposed by Mr. Camp repealed bonus depreciation. This bill adds $270 billion to the deficit by making bonus depreciation permanent.

Mr. Camp's proposal was revenue-neutral in the first 10 years. This one adds over half a trillion dollars to the deficit, and it doesn't close a single corporate tax loophole.

Look, if we are going to provide over a half a trillion dollars in tax breaks to large corporations, you would think that our Republican colleagues would at least deal with the issue of inversions, this sweep we see toward more and more corporations changing their

address offshore to avoid their tax obligations to the American people. But, no, nothing to deal with inversions. In fact, this bill rewards a number of companies that have recently engaged in inversions.

I want to call attention to section 701 of the bill because it says a lot about the priorities reflected on the floor today. That section repeals the excise tax paid by medical device companies that was put in place to help finance health care reform.

So it repeals that--no effort to replace that. So it adds $26 billion to the deficit, just that provision. Not only that, but it repeals it going forward, and it also gives a rebate going backwards. So a company, Medtronic, which is right now moving its tax address overseas to avoid its tax obligations to the American people, is going to get a $200 million plus interest tax bonus.

So here is this bill in a nutshell: do nothing to boost the middle class.

So just to wrap this up, because I hope people will focus on this, the bottom-line message of this is: sorry to see you leave our shores, but you know what? As a good-bye present, we are going to hand you $200 million in tax breaks.

That sums up the problems with this bill, Mr. Speaker. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend.

Look, the Joint Tax Committee has suggested that if we don't deal with this problem of corporations changing their tax address to escape their responsibilities to the citizens of this country, it will add $20 billion to the deficit, which taxpayers will have to make up.

I just want to emphasize the point the gentleman made because Mr. Camp has called upon Senate Democrats to vote on the Hire Our Heroes bill. In fact, that bill is in the Senate 2-year extender bill in the United States Senate, which is currently being blocked and filibustered by our Republican Senate colleagues.

I would also point out that the cost of that bill, which we all accept, is $700 million added to the deficit. You are now putting it in a package with all sorts of corporate giveaways that doesn't cost $700 million but, together, costs $573 billion to the deficit, all in an afternoon's work.

Mr. Speaker, this is an irresponsible bill. We should vote ``no.''