Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader of the schedule for the week to come.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy).

(Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the majority leader and I, as well as his predecessor, Mr. Cantor, have worked together on what we call a Hackathon, which is a meeting annually of individuals involved in the high-tech community in how better to communicate, how better to process information, how better to make transparent the work of this body and make the actions of this body accessible to the general public as they happen.

I want to thank the majority leader for continuing to cosponsor this effort with me and to be a leader on this effort. We just had the President sign--I think yesterday, maybe the day before--a piece of legislation, which will try to make the government more facile in bringing its technology up to date so that it can operate more efficiently and more effectively.

So I thank the majority leader for working together in a positive way to make this institution work better and to make it more accessible and better known to the American people. I thank him also for the schedule that he has put forward.

Mr. Speaker, the majority leader mentioned a number of things that the tax bill that is going to be coming before us will do. I don't believe that the conference report is available for review at this point in time.

Can the majority leader perhaps enlighten me as to whether or not the conference report is available now to be reviewed? Or, if not, when it will be available?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is my understanding that that will be on the floor as early as Tuesday of next week. Is that accurate?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply observe that what the majority leader did not mention--again, I have not seen the conference report, so this is not based upon a review of the conference report, but this is based upon the Senate bill and the House bills that were passed by both bodies--was that it will increase the debt of our country by some $1.5 trillion and a minimum of $1 trillion. It will raise taxes on some 78 million Americans between $50,000 of income and $150,000 of income.

I am assuming that the elimination of the mandate is still in the conference report. I am not sure, but the information I have is that it is still in the report. Mr. Speaker, that will cost 13 million people to be uninsured as a result.

I have information, Mr. Speaker, that what the conference report does is reduce taxes on some of the wealthiest people in America. I am not sure how they offset that--maybe with a mandate, maybe with something else--but 62 percent of the bill's resources go to the top 1 percent in America.

Mr. Speaker, Speaker Ryan spoke on this floor about the average family making $59,000 a year. He mentioned that that family will get, under the House bill--again, I haven't seen the conference report-- $1,182 per year in a tax cut.

What the Speaker did not mention is that the family in the top 1 percent will get a tax cut of $1,198 per week. Per week, Mr. Speaker. In other words, 52 times what the struggling American will get, what the American who Speaker Ryan said may not be able to come up with $500 if they have a crisis with a refrigerator or their heating unit, something of that nature, or their car breaks down will get.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the aisle do not believe that this bill addresses relief for the struggling working men and women of this country.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear, in all of the polling, that the average working American shares that view. They believe correctly that this is a tax cut for the rich and a few sprinkles to the middle class. I am sure the leader will have something to say on that.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that what will happen in this tax bill is we will phase out. We will--again, I have not seen the conference report, so I don't know exactly whether that is true or not, but in both the House and Senate bills, we phased out--we didn't phase out, we proposed to be phased out. The benefits to those middle-income, hardworking Americans will see their benefits phased out. That will not be true of corporations. It will not be true of the wealthiest in our country.

So it is troubling, Mr. Speaker, that a bill of this magnitude is being rushed to judgment. In 1986, the gentleman, in making his announcement, said we have been working on this for 31 years. Now, I presume he was talking about from 1986 to 2017.

What he did not say, Mr. Speaker, is, in 1986, we had 30 days of public hearings on a bill. Thirty days of public hearings. What he did not say is that we had 450 witnesses during those public hearings testifying about the taxes. What he did not say is that there were nearly 4 months of hearings on the 1986 reform bill. And what he did not say is that the Ways and Means Committee conducted 26 days of markup.

This bill has received less than 7 days of markup in both bodies and in the conference. This is being rushed to judgment. The American people, by substantial numbers, believe this bill is not good for them.

Now, Mr. Collins said that he talked to a donor and the donor said: Don't call me again if you don't pass this tax bill.

I get that. I don't know who the donor was and I don't know how rich the donor was, but obviously the donor thought that he had a real stake or she had a real stake in this tax bill.

We regret that we are not doing as we did in 1986, because what the majority leader did not mention either was that the 1986 bill was a bipartisan bill with President Reagan and Speaker O'Neill supporting it, and with Chairman Rostenkowski, a Democratic chair of the House Ways and Means Committee; and a Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Bob Packwood from Oregon, supporting the bill. It was a bipartisan bill. And what the majority leader did not mention is the 1986 bill did not add a single cent to the deficit. It was paid for.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a much lesser product than it could have been. We on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, think we need tax reform. We are prepared to support tax reform. We believe we need to bring down the corporate rate. We believe we need to make sure that small businesses can prosper and grow into large businesses.

What we don't believe in, Mr. Speaker, is simply having a bill that advantages the best-off in our country and says that the advantages we give to the middle class will be phased out in a little bit, about 5 years.

So, Mr. Speaker, we will, according to the majority leader, consider this bill next week. It will not be bipartisan, and that is a shame. It will not be positive for the country because it will put us even more deeply into debt, and the people who pay that bill, ultimately, will be our children.

And on both sides of the aisle--we don't have a lot of Members on the floor, but I say to every Member on the floor, every Member on this floor, I am sure, at some point in time you have given a speech somewhere that said: ``We care about the debt. We are going to bring down the debt.'' This bill does not do it. This bill exacerbates the debt.

Anybody who believes that this bill is going to pay for itself through dynamic scoring and economic growth is kidding themselves. It is a rationalization to vote for a bill for which the main imperative is political, not policy, because my Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, believe that, if they don't pass this bill, they will lose the next election.

I have heard that argument over and over and over again. That is not a reason to vote for this bill. It is a reason

to say: Let's go back to the table. Let's include Mr. Neal in the consideration, the ranking member. Let's include Mr. Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. Let's include Mr. McCarthy and me to try to see if we can reach a bipartisan, positive, constructive piece of legislation which will, like the 1986 legislation, enjoy the support of a wide range of the American people and their Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, we had an election yesterday in Alabama. Mr. Jones won that election. Mr. Strange, the incumbent Republican representing Alabama right now, lost the primary. He has no mandate.

Why rush this bill through? This bill, if it were passed on December 31 of next year, would affect the 2018 taxes that would be filed in April of 2019. The need to rush this bill, Mr. Speaker, seems to be that, and the reason for having no hearings, the reason for having no witnesses, is because this bill, on its merit, cannot sustain itself.

Now, let me read you a quote, Mr. Speaker: ``I think the message of the moment is that the American people, all across the country, are asking us, even in the most liberal State, Massachusetts, to stop this healthcare bill. I think that means there will be no more healthcare votes in the Senate prior to the swearing in of Scott Brown, whenever that may be.''

That statement was made on January 20, 2010, by the present majority leader who was then, of course, the minority leader. And his proposition was: You ought to wait until Scott Brown is here so that Massachusetts can have its vote counted. But hypocritically, he has changed his tune today when Alabama, a very conservative State, the opposite of Massachusetts, has voted to elect Doug Jones to the Senate.

I don't hear Mr. McConnell or anybody else saying: Let's wait for the duly elected Member of the United States Senate from Alabama to be seated so that he will have an opportunity to vote on this extraordinarily consequential vote and, in my opinion, negative consequences to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the majority leader might have some comments he wants to make in response, and, therefore, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. He made a number of points.

First, generally, I have been here long enough to have heard the debate for the 1981 bill, the so-called supply side, Jack Kemp. Vice President Bush referred to it as ``voodoo economics.'' And point of fact, as the gentleman knows, because I am sure he knows the record, we increased the debt under Ronald Reagan 189 percent. Larger than any other President with whom I have served over the last 37 years; 189 percent. Stockman said: We knew it wasn't going to balance the budget. We just said that for political purposes. Stockman said that. He was Director of the OMB under Ronald Reagan.

Then in 2001 and 2003, we had tax cuts. We heard the same arguments, how it was going to grow robustly the economy. It brought in the deepest recession anybody in this Chamber, other than perhaps Sam Johnson, who I think is probably our oldest Member, because the rest of us didn't experience the depression, it ushered in not the biggest growth rate in America, but the least job-producing 8 years of any American President whom I have served with, and the deepest recession that anybody in this body has experienced, and a hemorrhaging of jobs.

In fact, the stock market, which the gentleman refers to, had a 25 percent decline in value over the 8 years of the Bush administration, with two tax cuts where exactly the same argument for growth was made, and it didn't happen.

On the other hand, I was here in 1993, when we raised taxes, not much, but a little bit, particularly for infrastructure, and the prediction, Mr. Leader, on your side of the aisle: we would tank as an economy; we would have a terrible recession.

Exactly the opposite happened. You were dead, not you personally, but those who made that representation were 180 degrees wrong.

First of all, we balanced the budget 4 years in a row. Nobody has done that other than President Clinton. Now, you can say you were in charge of the Congress, you were, and I would respond to you: Why couldn't you do it under George Bush when you had everything? There is no answer to that.

In terms of the experience that we have had when we had tax cuts, the debt did, in fact, explode; 189 percent increase in the national debt. That was approximately 2\1/2\ times the increase under Obama and the increase under George Bush. But we continue to argue there is going to be great growth. No reputable economist agrees with that proposition. Well, you read them out to me. I will be glad to hear them.

The stock market increase under this President has gone up. It went up 300 percent under Barack Obama. Three hundred percent. Three hundred percent, from 6,500 to over 18,000.

He had the largest job production, and I told my friend, in 2016, as opposed to 2017, hear, my friends, there were 279,000 more jobs created in 2016, under Barack Obama, than have been created under this President. Mr. Speaker, 279,000 more. Now, that is not a great deal, but in terms of growth, there was more growth of jobs in 2016, when Obama was President of the United States, than has occurred under Donald Trump. Check the records. I am sure you will review and say: Let's see if Hoyer is just giving us some malarkey.

The gentleman talks about this great tax benefit. What he didn't mention, and what I was referring to, by the way, was when you were giving the schedule, not in response to the question, but that aside, doesn't mention the State and local taxes.

Now, I am not exactly sure what has happened to State and local taxes, but in my State, it will have a very substantial negative effect. Why? Because we have a significant income tax. Why? Because it is a progressive tax, and it puts the burden on those who have more.

Now, you may disagree with that. Just have a flat tax no matter what

you have, and you pay the same thing. I am not sure exactly what you have done.

The shutdown you talk about. You had 90 people vote against a CR that you recommended they vote for in September, which was a clean CR. You would not have passed that CR. You would have shut down government. You are responsible for keeping government open, ``you'' being your party. You are in the majority. The only reason that CR passed was because we voted for it. You had 90 of your people vote against it; 90, who apparently didn't want to pay the military, apparently didn't want to protect them overseas. That proposition, like they say, won't hunt, because the chairman of the Armed Services Committee voted against that CR. Why? Because he thought it was harmful to the national security of our country. Secretary Mattis believes the CR is damaging.

It is inappropriate, in my view, when we do something and say: We don't like this bill, and the only party with whom I have served who would consciously, purposely shut down the government, I tell my friend, Mr. Speaker, is the Republican Party. They did it in 1995, under Newt Gingrich, and they did it last year with Mr. Cruz coming over here and saying: Shut down the government unless they repeal the ACA. Shut it down, consciously.

We have never done that. Have we had to shut down because we couldn't get agreement? We have done that for a few days. But for 16 days you shut it down consciously. And guess what? When you voted to open up the government, guess who voted against it? Mr. Mulvaney, the Director of the OMB. He voted against opening up the government. I guess he was against the Armed Forces. I guess he was against defending our country, if that's your proposition.

CHIP. You are right. You waited. We didn't get an agreement. But we waited long after September 30, when the gentleman says he is very concerned about funding it. The authorization expired. Now, you passed, ultimately, a bill that we didn't vote for. You passed it on your own. If you really were that concerned, you would have passed it before the authorization expired on September 30. We passed it some weeks later, and we passed it with a piece of funding in there that is going to undermine, for instance, just as one example, vaccinations for children, because you funded it, in part, by reducing substantially the Prevention Fund, which seeks to prevent illness.

On bipartisanship, very frankly, we had a 2-week CR, you are right, a 2-week CR. You got a 2-week CR. The only thing you have worked on, from our perspective, is the tax bill, and you did not include us in those discussions. You had closed hearings.

We had a conference hearing yesterday. Mr. Neal tried to move an amendment out of order. It wasn't accepted. It was a done deal. Done deal in secret.

I tell my friend, I reread a little bit of ``Young Guns'' last night. It talked about transparency. It talked about openness. It talked about doing things one at a time, not packaging a lot of bills.

The reason we all hate CRs is because nobody knows what is in a CR. We lard it down, and this CR is larded down with numerous bills. We are talking about the tax bill, but the CR that the gentleman talked about is five or six major pieces of legislation put in one package. Take it or leave it.

That is not the way to run this organization, and that is what you guys said in ``Young Guns.'' And I agree with you, but it is not what you have done. It is what you said, but it is not what you have done.

Let me just close on this. Frankly, I was going to talk about the CR, but I am talking about it now.

We don't have a budget caps deal. Today is the 14th; so we are essentially 17 days from the end of the year. We don't have a caps deal. We don't have a disaster supplemental for Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands that is proposed to be in this CR, as I understand it, and the fires in California. The gentleman is absolutely correct, and we are going to support helping the folks of California who have been devastated by these fires. The gentleman is absolutely correct.

We don't have anything on DREAMers. We think that is critically important. I said to the majority leader 4 months ago that we felt this was critically important and we needed to get this done. I think, as I have said to the gentleman, we have over 300 votes on this floor for a bill to get this done.

Alexander-Murray. I don't think, I don't know, I haven't seen the conference report, but Alexander-Murray, which tries to stabilize the availability of healthcare at a reasonable price to the American people, I don't think that is in the tax bill, as I understand it.

VA Choice funding, I think, is in the CR. I haven't seen exactly what it says.

Opioids funding. I have a crisis in my district. In every district in America, opioids is a critical issue. There is no funding in the CR, as I understand it, for that.

The fire grants program for our emergency responders, no money for that.

Perkins loans, nothing for that. The debt limit is going to come later.

National Flood Insurance Program, nothing for that, as I understand it.

Medicare and other health extenders, 702 of FISA to keep America secure and strong and safe. As I understand it, none of that is being dealt with.

The reason we voted against the last CR is because we are tired of kicking things down the road. We are tired of kicking the can down the road. We want to get to an agreement on a bipartisan basis to pass legislation that is positive for our country, and that is why we may vote against this next CR, because we ought to stop just kicking the can down the road. And we are going to kick the can, as I understand it, down the road to some point in time to January 19, is the discussion.

Mr. Leader, Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to sit down to try to reach agreement on these issues that have got to be reached. If we don't reach them, America will be less safe, less secure, less healthy as an economy and less healthy, literally, in terms of making sure that the healthcare available to America is on a stable path.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield to the majority leader and then make a few comments, and then we will close. I yield to my friend.

Well, I keep pushing it for you.

``Come back, Shane.'' Maybe many of you are not old enough to remember that wonderful movie. Shane rode off and the little boy intoned, ``Come back, Shane.''

I haven't gone anywhere. Democrats have no ability to shut down the government on the floor of this House. Hear me: We don't have the votes to shut down government and we don't want to shut down government.

Maybe the leader also wants those 90 of his--he is not our leader. He is the leader of the majority party, and 90 of his people did not follow him. I presume he must be much more concerned about that.

With all due respect, he is my friend, but not my leader. We voted to give 90 days and nothing was accomplished in that 90 days other than working on a tax bill that we think is a disaster for this country. Nothing.

The gentleman talks about passing these appropriations bills. We knew they wouldn't pass the Senate and we told him so. We said: Let's do it on a bipartisan basis.

But, no. By the way, Mr. Speaker, it was the least regular order prior to an omnibus at the end of a year in dealing with appropriations bills that I have ever seen. They packaged, I think it was four or five the first time--four, I think, and then the balance of eight.

We didn't consider them individually. We didn't have an opportunity to consider them thoughtfully, no. It was one big package, for or against. I said I read that book. It was anything but regular order.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, the majority party that passed them is the majority in the United States Senate; and not a single one of those bills, not a single one, has passed out of the Senate. Not a single one has gone to the President of the United States. Not one. The Republicans are in charge of the House and the Senate. Not a single bill has gone to the President of the United States.

Harry Reid is no longer there just to beat on: Oh, it is Harry Reid.

Now, what it would have taken to pass some of those appropriations bills in the Senate is some compromise, but that didn't happen. So don't wring your hands about how bad it is that we haven't had bipartisanship on the appropriations bills--we haven't--or bipartisanship on the CR when you lose

90 of your people. Ninety Republicans voted against a simple CR. You say simple CR, nothing to be partisan about, et cetera. Ninety of your people voted ``no.''

Let me reclaim my time just so the gentleman can further explain.

Does that mean 90 of your people did not want to pay the bills of the United States and default on our debt?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time, let me say to the gentleman very respectfully: Do not expect cooperation from our side if we don't get cooperation from your side, if we don't get some inclusion in making decisions.

We are, after all, 194 Members of this body. From time to time, you and I do work together. When we work together, we get majorities and we pass pieces of legislation.

You have not passed a single controversial fiscal bill on this floor without our substantial help until last week. You got about 230 on that last bill. But let me tell you, the reason we voted against it is because we knew exactly what was going to happen: nothing. There would be no agreement to CHIP; there is no agreement on CHIP. There would be no agreement on FISA; there has been no agreement on FISA. There would be no agreement on flood control; there has been no agreement on flood control. So we knew that we were not going to get any bipartisan buy- in, so all we were doing is delaying the inevitable.

Let me tell you, when we did defeat the homeland security bill--you remember that, I am sure; we did, and you were in the majority--you came back to the floor and said that we are going to meet tomorrow. We reached an agreement, and we passed it.

Very frankly, you have never heard us say that, as a policy, in order to get the ACA repealed or Gingrich wanted to get some fiscal thing done, that we would shut down the government. Three times you shut it down in 1995 and 1996. Three times, intentionally. That was your policy.

Yes, if you are going to take the government hostage and force us to do something that we think is inimical to the best interests of this country, yes, Mr. Leader, you will leave us with no other option: to pretend that we are keeping government moving but not getting any agreement.

I talked to you very sincerely 4 months ago about one of the things that we wanted to get done before the end of this year is getting DREAMers protected who are now vulnerable and very scared that they are going to be sent back to someplace they do not know, have not lived in, brought here as children through no fault of their own, gone to elementary school, junior high school, high school, college, served in the military, working at jobs, and vetted to make sure that they haven't done anything wrong. They are afraid of being sent back home-- not back home. Excuse me. I say that. That is not their home. This is their home.

Nothing has been done on that. I know you have a task force and talked about it, but we haven't done anything. There is no reason why we can't. I think we have 300 votes on this floor to get that done.

Reclaiming my time, I don't know who the gentleman is relying on for that information, but I will tell you I have talked to Mr. Pallone. That is not correct.

I don't know who you think directed him not to reach an agreement, but I will tell you, after you made that assertion, I think last week or the week before, I went to Mr. Pallone. I asked him that, and he said absolutely not.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I reclaim my time for just a second, and then I will yield back to the gentleman.

Is the gentleman proud that you control the House, you control the Senate, and you haven't sent a single appropriations bill to the President? Not a single one. Not one.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what it would have meant, you would have had to compromise. That is why the Senate has that 60- vote rule. I am not crazy about it myself, but that is why they have the 60-vote rule. They think it is good because that is why they kept it. They think it is good because it requires

compromise; it requires agreement; It requires moving ahead on a piece of legislation.

I will tell you, I served on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years, and we reached agreement between Republicans and Democrats on almost every bill. And when we had the bills, they weren't partisan bills, and they got a lot of Republican votes, almost always, when we were in charge--not all the time, almost always.

If you are a party of no compromise, then you can't move things in the United States Senate. I get that. But that is the reason. That is the reason, because you couldn't reach compromise.

Very frankly, a lot of the bills have come out of the committee. Do you know why they came out of committee? Because they were bipartisan. But they haven't been brought to the floor by Mr. McConnell, and they haven't been sent to the President of the United States, so somewhat crocodile tears.

Yes, you passed those 12 bills just like you can pass the CRs, on your own, without any help from us. If the government shuts down, it is because you can't get the majority of your party to pass bills.

You are in charge. There is no doubt when we were in charge and you didn't support us, we passed every piece of legislation we wanted to pass on this floor with 218 Democrats. We were united as a party. Now, we lost some, but never enough to make it so that we didn't get 218. You lost 90. You can say it was on the debt; you can say it was on national security; you can say whatever you want on it; but you brought a bill to the floor, and 90 of your people voted against it to keep government open and to keep government operating.

Very frankly, we voted with you so that we could get some work done, and we haven't gotten work done. That is what frustrates us. That is what frustrates the American people.

I will tell my friend, at the end of the day, after this Congress is gone, historians are not going to be kind, notwithstanding the fact you say you passed so many bills. You passed so many bills on a partisan basis, and you used, essentially, the 51 vote because you didn't want to compromise. We get it. You don't want to compromise. You don't want to work with us. You didn't have any hearing on this tax bill. We were not included in any phase of the marking up and fashioning of this tax bill.

Now, I am about ready to yield back the balance of my time. I am sure that everybody who wants to give a 1-minute or a Special Order is very happy to hear that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, in reclaiming my time, does the gentleman remember President Trump saying that a good shutdown will be good for government? Do you remember him saying that, when you tell me about how he has been down here lobbying? He said: A ``good shutdown'' may be good for government.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, I would, again, reiterate: the majority party can do whatever it wants on this floor. It could have kept government open. It could have kept policies moving with its votes. Time after time after time on critical issues confronting this country, they couldn't come up with a majority.

As a matter of fact, on one occasion, Mr. McCarthy was the whip, Mr. Cantor was the majority leader, and Mr. Boehner was the Speaker. They offered a bill to keep government moving. They only got 84 of their colleagues, approximately one-third of their colleagues on their side of the aisle, to vote with them.

I don't want to hear about us shutting down government. We can't shut down government. They are in charge. The majority has the votes. You can do whatever you want. We get it. We may not like it any more than you liked it, but we get it.

But we voted on the hope that we would get some work done. We haven't moved anyplace except on the tax bill, which we think is bad for this country, in the last 90 days since we passed--and we passed. The CR would not have passed without us.

And, yes, we will not be held hostage. Yes, we will oppose what we think is a very, very bad tax bill and we think is an effort to avoid getting the work of this House done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday and the balance of the week, the House will meet as early as 10 a.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a number of suspensions next week, a complete list of which will be announced by close of business tomorrow.

This list will include several bills from the Science Committee that are part of the House Innovation Initiative. These bills support Americans pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, with a focus on veterans and individuals historically underrepresented in those fields.

Mr. Speaker, my friend and I recently cohosted the third Congressional Hackathon, and I think he and I would agree that STEM education is an issue of national competitiveness, and I look forward to the House passing these bills next week.

In addition, the House will consider two measures from the Financial Services Committee. First, H.R. 4015, the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act sponsored by Representative Sean Duffy. This bill will improve the quality of the proxy research while increasing transparency for public companies and their investors.

Second, H.R. 3312, the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act sponsored by Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer. This bill replaces Dodd-Frank's arbitrary thresholds with a process that analyzes each institution of its individual risk factors.

Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider the conference report to accompany H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sponsored by Representative Kevin Brady. This historic legislation will cap off a 31-year journey to reform America's broken Tax Code. We will double the standard deduction, making the first $12,000 of income for an individual and $24,000 for a family tax free.

We will increase the child tax credit because investing in families is among the most important investments we make. We will reduce the tax rate on small businesses to the lowest rates that have been seen in 40 years. And we do all this while simplifying the Tax Code so Americans can file in minutes on a form the size of a postcard.

Republicans have championed cutting taxes and growing our economy for years, and I am excited to deliver this important promise.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, additional legislative items are expected, including legislation related to government funding and a number of other end-of-the-year priorities. I will be sure to inform all Members if additional items are added to our schedule.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

I expect the report to be filed online tomorrow. As you know, you have got to go through and make sure, from joint tax, filling in the dollar figures, and all anticipation is it will be online tomorrow for all of America to read.

Yes, that is accurate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

There were a lot of questions about the schedule. I took notes because there were a lot of things said, but let me first make sure I can try to get through all of them.

You first mentioned many times, what I did not mention. Now, I was asked a question, when would we vote on the tax bill, so I want to be very clear. I answered the question. I said, yes, we will vote on it Tuesday. You said you have heard that it could be Tuesday, so I just said yes, and I didn't mention others because I wasn't asked other questions. But now that you have, let's walk through this.

One of your first arguments was debt. Do you realize, in this progrowth, tax-cutting, job creation bill, if it just grows four-tenths of 1 percent, it pays for all of it?

But what is interesting here is--don't take my word for it--what happens every day to the market when they realize Congress and the Senate is 1 day closer to passing the tax bill? Everybody with a 401(k) gets a pay raise.

The market has set more than 59 records since the election and our movement to passing a tax bill, and that is for all Americans who invested. Everybody's retirement is getting a little better because of it.

Now, what about on the jobs perspective? Well, Broadcom, which was created in America but left America based upon the current Tax Code, on the day of the announcement of our tax bill, said: We are coming back. It is not just that we are bringing so many jobs back. We are going to spend $3 billion a year in R&D. We are going to spend $6 billion in manufacturing.

And that is $20 billion a year in revenue for that company that is going to pay taxes now in America.

But I wonder, that is a big company. Do you know what I just read the other day? A company announcing they are going to Syracuse, New York, based upon our tax bill.

Yes, things are changing in America. People are excited about it.

But it is not just those that are going to hire these thousands of Americans to work. I want to make sure it happens in Maryland as well, so I wanted to look at your district, so here we go. My good friend represents Maryland's Fifth. He has done it for quite some time. Here are a few facts.

Currently, you have 47 percent of filers in Maryland Five that take the standard deduction, so they will be better off because they will get a doubling the day the President signs it.

Another 11 percent have itemized deductions that are less than our new higher standard deduction, so they, too, will save. Not only are they going to save money, they are going to save time. Instead of spending weeks trying to fill out a tax form, it is going to be done in minutes. And you know when they fill out their tax form, they are going to get money.

But they don't have to wait until April 15. Not only in your district, but across this country, check your check come February, because you know what is going to be in that check? More money because the standard deduction goes up.

So that is 58 percent of my friend's district is better off on day one. But from what you tell me, you don't think that is good enough to vote for. A majority of your district is better off on day one. That is not even talking about the small businesses.

Do you know, the small businesses in your district, those that are earning $400,000, they are going to save $19,000. I know we are dear friends, but I am not sure if I have ever known that you have owned a business.

You know my background. When I was 20, I started my first business. There were three lessons I learned that have never left me: I was the first one to work; I was the last one to leave; and I was the last one to be paid.

This is going to create more entrepreneurship, more opportunity, and more people are going to be hired.

Now, I know you are worried about the debt, but it just strikes me, this year, you voted for a budget just a couple of months ago--I am not going to go back to another Congress--that increased the deficit by $6.8 trillion. So we are only worried about the debt at certain times?

Well, this bill is actually going to grow the economy, as we have watched quarter after quarter after quarter of the administration.

Now, I have got to make sure I got all of it.

You talked about hearings. We have had 59 public hearings. We printed out, before we even ran to continue the majority, about what we would do on tax.

But let's get to the core. That was your district. Let's say to all Americans, it doesn't matter where you live. So anybody, it doesn't matter if you sit on that side of the aisle, on this side of the aisle. It doesn't matter if you are Democrat, Republican, or you are a Socialist. It doesn't matter what you are. You are an American first.

And you know what your constituents are going to see? Let's take the average family, the average family of four, making $55,000. You can write this down. You know how much tax they are going to pay? Zero. Zero. But that still is not good enough for you.

It is very interesting, in my social science studies, what the party on the other side of the aisle used to say they were for. I believe, back in the day, if you would have stood up here and said, ``I have got a tax bill that is going to make sure the average family of four, on the first $55,000, is going to pay zero,'' they not only would be excited, they would vote for it.

And you talk to me about bipartisanship. I really think that is a question for you, bipartisanship.

Is it bipartisanship when we reach out to you about CHIP, about healthcare for children, a place not to play politics?

We even stopped a hearing and a markup that we had scheduled well in the future because you came to us, your side of the aisle, and asked us to because you thought you could come to an agreement. Then we were told by your leadership, no, nobody could vote for it. We put things in the bill that we thought you would even want, but, no, you still voted ``no.''

And how many times have you told me on this floor, I think it was just a few months ago--and I will quote you, if I may--about government funding, because I was concerned because I had read some articles in The New York

Times that suggested, ``as a minority party struggling to show resistance in an era of President Trump, the Democrats are now ready to let the lights of government go dark.'' I read that to you because I wanted to know was that true or was that false.

Well, you said to me, when I asked my friend whether that rumor was true, he replied: ``. . . nobody on my side is talking about wanting to shut down the government. We don't want to shut down the government'' was your quote.

You continued to say: ``I would assure my friend that it is neither our intent nor our desire. As a matter of fact, we want to work quickly to avoid that happening. That is not good for, obviously, the American people; it is not good for managers trying to plan on how to deliver services; and it is certainly not good for our Federal employees. So I would want to work with you to make sure that doesn't happen.''

Mr. Speaker, that was in March, just 9 months ago. I wonder what changed in those 9 months because just last week--and I tell my friend, there was no partisanship in putting a continuing resolution on the floor for 2 weeks. There was no poison pill on this side of the aisle. It was a clean one. And I watched, sitting at this desk, how the vote was going, and I watched the other side, Mr. Speaker. I watched people, not that they just voted ``no.'' They were whipped into the position to vote ``no.'' I watched the tally. And once that tally got past the magic number of 218, I watched my good friend put his thumb up, because he gave the okay to those 14 Democrats in his conference that were sitting there, that were told not to vote until it passed. I just wonder what happened to bipartisanship on something that is so bipartisan.

I know the thousands of Federal employees you have in your district, but that is just--I listened, Mr. Speaker, to the leader of the Democratic Party on the other side who said, just 2 days prior, the only person talking about the shutdown is President Trump. Well, the only person taking action and whipping to get to a shutdown was on this floor.

We have had open hearings, Republican and Democrats. We have had an open, bipartisan, bicameral conference. They have walked through an entire bill. We have made sure Americans are going to get a tax cut and jobs are going to be created. It is already happening before the bill is even signed.

I am not sure if I didn't mention something else, because you try to correct if something was not mentioned. But I want to make sure I answered all those questions for you because I know, not just in your district, that every family of four making $55,000 will pay nothing, that all the small businesses that are going to hire new people--and I differ from you.

Maybe you will whip strongly against it like you whipped strongly against the CR and keeping government open, But I still think, when I look upon that tally on the tax bill, I think there will be some on your side. And why do I think that? Because they told me so.

But I still think, when I look upon that tally on the tax bill, I think there will be some on your side. And why do I think that? Because they told me so.

The only difference will be, at the end of the day, if they don't, if you keep the strong arm, and instead of releasing the thumb up once it passes and put it down, that is the only reason we won't have bipartisanship on the floor that day.

But I believe in America. I believe in this floor, and I believe in the individuals who fight so strongly to get here to represent their constituents; that they know the new jobs in their district, they know how much those families will save, and they will not let politics get the best of them. They will go against the tide to stop it. They believe that it will even be better. I look forward to that day.

I also look forward to my friend coming back to the quote he told me 9 months ago, because you know what? It is close to Christmas. We have military men and women defending us. The gentleman talked about that bill the President recently signed that, yes, he worked to strong-arm with me, that is going to make government more effective, efficient, and accountable. It also had a pay raise for our men and women. And when he voted ``no,'' he told them they weren't getting their raise. But worse, he went even further.

The gentleman questioned whether they could actually have the funds to continue the battle where they needed to be. We have been through shutdowns. We know nobody wins. I believe what he told me 9 months ago. I just want him to come back.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I do look forward to these colloquies, and I first want to make sure history has it right. 137 economists sent a letter to Congress supporting our tax reform effort and saying it will accelerate growth. I don't know if the gentleman dislikes these 137, but these are economists. I don't judge the difference.

History says President Obama added more than $8 trillion to the national debt.

Now, how does that measure against all of the others?

Well, that is more than 43 prior Presidents combined. That is what history shows.

My friend is correct. He has been here much longer than I have. He actually had the majority for 40 years. He didn't balance the budget during that time. There was a common denominator that got the budget balanced in those 4 years, and that was the Republican majority who had to fight for it to get there.

The gentleman raised some other issues. He brought an issue up with a number of days. I don't think we should waste any time. He brought an issue up of we don't have a cap agreement to be able to work forward. It wasn't the gentleman, but it was his leader on the other side who decided not to go to the meeting at the White House.

The gentleman says that we should not waste our time on the floor. It wasn't this side, but we did have to take time up on this floor to make a motion to impeach the President. We took that time up on the floor. We didn't take the time up for CHIP and for the others.

I do remember the quote from my friend. We differ, sometimes philosophically, but we are friends and we are friends because I admire him. I admire principles. There are times when I have watched the gentleman stand for what he has said for years, and maybe his party has a different position. He doesn't hide from it. It is what he told the American public he would do, and he voted that way. And he will stand and oppose me because it is what he said in the past and what he said he would do.

But this is not something new. He has always said: ``Funding our government is not a game. When one side wins and the other side loses, a shutdown is not a political football to be tossed around so casually.'' I was personally shocked last week.

I wondered what would have happened as I watched your operation whip people to a ``no;'' as we watched the time click; as you watched, you held those who stood by the voting booth who wanted to vote ``yes'' but could not.

Had we not gotten enough votes to keep government open, would your side of the aisle have applauded? Would your side of the aisle thought they won victory?

And you do go back and it is correct, there were 90 Members on this side of the aisle who didn't vote for a CR, but you, like myself, understand a CR is usually a responsibility of both because it is bipartisan. No one is getting anything, and no one wants to end in that position.

We don't want to be in a CR and we don't want to vote for a CR. That is why we came to you so many times in the past when it came to CHIP. But, yes, I understand sometimes people can use it for politics. Let's push it all to the end so maybe we get an advantage with something else.

We wanted an agreement. That is why staff of those four leaders have been meeting, and actually came to a pretty close agreement.

So what do they do next?

Take it to the next level. Let's go to the White House because the White House has been in those meetings at the same time because the President has to sign the bill, the Senate, the House, and leaders on both sides. But when that meeting came just a few short weeks ago, your leaders wouldn't show up. And I take you at your word that you are willing to sit down. The rest of your leadership has to be willing to sit down, too.

But this idea that we want to hold government hostage, so many times I have heard the gentleman in the past say that was wrong. He asked about the things that haven't been done.

The thing I love the most--I believe in metrics. They have to be honest metrics. I will share them with you because I share them with our side of the aisle because I want us to be judged. I want us to know exactly where we are. And if we are not where we said we are going to be, we should actually work harder.

So I took the first Congress of every new President since George H.W. Bush. I wanted to see how many bills came through committee. Because the gentleman is right. When he read the ``Young Guns'' book--and I am not saying to buy it in any shape or form because I don't want to cause any ethics issues, but I don't get any money from it anyway. I give it to the veterans.

I don't even know if it is in print. I want the bills to come through committee because that is where the expertise is; that is where the open public process is; that is where amendments get to be offered, won or lost. More bills in a first Congress since George H.W. Bush have gone through committee.

Now, let's measure how many bills have gotten off this floor.

Does the gentleman realize that more bills have been passed out of this Congress than any Congress in the first term of a President in modern history back to George H.W. Bush?

And we did it by going through a transparent, open process; exactly what we pledged we would do in that book. So, yes, I am glad you read it and I am glad you took the words, and I would love to show you the graphs.

But let's walk back to this: government funding is important. Let's talk about it. Here are the facts: By mid-July, all 12 appropriations bills passed both subcommittee and full committee. That was July. On July 27, we passed the four appropriations bills off the House floor, which provided for critical national security. Now, my friend and nearly all of the Democrats voted ``no.''

On September 14, we passed the remaining eight appropriations bills off this floor. Now, my friend and nearly all of the Democrats voted ``no.''

But the most disappointing vote, as I mentioned, was last week on December 7 to fund the government. My friend and the Democrats all voted ``no.''

When I was young and I didn't always get my way, I would go to my parents and I would complain. But it is really odd that we got to this floor in a different nature, that someone would complain about something not getting done and never vote for anything.

Mr. Speaker, I like my friend. I want my friend, who, for decades, has talked about not playing games with the funding of government. I don't know where you have gone, but I want you to come back. I think America needs you back. I think that leadership will be important for both sides. And I will tell you, I would have been disappointed in you if I watched you applaud if you were successful in shutting down the government. Because I know that is not the man you are. I know that is not the person and the principles of what you stand for.

All of those votes that you said this side of the aisle didn't vote for, I stood and voted for those because leadership is different. We do take votes that are tougher than others. We do have to put politics aside, and we do have to look out for the best of this country. It may not be the mood of the politics on TV that maybe wants to fight more, or throw another motion on the floor to impeach, but there is a time that we should rise above.

I think going into the end of this year, we should think anew and act anew. I think America should not see a bad Christmas because one side of the aisle wanted to shut it down, and not for any other reason than they voted ``no'' on all of the bills that would have kept it open. If you had a cause, if you had a desire, and if you had a big desire, you would have shown up to the meeting to actually get the answer.

We could have a cap agreement. We could be done with it. We could make sure our men and women get the raises they deserve. We could make sure that those in battle theater have every opportunity so they are able to carry out their mission that we asked them to do in the safest manner possible. That is what I want to see.

Will the gentleman yield?

Let's make sure we are comparing apples to apples. That had a debt ceiling in it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

But if you are going to compare a CR that you said was simple, it is not simple. We all know that. If you are going to compare it to the CR that you voted against last week, that had no debt ceiling on it. You explained to me numerous times of how many CRs you voted for in the past in this body and how Democrats came over with Republicans. Because, you know what, you and I both know that is normally how it works.

A CR is not an advantage for one or the other. And this is what I am most upset with. Our Founding Fathers created a body that could have compromise. But for some reason, in today's society, it is not just that you want one side to win. You want to try to crush the other side. That is not crushing one side or the other. That is actually hurting the American public.

So in a situation where we know that a continuing resolution is going to be short term, in 2 weeks, yes, I would expect half of the votes to come from your side and half of the votes to come from ours. That is what has happened in the past. I am just wondering where that went.

The gentleman is correct. There are many times we have worked together, on sanctions, on homeland and others. We work very well together.

The gentleman knows I came to you about CHIP when the committee was directed, on your side of the aisle, not to do anything with the majority party, so I came to you because of our history.

I came to the gentleman. I was under the impression. A Member came to me and said that. Maybe that is not true. Maybe that is not what Mr. Pallone wants.

But I came to you and said: Let's get together and work this out. I don't want to make CHIP partisan in any shape or form. We met, and we tried to work.

You came back to me and said: You have to go alone.

I said: That is not how I want to do it.

So what we did was we took everything we heard from the hearings. In good faith, the chairman of that committee, Greg Walden, stopped a markup because you requested--not you, but your ranking member. They weren't prepared. They wanted more time.

So we want to do everything in our power; but, at the end of the day, you couldn't be there. Twice, your side of the aisle voted against CHIP. You can't argue against it now. You voted against it.

When you talk about appropriations, I am very proud of what we did on appropriations. We haven't been able to do that in quite some time. But there were, in those first four bills--every single one of those 12 bills went through subcommittee and full committee. There were 126 amendments on the first four and 342 on the second.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

No. That is why I want you to join with me and get the Senate to move, because, as the gentleman knows, you don't control the Senate when you have 51 or 52 Members. Do you know what happens? It takes 60.

Now, I don't firmly believe in that, but that is the way they play it over in the Senate. That is why, when you don't have a cap agreement, that you need all four leaders to go to the White House. But when the two won't show up, the best thing to do is, is you don't show up, then don't complain I don't have an agreement.

The best way to complain is get all 12 bills off this floor with a simple majority. If that is good enough for America inside Congress, it should be good enough on the Senate side. But, unfortunately, that is not the case. So your side is able to hold it up, and I'm ashamed of that as well.

No. No. No.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

The gentleman is correct about compromise, but there is a real big difference between compromise and obstruction, to obstruct, when you talked about the Senate. It takes 60 votes to even get on to a bill. I know as well as my friend that you can utilize the Senate and the leadership of the House to stop something if you want to.

I will tell my friend that I am disappointed. What will you say to the 62,000? What will you say to the 62,000 Federal employees who live in your district? What will you say to them about every quote you made in the past that you should not play games with funding and shutting down the government?

You may think you can make that statement here. Your leader may think that she can say that only the President was talking about a shutdown. The President never whipped one vote to shut it down. He whipped it to stay open. History won't be kind.

Yes, we will come to a conclusion next week.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I understand what his words said. I also watched his actions. I also watched what he did last week to get Members to vote to keep it open because things did change. There was not compromise even though the bill was a compromise because there was no poison pill in it.

If we are going to carry everything ourselves, maybe we should put something in it. It was a compromise, but, unfortunately, you changed on the other side. You decided now is the time to shut the government down, try to blame somebody else.

The American people will see through that, and I will guarantee you that 62,000 people who work for the Federal Government in the Maryland Fifth District will not take that as an answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2201 would create an unnecessary and potentially dangerous loophole in Federal and State securities laws by allowing companies to sell unregistered securities without important safeguards that normally apply to such transactions. Specifically, the bill would allow a company to raise up to $500,000 from 35 or fewer investors, subject only to the requirement that each of these investors has a substantive preexisting relationship with the company.

Currently, before a company can offer or sell its securities, it must either register the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission--that is the SEC--or qualify for at least one of several existing exemptions from registration. These exemptions provide reduced regulatory requirements for businesses conducting the offerings, but are limited to investors who have the financial sophistication to understand the risks, or enough assets to bear losses without the full protections of the securities laws.

Additionally, unlike H.R. 2201, these existing exemptions include several critical investor protections, such as notice to regulators, limitations on advertising, and restrictions on resale. For example, securities offered pursuant to rule 506 of regulation D are restricted, meaning they cannot be resold for at least a year without registering them; that is, re-registering them.

Additionally, the re-registration exemptions available under the crowdfunding rules and regulation A impose limitations on the amounts an individual can invest in a year, thereby placing a cap on potential losses.

H.R. 2201's lack of basic safeguards would leave investors vulnerable to an array of investment scams. For example, a purchaser of securities offered pursuant to H.R. 2201 would be able to immediately resell the securities in secondary transactions. In the past, the failure to restrict the resale of unregistered securities has exposed secondary investors to ``pump and dump'' schemes, a form of fraud that involves hyping up cheap junk stock in order to resell it at a higher price to unwitting investors.

Additionally, investor and consumer advocates, like Americans for Financial Reform, Center for American Progress, and Public Citizen, oppose H.R. 2201 because it would enable a particularly deceptive scam known as ``affinity fraud.'' Bad actors perpetrating affinity fraud could use H.R. 2201 to prey upon religious communities, ethnic groups, and the elderly.

Just a few years ago, the SEC shut down a scheme targeting the Hispanic community in southern California. The perpetrators raised more than $800,000 by representing to close friends and family members that their investment would be used to develop a financial services firm serving the Hispanic community.

The SEC found that, instead of developing the purported business, the scammers ``used a large part of the investors' money to engage unsuccessfully in high risk `day-trading' of stocks; pay personal living, travel, and entertainment expenses; or make other unexplained expenditures with no connection to the purported startup business activities.''

H.R. 2201 would provide a roadmap for bad actors to similarly rip off investors. The bill's $500,000 cap on offerings does not eliminate the need for robust safeguards against fraud and abuse. In fact, these protections are even more important for offerings of this size, given the proliferation of investment schemes in the smaller offering space.

The SEC has found that ``fraud in the micro cap stock markets is of increasing concern to regulators, as such markets have proven to be fertile grounds for fraud and abuse.''

While $500,000 may not seem like a lot on Wall Street, for Main Street Americans, losing even a fraction of that amount would destroy the hope of one day retiring with dignity. Existing exemptions such as those available under the SEC's regulation D, regulation A, and crowdfunding rules provide ample opportunities for companies to raise capital while also protecting investors.

H.R. 2201 would only expose hardworking Americans to a new and wholly unnecessary risk. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2201, and I reserve the balance of my time.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have laid out this morning exactly how vulnerable groups and individuals can be taken advantage of with legislation like this. I don't know exactly where this legislation originated, but I can almost guarantee you that we are creating opportunities for individuals who don't have the best interest of our constituents at heart to literally get small groups together, 35, I guess, or less, and sell them on ideas where they are raising funds that probably will not result in profits as expected by those who are investing in these schemes.

No, there are no protections. There is no notice. The SEC will not know when and where these schemes are arising. So I would say to my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle: When are we going to act as if we have the best interests of our constituents at heart? When are we going to be about protecting consumers rather than opening up opportunities for them to be the victims of fraud?

We have fraudulent schemes that are directed at the most vulnerable people. I know where those people who are organizing these schemes will go. They will go to our churches where well-meaning ministers and parishioners will be taken advantage of.

In these vulnerable communities that are always taken advantage of, we have people who are the victims of payday loans where they are paying 400 percent for moneys that they are borrowing when they are desperate in between paychecks. We have rent-to-own schemes. We have all kinds of schemes where these convenience stores, in places where we have food deserts, are charging extremely high prices for food that is basically being sold for regular, ordinary, good prices in other communities.

In some communities, even in California, the gas taxes are rising. We have the rental market that is going off the scale all over this country with people not being able to afford a decent lease or a decent rental space, and so here we are just opening up another opportunity for folks to be ripped off.

It is going to happen; I can guarantee you that. When you have something like this that is passed by the Congress of the United States, it is going to be taken advantage of, and the way that this is constructed, it almost begs to be taken advantage of.

So do you know what happens when this kind of thing takes place and Members of Congress put their reputations on passing this kind of legislation? When the rip-offs start and people are harmed a few years later, then they are going to come back with legislation talking about how they are correcting the fraud and the rip-offs that we caused in the first place.

When is this going to stop? We have a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is struggling every day to protect our consumers. Prior to Dodd-Frank, we had our oversight agencies with the responsibility of protecting consumers, but they didn't have any real protection. So Dodd-Frank reforms helped to create opportunities for Members of Congress to be able to protect their consumers and not to be involved in these kinds of schemes.

But the opposite side of the aisle has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to kill off the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and they have done it in so many ways. Not only do they come up with amendments time and time again to try and shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they treat the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau so badly that they almost deny him the opportunity to come before our committee and to be heard.

So I don't know whose side legislators are on who create this kind of crap. I don't understand why it is deemed to be important to open up the opportunity for schemes and to not give the SEC the ability to know when they are getting started, to have the

kind of disclosures, and to have the kind of oversight that would protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, yes, this legislation will probably pass today. The Republicans have the majority votes in this Congress, and I suppose they are going to get all of their people to vote for this bill that is going to rip off some of their constituents, and, again, we won't be able to stop it because, again, they have the majority votes.

But I want the people of this country to know and understand what is happening, who is doing it to them, and why they are having a difficult time. At a time when the rental market is going off the scale and they can't afford to pay the first and the last month's rent to get into a place, I want them to know who is creating the difficulties in their lives when their jobs have not increased their pay, they are still trying to have a decent quality of life for their families, despite the fact that the pay does not match the job that they are doing, and they haven't had the pay increases.

When are we going to show that we stand up for the least of these? When your churches get ripped off--and we are working on some of those schemes now where, even with the responsibilities that the SEC has, we have people who are getting ripped off, and here we come with another piece of legislation. Then what we do is we shade it in terms of this is for small business development. Then we hear from the opposite side about all the other companies who started as little-bitty companies in their garage. Well, they all started without this bill. They didn't need this bill to start.

So why are you doing this? Yeah, you are right; there are a lot of companies, and you have named them, particularly in the high tech industries that started, and they had some of their own money to get started with, and maybe the family helped them, I don't know, but they didn't have this legislation. They didn't need this legislation. Nobody needs this legislation.

This legislation is harmful, and I would ask my colleagues to vote against the bill. If there are any Members on the opposite side of the aisle who really are concerned about their constituents, I would ask them to defy their leadership and vote against this bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by allowing entities to sell unregistered securities based solely on a preexisting relationship with the investor, H.R. 2201 would create a road map for affinity fraud.

Affinity fraud is a type of investment scam where swindlers prey upon members of identifiable groups such as ethnic or religious communities or the elderly. Often, affinity fraudsters take advantage of preexisting relationships to engender trust and convince victims that a dubious investment is legitimate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has found that such frauds pose heightened risks to investors because they can be difficult for regulators or law enforcement officials to detect, particularly where the fraudsters have used respected community or religious leaders to convince others to join the investment.

The following cases represent a sampling of recent affinity fraud actions from around the United States.

In August, 2013, the SEC halted an offering fraud scheme where Steven Bruce Heinz, a Utah resident purporting to be an investment adviser, sold phony investment contracts to more than 15 of his former clients, family members, and friends. According to the SEC's complaint, Heinz raised $4 million in investor funds he used to engage in high-risk trading of future contracts and to pay his own personal expenses such as family vacations to Mexico and a $600,000 loan.

Among the investors taken in by Heinz scam was ``the recent widow of a church associate of Heinz who invested with Heinz after he volunteered to assist her with her finances and investments after her spouse died.''

In 2012, the SEC stopped a $7.5 million fraud operation targeting the Persian-Jewish community in Los Angeles. The SEC's assistant regional director stated that Shervin Neman ``deceived members of his own community to raise money in this fraudulent Ponzi scheme. By exploiting investors' trust in him, Neman was continually able to raise more money to pay back existing investors and finance an extravagant lifestyle.''

According to the SEC's complaint, among other things, Neman spent investor funds to pay for his wedding and honeymoon, his wife's engagement ring, luxury cars, and VIP tickets to entertainment venues.

In 2015, the SEC permanently barred John Allan Russell from the securities industry after Russell pled guilty to securities fraud in Colorado State court. The SEC's administrative law judge found that Russell obtained almost $300,000 by selling debt securities to an elderly victim who suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The ALJ also determined that ``Russell's scheme may have involved affinity fraud because the misconduct began a few years after the victim acted as Russell's godfather at his baptism.''

These cases demonstrate that H.R. 2201's preexisting relationship requirement would not provide any meaningful deterrent against abuse. On the contrary, it would encourage opportunistic conduct targeting communities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' for this bill.

Given all that the SEC is able to do, they can't keep up with these schemes, and now you are going to open up the door for them to have to wrestle with trying to help people who are victims of these kinds of schemes.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the North American Securities Administrators Association sent this letter of concern. They said that H.R. 2201 would result in an overly broad Federal exemption that would allow public solicitation and sales to any investor, regardless of sophistication or financial wherewithal, subject only to the requirement that there be a previously existing relationship, a standard that is not difficult to establish.

In practical terms, this means that Main Street investors could be solicited and sold up to $500,000 in private security by bad actors, including persons having been convicted of crimes or subject to one or more previous State enforcement actions, without any disclosure to the investor and without any notice to State or Federal regulators.

There is no valid basis for Congress to prevent State officials charged with protecting their constituents from making decisions about purely local or regional issues that would rely on the exemption established by H.R. 2201.

Further, preemption of State review or even notification for the type of small, localized offerings contemplated by H.R. 2201 would effectively handcuff the regulators best positioned to oversee such offerings.

Public Citizen said this bill ``would permit small offerings with no investor protections, such as notice of the offerings. It will enable a type of affinity fraud, where the seller can unload dubious securities, provided there is some relationship between seller and purchaser. This bill assumes that a preexisting relationship will deter abuse, which is a tenuous foundation, at best. Further, the relationship can begin with the offer.''

They don't have to have a previous relationship. It would start when the offer takes place.

Public Citizen further stated that ``the bill says the relationship must only exist before the purchase.''

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters from these groups, as well as a letter from Americans for Financial Reform.

North American Securities

Administrators Association, Inc.,

Washington, DC, November 7, 2017.

Re H.R. 2201--The Micro-Offering Safe Harbor Act.

Hon. Paul Ryan,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Democratic Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Ryan and Leader Pelosi: On behalf of the North

American Securities Administrators Association (``NASAA''), I

write to express concern and raise specific objections to

certain provisions of H.R. 2201, The Micro-Offering Safe

Harbor Act, which is scheduled to be considered by the House

of Representatives this week. The legislation would amend

securities laws in ways that could be profoundly detrimental

to investors, and detract from the viability of the

marketplace for offerings from new or smaller issuers that

are compliant with securities law.

The Micro-Offering Safe Harbor Act amends Section 4 of the

Securities Act of 1933 to create a new exemption from

registration. To qualify for the exemption, an offering would

have to meet certain criteria regarding the number of

purchasers, their relationship to the issuer, and the amount

of capital raised. However, as more fully discussed below,

the legislation fails to include critical investor protection

measures and would preempt state regulatory authority.

State securities regulators understand the need of small

businesses to efficiently raise capital and the role strong

investor protection plays in facilitating this goal.

Unfortunately, the changes embodied in H.R. 2201, while well

intended, are ill-advised and potentially quite dangerous.

For example, unregistered securities purchased under the

exemption established by H.R. 2201 would not be

``restricted,'' and could thus be sold immediately, exposing

investors to classic ``pump and dump'' schemes. Furthermore,

NASAA is aware of no evidence to support the proposition that

Congress should create a ``safe harbor'' to permit

unregistered securities offerings to be offered and sold,

including through general solicitation, regardless of

investor sophistication or financial wherewithal. Even as the

bill stands to introduce new and totally unnecessary risk

into securities markets--failing to even disqualify ``bad

actors'' from these markets--the goal of the legislation

remains unclear and its necessity is, at best, not well-

established. It is clear, however, from the terms of the

exemption, and its failure to impose even the modicum of

regulatory oversight that exists for similar ``private''

offerings under SEC Regulation D Rule 506, that offerings

made under the new exemption are likely to be

disproportionately risky and illiquid. This fact alone should

be cause for concern by Congress.

Beyond stark new risks to investors, this legislation

threatens to jeopardize the continued viability of

established markets geared to smaller issuers, many of which

operate lawfully within existing federal and state securities

laws. Such markets include securities sold pursuant to SEC

Rule 506, new federal exemptions established by the JOBS Act,

and exemptions adopted in many states to permit intrastate

crowdfunding. Without effective investor protection measures

a potential effect of H.R. 2201 could be to cause investors

to abandon the markets for smaller issues.

In closing, NASAA reiterates strong opposition to the

preemption of state registration and notice filing authority

in H.R. 2201. There is no valid basis for Congress to prevent

states from making decisions about the local or regional

issues that H.R. 2201 seeks to encourage. Failure to register

or at the very least, to notice file with state regulators

results in unknown sales, by unknown actors of unknown

enterprises and result in no gatekeeper function to protect

retail investors whose only source of recourse for fraudulent

sales are the state securities regulators. At a minimum H.R.

2201 should:

1) Include bad actor disqualifications;

2) Establish a holding period to reduce the likelihood of

``pump and dump'' schemes;

3) Provide at least a notice filing with state regulators

so that in the event of a fraudulent offering, state

regulators can begin an investigation to try and protect

retail investors;

4) Limit the sale amount to retail investors so that

investors are not ``encouraged'' to place all their eggs in

one basket; and

5) Prohibit or restrict general solicitation of what are

clearly high risk securities.

Thank you for your consideration of NASAA's views.

Sincerely,

Joseph P. Borg,

NASAA President and Alabama

Securities Director.

Mr. Speaker, I don't understand why Members of Congress would disregard what the State regulators are saying. State regulators are saying: Don't do this. Don't preempt us. Don't pass legislation that would undermine our ability to protect your constituents.

Yet they are ignoring this altogether. I know that they received this information. I know that they know that the association had cautioned against this legislation. Let me just make sure that everybody knows. It is the North American Securities Administrators Association. They represent all of the States in cautioning against this legislation.

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

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

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

For my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle who are bemoaning the fact that small businesses don't have access to capital, they have these relationships with all of these big banks.

Why don't they get to the big banks and tell them they ought to be making loans to small businesses?

I don't hear them, as a part of, you know, their rhetoric, talking about how many of the big banks are not being responsible. And so my colleague on the opposite side of the aisle and my friend talk about what is common sense. I tell you what is common sense. Common sense is not to place vulnerable people in a position where they are going to get ripped off.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2201 is a harmful bill that would simply serve as an invitation for investment scams. The bill fails to take into account the numerous other exemptions we have for small-dollar offerings, including under regulation D, regulation A, and crowdfunding rules. These exemptions already permit small businesses to raise capital while also protecting against fraud.

In light of these exemptions, there seems to be no reasonable explanation for the amount of legislative effort that has been wasted on this bill. Instead of H.R. 2201, which is unwarranted and may actually harm investors and the integrity of our markets, the House should be focused on passing legislation that can actually improve the lives of the Americans whom we serve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2201. Don't be a part of enacting one more scheme that is going to rip off our constituents, and then, you know, a few years later, come back here and talk about what a terrible thing it is that people are being ripped off by these investors, some of them who are criminals, but nobody knows it. The disclosure does not have to take place. They don't know that they have people who have already been involved in crimes who are coming to them talking about: let me help you earn some profits on this investment.

We know better. Common sense tells us better. If, in fact, we are committed to the proposition that we have a responsibility to protect our constituents from rip-offs, from fraud, from being taken advantage of, we will not support this bill. And I would hope that my friends on the opposite side of the aisle, despite how far they have gone in trying to represent that this bill is something that it is not, would at least change their minds today and support their constituents and vote ``no'' on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed.

Mr. Speaker, under the current language of H.R. 2201, investors could be sold private securities by persons who have committed fraud or have violated security laws. Representative Emmer's amendment purports to add a layer of investor protections by adding a provision to so-called disqualify certain bad actors from utilizing the exemption.

While I applaud Mr. Emmer's attempt to add this most basic guardrail to a bill that otherwise creates an unmitigated safe harbor for fraudsters, I wonder why this provision was dropped from a similar bill that Mr. Emmer introduced last Congress.

Unfortunately, this amendment is woefully inadequate to address the otherwise dangerous new exemption created by H.R. 2201. Because the underlying bill requires no disclosure to investors and imposes no obligation to notify regulators of the offering, even if amended, H.R. 2201 would lead convicted fraudsters and lawbreakers to police themselves.

Moreover, the bill ties the hands of State securities regulators, who are the primary watchdogs over small, local securities offerings. If enacted, H.R. 2201 would leave a gaping hole in oversight of the very offerings it permits.

H.R. 2201 is a misguided attempt to support small businesses that is not meaningfully improved by the meager protections of this amendment. For these reasons, I continue to oppose this bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2201.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to warn the Members of this House not to take the compliments seriously that are being given by the gentleman who would have you believe that somehow I have totally embraced this amendment because I think it is going to change the fact that there is no disclosure to those who would be investing and no notice to the SEC.

So don't take him seriously when he talks about thanking me for encouraging and embracing. I have not done that. I am going to tolerate this amendment. It is late. It doesn't do what he says it is going to do. The bill is still a bad bill. It is a bill that is going to harm people. It is a bill that targets the most vulnerable people in our society. It is a bill where fraudsters are going to go into churches and convince ministers and parishioners that they are out to help them.

Members of Congress, do the right thing. Today, stand up against another attempt by misguided folks who would have you believe that they are helping people when, in fact, they are opening up opportunities for them to be ripped off one more time, ripped off in ways that could have been avoided.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill. I ask everybody to vote against this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I think America is pretty apprehensive this morning, certainly those who know that two American Presidents and one Governor of Kansas have tried trickle-down fairly recently and found it did not work at all and, indeed, caused great economic harm. But we are walking into trickle-down once again.

I think there is a word that describes when you do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result--I won't use that word, but I suspect most of us know exactly what I am talking about-- particularly at this time when this economy was really booming, really doing well.

I appreciate that there were pockets where people were not getting jobs, and this was pointed out by Richard Neal frequently last evening. We have such a skills gap that jobs are going unfilled in America, and that is what we really should be working on today.

The fact is that corporations are awash with money. The stock market is booming, and we have the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years. Why in

the world would we trifle with that to try a failed trickle-down policy again?

Now, emergency procedures were used to bring the bill up before us today. Now, what is this urgent attention that nobody could have any amendments or anything, that it was an emergency?

We are not reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program, which a lot of people think is an emergency because it provides healthcare to more than 9 million children. We are not reauthorizing community health centers, which serve more than 25 million people; and, after killing Planned Parenthood--the money--that means a lot more people will need a community health center. We are not renewing the Perkins Loan Program, which many low-income students rely on for their education.

Those three programs expired on September 30, but we are not considering them today. Instead, despite a record of 86 months of job growth--every single month for 86 months we have grown jobs--and an unemployment rate that remains steady, the majority is prioritizing tax cuts--not tax cuts for the middle class.

Don't let anybody tell you that this is tax reform. It isn't. It is a moving around of rates, but very specifically geared toward helping the rich with nothing much for the middle class who work hard to make ends meet, but tax cuts for the wealthy. The middle class will see their money go directly to the rich.

That is what the bill was designed to do. You can tell by who wrote it. There is not a single Democratic fingerprint or breath anywhere to be found. Instead, it was crafted by the lobbyists who virtually run Washington under the majority's leadership. Some swamp clearing.

Consider this: there are 11,000 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. More than half of them--more than half of 11,000--reported working on the issues involving taxes during the first three quarters of this year. Each of the 20 organizations that hired the most lobbyists to work on tax issues have reported lobbying specifically on tax reform, covering the matters included in this bill.

Now, this is the quote of all time. One lobbyist admitted to The New York Times that few Members actually had any influence on the final product. He said, ``You are dealing with 14 people instead of 535 people,'' saying specifically, as much as possibly could be said, that the 535 people in the Congress representing the people of the United States didn't do a thing on this. They wrote it.

The New York Times has reported that the travel industry lobbyists directly emailed those writing the bill to kill an amendment on tourism because a competitor who favored it has been critical of President Trump.

Business lobbyists, after already securing a lower corporate tax rate in an early version of the bill, called the members of the majority and made it even more favorable to them. They secured the removal of the corporate alternative minimum tax, a provision designed for the very rich to get away with paying no taxes at all, and we know some people who have done that.

The majority has been very clear about whom the bill is written for. One of the members of the majority, Congressman Chris Collins, said: ``My donors are basically saying, `Get it done or don't ever call me again.'''

But, Mr. Speaker, what about the average American? What about workers and members of the middle class who can't write big campaign checks or who don't have an army of lawyers to scour the Tax Code on their behalf? Those are the people who are going to be forced to pay the price for providing the wealthy with these tax cuts.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is certainly a man who prefers business and knows a thing or two about running a business. He recently wrote this:

``Corporations are sitting on a record amount of cash reserves: nearly $2.3 trillion. That figure has been climbing steadily since the recession ended in 2009, and it is now double what it was in 2001. The reason CEOs''--this is an important point. ``The reason CEOs aren't investing more of their liquid assets has little to do with the tax rate. CEOs aren't waiting on a tax cut to `jump-start the economy'--a phrase of politicians who have never run a company--or to hand out raises. It is pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth, as Republicans have promised.''

Now, that is not somebody who is an enemy of business, and he has called this bill a trillion-dollar blunder.

This is really a remarkable time in the United States, knowing that we are on the brink of passing a bill that will adversely impact virtually every American except the rich. The majority has the votes, and there is not much Democrats can do to stop it.

Let me say again, I am glad the Democrats are not involved in writing it, but it is an insult to the word ``reform'' to associate it with this bill.

The American people know they are not getting what they were promised by the majority. We know the President campaigned mightily on doing away with carried interest, but it is still in the bill.

The bill hurts the middle class, children, veterans, and the elderly by limiting or outright eliminating many of the deductions that they rely on.

Under this bill, the personal exemption is eliminated, the mortgage interest deduction is limited, the State and local tax deduction is limited mightily, and the moving expense deduction for individuals has been eliminated. Even the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is eliminated. That will cause premiums to go up by 10 percent for those in the individual market, and 13 million people will lose their insurance--13 million.

I want to pause on that because countless times I have stood here at this very spot when there were almost 60 bills to repeal and replace ObamaCare, so we have been able to insert this now in the tax bill, which will really hurt it. I have always wondered why there was such a rush to take healthcare away from persons, and I guess somehow that money--obviously, that Medicaid money--will pay for a lot of these tax cuts for the rich.

All the tax cuts made for individuals will expire in 2025, but the tax cuts for corporations are permanent. That is not what we call reform. That keeps our Tax Code complicated by design. Wealthy families and big corporations can continue taking advantage of a system that they helped create.

Broken promises are embedded throughout the legislation. For years, I have heard members of the majority come to the floor talking about the need to address the national debt. Apparently, that was little more than a talking point, because this bill explodes the deficit by $1.5 trillion and it is completely unpaid for. Because of that, Federal law requires cuts to programs Americans depend on, including a $25 billion cut to Medicare.

This isn't fear-mongering; this is fact. Speaker Ryan said just last week: ``We're going to have to get back next year.'' Next year we are going to say: Oh, my, we are going to have to do something about this spending and this debt, and so we will have to cut spending.

What is he going to cut? The things he has always wanted to cut. He says: ``We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.''

We have known he has wanted to do that for a long time.

So let me say this to the public watching today: When this majority speaks of reform, you should be very worried about your future. They pushed this scam under the guise of so-called reform, but it is simply a corporate giveaway. Soon they will be back here talking about reforming Social Security and Medicare to pay for what is going to happen here today.

Let's call it what it really is: a systematic dismantling of the social contract. It will impact everyone from children to veterans to the disabled. It begins today with this bill to help the wealthy who haven't even asked for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), a conferee, I believe.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

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

Mr. Speaker, this has been the most awful process. Mr. Barton wanted to know why the Democrats weren't involved. We weren't involved in any of it, for heaven's sake. We almost didn't get to see a copy of what they had.

But I think the debate we have had here today must be very similar to the one we had in the Reagan administration. And David Stockman, who talked Ronald Reagan into trickle down, he says today it didn't work. It didn't work then. It didn't work for President Bush. It didn't work for the Governor from Kansas, whose name escapes me for the moment. Very recently, it didn't work, and it isn't going to work this time.

So I am really appalled that we are doing it. But I have to say that this was the worst process that any of us have ever been through. We operated on Thomas Jefferson's manual in the Rules Committee. We didn't even come close.

Mr. Speaker, let me speak on the PQ. We must protect middle class families against the disastrous Republican tax plan, and if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment that will prohibit any legislation from being considered on the floor that limits or repeals the State and local tax deduction or repeals the ACA's individual mandate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), the ranking member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I have one more speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

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

Mr. Speaker, the Members of the majority have lined up today to tell the American people how great this bill is. If that is true, why were they afraid of holding a single hearing or listening to a single outside expert?

The 1986 tax bill had over 30 hearings and 430 witnesses and took well over a year; this one about three 3 months--written, apparently, by lobbyists. There wasn't a single hearing held on the text of this bill, not one. It was jammed through the Ways and Means Committee where our amendments, the Democrats', were blocked.

Democratic Members had under an hour to review the final text before voting. It was rushed to the Rules Committee a day earlier than announced with only 4 hours' notice, so nobody had any chance to read, and the majority there blocked 140 bipartisan amendments.

This has been a secretive process on both sides of the Capitol. Senators received the text of the final bill also within an hour of the vote. The nearly 500-page bill in the Senate was riddled with errors, last-minute edits, and illegible handwritten changes in the margins. There was a single meeting of a conference committee between the House and Senate. Members there were

prohibited from offering amendments or even seeing the negotiated text.

Imagine that, you couldn't even see what they were supposed to vote on. The Senators and Representatives sat around the table for show while the press reported that the deal, even before the meeting had started, had already been reached. The Democrats had no say at all.

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady says he is proud of this process, but it will take a separate bill just to correct some of the errors here. And there is no reason to believe he would include Democrats in that process either. It would be another partisan effort.

Let me remind everyone watching that we used emergency procedures to meet this onerous bill. In this Congress, disaster relief is not an emergency. Isn't that amazing? Funding CHIP and community health centers is not an emergency. Disaster funding is not an emergency. But rushing these tax cuts to the wealthiest among us is an emergency.

This bill, which has no deadline, is their top priority, while real emergencies are being ignored, and it is shameful. I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question on the rule and the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, while government isn't meant to create jobs, with the help of the President, Congress can set Federal policies that establish a pro-worker, pro-business environment that lifts people out of poverty, helps families, and drives our country forward.

One problem today that is impeding job growth is access to capital for small businesses. American businessmen and -women are often unable to get the loans they need to start a new enterprise or to grow an existing one.

Additionally, if a firm would like to publicly sell stock to raise money, it must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which costs $2.5 million, on average; an amount most small businesses simply cannot afford.

Small and emerging businesses are a key to the economic engine in America. The Small Business Administration found that these businesses create over half of the new jobs on an annual basis in this country. More importantly, today's small businesses are tomorrow's success story.

Just think of all the great businesses in this country that started with a dream in a garage: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Disney, Harley- Davidson, and Minnesota's own Medtronic. We want to empower the entrepreneurs in this country to dream, innovate, and create jobs that grow our economy.

That is why I introduced the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act. This bill will make it easier for entrepreneurs and

small businesses to raise money from family, friends, and their personal network without running afoul of the vague and undefined ``private offering'' safe harbor provisions in the Securities Act of 1933.

Thus, the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act helps bring clarity to existing law so that our current and future job creators can easily raise capital within the confines of an easy-to-understand provision without the help of an expert.

This legislation requires three specific criteria to be met simultaneously in order to trigger a safe harbor exemption for a security offering instead of just one or more. These criteria ensure that: one, each purchaser has a substantive preexisting relationship with an owner; two, there are no more than 35 purchasers of securities from the issuer that are sold in reliance on the exemption during the 12 months proceeding; and, three, the aggregate amount of all securities sold by the issuers does not exceed $500,000 during the 12- month period preceding the offering. The bill also exempts any of the aforementioned security offerings from blue-sky laws, while maintaining antifraud provisions at the Federal and State level.

These provisions protect Americans from criminals trying to swindle them out of their hard-earned money, while making capital more accessible to businesses by investors from around the country.

In fact, I will be offering an amendment to enhance these antifraud provisions. This amendment, which incorporates the suggestions made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle during a legislative hearing in the last Congress, will ensure that individuals who have been disqualified under the ``bad actor'' disqualification standard, as is listed under current law, are prohibited from using the exemption provided under H.R. 2201, establishing yet an additional layer of investor protection.

Entrepreneurs and small-business owners need access to capital in order to achieve the American Dream. Although small businesses accounted for 99.7 percent of all the businesses in the United States last year, only half of them will survive longer than 5 years, according to our Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Lack of capital or difficulty accessing capital is one of the main causes of failure for many of these small businesses. A 2015 survey conducted by BlueVine found that 75 percent of small and emerging businessowners reported their primary source of funding comes from their own personal finances, followed by banks at 16 percent and family and friends at 6 percent.

While banks and credit unions do their best to offer the funding these businesses need to grow and thrive, there are still 3 million fewer small business loans made annually, today, than there were before the 2008 financial crisis. H.R. 2201 seeks to build off the success of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, better known as the JOBS Act, and will continue to spur capital formation for the true job creators and drivers of our country's economy.

The Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act helps small and emerging companies add another tool to the toolkit, enabling them to confidently find alternative ways of raising these funds without having to pay for costly securities experts and without the fear of lawsuits if they operate within these easy-to-understand parameters.

That is why the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act is endorsed by the National Small Business Association; the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council; the National Federation of Independent Business; the Chamber of Commerce; Heritage Action; and Engine, ``The Voice of Startups in Government.''

The House approved an identical version of this legislation during the 114th Congress as part of the Accelerating Access to Capital Act, and language similar to H.R. 2201 was included in the Financial CHOICE Act, which was adopted by this Chamber in June.

Mr. Speaker, the time has come for Congress to come together and help small businesses help themselves by making this important update and improvement to the Securities Act of 1933.

I want to thank Chairman Hensarling; Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment Subcommittee Chairman Huizenga; and all of the staff on the Financial Services Committee for their hard work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and hope that both parties will use H.R. 2201 as a way to show their support for more opportunities and better lives for our job creators.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters from the National Small Business Association, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, the United States Chamber of Commerce, Heritage Action for America, and Engine.

National Small Business Association.

Hon. Tom Emmer,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Emmer: On behalf of the National Small

Business Association (NSBA), the nation's first small-

business advocacy organization, with more than 65,000 small-

business members representing every state and every industry

across the country, I commend your leadership for introducing

the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act (H.R. 2201) as it will

have an immediate and direct impact on small businesses

looking to raise capital. NSBA has long supported the kind of

simplification this legislation would bring for small

businesses.

Capital is the lifeblood of any small business, and often

small-business owners need capital at various stages; some at

their startup and others later when they are looking to

expand. Despite this ongoing need, small-business lending

from banks has decreased over the last decade and many small

businesses have few options for obtaining capital. According

to NSBA's 2016 Year-End Economic Report, small-business

access to capital remains stubbornly unchanged since the

previous year, with just 69 percent of small firms reporting

they are able to get adequate financing. This drop has real-

world implications: 41 percent said lack of capital is

hindering their ability to grow their business or expand

operations, and 20 percent said they had to reduce the number

of employees as a result of tight credit.

Therefore, raising capital though securities is an

attractive alternative option for many small-business owners.

However, the current regulatory requirements are quite

onerous for small businesses, often requiring expensive

specialized counsel for even very small securities offerings.

NSBA supports this targeted legislation that creates a safe

harbor for small securities offerings which meet requirements

clearly identified in the legislation. Under the legislation,

these exemptions include offerings in which each purchaser

has a substantive pre-existing relationship with the owners,

where the issuer has less than 35 purchasers utilizing the

exemption in the preceding 12 month period, or where the

total amount raised during the preceding 12 month period is

less than $500,000. By creating three safe harbor exemptions

for ``non-public offerings,'' businesses can operate with

clarity and a clear conscience knowing that they would be

exempted from registering with the Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC). Additionally, the legislation also exempts

transactions meeting the specified requirements from state

registration requirements, commonly referred to as ``blue sky

laws.''

Raising capital for small businesses from friends and

family already takes place on a regular basis, except those

transactions often lack the legal protections and structure

of securities law. In addition to expanding access to capital

for small businesses, this legislation will bring those

transactions under a recognized legal framework, and make

resolving disputes that arise much more efficient. Finally,

bringing these existing transactions under an existing legal

framework will provide a sound legal basis for subsequent

larger offerings requiring registration with the SEC.

Access to capital continues to be one of the most pressing

issues facing the small-business community. All small

businesses need an injection of capital at one point or

another, unfortunately in the past several years it has

become difficult for small businesses to get the funds they

need to grow and expand. NSBA is pleased to support the Micro

Offering Safe Harbor Act as it will help small businesses

around the country expand and create new jobs in their

communities.

Sincerely,

Todd McCracken,

President & CEO.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. Speaker, the amendment I am offering today will enhance antifraud and consumer protections for small businesses and startups seeking to take advantage of the micro offering exemption outlined in the underlying bill.

While the legislation itself requires three specific criteria to be met simultaneously in order to trigger a safe harbor exemption for a security offering, my amendment adds an additional layer of protection to further safeguard investors from bad actors.

Specifically, my amendment prohibits the exemption from being available for those who have been disqualified under the bad actor disqualification standard established by the SEC. This language was included with the support of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle during consideration in committee in the 114th Congress, and I am hopeful they will support its inclusion again in the 115th.

I want to reiterate that nothing in the base text of this bill erodes or limits the ability of Federal or State regulators to prosecute fraud, nor would it prevent private common law causes of action for fraud or breach of contract between the interested parties.

This amendment builds upon these existing protections and drives home the point that the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act is purely focused on helping our small businesses and entrepreneurs access the tools they need to grow and create jobs in an orderly and legal manner.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will close at this point.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member for her encouragement and her compliments, and I want to just point out that the Micro Offering Safe Harbor Act was actually improved as a direct result of the ranking member's suggestions.

So, again, I want to thank her for her compliments here today, her encouragement in helping us make this an even better bill for entrepreneurs and small businesses across the country. At this point, I would encourage support for the amendment.

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