Floor Statements

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

I rise in support of H.R. 3320. Clearly, Taiwan should be a full member of the World Health Organization. All nations should be full members of the World Health Organization, especially one with an advanced health system that can help us stop pandemics from spreading from one country to another. That is why it makes sense for us to advocate Taiwanese participation in all international bodies, but particularly the U.N.'s World Health Organization.

I am pleased to cosponsor this legislation that is critical to preparing to prevent pandemics. Look at the nonsense that is being foisted on the world by Beijing. For political reasons, in an effort to say that Taiwan doesn't exist except as a province, they are endangering the health of the world because pathogens have not been told that they are not to go to Taiwan. The epidemics have not been told to spare humankind from the inefficiencies and glaring omissions that occur when an important country is excluded from the World Health Organization.

Taiwan's exclusion, even from observer status, from the World Health Organization is a terrible symbol, an attempt to deny self- determination to 23 million people. But it is worse than a terrible symbol. It is a practical impediment to stopping epidemics. It is a practical impediment to world health, and it is time for the United States to have a strategy to reach out to the world and say Taiwan needs to be part of health planning. Taiwan needs to be part of the lifesaving initiatives of the World Health Organization.

So I look forward to working with our colleagues to pass this legislation and working with the State Department to implement it. I look forward to the day when we do not put the world at risk of an epidemic that could have been contained but for the malicious symbolism being foisted on us by Beijing.

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

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

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

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

This legislation has support from just about everyone, bipartisan. It is obviously necessary for Taiwan to be part of the World Health Organization. To exclude it is to put the health of anyone who might be affected by a pandemic, to put that interest below Beijing's interest in strangling Taiwan diplomatically and economically.

I urge the adoption of this legislation, and I look forward to working with the State Department until we achieve our objective, which is, at a minimum, Taiwan's return to observer status at the World Health Organization.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill began with a proposal by Mr. Luetkemeyer of Missouri two Congresses ago. Last Congress, I introduced it, and now the gentlewoman from New York is carrying the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't be here supporting this bill in any form if it undermined Dodd-Frank--I cosponsored Dodd-Frank--or if it undermined the CFPB, an institution that I think is very important and was created by Dodd-Frank.

With the amendment that I am proposing, this bill goes back to the text that I introduced last year. That text came before the Financial Services Committee and secured the vote of all Republicans and 60 percent of the Democrats. Now, you can't get all the votes all the time, but if you can get, for any particular draft, 100 percent of the Republicans and 60 percent of the Democrats on the committee, that, I think, is bipartisan legislation.

Now, the first part of this bill and, by far, the most important part deals with loans made by small institutions that would otherwise be required to have an impound account. An impound account is when the bank collects from you not only your mortgage payment but collects, every month, some money toward your property taxes and toward your insurance, and then the bank pays those bills for you.

Small institutions are not set up in order to keep track of how much property tax to collect and pay or fire and other homeowners insurance. They would rather rely on the borrower, somebody they know, to pay their fire insurance, to pay their property taxes.

Now, we can count on them to make sure that they are not giving this responsibility to somebody who can't handle it, because they are required, under this bill, to hold the mortgage for 3 years in their portfolio.

Keep in mind that the whole requirement only relates to the first 5 years. So here, they have to keep it in their portfolio for 3 years. This, I think, ensures that the bank or credit union or other small institution will make sure that the property taxes and property insurance are paid, while, at the same time, it won't take out of the market those small institutions that can't set up special impound accounts.

A second part of this bill deals with simply telling the CFPB to make whatever adjustments it thinks are appropriate for small institutions with regard to the small servicer exemption. That leaves that authority with the CFPB. Under this amendment, the rule, whatever they decide to do for smaller institutions applies to those that are servicing not 30,000, but only 20,000 total loans, because it makes sense to have different, less complicated rules for smaller servicers.

So I don't think my amendment is sufficient to gain support for the bill from the ranking member. The bill in its amended form, it was sufficient to get 60 percent of the Democrats to vote for it in committee last year.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York for her work on this issue and what I understand is her support for this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, seeing no further speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 477, the Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act of 2017.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga) for working with me on this amendment. It has been a pleasure to work with him on this bill over a period of three Congresses.

With the adoption of this amendment, the bill will be in a form that will secure support from both sides of the aisle, not only my support, but, more importantly, the ranking member's support.

In the 113th Congress, the House of Representatives supported a similar bill to provide relief to the M&A community by providing that, in certain circumstances, a small business merger or acquisitions broker would not have to register.

As a result of that action by the House, which was not matched by action in the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission understood the wisdom of this House and introduced a no-action letter dated January 2014 to provide the same level of relief requested by the House.

In their no-action letter, however, the SEC placed several limitations on the exemption from registration that were not included in the House bill, but, with this amendment, will be included in this year's bill.

These limitations provided additional protections for investors and small businesses. It excluded bad actors and shell companies. It prohibited passive buyers in the M&A transaction to ensure that companies cannot use this exemption from registration as a capital- raising mechanism. It prohibited an M&A broker from providing financing for the transfer. It prohibited M&A brokers from binding a party to a transfer of ownership. I think this is most important: it required that, to be eligible, a broker would have to disclose to both parties and get their consents if they are being paid by both parties. So if there is both a seller's commission and a buyer's commission, you have to tell the buyer and the seller.

Now, those who want to step outside this safe harbor can simply register. But those who will be exempt from registration need to comply with these six elements.

The Small Business Mergers, Acquisition, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act will codify the SEC's no-action letter and provide certainty to

small business merger and acquisition brokers.

In the last Congress, I opposed the bill because it included only two of the six restrictions that were included by the SEC. With this amendment, the bill will include all of the restrictions. This is a bipartisan amendment and it includes all the limitations of the SEC's no-action letter. It has been a pleasure to work with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga) on it.

In addition, our amendment provides that the SEC has the rulemaking authority to determine the correct thresholds for gross revenues and of EBITDA--that is to say, earnings of the company before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization--in determining whether a company qualifies as an eligible company under this bill.

The SEC is the agency with the expertise to do this. I encourage them to examine this issue closely and to ensure that any threshold in place is evidence-based. I encourage them in future years to inflation-adjust whatever limitation dollar figures they have in their regulations.

I am pleased to offer this amendment with my colleague, Mr. Huizenga, whom I may have previously identified as the gentleman from Michigan. I offer it also with the support of the ranking member. I urge the passage of this amendment, as it will ensure bipartisan support for the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by 2027, roughly one-third of middle class families will be paying more in taxes, and that average family will be paying $1,300 more.

The personal exemption, worth $4,150 per person in a family, that is $21,000 for a family of five, and they take it away.

The moving expense deduction, if you have to move to keep your job, you don't get to deduct that. But if you move a factory to China, you get to deduct all of the moving expenses.

The student loan debt, they won't let you deduct it.

As for the effect on simplicity, my CPA and tax law homeboys are going to be rolling in big dollars. Just from the provisions that define the difference between personal service income, passive income, active business income, the litigation and planning opportunities--talk about complexity--it is all there, and my homeboys love it.

We currently deduct extraordinary medical expenses. That is important to those with disabilities and families with children with special needs. They wipe it out.

The extraordinary casualty loss deduction, they wipe out. That is very important to people who face floods and fires.

They change the rules so that we don't have adequate indexing for inflation, so everybody is pushed into a higher tax bracket by inflation, except those at the very top; they are protected.

But look at the effect on our Nation's economy. This is a job- killing, deficit-exploding, growth-reducing disaster. Look at what happened to Kansas. These policies have already devastated one of our States.

You are going to be taking $1.5 trillion out of the money available for business investment. The Federal Government will come in and borrow all of that money, leaving less money for factories, farms, and homes.

As Ron Kind pointed out, there is an extra $800 billion of interest on top of that just in the next 10 years. Keep in mind, this increase in our debt is forever. Your grandchildren will be paying taxes on this debt.

Look at the chart. We had the policies of Ronald Reagan from 1988-- when his 1986 law became effective--through 1993, and we had 2.67 percent growth. In 1994, we got Clinton tax policies and we exploded to over 4 percent annual growth. Then with George W. Bush, we dropped to 1.7 percent growth. Then when we adopted Obama tax policies, which are in force today, we are back up to 2.2 percent economic growth.

Which policies give you economic growth?

Let's look internationally. You can manufacture and pay zero percent on the profits you earn by a factory, but only if it is a foreign factory.

Finally, Mr. Zandi, one of the top economists in the country, testified before our Financial Services Committee that this bill means double-digit declines in the value of homes in American metropolitan areas.

What effect does that have on the economy? Who is going to go out and spend in the middle class when they are told that the equity in their home has been virtually wiped out?

So you can vote against this bill because it is unfair, or you can vote against this bill because it will be a crushing weight on our economy, but don't engage in the fantasy that you can cut taxes and make it up through ``economic growth.''

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson). It was a pleasure working with him, and I am pleased that he and I introduced this legislation.

This legislation deals with a broader issue of cybersecurity. From Equifax to Moscow, worldwide, people are concerned with cybersecurity. One particular part of cybersecurity that is important is the SEC's accumulation of very sensitive data, whether it be about individuals and their trading, or about the overall market.

In September, the SEC disclosed that hackers had breached the SEC EDGAR database, which is the home to millions of public and nonpublic filings, and that that breach had occurred in 2016. The breach, which was not discovered until August of this year, may have led to some illicit trading activities.

This bill requires the SEC to develop and implement cybersecurity risk controls to ensure that market data is protected. This will help protect our markets from harmful disruptions and manipulative trading.

In addition, this bill requires that FINRA--the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority--and the operator of the new consolidated audit trail develop and implement risk controls to protect the data they store. The new consolidated audit trail system will not accept data until they have the cybersecurity risk controls necessary to protect it.

Once the CAT, or consolidated audit trail, is operational, it will serve an important purpose in assisting the SEC in identifying issues that deserve investigation. But it will also store a large amount of data, and it is important that this data be secure. We must ensure that there are proper controls in place.

Now, this bill passed our committee by a vote of 59-1 in its present form. There was an effort after the bill passed committee to try to broaden the bill, and it may very well be that other related issues need to be dealt with by this House. But I think we made the right decision in bringing to the floor today the bill that passed our committee 59-1.

We should then have hearings and perhaps work on additional legislation that will add to our ability to provide for cybersecurity in this area. I look forward to working with the chairman of the subcommittee, and Mr. Davidson, and so many others, on additional legislation designed to ensure our cybersecurity is as good as it can be, and to make sure that we are not putting information into systems unless we are sure that everything has been done so the systems can protect that information.

Mr. Speaker, I call upon all of our colleagues to support this legislation that had 59-1 support in our committee, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote. Since I have no speakers seeking time on my side, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker for recognizing me and indicating that I can speak for an hour. We get caught up in so many issues here that we sometimes don't explore them in depth, and with 1 hour, I plan to look in depth first at the President's trade policy toward China, and then toward the Republican tax bill.

The President is meeting again with President Xi from China. They will put out a beautiful joint statement, they will pose for photographs, and there will even be a business deal or two to announce.

These are the two largest economies in the world. They involve tens of trillions of dollars. So every month, a few big things happen that are bad, and one or two big things happen that are good. There is always a particular business deal that you can package and wrap as a photo op.

But the fact is that we have to look at the overall trading relationship. The trading relationship is this: we run hundreds of billions of dollars of trade deficit, and every billion dollars of trade deficit cost us 10,000 jobs.

So let's look at what has happened while President Trump has been in office. We look each month at our trade and goods with the People's Republic of China, and we start with a deficit of just a bit over $22 billion, and for the most recent statistics available, August of this year, we are up to almost $35 billion.

What is interesting about this chart is that every month Trump has been in office, our trade deficit with China has grown. Now, he can say that he doesn't have the power to do anything about that; he just wants to be a pretend President, a pretense President, a posing President. He can pose for a picture, but he doesn't have the authority to do anything.

That is completely wrong. Look at section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and you will see that the President acting alone could eliminate this deficit by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods now. But he won't do that because his plan--and what he has done over the last 2 years is he campaigns like he is Bernie Sanders at least on these issues, and he governs like he is from Goldman Sachs which, of course, many of his advisers actually are.

Even after the campaign was over in November of last year, the campaign continues, and he continues to pretend to be in favor of the trade policies associated with Bernie Sanders and others, and he continues to govern in the interests of Goldman Sachs.

Now, this chart does not reflect services because services trade between the United States and China is not available on a monthly basis, but the trend would be exactly the same: huge growth in the deficit month after month after month after month--February, March, April, May, June, July, and August of this year--and likely to continue for the other months that the President continues to serve and the statistics become available.

Now, we are told perhaps that it is okay to give away all these American jobs because we would need Chinese help to deal with North Korea. Let's see how that is working out. The President, prior to this trip, had met with President Xi twice, and now we have a third meeting.

After those first two meetings, North Korea explodes a hydrogen bomb and tests a missile capable of reaching major cities in the mainland of the United States all with the acquiescence of the Chinese Government. So whether you are concerned with our national security or whether you are concerned with jobs and trade policy, we can no longer have a President who poses and pretends and ignores the statutory authority that he has on laws that have been on the books since the 1930s.

Now let's talk about the Republican tax bill. This is a bill which will raise taxes on millions of middle class families. Now, it gets worse in a few years. There is a bit of a bait-and-switch. They will want to tell you: Just look at how this bill will affect your tax return in 2019.

If you plan to still be alive in 2027, take a look at the effect it is going to have then.

Let's look at middle class families--not the poorest 20 percent in our country, not the richest 20 percent--that middle 60 percent. Roughly 30 percent of those families in the middle class are going to see a tax increase on their 2027 tax return, and that tax increase is calculated at an average of $1,300 per family.

Let's look at the individual provisions to see how fair they are to middle class families. First, right off the bat, they take away the personal exemption which, on next year's tax return, the first year that this new bill would be effective, is worth $4,150 per person in your family. That is nearly $21,000 for a family like mine of five.

They take away $21,000 of deductions even from the poorest families in America and from every middle class family as well. Now, they say they are going to replace that with a child tax credit. But if your children are over age 16, that credit is limited to a few hundred dollars next year, and then they make it zero 5 years from now. So if your kids are going to turn age 17 sometime in the next 5 years, they have got your name on this bill.

They also do increase the standard deduction. But tens of millions of Americans don't even take the standard deduction. They choose to itemize their deduction.

So one replacement is inapplicable in a few years to kids of a few years old, and the other is inapplicable to the millions of families that don't itemize their deductions. But even if it is applicable to you, you are losing for a family of five $2,100 roughly. What about a family of six, a family of seven, a family of eight? Another $4,150 per child, and they replace it with an increase in the standard deduction of $1,200 and a per-child credit of $600 or $300 or absolutely zero if your kids are over age 16 and it is a few years from now.

Next, let's talk about moving expenses. The current code says that if you are working at a factory, it closes down, and it is moving 100 miles, 300 miles away, and you have to move your home, if you have to find a new home to live in, you get to deduct your moving expense. They take that away. But what do they leave? If you own a factory, you shut it down, and you move it to China, then all of the moving expenses are tax deductible.

Don't let them tell you they are taking away the moving expense deduction. Sure, they are taking it away from individuals and employees, but they are leaving the moving tax deduction for those who are moving their factories to China.

Of course, they take away the student loan debt interest deduction. If you are investing in yourself, in a family member, or in education, the interest deduction is wiped off your tax return. But if you are investing in a Chinese factory, the deductions are there for you. They are not anti-investment. They are just anti-investment in the skills and capacity of American workers.

Next is the medical deduction. There is a deduction for medical expenses. It is available only to a few families with particularly large medical needs. You don't get the medical deduction unless your un-reimbursed medical expenses--thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most people have at least decent insurance. You still have some medical expenses that are out-of-pocket, but if your out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed 10 percent of your income, then to the extent of that excess, you can take a deduction.

If your out-of-pocket, uncovered medical expenses are 13 percent of your income, you can deduct the 3 percent. That is not overly generous. It is not even applicable to most families.

Who needs it?

People with disabilities, families with children with special needs, and people with cancer and other severe diagnoses. That is who they target.

They say: Well, if you make some money, and then you have to spend it dealing with medical services, dealing with therapies for special needs children, for disabled, for people with cancer. Well, just because you don't have the money because you had to spend it on medical services doesn't mean we can't tax you on the money. And they do.

Well, there is another group of people who are unlucky enough to have extraordinary expenses, and that is casualty losses. If you have a small fire or some small casualty, you are not going to get a deduction. The deduction applies only when your casualty losses exceed 10 percent of your income, and then only to the extent that they exceed 10 percent of your income.

We have had the wildfires in my State of California, not to mention the hurricanes in the Caribbean, and there are people who are going to say: Well, thank God that if the disaster had to hit our community, it hit us in 2017, because our casualty losses are deductible.

But what about the next disaster?

People with uninsured, out-of-pocket losses exceeding 10 percent of their income will not get a deduction.

Here is the Republican response: Look, if it is an enormous disaster that happens to take your house and the

CNN cameras are there, then your congressional delegation can come beg for a special tax rule for those affected by that disaster.

Well, first, what if your home burns down and CNN isn't there? It is not part of an enormous disaster? It is just something that hits you and a couple of neighborhoods?

You will never get a special tax provision. We are not going to write one for three or four people, or 30 or 40 people, or 80 or 90 people affected by a small brush fire.

But what if you are part of the next enormous catastrophe?

Your congressional delegation will be here, having to decide whether to bargain to give you a chance to take the same deduction that has been in the Tax Code since the 1950s, or whether to bargain to try to get disaster relief to rebuild the infrastructure and the public assets in your community.

Your congressional delegation probably doesn't have enough clout to do both. So which are they going to do?

It is clearly wrong and unfair to tax people on that portion of their income that they have to use to deal with a truly extraordinary casualty loss.

But there is another provision. This one hasn't been talked about much. That is the way in which they index Tax Code provisions for inflation.

There are some of the provisions they don't index at all. So they say that you can take your property tax deduction and itemize it--only the portion up to $10,000. Well, $10,000 sounds like a lot of money, but they don't index it.

So what about 10 years from now? What about 20 years from now?

You say: Well, I won't be in my house 20 years from now.

Yes, but the person you sell your house to will be there. If they say, ``My God, all the prices are higher, all the wages are higher, all the taxes are higher,'' that $10,000 limit on property taxes means, ``I can't deduct but half my property tax bill.'' That will be factored into the price of your house.

As to the things affecting home ownership, no indexing. Everything that looks big now gets smaller and smaller every year as a result of inflation. Oh, by the way, this tax bill is going to cause more inflation.

There are other provisions where they say they are keeping the indexing, but they change from CPI indexing to chained CPI indexing.

What does that mean?

It is a system for indexing the brackets less than what would be if just look at the Consumer Price Index.

You say: I am only going to be in the 25 percent bracket under this bill. As I get raises to just compensate me for inflation, I will still just be in the 25 percent.

No, you won't. If you are fortunate, your employer will adjust your wages for real inflation, but the brackets are only going to increase for chained CPI.

We take away the State and local tax deduction. First, this is a departure, as other provisions are, from the concept that we should tax people based on their ability to pay. If you make a certain salary an 10 percent of it is taken out and used by your local and State governments, then your ability to pay is the 90 percent of your salary you get to keep.

But they don't want to tax you on what you keep after State and local taxes. They want to tax you on the money that has already been spent on taxes.

The effect of this is not just on the middle class families who are going to lose a tax deduction on their return and be taxed unfairly. If you read what is put out by the rightwing think tanks, they say: We know why we are pushing this State and local tax elimination. Because that will create a political atmosphere where States like California and New York and New Jersey will slash the amount of money that they spend on things like public safety and education.

We won't just be affecting the people who are not taking the tax deduction. We will be turning to poorer families and lower middle class families who depend upon public schools, and it will just cause a political situation where less money is spent on local education.

So this doesn't just affect those who it affects on their tax return. This affects everyone who lives in the community.

As I have alluded to before, they take away a big chunk of the home mortgage deduction, particularly to the person you would sell your house to later. If you sell your house--and God knows what the inflation rate may be. It may be significant. It may be $500,000, which doesn't sound like a whole lot of money then, even though it does sound like a big chunk of money now. I remember when $50,000 for a home was thought to be a very high price. Anyway, the home mortgage deduction is limited for that buyer to $500,000 of mortgage. The property tax is limited to $10,000 of property tax.

What effect is this going to have on the ability to sell your home, which, in many parts of the country, is your whole nest egg?

People pay a big mortgage payment every month and they have equity in their home. Maybe they can retire because they have got 20, 25 percent equity in their home.

Well, yesterday, before the Financial Services Committee, we had Mark Zandi testify, who is one of the leading economists in this country, the head of the economics operation at Moody's Analytics. He said that in major metropolitan areas, like the one I represent, we are going to see a double-digit decline in home values as a result of this bill. A lot of that is the limit on home mortgage deduction and the property tax. There are other elements of this bill that also adversely affect home prices. A double-digit decline.

Then what does that do to the community?

You may say: I don't own a home. I just work at a restaurant. I live in an apartment.

Who is going to come to that restaurant and how big are they going to tip if they have just gone to Zillow and seen the value of their home and they have seen a double-digit decline?

The whole community.

This affects people from the New York metro area, the Philly metro area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County in California.

You are sucking money out of the local economy and giving it to the Federal Government by taking away the State and local property tax deduction. You are then slashing the value of homes with a double-digit decline.

What money is going to be in circulation to buy goods and services to support the entire regional economy?

This is going to hit like a hurricane in areas of the country that did not experience one.

My party is so focused on the great unfairness of this bill and the fact that it provides the bulk of its benefits to the top 5 percent and even the top 1 percent. That fact is hidden by the anomaly that most of the economic projections of this bill don't even look at the repeal of the estate tax. They only look at the income tax provisions. You can't just exclude a whole chunk of this tax bill in analyzing it.

We, as a party, are so focused on the huge unfairness that we almost don't want to talk about the effect it will have on the overall national economy. This isn't just an unfair bill. That isn't just a bill that enriches the rich. This is a deficit-exploding, outsource- promoting, job-killing, growth-reducing disaster for our Nation's economy.

You want to know the effect of huge tax cuts on an economy?

Look at Kansas. They slashed their taxes and now a Republican legislature is reversing it because of what that has done to tax receipts and to the Kansas economy.

Let's take a look and see what effect this is likely to have at the national level. I turn to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where they say that this tax cut is an ineffective way to spur economic growth and is likely to harm the economy if it adds to the deficit.

Well, what is the plan in the budget Republicans all voted for?

To deliberately use this tax cut to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. But the Congressional Budget Office, under the Republican administration of this House and of this Congress, says it is going to do $1.7 trillion. They say: Well, let's look at it more dynamically.

If you look more dynamically, it is going to increase the deficit by $2 trillion or $2.5 trillion, because it raises interest rates; it encourages offshore initial investment, stripping economic growth out of the United States, and for a host of reasons I will get to.

The more you look at the tax cut, the more apparent it is that it will cut

economic growth and increase the deficit by even more than the $1.7 trillion that the Congressional Budget Office, during Republican control of Congress, is currently estimating.

Why is this?

Well, first, because incentives to invest in the Tax Code have little or no effect on privatization, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The empirical evidence in numerous report shows that the 2003 tax cuts had little impact on investment or employment.

Now, I speak with a little bit of experience here because I lived 20 years of my life in the tax world, most of it right at the intersection of investment and tax law.

I sat with families and charged them a large amount per hour to describe what the latest tax law said and what effect it would have on different investments. And my experience as a CPA and tax attorney and certified tax law specialist by my State bar was identical to that of Warren Buffett, who said:

I have worked with investors for 60 years, and I have yet

to see anyone, not even when capital gains rates were 39.9

percent or when they were 15 percent, as they are now, I have

never seen anyone shy away from a sensible investment because

of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make

money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.

Now, that is why, when you look at the effect of this bill, you come to the conclusion, as the Congressional Budget Office did in looking at the Bush tax cuts and whether to extend them or allow them to expire, that, if you have taxes and you use that money to pay the deficit, that does more to help the economy. It is more important to fight the deficit than it is to tell various families, often at the very high end, that they get a tax cut.

Well, let's look at American economic history. I designed this chart here, and I focused it only after the 1986 tax cut for which Ronald Reagan is famous. There were many things about our economy back in the early 1980s, in the 1970s, and in the 1960s that aren't relevant today. We didn't have the trade policies back in the 1970s that we have today.

So we look at the Ronald Reagan 1986 tax policy as slightly adjusted by George H.W. Bush. We look at the policies that we had--I know the 1986 tax law. You think, well, that must have affected 1986. No, it really became effective in 1988. So you look at 1988 to 1993 and you see that we have economic growth of 2.67 percent.

Then, in 1994, you see the effect of the Clinton tax policies adopted in 1993, and we see economic growth of well over 4 percent. And these figures here are real economic growth per year adjusted for inflation, 4.4 percent.

So then George W. Bush gets elected, and starting in 2001, his tax policies are adopted by this Congress and enacted into law, and we see that economic growth is only 1.7 percent.

Now, those Bush tax policies continued in force until 2013 because Democrats allowed them to stay in force until we finally adopted Obama tax policies, effective in 2013. Those policies continue to be in force right up to today.

The most recent statistics we have are up through September 30 of this year. The economic growth under those policies has been 2.22 percent.

So what we have seen here is that, when we adopt Republican economic policies and they become effective, we have substantially lower economic growth than when we adopt Democratic tax policies and when Democrats actually pass those policies and have the guts to pass those policies and put them into law.

So you have got to admire the Republican Party. They are able to get Member after Member after Member to say, without any proof, that trickle-down economics works, that if you just cut taxes, you somehow help the economy.

It doesn't matter if you can line up 100 Members to say the same falsehood at the same lectern in the same congressional Hall on the same House floor. What matters is the real history. And the real history is that the higher rates imposed under Democratic administrations have not just led to higher tax revenues, they have led to higher rates of economic growth.

Well, why is this?

Well, first, and perhaps most important, is having money available for business investment. There is a pool of savings capital available in our markets and in our economy, and the Republican proposal would come in and scoop $1.2 trillion of that--take it out of the markets, take it out of the banks where it could be lent to small businesses, take it out of the bond markets where it can be used for expansions by big business--and just use it to pay for the tax cuts.

No wonder tax cuts that increase deficits hurt business investment and hurt the economy.

But there is more. We then add to our national debt, and the national debt is forever. Not only do we have the increase in the debt of $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion, but that debt will be here not just 10 years from now; it is there forever. Your great-grandchildren are going to be paying interest on that debt.

Then we have the international impact. You see, their proposal provides for a zero percent U.S. tax on any money made by any factory as long as you move that factory abroad. If the wage rates are too high in China, you can put it in Vietnam.

Now, in addition to saying you move your factory abroad, you pay zero tax on all the manufacturing profits because that manufacturing is being done abroad, we encourage moving the factory abroad. The work is being done abroad. We don't tax it.

But in addition, what is an area of economic activity where Americans excel? It is the creation of intellectual property.

Well, manufacturing might be done abroad; the design, the patents, the copyrights, the trade names, the marketing plans, the trade secrets, the intellectual property is created here. Under this bill, not only the profit you make on the foreign factory, but the profit you make from all that intellectual property can pay almost a zero percent American tax if you just take that patent and put it in a file in the Cayman Islands.

Now, I don't want to say that our current system for taxing international transactions is anything that we can be proud of. The present system, if you make money in a U.S. factory, there is a tax of 35 percent; you make it in a foreign factory, we also have a tax of 35 percent, but you can defer it. So, right now, if you are just trying to decide where to put the factory, you have got a tax in the United States that you actually have to pay and a tax on a factory abroad that you will pay eventually.

Well, what do they do? That take that 35 percent ``eventually'' tax and turn it into a zero percent ``forever'' tax. How much more incentive could they provide to move American factories overseas?

Now, the present system also has a problem in that you can defer tax only on the money you keep offshore. So their solution is to say, well, bring it onshore. We will provide a little tiny tax on it, and then all the money you made overseas the last 10 or 20 years, no U.S. tax, and at least the money gets repatriated.

Democrats are anxious to work with Republicans on repatriation. They could probably get a more Republican plan adopted than one that I would endorse in this speech, but why not tax the unrepatriated money? That way we would be saying, bring that money back or don't bring it back, you pay the same tax, so you might as well bring it back.

What we can also do is move to worldwide unitary apportionment: eliminate all the tax gains, and most of them are international; eliminate all the reasons to move factories abroad and generate another $1 trillion every 10 years for our Treasury. That is the system that we ought to be moving to.

I am not here to say our present system is wonderful. I am here to say that we should not adopt a Republican system because it moves us even further away from what would be a fair system that would not encourage offshoring.

Another way in which we are affected internationally is that this tax bill would change currency values, change the exchange rate between the euro, the yen, the Chinese currency, and other currencies around the world in a way that will encourage Americans to import and discourage those abroad from buying our products--just another economic harm.

Another economic harm is touted by the conservative supporters of this policy. They say that by cutting taxes, we will get the Federal Government and State and local governments to spend less money on infrastructure and education. Well, if you want to ask what is it that makes a country wealthier than others, it is, first and foremost, the education of its workers, and then, second, the infrastructure that is available to productive activity.

In addition, as I mentioned before, they are going to cut the value of homes nationwide, most pronounced in the major metropolitan areas. What does that do to middle class spending, which drives our economy? It drives that middle class spending down. Who is going to go out to a restaurant if you have just been told that you have had a double-digit decline in the value of your home?

This bill will also cause higher interest rates because the Federal Government is going to be borrowing another $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.

Now, so there is a difference between me and my party leadership. They say that the main reason to vote against this bill is that it is unfair by giving huge tax breaks to the top 1 percent and increasing taxes for millions of American families. I say you should vote against this bill because it is a deficit-exploding, outsourcing-promoting, job-killing, economic growth-depressing bill. But I think we will agree, whether you vote against this bill because it is unfair or you vote against this bill because it is bad for our economy, you will be performing an important service to our country.

Let me not neglect the fact that if you vote--that the bill isn't totally without being useful to somebody. It will reduce taxes for the Donald Trump family by over $1 billion in estate tax and tens of millions of dollars in income tax.

Maybe that is not enough for you. Look at what it will do for the Koch brothers--far more than it will do for the Trump family. So if that is important to you, if that is the result you want to achieve, then vote for the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 2 p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, November 10, 2017, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Chair, on the Pearce Amendment, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 596.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for yielding me 30 minutes, more than enough time to deliver three separate speeches that I have prepared for presentation. The first two are informed, or two of these speeches are informed. The first and the third are informed by my 20 years of experience on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the second speech I will deliver is informed by 40 years as a CPA in the world of taxation.

Mr. Speaker, I am the ranking member on the Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee and the founder of the Sindh Caucus. In those two roles, I have focused on human rights and the rule of law in Pakistan, and particularly in its perhaps largest province, Sindh, comprising most of southern Pakistan.

We have dedicated ourselves in the Sindh Caucus to efforts to preserve the culture and the language of the Sindhi people, and particularly their dedication to religious tolerance. Unfortunately, the human rights picture in Pakistan and in Sindh are not good.

I would like to say a few words about the disappearance of Punhal Sario, the leader of the Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh movement, and about the very serious problem of disappearances in Sindh in southern Pakistan.

Just this past summer, Punhal Sario led a march between Sindh's two major cities, Hyderabad to Karachi, demanding accountability for Sindhi activists who have been abducted by Pakistani security forces or simply disappeared.

Where is Punhal now? It appears that he, too, has fallen victim to the very serious forces that he marched against.

Punhal's case is hardly an isolated one. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that over 700 people disappeared, were kidnapped, and never heard of again in Pakistan in the year 2016 alone.

In the past year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State Department's own Report on Human Rights have all noted serious concerns about extrajudicial and targeted killings and disappearances in Pakistan and, particularly, in Sindh.

Elements of the government or military see an opportunity to simply make their opponents disappear. Here are a few particulars. In 2016, Amnesty International reported that the Pakistani security forces had, and these are their words, ``committed human rights violations with almost total impunity.''

While Human Rights Watch observed that, ``law enforcement and security agencies remained unaccountable for human rights violations.''

The State Department itself noted in Pakistan, ``the most serious human rights problems were extrajudicial and targeted killings disappearances, torture, the lack of the rule of law.''

Two years ago, in 2015, Sindhi leader Dr. Anwar Laghari was brutally murdered in Pakistan. Days before his death, he had sent a memorandum to President Barack Obama about human rights violations by the Pakistani military and its ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence, agency, an important part of the Pakistani military.

I attended a memorial service for Dr. Laghari here in Washington and have come to know of his work for human rights for the Sindhi people of southern Pakistan. The Pakistani Government has not been responsive to numerous inquiries into the reason for Dr. Laghari's death and for why his perpetrators have not been brought to justice.

Two months ago, on August 18, I sent a letter to the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan expressing strong concerns about human rights violations of the Pakistani Government in Sindh. Six of my House colleagues--three Democrats and three Republicans--joined me in that effort.

There are other human rights concerns in Pakistan that I should also bring to the attention of this House. The people of Sindh face religious extremist attacks. ISIS, for example, claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sufi shrine in Sindh that killed 80 people. Yet the government has not acted to protect religious minorities and, in general, has not acted to protect the people of Sindh from Islamic extremism.

In addition, in Sindh, there are forced conversions of Sindhi girls belonging to minority communities.

While the numbers are unclear, reports suggest that every year perhaps 1,000 girls and young women in Pakistan, including many in Sindh, are forcibly converted upon a marriage, not of their choice, to Muslim men. The Pakistani Government has not done enough to stop this practice, and reform measures have been circumvented and not enforced.

Human rights abuses of this type cannot go unanswered. Activists disappear under suspicious circumstances. It is our obligation to speak out and demand accountability. These disappearances and other violations of human rights should be a major topic of conversation in all bilateral discussions between our government and the government in Islamabad.

Tax Proposal Deletes Deductions

Now, Mr. Speaker I would like to move on to a second speech, one dealing with the tax proposal of the Trump administration.

The provisions I would like to focus on chiefly are those involving taking away the deductions, the itemized deductions that so many Americans take to reduce their tax liability.

Now, these deductions are eliminated on the theory that, oh, they just go to the wealthy, and, for those purposes, they define the wealthy as the wealthiest 30 percent or so of the American people--say a family with an income of $100,000 or $150,000. We are told that is the same thing as increasing taxes on the top one-tenth of 1 percent, say a family with an income of $1 million or $2 million a year.

There is a difference in the ability to pay of those two typical families, typifying their income brackets. The fact is, that taxing hardworking families with incomes of $100,000 or $150,000, in order to provide reduced tax rates for those with incomes of $1 million or $2 million, makes our tax system more regressive. You cannot put the entire top 30 percent in one category for these income calculations.

That is why, and that is only one reason why, I oppose the elimination of the home mortgage deduction. Another reason that I oppose it is elimination of the home mortgage deduction and reduction for local property taxes will probably decrease the value of homes by 20 percent, is the best estimate I have seen.

Well, if you lose 20 percent of the value of your home, you may very well lose all of the equity in your home. How is that going to affect the economy? How is that going to affect the ability of homeowners to go and spend money in their communities and support the economy of their communities?

What does it do to the Federal budget when we are responsible through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for underwriting home mortgages? We know that if you wipe out the equity of many homeowners in their homes, this can lead to defaults and cost the Federal Government perhaps more than we give up by having a home mortgage deduction.

Another element to keep in mind is that the entire idea of an income tax is that we tax people based on their ability to pay. If you are in a State with high income taxes, high property taxes, that diminishes your ability to pay. If you make a certain salary and money is taken out by your State government before you ever see it, your ability to pay is only on that net paycheck.

It is simply wrong to take away the deduction for State and local taxes. But make no mistake about it, the purpose of removing that deduction is not just to hurt the top 30, or 40 percent, or 50 percent of the American people who itemize their deductions, it is designed to punish those who are dependent on State and local government.

All the conservative theorists say: If we can just eliminate the deduction for State and local taxes, we will cut the size of State and local governments. We will create a political atmosphere in which they slash money for local schools, slash money for local health programs for the poor, slash money for police.

Who will be hurt from those cuts? Not just the top 30 percent or 50 percent, but everyone in America, most particularly, the poor.

Finally, I want to focus on the medical deduction. They take away the medical deduction in this program, this proposal of the Trump administration. Now, keep in mind that we already have severe limits on deducting medical expenses. You can deduct medical expenses only if they exceed 10 percent of your family's income. So medical expenses are itemized and deducted only by those families including someone with very significant health costs.

Now, we have worked hard in this House to make sure that people have health insurance. But even with health insurance, there are copays; there are deductibles. These can be absorbed in a family budget where no one has a particular strong medical need. But what if there is some member of the family who needs experimental treatments that are not covered, therapies that are not covered?

Under the present system, at least they get to deduct these extraordinary--not the first 10 percent of AGI, of adjusted gross income--but when they start spending out-of-pocket costs in excess of 10 percent income, they can take a tax deduction--a tax deduction taken away in the Trump tax proposal.

I speak not just as someone who spent a lot of time as a tax expert who headed the second largest tax agency in the country, but as the father of a child with special needs. What does this tax proposal mean for such a family? Well, first, there is a cut in Federal revenue under this proposal of between $150 billion and $200 billion a year. Deficit hawks will demand that these revenue cuts be matched by cuts to Federal spending.

What does that do to the $13 billion the Federal Government dedicates to the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, also known as special education? And what do these cuts in our Federal expenditures mean to the $293 million that are spent by the National Institutes of Health on research designed to prevent and treat autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD?

So the first impact on a family with special needs is a slashing of the money the Federal Government spends for special education and medical research. But second, I talked about those out-of-pocket medical expenses. Parents with special-needs children know that health insurance pays only a portion of what is needed, or perhaps none of what is needed, for behavioral therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, developmental pediatricians, neuropsychological services, et cetera.

Medical insurance will pay nothing toward anything branded an experimental treatment, and, of course, medical insurance does not cover special schools required to meet the needs of some special-needs children.

Under current law, a special school designed to meet those with a physical or mental handicap are considered medical expenses. All of these tax deductions are taken away from a family whose ability to pay is diminished by the costs of providing these therapies to a special- needs child.

In addition, right now, the tax law provides a personal exemption of $4,050 for each dependent child. The Trump administration proposal takes that away. It does say, in some vague language, that there will be a child tax credit to compensate parents who are losing the personal exemption. But this credit will be limited to children 16 years of age and younger.

So what about parents supporting children in their teenage years, and older? Remember, some special-needs children will need parental support for a lifetime. Those parents lose the exemption and are ineligible for this credit available only to parents of younger children.

But perhaps parents of children with special needs should support the Trump tax program. While it will tremendously increase their taxes, while it will cut Federal expenditures on special education and on health research and medical research, parents of children with special needs can take solace in knowing that this plan will reduce taxes for the Trump family by over $1 billion in estate taxes and by tens of millions of dollars in income tax.

Perhaps we should tell parents of special-needs children that they should stop worrying so much about their children and start worrying about Donald Trump's children. If they did, they would support the Trump tax proposal.

Iran Nuclear Control Deal

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the issue of

Iran and the nuclear deal, nuclear control deal that we signed with Iran.

First, a little background. In 1997, I said at the Foreign Affairs Committee that Iran and its nuclear program were the number one threat to American national security.

For the last 20 years, I have supported every effort to impose sanctions on the Iranian regime. When the Iran nuclear deal was finalized and published, I was the first of either party to come to this floor and say that Congress should not vote to endorse that deal.

But the question before us now is: Should we renounce the deal?

Now, it would be one thing if Iran decides that we are so tough on them on other issues that they choose to renounce the deal, but that is not the issue before us today. The issue before us today is whether America should renounce the deal, and the resounding and clear answer is that is not something we should do at this time.

Now, I will give you an example. Let's say you bought a flawed automobile. In some jurisdictions, you take back the automobile and you get back your money. But what opponents--what some are proposing now is that we renounce the deal. Imagine you are in a jurisdiction where you have to take back the car and the dealer keeps your money, too. Taking back the car doesn't look like such a good idea anymore.

Now, like a flawed automobile, the Iran nuclear deal is liable to not be working next decade. But that doesn't mean you take back the car and the dealer keeps the money.

What happens if we renounce the deal?

Iran keeps the money. We unfroze very roughly $100 billion of their money. If we renounce the deal, they keep the money. We delivered over $1 billion in currency on big pallets. If we renounce the deal, Iran keeps the money. If we renounce the deal, Iran is liberated from all of the restrictions that it agreed to on its nuclear program.

I opposed the deal because the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in the deal were temporary. I believe we need to extend and enforce those limitations on their nuclear program. If you listen to the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, he has identified the fact that we have not been able to extend and make permanent the limitations on Iran's nuclear program as the chief flaw in the deal and the chief thing to correct to turn it into a better deal.

But if we renounce the deal, we don't extend and enforce the limitations on Iran's nuclear program, we end and eliminate immediately the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. I cannot think of a worse result.

Now, there are two mechanisms that we could use as a nation to renounce the deal, give Iran all the benefits, and liberate them from all their obligations. The first of these is on our mind now because it could be triggered on October 15. That is the day on which the President could, in effect, decertify this deal under the Iran Nuclear Review Act. I hope that, if he does that, the press will not overplay it, because a decertification does nothing more than focus Congress' attention on whether we want to reinstitute the exact sanctions that were waived as part of the nuclear deal. A decertification does nothing more than focus our attention and, over in the Senate, provide for a reinstitution of the old sanctions.

Now, I don't think that Congress would be stupid enough to do that because, as I have explained, if we renounce the deal, Iran keeps the benefits and is liberated from its obligations.

But the President should not decertify the deal and focus the world's attention on whether America will stand with the deal at this time.

The second way that America could renounce the deal will occur next January because the basic element of the deal--the basic thing Iran got from the United States--was an agreement that the President would, every 4 months to 6 months, it depends on the exact statute, waive particular identified sanctions. As it happens, the existing waivers all expire in the middle of next January. If the President were to fail to issue those waivers, that would be an American renunciation of the deal. So it does not meet our national security objectives to renounce the deal.

What meets our national security objectives is to impose tough sanctions on Iran, draft those sanctions carefully, and explain them to the world not as a renunciation of the deal, but as appropriate sanctions given Iran's non-nuclear, outside-the-deal, wrongful behavior.

Now, the question is: Can we have sanctions on Iran and continue to force them to abide by the deal?

The answer is clearly yes.

In July of 2015, Secretary Kerry came before our committee, and I raised this very issue: If we adopt the deal, can we impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran to deter terrorism? Or would that violate this agreement?

I specifically asked: Are Congress and the United States free under the agreement to adopt new sanctions legislation that will remain in force as long as Iran holds American hostages or supports the murderous Assad regime?

Secretary Kerry's answers were clear. He stated: We are free to adopt additional sanctions as long as they are not a phony excuse for just taking the whole pot of past ones and putting them back.

So we can and should impose new sanctions on Iran to the extent justified by Iran's behavior outside the area of nuclear research and uranium enrichment. Look at that as an opportunity because you could make a list of every sanction any one of us here on this floor has thought of. And add in the creativity of the United States Senate and make a list of every sanction we could impose, I assure you that those sanctions and more are justified by the non-nuclear evil committed by the regime in Tehran.

Iran is more responsible than Russia for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria. The lifeline of Assad's murderous regime is a lifeline to the aid, money, weapons, thugs, and training that Iran has provided--hundreds of thousands of deaths, an immoral responsibility of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Turn to Yemen, where tens of thousands of people have died because of Iran. Look at worldwide terrorism, and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism year after year, according to our State Department. Look at the treatment by Iran of its own people, the murders by the state of anyone they identify as being part of the LGBT community, the murders by the state of women--it is usually women-- accused of adultery.

The evil that comes from the Islamic Republic far exceeds the ability of this House to identify sanction points. That is why the proper policy for the United States is to impose the maximum sanctions and to explain to the world that this is not a phony renunciation of the nuclear deal, but it is the appropriate response to Iran's actions that are outside of the nuclear deal.

If we do that, we will have substantial support from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere first for demanding that Iran continue to be subject to all the nuclear limitations and inspections that they agreed to under the deal and which continue to be enforced well in the next decade.

What we shall do next decade, well, I will come back here and give another speech next decade. But at least many years deep in the next decade, this deal provides us with valuable limitations and valuable inspections of the Iran nuclear program, and Europe will insist that those be adhered to.

Second, Europe may join us in the sanctions when we sanction Iran for its actions in Syria, its actions to its own people, its actions in Yemen. One more I should add, and that is Iran's violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions by testing and developing missiles and exporting weapons.

So if we stick with the deal and we sanction Iran, they may choose-- if those sanctions are as effective as I think they can be--to walk away from the deal. But if they do, we will have the whole world with us enforcing sanctions against Iran.

Now, there is one part of the policy I put forward that may not meet the psychological needs of the President of the United States, for he has shown an uncontrollable personal need to pour disgusting liquids on anything associated with President Obama. Maybe it

meets his psychological needs to say he is renouncing the nuclear deal. But the fact is we don't have to renounce the nuclear deal and liberate Iran from its obligations in order to impose the toughest imaginable sanctions on this regime that is doing so much evil.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, I joined as an original cosponsor of the Constitutional Amendment of Al Green of Texas. That Amendment states that a President may not pardon him or herself for violations of United States law.

I believe that the Amendment is likely unnecessary. I believe that the Supreme Court, in construing the existing Constitution, would reach the conclusion that the President's power to pardon does not include the power to pardon the President.

However it is always useful to provide a clarification of a meaning of a statute, or even a Constitutional provision, whenever any doubt its meaning or construction.

I doubt that the amendment could be adopted and ratified with sufficient speed to prevent the current President from pardoning himself. I believe the adoption of the amendment could still be useful in providing a clarification should this issue arise in future presidencies.

Mr. Speaker, vote against the rule, vote against the bill. But the bill does contain one provision that I want to applaud the committee for including, and that is section 8907, which states: ``None of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act.''

I first proposed this language in 2011. It failed at first, but now it has been included in every Defense Appropriations bill since FY12. It is necessary to enforce the War Powers Act because every Attorney General since the 1970s has advised Presidents that the War Powers Act isn't binding on the President, and that the President can send unlimited numbers of troops anywhere in the world to fight any battle without a declaration of war.

That is why we need this language, because Attorney General Mukasey, a Republican Attorney General, testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday that by including this language in the appropriations bill, Congress enforces the War Powers Act and its proper role in international affairs.

I thank the committee for including this language.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, which is really a combination of three bills. First, as to North Korea, it embodies a bill passed on this floor in May introduced by Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Mr. Yoho, and myself from the Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee. We will expand our sanctions on North Korea's precious metals, minerals, jet fuel, coal, and across the board, and especially banking sanctions.

But keep in mind, ultimately, we have got to force China to decide whether they are going to support North Korea or whether they are going to have access to American markets. We can't let them have both.

As to Iran, this bill designates the entire Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, as the Quds Force has already been designated, as subject to terrorism sanctions, and provides an arms embargo. Let us remember that the real face of this regime in Tehran is not their dapper foreign minister, but rather it is the hundreds of thousands who have died in Syria as a result of Iranian action.

Speaking of countries that have supported Assad, finally and perhaps most importantly, this bill provides sanctions against Russia necessary because of its action in the Ukraine and its interference in our elections.

We hit Russia in a very important way by dealing with the technology they would need to explore oil. Unfortunately, even under this very strong bill, it would take a two-thirds vote for us to block a sanctions waiver should our resolution be vetoed.

Mr. Speaker, which is more fraudulent? On the one hand, we have Wells Fargo, 3 million phony accounts, and then they use their forced arbitration provision to tell people that if you signed up for a legitimate account and there was some language in there that created arbitration, that it even applies to the phony accounts.

Well, what is even more fraudulent? The supporters of this bill who say that the rule deprives people of the option of arbitration. It hardly does that. It simply prohibits forced arbitration.

But more important are the numbers. Arbitration is typically used by someone with a $50,000 claim. Class action lawsuits, it is 50,000 people with a $32 claim. So then they say: Well, arbitration provides more. Of course it provides more. Because the average person in the pool has got a $50,000 claim, and class action only produces $32 because it is designed for a situation where you have a million plaintiffs or a half a million plaintiffs each with a $32 claim.

You cannot compare the two except to say that arbitration is unavailable to anyone with a claim of less than $1,000.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of my good friend of 30 years, Nadadur Vardhan, a leader in the Indian-American community, who passed away on July 3 of this year at age 70 in Los Angeles, surrounded by his extended family.

Nadadur Vardhan was born in India and immigrated to the United States in 1978. Arriving in America with just the clothes on his back, he poured his energy into building a career as an international tax consultant. Over four decades, he grew his Santa Monica-based accounting practice to a thriving firm.

Nadadur served as President of the Malibu Hindu Temple, one of the largest Hindu temples in the United States, and invited me to speak there and to be there on many occasions. As president of the temple, he was regularly invited to speak to political, cultural, and religious groups across the world. Nadadur also founded the Indo-American Vision Foundation, a pioneering independent think tank that empowered Indian- American political activism.

For his work in promoting the Indo-American community, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. A passionate community leader, he personally met with many U.S. Presidents, Prime Ministers of India, and other elected officials. Nadadur was responsible for organizing several major cultural and political events, many of which I was honored to attend, including the World Hindu Economic Forum, forums with Indian Ambassadors to the United States, and events with a wide range of public figures.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all of my colleagues join me in honoring his many contributions to our Nation and to extend condolences to his wife, Dr. Indubala Nadadur Vardhan; his daughters, Dr. Malini Nadadur and Anjani Nadadur; his brother, Nadadur Kumar; his sisters, Dr. Pushpa Kasturi and Alamelu Krishnamachary; his extended family; and to all whose lives he touched.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Big Band of Barristers and to recognize their founder, attorney Gary S. Greene.

Gary Greene, Esq. and His Big Band of Barristers perform music from the Golden Era of Big Band Swing. Gary S. Greene organized the band in December 2011 as an adjunct to the 75-member Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic and the 100-member chorus, Legal Voices. These musicians are civil litigators, trial attorneys, in-house counsels, sole practitioners, partners at law firms, judges and justices, paralegals, law students and the like.

The members include conservatory graduates and professional musicians as well as some who only played in their youth.

The mission of these musical groups is to bring the legal community together in harmony to perform concerts and raise funds for organizations providing legal services for those who cannot afford them as well as for other charitable causes and civic events. The Big Band has performed concerts for the American Diabetes Association, the American Legion, Shriners Hospitals for Children, The Thalians, Magen David Adom, the City of Hope, Hollywood Remembers World AIDS Day, Ascencia (raising funds for housing for the homeless), the Beverly Hills Bar Association's 80th and 85th Anniversaries, Loyola Law School's 50th Anniversary and for justices of the California Supreme Court.

On Friday evening, July 14, 2017, Maestro Greene and the Big Band of Barristers will perform in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. Speakers at this program include the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, and Thomas V. Girardi, Esq.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my House colleagues to join me in congratulating Maestro Greene and his Big Band of Barristers along with the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic for all their achievements.