Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the threat from ISIS is real. All of us have seen the violence and the barbarism of ISIS. The rapid advance of ISIS militants within Iraq and Syria is an immediate threat to these countries in the region.

No one should be under any delusion about what will happen if the U.S. sits this one out. If unchecked, the ISIS threat will grow and become even more difficult to address down the road and directly threaten our Nation.

As we have seen since President Obama authorized the limited airstrikes against ISIS in August, we have the ability to mitigate the ISIS threat, but we cannot defeat ISIS by ourselves with U.S. airstrikes.

Thomas Friedman said it well in The New York Times:

ISIS loses if our moderate Arab-Muslim partners can unite

and make this a civil war within Islam--a civil war in which

America is the air force for the Sunnis and Shiites of

decency versus those of barbarism . . . It is about them and

who they want to be.

As I see it, an important aspect of U.S. assistance under this amendment in the training of Syrian rebels is that it will be an occasion for nations with a Sunni majority to join in a battle against the fanatical Sunni ISIS. Hopefully, this can lead to expanded involvement of other nations in this battle at the same time as Iraq's Shi'a majority, with our active encouragement, finally provides full rights and participation for its Sunni and Kurdish minorities.

So amidst all the difficulties and the challenges--and they are serious and many--this amendment can hopefully serve as a stepping stone, as a stepping stone to a broad-based, effective coalition against the spread of ISIS.

Our country can provide air support, can provide intelligence and other logistics, but in the end, it cannot achieve for the people of Syria and Iraq on the ground what they can only do for themselves.

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

This is the first of three straightforward bills concerning the IRS. It is my hope the Republicans will focus the debate in the straightforward manner that is warranted, and that is what is happening on this bill.

Currently, the IRS restricts its employees from sending emails that contain sensitive but unclassified data outside the IRS network unless approved by senior agency management, but the manual does not specifically reference the use of personal email accounts. This legislation would specifically prohibit the use of personal email accounts to conduct official agency business. I support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the introduction of this bill and I support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Under current law, tax-exempt organizations are not able to request an administrative appeal of their initial classification of tax-exempt status. The bill would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a right to an administrative appeal relating to adverse determinations of tax-exempt status of certain organizations.

I might add, this would apply to all, whatever their political leanings, provided they meet the requirements of the statute. So this would apply to liberal as well as conservative organizations that were subject to the inappropriate standards used by the IRS.

In 2012, the IRS received 51,748 applications for 501(c)(3) status and 2,774 applications for (c)(4) status.

In each case, less than three-tenths of 1 percent were denied. In 2013, two-tenths of 1 percent of all 501(c)(3) applications and 501(c)(4) applications were denied.

I support this legislation, and urge all of my colleagues to do so.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I support this legislation.

When a taxpayer makes a complaint regarding unlawful disclosure of information, current law does not permit the Treasury Department to provide the affected taxpayer with information concerning the status or resolution of the complaint.

Under the provision here, the enumerated circumstances in which taxpayer information may be lawfully disclosed by the Treasury Department would be expanded to include disclosure to certain complainants of information regarding the status and results of any investigation initiated by their complaint.

I support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my time be controlled by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

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

As mentioned, this bill is designed to prevent individuals from using their TANF Electronic Benefit Transfer cards in establishments that sell marijuana. This restriction would add to a current law on prohibition of EBT transactions in casinos, liquor stores, and adult entertainment clubs.

While it is important that benefits under TANF be used only to support the basic needs of struggling families, I think it is regrettable that this legislation is coming to the House floor without any markup, hearings, or discussion within our committee.

Such discussions usually raise questions that are worth examining before legislation is considered on the floor.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have one.

It is now my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Human Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

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

As the gentleman from Texas has just given his speech, I want to say to him that I applaud what he has said. It is late. It is 9:30 at night. It is hard to know who is listening, but the words expressed by Mr. Doggett need to be heard.

In addition to the reduction in TANF funding, including for research, I think we should also be reminded at this late hour that, because of the unwillingness of Republicans in this U.S. House to follow the bipartisan lead in the Senate, I think more than 3 million people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, who are looking for work, have essentially been out in the cold.

I guess some of them have applied for TANF. But when you look at the data that Mr. Doggett has put forth, I think we need to take a look, whatever is the hour of the day or night, at what has been happening in terms of the addressing of poverty in this country. So I am glad we have had this discussion.

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

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

This legislation is truly a bipartisan effort. I congratulate Mr. Brady and all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on the committee who worked on this. And I think Mr. Brady would like to join me, I am sure, in thanking the staff for their very considerable work on this.

The Affordable Care Act is making major strides towards improving our health care system, including moving toward accountable, quality-driven care. This legislation furthers this quality effort in the post-acute care space.

It is also the first step towards modernizing post-acute care payments to Medicare providers. The current lack of apples-to-apples quality and patient assessment data in post-acute settings makes it difficult to evaluate the quality and cost effectiveness of these providers.

This bipartisan, bicameral legislation, crafted with my colleagues on the Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees, requires post-acute providers to report common data elements across settings, including patient assessments of function and mobility and quality and resource use measures. Over time, this data will enable health care providers, patients, and their families to determine the best post-acute setting for that patient's particular condition and preferences.

The legislation also asks the Secretary and MEDPAC to provide suggestions and models for how Congress may reform post-acute care payments in the future.

As we continue to strive for quality and value in the Medicare program, it is important we do not discourage providers from caring for complex patient populations. That is why this legislation directs the Secretary to study the effect of individual socioeconomic status, health literacy, English language proficiency, and other factors on quality and research use measurement, and then incorporate those findings into value-based performance programs.

Lastly, the IMPACT Act ensures quality within the hospice benefit by requiring that providers are surveyed by an appropriate accrediting agency at least once every 3 years.

Overall, the IMPACT Act is supported by a multitude of stakeholder organizations. So I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' and to take this important step--and I want to underline that--this important step towards modernizing vital post-acute care.

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

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

I will close just briefly to reiterate, this is a product of months and months of work across the aisle, our staffs working together many, many hours, I think, probably at various hours of the day and night, maybe even as late as it is tonight on other days. So I think we should be proud of this product, and I hope all of us will support it.

I thank Mr. Brady for his work on this.

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge we defeat the previous question for two reasons, and I want to speak to one of them.

Right now, corporations can move their tax address overseas and avoid or

lower their U.S. taxes. Middle class and other typical families cannot do that at all. They can't simply change their address and lower or eliminate their taxes.

Since the beginning of this year, more than a dozen large corporations have announced their plans for inversion. And yet, they will continue to benefit from being headquartered in our country, taking advantage of everything this country has to offer, whether it is our wealth of educated workers, government funding of basic research, tax credits like R&D, or our robust financial markets.

They will pay less in U.S. taxes, so much that the American tax base is expected to lose $20 billion over the next 10 years if we do nothing to address the issue.

And who will make up this difference? Basically, middle class taxpayers.

The Republican answer? To do nothing, leave town next week, or, some say, to wait for tax reform at some undetermined time.

Republicans are taking the President to court for use of executive authority, his executive authority. At the same time, Republicans in this House fail to use their own authority, failing to do their job.

Addressing this issue cannot wait. This is an immediate problem that requires an immediate legislative solution. Voting ``no'' on the previous question provides all of us an opportunity to do just that and will allow us to bring up legislation to address this problem.

If you vote to move the previous question, essentially you are saying, I rubberstamp this inversion process where corporations essentially move their address and lower or eliminate their taxes. No one should be doing that.

Well, Republicans today are choosing lawsuits over legislating. They are choosing to sue the President rather than pursuing legislation to support American families.

There is no shortage of legislation awaiting action: immigration reform, a bipartisan Senate bill held up by the Speaker who has just spoken; unemployment insurance, a bipartisan Senate bill has never gotten a vote in this House held up by this Speaker; the employment nondiscrimination bill, the Senate bill not brought up here and held up by the Speaker; paycheck fairness, not brought up; a minimum wage bill, not brought up; Ex-Im, caught in controversy within the Republican conference; a highway bill, another patch, the inability of House Republicans to face up to the need for a long-term highway bill; and a voting rights reform bill sponsored by a senior Republican, held up by the Speaker of this House and the conference of the Republicans.

The Republicans in this House are suing the President because they conjure up that the President did not adopt what Republicans argue is the correct implementation of a law they have tried 50 times to destroy. It is the House Republicans who should be sued, if that were possible, for their abdication of their responsibilities to the people of this Nation.

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

Yesterday on the topic of poverty, Congressman Ryan spoke. Today, he and his House Republican colleagues, will vote. Actions speak louder than words. And at every turn over the last 3 years, the actions House Republicans have taken have cut programs for low- and middle-income families.

Funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program-- slashed in the Ryan Republican budget.

Social services block grants--eliminated.

Food assistance, Pell higher education grants, job training, and housing assistance--dramatically scaled back.

And extension of unemployment insurance and a raise in the minimum wage--both blocked by House Republicans.

The new Republican rhetoric on poverty is no match for the deeply troubling actions they have repeatedly taken, and continue to take with this legislation today.

This bill leads to harm for millions of low- and middle-income families and their kids. It completely ignores the need to extend the 2017 expiration of the expanded refundable portion of the child tax credit, which, if allowed to occur, would push 12 million people, including 6 million children, into poverty or deeper into poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Republicans may say that such an extension could be done later, as they claimed in our discussion at the Rules Committee, but that talk about future action is made incredulous when Republicans this week add another $187 billion to the deficit, bringing the total they have passed in unpaid-for tax cuts to more than $700 billion. This comes after Republicans have slashed nondefense domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level on record as a percentage of GDP.

In contrast, this bill expands and makes permanent the availability of the child tax credit to many new, upper middle-income families whose incomes are too high to qualify under current law. Under this legislation, a married couple making $160,000 with two kids would get an additional $2,200 in their 2018 tax refund, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while a single mother of two making $14,500 would see her refund cut by $1,750.

But it gets still worse.

Republicans this week inserted a provision into this legislation requiring recipients of the child tax credit to provide their Social Security number, a change that could lead to the loss of this credit for families of 5 million children, 4 million of whom are U.S. citizens. In all, 400,000 veterans and Armed Forces families will lose all or part of their credit. That is the reason that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposes this requirement, because it is deeply flawed and would leave millions of families with children behind.

Ben Franklin once said:

Well done is better than well said.

Today it is even truer that well said cannot obscure what is harmfully done.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I say to my friend from Texas, this isn't politics. This is 5 million children, and the estimate is that 4 million are citizens of the United States.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

What you say is totally wrong. You make permanent under your provision a child tax credit for a couple making $160,000, while you do not make permanent the refundable tax credit for families making much, much, much less. That is a fact.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), another member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz), another distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), another member of our committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), another member of our committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

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

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

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

I yield the gentlewoman an additional minute.

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

So under the Republican approach here, they make permanent a child tax credit for families making $150- to $205,000, while refusing to do the same, a refundable tax credit for 12 million people, including 6 million kids, and 400,000 veterans and their families, and they make permanent cutting off another 5 million kids. The estimate is 4 million of them are American citizens.

This is why the Statement of Administration Policy says this: ``If the President were presented with H.R. 4935, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.''

What the Republicans are doing, making permanent a tax cut for families making $150- to $205,000 while refusing to do that for families making much less, this takes the mask off of their rhetoric about poverty. It takes off that mask.

Vote ``no.''

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.

What Republicans are, in essence, trying to do here and elsewhere, if I might say so today, is to soften their image. But they can't run away from the hard reality that at every turn, over the last several years, they have sought to pass laws making life more difficult for middle- and low-income families.

On the Republican chopping block, unemployment insurance blocked for 3 million Americans. Food assistance for low-income Americans would be cut by nearly 20 percent in the Ryan Republican budget, and a minimum wage increase hasn't occurred in 5 years, yet Republicans refuse to provide an increase. Medical assistance for Americans would be slashed by the Ryan Republican budget, with funding for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program cut to the tune of 26 percent within 10 years. Social Services Block Grants, which provide flexible funds for States to help vulnerable populations, are eliminated under the Ryan Republican budget. Pell grants would be reduced by 400,000 under the Ryan Republican budget. Job training funding was targeted for deep cuts in the 2011 spending bill the House Republicans passed, and housing assistance would end for 800,000 low-income families in the Transportation-HUD Appropriations bill House Republicans just passed.

Indeed, hard-hearted actions contradict the soft rhetoric of today. We should be very skeptical when zebras try to change their stripes.

Today's legislation is part of a set of 14 tax provisions that Ways and Means Republicans have marked up and made permanent without offsets at a cost of $825 billion to taxpayers. By the end of this week, the total that House Republicans will have passed on the floor is more than $700 billion, not a dime offset. It is kind of easy to come here and say this is what we want to do when we don't pay a dime to do it.

Let it be clear in terms of this call on bipartisanship. All the Democrats on Ways and Means voted against this bill, and the Statement of Administration Policy says it opposes it. Let me give some details.

In simplifying education provisions within the Tax Code, this bill leaves behind numerous undergraduate students, graduate students, and lifetime learners. It replaces the Hope Scholarship credit and repeals both the lifetime learning credit and the now-expired deduction for qualified tuition expenses, and it limits the overall deduction for the first 4 years of schooling.

It harms students across the board. Undergraduates who take longer than 4 years to complete their degrees would be impacted, a change that loses sight of the fact that the median length of time that it takes undergrads to get their degrees is, today, more than 4 years. Adult learners would face higher costs. Three in four students are adult learners, who tend to take much longer to complete their degrees because they work full-time, have dependents, serve in the military, or have some combination of the foregoing and take longer to complete their degree.

Low-income and middle-income graduate students would lose out. In 2013, the lifetime learning credit, which this bill eliminates, served nearly 2 million students with incomes at or below $75,000, including 1 million with an income of $40,000 or less. Two years ago, one-quarter of all graduate students earned less than $11,000. During the same year, 31 percent of the 1.3 million master's degree students received no financial aid. Two years ago, one-quarter--one-quarter--of all graduate students earned less than $11,000. During

the same year, 31 percent of the 1.3 million master's degree students received no financial aid. In 2011, nearly 2 million tax returns claimed the qualified tuition deduction, which expired at the end of this year and this bill does not extend.

That is one reason we have a letter from the American Council on Education. Here is what they say:

However, as we discussed in our attached letter of April 4,

2014, to Ways and Means Committee members, there are a number

of other changes in the legislation which cause us great

concern. Even as reported, the bill would negatively impact

many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit

under current law. It also would harm graduate students and

lifetime learners who utilize the tuition deduction or the

LLC. Because we continue to have serious concerns about the

Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, we cannot

support--we cannot support--the bill as currently written,

even in the form as reported.

This is sent on behalf of the following: the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Governing Boards, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.

That letter so much speaks to this issue.

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

I include a letter from the American Council on Education with all of the signatories in the Record.

American Council on Education,

Washington, DC, July 17, 2014.

Re Student and Family Tax Simplification Act (H.R. 3393)

Dear Representative: On behalf of the higher education

associations listed below, I write to express concerns about

H.R. 3393, the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, and

encourage further improvements to this important legislation

when it is considered on the House floor next week.

We have long supported reform of the American Opportunity

Tax Credit (AOTC), the Hope Scholarship Credit, the Lifetime

Learning Credit (LLC), and the tuition deduction. All of

these currently are overly complex and difficult for students

and their families to correctly use. We believe a

consolidated credit can simplify the higher education tax

benefits while retaining positive aspects of the present

credits and deductions to better serve low- and middle-income

traditional and nontraditional students now and in the

future, helping them attain an associate or bachelor's degree

or pursue post-baccalaureate education or lifelong learning.

Overall, H.R. 3393 takes several important steps forward to

create a simpler, single tax credit. We applaud the fact that

the bill increases refundability and includes an important

fix to better coordinate the AOTC and the Pell Grant. We are

also very pleased that the bill was amended at markup to

maintain the AOTC's current income phase-out limits.

However, as we discussed in our attached letter of April 4,

2014 to Ways and Means Committee members, there are a number

of other changes in the legislation which cause us great

concern. Even as reported, the bill would negatively impact

many low- and middle-income students and families who benefit

under current law. It also would harm graduate students and

lifetime learners who utilize the tuition deduction or the

LLC. Because we continue to have serious concerns about the

Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, we cannot support

the bill as currently written, even in the form as reported.

As a result of our strong support for reforming these

credits, we have had many discussions with tax staff over the

past months about ways to implement reforms that address our

concerns. We believe the legislation could be modified to

ensure students who are currently eligible for a federal tax

benefit could still receive some benefit. For example, one

improvement we support is replacing the bill's proposed four-

year limit for the AOTC with a lifetime dollar cap that would

allow part-time, full-time, and graduate students to take

advantage of the credit.

We remain deeply committed to continuing to work with the

authors of the bill and the Ways and Means Committee to

improve the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act to

better serve traditional and non-traditional low- and middle-

income students, now and in the future.

Sincerely,

Molly Corbett Broad,

President.

On behalf of:

American Association of State Colleges and Universities

American Council on Education

Association of American Universities

Association of Governing Boards

Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities

Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

College and University Professional Association for Human

Resources

Council for Christian Colleges & Universities

Council of Graduate Schools

Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).

I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of our committee.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman.

I yield an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, it is my real pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), a distinguished--to put it lightly--member of our committee.

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

I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), another member of our committee.

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Could I ask how much time there is remaining on both sides?

Does the gentlewoman have other speakers?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentlewoman has just talked about her work in graduate school. This bill would eliminate help for millions of people in graduate school. That is what this bill does.

I now yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).

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

In conclusion, we favor on this side of the aisle simplification. We are in favor of reducing the number of pages. We are not in favor of leaving out millions of students.

This approach hasn't been refuted. It leaves out millions of undergraduates, millions of graduate students, and millions of people who are in longer-term education needs who can't complete college in 4 years, and, in many cases, want to go on to graduate school.

So what has happened here is another bill has come out of committee that is part of a package that was over $800 billion. It leaves out so many, yet you make it permanent. These are people permanently left out. Why?

Many of these bills go back some years. We will have to check back many years ago and see if perhaps they were paid for. The recent one was in the Recovery Act of 2009, which we favored, but we did not favor making permanent laws that would leave out. That is what is being done here.

I have heard: Oh, we will come back some other time. You are going to come back some other time when you have added a trillion dollars to the deficit? That is not believable.

Indeed, what is believable is the result of this kind of reckless course is it is going to squeeze further discretionary, nondefense expenditures. That squeezing out is, as I said earlier, is the hard- hearted approach of the Ryan budget.

We see what happens when Republicans essentially use the argument that we can't pay for it, when they cut all the kinds of programs that I mentioned at the beginning, so many were cut out in the Ryan Republican budget.

I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I want to be clear what this debate is about and what it is not about. It is not a debate about the merits of public charities and private foundations.

All of us support the good works of the charitable community and strive to provide charities and foundations with the resources they need to carry out their mission. Indeed, along with Congressman Gerlach, I am the lead sponsor of the food donation deduction.

I think that highlights that this is a debate not about charities, not about foundations. It is about fiscal responsibility and fiscal priorities.

Today, Republicans have selected to make permanent 10 of the approximately 60 expired tax provisions without a single dime of offset--not a single dime. After today, if this bill passes, the House will have approved $534 billion worth of tax provisions without a single offset, wiping out more than half of the total deficit reduction enacted last year during the bipartisan fiscal deal.

Indeed, this bill is totally inconsistent with the Republican tax reform draft they unveiled in February. And, I might add, if you add up the 14 bills that came out of the Ways and Means Committee, entirely unoffset, it is $825 billion.

I was reading, this morning, the debate which I heard yesterday on a motion to recommit. I was reading this language from Mr. Crenshaw in opposition to the motion to recommit.

This is what he said about how Republicans proceed with budget issues:

We do it just like every American business does, like every

American family. They sit down. They take the money that they

have, and they set priorities. Then they make some tough

choices. That is what we have done.

There is not a single tough choice in what the Republicans are doing. It is, essentially, throwing discretion and tough choices to the wind.

Also let me say that their approach is inconsistent with their own tax reform draft of some months ago. The enhanced deduction for food contributions that the chairman has spoken so eloquently about was expressly repealed in the Republican reform draft, and the rollover provision was allowed to expire. So you have irresponsibility, you have inconsistency, and you also have a violation of priorities, because left to an uncertain fate are important provisions, like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, the New Markets Tax Credit, and the renewable energy credits, as well as the long-term status of expansions to the EITC and the Child Tax Credit.

This is the Statement of Administration Policy just issued:

The administration supports measures that enhance

nonprofits, philanthropic organizations and faith-based and

other community organizations in their many roles, including

as a safety net for those most in need, an economic engine

for job creation, a tool for environmental conservation that

encourages land protections for current and future

generations, and an incubator of innovation to foster

solutions to some of the Nation's toughest challenges.

The President's budget includes a number of these proposals

that would enhance and simplify charitable giving incentives

for many individuals. However, the administration strongly

opposes the House passage of H.R. 4719, which would

permanently extend three current provisions that offer

enhanced tax breaks for certain donations and add another two

similar provisions without offsetting the cost. If this same

unprecedented approach of making certain traditional tax

extenders permanent without offsets were followed for the

other traditional tax extenders, it would add $500 billion or

more to deficits over the next 10 years, wiping out most of

the deficit reduction achieved through the American Taxpayer

Relief Act of 2013.

Just 2 months ago, House Republicans, themselves, passed a

budget resolution that required offsetting any tax extenders

that were made permanent with other revenue measures. As with

other similar proposals, Republicans are imposing a double

standard by adding to the deficit to continue and create tax

breaks that primarily benefit higher income individuals while

insisting on offsetting the proposed extension of emergency

unemployment benefits and the discretionary funding increases

for defense and non-defense priorities such as research and

development in the bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

House Republicans are also making clear their priorities by

rushing to make these tax cuts permanent without offsets,

even as the House Republican budget resolution calls for

raising taxes on 26 million working families and students by

letting important improvements to the EITC, to the Child Tax

Credit, and to education tax credits expire.

The administration wants to work with Congress to make

progress on measures that strengthen America's social sector.

However, H.R. 4719 represents the wrong approach. If the

President were presented with H.R. 4719, his senior advisors

would recommend that he veto the bill.

So what in the world are we doing here today? What in the world are we doing? We are passing another bill that deepens the deficit, that is contrary to the rhetoric of the Republicans and is going nowhere in the Senate--zero. It is hard to figure this out, Mr. Speaker. What is motivating Republicans to be so totally inconsistent and irresponsible?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Reed, do I care? It is my bill, with Mr. Gerlach, that you have taken and put your name on--my bill. To make it permanent without any offset, with over $500 billion already done, is the wrong way to do the right thing. I care.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), another member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), another distinguished member of our committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), another distinguished member of our committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, could you tell us how much time remains on each side, please.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), a member of our committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I just wonder where the gentleman from Alaska was. I mean PAYGO existed under Democrats. We tried to pay for things, and we did not dismiss out of hand the tax proposal.

The ones who are throwing it to the winds are Republicans. It is the Republicans. You are throwing fiscal responsibility to the winds. You are throwing any kind of prioritization to the winds. You are coming here and just saying, do anything and pay nothing.

Mr. Speaker, how much time is there now on both sides, please?

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, this is a severe case of losing the forest for the trees. This is not about the benefits of charity. This is not about the benefits of foundations. It is not about the benefit of conservation easements. This is a dramatic challenge to Republicans in terms of fiscal responsibility and fiscal priorities.

They passed a budget that cuts severely into needed programs, and then they come here and say, let's pass provisions that would add up to close to $1 trillion and not pay one dime.

I don't think anything can be more fiscally irresponsible and hurt the priorities of this country. Maybe they do this because they know it is a dead end in the Senate. So they think somehow they can use this to their political advantage. But it is reckless, and it is to the harm of the Nation, and I think the process is on a bipartisan basis of this institution.

I urge everybody to vote ``no''. There is so much a better path than this reckless one.

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.

I will support this bill because we are at the eleventh hour. No, it is not the eleventh hour; it is a few minutes before midnight.

Unless Congress acts by the end of this month, more than 100,000 transportation projects could be delayed and as many as 700,000 jobs put at risk, but this legislation is a patch when what our Nation's infrastructure needs is major repair. Doing nothing is not an option, but we should be doing much better.

The Republicans, I must say, in this House, talk a lot about the need for certainty, but they have riddled infrastructure funding with uncertainty. The fact that we are in this position illustrates just how little House Republicans have done, since they assumed the majority in 2011, to address the long-term problems facing the trust fund and our infrastructure.

Every Democrat on Ways and Means urged our chairman, Mr. Camp, to hold a series of hearings on long-term financing options for the trust fund, yet the committee has not held a single hearing on this topic in the 3 years and 6 months the Republicans have been in the majority.

Since 2011, the committee has had nearly two dozen hearings on repealing or dismantling the ACA and, in the last 14 months, a half- dozen hearings on the IRS. Those are not the priorities that are going to lead to a long-term solution of the trust fund. The Nation, in a word, deserves better than this short shrift. It needs a long-term solution.

Democrats on Ways and Means proposed an extension until December 31 in order to pressure a long-term solution this year. All of us on the Democratic side voted ``yes,'' and all of the Republicans voted ``no.''

Let me end with a word on unemployment insurance. Senate Democrats and Republicans passed a bill to extend unemployment insurance that included an almost identical set of offsets as those included in today's legislation.

The House Republicans refused to take up that measure, at the same time calling some of them--the offsets--pie in the sky and opposing the plan.

Well, here we are today on the floor of the House, and 3 million Americans are still waiting for House Republicans to allow just one vote on a bipartisan plan to extend unemployment benefits. It is time that House Republicans get priorities straight.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the balance of my time now be given to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a distinguished member of our committee who has worked so hard with the rest of us on highway issues, to control.

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

Mr. Van Hollen raises such an important point. What is being done here is totally inconsistent, and I will come to that a bit later, but what is really important today about this bill is not what is being done here, but what is not being done here.

Mr. Van Hollen points out how inconsistent this bill is. But no matter how inconsistent, it is going nowhere. And it should go nowhere.

Essentially, what it does is to make permanent what has always been considered temporary. Bonus depreciation, which has been temporarily enacted during the previous two recessions to help assist the economy during the short term--that is what it has been--allows companies to write off investments more quickly than normal, providing them an incentive to make capital investments now rather than later. And that incentive actually disappears when the provision is made permanent. That is why CRS has said its temporary nature ``is critical to its effectiveness.''

Secondly, it is unpaid for. Talk about consistency, talk about a budget bill that talks about the importance of deficit reduction, and here you have the Republicans proposing a bill that would add $287 billion in debt. That would bring the total of the bills that the Republicans have brought forth here to over $500 billion.

When all is said and done, House Republicans will have added more than $1 trillion to the deficit by permanently extending a select group of corporate tax cuts.

But let me just say I must confess I am amazed at the inconsistency of this position. It was 5 months ago in the chairman's and the Republican Ways and Means draft that they proposed to eliminate this provision entirely. Bonus depreciation was gone. And now they come forth and they say, Let's make it permanent.

That gives inconsistency a bad name. It is appalling. It is really also dangerous. And let me indicate why.

The more than $500 billion in tax spending that the House Republicans will have approved today is the equivalent of what we spent last year on all nondefense domestic discretionary spending, which Republicans have cut so deeply in recent years that it is at its lowest level on record as a percentage of GDP. That includes spending for such vital domestic priorities as health research, food safety, and veterans' health.

Left unaddressed in this approach with the Republicans are key domestic priorities such as the New Markets Tax Credit, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, and the renewable energy tax credits.

So here we are.

Unfortunately, this bill is going nowhere. There likely will be an extension of bonus depreciation in an extender package, if we ever get to it, but for a short period of time, costing a fraction of this bill.

So what is really important today is not a bill that is going nowhere--and should go nowhere--but for what is not being done.

I just want to list what is not being done.

We have immigration reform. A Senate bill is not being brought up by the House Republicans. On unemployment insurance, a Senate bill providing help for those looking for work is not brought up here.

The employment nondiscrimination bill, the Senate bill is not brought up here. Paycheck fairness is not bring brought up. A minimum wage bill is not brought up.

We have the Ex-Im Bank caught in the contest and the conflicts within the Republican Conference. We also have a highway bill we are going to get next week with another patch because of the inability of the House Republicans to face up to the need for a long-term highway bill. And voting rights reform, you have a bill sponsored by a senior Republican in this House, and it has not seen the light of day.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to finish by saying how appalling it is that the Republicans come forth and say, Let's make it permanent, unpaid for, costing $287 billion, when in the proposal that they put forth, this provision would have been eliminated.

That is 180 degrees in a split second. It just shows, I think, the hypocrisy of bringing this bill up, made especially hypocritical when there has been this utter failure to address all of these other legislative proposals, many of which have passed the Senate.

So we are going through the motions here today. It is really a sad moment for this institution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), another member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

To the gentleman from Illinois, I favor long-term tax reform. He helped produce a long-term proposal that eliminated this provision. It eliminated it.

Now, you come down and say you want to make it permanent. I guess I can't speak directly to you.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself another minute.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

I said ``long-term.''

My point is you, 6 months ago, helped produce a package that eliminated this provision, and now, you come here, and you say you want it permanent. This is acrobatics. This is congressional acrobatics.

You are just spinning in an opposite direction, and you are making this place a circus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Let the facts be shown: in 2006 and 2007, bonus depreciation expired, and it was renewed when the recession really took a hold. CRS has said research suggests that bonus depreciation was not very effective. We will renew it, but not for 10 years, costing $287 billion made permanent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis), also a member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), another distinguished member of our committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

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

I would like to read the Statement of Administration Policy:

The administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R.

4718, which would permanently extend ``bonus depreciation''

rules that allow corporations to speed up deductions for

certain investments and, thereby, delay tax payments. This

provision was enacted in 2009 to provide short-term stimulus

to the economy, and it was never intended to be a permanent

corporate giveaway. Moreover, H.R. 4718 includes no offsets

and would add $287 billion to the deficit over the next 10

years, wiping out more than one-third of the deficit

reduction achieved by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of

2013.

The deficit increase in H.R. 4718 is more than 20 times the

cost of the proposed extension of emergency unemployment

benefits, which Republicans are insisting be offset, and more

than triple the discretionary funding increases for defense

and nondefense priorities enacted in the Bipartisan Budget

Act of 2013, which were offset. House Republicans also are

making clear their priorities by rushing to make business tax

cuts permanent without offsets, even as the House Republican

budget resolution calls for raising taxes on 26 million

working families and students by letting important

improvements to the earned income tax credit, child tax

credit, and education tax credits expire.

The administration wants to work with the Congress to make

progress on measures that strengthen the economy and help

middle class families, including pro-growth business tax

reform. However, making costly business tax cuts permanent

without offsets represents the wrong approach.

If the President were presented with H.R. 4718, his senior

advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, forty years ago Nanine Meiklejohn started her work on behalf of working men and women at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Following in the footsteps of her father, Kenneth Meiklejohn, who worked for the AFL- CIO, Nanine has fought to build and sustain a path to the middle class for working families.

Today, I am pleased to rise to recognize her talents and her positive impact on public policy. Nanine worked to make government programs better and to support the men and women who help make those programs work. She developed an expertise in many areas, but she is particularly known for her deep knowledge of workforce issues, including job training programs, employment services, and the unemployment insurance (UI) system. As someone who continues to work to ensure an adequate UI system for workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, I can tell you that Nanine was a key voice in our nation's efforts to help workers hurt by the worst recession since the Great Depression. Her keen understanding of workforce programs, her firm commitment to social justice, and her determined defense of those who do the everyday work of making government work represent a very powerful combination.

Now after four decades at AFSCME, Nanine is retiring. We will miss her tenacious advocacy, and we thank her for a career dedicated to strengthening efforts to help Americans succeed. We are a better nation because of the work of Nanine and so many others who fight for economic opportunity for all Americans.