Darrell Issa: “I would like today to take my 2 minutes and use it a little differently than the other Members. I would like to put a…”

“I would like today to take my 2 minutes and use it a little differently than the other Members. I would like to put a face on the nobody that was talked about here earlier. I am one of those nobodies who will pay the tax. I came to this body, after 20 successful years in business, just 90 days ago. I am not particularly concerned about how much money the government takes from me, because I have sold my business in order to come to this body; but I am concerned about businesses like the one that my wife and I built over 20 years. Twenty years ago, I left the Army with a 1967 Karmann Ghia and a couple thousand dollars. Over those 20 years, with incredibly hard work and luck and the participation of nearly 200 men and women in our company, we built our business to $100 million in sales. It took 4 years to structure a termination of that business from ownership of my wife and myself. People within my company now own stock, and a leverage group came in and helped; but it took a long time, and I have 5 years of obligation to make sure that my company goes on. Had I died on December 31, instead of leaving as a CEO to come join this body, they would have taken an immediate tax hit of over $55 million on the company just at a time at which its value would have plummeted, its marketability would have been terminated. In the America that I grew up in, one's dreams, in fact, are rewarded by government, not punished.”