Doris Matsui: “This bill will not become law; and I think the majority will probably be very happy about that, because there is no way…”

“This bill will not become law; and I think the majority will probably be very happy about that, because there is no way that this legislation, the Thomas bill, will have anything to do with stimulating the U.S. economy. The reason for it is because it is based upon a wrong premise. Essentially what we have right now is a lack of consumer confidence, we have an underutilization of plant capacity, and our exports are down because our foreign competitors are not buying. So the bill itself will have nothing to do with making the economy better. What is interesting is that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), in his legislation, makes some modifications in the corporate minimum tax; but basically, he puts a huge hole in it. It has something on the operating losses in subpart F, which has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Essentially in this bill, 85 percent of the $260 billion over the next 5 years will be spent in the form of tax cuts to corporations or wealthy individuals. Only about 15 percent of it goes to the unemployed and those people that need health insurance. This is just a back-door way of getting the tax cuts that the business community did not get in the June tax bill. I have to say, what is very offensive about this is the fact that it comes from the Social Security payroll taxes. That is the problem.”