Mike Thompson: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is not often that I come down and participate in these Special Orders, but I have…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is not often that I come down and participate in these Special Orders, but I have got to tell you I was in my office watching the previous speakers, and I started to get a little queasy from the spin that they were providing from the floor, talking about what they say this bill will do. I can tell you that there were a lot of inaccuracies in some of the things that they were trying to convince the American people that they would benefit from this. As Mr. Neal said, this bill, this vote, is an important vote. This is going to be around a long time. Numerous speakers today have mentioned the fact that the last time we did major tax reform, a major tax overhaul, was over 30 years ago. So if that is any indication, we are going to be living with the consequences of this bill for a long time, and I don't think those consequences are anything to be proud of. We heard repeatedly that this bill is not going to help at all the wealthiest people in the country, and you just can't help but laugh. The last speaker came out and stated that this does away with the alternative minimum tax. The alternative minimum tax was put in place to ensure that the wealthiest of taxpayers actually pay taxes because they were able to escape paying taxes, so that is why the alternative minimum tax came into play.…”