Christopher Shays: “We are talking about writeoffs that businesses have been able to get over the last 40 years through, candidly, this…”

“We are talking about writeoffs that businesses have been able to get over the last 40 years through, candidly, this former Congress. They have been able to get a significant writeoff, approved by, candidly, Republican presidents, so both hands have been involved, where they have gotten certain writeoffs that are unique to them in their business opportunity. They then become dependent on what are true writeoffs and, in my judgment, are nothing more than corporate welfare. So we are looking to have our Federal Government not have so many corporate writeoffs. And while I am probably on more sensitive ground, being that the gentleman comes from a farming area, I think you would acknowledge there are certain Federal programs that farmers have become so dependent on, it has changed their behavior. It is not like they do not work. They bust their guts. But they are working following a Federal program that sometimes has an incentive not to plant or to plant the wrong things that simply are costly.”