Political Quotes

“I had an amendment, which is being shut off today, which I think actually really addresses the problem. Under the structure of the employer mandate that came out of the Senate, when an employer goes from 49 to 50 employees, the employer is taxed for 20 employees. Again, that is a cliff. There is just no denying that fact. When the House passed the Affordable Care Act, we had a smooth, gradual, incremental increase based on payroll which, again, did not create a cliff. My amendment would simply say that the exempt number of employees before the tax kicked in would be raised from 30 to 49, so that when an additional employee was hired above the 50 threshold, there would be a tax, there still would be an incentive, but there would not be a cliff. Unbelievably, the committee just totally refused to allow this amendment to be considered. It was a strike-everything substitute amendment because the underlying bill does not accomplish the ends that its sponsors claim--and the CRS has verified that--but in fact, the Small Business Majority, which represents a large contingent of small employers across the country, endorsed my amendment. Madam Speaker, sadly, under this rule--which, again, just completely shuts off any ability for Members to do their job, represent their district, come up with ideas that are well-founded in independent analysis--we are not going to have that opportunity.…”