Charles Boustany

But I firmly believe that a vibrant, growing trade relationship with Russia based on rule of law with real enforcement mechanisms and the connectivity that is going to grow as a result of that will help us create and build leverage as we…

Clearly, granting PNTR at this point to Russia does not give us leverage.

I want to thank you for the series of hearings we are having on these temporary tax provisions.

By introducing the PROTECT Act, Congressman Boustany and Richmond have given me some hope that in the future, Customs enforcement may not be a part of my job.

The PROTECT Act makes circumvention a priority trade issue that Customs must address.

We will work with you to hopefully get the system even better.

I think we all agree that evasion of our trade remedy laws is a serious problem, and additional authorities, perhaps legislation, is going to be needed to provide more tools.

Improper payments of tax refunds have cost taxpayers over $100 billion in recent years. This hearing will explore a major source of the problem - identity thieves who steal Social Security numbers to engage in tax fraud.

I think this has been a nice reprieve where we actually get to talk about policy.

One of the fundamental problems not addressed in the Affordable Care Act is the--in the context of accountable care organizations is we still have Federal barriers in place that prohibit physicians to integrate care with hospitals, and…

Job creators, whether it is a small business owner or CEO of a Fortune 500 multinational, are paralyzed by the uncertainty coming out of Washington.

I want to thank you and Ranking Member Neal for convening this important hearing. It is clearly overdue.

I have introduced legislation along with Mr. Kind to permanently extend the CFC look through provision.

I want to thank you again for convening this critical hearing.

We must provide a clear path forward for taxpayers in the short term and work to extend important tax provisions.

I applaud the subcommittee's efforts to substantively reform the extenders process.

It is clearly overdue.

I would remind my friend that he just made a good case for the fact that we still have a massive health care problem in the country and it has not been adequately addressed by the passage of a health care law and so we have much more work…

Too often in Washington, officials make decisions about health care policy based on abstract theories and budgetary scores.

I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

We can be introducing a whole variety of inflationary effects we haven't even begun to think of.

We are seeing multiple problems with the establishment of exchanges, which seem to be falling behind.

So now we have talked about a number of provisions in the health law which, as you have stated, will raise costs for employers.

The increasing cost of health care is hurting both businesses and workers.

I think it is a personal responsibility, and so things that we can do to promote that type of ownership of your own health care destiny are really important.