John W. Olver: “I would like to express a serious opposition to the point of order that was offered by the gentleman from Virginia…”

“I would like to express a serious opposition to the point of order that was offered by the gentleman from Virginia earlier tonight which removed the corporate expatriates contracting ban from this bill. I would like to point out the hypocrisy of what my friends on the other side of the aisle are doing here this evening. This is like deja vu for me. The same thing happened in June when we debated the homeland security appropriations bill. The Committee on Appropriations accepted my amendment by voice vote, only to turn around and use a legislative technicality to justify stripping it from the bill. In fact, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), for whom I have the utmost respect, promised during the committee consideration that he would support protecting this amendment when it went to the Committee on Rules. This amendment, let me just be honest, is a simple one; very, very simple. Quite frankly, some of what we are talking about here tonight would simply prohibit the Treasury Department from contracting with corporate expatriates. These are companies that operate here in the United States but they set up a shell corporation overseas for the express purpose of avoiding paying their taxes.”