Rich Neal: “One of the problems here in having a dialogue is that sometimes the facts do not square with the dialogue. Now, the…”

“One of the problems here in having a dialogue is that sometimes the facts do not square with the dialogue. Now, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) is one of the better people in this House; a good Member of the Congress and a very nice guy to work with. But where is the sympathy for those companies that stayed here? What about those companies that pay their taxes every day? What about those who did not attempt to escape in the dark of night to Bermuda for the purpose of avoiding American corporate taxes? Where is the sympathy for them? Their competitors can go offshore with a phony post office box for $27,000 a year, and then they avoid any share of the burden that the rest of the American taxpayers face for financing small things like Social Security and Medicare and paying for this war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would like to put this issue in front of those 134,000 troops in Iraq for a vote and see where we go on that issue. We hear about these companies that have been gone for 30 or 40 years. Let us get something straight, Tyco has been gone since 1997, Ma and Pa Tyco, that avoid paying $400 million a year in corporate taxes. Tell that to the parents of those men and women and wives and husbands of those men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. We make it sound as though these companies are under great duress when they avoid paying corporate taxes.”