Rich Neal: “Let me thank Mr. Lipinski and the group that is assembled here tonight. I want to encourage the American people to pay…”

“Let me thank Mr. Lipinski and the group that is assembled here tonight. I want to encourage the American people to pay attention beginning again tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock when we are going to finish the debate on this legislation. I hope that as they pay attention to it they will consider what a missed opportunity this was, a reminder that one of the most complex pieces of legislation offered in the years I have been here had no public hearings. Not one witness was summonsed to give advice on a tax bill of this consequence. It has been advertised as a middle class tax cut. I can assure you that 36 million Americans are going to pay more when this is done. Also, another reminder to pay close attention to is that our friends down the hallway in the Senate are going to include an end to the mandate, which is the glue that holds together the Affordable Care Act, in a further effort to take away health insurance from 13 million people to pay for a tax cut. This could have been done together, Democrats and Republicans. We wanted to do it. We were shut out of this process from day one. Remember, this legislation was offered last Thursday. A manager's mark was published Friday. We went to markup on Monday, and we were done on Thursday. There was no opportunity for us to participate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. ____________________”