Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, you just heard the eloquent testimony from Ms. Velazquez about what the people of Puerto Rico are facing right now. I wish that the majority would have approached this process differently. The reauthorization of the FAA could have been a simple, straightforward exercise. It could have and should have been a bipartisan effort. They saddled the FAA with unrelated partisan priorities, incorporated with little input from Democrats, and presented a weak tax package to address the recent major national disasters. As I said when a version of this bill came up earlier this week, I wish the disaster tax relief section were better designed and more extensive. This updated bill still doesn't provide adequate relief to the affected families and communities who desperately need it. You just heard from Ms. Velazquez on that basis. While waiving penalties on the withdrawal of retirement savings and expanding EITC and child tax credit provisions are helpful, the majority inexplicably left out some of the most economically powerful tax incentives on the shelf, including those that would be helpful to rebuild devastated infrastructure. Given this damage and the needs of hard-hit areas, especially the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, I cannot understand why we are not including proven assistance contained in previous disaster tax packages as we did to our family and friends in places like Texas and Louisiana.…”