Political Quotes

“I thank Mr. Levin for yielding the time. Mr. Speaker, this provision came over from the Senate. As Mr. Levin has correctly noted, Members on this side of the aisle have already cast a vote to repeal this measure. The difficulty that's in front of us today is the manner in which this has been presented to all of us. Now, we are going to hear a lot of conflicting opinions today about the new taxes in this bill. Like everybody else here in this Chamber, I am opposed to raising taxes on the middle class. Hardly is that a leap of faith into unchartered waters. We all share that common belief. But the problem with the provision that's offered today is the disguised nature of raising taxes on the middle class. Let's get to the heart of this bill. It repeals a new reporting requirement on small businesses. This provision expanded a type of reporting that already goes on where businesses report to the Internal Revenue Service on large payments sent to contractors. This type of third-party reporting is meant to ensure those contractors report honestly to the IRS on the income they earn. A reminder, it is estimated that there is up to $300 billion a year of unreported income in the United States. And before we get to some of the cuts that have been proposed in this institution, we ought to be focusing our attention on how we might collect that unreported and underreported income that is such an important part of the underground economy in the United States.…”