Rich Neal: “I am opposed to this bill in its current form. I want to remind my colleagues that this amendment to the bill will not…”

“I am opposed to this bill in its current form. I want to remind my colleagues that this amendment to the bill will not kill the bill or send it back to committee if adopted. It will simply allow us to proceed to final passage, as amended. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Chairman Ryan, spoke a few moments ago about the notion of goodwill and confidence. But he used a peculiar term as a substitute. He called it the ``baseline.'' What about a baseline of some goodwill and confidence building and a measure that acknowledged that, in terms of procedure, this is a violation of the confidence that we have all tried to establish as we proceed to tax reform? Some of us who have been around for a long time and have participated in actual tax strategy, we would offer the following: the last time that the Tax Code was changed in America, the Internet had not been invented, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States, and Tip O'Neill was the Speaker of this House. Now, in terms of procedure, why we object is the following: if you recall, the gentleman from Michigan, Chairman Camp, waited until tax reform last year was completely dead and then asked us to go through the motion. And that, in the end, is exactly what it was, to have gone through the motion of trying to pass some permanent extended tax bills. Well, in New England 2 weeks ago, we were talking about deflated footballs. Now we are talking about deflated tax reform expectations.…”