Chris Van Hollen: “Thank you, Mr. Levin. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This bill provides a windfall tax break to hedge fund owners, to…”

“Thank you, Mr. Levin. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This bill provides a windfall tax break to hedge fund owners, to big Washington law firms, to the very wealthy, even if they don't hire a single person--not one. In fact, in a cruel hoax and twist on this, wealthy individuals can qualify for this tax break even if they fire people this year. And in some cases they can also get a bigger tax break if they do not make their investments this year. Mr. Speaker, this place sometimes gets to be a fact-free zone. We have the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee say, The economic activity generated by this is so small as to be incalculable. That's why Bruce Bartlett, former economic adviser to President Reagan said, It will do nothing whatsoever to increase employment. So what's this all about? It gives a big tax break to the wealthiest individuals while adding $50 billion to our deficit and debt. Now, Mr. Speaker, this week highlights the unfortunate doublespeak from our Republican colleagues when it comes to the deficit. On the Senate side, a majority of Republicans voted against a bill to apply the Buffett rule, meaning that we were going to ask millionaires to pay the same effective tax rate as many of their employees paid and use that $50 billion toward deficit reduction. Here in the House, we're providing a $50 billion tax break that adds to the deficit, and this one is targeted disproportionately to very wealthy individuals. There's another sort of strange irony.…”