On the recordDecember 12, 2013
I want to emphasize a point that we both made, which is that if we had our druthers, we would have approached this issue differently. I do want to say with respect to some of the offsets, there are many of us who would have preferred to see the closures of many special interest tax breaks as part of the offsets in this legislation. We hope that as we go forward, we would agree that that is also a kind of wasteful spending in the Tax Code. If you give a special interest in this country some tax preference not enjoyed by others, you are simply raising the burden on everybody else. It is simply a form of spending through the Tax Code. Mr. Speaker, as we address these issues going forward, whether it is replacing the sequester or reducing the deficit, as part of a balanced approach, we think we should take those into account as well. We also proposed, as part of this measure, applying some of the excessive subsidies that we give to agribusinesses as part of the offsets, and our colleagues rejected those. As has been said, this is a product of compromise, but I do want to let people know that it has been our preference to close some of those special interest tax breaks and use some of those excessive agriculture subsidies as offsets here rather than some of the provisions that are before us. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
