On the recordJuly 11, 2014
I yield myself such time as I may consume for my closing. Mr. Speaker, the choice is very clear. As the gentleman from Massachusetts--who is a friend of mine and who I agree with on a lot-- said we should be here to talk about comprehensive tax reform and not temporary tax policy. In my years here in this United States Congress and my years, more importantly, on the Ways and Means Committee, there hasn't been a chairman that has been more bipartisan, more inclusive, and made a stronger effort to comprehensively reform our Tax Code than Chairman Dave Camp. If he would have had a partner in the White House and a partner in the Senate to move the ball along as far as he did, quite frankly, in a very bipartisan way, we wouldn't be here today. But here are the facts: for the past 5\1/2\ years, Barack Obama has been the President of the United States of America. Here is a fact: the first quarter of this year, our economy retracted 2.9 percent. This bill is a jobs bill. Simple enough. And, in fact, during my time on the Ways and Means Committee--putting Chairman Camp aside--without Chairman Camp, with other chairmen, we haven't had any bipartisanship. We haven't had tax bills. We didn't have an effort to comprehensively, in a bipartisan way, have a Tax Code rewritten. It has only been Chairman Camp. So we can talk about theory and academics.…
