Steve Stivers: “I want to address a few issues with regard to the rule on the two bills. The Rules Committee did approve every amendment…”

“I want to address a few issues with regard to the rule on the two bills. The Rules Committee did approve every amendment that was found germane. There were many amendments that were found not germane to these bills. For example, there was an amendment filed that would have declared that water district rebates are not taxable, but because neither of these bills actually amends the Tax Code and defines what is taxable and what is not, that was not germane. Of every amendment the Rules Committee actually found germane, we included it to be voted on. One of these bills has an amendment, and the other one had no germane amendments filed. The rule did include some opportunities for that. I appreciate the gentleman from Florida's impassioned plea on things like infrastructure and Zika, on which we do have bipartisan agreement--the gentleman is correct--and we need to work to solve those problems. {time} 1245 In this rule, we have two bills from the Ways and Means Committee. It is tax week. Frankly, it is a week for us to increase the transparency and accountability of the Internal Revenue Service, and that is what these two bills do. Frankly, the IRS has 100,000 employees. So by the gentleman's own math, Mr. Speaker, of 1.5 percent, that is 1,500 employees with serious delinquencies in the IRS, working to process other people's taxes.…”