On the recordMay 5, 2011
I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, the minority is asking us to walk down a tangent issue by using negative cue words like ``subsidy,'' so let me walk down that for 30 seconds. Please realize the U.S. oil and natural gas industry does not receive subsidized payments from the government. The word ``subsidy'' is inaccurate. Tax deductions should in no way be confused with the concept of subsidies. There are, though, tax deductions that go to all industries. Section 199, which has been talked about by the Democrats, is the domestic manufacturers' deduction. Every industry--manufacturing, producing, growing, extracting--gets a 9 percent of earned income deduction, not a credit, except for oil and gas; but they are limited to just 6 percent. There is similarity. They've also asked us to try and walk down a tangent in talking about safety, but the ideas of safety are codified in the legislation before us. They then say let's increase our production by raising taxes. What a non sequitur. Even if you raise taxes against somebody else and try to create some kind of straw man to attack, that is simply a non sequitur, because we do not have a tax problem in this country. We have a production problem; we have a jobs problem. These two bills go directly to that problem. They increase production and increase jobs. We are not trying to pick winners and losers. We want the Americans to be winners, and that's what our choice is to be.…
