On the recordJuly 25, 2018
I thank my friend and colleague from Oregon for yielding me this time. I agree with my colleague. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation, not because of the policy initiatives underlying these bills, but because of how fiscally irresponsible it is being done. This week, out of the Ways and Means Committee, we have 10 bills to be debated and voted on on the House floor, at a total cost of roughly $90 billion. There was no effort made to try to find an offset or a pay-for in order to maintain some fiscal discipline in this place. That is problematic, because we keep digging the hole deeper. But my name is on a few of these bills. Yesterday we had the repeal of the medical device tax, legislation that I had authored with my friend from Minnesota, Erik Paulsen. But that came at a cost of $20 billion. No offset. No pay-for. Just borrow more money from China and let future generations wrestle with it. But it made sense policy-wise to try to repeal that in a fiscally responsible manner, because we were taxing these manufacturers whether they were making a profit or not. In fact, the pre-revenue companies were getting hit by the same tax. Policy-wise, it didn't make a lot of sense. Today, I was happy to introduce legislation from our friend and colleague, Ms. Jenkins, on the Restoring Access to Medication Act.…
