nation's veterans. so this budget is -- is focused on -- has a large focus on our veterans, realizing the challenges that they face when they do come home. and i think that at this time this amendment is not necessary. i would like to yield one minute to the gentleman from indiana, mr. young. >> i thank my colleague from indiana. first, i do want to commend my colleague across the aisle for her attention to this issue. i think it's important. i would like to note, however, that when you look at unemployment trends for veterans, according to the census bureau, actually nonveterans have a higher unemployment rate, but it's that short-term unemployment when a veteran -- our younger veterans, it tends to be, return from deployment. during that period they do sometimes have a tiflt time transitioning, finding employment. and i don't believe that this is the right answer. i think $50,000 per job to be created under this program is

probably not the best approach. i think there are other things we can do. we can work on improving programs to match veterans to the appropriate job. we can assist them with job search skills. i think our organized labor in their helmets to hard hats program is great. i don't believe they receive any federal funds for that. but i'd like to encourage them in their efforts. i also think some work needs to be done on the committees of authorization or outside on certifying veterans for some of the skills they learn in the military so they can use those skills out in the workforce and advertise that they have, in fact, earned the ability to perform different jobs because of their training in the military. so i'll look forward to working with my colleague across the aisle on some of these issues, i hope. i'm sorry i can't support this amendment, though. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i just would say finally that i think this amendment is -- has the right intentions. but i think at this time it has not come far enough for us to

seriously consider it and i'll yield back. >> gentle lady is recognized four minutes to close. >> there we go. i thank the gentlemen. let me just turn out in term of overall veterans spending on the discretionary appropriated funding for veterans for health care both the republican budget and the democratic budget are the same. the difference is on the mandatory side where the republican budget provides $1 billion total funding less for veterans programs for 2013 than the president's budget request. i presume that you exclude the veterans job corps, and this amendment addresses that omission. let me just say, when you have 770,000 veterans who are still unemployed, we can do so much better as a country. we ask them to do so much for us. this isn't an entitlement. they've earned it. frankly, $50,000 a year to help them put their lives back

together and transition them to a more stable life here, shame on us if we can't find the funds to do that. we can sure find it to spend in other countries. why can't we find it to spend right here at home when they return to us and to help rebuild our country. these are patriotic americans. let them help rebuild america. i yield back my remaining time and ask for support of the veterans job corps amendment. >> question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the gentle lady from ohio. those in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed say no. >> no. >> noes have it. recorded vote is requested. the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. garrett. >> no. >> mr. garrett, no. mr. simpson? >> no. >> mr. simpson, no. mr. campbell? >> no. >> mr. campbell, no. >> mr. calvert. >> no. >> mr. calvert, no. mr. akin. mr. cole. >> no. >> mr. cole, no.

mr. price. >> no. >> mr. price, no. mr. mcclintock. >> no. >> mr. mcclintock, no. mr. stutzman. >> no. >> mr. stutzman, no. mr. lankford. >> no. >> ms. black. >> no. >> mr. ribble, pass. mr. flores. >> no. >> mr. flores, no. mr. mulvaney. >> no. >> mr. mulvaney, no. mr. heulskamp. >> no. >> no, mr. young. >> no. >> fl young, no. mr. akita. >> no. >> mr. akita, no. mr. again ta. >> no. >> mr. genta, no. mr. woodall. >> no. >> mr. woodall, no. mr. akin. >> no. >> mr. akin, no. mr. van hollen. >> yes. >> mr. van hollen, aye.

ms. schwartz. >> aye. >> ms. schwartz, aye. ms. kaptur. >> aye. >> ms. kaptur, aye. mr. blumenauer, aye. ms. mccole m, aye. mr. yarmouth, aye. mr. pakkarel, aye. mr. hahn donda, aye. ms. moore, aye. mr. schuler, aye. ms. bass, aye. ms. bonamici, ay. mr. chairman. >> no. >> mr. chairman, no. mr. ribble. >> aye.

>> mr. ribble, aye. >> are there any other members looking to vote or to change their vote? clerk will report. >> mr. chairman, on that vote, the ayes are 17 and the noes are 20. >> the amendment is not agreed to. next we will recognize mr. van hollen for the purposes of amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have an amendment at the desk. >> clerk will designate the amendment. staff will distribute copies. >> an amendment offered by mr. yarmouth -- or mr. van hollen. an amendment relating to taxes. >> the gentleman is recognized for nine minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this amendment is very simple. it's designed to make sure that we don't finance another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest americans by increasing taxes on middle-income americans. as you can see from this chart that's up here, after the first

round of the bush tax cuts, 2001-2003, the wealthiest americans after tax income has shot up in a huge way. that's why the president's budget asks for shared responsibility. the president's budget asks the top 2% income earners to go back to paying the same rates they were during the clinton administration. a time when the economy was booming. the republican budget asks nothing of those individuals. and as a result of that, asks a whole lot of seniors on medicare, of students in terms of cutting student loans and all sorts of other consequences. but it goes beyond that. what is really amazing is that the republican budget is now proposing another windfall tax cut that will benefit millionaires and the wealthiest americans. and i'm clicking this thing, and it's not -- oh, i've got to turn

it on. that would help. let me see. there we go. not working. there we go. there we go. all right. and so the issue is what happens when you drop the top tax rate from 35% to 25%? and i think we should have a fact-based conversation. not many runs on these issues have been done by the joint task committee. but last fall, last october the joint task committee was asked to do a number of analyses that shed a lot of light on what the impact would be on this issue. there was a republican proposal that was scored by the joint tax committee that would reduce all the tax rates by 23%, bringing

the top tax rate to 27%. so the top tax rate is now higher than what's proposed in the republican budget. 27%. here's what joint tax said we had to do to get that. this was part of the proposal that was put forward. eliminate all the itemized deductions. mortgage interest deduction, charitable deduction, state and local deductions. on top of that, eliminate all the personal exemptions. an incredibly regressive step which would leave tens of millions of americans paying a whole lot more in taxes. get rid of all the tax credits except for the eitc. then eliminate virtually all the above aligned te deduction ds. this is a joint tax proposal that indicates what you have to do to make up $4.2 trillion. $4.2 trillion is the revenue lost by dropping that top rate from 35% to 25%.

you obviously lose more revenue when you drop the top rate from 35% to 25%. in fact, if you extrapolate from that what you come up with is $5.2 trillion. so by dropping the top rate from 35% to 25%, you lose $5.2 trillion. now, you have said you're going to do this in a revenue neutral way. so how do you make it up? well, again, everything except for that brownish pie piece was proposed in this republican proposal that was just submitted for scoring. and you can see what you have to do. and i would ask my colleagues if that's how you're proposing to -- to get there. because the reality is if you do that, it's incredibly regressive. meaning middle income taxpayers will pay a lot more than they

are today. now, how do i know that? because joint tax scored another republican proposal last fall. this one just dropped the top rate from 35% to 30%. we haven't had a distributional analysis of the one that goes all the way. this shows you the direction you're heading. and as you can see, the folks at the very top, over 1 million, get a $31,000 tax break. now, that's a tax break on top of what they get from keeping in place the bush tax cuts for the very wealthy. and you can see as you go down the income scale that people below $250,000, approximately, are paying more. so you're giving a tax break to the wealthiest americans financed by tax increases on middle income americans. again, this is joint tax. when you drop the top rate from 35% to 30%. obviously as we saw earlier when you're making up a lot more income, $5.2 trillion, you've

got to go even further. let's see what the impact of looking at these different pieces is. so this is the distributional impact of eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. bigger impact on middle income americans. this is the impact of eliminating the child tax credit. not surprisingly, middle lower income individuals benefit more from that. which would be wiped out under that proposal that was put forward. let's say you didn't want to get rid of personal exemptions. let's say instead you wanted to eliminate the tax benefit for health care. $1.5 trillion. let's say you substituted that instead of personal exemptions. again, look at the impact on middle income taxpayers. now, you exempt capital gains which our republicans have said they want to do always. keep that preferential rate at

15%. obviously the benefit is hugely disproportional for millionaires. so the point is -- here's the unearned income tax credit distribution. so the point is that the republican proposal will increase taxes on middle income americans, and it does that while financing more tax cuts for millionaires and the wealthiest americans. and the reason i asked during the walk-through, mr. chairman, whether you had any analysis from joint tax that showed otherwise was because i know from these analyses you just can't get there mathematically. and the reality is, that's what your amendment will do. and so i hope our colleagues will join us in sending a very simple message that we're not

going to increase -- we're not going to give another windfall tax break to folks at the very top financed by middle income taxpayers. and with that, i yield a minute to ms. schwartz. >> well, i thank you for the review because to say -- it sounds pretty good to be able to say we're going to reduce the tax rate to 25%. i have been pleased when i can vote for tax breaks. many of us do feel very strongly we should be looking at the tax code and simplify it and bring down rates where we should. on the corporate we afwrgree on this. the president's proposal talked about bringing the corporate tax rate down to 28%. there's been discussion on that side. on the individual side our understanding that now since you just heard from our ranking member makes it very clear if you're going to bring down the tax rate to 25%, it benefits mostly multimillionaires and it is going to be paid for on the

backs of middle class americans. it means in a very practical way that you have to -- you have to exclude all the deductions for middle class americans. well, for all americans, but it hits particularly hard for middle class americans. you're talk about tax deductions for homeownership. tax deductions for sending your kids to college. tax deductions for saving for retirement. sax tax deductions for charitable contributions. tax deductions for medical benefits. these are tax deductions that matter tremendously to middle class americans. don't go this route. >> thank you. i'll now recognize mr. mulvaney for ten minutes for purposes of opposing the amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i always enjoy hearing the ranking member talk about taxes. i look forward to his budget next week. i look forward to actually having my democrat colleagues show us what y'all mean when you talk about a simpler tax code, a fair tax code, something with all the loopholes and deductions

gone. we've heard about it now for several years. we haven't actually seen something. i look forward to actually getting that from you folks this week. in the meantime i thought what we would do is focus on the amendment. it's pretty similar. it's the sense of the house this resolution should not allow taxes to be raised on individuals with adjusted gross individuals below $200,000 or married couples below 250,000. if i could have my first slide. we've all heard that language before. we heard it back during the last presidential campaign. i put this slide up before. i can make a firm pledge under my pledge no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes, end quote. it's very rare for those of you who are out in the audience to see a politician make a statement that it's hard to walk back from. ordinarily when we make pledges, we do it in language that makes it easier for us to say we didn't mean what we said.

no family making less than 250. not your income tax, payroll, capital gains, et cetera. unfortunately the president's going to have to start finding a way to walk back from that statement. if i could have the next slide, please. this is a list of at least 13 tax increases over the course of the president's administration on individuals making less than 200 or families making less than $250,000 here. there's more. we actually ran out of space on the slide so that we could do that. as much as i appreciate the ranking member's amendment, and tend to agree generally with the sentiment, there's a better way to do this. you could co-sponsor hr-4064 which i've offered. also it does is repeal all those tax increases. we figured we would do exactly what the president said he wanted to do when he ran for office which is not raise taxes on folks making less than $250,000. i know my friend the ranking

member is a good lawyer, my guess is if i give him the opportunity what he'll say is mr. mulvaney, why don't you go ahead and vote for my amendment since your bill does the same thing. i would suggest to him he is just as welcome to co-sponsor my bill. the point of the matter is, you could support my bill, and you wouldn't have to support this amendment. because it would actually be matching actions with words. you could actually take the steps necessary to repeal the taxes that we have put in place in congress since president obama was elected on families making less than $250,000. or you could be against my bill and vote for this amendment which is essentially saying one thing and doing the other. which is exactly unfortunately what happens too often in this town and exactly what the president did when he was running for office. so with that, i will yield three minutes to my good friend from georgia, mr. woodall. >> i very much appreciate my friend for yielding. i appreciate the ranking

member's intent with this amendment. but the situation we find ourselves in, particularly the freshmen here, is finding out that the tax code has become less about collecting taxes and more about distributing income support. and i think that makes it very difficult to look at some of these distributional tables and sort out what does it mean for families making under $250,000 a year. if you look at the latest cbo report on this tells us 40% of all income earners receive affirmative payments from the tax code. that is they paid zero in income taxes and they still received a check to help support their families. i get it. times are tough and we absolutely are committed to preserving the american safety net. my question is, why is it the irs that is doing that? and why is it then when we look at these distribution tables about who's paying the money, we

begin to see a skewed result because it's not about who's paying it. it becomes about who's taking it. from the tax code. and i say to the ranking member, if -- if he could support a budget proposal to move all of this safety net legislation out of the tax code and into the direct spending side of the ledger where it absolutely belongs and return the tax code to the one thing the tax code is somewhat good at, and that is collecting revenue from the country, not distributing revenue, but collecting revenue, then i could see my way through to support his amendment. but as long as we are using the tax code as a tool for picking winners and losers instead of a tool for funding those primary priorities of government, including america's safety net for america's neediest families, i'm going to be unable to support this amendment. i appreciate my friend for yielding. >> i now yield three minutes to the gentleman from california,

mr. mcclintock. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. obviously the details of this can be worked out by the ways and means committee. i'd ask my friend the ranking member to take a look at irs tables. the way we read them, if you get rid of all of the loopholes, again, this proposal moves us to a much broader, flatter and lower tax rate. get rid of the all the loopholes and at the same time reduce the tax rate to 25%, of those earning $1 million or more as a class, actually end up paying slightly more taxes. about $5 billion more in taxes than they're paying right now. the reason why we have been urged by all of the policy experts on this to move to a flatter rate tax system is because it not only restores fairness to the system, not only removes all of the economic distortions that are now built into the tax system, that are directing capital to unprodu

unproductive uses. those countries that have moved to that kind of a system have been rewarded with explosive economic growth. i agree with a lot of my friends on the other side of the aisle when they say there are some among the wealthy who don't pay their fair share of taxes because of those deductions and loopholes and credits and carry forwards and tax shelters that allow some muamong the wealthy pay less than their fair share. arthur laughrd pointed out rich people can afford those options. this budget calls for getting rid of those loopholes, providing a fairer system for taxes, flattening it, lowering it so that everyone's paying their fair share into the system. but that's the other part of the equation. half of americans today are paying no income taxes. in 1969 only 12% of americans were paying no income taxes. if we're going to restore

fairness to the system, every american is going to have to pay something. even just a token amount into our government. i don't think our nation can endure as a united people when half of americans are paying the taxes for the other half. the amendment that the gentleman offers makes it impossible to move to that fairer, flatter system. i'd ask hum im to reconsider an yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in conclusion i think it's fair to say everybody in this room probably agrees with the sentiment of the ranking member's amendment. the difficulty is that the amendment is more than just sentiment. it's a gotcha vote. which is fine. it's what we do around here. we do it to y'all. y'all do it to us. it's done to make us look bad by voting against it. this. if we really wanted to accomplish those things, we could do that. if we wanted not to raise taxes on folks that make less than $250,000 we could support the

bi do that. i would encourage a no vote on this amendment. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i'll just take the remain if you could bring up chart five to bring mr. mulvaney and mcclintock's point to bear, we hear about the top 1% a lot. the top 1% get almost all of the tax shelters. the tax expenditures. over $300,000 per filer, individual, in that top 1%. so for every dollar of income that that person in that tax bracket parks into a tax shelter, that's taxed at zero. you get rid of the tax shelter, lower everybody's tax rates, then it's taxed. let's say 25%. 25% of that $300,000 plus average right off is a lot more than zero percent of the $300,000 average right off. that's the point we're trying to make.

we should stop picking winners and losers. if two people live next door to each other making the same amount of income, they should pay the same amount of taxes. that's the point of fairness we're trying to make. the last point is this. where i come from nine out of ten businesses in wisconsin file as diamerica, 80% of our businesses file as subchapter ss, partnerships, llcs. inua tax rate goes to 44.8%. canada just lowered their tax rate on all their businesses to 15% this last january. china is at 25%. ireland is at 12.5%. england is going down to 23%. we've got to watch our competitiveness. we want a simpler, fairer and more competitive code. with that i yield and recognize the gentleman for one minute to close. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would invite all my republican colleagues just to present us with an analysis from joint tax committee that supports everything you've been saying here. because i put up in front of this committee a series of

analyses that show that when you drop that top rate 35% to 25%, it gives a windfall to the folks at the very top paid for by middle income taxpayers. we should have a fact based conversation. i didn't hear one fact disputing the information i put up there. mr. mulvaney, i think you know that under this president, making work pay, payroll tax credit, middle -- the tax credits under health care, middle income taxpayers have seen a large amount of tax relief under this -- under this president's budget. what we want to make sure we don't do is put greater burdens on them. you're right, mr. mulvaney. i'll say if you agree with me, vote for it. all this amendment does is say in the process of providing those big tax breaks for the folks at the top, don't squeeze middle income taxpayers. mr. chairman, to your point this is joint tax information. we should always have joint tax information when we're talking about taxes in this committee. under the president's proposal

to ask taxpayers to go back to 2%, it affects only less than 3% of all taxpayers. that includes small business taxpayers. when you unpack that top 3%, you find a lot of folks who are not mom and pop. they're not small businesses. those are companies like price waterhouse. god bless them. but they're not small businesses. and we just need to have more fact-based conversations. >> the time for the gentleman agreeing to the amendment for the member from maryland. those in favor say aye. those opposed no. noes have it. the clerk will call the roll. >> mr. garrett. mr. garrett, no. mr. simpson. mr. simpson, no. mr. campbell. mr. campbell, no. mr. no. mr. calvert, no. mr. akin. mr. akin, no. no. mr. price.

mr. price, no. mr. mcclintock. mr. mcclintock, no. mr. shay fits. mr. stutzman. mr. lankford. mr. no. ms. black. >> no. >> ms. black, no. mr. ribble. mr. ribble, no. mr. flores. mr. flores, no. mr. mulvaney. nlco-sponsor my bill. so i'll vote no now. when his name goes on there i'll change it back. no. >> mr. . muhuelskamp. no. mr. young. mr. no. mr. omosh. no. mr. okita, no. mr. guenta, no. mr. woodall. mr. woodall, no. mr. van hollen. mr. van hollen, aye. ms. schwartz. ms. schwartz, aye.

ms. kaptur. ms. kaptur, aye. mr. doggot. mr. blumenauer. mr. blumenauer, no. miss mccolumn. aye. mr. yarmouth. mr. yarmouth, aye. mr. pascarel. aye. mr. honda. mr. honda, aye. mr. rye wran. mr. ryan, aye. ms. waszerman schultz. aye. ms. moore, aye. mr. schuler, aye. ms. bass. ms. bass, aye. mrs. bonanici, aye. mr. chairman. >> no. >> mr. chairman, no. >> are there any other members looking to vote or to change their vote?