Well, as mr. Neil pointed out the least Public Opinion poll on what youre selling here today only 27 of the American People want it. So i dont know which people youre talking but but the people of this country dont want this particular bill. They love tax reform thats fair, thats geared more toward middle income americans, that they believe will actually result in economic growth, but they dont whatnot what youre selling they dont want what youre selling but a 2009 Say Something here because mr. Cross mr. Woodl talked about the glorious process. I mean, this process is terrible. No matter how you want to look at it. Quite frankly, getting up here and saying your proud of this process, thats offensive. Thats offensive to us. I think its offensive to the American People. Thats review. Lets review the process. To start they have zero let me repeat zero hearings on. The bill was jammed through the ways and Means Committee where every single democratic amendment was blocked and member s had less than an hour to review the final text before voting. Then the ruled committee used emergency procedures to meet on the bill da day earlier with four hours notice. A record break 51st closed rowell that was reported, block 1 40 democratic and republican amendments. And the Senate Things didnt get any better. Again, there was zero hearings on the text of hr1, and senators received the tex of the final bill within an hour of the floor vote. The nearly 500 page bill was riddled with errors, lastminute edits illegible handwritten changes in the margins. After the bill was passed to the senate, sham of a Conference Committee was schedule and things goss worse. At 10 will 50 00 a. M. Republicans revealed to the media that an agreement had already been reached. I mean, this political show became abundant lit clear when con fearees learned they were prohibited from offering amendment or seeing the negotiated text. Conferees werent shown the text of the report until friday night. When they were expected to sign it. So the final text of hr1, which is over a thousand pages, when you combine the text of the bill with the joint Explanatory Statement was posted friday night at 5 30 p. M. You honestly telling me that every Single Member has had time to read this bill and fully understand ramifications . And here we are again at the rules committee, using emergency procedures to consider your tax plan that will add 1. 5 plus trillion dollars to the deficit, to pay for texas caught ford corporations, and the president , by the way, while funding for our government hangs in the balance . Want to talk about an emergency . Let talk about the chip program which is run out of time. And the president of the United States has so misrepresented what this whole process was about. I remember the there was a time when he said he himself and his family will get nothing from this tax bill. They are going to lose money. That is a lie. Id like to ask you unanimous consent to insert into the record a lives our all these wonderful provisions that amount to wonderful Christmas Gifts for President Trump and his family. Without objection. That will make lots of money off of this. The president said that he wanted to come to washington to drain the swamp. I have news for him. After reading this bill, the swamp upon. All kind goodies that are tucked into this bill. Goodies for big corporations. Even a provision in here that basically allows opens up the Arctic National wildlife refuge to oil drilling. What i dont know what the hell has has to do with tax reform, controversial issue for maybe years but here its tucked in the socalled tax reform bill. Mr. Ross talked about opportunities. Theres lots of opportunities i think here for people who vote for this bill in terms of fundraising because thats about the extent of who is going to benefit from all of this. I mean, again, we have a process that is terribly broken. It didnt have to be this way. For the life of me i dont understand why we couldnt have done this through regular order, couldnt have ban give and take, at mr. Neil pointed out well, have done that in the past. Republicans and democrats actually get together, get every you cited everything they want but you have a bill that goes to the floor and is not purely an up or down partisan vote and thats what this is. I dont we have heard today that, oh, this is a great bill because its it repeals the estate tax. As if somehow thats what every person in this country is clamoring for. Well, the last time i checked Something Like 99. 8 of the estates in this country owe no estate tax. 99. 8 . Only the wealthiest point 2 of americans owe estate tax. Last year i think there were only 50 people that paid estate taxes in the entire country. So the idea this is what middle class is clamoring for, that small and medium size farms, small and medium size busien. Business are clamoring for the estate tax. Thats not the case. Thats not what i bet most people on the committee are hearing from constituents. We heard that dont worry about the repeal of the individual mandate in terms of the Affordable Care act. Well, dont take my word for it. Id like to insert speak record the Congressional Budget Office report which says as a result of that little maneuver, the number of people with Health Insurance would decrease by 4 million in 2019, and that premiums will actually go up. Objection. So, look, we know whats going on here certification one is cut tax ford the. We ya under the guise of some magical growth from ceos paying fewer taxes and and he workers lose took benefits. Step two complain that the deficit that you have helped add is to exploding and that we need reduce spending and cut more, and establish three, and again, the speaker is Ranking Member pointed out, the speaker already showed his hand. Step three is to go after important programs that millions of americans reef lie on. Programs like medicare, medicaid, Social Security. And i just think that this is a terrible approach, not only to this is not tax reform. This is just about taking giving rich people more tax cuts. This its not truly tax reform. The Ranking Member point it out that there was the other press conference, snuck you around where you handed President Trump this little post card that said, every american will be able to do their taxes on the back of a post card. That turned out to also be a lie. Id like to add ask unanimous concert to insert a story in the New York Times entitled file your taxes on a post card question mark . A g. O. P. Promise marked undeliverable. Without objection. And, look, this is serious business, and it deserved a process that quite frankly was more respectful than the one were following here and this is more than just about a press release so that my republican friends can say they passed something. This has longterm consequences. And the technical fixes to this bill will probably be hundreds pages more when all is said and done. And that just shows that a lousy process usually results in a lousy product. We should have done this more carefully motion deliberately, should have been done in a bipartisan way, and at a minimum should have been hearings 0 where all these different proposals, which of which were just learn about over the weekend added at the last minutes could have been vetted. So, please, spare us the compliments about the process. This process is lousy. And it is indefensible, and you can jam through a bill like this if you want because you control the house and the senate. But please dont defend this as some sort of process that is open and fair and deliberate because its not and at the end of the day my constituents arent going to be the ones who benefit from this. Some colonels colonels and specl interests, lobbyists will benefit but any constituents are not clamor ago for what youre trying to e sell here. Id like to insert the article from in the New York Times with billions at stake in tax ebait, lobbyists played hard ball. In the record. For my colleagues information this article showcases exactly who had the ear of this egregious bills authors, lobbyists who opened up wallets and attended the fundraisers of public republican american and those writing the bill to theyre point of view, end quote win. That yield back my time. Thank you very much. The gentleman from louisville, texas, dr. Michael burgess. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bradie just feel compelled to ask you, its been 31 years since major tax reform has been done. There is a reason why you take so long to do major tax re form . So, dr. Burgess, this began as chairman ross said more than five years ago. We have had 40 public hearings inies and Means Committee on tax reform. On these very issues. We have the markup four full days in daylight where every amendment was offer and at the end we said there are anymore you want to offer . Anymore . That you want to offer . In all have been offed. That is a fair and open process. Ill just close with this. Your point is i think a great one. Less talking, more doing, it really is time to change this tax code. Thats what were doing. Thank you. Might i . There were no hearings on this particular bill. Mr. Ross you heard mr. Mcgorges views and your furiously scribbling notes. Do you have some observations you wanted to share . The irony is it was leader pelosi who when she was speaker said we have to pass this bill so that you know what is in it and the irony is, she wasnt kidding. That bill was written in the Speakers Office as we know. I have an independent rex as minority member of the ways and Means Committee at the time when the Affordable Care act was debated in committee and we where are proposing to the chairman then i think it was charlie rangle and dave camp was asking when is the republican alternative going to be considered . And the reason i remember is he had the phrase, its a gospel song. Her said, soon and very soon, were going to hear from our republican friends. Of course that never came to fruition. So theres an iy here. I mean, if you look at the news as of the last couple of days, this is not just stock buyback proposal. At t announce is not just thunder the passage of hr1 and now reconfirmed we, at t, based on the passage of this bill, are going to invest an additional billion dollars in the United States of america. That is the result of this piece legislation, thats something to celebrate. I guess process is in the eye of the beholder, but i have look, theres a great temptation to litigate past activity and i always admonish myself never to do that but you just get drawn into it, and theres this provocation, but i think that this is a we can come to different conclusions about the process, but now its ultimately time to make a decision about the merits of the bill, and reasonable people can differ. I go back to the disposition of the tribune, and its my hometown paper but that they he valuated this, they said this will create prosperity and the sick tsk a vote against this is a vote in favor of the status quo mitchell friend on the other side of the aisle say were not deferring the status quo but i argue they actually are and we ought not squander an incredible opportunity. You are correct in not wanting to litigate the past but you have provoked me as well, and we were both here in 2009 with the passage of the Affordable Care act, and i do remember i remember a working group led by dave camp, and the rank can member often the Health Subcommittee was part of the working group and we worked late into the night through february, march, april and may of 2009, to produce the republican alternative. It doesnt sound like that was the activity that was going on coincidence with your development of this bill. I remember roy blunt convening meetings in the whips office two times a week and we could come in with our healthcare ideas to talk about what the republican alternative might look like, so there was wasnt successful ultimately but there was considerable energy spent in developing that alternative, and again, from what ive heard here today it was oppositional during the markup but as far as a grand vision for this is where we believe the country ought to go, those of us who have watched this can only believe that the alternative vision was, we like the code they way it is, and we like the growth of the economy the way it is, precisely your point that the Chicago Tribune made, and i actually somewhat shocked im agree withing the Chicago Tribune but there you have it. Chairman brady, we talked a lot a year ago about one of the ought championed im sitting here next to the champion of the fair tax, and of course, i like a flat tax, and we talked about the simplification that might be available to us and that was actually one of the things that we talked about a year ago, the opportunity for simplification. We had to deal with the senate so didnt turn out the way we both envisioned it a year ago. But doubling the personal exemption for significant numb number of people means tax simplification. The standard deduction by doubling it, we dont know that 90 of americans will file using a very simple system, joint tax will give us that number but the answer is many more than today will have a far simpler tax return. One of the argument is now ive come to ways and Means Committee and made the argue. Immigrant might not be able to give someone back more money in their tacoma buts if i didnt have to make them miserable, give them back some time, that would be something, an accomplishment. Now, someone has provided me with a list with every member of the rules committee and the percent of filers itemizing under current law and the Median Income for households and the tax cut for a married couple with two children, in the district, looks like neimi district will get 3,400 back. So that sounds good. But what is missing from this and maybe its because the answer is unknowable at this point and you just allude today joint tax providing us some Additional Information but it would be great to know percentage of filers itemizing under current law and the projected percentage that would itemize with the double offering personal exemption. Obviously the number is going to go um. Believe its going up a lot. It would just be great to have a new make value to numeric value to assign to that. Dr. Bur just we got in the number from joint committee on taxation that says 13 of american taxpayers will have to itemize under this plan. Theyll get their tax relief in the simpler approach. So its nearly nine out of ten that it will be able to use a simpler signatures. Those that dont theres a prone for it. We stripped the tax code down to the basics. The post card, and said, this is not on tax code, belongs to you, the American People. What do you want so see . They wanted to see me medical and obamacare exploded out of pocket costs. They wanted help. Teacher expenses. Its not a large amount, we as lawmakers his listen can back home, stayed lite do that, same as student tuition waiver, this tax bill reflects the pry ores of americans today. Not 30 or 4050 years ago, and yes is it more than that we started with . Yeah, but thats okay, too because this represents what they want. I represent a district that has two large public universities within it. I promise you i have heard a lot about the exclusion of graduate student tuition over the past several week, i appreciate your attention to that. And i acknowledge had you and i had that discussion last december i would have said thats okay could have the that graduate student exclusion in there but you heard from people, how important it was, and as a consequence it is in the bill that is coming back to us. Medical expenses, and rear repealing the part of obamacare that puts your until discussion from stenand a half percent up to ten percent and as you pound out correctly medical expensees have any measure increased significantsly since 2009. On the individual mandate and for me this becomes intensely personal, there is no part of thes could Affordable Care act i find more pernicious, more coercive than the individual mandate and redefines the relationship between the govern and those it purports to govern. The individual mandate is an enormous proposition and the criticism that we hear that were going cut people off of medical insurance, i think mr. Ross alluded to it. Someone is look at the expense of their ballot shoot that delivers no value and ive got do buy it because its a law, why would i do that . You remover the law and im not going to undertake that activity that delivers no value to my family, and i might buy a policy that is not compliant. That actually covers the things need and protects my family at a price i can afford. Ill give you an example. We have a fox news studio in dale displays go down there from time to time and do interviews, and typically diane interview about health care so the little guy that was hooking me up and put thing microphone on and we do the interview and its about health care and he is helping me undo it all and he said i hope you can get dish just heard you talk. I i hope you get that done because i got tell you right now, im paying the fine and that ive got go buy insurance policy that covers my family. Its cheaper for him to pay the fine and then go buy a noncompliant policy. We have freedom from that onerous burden that this individual mandate placed upon him, and i dont know that people completely understand what a burden it has been for people. But talk but people losing their insurance, anybody losing a subsidy . No. Is anybody getting cut off of their Medicaid Expansion under your pill and. None. No, so the that actually would be taking h