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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 127 (Wednesday, September 19, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H6099-H6101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                        BUFFETT RULE ACT OF 2012

  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 6410) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for 
taxpayers making donations with their returns of income tax to the 
Federal Government to pay down the public debt.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6410

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Buffett Rule Act of 2012''.

     SEC. 2. DONATION TO PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT.

       (a) In General.--Subchapter A of chapter 61 of the Internal 
     Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new part:

             ``PART IX--DONATIONS TO PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT

``Sec. 6097. Donation to pay down national debt.

     ``SEC. 6097. DONATION TO PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT.

       ``(a) General Rule.--Every taxpayer who makes a return of 
     the tax imposed by subtitle A for any taxable year may donate 
     an amount (not less than $1), in addition to any payment of 
     tax for such taxable year, which shall be deposited in the 
     general fund of the Treasury.
       ``(b) Manner and Time of Designation.--Any donation under 
     subsection (a) for any taxable year--
       ``(1) shall be made at the time of filing the return of the 
     tax imposed by subtitle A for such taxable year and in such 
     manner as the Secretary may by regulation prescribe, except 
     that--
       ``(A) the designation for such donation shall be either on 
     the first page of the return or on the page bearing the 
     taxpayer's signature, and
       ``(B) the designation shall be by a box added to the 
     return, and the text beside the box shall provide:

       ``By checking here, I signify that in addition to my tax 
     liability (if any), I would like to donate the included 
     payment to be used exclusively for the purpose of paying down 
     the national debt.'', and

       ``(2) shall be accompanied by a payment of the amount so 
     designated.
       ``(c) Treatment of Amounts Donated.--For purposes of this 
     title, the amount donated by any taxpayer under subsection 
     (a) shall be treated as a contribution made by such taxpayer 
     to the United States on the last date prescribed for filing 
     the return of tax imposed by subtitle A (determined without 
     regard to extensions) or, if later, the date the return is 
     filed.
       ``(d) Transfers to Account to Reduce Public Debt.--The 
     Secretary shall, from time to time, transfer to the special 
     account established by section 3113(d) of title 31, United 
     States Code, amounts equal to the amounts donated under this 
     section.''.
       (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of parts for subchapter 
     A of such chapter is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new item:

           ``Part IX. Donations to Pay Down National Debt.''.

       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to returns for taxable years ending after 
     December 31, 2011.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Camp) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan.

                             General Leave

  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to 
include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6410, a bill to provide 
a simple way for individuals to voluntarily donate funds to pay down 
the national debt. Under current law, you can contribute to debt 
reduction, but like all things with the IRS, it isn't easy. If you dig 
deep into the 189 pages of instructions that accompany the 1040, you'll 
find, on page 88, the following:

       Do not add your gift to reduce debt held by the public to 
     any tax you may owe.

  To contribute to deficit reduction, one must send a separate check or 
money order to the Bureau of Public Debt, or they can go online at the 
Web site and use a credit card. Warren Buffett, who says he wants to 
pay more in taxes to pay down our debt, can't actually do so when 
filing his taxes.
  H.R. 6410, however, gives Mr. Buffett and generous Americans like him 
a simple, easy way to help pay down our debt. This legislation adds to 
appropriate tax forms a box with the captions, and I am quoting:

       By checking here, I signify that in addition to my tax 
     liability (if any), I would like to donate the included 
     payment to be used exclusively for the purpose of paying down 
     the national debt.

  The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that H.R. 6410 reduces the 
public debt by $135 million over 10 years. It makes it easy for those 
who want to donate money to the Treasury for debt reduction to 
voluntarily do so without raising taxes on entrepreneurs and job 
creators. If Warren Buffett wants to give, then H.R. 6410 allows him to 
give to his heart's content, and the payments will go directly to an 
account at the Treasury dedicated exclusively to debt reduction.
  Mr. Speaker, it's not enough to speak in political platitudes about 
what we can do to reduce our debt. Now you can put your money where 
your mouth is. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join 
me in passing this legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Well, there's nothing wrong with this bill except the label. If there 
were a fine, I would say, for House legislative mislabeling, House 
Republicans would have a very large fine to pay. This bill has 
nothing--zero--to do with the Buffett rule. It has everything to do 
with the absolute refusal of Americans to face the basic issue. The 
present tax laws give an inordinate tax break to the very wealthy. The 
Buffett rule is provided and proposed by President Obama and 
congressional Democrats.
  In addition to reducing the deficit by $46 billion, it would address 
a significant inequity in the Code that allows a quarter of taxpayers 
earning more than a million a year to pay a lower tax rate than 
millions of middle class families. One of those taxpayers is the 
Republican Presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, who paid an 
effective tax rate lower than 15 percent in 2010 and refuses to let the 
American public see his tax returns for any earlier years.
  Indeed, the so-called tax reform legislation from Republicans would 
do just the opposite: provide massive tax cuts for the very wealthy, 
doubling down on the Bush tax cuts that have added billions to the 
deficit and contributed to growing income inequality.
  What's more, their idea of tax reform is to heap new taxes on the 
backs of middle- and lower-income families to pay for all of this. A 
recent report found that the so-called tax reform outlined in the Ryan 
budget would give those making over a million dollars a year an 
additional average tax cut of $331,000, while those making less than 
$200,000 would see a tax increase of $4,500.
  Taxpayers can do exactly what is provided in this bill if they want 
to donate some of their taxes on the income they have to deficit 
reduction.

[[Page H6100]]

  Republicans, who will recess in 2 days for 2 months with an 
incredible amount of unfinished business, not the least of which is the 
extension of the middle class tax cuts and the looming fiscal cliff, we 
need hard work, not chicanery.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding and for 
bringing this legislation to the floor.
  The Buffett Rule Act that we're debating now will set up a process 
where citizens all across the country, rich, poor, whatever their 
income level, if they feel that they haven't paid enough money into the 
Federal Treasury, then they can just check off a box and submit the 
amount of money that they want to pay in addition to what the normal 
tax liability is, and the assurance will be that that money will be 
used specifically to pay down the national debt, which, of course, just 
a few weeks ago, broke the $16 trillion mark under President Obama.
  I think if you look at the Buffett Rule Act that we bring forward and 
contrast that with President Obama's proposed Buffett rule that he's 
talked about, what the President's talked about is actually raising 
taxes on the very small business owners that we need in our country to 
help create jobs to help get our economy going back again. In fact, 
even President Obama himself acknowledged that if you raise taxes on 
anybody in a bad economy, it will make the economy even worse.
  And make no mistake about it, we are living right now in a bad 
economy, in many cases because of the President's policies, because of 
the so many tax increases that this President has already imposed. Just 
in ObamaCare alone, President Obama has imposed more than 20 new taxes 
on middle class families. Many of them haven't kicked in and they don't 
kick in until after the election, conveniently, but those taxes are on 
the books, and it's going to make it even harder for American families 
who are struggling to get by in a tough economy.
  And so what's the President's latest answer in his version of the 
Buffett rule? It's to raise another $30-plus billion on the backs of 
our small business owners. By his own admission, that would make the 
economy even worse. And I think most people recognize the President 
would just use that money to go and spend even more money on a 
government that's already too big.
  So the question is: Do we set up a process under President Obama's 
approach where he would raise taxes on small business earners, further 
hurting the economy, just so that he can have more money to spend in 
Washington, where there's already too much wasteful spending, or do we 
have a process like we establish here in this bill, the Buffett Rule 
Act, which says that if somebody truly does not feel they're paying 
enough in taxes, then they can simply check a box and there will be a 
format that they can lay out however much they want to spend more and 
that money will be used not to grow the size of the Federal Government 
but to reduce the national debt?
  Again, it's a very clear contrast in approaches. If you look at the 
record that we've seen so far, the tax-and-spend approach under 
President Obama, it hasn't worked. We've had more than 8 percent 
employment literally since the President took office. And it's only 
gotten worse, to the point where millions of Americans have just given 
up looking for work. And the President's answer is to keep raising more 
taxes and spending more money and borrowing it from China because we 
don't have it.
  We need a better approach. We need to address the mushrooming deficit 
that broke the $16 trillion mark. And if people like Warren Buffett and 
others like him feel they're not sending enough to Washington, let them 
put their money where their mouth is. Give them that action by giving 
them this check box, but knowing that if they do send in more money, 
it's not going to be used to keep growing a bloated Federal Government 
and spending money we don't have. It's going to be used to finally 
start paying down this national debt that's out of control and that's a 
burden to the opportunities of today's workers and the unemployed who 
are looking for jobs, but also to future generations--to our children 
and grandchildren who the big spenders in Washington are borrowing that 
money from and sending the bill to our children. They've got to stop 
doing it.
  We've got to stop the way things are going now and get the economy 
back on track. And you don't do it by raising taxes. Again, President 
Obama even acknowledged that, even though his proposal is to raise 
taxes on our small business owners. You do it instead this way, by 
saying if you really feel like you want to send in more money to 
Washington, use it to pay down the national debt so we can finally get 
control over spending here.

                                     Americans for Tax Reform,

                                  Washington, DC, October 5, 2011.
     Hon. Steve Scalise,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Congressman Scalise: On behalf of Americans for Tax 
     Reform, I am pleased to support your new legislation, the 
     ``Buffett Rule Act of 2011.'' This bill would instruct the 
     IRS to provide a prominent, convenient checkbox line on 1040 
     forms to allow those so inclined to pay extra income tax.
       Famously, Warren Buffett complained that his average 
     effective tax rate was too low compared to his secretary. 
     This is probably not true given the fact that Mr. Buffett has 
     failed to release his own tax return for verification, and 
     considering the average effective tax rate of his secretary 
     is quite low based on her purported income. Nonetheless, Mr. 
     Buffett should be able to voluntarily pay extra income taxes 
     if he feels the need to--without imposing broad, job-killing 
     tax hikes on our nation's small employers.
       These ``tax me more'' lines have been particularly-
     effective in flushing out the serious from the posturing on 
     the state level. States that have a ``tax me more'' line 
     repeatedly report almost no additional voluntary 
     contributions to state tax coffers. This is despite the fact 
     that there is no shortage of people who have already earned 
     (or inherited) their wealth who want to see taxes raised on 
     those still pursuing the American dream. In short, the 
     limousine liberal set doesn't put their money where their 
     mouth is.
       Taxpayers are calling Mr. Buffett's bluff with this 
     legislation. It's his move.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Grover Norquist.

  Mr. LEVIN. It is now my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the ranking 
member on the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van 
Hollen).
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague, Mr. Levin.
  I was just listening to the previous speaker. The issue is not 
whether we reduce our long-term deficits. We've got to do that. The 
question is: How? And every bipartisan group that has looked at this 
issue has said in order to do this in a smart and credible way, we have 
to make some additional tough cuts in reforms. But we also need to 
raise additional revenue. And if we don't raise any more revenue, it 
means that everybody else is going to get hit even harder. Seniors on 
Medicare will have to pay more through the voucher plan than our 
Republican colleagues have proposed. Kids' education grants and loans 
will be cut. Our investment in infrastructure will be cut.
  So what we've said is, Let's take that balanced approach to reducing 
the deficit and that folks who have done very well should contribute a 
little bit more toward helping our Nation in that way. Our Republican 
colleagues have said, No, no, no, no, we're not going to ask people 
like Warren Buffett or Mitt Romney or very wealthy people to pay one 
more penny--not one--toward reducing our deficit.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I've got to say it's astounding that our Republican 
colleagues would bring this bill to the floor of this House any day, 
but especially today. There is apparently no embarrassment factor about 
the fact that just yesterday this tape surfaced with Mitt Romney 
talking about the fact that 47 million Americans are not paying enough 
Federal taxes, that they're somehow not taking personal responsibility. 
You might as well name this piece of legislation: Give Mitt Romney 
Another Big Tax Break. Because as the gentleman from Michigan pointed 
out, the real Buffett rule says to people like Warren Buffett and 
people like Mitt Romney and to people who have done very well: We need 
you to contribute a little bit more toward deficit reduction, just like 
you were doing when President Clinton was President. Just go back to 
paying the same rate as when President Clinton was President.

[[Page H6101]]

  And, by the way, President Obama has called upon this Congress to 
immediately extend tax relief to 98 percent of the American people and 
97 percent of all businesses that do business pass-throughs. What our 
Republican colleagues want to do is to say to Bain Capital and some of 
the Fortune 100 companies: You don't have to pay any more to reduce our 
deficit. And they use the language of small business as a cover for 
that.
  Now let's look at who was among those 47 percent of Americans that 
Governor Romney was talking about yesterday. Seniors who paid into 
Medicare, who paid into Social Security, who don't have any Federal 
income tax liability. They're being under-taxed, apparently, or they're 
not taking personal responsibility. How about our soldiers? We decided 
that soldiers should not be taxed on their combat pay.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the gentleman.
  Soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan, we decided that they 
shouldn't have to pay taxes on their combat pay. Apparently, Mitt 
Romney wants them to have to pay taxes on that money where they're not 
taking personal responsibility. Millions of other Americans are working 
hard every day to make ends meet. They may be making $25,000, have two 
kids. And you're right, we have standard deductions and we have 
personal exemptions so that people making $25,000 a year don't get hit 
really hard with income tax. And yet those individuals are paying an 
effective tax rate more than Mitt Romney.
  As the gentleman from Michigan pointed out, if you combine the 
different parts of the payroll tax, they're at 15 percent. Mitt Romney 
is at 13 percent. And you know what the Buffett rule would do, the real 
one? The real one would say for people like Warren Buffet and Mitt 
Romney, they should at least pay 30 percent over $2 million. There's a 
phase-in between $1 million and $2 million. That's what the real 
Buffett rule does.
  And what adds insult to injury is that while Mitt Romney and 
Republicans are proposing a tax plan that would give a break for folks 
at the very top, the nonpartisan, independent Tax Policy Center says 
they want to pay for that by increasing taxes on middle-income 
Americans to the effect of about $2,000 a year more for an average 
middle class family. Those are people on top of the 47 percent who are 
just paying payroll taxes.
  So here we have a proposal by our Republican colleagues to provide 
big tax breaks to folks at the very top, and they want to come and make 
a mockery of the real Buffett rule. The real Buffett rule would 
actually generate $47 billion. Is that going to solve our deficit 
problem? Of course not. Will it contribute to helping it? Yes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That would actually raise some money to help reduce 
the deficit and ask for some shared responsibility.
  This bill is the ``pretty please'' bill. Pretty please, Warren 
Buffet, pretty please, Mitt Romney, won't you help contribute a little 
bit more toward reducing our deficit?

                              {time}  1640

  I can understand why people like Mitt Romney would love this bill 
because it asks nothing more of them at a time when we should be taking 
a balanced approach to reducing our deficit.
  Just last week, we had a debate here about sequester. Everybody 
agreed, Republicans and Democrats, it would be really bad to have these 
across-the-board cuts take place. Buzz saw cuts. Our Republican 
colleagues and we both talked about the negative impact on defense, 
also on the FBI, on border security.
  You know what? We had a proposal to pay for part of that to prevent 
the sequester with the Buffett rule and some other cuts. Our Republican 
colleagues talked about the terrible consequences of the cuts, but they 
just don't want to pay for them. They don't want to ask very wealthy 
Americans to contribute one more penny.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I advise my colleague that I am prepared to 
close.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the remaining time.
  You know, as I've heard this debate, I've been thinking. This is 
really mislabeled. Why don't we call it the Mitt Romney Rule Act of 
2012? He paid the return he indicated less than 15 percent. He earned 
many, many, many millions. He knew what the code now says. He could 
have sent some of the money that was not taxed to the government. He 
could even use a credit card. But he hasn't done that.
  This is mislabeled. This has nothing to do with Mr. Buffett.
  There's been some reference here to small business. The very 
nonpartisan entities indicate that 97 percent of people who are in 
small business and beyond have income actually around $250,000 or less.
  All this bill does is to indicate what's already in the code. So, 
there's nothing wrong with the bill. What is wrong is this frightful 
mislabeling to try to cover up a refusal of the Republican Party in 
this institution to face up to what is really necessary to be done.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I can understand why my friends on the other side are talking about 
everything but the bill before us. And that's because this 
administration's record on the deficit is so dismal. We're going on our 
fourth year of trillion-dollar deficits. The deficit under their watch 
is now $16 trillion.
  You know, what we really need to do is grow this economy and create 
jobs, and we know that their tax increases that they love so much would 
cost us 700,000 jobs. Look at this: 43 months of unemployment of 8 
percent. That's why they want to talk about everything but this.
  They've said the question is how to reduce the deficit. The fact of 
the matter is this bill does reduce the deficit, according to the Joint 
Committee on Taxation, by $135 million. Now, they might not think 
that's much, but to most Americans, every million dollars counts.
  So, I think it's important that we move forward on this, that we grow 
our economy, that we grow our economy to create jobs. And we know that 
taxes on small businesses that they propose cost us jobs.
  So let's pass this bill. It's a step forward. It allows those 
Americans--we all hear it as we go around the country--people say, 
``I'd like to give more. How do I do it?''
  This makes it easier, it makes it straightforward, and actually is 
scored as reducing the deficit.
  Let's vote to make a step for reducing the deficit. We have bigger 
issues we need to deal with. We're going to deal with those. That's why 
this committee, Ways and Means, has been focused on tax reform this 
year, more than 20 hearings. I hope we can move forward on fundamental 
tax reform. Let's vote for this bill. Let's give those Americans who 
want to be more generous, who want to check a box and contribute more 
specifically to deficit reduction, a very transparent, straightforward, 
and easy way to do that.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 6410.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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