Levin Statement in Support of providing for consideration of senate amendment to H.R. 4213, Tax Extenders Act of 2009

(Washington D.C.)- I want to say just a few things about what this bill is all about. The basic bill has been here for more than a week, and so anyone who says they don't know what's in it has failed to read it. It says, and it means, jobs and jobs and jobs.

There are provisions for business, there are provisions for local communities in terms of infrastructure. We're talking about supporting millions of jobs in this country, and so we will get to that.
I think your discomfort is that this indeed is a jobs bill and it will create more jobs, and the path has been started some months ago. Contrary to the path under the Bush administration, when jobs were lost, now they are being gained, and this bill will help gain them further.

Secondly, the gentleman from California talked about the unemployment rate in California. This bill extends unemployment compensation through the end of November of this year. So when he has a chance to help the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people who are looking for work in California--and those of you on the minority side who also face unemployment and who have tens, if not thousands, of people who are unemployed--how are you going to vote? Are you going to turn your backs on the unemployed who are looking for work? We'll have to see.

And then there is some reference to the tax provisions. As I will explain, there are numerous tax provisions to help small business in this bill, numerous provisions: the R&D tax credit; the biodiesel tax credit, which many want; the provision for real estate improvements to maintain the 15-year depreciation, which helps to stimulate jobs; jobs for service industries overseas, which they want; and allowing manufacturers to be able to use their AMT.

This is paid for, unlike the years I sat on the Ways and Means Committee under the Republicans when there was never anything paid for.

So the complaint is now we are closing loopholes. We're closing provisions worked out with the administration, that asked for a much larger package, that will make sure that the foreign tax credit is not abused so that jobs are shipped overseas. So instead, jobs are created in the United States of America. So this is about a jobs bill, a jobs bill to create jobs in the United States of America and to help those who can't find them get some help.

We will talk about the physician fix, or the effort to treat it--it's not really a fix. It's to provide reimbursement to physicians so that they can provide care for their patients. And so you say it's only 19 months. When you were in power, that was the most you did, and usually there was much less out. You're going to vote against that? Well, we'll see.

And there is a provision here relating to veterans, and I close with reference to this: The Military Officers Association of America has sent a letter saying they ``have strong support for H.R. 4213. The Military Officers Association of America is also grateful that H.R. 4213 includes authority to implement the administration's proposal to phase out the disability offset to military retired pay for service members forced into premature medical retirement as a result of service-caused disabilities.''

``It is patently inequitable that current law forces these members to fund their own VA disability compensation by forfeiting most or all of their military retired pay. H.R. 4213 properly acknowledges that such members should be vested for retired pay earned by service, independent of any service-caused disability.''

The test will come in a few hours where you stand on jobs and where you stand for the veterans of this country.