October 25, 2009 07:15 PM UTC

Coffman, Lamborn...Polis Join Together To Disparage Health Reform Bill

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• by: Colorado Pols

Last Thursday night, Colorado Reps. Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn spent an hour on the floor of Congress logging their opposition to health reform legislation into the record. From said Congressional Record:

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker’s announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. COFFMAN) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Thank you, Mr. Speaker…

What we want to talk about tonight is the impact that health care reform, or the Democrat proposal, is having on small businesses throughout this country. It wasn’t that long ago that the President’s chief economic adviser, Christina Romer, looked at the proposal, H.R. 3200, and said that this could cost up to 5.5 million jobs. So it is important that we talk about why this happens.

About $900 billion is the target for the cost of the proposal, of H.R. 3200, with half of it coming from Medicare and with half of it coming from increased taxes, surcharges and penalties.

So, with that, let me first refer to my colleague from Colorado, Congressman DOUG LAMBORN, to talk about the effects of these new taxes, surcharges and penalties on small business…

[LAMBORN] I remember very fondly, Representative COFFMAN, when you and I served in the Colorado legislature together. It was before you were either the State treasurer or the Secretary of State in Colorado. I really knew at that time, as I think you knew with me, that we were proponents of small business and that we wanted to have lower taxes and a more favorable economic environment and climate for the State of Colorado so that young people would have jobs when they graduated from high school and college, so that we would have a strong economy and, I think, as a result of that, so that we would have a better quality of life.

Sure enough, with some other taxsaving kinds of measures the State voters passed, like TABOR, Colorado had the best business environment in the United States. Now it has slipped a little bit, but we’re still, in the latest ranking I’ve seen, No. 4 in the country. That’s an excellent thing. It’s because of trying to hold the line on taxes. So I’m concerned that, when we talk about H.R. 3200, the Waxman bill for health care which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are promoting, it is going to have a negative impact…

Boilerplate stuff you can watch on C-SPAN every day–until…

Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. I yield to my fellow Congressman from the State of Colorado, Mr. JARED POLIS.

Mr. POLIS. Sometimes there is common sense that we share across the aisle. I have said from the start, I think this surtax is a bad idea.

To explain it, there is a set tax structure for those of us who haven’t-and I have run small businesses, created over several hundred jobs. There is C corps, S corps, and LLCs. When we are talking about increasing this rate, this is the rate that affects S corps and LLCs. Those tend to be the small to midsize businesses, the backbone of America, a lot of family businesses, a lot of stores. I talked to a brewery in my town, those are the types of businesses that we are talking about.

The big corporations pay a tax rate of 35 percent. That is the corporate income tax rate. Currently, the marginal rate for these S corps and LLCs is also that same 35 percent. Now it’s scheduled to go up, that rate for S corps and LLCs anyway, because the Bush tax cuts are set to expire.

Now, I support that. I expect that you might oppose that, but that will raise it to 39.6 percent. It is that very same rate that this surcharge is scheduled to impact that would increase it at the margins an additional 5 percent. It would actually go up to 44.6 percent. In many States, that means that small businesses would be taxed at above 50 percent.

Now, I am hopeful that in the final version they will make some adjustments to that surtax. I sure hope they do. But I think it’s an excellent point to bring up to show this disparity between what large businesses and corporations are paying, 35 percent, and what our family-owned businesses and small businesses are paying, which could, under the taxation mechanism, be a higher one.

Now, there are several ways to address that. We could, of course, reduce the cost of the bill, and I hope that that’s a path that my party takes. There also are alternative payment mechanisms out there, some of which have been discussed in the Senate, some of which have more bipartisan support. I think it’s critical, particularly in a recession, but at any time, that we make sure that however we pay for health care is not harmful to small business, which is the goose that laid the golden egg and the job engine that will lead us out of this recession.

Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. In this proposal, that it is not-I think the Congressman well-stated it as to the issues on the income tax and that this is an additional burden…

As we’ve said repeatedly, the issue here is not just the substance of Polis’ objection, though once again we have one of Congress’ wealthiest members railing against a tax on the wealthiest Americans. Is that what CD-2 Democratic primary voters wanted?

More serious are the tactical problems the way he makes this case create for proponents of health reform legislation in general. Coffman and Lamborn’s 60 minutes of floor time was devoted to attacking the bill before the House, and Polis’ remarks serviced their attack–that’s why Coffman gave him the floor. In the Colorado Independent, Rep. Polis was described at a townhall meeting last weekend as “bucking” Democratic leadership, saying the “worst way to pay for [health reform] is the way that’s in the House version.”

That’s the one he’ll be voting on soon, isn’t it? With crunch time approaching, shouldn’t Polis be addressing his concerns legislatively instead of disparaging the bill publicly? Who does that help?

Your answer to the bottom-line question in all this–is Polis helping?–will vary, maybe depending on whether or not you want health reform to pass at all, obviously some do not. Polis’ objections to the House health reform bill will either be part of a solution, like he says he wants, or he will be marked as a freshman representative who helped obstruct of one of the Democratic Party’s key initiatives.

We know which outcome Coffman and Lamborn would prefer…