"...For years, Congress has "patched" the tax, exempting taxpayers for a few years at a time. But this year, McKeon said, Democrats are trying to make up the revenue the tax would provide by creating what he called a new tax.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and other Democrats have said "pay-as-you-go" rules - which require lawmakers to find cost savings or new taxes before suggesting new spending or tax breaks - require Congress to find a way to make up the $50 billion the alternative minimum tax would bring in if not fixed.
"House Democrats have suggested a plan - one the president has threatened to veto - that would make up the difference by cutting a tax break for hedge-fund managers who keep money in offshore bank accounts.
"So yes, tax relief for 23 million families, 10,000 or fewer people paying the price," Pelosi told Marketwatch. "What is the alternative? ... To borrow."
"But McKeon disagrees.
"The Democrats in the House are trying to raise taxes elsewhere," he said Friday. "This tax never should have been - it was never planned in the first place."
"The sticking point, he said, is that Republicans and Democrats can't agree on whether the money the "unpatched" tax would provide should be figured into the budget process.
"They're saying it should be and we're saying it isn't," he said. "You don't need to invent a tax to replace a tax that never was a tax."
More from McKeon, excerpted from McKeon.house.gov
Immigration
"The statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke once said, “A nation is not a thing of mere physical locality.” That is why the debate on immigration policy has become so heated. It is not just a discussion about how many people the nation needs to admit to sustain its economic development. It is, rather, at its core a discussion about just what kind of nation the United States is going to be."
"...History, from Belgium to the Balkans, suggests that societies without a common language are not happy, let alone economically prosperous."
"...90% of the increase in people living below the poverty line has come from the immigrant Hispanic population... America is literally importing Mexico’s poverty."
"...a nation that does not control its borders is not really a sovereign nation."
"...the United States must not grant illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship – amnesty by whatever name."
"...more than most countries, the United States is not a “mere thing of physical locality.” It is not simply territory and people, rather it is, as Lincoln said, a nation dedicated to a proposition. That proposition is one of free government and of ordered liberty. For that idea to endure across generations, there must be a citizenry that is deeply marinated in the cultural and political ethos of the nation – including fluency in its language and its history."
Buck McKeon, accessorized with a smart B-2 pin. The 25th District is pretty big, 340 miles from Santa Clarita in the south to Bridgeport in the north.
