Last night, I intended to offer a motion to recommit that would have eliminated the new, onerous, job-killing 1099 requirement that is in the health care law.  In addition to helping small businesses, the motion to recommit would have better protected taxpayers from erroneously paying too much in health insurance subsidies.  The motion would have cut taxes, cut spending, protected taxpayers and reduced the deficit.

Because Democrat leaders were too afraid to let their members vote on a pro-jobs, pro-small business, pro-taxpayer, pro-deficit reduction bill they cancelled the vote and pulled the bill.

Instead, we are here today – as we have been so often under the heavy handed tactics of the Majority – voting on a bill that has not been reviewed by the Ways and Means Committee, and has not been reviewed by employers or the American public.

The result?  Democrats have created a bill that pits American employers against other American employers; worker against worker and neighbor against neighbor.  With unemployment stuck at nearly 10 percent, Democrats are again playing politics with American jobs.  This is not a time for politics; this is a time to get serious about the economy and helping businesses create jobs. 

Frankly, it did not have to be this way and it should not have been this way.  There is a way to pay for this repeal of the 1099 requirement without punishing job providers and their workers and their families.

I have in my hands a way to do this without raising taxes and without killing jobs.  It is the motion to recommit I intended to offer last night, and I ask that it be inserted into the Congressional Record so everyone can see that we can save jobs without raising taxes.

Small businesses supported the measure, Republicans supported the measure, and it is clear that rank-and-file Democrats would have supported the measure.  Somehow, Democrat leaders are so opposed to helping small businesses – the real job creators in this country – that they wouldn’t even allow a vote on a full repeal of the 1099 requirement that didn’t include a massive, job-killing tax increase. 

Why are the Democrats so afraid to work with Republicans to help America’s job creators?  Why won’t Democrats allow Republican to offer any amendments on behalf of small businesses?  Why are they so bent on raising taxes? Isn’t the over $670 billion in tax increases they have already enacted into law enough?

Why?  It is because Democrats are more interested in protecting their trillion-dollar health care law than solving legitimate problems being expressed by the American people and American employers.

So, while it is clear that Democrats have admitted the burden imposed by their health care law is a job-killer, they are offering no solution today because the bill before us will undoubtedly kill jobs.

Frankly, this is a missed opportunity.  It is a missed opportunity to fix a fundamental flaw in the health care law and a missed opportunity to truly help American employers and the jobs they provide. A job, is a job, is a job.

I urge my colleagues to stand up for job-providers by demanding a full repeal of the 1099 requirement that does not impose other job-killing tax increases.

Video of Rep. Camp’s remarks is available here.

###