Political Quotes

“like everyone, I am severely distressed about the complexity of the tax code and the high rate of taxes. As a nation, each year we spend 5.2 billion hours complying with and enforcing the tax code. That is more hours than the Department of Defense spends defending the nation. My first instinct when I hear statistics like this is to tear the tax code up by its roots and replace it with a simplified system. However, the plain facts are that in our complex, hi-tech global economy, such a move would introduce tremendous uncertainty into our markets and threaten the sustained prosperity this nation is enjoying. Unemployment is at its lowest rate in 28 years, 16 million new jobs have been created, and CBO projects that we will have a budget surplus for the first time since 1969. The simple fact is that businesses, families, and charities need to plan. Without a tax code in place, families looking to buy homes based upon the tax advantages of the home mortgage deduction would hold off their purchase thus crippling the housing market. Family health insurance would be threatened because the tax status of employer-provided health benefits would be uncertain. Businesses rely on various tax credits to give them the incentive to invest in research and development, to engage in environmentally sound behavior, and to overcome various market failures. Scraping the tax code invites the return of those market failures and the inefficiencies that accompany them.”