Political Quotes

“9 years have passed since I first joined the Senate Finance Committee. For each of those 9 years, I have looked forward to working on tax reform. In the House of Representatives, a million years ago, I had the privilege of working on tax reform legislation led by President Reagan, led by Tip O'Neill, Dan Rostenkowski, Bill Bradley, Bob Packwood, and others, which actually worked. It got us where we wanted to go, with lower rates and a more simplified code. Tax reform takes time. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort. There is a lot of give and take. When we did that in 1986, the Congress took 2 years of public hearings, 2 years of meetings, and 2 years of bipartisan negotiations. The idea that a permanent and enduring tax reform plan today can come to fruition in mere weeks is what they call in my State ``the triumph of [a man's] hope over experience.'' Any tax legislation that is purely partisan, written in the dark, and rushed to the finish line is bound to be poorly designed and riddled with inadvertent errors. A flawed process results in a flawed product. When considering any tax policy, I look at it through a prism of 4 questions: No. 1, is it fair? No. 2, does it foster economic growth or impede it? No. 3, does it simplify the Tax Code or make it even more complex? And No. 4, is it fiscally responsible? Those are the four questions. Unfortunately, the Republican tax reform plan fails the test on, sadly, all four of these questions.…”