Political Quotes

“I came to the floor to talk about an outstanding citizen in our State. But before I do, while my colleague is here, I just want to thank him for a very well-reasoned statement. What we need is overall income tax code reform. My colleague from Delaware and I have the privilege of sitting on the Finance Committee. Even though the prospects for Tax Code reform are very slim between now and the election, perhaps shortly thereafter we can get about the seriousness of the Tax Code, making it more fair, more simple, taking revenue that otherwise escapes the Treasury because it goes into all these tax preferences called tax expenditures, tax loopholes, and use that revenue to lower everybody's rates, including the individual rates and the corporate rates. That is eminently common sense. The reason I want to point this out is because our friend from Delaware has just pointed out one of those loopholes in an industry that is certainly not hurting because the five top oil companies in the last quarter--that is 90 days--had profits, not revenue--the five top--north of $25 billion for five companies for 90 days--not revenue, profit. We do not begrudge them the profit. But should there be these tax preferences that have been etched into the Tax Code over a century that, in fact, allow this industry to have tax preferences--in other words, deductions--of $4 billion a year? I think that would be a place we could start on tax preferences.…”