Jack Kingston: “I might also say that it is interesting that in the tax break package that is being offered by the Republican majority…”

“I might also say that it is interesting that in the tax break package that is being offered by the Republican majority in this House that there was another Ronald Reagan program called the alternate minimum tax. For those who do not know what the alternate minimum tax is, this is a tax that the richest corporations in the United States pay. President Reagan, with very good thought and vision, put this into practice, because oftentimes the richest corporations in this country, when they took all of their deductions, would find that they had a zero tax obligation. He thought, as did others, that it would be unfair to have that occur, that the richest corporations in the country would not be paying some portion or a fair share of taxes the way that ordinary Americans pay their taxes. So he put in a 20 percent rate, and the Congress approved of a 20 percent rate on the richest corporations in the country. Into that tax package that the Republicans are proposing, the $245 billion tax break package, the alternate minimum tax is repealed, repealed, which means that, once again, if this passes and is law, that the richest corporations in the United States will have a zero tax obligation. It is a $17 billion windfall to the richest corporations.”