Dan Coats: “I cannot help but agree with my friend. It is a sad situation that we have in this country as our economy is kind of…”

“I cannot help but agree with my friend. It is a sad situation that we have in this country as our economy is kind of limping along, and so many young people graduating from school recently are unable to find meaningful jobs and work; so many middle- age Americans trying to raise a family and save money to send their children to school are out of work and cannot find employment, not only at the level they were previously used to but even at a lower level. It is a situation that requires Congress enacting policies that will do everything we can to stimulate this economy and get America back to work. As I said earlier, comprehensive tax reform has been described by about everyone who has looked at this situation as an essential component of the kind of reforms necessary to get us back to fiscal health. As the Senator from Oregon said, one of the components of the tax reform plan, the Wyden-Coats plan, is that we want to maintain revenue neutrality but at the same time we want to go after those tax exclusions and exemptions and subsidies that favor a few but do not have broad application. They have been added over the years, particularly since 1986 when we had our last comprehensive tax reform. Over these last 25 years, a number of special breaks, special subsidies, special exemptions have been added totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.…”