Ben Cardin: “Mr. Speaker, I have heard my distinguished chairman make his argument many times about the fact that we did this problem…”

“Mr. Speaker, I have heard my distinguished chairman make his argument many times about the fact that we did this problem as Democrats when we were in the majority. I would think that after 10 years, the statute of limitations should have run on that argument. The Republicans have had 10 years in which to act. I guess one of the problems that I have, Mr. Speaker, is that this bill did not go through a markup in the Committee on Ways and Means. We did not have an opportunity to offer amendments. The chairman complains about the fact that we do not like the title of this bill, Tax Simplification for Americans Act. If we had had it in committee, maybe I would have had a chance to offer an amendment to clarify exactly what this bill does, which is very little. It does not carry out a commitment that was made by the Republicans to simplify our Tax Code. We bring that up because, as my colleagues have already pointed out, there were statements made 10 years ago when the Republicans took control of this body that tax simplification was going to be their top priority, and they simply have not delivered on that. We have not had any bold proposals. Instead, what does the record show? Well, we have seen that the number of pages of the Internal Revenue Code and Regulation now equals 54,846 pages. That is a 35 percent increase from what it was in 1995. That is hardly tax simplification.”