On the recordNovember 29, 2017
I thank my colleagues who are on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Budget Committee for getting us to the point we are at today. I think we are approaching a vote to move to a full debate on the tax bill, which is absolutely amendable with every idea that has anything to do with taxes and raising money, so people will have every right to be heard. It has been a process that has gone on for a long time. But what we have seen happen over the last three decades--after an incredible effort in 1986 to simplify the Tax Code, to bring it up-to-date and make it competitive, what we have seen is a tax code that gradually has become more and more complicated. There are too many loopholes that don't seem to be fair to everyone involved. Sometimes, it is not as much the tax rate you are paying, as your understanding that somebody else has figured out--in a competitive business or not even the same business--how to find that tax loophole, which meant they weren't paying their fair share of taxes. Our Tax Code depends on a sense of fairness. It depends on a sense of equity. The out-of-date Tax Code means that some of the rates-- particularly in international competition that might have been just fine 30 years ago--simply aren't fine today. Other countries have continued to reduce their taxes. They understand, as many of our States do in this country, that a tax policy that works means an economy that grows. Many of our competitors have figured that out.…
