L. Paxon: “this is clearly an historic day in the history of this great legislative body. It is an historic day because it offers…”

“this is clearly an historic day in the history of this great legislative body. It is an historic day because it offers such a clear choice between two competing visions of how this institution should work. On one hand, we are hearing it today across the aisle, the defenders of the status quo in Washington. They like the 5.5 million word Tax Code. They think it is just fine because they spent their careers building it up, for one reason: They like high taxes. They think government should take money from the American people, send it here to Washington so the bureaucracy can spend it. They like the uncertainty that comes with the current Tax Code because it confuses people and they do not know what their tax situation is because over half of Americans because of this code are forced to seek professional assistance in rendering their taxes, and that does not even count the folks who have to seek professional psychiatric assistance once they are done trying to figure all this out. They like the fact that the special interests drive the debate because it is done behind closed doors and the American people never get a chance to have at these reforms, so-called reforms, of the current Tax Code. Mr. Speaker, on the other hand, it is all the rest of the country and an awful lot of us here in the Congress who think this is historic because we are going to change it. This legislation, the legislation that we have put forward today, reverses the trend.…”