Rob Portman

Yeah, I am talking about not lowering the tax, so it would be revenue-neutral, so there would be no reduction in the taxation.

We have the second highest corporate tax rate among our trading partners.

Thank you to the four patriots who are sitting before us, trying to avoid what Erskine Bowles talked about today.

If we don't get at that, the largest part and the fastest-growing part of the budget, we will, of course, not have accomplished our goal.

I would just ask you if you could comment on the unsustainable fiscal path that you have outlined repeatedly.

I didn't provide you enough specificity to be able to come up with a score, but you could come up with a score if certain decisions were made on timing?

Right, some of the interactions. Well, I think that would be very helpful, if we could give you some more specificity as to timing and specifically, you know, which preferences we are talking about because those sorts of scores are very…

This is something, if you can get back to us on that, it would be very helpful.

I think all of us are going to be really interested in that information because that goes to all the issues we talked about earlier about a more efficient Tax Code.

So I think it is a great point that the economy is going to drive so much of this.

It appears as though we are heading there if you look at the current policy baseline.

In fact, in looking around the world, and there is a recent report by Alberto Alesina of Harvard University showing that the most successful and pro-growth test of reduction took place in countries that relied chiefly on austerity…

If you lowered the corporate rate and did so by getting rid of some of the existing preferences and those preferences also applied to the pass-throughs, it would seem unfair.

I have some concerns about the current law baseline because I don't think it is realistic.

Building on what my colleague, Congressman Clyburn, just said and what Co-Chair Hensarling talked about earlier in terms of the impact of the deficit and debt on the economy.

I think Congressman Clyburn has just made a great point, which is the economy plays such a huge role here.

Our success or failure will depend in large measure on your good work.

It is about the economy and jobs.

One name that I've heard on the Republican side, Anderson, from a lot of Republicans in the Senate that keeps coming up is Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.

Your job is really important to Ohio. This is, I think, a key job for a lot of reasons...

We want the money to go to our troops, and we want it to be as efficiently and effectively spent as possible.

I think simplification and streamlining, dealing with some of these definitional problems, are really important.

I just think it is a question to be asked.

It is an incredibly important topic given the resources that we are devoting to Afghanistan.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, and again, I thank the witnesses for being here today.