Don Nickles: “I got on the Finance Committee because I did not like the way our tax system was structured. I want to work with our…”

“I got on the Finance Committee because I did not like the way our tax system was structured. I want to work with our colleagues from Mississippi and Texas, to take the Tax Code and rewrite it and come up with something that is fair, flat, and simple. This is tobacco bill just the opposite. This is a mess. We could clean this bill up a lot if we went through the conventional process, if we had the Finance Committee mark up this bill on the tax side and call a tax a tax. Instead, we have this unbelievably complicated system, and the look-back is maybe the most complicated. Delegating to the Secretary of the Treasury to take a poll, and then, if they don't meet the targets that we set, we are going to assess them billions of dollars, up to $7 billion or $8 billion, I find to be ludicrous. It doesn't make sense. It is not a good way to legislate. That is the reason that the Commerce Committee doesn't have taxation power, in the Senate. In the Senate, the Finance Committee has the power to raise taxes.”