Political Quotes

“We come today in the midst of a debate at a time when there are wide areas of agreement in this Congress about things that we should do to help improve the country. We all acknowledge the importance of tax reform. Many people in this Chamber, on both sides of the aisle, have a lot of time and energy invested in it. And in the other Chamber, they are establishing working groups to explore the challenges. The administration has set reform proposals in its budget that could be a basis of discussion in moving forward. Our past chairman produced a substantial draft and was, sadly, maligned for, in fact, achieving his objective of a significant reform that was revenue-neutral. And what we are seeing today is another in a series of bills that have nothing to do with really achieving that objective. In fact, they run contrary to past reform efforts. Yesterday in committee, we marked up something that has broad agreement in terms of helping deal with problems of deductibility for sales tax in States that don't have income tax. This was an area that was dealt with by the gentleman from Michigan, then-Chairman Camp, in his reform bill. Our current chairman has called for a different treatment. We understand there are challenges dealing with it. But all of a sudden, we are just moving that forward too, and that is on the conveyor belt that is moving forward.…”