Ron Wyden: “while Senators talk about prebuttal and rebuttal speeches before the State of the Union speech, I hear middle- class…”

“while Senators talk about prebuttal and rebuttal speeches before the State of the Union speech, I hear middle- class folks saying ``drop the buts and make our lives easier.'' I know because in January, when I was home, I held 21 community meetings. The big issues then were those where the second word was ``bill''--medical bills, gas bills, heating bills, mortgage bills, college bills, and especially tax bills. It is not hard to see why those are the issues. Middle-class folks in this country are not keeping up. Even their wages do not keep up with inflation. And while they want a better life for their kids--the way their parents wanted for them--they stay up nights worrying that they cannot make it happen. So today I want to spend a few minutes discussing just two issues: taxes and health care. I believe in each of these two issues Congress could work on a bipartisan basis for genuine relief for the middle class. We may not hear about it tonight, but as middle-class folks begin pulling together their 1099s, their W-2s, their schedule this and schedule that, and all of what they have to do to comply with filling out their tax forms, I simply wanted to come to the floor and say it does not have to be this way. I brought, today, just part of what constitutes the regulations and rules for complying with taxes in America. One of the experts in the field told me there have been more than 14,000 amendments to the Tax Code since the last major overhaul in 1986.…”