Tim Scott: “Mr. Speaker, it is tax day. I am certainly not going to stand up and defend the existing system as either comprehensible…”

“Mr. Speaker, it is tax day. I am certainly not going to stand up and defend the existing system as either comprehensible to mere mortals or for being fair. It is extraordinarily unfair, the current tax system, in this country. We have heaped a massive burden on middle income wage earning families in this country. Earlier one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle stood up and carried on at great length about the tax system of 40 years ago. The gentleman was correct. The tax system 40 years ago was much more fair. The top rate was twice what it is today. The wealthiest Americans paid twice as much percentagewise as they pay today, corporations carried twice as much of the total tax burden in this country as they do today, and they were doing quite well in the days of Dwight David Eisenhower. So corporations were paying a larger share, the wealthy were paying a larger share, and, yes, under those conditions middle income wage earning folks could pay a lower part of their salary in taxes, and we could have that again today. But I fear under this amendment that the last thing this Congress is going to do with a two-thirds vote requirement is raise taxes on the wealthiest one-half of 1 percent of the people in this country who are doing quite well, thank you very much, or raise taxes on those corporations who in fact are paying no taxes.”