On the recordOctober 5, 2017
Mr. President, not too long ago--I believe this was 2011--a President came to a joint session of Congress and before the American people, he said what needed to be said about our Tax Code. He was pretty blunt. He said that our Tax Code is ``rigged.'' He said: ``It makes no sense, and it has to change.'' Of course, you can imagine, that was met with bipartisan applause in the House Chamber and across the country. The same President called on Democrats and Republicans to ``simplify the system, get rid of the loopholes, and . . . lower the corporate tax rate''--one that, I might add, ranks among the highest in the industrialized world. That President, like the rest of us, knows that our business tax rate is a self-inflicted economic wound because businesses figure out, How can I move money offshore and my headquarters offshore, and if I earn money overseas, how can I avoid bringing that back to the United States for better wages and more jobs and to build the business? That is all because of our self-destructive Tax Code. But the President's name--and I gave it away by saying the year the speech was given. The President's name might surprise you, given the nature of the current debate in Washington. It was Barack Obama who said that, and the straight talk came from his 2011 State of the Union address. Let's fast forward a few years. We have a new President from a different party beating the same drum.…
Source
govinfo.gov




