Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Today is tax day, and for millions of Americans, this is the day that they end their painful ritual of fiscal fealty to…”

“Today is tax day, and for millions of Americans, this is the day that they end their painful ritual of fiscal fealty to the Federal Government. So I thought it would be appropriate to cite a few statistics that make tax day possible: 136,000 is the number of employees of the IRS responsible for administering the tax laws; $13.7 billion, that is the amount that it costs to administer and enforce the Tax Code; 480 is the number of forms printed by the IRS; 8 billion--8 billion--is the number of pages of forms and instructions sent out by the IRS every year; 293,760 is the number of trees that must be cut down each year to supply the 8 billion pages of paper needed for filing the country's taxes. Mr. President, these are just a few of the statistics that point out the complexity and the burden that our Tax Code puts on the American family and the Nation itself. The typical American family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined. That is more than 38 percent for total taxes versus 28 percent for food, clothing, and housing. This year, the Republican Congress wants to do something unusual for the taxpayers of our country: Give their money back to them.”