Mike Conaway: “Because, as you know, I am only one election away from being back in public practice. So maintaining my credentials that…”

“Because, as you know, I am only one election away from being back in public practice. So maintaining my credentials that I have used for 30-plus years is important. Part of that work I did was with taxpayers, folks who actually make money and then pay taxes on that money. There is nothing inherently moral or immoral about a tax rate. The number in itself is not magic. We have gotten ourselves into a real ugly box in comparing or contrasting or linking spending issues with particular tax rates. In my view, those are entirely two different issues all together. We ought to determine what we ought to spend and what that appropriate amount is and then figure out how to collect the minimum amount of taxes needed to spend that. To the extent we try to link tax cuts on one type of a taxpayer to spending in other areas is a false argument. It is a straw man that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I can assure you that the Federal Government's accounting system does not put cash from this particular tax rate into this bucket that is only spent on welfare; from this tax rate into one bucket, only goes in the Defense. Cash is fungible. I think we should reformulate the debate away from this idea that there is some link between the specific tax rates and specific spending issues, because I believe that is just a false argument, and it leads us down a bad path.”