Posted on 06/10/2006 4:08:08 PM PDT by pigdog
[Page: H9439] GPO's PDF --- The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, the President's tax commission has completed its work and sent its report to the Treasury Department. When this started 8 or 9 months ago, I said as often as I could that I wish you would not appoint a commission because the only thing that I have seen commissions do in my lifetime is raise taxes. Only on the rich, of course.
Well, guess what: This commission has decided to raise taxes only on the rich. They chose not to do anything bold. They took a tax system that you and I have come to know and love and kept it in place and did nothing to do the exciting things they could have done. The FairTax bill, which I have introduced, would have changed much of what we know about the tax system. For example, the commissioners knew that 22 percent of what we currently pay for at retail represents the embedded cost of the current IRS. You are paying the tax cost and compliance cost of every one of the thousands of corporations and businesses that it took to make that house. The only way a business can pay a bill is through price and consumers are the only taxpayers in the world. They chose to ignore that and leave us disadvantaged in the global economy with a 22 percent tax component in our price system. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS, would have ended that. The Tax Foundation has concluded that in 2003 we spent $203 billion just complying with the Tax Code. We spent 6.6 billion man-hours. They chose to ignore that. Getting rid of that cost would add a 2 or $3 trillion tax cut over 10 years to create jobs and create wealth. They chose to ignore that. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS, would have eliminated that.
They knew, as we know, that currently 2 to $3 trillion is in the underground economy, not paying taxes. They chose to leave that in place and not change that by keeping the IRS in place. The FairTax, by getting rid of the IRS and taxing consumption, would have taxed the underground economy.
They knew, as we know, that there is today in offshore financial centers, in dollar denominated deposits, $10 trillion. These are deposits that want to be in dollars for safety and they want secrecy. If we were to get rid of the IRS, those dollars would be in our markets and our banks and our credit unions. And we would not have the bankruptcies of Delta and Northwest and United and future bankruptcies to come because their pension plans are not up to par because the driving up of the markets with those $10 trillion would have saved them. They chose to ignore that and did nothing bold.
The President has made a very clear case that Social Security can drown us all. What he did not say was that Medicare was four times as bad as Social Security. They constitute for us today and our grandchildren a $75 trillion problem. Let me put that in perspective for you. If you started a business on the day Jesus Christ was born and lost $1 million a day through yesterday, it would take you another 719 years to lose $1 trillion. $75 trillion.
The FairTax changes the way we gather money for Social Security. Instead of taxing 158 million workers to pay for the retirees, we tax 300 million Americans every time they buy something and 50 million visitors to our shores to save those programs in 15 years by doubling the size of the economy in 15 years. The tax commission chose to ignore that.
Mr. Speaker, it is sad to put all of that effort into play for so many months and come up with such a predictable result, which is to raise taxes on the wealthy. This is not going to change anything. They pointed out in an article in today's paper, two of the commissioners, that the last major simplification was in 1986 and they reduced two levels of taxation and eliminated many deductions. They further pointed out that it has been amended 15,000 times since then. Do they believe that future Congresses are not going to be the same if you have the income tax in place? I think they are wrong. I think they missed a wonderful opportunity to do something bold for our economy and something bold for our country and it saddens me.
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Short - a 5 minute speech - and very much worth the read ...
A Taxreform bump for you all.
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all federal income, SS/Medicare payroll, and gift/estate taxes outright replacing them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
A pox on the house of anyone who had anything to do with that commission. It was a farce and the American people yawned. The only time I have been almost as ballistic as 9-11 was when this commission's recommendations were made public.
Pitchforks and torches. We might as well elect Hillary so we can get on with it.
Guess what it found? I owe over 500,000 dollars.
75,000,000,000,000 / 281,400,000 = $266,524.52
That is your share of the debt and contingent liabilities not including such things as federal pensions. That is also your child's share, your mother's share, the wino down the street's share.
Oh yeah, and they probably got PAID for throwing rubber stamps at each other.
They were nothing more than Washington establishment. A bunch of political hacks who are not going to rock any boat anywhere. They were vaseline jars for K-Street.
Very nice speech by Linder.
Well, for one thing we have FEC and whoever selects the debate opponents for presidential elections. They don't even consider anything outside of Republican and Democrat anymore. Why is that?
Pay up, dedbeet!! I already paid mine last week.
Far too much based upon results (zero)! But you can't divide by zero and get anything meaningful (either).
Wow, you mean all that other stuff amounts to that much too???
I realize we don't want to underpay our Congresscritters, but that's ridiculous.
I KNOW!! Let's pass the FairTax into law so that taxpayers can know how much "their government" costs them with no uncertainty and see how long it takes taxpayers to put the squeeze on both the funds AND the over-spending pols.
... Instead of taxing 158 million workers to pay for the retirees, we tax 300 million Americans every time they buy something...What a moron! He fits right in as the Fairtax leader.
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