Hensarling on House Action to Make the Tax Code Fairer & Simpler
WASHINGTON – House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) delivered the following remarks today on the House floor in support of H.R. 6169, the Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012, which would provide an expedited path to comprehensive pro-growth tax reform in 2013.
“Every single day we see more proof of the president’s failed economic policies. We just have heard that last quarter’s GDP was revised down. It’s probably two thirds of what it ought to be. 41 straight months of 8 percent-plus unemployment. Millions can’t find jobs, millions more only can find part-time work. Real disposable income of working families is down under this president’s failed policies. And because his policies have failed, he resorts to the politics of diversion, division, and envy: change the subject – let’s talk about taxes, let’s divide Americans into smaller groups and make them envious of each other.
“So the president comes and says, ‘Let’s increase taxes; let’s increase taxes on a million small businesses.’ Fact: Ernst & Young has said this will cost our economy 700,000 jobs. Fact: Small businesses now say, for the first time in almost four years, the greatest threat is not lack of sales, it’s taxes. And that’s why House Republicans voted yesterday to stop the tax increases. Stop the tax increases.
“Today, we take the next step. And that is to create a process for a fairer, flatter, simpler, and more competitive tax code – one that will ensure that the family budget doesn’t go broke paying for the federal budget; one that ensures that the success of working families depends on how hard they work in their hometowns and not the size of their tax loopholes in Washington, DC.
“Now, my friends from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, they have great theories that we are going to tax are way into economic growth – if only we will tax small businesses more, then somehow they’ll create more jobs. Beatings will continue until morale improves, is their theory.
“Well we have history. Go to the Coolidge administration, the Kennedy administration, the Reagan administration, the Bush administration. Every time we have lowered marginal rates, every time that we have simplified the tax code, not only have we ignited economic growth, but we’ve actually received more tax revenues. And yet my friends from the other side of the aisle and the president want to defend the status quo, only more so.
“And now I wake up this morning to discover that as they defend the global system, that even our Olympians are going to be taxed on their Olympic medals. So we’ve had a president who told every small businessman in America, every small businesswoman: ‘You didn’t build that.’ By defending this global system, they now tell our Olympians: ‘You didn’t win that. That belongs to the Internal Revenue [Service].’
“This is what it is about today: less taxes and more jobs; more taxes, fewer jobs.”
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For additional information, contact:
House Republican Conference Press Office (conferencepress@mail.house.gov)
