We've got an extraordinarily complex tax system that's full of loopholes that are exploited by special interests. I'd like to see those loopholes closed.
The tax code is a monstrosity and there's only one thing to do with it. Scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people.
But what is striking about this, in a town that often talks about tax cuts, we could quite easily, Republicans and Democrats working together, do something that everybody in America desires, and that is a simplification of our Tax Code.
One of the high spots of the decade for me was offering the bill which culminated in the tax act of 1986, which brought rates down. That was the most difficult problem to solve: how to make the tax system of the United States more fair. We tried to make it simpler, but we failed on that one.
[T]he tax code has been piling up, year after year, a symbol of everything gone wrong in America, of arrogant rulers and lost freedom, just waiting for us to pick the whole thing up and heave it away. It has to happen. Free people can put up with such laws only for so long.
We could quite easily, Republicans and Democrats working together, do something that everybody in America desires, and that is a simplification of our Tax Code.
In 1994, Estonia became the first European country to adopt a flat tax, and its 26 percent flat tax dramatically energized what had been a faltering economy. Before adopting the flat tax, the Estonian economy was literally shrinking. In the eight years after 1994, Estonia experienced real economic growth - averaging 5.2 percent per year.
The question is: What can we, as citizens, do to reform our tax system? As you know, under our three-branch system of government, the tax laws are created by: Satan. But he works through the Congress, so that's where we must focus our efforts.
If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents.
I think that taxes would be fair if we first get rid of the tax code. This is the ultimate solution, not to just say we're going to trim around the edges, not to say that we will try to simplify a little of this and a little of that. The problem is, replace the tax code, so we can establish tax fairness for everybody.
Rather than passing a thousand pages of tax reform legislation and restarting the tax code manipulation process, we should change the paradigm. It is time to eliminate the IRS and repeal the 16th Amendment.
Here's my thinking: Since tax reform only occurs once a generation, let's not tweak what we have and call it a day.
