[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TIME TO CREATE A TAX SYSTEM THAT PROMOTES FREEDOM

  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I found a statement by Richard 
E. Byrd, who was speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1908 
to 1914, which was the time when the income tax began. He predicted and 
I quote:

       A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed 
     upon every man's business; the eye of the Federal inspector 
     will be in every man's counting house * * * the law will of 
     necessity have inquisitorial features, * * * it will provide 
     penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men 
     will be haled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy 
     fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will 
     constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal 
     inspectors, spies, and detectives will descend upon the 
     State.

  Unfortunately, I believe the gentleman's prediction was right.
  We in Congress have created a system that has grown from 11,000 to 7 
million words, from 14 pages to over 9,000, and now has 480 different 
tax forms that require an additional 280 forms to describe the first 
480. I don't believe this system is either simple or fair.
  I will ask anyone to tell me that it is simple and fair when they can 
explain why 50 different tax experts, given the same return for a 
family of 4, come back with 50 different answers.
  And why does it take over 115,000 IRS agents to enforce this Tax 
Code. Does anyone realize that there are more IRS agents than are 
employed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and 
the Drug Enforcement Agency combined.
  I have to agree with Fred Goldberg, the IRS Commissioner under George 
Bush who said:

       The IRS has become a symbol of the most intrusive, 
     oppressive, and nondemocratic institution in a Democratic 
     society.
       Not to mention overly complex, economically destructive, 
     unprincipled, inefficient, and discriminatory.
       Discriminatory because, as stated by Justin Morrill, a 
     Member of this body back in 1866, in this country we neither 
     create nor tolerate any distinction of rank, race, or color, 
     and should not tolerate anything else than entire equality in 
     our taxes.

  Even the Founding Fathers were opposed to any politics based on 
income differences, because they feared it would lead to class warfare. 
They believed that comity and tolerance among the States and classes 
were the preconditions for a unified country.
  I believe that the current system has divided the Nation because it 
says, that if you work hard and make a good living you should be 
punished. To all those who say the current system is fair I would like 
to point out a recent Readers Digest poll which found that Americans 
believe that no one should pay more than 25 percent in taxes and that 
is Federal, State, and local combined. And this feeling was universal 
across race, economic, and gender lines.
  I believe it is time to create a tax system that promotes freedom. 
Freedom to me means a system that is fair and simple, encourages 
savings and investment, is efficient, drives the economy, provides 
opportunity for all and puts more money in your pocket.
  That is why we will introduce a resolution to repeal the 16th 
amendment to the Constitution. The American public will see how 
destructive our tax system really is. I believe as Abraham Lincoln did 
that ``with public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can 
succeed.'' That is why I call on Congress and the American people to 
help us pull up the income tax system by its roots and replace it with 
a system that gives everybody the chance to succeed in attaining the 
American dream.

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