[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 148 (Wednesday, October 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H9630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE IN NEED OF REFORM

  (Mr. ROGAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, Republicans in the House are committed to 
reforming the IRS. For weeks the White House was signaling that they 
were going to battle us on that issue, and they issued repeated 
pronouncements defending the IRS. When the White House decided this was 
an unsustainable political position, last week the White House decided 
to reverse course: The administration indicated it would join 
Republicans and work with us to reform the IRS. Today we see their 
rhetoric does not match reality. This weekend Treasury Secretary Robert 
Rubin said the administration disagrees with Republican calls to scrap 
17,000 pages of IRS rules and regulations.
  In proclaiming support for this 17,000 page monstrosity, the 
administration claimed it gives taxpayers ``predictability.'' 
Ironically, they are right. The IRS Code is predictably too complex; it 
predictably favors its political friends; it predictably punishes its 
political enemies.
  We will never have real tax reform in this country until we do away 
with those 17,000 pages of rules and regulations and give the taxpayers 
a fairer, flatter Tax Code. That is the ``predictability'' Americans 
are seeking, and it is the predictability they deserve.

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