[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 1075]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         CHANGING OUR TAX CODE

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we talk a lot here about tax cuts. We 
talk about tax increases. But we do not often talk about changing our 
Tax Code. The President's proposal makes 192 separate changes to the 
Tax Code. The IRS book is about 5 pounds. The code itself is already 
3,400 pages of text. That is 1,600 pages longer than the King James 
version of the Bible, and at least the Bible is large type, but you 
need a magnifying glass to read the IRS code. There are more than 2000 
separate sections of the Code, tens of thousands of subsections, tens 
of thousands of pages of regulations and interpretive rulings. Now the 
President wants to add another 192 sections to the code which will 
surely make up several hundred additional pages of mindless complexity.
  As I indicated, the President is proposing more than $95 billion of 
new taxes on a wide variety of industries. There are new taxes that are 
being proposed at a time when the Government is already taking in more 
than it spends. I wonder if there is any end to Washington's appetite 
for more money from the American people.
  Regarding especially the President's proposal to impose $1 billion in 
new taxes on our mining industry, I guess he is trying to drive it 
offshore. The President has submitted this proposal every year for at 
least the past 4 years and I say this proposal is going to meet the 
same fate it has met every time it has been sent to the hill. It will 
be killed, and I can promise you that. I can assure you, the same 
tired, worn-out proposals to add $13 billion of new taxes to the 
insurance industry will never again see the light of day. I notice 
there are other proposals the President has proposed, but I am sure 
most of my colleagues share my sentiment that we do not need to raise 
taxes by $95 billion at this time, when most of what is contained in 
the tax code should be summarily rejected.
  I conclude by saying what we need is tax reform. As a consequence, 
the President's proposal to add 192 separate sections to the Tax Code 
hardly is reform.

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