[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 11871]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FUNDAMENTAL TAX REFORM NEEDED

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, today in the Committee on Ways and Means 
we are holding a hearing on tax reform. We have a tax system that is 
needlessly complicated, inequitable, and burdensome to the middle 
class. We need fundamental tax reform that reflects the values and the 
interests of our middle-class families, not the special interests.
  President Bush when he announced the commission said his core 
principle is that tax reform should not adversely affect government 
revenues. The democratic core principle of tax reform is it should not 
adversely affect the middle class, not the government. It is the middle 
class that is our taxpayer.
  In the last 4 years, the Tax Code has been filled with special breaks 
for special interests. At the same time, the tax burden has shifted 
from wealth to work, form passive dividends to daily wages.
  Madam Speaker, four objectives of tax reform:
  Take the five different educational tax breaks for college education 
and make it one $3,000 credit per child going to college.
  Second, simplify family credit. Take the earned income tax credit, 
the per child and the dependent care and go from 20 pages of code down 
to 12 questions.
  Third, on retirement, bring the 16 different versions of the Tax Code 
on savings down to a universal pension.
  Madam Speaker, these things would help the middle class eliminate 
burdensome paperwork and eliminate pages and pages of Tax Code and help 
the middle class achieve a middle-class dream.

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