[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12020]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE FAIRTAX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come to the floor today. 
I'm still a little bit winded. I was over in the Ways and Means 
Committee room where we were talking about exactly these issues. I'm 
embarrassed that my fitness is in such a state that running up the 
stairs winds me.
  But that's what happens when you don't focus on something, when you 
don't put in the time it takes to stay fit; things degrade. And that's 
exactly what's happened with our economy, Mr. Speaker. It's absolutely 
true that folks are out of work, and it's absolutely true that the best 
form of unemployment relief is a paycheck. It's not an unemployment 
check. It's a paycheck.
  But why are these jobs going overseas? And this is the real debate 
that happens up here absolutely every day because people just believe 
different things about how it is that we put Americans back to work. 
Every single person who comes to this House floor wants Americans to go 
back to work, wants America's economy to be the pride of the world once 
again.
  But I will tell you the reason we lose jobs overseas is not because 
we're taxing businesses too little; it's because we're taxing 
businesses too much. We have the single highest corporate tax rate in 
the world in America. Why does Sony want to locate their next plant 
here? Why does Rico want to locate their next plant here? Why does 
Whirlpool want to keep their plants here? We punish business in this 
country through our Tax Code like no other country in the world.
  Now, is there a regulatory component to that too that we need to 
solve to make America attractive for business? There absolutely is. Is 
there a health care component of that if those costs rise? Absolutely 
there is. Is there a payroll tax cost in that we need to address, the 
largest tax 80 percent of Americans pay? Absolutely there is.
  There is only one proposal in the House that does it, and the Ways 
and Means Committee right now across the street right here behind you, 
Mr. Speaker, in the Ways and Means Committee room, is holding a hearing 
on H.R. 25, the FairTax.
  The FairTax eliminates these income taxes and moves America to a 
consumption tax model. America is the only country in the OECD nations, 
those economically developed nations, that does not have a consumption 
tax. The FairTax shifts us in that direction.
  And what it does for the first time, the only bill in Congress that 
does it, it eliminates every single bit of corporate welfare in the 
United States Tax Code. Oil companies, gone. Solar companies, gone. 
Foreign companies, gone. Every single tax break in the Code is 
abolished, Mr. Speaker, because we know the free market works best when 
the market is free. And we know that businesses don't pay taxes. 
Consumers pay taxes.
  There is not a penny that we charge Walmart that they don't roll 
right into their costs and pass it along to us. You see it. You see it 
absolutely every day. If we raise gas taxes, gas prices are going to go 
up. If we lower gas taxes, gas prices go down. The market sorts those 
things out.
  Have you ever been to a Coke machine, Mr. Speaker? I'm from Atlanta; 
so I'll talk to you about Coke machines. But usually they're going to 
sit beside a Pepsi machine. Have you ever seen that Coke costs $1 and 
the Pepsi right beside it cost $2? No. Do you ever see the Coke sell 
for $1.50 and the Pepsi beside it try to sell for $5? No. And that's 
not just because Coke's a wonderful product. It's because the consumer 
rules in America and price matters. You can't charge whatever you want; 
you can only charge what the consumer will pay. And when taxes go up, 
consumers have to pay more.
  The FairTax, Mr. Speaker, will bring those jobs back to America like 
no other proposal in this Congress. It eliminates those corporate 
income taxes, and it eliminates payroll taxes. Have you thought about 
your payroll tax recently? It is 15.3 percent of every paycheck that 
you get.
  Now, the wealthy don't pay payroll taxes because they're making their 
money in interest or dividends or capital gains, these things that 
payroll taxes don't come out of. Those of us who work for paychecks, we 
pay payroll taxes. And at 15.3 percent, the payroll tax is the largest 
tax that 80 percent of Americans pay.

                              {time}  1050

  The largest tax that 80 percent of American families pay, and we 
don't spend any time on the floor discussing that. We argue about 
income tax all the time. Half of America doesn't even pay income taxes 
anymore. Payroll taxes are the taxes that American people pay, 15.5 
percent; and it comes out of your paycheck before you even get to see 
your paycheck.
  Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who helped during 
World War II establish the withholding system--the government needed 
money in a hurry. It was wartime. That's when we began sucking money 
out of your paycheck before you ever see your paycheck. Milton Friedman 
said the worst decision of his life was not working to do away with the 
withholding system once World War II ended because you need to know how 
much money you are paying. You need what it costs you to run this 
United States Government.
  We talk about trillions. Have you thought about $1 trillion, Mr. 
Speaker? One trillion dollars, the cost of the President's health care 
plan, for example. If you started a business on the day Jesus Christ 
was born and you were so bad at your small business, Mr. Speaker, that 
you lost $1 million a day, every day, 7 days a week from the day Jesus 
was born through today, you would have to continue losing money for 
another 700 years to lose your first trillion dollars. We throw that 
number around like it is nothing. It is something. We need jobs back in 
this country. The FairTax will do it.
  I encourage folks to pay attention to what's happening in the Ways 
and Means Committee today on H.R. 25.

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