Newsmax - GOP Needs to Push Tax Reform in Negotiations

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By Stephen Feller and Kathleen Walter

Republicans need to fight for what they believe will improve the economy, rather than caving on President Barack Obama's demands and letting him crash the economy in the hopes that they will win the Senate in the mid-term election, said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.

Replacing the complicated tax code with a 15-percent flat tax and eliminating most deductions would solve problems with the economy, as well help revenue flow like water into government coffers to eliminate the revenue problem, Gohmert said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV.

"There are Republicans that say, "Look, let the President destroy the economy like he wants to, and then we'll get re-elected to a majority in the Senate and have a big majority in the House and have a Republican be elected in 2016,'" he said.

"Our concern has to be for the American people. The nation of the United States of America -- that's who our oath is to. I think the better thing is to win the war of ideas."

Gohmert said he was not as confident as Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, that a deal could be reached with Democrats to avoid the fiscal cliff before Jan. 1.

"America left us the majority and I think America expects us, at least, for Heaven's sake, the House Republicans, to protect them from more government [and] more taxes," Gohmert said.

"I think this is a great opportunity to stand on our principles - they don't coincide with what the President wants - but they do coincide with what the President said. The President says he wants everybody to pay their share -- he has said that over and over. He has all his minions saying "fair share, fair share.'" Gohmert said. "That has to be our mantra, that has to be what we are saying, that has to be what we demand. Fair share."

Proposing the 15-percent flat tax that Republicans have long pushed for, Gohmert suggests changing the system so that people who earn as much as Warren Buffett pay the same percentage of their wages that Buffett's secretary pays. That is the example the businessman gave last year while illustrating the lack of fairness in the tax code.

Gohmert said the American people support the concept and it is only Democrats in Congress who oppose it.

"If we lay it out there, we make the case that when Americans are demanding that everybody pay their fair share, what could be fair then set a 15 percent across the board?," he said. "Fifteen percent capital gains tax, like Warren Buffett has been paying, and then let his secretary pay fifteen percent income tax. Pay a fifteen percent gift tax, just straight across the board and leave two deductions -- mortgage interest and charitable deductions. Other than that, no loopholes for the ultra-rich, so [General Electric CEO Jeffrey] Immelt and all the President's buddies would have to actually pay taxes like everybody else."

Gohmert said that he would support Republicans "caving" on revenue, with the flat tax as a major way to gain revenue.

"The economy will explode, people will be making more money, more Americans will have jobs and we will bring more money, more revenue into the treasury," he said. "It's a very basic concept, and what supports what I'm talking about is American history. Every time you have that kind of adjustment to the tax code, a massive adjustment which really fixes things to make things fairer, you have more revenue into the treasury. That's where we have to be making out stand. Yeah, we demand more revenue by having a flat tax across the board, fair to everybody."

Gohmert also said that, despite the simmering controversy over the deaths of four Americans during a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, he does not expect Attorney General Eric Holder will agree to a special commission being set up to gather and review all of the pertinent information.

The concern about some kind of cover-up of what happened remains a major concern but Gohmert expects that Congress will get to the bottom of it.

"Well, the rumors are that this administration was making a deal for arms to get to Syria and that was somehow part of that," Gohmert said. "I know this is going to be ultimately embarrassing to somebody. I don't care if it's a Republican or Democrat - I don't care who it is. [The deaths of four Americans] cry out for the honesty, for the truth of what happened. We need to know and it's going to require a special prosecutor."

"The thing is since there were deaths involved, there may have been crimes being committed as you and I speak now, by people continuing to cover up. Someday, maybe it's the next administration, the more they do to cover up, the more crimes that will be committed and the more people will have to answer to the justice system that eventually starts demanding justice instead of injustice."

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