The Fair Tax

Floor Speech

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Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today after the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I want to talk about taxes today, but I want to associate myself with the previous speaker's comments about how we make different decisions when we have skin in the game because that is absolutely something that we are losing in this country. We are losing what used to be that common value that we rise and we fall together.

I see my colleague from the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern, sitting in the Chamber today. And he tells the committee on a regular basis that we need to pay for those things that we do. We're involved in wars, and we need to pay. We need to have a populace that believes in what we're doing in such a way that they are willing to sacrifice not just their time but their treasure to support those measures. When we don't have folks who have skin in the game, we make different decisions. When a minority of the folks get the benefit or a minority of the folks are bearing the burden, we make different decisions.

Now the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is absolutely right; we have the lowest tax rates among the highest earning individuals that we've had in this country since 1950. Now what the gentleman did not mention is that we also have the lowest tax rates that we've had in this country for the lowest income individuals that we've ever had. We have fewer Americans paying income tax today than at any time since the 1950s, since the expansion of the income tax that happened during World War II, and I hear that. We have the wealthiest paying the least that they have ever paid as a percent, as a marginal rate. They're actually paying more than they've ever paid as a percentage of all the Federal receipts in this country. We have the lowest income individuals paying the least they've ever paid as a percentage of the income that comes into this country. And I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that much like we make bad decisions about foreign policy when we don't all have skin in the game, we make bad decisions about economic policy when we don't have skin in the game.

Now when we talk about Iraq and Afghanistan, I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, those are complicated solutions. It is not obvious to me how we move from today to peace. I don't know how we get that done. We have externalities at play there that we don't have control over, but not so with our Tax Code. Folks, when you look at the American economy, there is nothing that is going on with the American economy that we did not do to ourselves. Think about that. Mr. Speaker, do you have any constituents back home who have lost their jobs to corporations that have moved overseas? I do. And yet we continue to have the highest corporate tax rate in the world in America. Now who decides that? We do. We decide that's the kind of country we want to live in, and we can change it. Folks, there is nothing wrong with America that we collectively can't fix.

Now I've introduced a bill that I believe is going to make a dramatic impact in that direction. It's called the Fair Tax. It's H.R. 25 in the House, it's S. 13 in the Senate. And Mr. Speaker, as you know, it is the most broadly cosponsored piece of tax reform legislation in either body. In fact, it is the most widely cosponsored piece of legislation on tax reform in both bodies. And what the Fair Tax does is this--it's no magic solution, Mr. Speaker; it doesn't have some sort of clever math that's going to make everything okay. It simply goes into the American Tax Code and erases it. It says, if you could start with a blank sheet of paper, what would you do?

And Mr. Speaker, we can. We can start with a blank sheet of paper. We can choose our own destiny. We can make sure that we're making the best decisions for jobs and the economy in this country. The Fair Tax does this. It will eliminate the income tax code, that income tax code that punishes people for what they earn, and it changes that Tax Code with a Tax Code that collects taxes based on what people spend.

I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, it pains me every time I open up The Wall Street Journal and it bemoans the fact that American consumerism is in decline. Why can't we celebrate American savings? Why do we have to celebrate American consumption? The reason is because we have been building an economy based on an income tax code that is based on debt and refinancing and debt and refinancing, but we can change that today, Mr. Speaker. We have 1 billion new consumers coming online in China, 1 billion new consumers coming online in India, and they want what we produce.

The Fair Tax erases the income tax code that forces American productivity overseas, forces American jobs overseas, and it returns us to our roots as a country, our roots as a country that reward productivity, that encourage folks to stay.

There is only one taxpayer in this country. I know we have a corporate income tax. I know we have taxes on goods and services and excise taxes, and on and on and on. But there is only one taxpayer in the American economy, and that is the American consumer, because every single tax we have rolls downhill.

Do you want to charge that corporation tax? Do you want to charge Wal-Mart an excise tax? What do you think is going to happen at Wal-Mart? Prices are going to go up. Do you want to charge Coke a sugar tax? What do you think is going to happen to the price of your Coke? The price of Coke is going to go up. There is one taxpayer in this country, the American consumer.

That is a radical idea, I won't kid you. And by radical I mean it is the same one Thomas Jefferson had. By radical I mean it is the same one Alexander Hamilton had. By radical I mean we haven't done it in the last 100 years. But we can do it today, Mr. Speaker, with H.R. 25 and S. 13.

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