I will never support any tax increase on middle-income earners, ever... If you're not going to eliminate loopholes and exemptions, then I wouldn't support lowering rates.
Rather than address the priorities of the middle class, the Ryan budget is an attack on American seniors, students, workers, and families - all for the sake of protecting loopholes for the wealthy and corporations that ship jobs overseas.
The details of the personal expenses that executives put on the company tab often are not known because loopholes in federal disclosure rules let publicly traded companies generally avoid disclosing the perks they give executives along with pay and stock options.
Tax expenditures for middle- and working-class Americans - like the earned income tax credit - aren't thought of as loopholes; they're just thought of as benefits.
Foreign agents are taking advantage of loopholes in our laws.
I think there's a lot of Democrats that would favor reducing the corporate tax rate as long as we find a way to close loopholes so we have a way to pay for it.
Corporate tax reform is nice in theory but tough in practice. It most likely requires lower tax rates and the closing of loopholes, which many companies are sure to fight. And whatever new, lower tax rate is determined, there will probably be another country willing to lower its rate further, creating a sad race to zero.
The Democrats and Republicans need to come together. I've criticized Democrats for their unwillingness to address entitlement reform and Social Security and Medicare. Republicans, on the other hand, never saw a tax that they liked, even when it meant closing tax loopholes. They don't want to in any way support any revenue enhancements.
The tax code is very inefficient. Both the personal tax code and the corporate tax code. By closing loopholes and lowering rates, you could increase the efficiency of the tax code and create more incentives for people to invest.
I do see great opportunity to make reforms to our tax code, making it simpler, fairer and removing corporate loopholes.
