Senator Rand Paul wrote this article on why his colleagues should vote for the proposed Tax Bill, to counter the many selfish voices who want to defend special tax breaks that would be taken away (those against tax simplification in spite of the cuts).
One of the fundamental problems in Washington is the attitude that the money that people make belongs to the government. That’s why you hear arguments about how much a tax cut “costs,” or big government advocates disingenuously and breathlessly complaining about the people who pay taxes getting a tax cut.
I believe it is the other way around. Our default position should be that the money you earn belongs to you, and government has to justify why it should take it from you.
Currently, there are at least 97 different federal taxes. The tax code that instructs people how they must hand over their hard-earned money to government spans some 74,000-plus pages.
This is absurd, and so is the fact that government will collect over $3 trillion from taxpayers next year but still is not satisfied.
I spoke out all year against the GOP leaders’ initial plan to make their tax reform “revenue neutral” — meaning not really a cut. I’m pleased to see my point of view has prevailed, and the current tax plan calls for a $1.5 trillion cut over the next ten years. I would have liked to see more — in fact, I offered an amendment to move it up to $2.5 trillion — but I’ve stated many times that as long as it is a real cut, I’ll vote for it, even if it isn’t as large as I would prefer.
I’m also pleased to note that, in part by my urging, the Senate tax-plan writers have included repeal of the ObamaCare individual mandate in the tax plan. The mandate is clearly a tax, a fact that was established by the Supreme Court when it upheld ObamaCare. So including it in the tax bill only makes sense. In addition, with CBO scoring it as a $350 billion savings, repealing the mandate helped pave the way for increased middle-class tax cuts, like an expanded child tax credit...