The Conservative Will: President Ronald Reagan- On Taxes in 1986

Source:The Conservative Will- President Ronald W. Reagan, Oval Office address on tax reform, in 1986.

"President Reagan on taxes." 

From The Conservative Will

A Liberal Democrat could’ve basically given the same speech on tax reform that Ron Reagan a Conservative Republican gave. I mean Jack Kennedy could’ve given the same speech that President Reagan gave, or it would’ve sounded very similar. And he probably gave a similar speech when he pushed for deep tax cuts in the early 1960s. The American tax system is so complicated that accountants hire other accountants to fill out their Federal taxes and tax lawyers hire other tax lawyers to come up with tax loopholes for them. These might sound like jokes, but they’re not far off.

The Federal Government has gotten to the point and this has gone on for at least thirty years if not longer, that if they want Americans to do something that they believe in their “brilliant wisdom”, is in the best interest for the country, they write a tax credit to encourage people to do it. Whether its education for their kids, or giving to charity, or planning for their own retirement. 

And there’s a lot more and it’s not that these causes aren’t worthwhile, because a lot of them are. But they all get written in the tax code, that’s gotten so big, that you now have to be a super weightlifter in order to pick the damn thing up and walk around with it. Actually a lot football players now stay in shape by power-lifting the tax code.

Insomniacs now read the tax code night after night and I should know I’m one of them. It helps them go to sleep and plus reading that book, you never run out of reading material. Because Congress writes a new tax law almost every day. It’s basically the only thing the Senate does now a days besides general speeches. Thats another place that insomniacs go to when they need to get some sleep, the Senate to listen to hours of general speeches. I almost feel sorry for the Senate typist who has to write all these speeches down hours and hours of them. 

The tax code is so big now, that you need a pickup truck or a minivan, without seats to move it around. It is something like 70,000 pages the population of Wilmington, Delaware and don’t ask me how I know that. In summary too much free time.

To be totally serious for a minute, (like totally!) or as serious as I can be and this should only take about a minute and if I run out of time, I’ll ask a Senator to yield to me, the Senator could probably use some water, or catch their breath and now I’ll be serious for real: but seriously what we should do instead is throw out the current tax code. If we can find a trash dump big enough to carry it and will take it and reform our tax code. 

We should move to a tax system that lowers the rates and broadens the base and doesn’t raise taxes on anyone who can’t afford to pay more. And doesn’t raise taxes enough to discourage wealth creation. 

Lower rates on most, individuals and business’s, but throw out all the tax loopholes, or most of them. And give people more freedom to spend their own money that they worked for the way they want to. Instead of Uncle Sam (who’s no ones favorite uncle unless you’re a Socialist) telling us how to spend our own money that we made on our own. 

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