The Joint Deficit Reduction Committee, also referred to as the “super committee,” held a hearing today looking at the tax code for corporations and individuals. Thomas Barthold, chief-of-staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, testified.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican Co-Chairman, said he supports modifying the tax code but that tax increases are off the table. ""Most Americans agree that there is something fundamentally wrong with our tax code when a small business in east Texas pays 35 percent and a large Fortune 500 company pays little or nothing," he said at today's hearing.
Hensarling's Democratic Co-Chair, Sen. Patty Murray, said tax increases were needed to provide enough deficit reduction: "Spending cuts alone are not going to put Americans back to work or put our budget back in balance," Murray said. "We have to address both spending and revenue."
The committee is tasked with cutting $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next ten years, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have come out in support of changing the tax code. Ideas range from simplifying the code, broadening the tax base, lowering rates for all taxpayers to lifting rates for the highest wage earners.
President Obama released his plan to cut the deficit by $3 trillion dollars, half of which would come from raising revenue, including limiting deductions for couples making more than $250,000 per year, ending the Bush-era tax cuts for high income earners, and restructuring corporate tax rates.
In a news conference last week, the co-chairs of President Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, said half of taxable income is not collected because of deductions and “loopholes,” and this missed income is one of the three main drivers of the nation’s debt.
The committee must present its recommendations to Congress by November 23.