When Jimmy Carter was president, he called our tax code “a disgrace to the human race.” Since then the U.S. tax code has tripled in size.
A year ago, an Internal Revenue Service official delivered a report to Congress saying that the tax code should be reduced in size. Yet over the past 12 months, the volume of additional tax laws has been greater than usual.
Last week, the same official delivered another report to Congress saying the same thing. What could be dumber than the belief that the ones who created a tax code 4 million words in length will be the ones who fix the disgraceful situation? The stupidity of the tax code is even worse than its prolixity. Is there a better word that describes a code that allows a giant company to pay no federal income tax even though it reports a multibillion-dollar profit to its shareholders?
Congress has created numerous “loopholes” that allow a single company or a single industry to avoid the payment of taxes. These tax provisions were swapped for campaign money.
If there is no chance that Congress will fix the problem, who will? The answer is in Article V of the Constitution. It takes 34 state legislatures to propose an amendment and 38 states to ratify an amendment — without any participation from Congress.
RAY WASYLUKA
St. Louis
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By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
