Arizona congressman expects major tax code rewrite by end of year
May 22, 2017, 12:30 PM | Updated: 2:29 pm
(Screenshot)
(Screenshot)
PHOENIX — An Arizona congressman said he expected Americans to be given a much-needed gift for the upcoming holiday season: tax reform.
U.S. Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Monday that he expects major tax code rewrites to be in place by the end of the year.
He said taking on the U.S. tax code — which is more than 68,000 pages long — was a difficult task, but one that had to be done.
“You must understand how hard the numbers have become,” he said.
Schweikert warned that, in the next eight or so years, nearly 100 percent of $5 trillion in federal revenue will go toward paying for government programs.
“Every dime of federal revenues will be chewed up by mandatory spending and entitlements,” he said.
Schweikert opined that should the tax code go unfixed, numerous agencies, including the military and National park Service, will be forced to run off of borrowed money.
The congressman, who is on the House Ways and Means Committee, said government expenditures on entitlements were expected to increase because more baby boomers are retiring.
He also said past congresses have not done what was needed to keep spending under control.
“Congress has this bad habit, over history, of doing a lot of legislation by feelings and then there’s a handful of us that come in and do our best to make the math work and that’s sort of my job,” he said.
