Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan called on his party to embrace tax reform, telling MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “we need to lower the corporate tax rate" and "we need to simplify the tax code."
While Republicans have taken the lead on pushing for tax reform, at least some Democrats seem to be on board.
“Let me be clear,” Ryan said. “I don't think we can be hostile to business. I think, you know, while we can be for a progressive tax code, we can be for an increase in dividends and corporate - other kinds of business taxes - I think we need to simplify the tax code, I think we need to lower the corporate tax rate. We can't just be the party of redistribution of wealth, we've got to be the party of creation of wealth, and not just in Silicon Valley and Wall Street - In Youngstown, in the South - we have to create new wealth in this economy and I really want the Democrats to be the party that's going to get their arms around this big issue.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan also discussed the need for tax reform Wednesday.“Right now, we tax companies like this at 35 percent,” he said at a news conference at an Intel Corp. facility in Oregon. “Our competitors to the north … Canada, they tax their businesses at 15 percent. Ireland, you have a lot of Irish here - 12.5 percent. Technology tax rates on companies, I was just informed this morning, in Israel – 6 percent. China: 25 percent, but they actually give you a break in the early years. We're between 35 and 45 percent on how we tax American businesses. And so one of the big, great problems we have is we're basically taxing American businesses out of America. We're making it really hard for American businesses to compete and succeed in the global economy because of our tax system.”
Speaker Ryan will continue speaking about tax reform Thursday at Boeing’s headquarters in Washington state.
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