U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) attends the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee hearing that called for executives of Apple to testify on the companies tax practices.
In the hearing, Sen. Paul defended the job-creating efforts Apple has made and lambasted his fellow Members for perpetuating a U.S. tax code that hinders corporate growth and productivity.
If anyone should be on trial here, it should be Congress. I frankly think the committee should apologize to Apple. I think the Congress should be on trial here for creating a bizarre and byzantine tax code that runs into the tens of thousands of pages, for creating a tax code that simply doesn’t compete with the rest of the world. This committee wil admit that Apple hasn’t broken any laws, yet we are forced to sit, and Apple is forced to sit, through a show trial at the whims of politicians when, in fact, Congress should be on trial for chasing the profits of great American companies overseas.
We haul before this committee one of America’s greatest success stories and you want applause? I say, instead of Apple executives, we should have brought in here today a giant mirror, okay, so we could look at the reflection of Congress because this problem is solely and completely created by the awful tax code. If you want to assign blame, the committee needs to look in this mirror and see who created the mess; see who created this tax code that is chasing American companies overseas.
Our corporate tax code is double Canada’s. I never thought I’d be complimenting Canada for their tax code. Ours is double Canada. Double a lot of Europe. Instead of complaining that theirs is too low, why don’t we set about to work [out] that ours is too high?
Apple has 600,000 jobs they’ve created, American jobs, and we want to drag them before this committee to chastise them? I find it abominable. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul, May 21, 2013
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