GOP Address: Sen. Bob Corker Calls for Tax Reform and Preserving Free Enterprise - East Idaho News
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GOP Address: Sen. Bob Corker Calls for Tax Reform and Preserving Free Enterprise

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050412 BobCorker?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1336181714450US Senate(WASHINGTON ) — Republicans in Congress have long accused the Obama Administration and Democrats for mismanaging the federal budget, and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee does not depart from that trend in this week’s Republican address.

Recalling the time in his 20s when he saved enough to start his own construction business, Corker says he got into public service to ensure Americans the chance to “earn success” and “live the American Dream” as he has.  But, he says, “I fear our country is moving to a place where politicians have lost sight of the value of earned success.”

Corker adds, “Politicians are bankrupting our country by passing legislation without paying for it and abandoning the free market principles that give people the opportunity to succeed.”

Sen. Corker lambastes the Democrat-controlled Senate for not passing a budget in three years, while the government “spends more than $3.5 trillion a year, much of it borrowed from outside the United States [with no] guideline for how that money is spent.”

The Tennessee senator doesn’t stop there, either.  He calls out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., without naming names for refusing to hold a vote on the budget.

Meanwhile, Corker says, “President Obama’s budget failed to receive a single ‘yes’ vote in either House of Congress last year.”

“Failing to accomplish even the most basis responsibility of government is a total failure of leadership and represents everything the American people hate about Washington,” Corker says in the address.

Corker also calls on government to reform Medicare and Social Security, but “the president punts on almost every tough decision.”  He adds that the president is appealing to college students about student loan debt, while “robbing those same young people of their American inheritance, spending their money on my generation and engaging in nothing short of generational theft.”

Corker suggests that not dealing with these issues could be this country’s greatest enemy, but says it could also be our greatest opportunity.  He offers a solution:

“We need pro-growth tax reform.  This means simplifying the tax code and doing away with most, if not all, of the $1.2 trillion in loopholes and tax expenditures that Congress has created to try to drive your behavior,” he tells Americans. “This would allow us to broaden the tax base and lower rates for everyone.”

Lastly, Corker underscores the importance of preserving the principles of free enterprise.

“Growing the private sector, not government, will ensure that we remain the strongest country in the world,” he says. “Nothing makes people happier than earning success,” he later adds.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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