Fiorina: If Tax Code Goes from 73,000 Pages to 3, Every Politician and Lobbyist Loses

WALLACE: "You are talking about the fact you are going to come out with specifics on a variety of issues.  I want to talk about the tax code, because you have taken some heat, for at least so far.  I don’t know what you’re going to do this week. Not being specific enough, according to some people, on the tax code.  You’ve said that you want to reduce 73,000-page tax code to three pages.  You say that you’re going to close every loophole and lower every tax rate.  But again, some people say you haven’t been specific enough, so I’d like to do a lightning round with you — quick questions, quick answers, ask you some specific questions, hopefully get some specific answers. Would you end — do you plan to end the home mortgage deduction?"  

FIORINA: "Probably, yes, but by the way, there’s been a plan for a three-page tax code out for 20 years.  This isn’t news.  Hoover Institute, a fine conservative think tank of which I have served as a member of the board of trustees, they’ve had a three-page tax code out for 20 years.

I think fundamentally what we ought to do is have the government to take away less money so that it has to give less money back.  A 73,000-page tax code is so complicated.  This is how the government maintains power.  It’s giving all these credits and deductions back, because it takes too much away.  Of course, it’s true, if you’re late, you have to pay interest, but if the government is late, they never pay interest.  

WALLACE:  Do you — would you eliminate the deduction for charitable donations?  

FIORINA:  Probably.  Look, if we added two more back in, let’s say those are the two most popular deductions, the charitable tax donations and home mortgage tax deduction, good.  Let’s add two more back in. The fundamental design philosophy, however, is lower every rate, close every loophole, because government takes too —"

WALLACE: "But you would end both of those deductions."  

FIORINA:  "I said probably, I said even if we put both back in, can you imagine how much simpler that would be.  This is what the government does.  It takes away too much money and then with all those deductions and loopholes, it exerts power.  

"I could live with two deductions, Chris.  I could live with the charitable and the home mortgage deduction.  But this is what always happens.  Everybody says, oh, you can’t take those away for 73,000 pages never gets reformed, never gets reform.  The fundamental blueprint — you have to have a blueprint to have fundamental reform.  

"You know why this has never happened?  Because everybody’s ox is going to get gored.  If you go from 73,000 pages down to three pages, everybody’s ox gets gored — every politician, every lobbyist, every accountant, every lawyer.  The only people who benefit are the small, the powerless, the new business.  

"The tax code, the complexity of government favors the big, the powerful, the wealthy, the well-connected.  It’s called crony capitalism.  Republicans have engaged in it as well as Democrats. If you level the playing field by simplifying, then you help the small all powerless and the middle class."