LAWRENCEVILLE – U.S. Rep. John Linder wasn’t happy last year when President Bush created a commission to examine various federal tax-reform plans, including the Georgia congressman’s proposal for a national sales tax.
Linder, R-Duluth, has even less reason to be satisfied now that the panel is about to recommend tweaking the current income tax-based system rather than adopting what he and other supporters bill as the “FairTax” or any of the other more dramatic reforms that have been on the table.
“The only thing a commission has succeeded in doing in my lifetime is raising taxes, and that’s what this one will do,” he said.
“They’re all Washington insiders. You’re not going to get creativity out of a group like that.”
The bipartisan commission – chaired by former U.S. Sens. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and John Breaux, D-La. – meets for the final time this week and will issue its report to the president by Nov. 1.
In its next-to-last session last week, the panel formally rejected Linder’s FairTax, although it did leave open the possibility of asking Congress to adopt a hybrid system that would rely partly on both an income tax and some other form of taxation.