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Jon Huntsman on CorporationsRepublican UT Governor |
HUNTSMAN: We need something that's doable, doable, doable. And what I have put forward is a tax program that is doable. It actually wipes clean all of the loopholes and the deductions. This is right out of what the Simpson-Bowles commission recommended--a bipartisan group of people that took a thoughtful approach to tax for corporate and individual, and on the corporate side, phase out all of the corporate welfare, all of the subsidies because we can't afford it any longer; in a revenue-neutral fashion, buy down the rate from 35% to 25%, leveling the playing field for businesses big and small, allowing us to be a whole lot more competitive in the second decade of the 21st century.
HUNTSMAN: We're not going to raise taxes. This is the worst time to be raising taxes. We need to grow. We need to be reminded of what Ronald Reagan told us so beautifully, that which is great about America: freedom. We need to re-establish freedom in the marketplace. We need to address our underlying structural problems that we have. And in order to do that, we're going to have to fix our taxes. And we put forward a program that phases out for individuals all the loopholes, all the deductions, and creates three rates, 8%, 14%, 23%. On the corporate side, it phases out all of the corporate welfare, all of the subsidies, and it gets it from 35% to 25%. This is exactly where we need to be. We need to grow; we need to create jobs. This is not a point in time where we should be raising taxes. We're not going to provide the confidence to businesses who are looking to deploy capital in the marketplace and hire people.
The great state of Utah was number one in job creation at 5.9 percent during my years as governor. We were the best managed state in America. We were the best place in America for business.
A: Huntsman Corp. is a wonderful example of a family entrepreneurial success story: created jobs; left communities a whole lot better than they found them; created a wonderful Huntsman Cancer Institute. But let me tell you the real problem of what we're up against. If you want to build a facility in the US, you can't because of the EPA's regulatory reign of terror. We don't make things anymore in this country. We need to start making things in this country. And in order to do that, we need serious regulatory reform, [including] ending the EPA's regulatory reign of terror. We need to create a more competitive environment that allows our businesses to expand our economic base and create jobs.