Since I’ve knocked Max Baucus repeatedly on the corporate tax credits he passed through his committee in August, which ended up in the fiscal cliff bill. So here’s a statement from Baucus’s Finance Committee staff:
There’s no question more needs to be done to weed out wasteful tax cuts. The Finance Committee will take a hard look at each and every expiring provision as part of comprehensive tax reform. As Chairman Baucus stated in a speech last year, “We need to get out of the way of the market, unless there is clear evidence that a tax expenditure spurs growth and creates jobs. Every tax provision needs to prove it has a tangible benefit to our economy or society. If not, it doesn’t belong in the tax code.
This backs up some of what I’ve already heard: some of this year’s extenders may be killed in 2013 as part of a broader reform. We hear this sort of thing a lot, but here’s the Finance Committee Chairman putting his name on the idea.
