This is from Howard Dean's big economic speech given at Georgetown University, Washington DC on October 16, 2003.
"Balanced budgets matter. They should matter not just to economists who say they lead to economic growth. They should matter to social progressives who should be fiscal conservatives, because only fiscal responsibility guarantees that the American people will have the government they need when they truly need it.
Repealing the Bush tax cuts is a good first step in restoring fiscal responsibility. But we can’t bring the budget into balance without controlling government spending. Under this president, non-defense spending has skyrocketed by over 20%. To restore fiscal discipline, I’ll work to bring back the pay-as-you-go rule that forces Washington to pay for new spending rather than borrowing for it. And we’ll root out waste and inefficiency in the way that the federal bureaucracy does business by re-instituting the National Performance Review that Al Gore started and which saved over $20 billion a year.
Once we have repealed the President’s reckless tax cuts, we will set about making the tax system fairer and simpler. We’ll end corporate welfare as we know it, eliminating up to $100 billion dollars in tax breaks and subsidies that benefit special interests and large contributors to both political parties.
And we’ll crack down on tax shelters that allow American companies to hide their profits offshore and not pay any taxes while enjoying all of the benefits that the American taxpayer provides to them.
Consider this — from the 1930s through the 1960s, corporations paid 30 to 40 percent of the taxes, and the rest of us paid 6070. Today, corporations pay about 13 percent of taxes. It’s time to move the balance back and take some of the burden off the individual taxpayer who’s trying to make ends meet.
And as a final goal, we’ll simplify the tax system so that a majority of Americans can pay their income taxes without wasting hours filling out forms."
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