Rep. Jim Jordan schooled MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on the tax code Monday morning, telling the cable host that the U.S. tax code is “stupid and broken” because only half of the population pays income tax.
Ruhle got riled up when Jordan mentioned that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world — she argued that corporations “ain’t never paying 35 percent” because they use loopholes and special deductions.
“We’ve gotta simplify the tax code,” Jordan responded.
“On the personal side, any tax code that says half the population, ‘you don’t have to participate in the main tax,’ is broken,” he continued. “Any tax code on the corporate side that says to American corporations, ‘you’re gonna pay the highest rate in the world,’ is stupid.”
“So if you have a tax code that’s both broken and stupid you might wanna change it, right?” he concluded.
He then addressed Ruhle’s point about the corporate rate, telling her, “Certainly we gotta get rid of the exemptions and the deductions and the credits…that’s what the American people want.”