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BRT Deficit Forum - Panel Three Transcript

Jobs and Economic Growth: The Role of Tax Reform

Panel discussion occurred September 06, 2011.

Farewell:
John Engler, President, Business Roundtable

Moderator:
Lindy Paul, Co-Managing Partner, PwC

Speakers:
Alex Brill, Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

John Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress

Pamela Olson, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP 

JOHN ENGLER:  Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.  And we are delighted to have this back.  We have a little break scheduled, but we thought we’d just – since some of you have been going up, getting a cup of coffee and taking a break, we’ll just finish this up.  And since it’s the first day back, you’d rather get out a little earlier.

And Lindy Paull is going to moderate this session.  She’s got the hard job.  They just spent all the tax revenue.  I heard talk about loopholes and closures – things being worked out.

And this panel is entitled “Jobs and Economic Growth:  The Role of Tax Reform.”  And this is a topic that is a very key issue from the perspective of a lot of job providers in the country:  How do you get deficit reduction?  How do you have economic growth, job creation while improving U.S. global competitiveness?  And so that’s sort of is the challenge.

And Lindy Paull is going to moderate this.  And Lindy is somebody we worked a long time with.  She’s the co-managing partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers – PwC – where she leads the legislative and regulatory practice at the Business Roundtable.  We work very closely, and PwC has got the model of the whole U.S. economy and they’ve got the tax code, so we get a lot of insight from them.

And Lindy’s own background:  She started as chief of staff of the U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation for five years from ’98 to 2003; before that, several senior staff positions with the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance starting in 1986 – she was one of the heroes of the welfare reform debate.  So she’s seen it all.

But ’86, that was the last big tax reform year.  Here we are 25 years later.  Is there any shot at doing tax reform?  We’ll find out.

This is the panel – this will be the last panel in the afternoon.  And I’d like now to invite Lindy Paull to come forward and take the podium.  Lindy, come on up, introduce your panel.  Welcome.  (Applause.)

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