mr. kleinbard? >> well, you know, as the former chief of staff of the joint committee on taxation, it's, i guess, incumbent on me to do what you've always suspected my old group did and pull a number off the top of my head. i come up with about -- i'm rounding here about $4.5 trillion and the way i get there is, first, the itemized deductions. it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 trillion in '2010. the employee sponsored health insurance i would not put a cap on that the waymart way -- marty has proposed. this is one tax expenditure which also has a tax expenditure effect on our social security tax payments, our payroll taxes and that's about a trillion dollars over 10 years. so regardless what we do on the income tax, if we included employee sponsored insurance as part of our fica tax base for payroll purposes we'd be talking about another trillion. and then there's over a trillion dollars, 1.2 or 1.3 trillion in business tax expenditures. those need to be reversed. every country that's lower

mr. kleinbard or anyone to participate.e cancer rate, we have it on 24%, which is the lowest. most are between 25% to 27%. but the point is, everyone is moving in the tax reform debate toward the same kind of figure. the question is, how to do we make sure that in corporate tax reform we get as many jobs as possible here in the u.s.? because what the typical citizen is saying is, look at these tax breaks. and you have tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas and we need jobs here. a lot of companies would like to put their focus here. whereestion then becomes we need to go to get that done. it seems to me, what you are saying in your testimony is that if you cut corporate rates to the mid 20's, and i am certainly open to whether it ought to be 22% or this or that percentage amount, your theory is that it could create jobs here the united states for companies that are already here, number one, and companies that are looking around the world to invest here, and for the multinationals. in other words, it would allow us to run the

mr. kleinbard, singapore has a rate of 10%? >> it's something in that neighborhood, yes, sir. >> so businesses come to me and say we're not going to get the rate down, you know, to 10% but we can walk out of this, you know, debate with a competitive rate and then get to where you just describe, mr. engler which semblance of predictability so you can plan because that's what i found is just get away from th this. if we don't get the cooperation that chairman crapo is talking about we will have a lame duck session and it's just the lame duck session in 2010. we'll have a dysfunctional broken system rather than getting the family wage jobs that these outstanding witnesses would have. so i'd really encourage the work of you chairman nelson and senator crapo. >> this is clearly a moment in time in which we could get something done with the super committee. senator crapo? >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you letting me go out of next and out of order because i have to run into another engagement but with this group of e

mr. kleinbard has talked about. >> if i could just finish the thought and stretch the example further -- we used to have a deduct tax credit in this country and now what territorial, with the chinese money, that german money can buy something here and if we bring our money home and buy something here, we take a tax hit on that before we can make the purchase. that is why. >> would you want is respond to that? >> this is a difficult issue and i have spent two years working on it. i agree with governor engler. we want the money to come home. we do not want a system that has $1.4 trillion trapped overseas as is the case today. the current system is silly in that respect. but there are two solutions. one is worldwide tax consolidation. so if you were to reduce tax rates to 24%, from memory and i may be wrong, china's tax rate is 25%. worldwide tax consolidation would add no burden to u.s. firms doing business in china. the trouble with the territorial system is in the practice. when you start looking at what sophisticated territorial systems like germany have done, they impose all sorts of l

mr. engler, i governor engler was president and ceo of the national association of manufacturers. and edward kleinbardt committee of taxation from 2007-2009. he has 20 years of experience practicing tax law in new york and is currently a professor of law at the university of southern california. an extraordinary panel. thank you for honoring us with your presence. senator crapo. >> if thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate your opening as well. i want to focus on one of your earlier comments. any part of the important needed changes that we need to make in america today with regard to our economic and fiscal policy, tax reform is one of the keys that we must not allow to be ignored. i have been working with a group of six, it has been called the game. -- gang. senator wyden has a proposal of his own. but the one area of agreement that we have among us and many others is that in addition to controlling the excessive spending appetite of washington and getting our spending under control, which is undoubtedly an important and necessary piece of the reform of our fiscal policy, we also need a pro gauche gro