Senator Mike Lee proposed a tax reform Tuesday seeking to encourage social mobility and promote middle-class economic security.
Lee claimed the current economic strains on lower and middle classes are not a crisis of unequal wealth of income, but of unequal opportunity.
“Seen in this light," Lee said, "there is a very good reason why Americans across the political spectrum – from the Tea Party to the Occupy movement - believe our system has become rigged. More and more every day, the system is rigged. The market can’t do that; only government can and it does.”
The Family Fairness and Opportunity Tax Reform Act, according to Lee, seeks to restore equal opportunity to those in the middle and lower classes by focusing on the family as a social and economic institution.
Lee claimed that parents are required to contribute to the tax system not one, but twice and asserts that this hidden double tax on parents violates the principle of equal opportunity.
To offset this hidden tax, Lee proposed the establishment of a new income and payroll tax rate, a larger personal tax credit for parents, a new mortgage interest deduction, and other deductions. Lee said he believes these deductions will promote upward mobility for underprivileged families as they work their way into the middle class.