Myrtle Beach Congressman plans to use Ways and Means role to fix tax code

After being appointed to one of the nation’s oldest and most powerful committees, a sophomore congressman from Myrtle Beach says he plans to fix the tax code and make the country more competitive. All it will take is a “change in attitude,” he said.

Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach, was appointed to the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives last month. His appointment filled a vacancy left when committee member Kevin Brady rose to chair the committee after its former leader, Paul Ryan, became Speaker of the House.

Since his appointment, Rice said he has been looking at ways to simplify the tax code and to make America more competitive in its job market and economy.

Ways and Means is the oldest committee in Congress and serves as the tax-writing branch of the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s where all taxes, trade agreements, bonded debt and bills aimed at raising revenue are born.

“I see the Ways and Means Committee almost like a Congress within a Congress,” Rice said. “All of the committees have some sway … on which policies we’re moving toward, but I think the Ways and Means Committee has the outsized influence on the big policies that affect our economy.”

Rice was a tax lawyer and CPA for 25 years before he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2012.

Rice said he plans to use part of his new role and his experience “to drive the country to be more competitive. I think South Carolina is already competitive in the country,” he said. “And I think the more we can make the country competitive in the world, the better off that’s going to be for all of the states, but particularly those like South Carolina that are trying so hard to compete.”

The goal, he said, is to attract more industries to create more jobs. Rice says a simpler tax code that doesn’t rob industries and encourage them to make and keep investments oversees, where taxes are cheaper, is one way to do it.

“The United States’ attitude has been well, you know, ‘we’re big and strong and we’ve got all this wealth we don’t have to try’ and it’s not working. You see American company after American company leaving our shores,” he said.

“I think if we ever adopted the attitude that it was a competition and that we were going to excel I don’t think anybody could stop us,” he said. “The problem is getting people to adopt that attitude.”

But Rice said he’s seen attitudes change before when he served on Horry County Council. A U.S. Department of Labor study, back then, showed Horry County as offering workers one of the lowest wages in the country. Horry County was big and powerful with money from tourism, but it needed to be more competitive in the job market and bring in industries that would bring in better pay. Rice said they started marketing more aggressively and new industries came along with new jobs.

The same could work for America, he said.

“Twenty-five years ago, this district, my eight-county district was hit with a double barrel. They lost textiles and they lost tobacco. A lot of parts in the district still haven’t recovered,” said Rice, who serves the 7^th district in South Carolina covering all of Horry, Georgetown, Chesterfield, Dillon, Marlboro and Marion counties and parts of Florence and Lee counties.

“The first new textile mill in South Carolina is being built right now in Fort Mill, first one in 30 years,” he said. “Do you know who’s building it? The Chinese. You know why? Because they figured out they can be competitive even paying American workers rather than shipping over there and shipping back. If they can do it, we can do it too.”

Rice was also selected to serve on the Ways and Means’ Oversight, Human Resources and Social Security subcommittees. He previously served on the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Committee on the Budget and the Small Business Committee.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 9:16 AM with the headline "Myrtle Beach Congressman plans to use Ways and Means role to fix tax code."