American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2016 - 106

both the board meeting and a congressional
forum on the convention's second day. He
pointed out that House Ways & Means
Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Tx., had introduced a major tax reform plan in late June.
It took parts of three congresses to
pass the country's last federal tax overhaul
in the 1980s, Cross observed, and suggested
House Republicans' practice of limiting
committee chairmanships to two terms
could add further urgency to Brady's push.
"He intends to work the remainder of
the 114th Congress to adjust (his reform
plan)," Cross related. "He then plans to
pursue tax reform aggressively in the
115th Congress."
During the congressional forum, Representative Lynn Jenkins, R-Ks., who sits
on the Ways & Means Committee, affirmed widespread support for tax reform.
"I cannot find many, if any, Kansans who
support the current tax code. It is broken,"
she characterized. "That said, if it was
easy, we would have done it long ago."
She predicted it would take four years
for Congress to remodel the tax code.
"We just need a place to start the discussion
with the American people," Jenkins said.
She said the committee was considering
a consumption-based tax and personal
income tax rates of 12, 25 and 33 percent
that included S-corporations. Corporate
rates would be 25 percent for sole proprietorships, LLCs and such, while Ccorporations would be taxed at 20 percent.
"Under a consumption-based tax, if you
buy a piece of property or equipment for
your business, you can expense it entirely,"
she described. "You would pay taxes on
what was left."
Jenkins noted that a Republican white
paper specifically listed intangible property

KIOGA President Ed Cross
(left) presents an award for
outstanding service to KIOGA
immediate past-Chairman Timothy Scheck of Scheck Oil
during the Board of Directors
Meeting on the ﬁrst day of
KIOGA's annual meeting, Aug.
14-16 in Wichita, Ks. KIOGA
also honored Adam Beren of
Berexco with its President's
Leadership Award.

as deductible, which she suggested was
a good sign for intangible drilling costs.
However, she allowed, the paper did not
address percentage depletion.
"That was by design because we want
to discuss how important it is to you,"
she related. "You have made it perfectly
clear to me-and anyone else representing
an area that is highly impacted by the oil
and gas industry-that it is critically important. We are supposed to take all that
feedback to Washington."
Congress And Presidency
On the subject of November's elections,
Cross noted that Republicans were defending 24 U.S. Senate seats, while Democrats were defending only 10. He pointed to Pennsylvania, Colorado and Illinois
as competitive Senate races in producing
states. "The Senate is likely to go to the
party that wins the presidency," he predicted. "People often vote for their choice

Pausing before KIOGA's annual membership luncheon are (from left) Chairman Nick
Powell, former Central Intelligence Agency agent and Enterprise Research Group
Partners LLC Chairman Robert Grenier, and past-Chairman Dwight Keen. During his remarks, Grenier told KIOGA that Middle East turmoil appeared to be more intense than it
had been in centuries.

106 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

for president and then vote for the senator
they think will support that president."
However, according to MSNBC political analyst Rick Tyler, who worked
on the presidential campaign of Senator
Ted Cruz, R-Tx., that may not be the
case if Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins. "As much as Americans like to
talk about getting things done, they really
like divided government," he suggested
during keynote remarks at the membership
breakfast. "People may say it looks like
Hillary is going to win and so the Senate
and House need to stay with Republicans
to balance it. What they really mean is
gridlock, even if they complain about it."
And, Tyler acknowledged, Clinton's
chances of victory look pretty solid. "You
had better prepare for a Clinton administration," he advised. "I don't see a path
for Donald Trump to win. Campaigns
are about math, which means you have
to add people, not subtract them. How is
he going to expand the map?"
However, Representative Mike Pompeo, R-Ks., discouraged any GOP defeatism, and suggested media reports of
Trump bleeding Republican support were
overblown. "Every election cycle there
are Republicans who do not support the
Republican nominee and Democrats who
do not support the Democratic nominee;
it happens," he held. "You are going to
find the Republican National Committee
grinding away, and you are going to find
everyone in the Kansas delegation pulling
to ensure Hillary Clinton never sets foot
into the White House."
Story-Centered
Tyler's remarks also considered the
country's political climate. One reason
he cited for the intensity of the country's
partisan divide was that elections had the
potential to change more nowadays than
they did when Democrats dominated
Congress for decades. After the 1920s,

American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2016

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