Enacting comprehensive reform to the federal tax code is not an easy task. I know this firsthand because I voted to do just that when I was a member of the House of Representatives in 1986, the last time Congress passed major tax reform legislation. But my fellow Republicans don't seem to have learned the lessons of President Ronald Reagan's reform efforts.

The 1986 reform rested on a bipartisan deal to lower tax rates in exchange for closing loopholes and exemptions. Revenue neutrality was at the core of the deal, and the reform was meant to be broadly distribution neutral as well, meaning that everyone would benefit, not just the richest. The main driver for our bill was clearly to increase the efficiency of our tax system – something no one can argue against – and not to score partisan points. We also debated and considered the bill extensively. It was not a rush job. In fact, Reagan signed the law almost three years after he called for comprehensive tax reform in the 1984 State of the Union address.

In the 30 years since bipartisan tax reform last passed, the global economy has gone through dramatic changes. Technology and trade have made it easier to move goods, ideas and capital across the globe and to locate them wherever the tax laws are most lax or beneficial. Emerging economies have lifted millions of people out of poverty and reshaped the global political order. And policy decisions driven by an increasingly narrow set of powerful interests have driven economic inequality to dangerous heights leaving us with a world where only eight men own as much wealth as half of humanity, according to Oxfam.

Indeed, adjusting our tax code to fit the times is necessary. But the bill introduced in the House of Representatives with President Donald Trump's support is not good for the average citizen or for our country.

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Most of the benefits target the rich, via repeal of the estate tax and of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and cuts in the corporate tax. Take out these and the rest of the plan is almost revenue neutral: the middle class will win some and lose some. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, those earning over $200,000 will get half the tax cut by 2027 and millions of families will face a tax increase. But in an era when the top 1 percent richest Americans earn nearly 20 percent of all income, why are we giving them almost all the tax cuts?

The proposal to give a massive tax break to multinational companies with stashed profits offshore represents a transfer of over half a trillion dollars from ordinary taxpayers to big business' shareholders and executives. At a time when voters across the political spectrum are angry at rules rigged to benefit special interests, why reward the biggest tax dodgers?

The proposal to end the tax on foreign profits of U.S. multinational companies would further encourage the offshoring of jobs and profits, while a new proposal to mitigate that risk remains untested. At a time when middle-class jobs seem increasingly out of reach, why further stack the deck against working people?

The proposal to cut the corporate tax rate as low as 20 percent would either shift the tax burden to the middle class or lead to drastic cuts in essential government programs like Medicare or Social Security. At a time when large U.S. corporations are awash with cash and pay similar effective tax rates to their foreign competitors, why make this tradeoff?

Worse yet, by moving forward with these cuts without determining in advance where the money will come from, our representatives are playing politics and misleading voters.

Offshore tax havens have leveraged secrecy and zero tax rates to drive more profits away from the countries where real economic activity is taking place into shell companies and complex financial webs that no country's tax enforcement agency can unwind alone. How can any country compete against a tax rate of zero?

We have already seen how this has cost the U.S. dearly. The U.S. loses upwards of $135 billion every year to tax dodging by multinational companies. And this does not even account for tax dodging by wealthy individuals, like Paul Manafort, who use similar schemes. Other rich countries are also losing billions. Even developing countries, desperate for foreign investment and struggling to raise enough revenue to pay for the most basic education and health care for their citizens, lose approximately $100 billion because of tax dodging by large companies.

There is broad bipartisan consensus to end offshore tax avoidance and cut exemptions for special interests. We have willing partners in countries like France and Germany to crack down on tax havens. But simply enacting tax cuts for large businesses and the wealthy will not do the trick. Only through collaboration and cooperation with governments around the world can we truly stem these losses.

Unlike today's attempt, the 1986 tax reform bill was bipartisan, revenue neutral and the result of three years worth of thorough hearings. Most importantly, it was not a "gotcha" bill that will burden middle income Americans several years down the road.