Mr. Michael Taft:

I thank the committee for inviting us. I would urge members to examine the effective tax rate as a first step and to actively avoid comfort zones. We should neither be defensive nor assert that things are going well, but should ask hard, critical questions of ourselves. That is a good exercise, even if we decide at the end of the day that everything is all right the way it is. If we do not ask the hard questions, we may not be able to come up with better answers.