I agree with my colleague for those reasons. We can start wordsmithing the motion and never get it exactly right for everybody. What matters is the intent.
The other reason that I like the idea of including tax expenditures is that it's one thing we never look at. I remember dealing with this when I was on this committee, back in the nineties, believe it or not.
At that time, we asked Finance to produce all of the tax expenditures and they did, but there was very little evaluation as to whether they in fact impacted socially the way they were intended to or were meant to, and what the cost and the real impact were. For instance, certain credits affect only a small number, not what was intended, and what have you. And the cost to the treasury...because it's money that ultimately could be shifted in other ways as we look at a program.
To have this committee understand how the tax expenditures work is very important, I think. Just looking at that one piece, for me, makes this motion worthwhile.