As another Tax Day has come and gone, we reflect upon what’s wrong with our tax system and what can be done to fix it. The President’s idea is to use the tax system as a way of dividing classes by income as he did with the Buffett Rule proposal. He knew it was a gimmick, yet he spent days of taxpayer dollars trying to ram through his proposal. Luckily, it was defeated in the Senate earlier this week.
The problem is that an individual tax code with 3.8 million words is too complicated for the average American to understand. We have a corporate tax code – at almost 40 percent when you add federal and state taxes together – that makes America hopelessly uncompetitive. And our tax code contains loopholes that are exploited by companies large enough to hire an army of lawyers.
As Investor’s Business Daily wrote, in 1981 the entire developed world had high corporate tax rates, averaging 47 percent. Then capital became mobile and rates plummeted to 25 percent and haven’t stopped falling. The United States remains stuck since 1986 in an out-of-date, high corporate tax rate, which sent companies fleeing America for a more competitive tax climate. Just ask any number of companies why they left America and they’ll tell you that between the high tax and unreasonable regulatory burden in America, other nations are now a more profitable place to do business. And this problem will only get worse at the end of this year when the current tax cuts may expire at the will of President Obama. Billions more in investment will flee our shores for other countries.
We need a tax system that forces large, well-connected corporations to play by the same rules as small businesses and individual Americans and that protects and provides fair competition in free markets.
In the 1980’s Ronald Reagan enacted tax reform that created a period of unparalleled prosperity. We should follow his blueprint for tax reform that had as its core principle to stop taxing investment and productivity.
First, it is only fair that everyone should contribute something to the core government services like national defense, our courts, our roads and necessary infrastructure--our public goods. Everyone benefits and everyone needs to pay something.
Let’s face it: freedom is not free and all of us benefit from it. Today we live in a world where only 53 percent of Americans pay federal income tax. That means 47 percent pay nothing. People who pay nothing can easily forget the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Second, even though everyone should pay something, those who can afford to pay more should pay more. This is true not just in absolute terms. Someone at a higher income level should pay at least the same percentage of income as someone at a lower income level. In other words, a flat tax should at least be flat, and not tilted against lower and middle income families.
Third, fairness also demands that government limit its claim on the hard work and talents of the people it taxes. The income people earn is not the government’s income; it belongs to the people who earned it. When people in Washington say things like “we can’t afford a tax cut,” they need to think about whom the “we” is. It is the people’s money, not the politicians’ money.
When you say that government has first claim on the income earned through people’s work and creativity like President Obama has, you are not far from saying that the people themselves belong to the government.
The fundamental principle of a flatter tax system should be to level the playing field for all people and all businesses. We need a national discussion on tax reform rather than gimmicks. Only then can we make our system fair for all Americans.
From the Great Compromise of 1787 to the Compromise of 1850, compromises are etched into our nation’s history. Unfortunately, President Obama’s recent “compromise” with our nation’s religious employers is not a compromise at all.
On January 20, when the Obama Administration announced a new Obamacare mandate requiring religious employers to provide free contraceptives to their employees, there was an outcry across the nation. Why would the President ever ask religious Americans to violate their moral conscience by forcing them to provide abortifacients, or pills that cause abortions? Since that announcement, churches have been staking their ground against the President’s decision. Thousands of Roman Catholic priests and bishops read their congregations a stirring and thought provoking letter during Sunday Mass Services. Countless news programs revolved around this controversial Obamacare provision. Many pundits wondered why a President up for re-election in November would make such a damaging political move.
In light of this controversy, it came as no surprise when President Obama announced he would compromise on this mandate. Before his announcement this past Friday, many Americans were hopeful that the Chief Executive would relent and allow religious employers to provide their own health insurance, free of the contraceptive mandate. Yet amazingly, the President took to the podium and offered a revised version of exactly the same plan!
The President provided the following compromise:
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services — no matter where they work. So that core principle remains. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company — not the hospital, not the charity — will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.”
In other words, though the religious employers would no longer be forced to offer free contraceptives to their employees, they will still be required to provide insurance plans to their employees that will provide them with free contraceptives. This is deception. This is not a compromise.
In fact, I would be interested to know in what way the President actually compromised his original mandate at all. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the very definition of compromise is “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions.” Because if religious employers are still forced to provide insurance that gives their employees access to free contraceptives, in what way has the President actually conceded his original plan? The sad truth is that he is still asking many American employers to violate their moral conscience on a daily basis. No healthcare plan should force Americans to go against their deeply held religious beliefs. This horrendous mandate is just one of the many reasons that I will not rest until Obamacare is repealed.
When the American people bestowed the highest office in the land onto President Barack Obama three years ago, they did so trusting him to follow through on his promise of “hope and change.” He has not kept that promise. The supposed accomplishments the President presented in Tuesday night’s State of the Union only serve to divert America’s attention from the true state of the union. Under three years of an Obama administration, our country is suffering; millions linger without a job, gas prices have nearly doubled, and our national debt is greater than the value of the entire U.S. economy.
Though he tried to do so, President Obama cannot blame the sad reality of our nation’s state on the inaction of Congress or the ineptitude of his Presidential predecessors. After all, it was President Obama, not Congress, who asked for nearly $5 trillion dollars to be added to the national debt. It was President Obama who recently cancelled the Keystone Pipeline project, killing thousands of potential American jobs. Under President Obama the unemployment rate has risen from 6.8% when he was elected to today’s 8.5%, a reality that’s caused many Americans to simply stop looking for work. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate is not the only figure that has seen an upsurge under this Administration – gas prices have nearly doubled from the day the President took office to now. When you compare that to only a 28-cent gas price increase under the last President’s administration, it is truly disheartening.
I agreed with the President when he called for all Americans to reclaim their “American values.” But, contrary to the President’s beliefs, the time-tested values that made America great do not include redistribution of wealth or lack of incentive to prosper. In reality, our country was founded by Americans who believed in values such as hard work and determination. They believed strongly in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” None of them believed in taking away from their neighbors to achieve their dreams, but instead worked hard to provide for their own families and carve out a home in America for the generations to come.
Yet there is still hope for our nation. There is hope because we are the descendants of these hard working Americans. The same values that inspired them to greatness inspire us today. We don’t need handouts or bailouts, we need incentive and inspiration. As a member of Congress, I will continue to fight everyday to preserve and promote these true American values.
In February, President Obama proposed a budget with $8.7 trillion in new spending, despite the fact our nation is already more than $14 trillion in debt and increasing daily. Instead of fulfilling a promise made while vying for the White House to cut the U.S. deficit in half in his first term, he presented a budget that kept the U.S. on the same, unsustainable fiscal road.
Last week, House Republicans introduced a real budget proposal that reduces deficits by more than $4 trillion over the next decade. It introduces real reforms to get our fiscal house in order and actually pay off the debt before our children and grandchildren are stuck with our spending bill.
But yesterday, President Obama offered empty, political rhetoric to the American people. Suddenly he’s feigning outrage against the current debt levels and the out-of-control spending. He thinks taxing those making over $250,000 will solve our budget woes and create jobs. It won’t. The President is just singing the second verse of his same old song.
If President Obama was serious about saving the taxpayer money, he would have started asking for cuts two years ago.
Representative Istook wrote, “Rather than respecting the right of future Congresses to decide on funding, ObamaCare’s sponsors included several years’ worth of current and future appropriations for the health care makeover – money that mostly has not yet been spent.”
Wait a minute. Does that mean the vote we just took in Congress on H.R. 1 to defund ObamaCare, doesn’t actually starve the health care beast of its funding?
That is exactly what Istook is saying.
You see, it turns out Pelosi was right when she said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Because now, months after passage, we are discovering an astonishing $105,464,000,000 has already been appropriated to the Health and Human Services Secretary for ObamaCare through FY2019.
When ObamaCare was passed, Democrats knew they would lose the gavel. But this funding ensures they will not lose their prized government takeover of health care because it’s already well-funded.
The Congressional Research Service outlined the billions appropriated to ObamaCare in their report, “Appropriations and Fund transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).” Some of what’s included:
-Section 1311(a) of ObamaCare provides an unlimited appropriation to the Health and Human Services Secretary to award grants to states for Exchanges.
-Section 4002 essentially creates a $16 billion slush fund for the HHS Secretary to spend and $2 billion is appropriated to the Secretary per year in perpetuity after 2015.
-Section 4101(a) allows $230 million in appropriation for school-based health centers.
-Section 5508 appropriates $230 million for expanded primary care residency programs.
-Section 2953 allocates $320 to Title XX-type education programs.
In the next two weeks, both parties in the House and Senate will engage in a showdown over funding of the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year. We must win the battle on rescinding funds to ObamaCare. But if we do not fight, we cannot win. We must fight. Taxpayers are counting on us.
Planned Parenthood performed 324,000 abortions in 2010. That should be enough reason to ensure that it never receives another taxpayer dollar from our government. But alarming new revelations about Planned Parenthood raise questions about whether the organization is breaking the law.
The pro-life organization Live Action has posted an undercover video taken at a Planned Parenthood facility in New Jersey. It shows the clinic manager explaining how Planned Parenthood could streamline services for girls who were being used by sex traffickers. The girls were described as being brought into the country without identification, and some were portrayed as being 14 years old or younger. The video can be seen at the LiveAction.org website.
I want to applaud Live Action for its courageous work in exposing more of Planned Parenthood’s horrific agenda. The unyielding work of pro-life individuals and organizations has often served to awaken our country to the devastation caused by abortion in the taking of millions of innocent lives and the terrible scarring of countless women.
What’s clear in this newly-released video is that the greed of Planned Parenthood has driven the organization to new depths. As the video shows, the clinic manager coaches a man and a woman, who are posing as a pimp and a prostitute, in ways to circumvent the law to provide abortions, contraception, and STD services to 14 and 15-year old girls who are being abused as part of sex trafficking.
Live Action has turned its video over to law enforcement authorities, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. I am calling on those authorities to fully investigate this case and to prosecute any offenders to the fullest extent of the law.
In Congress, I am cosponsoring legislation that would stop federal funding of Planned Parenthood. I hope this new revelation will push that bill to the top of the Congressional agenda so we can act swiftly to cut off any flow of taxpayer dollars to this heinous organization.
As a former federal tax attorney, I know our nation’s current tax system is onerous and confusing. The new majority must take a cold hard look at our way of doing business. According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, we find ourselves in a perpetual state of temporary tax codes:
“In the late 1990s, there were typically fewer than a dozen tax provisions that had just a limited lease on life and needed to be renewed every year or so.Our founding fathers never intended a larger-than-life government manipulating our very economy via the tax code. We can start to reverse this course by focusing on pro-growth measures that will provide needed certainty to businesses and families. The 112thCongress should consider cutting the corporate tax rate to make it more attractive for businesses seeking to operate in the industrialized world. I would also like to see the zeroing out of capital gains taxes. Then, let’s reduce all marginal personal income tax rates for individuals and start debate on ending the death tax. Better yet, given our nation’s dire economic situation, let’s begin a serious discussion about whether or not to scrap the current tax code and replace it with a fairer, flatter tax code. I think Americans would appreciate slashing the tax code to a fraction of its current length of more than 50,000 pages.
“Today there are 141.
“Now Congress, taking up a deal worked out between the Obama administration and Republican leaders, is poised to turn the whole personal income-tax system into something of a temporary structure. The plan embraces a broad range of provisions—an extension of Bush-era rates, a new estate-tax formula—but for only two years. A payroll-tax cut in the bill is for a single year.
“This means that if the compromise passes largely intact, the U.S. will have no permanent regime governing levies on salaries, capital gains and dividends, the Social Security tax, as well as a slew of targeted breaks for families, students and other groups. This on top of dozens of corporate-tax provisions that already were subject to annual renewal.
“The level of uncertainty, unusual for developed nations, complicates planning and discourages hiring and investment, many economists and corporate executives say.”
The American people have given Republicans a second chance. In the 112th Congress, it is my desire to see Congress bring greater simplicity to our tax policy. As a small business owner myself I know a pro-growth economy is possible and one place to start is through tax code certainty for small businesses, corporations and families.
Bloomberg News details the worries circulating around Spain and Portugal’s financial states:
“Investor concern has shifted to Spain and Portugal since yesterday, when European governments sought to bolster the euro by giving Ireland an 85 billion-euro ($113 billion) aid package and diluting proposals that would have forced bondholders to bear some costs of future bailouts.
“’It is quite likely that Portugal’ will be next in line for a financial assistance, Roubini said today in Prague at a conference of chief executive officers sponsored by ING Groep NV. ‘The big elephant in the room is not Portugal but, of course, it’s Spain. There is not enough official money to bailout Spain if trouble occurs.’”
The United States must send a message resisting domino-effect world bailouts. Although our friends overseas may believe the financial policies of the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, President Obama, Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi represent the views of our entire country. Fortunately, the bailout mentality isn’t backed by most of the American people. Instead, Americans have called for fiscal restraint from their own government and I extend the same call to our allies.
Countries like Greece and Ireland demonstrated irresponsible behavior as they spent like there were no consequences. Now, by the IMF agreeing to financially back Greece and Ireland, it is moving into dangerous territory itself. The IMF is removing the moral hazard from countries that find themselves swimming in debt with no way out.
What is true for individuals, families, small businesses, townships, cities, counties, states must also be true for countries; create a balanced budget and don’t spend more than you take in.
George Washington in his farewell address advised the young nation to resist foreign entanglements. He was referring to military engagements, but common sense tells us to apply that sound advice to the incessant calls for monetary bailouts. The United States, as a member of the IMF, is tangled into the European mess with first Greece and now Ireland. It is in our best interests as a sovereign nation to not bear the burden of these countries’ reckless spending habits. Market discipline drives private economic decisions. Likewise, tough love demonstrated by the United States to our international allies will also send a message before more bailouts are doled out.
A vote on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling will be one of the most significant challenges to the start of the 112th Congress. Congress simply cannot continue to operate under the pretense of “gangster government,” raising the limit upon our whim. We aren’t going to find financial stability by allowing ourselves to fall further down the rabbit hole.
At town halls and rallies across the country we saw men and women willing to put everything on the line for our American principles. They called for a reining in of spending and a decrease in the size of government. They called for strict adherence to the Constitution.
Bickering won’t solve our financial woes. Instead we must pause to consider the gravity of our situation and weigh our options like grown-ups. The American people understand cuts have to be made because a lot is at stake here including our children’s future. Will they have the freedoms we know and enjoy daily? Or will they answer to our foreign debt holders in China?
One option being presented by the Federal Reserve, not Congress, is to fire up the printing presses through quantitative easing. I wrote Chairman Ben Bernanke asking him to reconsider and testify on Capitol Hill before pursuing this dangerous option which will create inflation.
Instead, Members of Congress, elected by the American people, must start working on the difficult cuts that must be made. In the 112th Congress we are ushering in a new era of financial responsibility where bailouts will be history. Fannie and Freddie think they have an unlimited credit card billed to the taxpayer. Earlier this month they even requested another $2.5 billion more. But we need to answer “no”, cut off government subsidies and get them off our balance sheet.
Additionally, any paid-back TARP funds should immediately go to the U.S. Treasury. Also going to the U.S. Treasury should be issued any outstanding “stimulus” funds. As the American people tighten their belts, Congress must tighten the country’s purse strings as we work to put our country back on track.
Now is the time to find fiscal stability. Instead of raising the debt ceiling and giving ourselves an excuse to delay the inevitable, let’s start working on solutions.
Democrats scurried out of Washington in September before addressing the tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year. This has put businesses and families in a difficult position. They don’t know what the financial playing field will look like in 2011 and how much will be owed to Uncle Sam. During the lame duck session the issue will be brought to the House floor. When it is, the existing Republicans must do everything within our power to extend the current tax rates for all Americans.
The Tea Party played an influential role in yesterday’s results but now they must stay visible. Please continue to put the pressure on your representative during the lame duck. Then, at the start of the new Congress in January, remember to hold us accountable to the limited government designed for our great nation by the founding fathers.
