E-Newsletters
Death and taxes. Benjamin Franklin told us that these are the only two certainties in life. Taxes may be a certainty, but paying taxes doesn't need to be nearly as complex and difficult as it is today.
I believe that we need a tax code that is simple, fair and promotes economic growth. Right now, our tax code does none of those things. With over 54,000 pages and 2.8 million words in our tax code, there is a lot of confusion. I believe that we need fewer rules, loopholes and alternative minimums. We shouldn't have different rules for different groups.
"The notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order – that's just not the case. Congress passes the law. The executive branch's job is to enforce and implement those laws." These are President Obama's own words on immigration in March of 2011.
As your representative, job creation and affordable energy are two of my top priorities in Congress. The Keystone XL pipeline promotes both of these priorities, and I believe that we must authorize this truly "shovel-ready" project as soon as possible.
"A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers," President John F. Kennedy once said. This Veteran's Day, we once again reveal the character of this great nation by pausing to honor and remember the tremendous courage and sacrifice of those who have served in our armed forces.
Great American inventor and businessman Thomas Edison once said, "Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure." While the economy has made modest gains, in spite of the job-killing policies of this administration, I don't believe we can be satisfied with where we are.
Unemployment remains unacceptably high and the national debt is over $18 trillion. This is not what recovery looks like.
In a 1982 speech, Ronald Reagan said, "We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." That was more than three decades ago, and unfortunately, it's still the case. In Washington, basic budgeting is all too often ignored in order to leave the tough decisions for future generations to solve. This is unacceptable.
Missouri has a long and proud history of producing coal. In fact, the Show Me state was the first state West of the Mississippi to produce coal for commercial use. When it comes to the generation of electricity in the United States, about half of that power is provided by coal.
The coal industry is booming and the United States is one of the world's largest exporters of coal. According to the Energy Information Administration, there is enough coal to last for the next 200 years.
Famed economist Milton Friedman once said, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." What we have today, is a federal government that has put itself in charge of our healthcare system through Obamacare. The effects of this law are just now starting to be felt and it is sure to get worse.
President Ronald Reagan summed up the federal government's flawed idea of an economic policy best when he said, "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." That is exactly what we are seeing today. We have a tax code that is unworkable and an endless stream of unnecessary regulations coming out of bureaucracies in Washington.
President Reagan once famously stated that, "government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." I couldn't agree more. I've long said that government does not create jobs. What government can do is enact policies that set the table for economic growth and provide certainty to small businesses.