E-Newsletters

John Marshall, the longest serving Supreme Court Justice in history, once noted that, "To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well." Indeed, throughout my time in Congress, I have believed you can learn a lot more by listening.

That's why I enjoyed travelling the Sixth Congressional District throughout the month of August. At every stop, dozens of people were ready with their suggestions and ideas on how to make things better in our country.

A candidate vying to be president of the United States once said: "For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that government – federal, state and local – costs too much….we must abolish useless offices. We must eliminate unnecessary functions of government. We must consolidate subdivisions of government and, like the private citizens, give up luxuries which we can no longer afford."

As high school students begin returning to the classroom, many of them will be thinking about their futures. Some that you know may be considering serving our nation in one of the branches of the military.

It's one of the great privileges of my job to be able to recommend a select group of individuals for admission to the United States Service Academies each year. Specifically, I am able to recommend students for the:

In some regards, recent headlines it seem more like 1973 than 2013 right now. From the IRS targeting to the Benghazi attacks, from running guns to planning luxurious retreats on the taxpayer dime, our government is out of control.

Washington has simply gotten too big, too bloated, and too intrusive in our everyday lives. That's why this past week, the House of Representatives passed a package of bills designed to rein in excess, punish abuse, and hold bureaucrats accountable.

Among the bills approved by the House are ones to end lavish government employee conferences, allow the IRS to fire employees who engage in political targeting, and limit the size of federal employee bonuses. Many of these commonsense bills were passed unanimously.

In 2010, Nancy Pelosi said we needed to pass the president's healthcare law in order to find out what was in it. It turns out, even those who voted to pass the law are still finding out what is in it, three years later. To this day, we continue to discover new provisions which will negatively impact businesses, workers, and the overall economy.

Last week, I noted that the Obama Administration announced it was delaying Obamacare's ‘employer mandate,' requiring all businesses with 50 or more employees to provide their full-time workers with an affordable healthcare option or face a penalty.

You may have heard that the Obama Administration recently announced it was delaying the ‘employer mandate,' a key component of the Affordable Care Act which requires all businesses with 50 or more employees provide their full-time workers with an affordable healthcare option or face a penalty. While this delay may provide some relief for the Administration, it won't help small businesses that will still have to grapple with this heavy-handed mandate in the near future.