E-Newsletters

This year's deficit is projected to be about $1.5 trillion dollars. In the past, I've talked about how big "just" $1 trillion is. Here are a couple ways to think about it: If you spent $1 million a day, every day since Jesus was born you'd still have about $250 billion left over. Stacked on top of one another, a trillion $1 bills would reach nearly 68,000 miles into the sky, which is about a third of the way from the Earth to the moon.

This week, I sent a letter to President Barack Obama in support of Governor Jay Nixon's request for a Federal disaster declaration for the state of Missouri. The request is in response to recent severe weather and flooding across the state.

People in Northwest Missouri have seen once again the damage Mother Nature can do. Our local emergency workers and first responders did an excellent job of making sure a bad situation did not become even worse.

Washington is racking up debt at an astounding and frightening rate. Some have proposed tax increases as a way to pay for all the irrational projects and initiatives the federal government now funds. Increasing taxes during a recession is irresponsible and dangerous for the economy. It's also extremely unpopular.

It's no secret illegal immigration is an ongoing problem in the United States and that the federal government has thus far failed to stem the tide of illegal aliens entering our country. It is now clearer than ever that we cannot hope to stop individuals from entering this country illegally until we finish building a physical fence on our southern border. In addition, we must give the U.S. Border Patrol the materials and manpower it needs to enforce our immigration laws. Businesses also need to know they are hiring law-abiding citizens when they have an open position.

Our current tax system is extremely inefficient. There are too many loopholes and too many regulations. Often times it hurts the very entrepreneurs and small businesses we need to help bring us out of the current economic downturn.

Frankly, I would like to see it thrown out and replaced with a tax code that adheres to three principles: It should be simple, fair and promote economic growth. Our current tax code meets none of those goals, and in fact it often times has the exact opposite effects.

Earlier this week, I signed an amicus curiae, or "friend of the court," brief in defense of Arizona's efforts to enforce federal immigration law.

In May, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other organizations filed a class action lawsuit to prevent implementation of Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070. In its legal challenge, the ACLU argued that Arizona's law unconstitutionally intrudes on the federal government's authority to regulate immigration.

There is no escaping the fact that Washington has a spending problem. The national debt recently passed $13 trillion, and yearly trillion dollar deficits are predicted for at least the next decade at current spending levels. However, Washington also has a taxation problem.

There is little dispute that the current tax code is too difficult to understand, too punitive and too easy to avoid through loopholes. In its place, we need to implement a tax code that is simple, fair and promotes economic growth. That is why I am a co-sponsor of the Fair Tax.

"No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant." George Washington, 1796

There are very few occasions when I disagree with our first president. This, however, is one of them. While I agree that all taxes are "inconvenient and unpleasant," General Washington didn't live long enough to see the sorry state of our current tax code.