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A lot of folks in Congress don't seem to grasp that we are spending money we do not have. It's like the old joke, ‘I can't be broke, because I still have checks left.' The government is still issuing checks, but they are also issuing IOU's for nearly 40 cents of every dollar spent.
(Washington, D.C) U.S. Congressman Sam Graves' first amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill passed on a 216-190 vote. The amendment transferred $1 million in funds from the Missouri River Recovery Program to the Operations and Maintenance Account to be used for levee maintenance. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spends $73 million on wildlife rehabilitation along the river, but only $6 million to build and maintain levees.
Over the next month, one topic will dominate the news coming out of Washington. The debate about if and how to raise the debt ceiling will hit a fever pitch as the government runs up against a deadline.
In 1917, Congress capped the amount the government can legally borrow at $11.5 billion. The debt ceiling limit is a lot like your credit card limit. You can borrow only as much as your credit card limit allows and no more. The idea was to help control spending.
Printed in Politico.
The clock has run out.
On July 1, the European Union-South Korea free trade agreement goes into effect. Then, on Aug. 15, the Colombia-Canada free trade agreement will take effect — leaving U.S. small businesses at a competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace.
There has been recent progress on three pending trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea — but time is of the essence.
(Washington D.C.) The majority of Missouri's Congressional Delegation today sent a letter to the President asking him to approve of Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's request for emergency assistance for those counties affected by flooding.
The affected areas include Andrew, Atchison, Boone, Buchanan, Callaway, Carroll, Chariton, Clark, Clay, Cole, Cooper, Franklin, Gasconade, Holt, Howard, Jackson, Lafayette, Lewis, Moniteau, Montgomery, Osage, Platte, Ray, Saline, St. Charles, St. Louis, and Warren Counties and the independent City of St. Louis.
In the next week, millions of Americans will celebrate our Independence Day. The fourth day of July is the day that we celebrate our declaration of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was the last time America was ruled by a monarch.
In the place of a King or Queen, our forefathers created three separate branches of government. Each of those branches had checks and balances over the other two so that no one branch of government would become supreme.
Some days working with my colleagues reminds me of the story of a young man from Washington who decided he wanted to become a farmer. An older neighbor farmer was so excited to have a young man entering agriculture that he gave him 10 chickens to get started.
A few weeks later, the men saw one another and the young man said it wasn't going well. In fact all the chickens had died. The old farmer said, "Well something must be wrong." The young man said, "Yeah, I'm not sure if I am planting them too deep or too far apart."
Originally published in Politico.
By Rep. Sam Graves and Rep. Mike Mulvaney (SC-5)
Imagine you own a business that puts a new roof on the local high school. After you do the work, the school pays only 97 percent of what it owes you. Why? On the off chance you may not pay your federal taxes.
That is what a section of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 does. It requires federal, state and local governments to withhold 3 percent from all payments for goods and services made to small businesses.
Originally published in The Hill.
On Tuesday, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), a small business advocacy group, released their monthly small business optimism index. As expected, the index dropped for the third consecutive month. The report of more than 700 randomly sampled small businesses in NFIB's membership signaled that our nation's most robust job creators are struggling as they fight their way through our nation's sluggish recovery.
(Washington) An invitation issued by U.S. Congressman Sam Graves and U.S. Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins to tour areas likely to be affected by the floods has been accepted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Graves and Jenkins will be accompanied by Col. Anthony Hoffman, Commander of the Kansas City District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several other officials on Friday.