Media

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.

Today, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the national unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9.5 percent – still well above the 8 percent limit the Administration promised when it helped ram an ill-advised, trillion dollar stimulus package through Congress – while payrolls fell by 125,000 as short-term Census jobs ended.

On July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a statement announcing the dissolution of the official relationship between the Thirteen Colonies and the kingdom of Great Britain. That document came to be known as the Declaration of Independence.

Voicing their desire for self-governance and freedom from tyranny, our founding fathers boldly proclaimed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This week, we found out that the House of Representatives will not pass a budget for the first time in 35 years.

Leaders in the House will tell you it's because they are awaiting recommendations from the President's fiscal commission. The truth is they don't want to talk about how they've racked up an unprecedented amount of debt and how their un-curbed spending will cost the American taxpayers trillions more.

Earlier this year, my colleague and fellow farmer Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-9) and I were able to secure a federal waiver that ensured a timely delivery of farm supplies for the 2010 planting season. It was a victory for hard-working farm families throughout Missouri.

Every week since the health care bill passed, the public has been treated to new information demonstrating how this bill costs more than advertised, how it is going to drive up premiums, and how it is going to force them out of the health plans the President and his allies in Congress promised they could keep.

In the current highway bill, states are required to spend a minimum of 15 percent of the federal funds they receive on "off-system" or local bridges. Some in Washington are pushing to eliminate this program in the next highway bill.

In the last five years, Missouri has received about $20 million per year to fix bridges. That dedicated federal funding is necessary to repair and rehabilitate bridges that are not safe.