Economy & Budget

Our current tax policy values wasteful and dirty energy generation over clean, renewable technology. This session, Congress has the ability to reform our tax system to spur innovation, save energy, and make our communities more livable.

I am currently working on several pieces of legislation to use the tax code to promote carbon neutral and environmentally positive policies.

Last month, I introduced H.R. 1772, the Rural Wind Energy Development Act. This legislation would provide an investment tax credit to help individuals offset the high upfront cost of installing a small wind turbine, which creates clean, renewable energy. Read more...

The news from the Treasury Department and Wall Street this week is two more clear indications that the tax cuts we passed in 2001 and 2003 are benefiting the American people.

Yesterday, the Treasury announced a one-day record amount of tax receipts -- more than $48.7 billion -- was collected on April 24.  And this week the Dow finished about 13,000 for the first time in its history.

These aren’t apparitions.  We’ve seen 43 straight months of job growth with 7.8 million new jobs created over that period.  There have been 18 straight months of unemployment at or below 5%. Read more...

I am a fiscal conservative, but the dollars we invest in basic research will come back to us in spades in terms of stimulating economic activity and helping the United States remain at the forefront of global innovation. The America COMPETES Act would double funding for the National Science Foundation -- the NSF -- by 2011 and increase support for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

Our continued investment in basic research is made more essential by the actions of other nations like China and India. Such countries are not sitting idly by waiting to see what we will do here to remain competitive. Rather they are undertaking ambitious efforts to expand their own research and development base at our expense.

Editor's note: Sen. Ensign was an original cosponsor of S.761, the America COMPETES Act.

I am deeply troubled by the unethical practices and conflicts of interest that have recently been revealed within the student loan industry. Students and their families, already struggling with rising tuition costs and high student loan interest rates, deserve to be given the best deal possible when borrowing for school.

Too often, colleges are steering student borrowers to specific companies; known as "preferred lenders," while receiving compensation in return. Furthermore, there is growing evidence of extravagant kickbacks to college employees and questionable stock holdings by public officials. This is unacceptable. Read more...

The old saying is that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That may or may not be true, but I do think the way to resolve America's current "beef" with Japan could be one tasty meal. For too long now, Japan has maintained an unscientific and unfair ban on U.S. beef imports. This week, President Bush will have a great opportunity to knock down that trade barrier for America's ranchers when Japan's new prime minister comes to town.

International standards show that all U.S. beef is safe, regardless of the age of the cattle. I have worked hard to convince Japan of this. I've gone to Japan and I've had Japanese trade ministers out to a Montana ranch to sample Montana beef. I've weighed in with the Japanese Food Safety Commission -- in Japanese. Read more...

The Social Security trustees’ report is a wakeup call to Congress. Our social security system is shattered and Medicare is on the brink of insolvency.  In fact, for the first time the trustees have issued a Medicare funding warning that calls for immediate action from the President and Congress.

The whole system is on the path to financial crisis and every Member of Congress must summon the courage to move past political games and fix this problem once and for all.

But in their FY08 budget proposal, Democrats did not meaningfully address the coming crisis.  Thus, as another year slips away, it becomes even more difficult and more painful to fix the structural problems in Social Security and Medicare. Read more...

Competition works and Part D proves it. Costs are lower for seniors, lower for taxpayers and lower than all the experts predicted. There is even some evidence to suggest that by making prescriptions affordable, we may be reducing hospitalizations in Medicare. If that holds true, we will begin to see even greater savings in the program.

It would be hard for this issue to be clearer: Baby Boomers are poised to begin retiring in record numbers, and, without reform, Social Security and Medicare are simply not ready to continue to provide promised benefits. But the Democratic leadership in both Houses of Congress continued to ignore the demographic facts by passing budgets last month without a glimmer of an idea for improving retirement security for the American people.

We are dooming our children and grandchildren to a future of massive tax increases and reduced prosperity if we stick our heads in the sand.  I can't believe that is the legacy anyone wants for this Congress.

The tax code, last reformed in 1986, has grown into a 1.4 million-word, 10,000-section behemoth that takes the average taxpayer 31 hours to navigate each year. In the 21 years since Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, there have been approximately 15,000 changes made to the tax code. That works out to roughly three changes for every working day of Congress. The six billion hours each year that Americans are estimated to spend doing their taxes is greater than the combined annual working hours of every American employed in the manufacturing of cars, computers, airplanes and steel in the United States. The problem has grown so dire that the public now shells out more on tax preparation than our government does on higher education. Clearly something is wrong and it’s time for a change.

That is why Rep. Emanuel (D-Ill.) and I wrote the Fair Flat Tax Act, which we introduced on Monday. Under our bill every individual would use a dramatically shortened, one-page, thirty-line 1040 form that would take less than an hour for most Americans to complete. The bill would also provide major tax relief for America’s middle class, and would do so while remaining revenue neutral and helping to pay down our growing national deficit.

The details of our plan are as follows. First, it would make the tax code simpler and flatter. It would do so for individuals by shrinking the current six brackets down to three: 15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent. The bill would also triple the standard deduction to $15,000 for individuals and $30,000 for families. This would provide needed tax relief to most Americans, and would save them countless hours of searching for receipts, invoices and credit card statements every April since they would no longer have to itemize. Read more...

Yesterday was tax day.  Or at least the one day of the year most Americans focus on the cost of their federal taxes.

We are now 100 days into the new Congress with Democrat majorities in the House and Senate.  In the past six years there was a tax cut passed by the House and Senate and signed by the President each and every year.

Fourteen days into this Congress the House of Representatives passed the first tax increase through the House of Representatives in 13 years.  No tax hike has passed the House or Senate since 1993 when Clinton raised the AMT and other taxes.

Now Congress is pushing a budget that presumes and would force the largest tax hike in American history.

Taxpayers are on the defensive.