Economy & Budget

The President’s budget reflects his goals of continuing robust economic growth, protecting the nation from harm and spending wisely on domestic priorities. Restrained non-defense annual spending, a reduction in the growth of certain entitlement programs and strong revenues triggered by existing tax policies will combine to drive the deficit down and produce a surplus in 2012.

While the short-term budgetary outlook under the President’s budget is positive, there is still a looming threat on the horizon that must be addressed. With the massive Baby Boom generation ready to begin retiring in 2008, the cost of the big entitlement programs will skyrocket. Without Congressional action, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are poised to increase from 8.8 percent of the economy this year to 18 percent in 2030.

We cannot tax our way out of this problem, nor will economic growth alone alleviate the pressure these entitlement programs will place on our children and grandchildren’s resources. As we begin work on crafting a budget for 2008, I look forward to working with my colleagues and the President to find solutions to these critical fiscal issues.

Any time a President submits a budget proposal to Congress, there is going to be close scrutiny and even more so during a time of divided government -- and deservedly so.  Overall, it is important to understand the Administration's priorities and learn how federal agencies evaluate their programs' strengths and weaknesses.

In general, I obviously support the idea of moving towards a balanced budget and am hopeful the numbers with respect to deficit reduction are accurate; however, we would be remiss if we didn't take into account significant obstacles like record spending on entitlement programs due to the baby boom generation as well as a very difficult alternative minimum tax fix and the impact that will have on the overall goal.  Honest accounting must preclude politically motivated gimmicks. We must make some hard choices in order to ensure the solvency of our entitlement programs and maintain Americans' trust. Read more...

Overall, there’s a lot of bad news for Americans in the president’s budget.  There would be $76 billion in cuts to Medicare coverage for seniors and the disabled and $26 billion slashed from Medicaid for the poor.  And that’s just for starters.

This budget would do more to hurt than help the people of New Jersey. The Bush budget will shortchange health insurance for the state’s poorest children, cut higher education programs, and slash homeland security grants almost in half. The President’s budget priorities are wrong for New Jersey and wrong for the nation. I am confident that the final budget approved by the Democratic Congress will be substantially different than what President Bush proposed today.

The American economy created 111,000 new jobs in January, proof positive that the economy is continuing to grow and create new, better-paying jobs. I urge the House of Representatives to follow the Senate’s lead and pass a minimum wage bill that will relieve much of the tax and regulatory burden on small businesses, and allow them to remain the driving force behind economic growth.

We must be careful not to disrupt economic growth with a hike in the minimum wage that is not coupled with relief for the small businesses that must pay those higher wages. The Senate has delivered a true victory for minimum wage earners and middle class small business owners alike by overwhelmingly approving a fair and balanced minimum wage package. The House must now follow suit, and recognize that increasing the minimum wage without helping small businesses is not only unwise, it is not an option. Read more...

I would like to commend the Senate for overwhelmingly approving a fair and balanced minimum wage increase that supports working families and small businesses. Final passage of this package is a clear victory for the middle class, and I urge the House of Representatives to follow the Senate’s lead.

Who is more middle class than America’s small businessmen and women? Passing the Senate’s bipartisan minimum wage and small business relief is good for low skilled workers and it is good for the middle class working families of America.

Some have made reference to the so-called ‘war on the middle class.’ Let’s get our facts straight: Mandating the minimum wage increase without proper relief to the working families who employ many of America’s workers would have been an assault on the middle class. Others like to talk about ‘two Americas.’ Our action today recognizes that there is one America. We are all in this together and we need not do great injury to one group of Americans just to aid another. Read more...

House Democrats attempted to use an Education and Labor Committee hearing yesterday to engage in bitter class warfare over the state of the U.S. economy.

They failed.

Democrats and their witnesses tried to paint a bleak picture of an America facing economic insecurity, shrinking job opportunities, declining upward mobility, and a growing inability to save and accumulate wealth. At the same time, they ignored these facts: Read more...

The 110th Congress has been in office less than one month and the new Democratic leadership is already way off course from the views of my district. That is why I voted against yesterday's bloated federal spending bill.

I had been hoping to receive legislation to fund federal programs consistent with the will of my constituents and the needs of the federal government. Unfortunately, this bill has more pork in it than a spit-roasted pig. I cannot imagine how Members of Congress will be able to go back to their districts and justify a $45 million Tropical Rain Forest in Iowa. This spending bill cuts DEA jobs, military construction funds, and foreign aid while giving duplicative dollars to the Department of Energy and renewing earmarks which we had once cut.

I am disappointed that we were given just one hour to debate a 135-page, $463.5 billion resolution and offered no opportunity for amendment. Without debate or amendment, I cannot tell whether all of these projects are worthy, but on first glance, I can tell that many of them are not. This is not consistent with the will of the American people and is not how our democratic process is expected to work.

The President’s Health Care Tax Deduction initiative proposed during the State of the Union was designed to produce two main results: (1) limit the economic distortions currently present in the tax code with respect to health care, and (2) reduce the number of uninsured in America.

How Does It Work?

The President is seeking to accomplish these two goals by eliminating the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance from income and replace it with a standard tax deduction – $15,000 for family and $7,500 for individual – available to anyone who has health insurance, regardless of the price.

Such a change in the tax code would largely accomplish the first goal. However, introducing a deduction in the income tax system alone would not affect a large fraction of the uninsured who already pay no federal income taxes. Therefore, the President was forced to look at what federal taxes those uninsured actually pay if he wanted to lure them to purchase health insurance from his plan. Read more...

A lot is being made of this being President Bush’s first address to a Democratic-led Congress. I appreciate that President Bush has proven he’ll take a stand and fight for his programs and initiatives. It’s the kind of leadership that makes things happen.

On the specifics, the President’s focus on making America energy independent and less reliant on fossil fuel is good for the nation and good for Iowa. He’s describing a very ambitious agenda. Based on the performance thus far in reaching the renewable fuels standard, his goal of increasing the standard is very realistic. That will benefit agriculture and rural America. Most importantly, though, this goal is necessary. Major goal-setting is the only way we’re going to wean ourselves off of foreign sources of energy.  Tonight’s goal is admirable, but only if it doesn’t come at the expense of existing supportive policies for renewable fuels, such as the ethanol excise tax credit and import tariff. Read more...