In the debate over avoiding the “fiscal cliff,” an important point is not getting enough attention. When it comes to solving our debt, government SPENDING must be addressed. Until spending is tackled in a significant and meaningful way, we will remain on course to leave our children and grandchildren saddled with a huge burden of debt.
In this newsletter you will find a chart prepared by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan that demonstrates just how big our spending problem is. You will also find information about provisions of Obamacare coming into effect that will add to America’s tax burden and have negative consequences for businesses and consumers.
You can find more information about these and other issues on my website at www.ellmers.house.gov and on my social media accounts at Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Please share this newsletter with your friends by forwarding this email and using the social media links in the right sidebar.
Protecting America’s Future
This week, I joined Cathy McMorris Rodgers and other GOP House women at the “Protecting America’s Future” event at the Capitol to talk about the fiscal cliff, spending and how important it is that we protect America’s children and middle-class families.
What could your child buy with their share of the federal debt?
Today’s federal debt puts a crushing burden on our children and grandchildren – each child’s share of the debt is $51,000 today and is on track to be $69,000 per child by 2016. On my new Pinterest board, I’ve posted photos of a few of the items your child could buy with the money they owe on the federal debt.
Click here or on the image below to see a few of the things your child’s share of the federal debt could buy. .
The Senate Should Vote on Repeal of the Medical Device Tax
In June, I cosponsored (and the House passed) H.R. 436 to repeal the Obamacare medical device tax. I also co-authored an op-ed with Congressman Tom Price on the need for this repeal to pass.
Now, in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect have asked for a “delay in the implementation” of the medical device tax. If Democrats in the Senate are truly concerned about the negative effect this significant tax will have on the economy, they should vote on the House bill to repeal the tax.
This is one more example of a bill the House has passed to ease the burden on job creators and consumers that the Senate has ignored. You can track H.R. 436 and similar legislation on this page of my website.
Another Hidden Obamacare Tax
A recent report from the Associated Press explains how a charge, “buried in recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars” for many companies and the expense is likely to be passed to workers. This charge is a new, $63-per-head fee to “cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under Obamacare.”
The report goes on to note that, based on figures provided in the regulation, “employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.”
Spending is the Problem
The chart below – prepared by Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the House Budget Committee – shows what happens to projected levels of tax revenue (green) if President Obama’s tax increases kick in (blue), and compares that with recent and projected spending trajectory (red). As you can see, if the president gets his tax hikes, we still face a mountain of spending-driven debt.
Republicans have offered a balanced, pro-growth solution that would avert the fiscal cliff by making needed spending cuts and reforming our tax code in ways the president previously supported. This kind of plan – backed by a majority of the American people in survey after survey – would help address our debt and pave the way for long-term job growth.
The GOP offer is based on testimony given to the “supercommittee” in 2011 by President Clinton’s former White House chief of staff, Erskine Bowles. It offers the president $800 billion in new revenues – not through higher tax rates, but through pro-growth tax reform that closes special-interest loopholes and deductions and lowers rates. It would cut $900 billion in mandatory spending and another $300 billion in discretionary spending, over and above the spending cuts enacted in the Budget Control Act.