HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Speaker Pelosi’s New Tax on All Americans? Just Say ‘No’

In an interview on the Charlie Rose show earlier this month, Speaker Pelosi said she was open to enacting a national sales tax in addition to the income tax, stating “I think it’s fair [to] look at a value-added tax.” A value-added tax, or VAT tax, is a tax levied at “every level of production or service,” according to the Wall Street Journal, and would affect every American and every single small business on top of the existing federal income tax. 

Why is Speaker Pelosi proposing this new tax now? After all, Democrats are already slated to raise taxes on energy by nearly $1800 per family through a ‘cap and trade’ national energy tax - and their government takeover of health care contains more than $820 billion in tax hikes.  Moreover, Democrats already voted to raise taxes earlier this year on small businesses and families to the tune of “$1.5 trillion over the next 10 years,” according to an analysis by the House Budget Committee Republican staff. 

Speaker Pelosi’s new tax would add yet another burden that families and small businesses would have to face.  As Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute explains in the following video, “the evidence from Europe unambiguously suggests that a VAT will dramatically increase the burden of government.  That’s good for Washington, but bad for America.”

The American people couldn’t disagree more with the Speaker. In fact, a Rasmussen poll released earlier this month found that “67% oppose a national sales tax.”  Unfortunately, as the Wall Street Journal editorialized:

The allure of a VAT for politicians is that it applies to every level of production or service, rakes in piles of money, and is largely hidden from those who ultimately pay it-namely, consumers. With a $9 trillion 10-year budget deficit, $4 trillion in spending in fiscal 2010 alone, and a $1 trillion (at a minimum) health-care entitlement in the wings, Mrs. Pelosi knows that not even the revenue from the expiration of the lower Bush tax rates in 2011 will cover the bills. Nearly every European country that has passed national health care has also eventually imposed a VAT, and it’s foolish to think the U.S. will be different.

Speaker Pelosi’s new tax would hit small businesses particularly hard - and that would have an adverse impact on an already poor employment outlook.  It’s time the Democrats stop trying to tax everything in sight, and free small business men and women to start creating the jobs this economy so desperately needs. 

Just ‘say no’ to Speaker Pelosi’s national sales tax.

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As Millions Remain Unemployed, Democrats Push Job-Killing Policies on Capitol Hill

Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent to 9.8 percent in September is a grim reminder that for the millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans, the jobs climate remains perilous. 

As the New York Times reported on September 26, “[j]ob seekers now outnumber openings six to one…According to the Labor Department’s latest numbers, from July, only 2.4 million full-time permanent jobs were open.” And the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that “[t]he number of unemployed — officially at 15.1 million — is greater than the population of all but four states.”

The following chart from the New York Times illustrates the grim jobs outlook:

What’s more, any coming economic recovery is likely to a jobless one, with economists from Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan agreeing that the unemployment rate will likely remain elevated for some time to come.  Alan Greenspan went so far as to say yesterday that “we’re going to penetrate the 10 percent barrier and stay there for a while before we start down.”

So what are the Democrats doing to grow the economy, free up capital for small businesses, and create a climate of job creation?  They’re proposing the biggest onslaught of big government spending, taxes, deficits, and regulations out of Washington, D.C. since the Carter Administration.  Virtually every proposal by Washington Democrats this year has been a drag on future economic growth - which means fewer jobs and stagnant wages for those who do have jobs.

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New Report Confirms Dems’ Government Takeover of Health Care Will Hit Americans With New Taxes, More Expensive Health Care

A study published today by Cato Institute scholar Michael F. Cannon, “All the President’s Mandates,” confirms what House Republicans have been saying for months: that Democrats’ health care bills - whether in the House or Senate - envision giant new taxes on all Americans to pay for their government takeover of health care.  Cannon’s study focuses on how the “individual mandate” would raise the cost of health insurance - and would result in higher taxes to boot.

Cannon writes:

[M]aking health insurance compulsory would give government sweeping new powers to regulate health insurance, and, by extension, all of medicine…those powers would increase costs and reduce choice by eliminating low-cost health plans-forcing nearly 100 million Americans to switch to a more expensive plan. For example, the various bills before Congress could force many or all of the 8 million Americans with health savings account coverage to switch to another plan.

Instead of putting doctors and patients first, the Democrats’ bills would put bureaucrats in charge - enabling them to raise costs and ration care.  As Cannon notes:

The House legislation would empower unelected bureaucrats to add to the mandatory level of coverage…Simply by adjusting the definition of qualified health insurance, politicians and government bureaus can engage in both explicit rationing (e.g., denying coverage for specific services and revoking coverage for unpopular groups) and implicit rationing (e.g, via price and exchange controls).

More expensive health care wouldn’t be the only result of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care, however.  To finance their $1.6 trillion health plan, Democrats plan to raise taxes - on small businesses and individuals.  Cannon observes:

Suppose a single, uninsured woman earns $50,000 per year working for an employer who does not offer qualified coverage.  Because she is uninsured, House Democrats would force her to pay a tax equal to 2.5 percent of income, while her employer would pay a fine equal to 8 percent of payroll.  In effect, she would pay an ‘uninsured tax’ equal to 10.5 percent of her income.  Add that to her 15.3-percent payroll tax and 25-percent marginal income tax rate, and House Democrats would push her effective marginal tax rate to 50.8 percent-and that’s before counting state income taxes.

That amounts to a huge new tax on small businesses and middle class families at a time when the U.S. economy is already facing the grim prospect of a long, drawn-out jobless recovery.  But despite all the new taxes, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House Democrats’ bill will still increase the deficit by $239 billion.  As House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said on Monday:

The massive tax increases working families will see under the Democrats’ costly government takeover of health care aren’t hidden in the fine print. The President should be straight with the American people and admit that his health care plan requires significant tax hikes in the middle of a deep recession.

House Republicans believe that it’s time for Democrats to hit the ‘reset button’ and scrap this costly government takeover of health care and work with Republicans to produce a bipartisan health care plan that won’t raise taxes or increase costs.  

To read about House Republicans’ better solutions on health care, visit HealthCare.GOP.Gov.

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Boehner, House GOP Unveil Chart Outlining Democrats’ Government Takeover of Health Care

This morning, Fox News highlighted a press briefing House Republican Leaders called to discuss the bureaucratic nightmare that the House Democrats’ government-run plan would create:

House Republicans, led by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) and House Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), today outlined a chart detailing the bureaucratic nightmare of the House Democrats’ $1.5 trillion health care plan that relies on massive tax hikes on small businesses and job creators in the midst of a deepening economic recession - and will cause as many as 114 million Americans to lose their current coverage to boot.

The chart identifies at least 31 new federal programs, agencies, commissions and mandates that accompany the unprecedented government takeover of health care in America. 

Americans want health care reform - and House Republicans agree - but the Democrats’ go-it-alone, tax and spend attitude isn’t the way to improve the best health care system in the world.  House Republicans have a plan that will reduce costs, expand access and increase the quality of care in a way we can afford - without raising taxes on small businesses or middle class families.  To read more about the House Republicans’ plan, click HERE.

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Boehner: Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Be the Defining Vote of This Congress

Last Friday, the House narrowly passed Speaker Pelosi’s 1,500 page national energy tax.  At 3:09 am the morning of the vote, House Democrats dropped a 300-page amendment to their massive energy tax legislation.  Clearly, House Democrats didn’t want the American people to understand the true impact of their national energy tax.  So House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took to the House floor and read portions of it to the American people, explaining how it would raise electricity prices, increase gasoline prices, and ship American jobs overseas to countries like China and India.

The full transcript of Leader Boehner’s remarks are as follows:

Mr. BOEHNER. My colleagues, we’ve been through a very difficult time in our economy. We’ve had the great economic shocks of last fall, and we’ve seen unemployment climbing month after month after month. It is now at some 9.4 percent.

Earlier this year we passed a 1,100-page bill that no one read. It was supposed to be about putting the American people back to work again. It was supposed to be about stimulating our economy. And all we heard during that debate was about jobs, jobs and jobs. It’s pretty clear that what the bill really ended up being was nothing more than spending, spending and more spending, because since that bill passed, some 1.7 million Americans have lost their jobs. So when we look at the legislation that continues to go through here, the American people are seeing an awful lot of spending, an awful lot of money going to government, but they’re not seeing new jobs.

Now we come to what I believe is the most profound piece of legislation that has come to the floor of this House in the last 100 years. It’s hard to say in the first 6 months of the new Congress that this could be the defining vote and the defining bill for this Congress, but I really, truly believe that this is the defining bill.

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Job-Killing Energy Tax Vote Nearing; Will Democrats Support the Middle Class or New Taxes?

Speaker Pelosi will try to ram her national energy tax through Congress tomorrow, with Roll Call quoting one senior staffer saying that “she’s going all out” despite the fact that Republicans and “many moderate Democrats said they still have questions or concerns about the package and either cannot yet say whether they support it or are leaning against it.”

Members of Congress aren’t the only people who are expressing concerns about the Speaker’s job-killing tax; a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a majority (54 percent) opposed the Speaker’s energy tax if it “raised your monthly electrical bill by 25 dollars a month” - $300 annually - even if it “significantly lowered greenhouse gases” (question 36).  The fact is higher electricity costs are just one of the consequences of this burdensome national energy tax.

Pelosi’s national energy tax is a 1,201 page convoluted mess of new regulations and punitive taxes, as the following chart illustrates:

Any wonder the Wall Street Journal stated in an editorial today that Speaker Pelosi’s bill “defies the laws of economics.”  The Journal continued:

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill.  The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less.  These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars.  Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts in Congress won’t admit that their “cap-and-trade” bill is nothing more than a giant energy tax on the middle class.  But many prominent Democrats have spoken out against “cap-and-trade” and aren’t afraid to call it by its name - a national energy tax.  Yesterday, Warren Buffett led the charge in an interview on CNBC where he stated that “cap-and-trade”  is “a huge tax and there’s no sense calling it anything else.”  Even the longest serving Member of the House, former Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI), has called Pelosi’s “cap-and-trade” bill for what it is: “a tax and a great big one.”

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in a press conference today: “Mark my words: The American people are going to remember this vote.  This will be a defining moment in a defining vote in this Congress.  And the real question is:  Where are the Democrats going to stand on this?”

It’s a good question - one the Democrats will have to answer tomorrow.

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Tax Hikes Will Kill Recovery, Harvard Economist Says

Democrats have been in control of the Presidency and Congress for only five months - and so far they’re having trouble restraining themselves from taxing nearly everything Americans do.  The President’s $3.6 trillion budget raises taxes on every single American and will “kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery,” according to Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and current Harvard professor.

In a column in today’s Wall Street Journal he notes that:

Even if the proposed tax increases are not scheduled to take effect until 2011, households will recognize the permanent reduction in their future incomes and will reduce current spending accordingly.  Higher future tax rates on capital gains and dividends will depress share prices immediately and the resulting fall in wealth will cut consumer spending further.  Lower share prices will also raise the cost of equity capital, depressing business investment in plant and equipment.

Feldstein also notes that the President’s proposed national energy tax will hit the least fortunate Americans the hardest: “According to the CBO, households in the lowest-income quintile spend more than 20 percent of their income on energy intensive items (primarily fuels and electricity), while those in the highest-income quintile spend less than 5 percent on those products.”

The President’s budget is riddled with tax increases that will punish the American people and slow economic growth and job creation, plain and simple.

If you drive a car or flip on a light switch - Democrats have a new national energy tax for you.  If you’re a small business owner or if you’re employed by one - Democrats have a new tax for you.  If you’re a charity - Democrats have a new tax for your donors.  If you’re looking to produce more American energy - Democrats have a new tax for you.  If you own stock - Democrats have a new tax for you.  And when you’re finally able to relax - after paying all your taxes to Uncle Sam - and you want to kick back, relax, and have a cold beer, you guessed it, Democrats may have a new tax for you too.

And yet - all of the taxing, spending, and borrowing the Democrats in Washington are proposing still won’t fix our economy, create jobs, or even address the staggering deficit that will hit nearly $2 trillion this year and will consume nearly 13 percent of the overall economy.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has repeatedly said that the President’s budget “spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our kids and grandkids.”  House Republicans are committed to restoring fiscal sanity in Washington, and have introduced a budget alternative that doesn’t raise taxes and keeps spending under control by instituting a spending freeze for five years, exempting defense and veterans’ benefits.

Ronald Reagan once quipped that: “Our friends in the other party have never met a tax they didn’t like - or hike.”

Funny how some things never change.

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Better Solutions: Reforming the Tax Code

Some in Washington are advocating higher taxes during these difficult economic times.  They’re calling for a new national energy tax that will affect every American household; higher taxes on small businesses and families; and higher taxes on investors.  Some are even calling for the middle class tax rebate Congress passed to be repealed as early as next year.

House Republicans disagree, and are standing for lower taxes and a smaller and more accountable government that doesn’t burden future generations with unsustainable amounts of debt. 

House Republicans believe we have a better solution.

We start with a basic premise: a world-class tax system should be simple, fair, and efficient.  That’s why the House Republican budget, drafted by House Budget Committee Ranking Member Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), reforms the tax code, reins in government spending, and controls the deficit.  The House GOP budget also includes an optional flat tax:

Individuals can choose to pay their Federal taxes under the existing tax code, with all the familiar deductions and schedules, or they could move to a highly simplified income tax system.  The simplified plan broadens the tax base by clearing out nearly all the existing tax deductions and credits, compresses the tax schedule down to two low rates and retains a generous standard deduction and exemption level.  The tax form for this system could fit on a postcard. 

The goal is a more simple, fair and efficient tax code…the simplified tax has just two rates: 10 percent on adjusted gross income [AGI] up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25 percent on taxable income above these amounts.

In addition, the House Republican budget alternative:

• Includes no tax increases
• Freezes nondefense (excluding veterans) spending in FY 2010-14
• Extends the AMT ‘Patch’
• Maintains incentives for savings and investment
• Lowers the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 25 percent
• Suspends capital gains taxes through 2010
• Allows individuals to choose how they will pay their federal income taxes

The Republican plan spends less, taxes less, and borrows less.  In fact, it spends $4.8 trillion less than the President’s budget over ten years; deficits are $3.3 trillion lower than the President’s over ten years; and, deficits fall below 3.0 percent of GDP under the House Republican budget.

House Republicans are committed to providing better solutions to the challenges that face hardworking Americans.  House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), along with other House Republicans, have produced better solutions on savings, health care, housing, energy, economic recovery, and rural issues.  Additionally, Leader Boehner has launched solutions website that will continue to highlight House Republicans’ better solutions for a stronger America.

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Boehner: “The Most Expensive Credit Card in History” is the Congressional Voting Card

This morning, in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) slammed the Democrats’ budget that “spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our kids and grandkids” and called the congressional voting card “the most expensive credit card in the history of the world,” holding up his voting card to illustrate his point:

Right here is the most expensive credit card in the history of the world.  It’s a voting card for a member of Congress, and this voting card should be used responsibly on behalf of the American people.  So far this year a majority in this House have used this credit card irresponsibly: an $800 billion stimulus bill that was supposed to be about jobs, jobs and jobs, and turned into nothing more than an $800 billion bill about spending, spending and more spending and growing the size of government.  Then we had an omnibus appropriation bill, $30 billion over budget, 9,000 earmarks. How responsible was that to pass?  And now we have an opportunity with this budget, a budget that spends too much, taxes too much and puts too much debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids.

In a twist of sad irony, Congressional Democrats plan to bring legislation to the floor this week aimed at curbing credit card abuses.  But the legislation won’t do a thing to halt the most destructive credit card abuse taking place in America today - Washington Democrats’ use of the congressional voting card to pile unprecedented debt on future generations of Americans. 

House Republicans offered a better budget solution that focuses on curbing spending, creating jobs, and controlling the nation’s debt, but House Democrats instead chose to pass the most fiscally-irresponsible budget in American history.  The full floor statement is available here.

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National Energy Tax Faces Democratic Opposition in the House

As the President nears one hundred days in office, one of his signature proposals, “cap and trade,” is facing growing opposition in Congress among Democrats.  House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has slammed “cap and trade” as an “attempt to enact a national energy tax” that will cost every American household up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices.

The Democrats’ budget, finalized late last night, does not include the President’s promised middle-class tax cut.  Just one hundred days into the new Administration, the Democrats are already backtracking on the President’s promise to provide much needed middle-class tax relief - even as liberal Democratic Congressional leaders press to implement a massive new tax on the American people. 

The Politico reported today that as the costs of the President’s national energy tax sink in, even Democrats are becoming skeptical:

There are two major holdups: the proposed cap on carbon emissions and stringent requirements for utilities to embrace renewable sources of energy. To get the votes for this legislation, Democrats are trying to do some horse trading within their party.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) asked in a hearing last week:

“What do I tell a single parent, for example, in my district with two children - two young children - making $8 an hour?” Butterfield asked former Vice President Al Gore during a Friday hearing. “What can I say to reassure her that she will be able to afford the cost of this legislation?”

Despite Speaker Pelosi’s pledge - repeated just last week - to have a “cap and trade” national energy tax bill passed by the end of the year, that prospect is looking increasingly unlikely Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Hill on Monday.  The Hill reported today that, “a cap-and-trade bill doesn’t have the votes to pass.  While that could change in the months to come, few - if any - on Capitol Hill believe it has the necessary 60 votes in the Senate.”

House Republicans are committed to working with the President and Congressional Democrats to advance policies for cleaner air and water and a healthy environment.  Led by House GOP Conference Chairman Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the House Republican’s American Energy Solutions Group supports an ‘all of the above’ strategy that promotes alternative technologies, encourages conservation and more nuclear power, and increases environmentally-safe production of American energy.  This strategy not only will pave the way for a cleaner, healthier environment for our children and grandchildren, but it will also lower energy costs and create good-paying jobs - without raising taxes.

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