Issue Position: Economy and Taxes

Issue Position

When people envision the American Dream, it includes owning a home, having a good paying job and feeling economically stable. America is blessed to have one of the strongest, most vibrant economies in the world. While our economy has experienced slower times of late, we are still a country with great opportunity for anyone with a strong work ethic and good ideas. However, we must work to maintain and improve this strength.

I believe that the first step in stimulating our economy is to implement legislation to provide tax relief for small businesses and middle-class families. I believe that we need to drastically decrease federal spending, instead of increasing it and burdening Texas families with the higher price tag. Congress should be working to permanently put an end to the Death Tax and the Marriage Penalty, two tax policies that punish people solely for making natural progressions in life. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a tax that originally ensured that around 150 of the wealthiest Americans paid their fair share of taxes, is estimated to affect almost 20 million Americans today. This extra burden was never intended to touch so many Americans and, I believe, should be done away with once and for all.

We must also put policies forth that strengthen our economic competitiveness across the globe. We should lower our corporate tax rate, which is one of the highest in the world. This one decision would keep existing American jobs from going overseas while also making it more appealing for foreign companies to open subsidiaries in the United States. We must also help our children reach greater heights in the classroom. The higher our nation's level of education is, the larger our workforce is and the stronger our economy becomes.

I firmly believe Congress needs to put an end to wasteful government spending and be a better steward of your tax dollars. Our ever-increasing national debt is one of the greatest threats to our future prosperity. We need to make intelligent and responsible decisions now to bring federal spending under control and ensure that our children and grandchildren have the same or greater opportunities past generations provided for us. I will continue to work with my colleagues to reign in the out of control spending in Washington and get us back on a fiscally responsible course.

I have consistently voted in favor of letting you keep more of your hard earned money and, likewise, voted against tax increases that will only serve to inhibit the further growth of our economy. Hardworking taxpayers in this country are overburdened by taxes and I want to ease this burden. On January 2, 2013, there was a $660 billion tax hike on the American public, due to the tax increases in the "fiscal cliff" bill which I and many of my colleagues opposed. This is in addition to the $1 trillion tax increase from Obamacare that also kicked in at the start of 2013. The President and Congressional Democrats continue to push for higher taxes as a precondition for negotiations on nearly every fiscal challenge our Country faces. Washington's problem is that it spends too much, not that it taxes too little. Families in Texas are already feeling the strain of sky-rocketing gas prices, decreasing home values, and increasing health care costs piled high on the back of a slowing economy. The last thing they need is to pay more taxes. This is bad policy not only for individuals and families, but for our economy as well. I will continue to work for lower taxes and will support other policies that create more economic opportunities for hard-working Americans.

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