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The VAT is clearly a job killer. While in the last 20 years American businesses created 45 million jobs, the European economy only created 10 million. The healthcare bill moved us toward European levels of government, but now liberals want European taxes to pay for it. The big problem is that new taxes will severely impede the dynamism of our economy.
I’m glad that so many of my colleagues are willing to sign their name to a strong statement opposing the VAT. Many in Washington see the President’s debt commission as a way to bring in the VAT. We need to stand together and make sure that the commission is not just another way for Democrats to centralize control of our economy in Washington.
The simple fact is that a VAT is not a solution to our debt problem. We have unsustainable levels of government and new taxes won’t do the job of balancing the budget. European nations with the VAT have not used the revenue to pay off their debt. Greece, Spain, Portugal, and other countries going through fiscal crises all gradually raised their VAT rates while ignoring the real problem—spending.
If we want to balance our budget and create new jobs, we have to get a handle on our out of control spending and entitlement programs. I hope the President’s debt commission recognizes that new taxes, like the VAT, are not the solution.
Originally Posted on May 20, 2010 Here
Democrats in Congress are increasingly nervous that their leaders’ policies are heading them for big trouble with the voters. At the top of their list of complaints is the lack of even a plan to reverse growing unemployment. Read this very interesting article for more on this.
As for Democratic voters, even Tuesday’s primary—which included a big win for Democrats in western Pennsylvania—contained an ominous sign for Democrats going into the fall: Democrats stayed home in unexpectedly high numbers. Read this from a pollster on what this means.
I’ve had several Democrats call and write to me asking how they can switch parties. I received this email from a woman on Sunday: “Hello, please help me change parties…. I am currently a Democrat. … I was raised a Democrat, my father a carpenter in the union. I can no longer belong to a party I do not believe in,,.please tell me how I change parties.”
If you would like to change your registration or register to vote for the first time, registration forms are available at most public libraries and many other government offices. If you can’t find one, please call my office and I’ll send you one!
Pitts, GOP lawmakers: spike idea of consumption tax
By TOM MURSE, Staff Writer
U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts is leading a GOP effort to pressure President Barack Obama's debt commission into spiking the idea of a nationwide consumption tax as a way to close the budget deficit.
"With unemployment at nearly 10 percent, Americans cannot afford the burden of a new job-killing tax," Pitts wrote in a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform on Thursday.
The letter was signed by 153 other congressional Republicans, including House GOP Conference leaders including Leader John Boehner, Whip Eric Cantor and Chairman Mike Pence.
White House spokesmen have said repeatedly that the president has not proposed and is not considering such a tax, commonly referred to as a value-added tax. But Obama hasn't completely rejected the idea, either, saying in interviews that the tax is "something that has worked for some countries."
Many European countries impose a VAT, which taxes the value that is added at each stage of production of certain commodities. It could apply, for instance, to raw products delivered to a mill, the mill's production work and so on up the line to the retailer.
Suggestions of imposing a VAT in the United States have grown in the face of a looming $1.6 trillion budget deficit in the current fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Obama's debt commission began meeting in April and is expected to producing a plan to reduce the deficit.
Republicans lawmakers, however, are suggesting the commission focus on spending cuts, not new taxes.
"A new value-added tax is no way to revitalize an American economy that needs to create millions of new jobs," Pitts said in a statement. "European VAT taxes have not prevented these countries from going into deep debt, they have only slowed job growth."
The lawmakers, who did not identify potential budget cuts in their letter, said a value-added tax of 19 percent did not save Greece from its debt crisis.
"The result of increased government spending and taxation in Greece has been a consistently high unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent and a bankrupt government," the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
Asked where he would cut spending, Pitts said he would freeze discretionary spending and propose a one or two percent across the board cut in spending.
Pitts called, additionally, for a repeal of the new healthcare law and replacing it with cheaper alternatives, as well as saving and strengthening entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
"Long term, entitlements are the biggest problem," said Pitts. "We have $107 trillion in binding entitlement promises Congress has no plan to pay for. Whatever we do, we should not be creating new entitlements we can't afford."
(This report contains information from our wire services.)
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/256394
First of all, we’re finding that medical costs will rise nationwide. According to a report from the federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid, national health expenditures will increase by $311 billion over ten years because of the new law. There was lots of talk during the debate over health care reform about “bending the cost curve.” Unfortunately, the bill appears to have bent the cost curve up instead of down.
This same report indicated that individuals who purchase health insurance on their own can expect to pay an additional $2,100 a year. The individual market was already pricing out many consumers, but now costs will rise even faster. For now, individuals can choose to drop coverage and pay for medical costs out of pocket. In the future, all Americans will have to purchase insurance or face IRS penalties.
Premiums are not the only area where expenses are projected to rise. Because of new taxes and fees on prescription drugs and medical devices, the agency report states that costs would be “passed through to health consumers.”
Throughout the debate, President Obama insisted that Americans who like their coverage would get to keep it. Just weeks after the law went into effect, it’s already apparent that this was empty rhetoric.
Medicare Advantage programs were established to introduce market reforms to the Medicare program. The flexibility of the Medicare Advantage programs have made them popular with seniors, especially lower income beneficiaries. Nearly 30,000 seniors in the 16th Congressional District elect one of these plans.
Because of deep cuts in the program, Republicans estimated that one in four seniors could see their Medicare Advantage plan cancelled. These estimates were wrong. Now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate that half of seniors will lose the coverage that they currently have.
Seniors on Medicare Advantage aren’t the only ones who could see changes to Medicare. The law cuts $575 billion out of Medicare over the next ten years. It’s difficult to clearly identify how this will change the program, but many doctors warn that they may not be able to continue seeing Medicare patients if the cuts are too severe. Already, Medicare reimbursement rates are far below those paid by private insurers.
Shortly after passage of the health care bill, companies such as AT&T, Caterpillar, Verizon and John Deere released statements noting that the new law would affect their bottom line. These companies were immediately attacked by leading Democrats as trying to undermine the health care law.
I serve on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) immediately scheduled a hearing so that he could interrogate the CEOs of these companies. Only after scheduling the hearing did he come to understand that federal regulations require companies to publicly report such information. They were just acting in accordance with the law.
Documents demanded by the Energy and Commerce Committee show that these four companies are evaluating whether to drop their current healthcare coverage and instead pay government penalties established in the new law. Just these four companies cover over 2.3 million workers. There’s no easy way to tell how many other companies are trying to figure out whether dismantling their employee health benefits will benefit their bottom line.
It hasn’t been 100 days since enactment of the new health care law, and there are bound to be other surprises down the road. I opposed the bill because I don’t believe that centralizing decisions about health care in Washington will reduce costs or improve care.
There were good things done in the healthcare law like allowing young people to stay on their parents’ plan longer and ensuring that Americans are not denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. I think we can take action to preserve the parts of the plan that every American agrees on and introduce real market-based reforms. There’s time to make major changes, but we shouldn’t wait long to make improvements.
Taxes – The Democrats have advocated for dozens of new and increased taxes. Many more taxes, including your income taxes, are scheduled to automatically shoot up in January. If you were an employer and you knew your tax burden was about to go up—but had no idea by how much—would you risk expanding and hiring right now?
Regulation—From Obamacare to Cap and Trade, the Democrats’ have been pushing for huge new burdens on businesses large and small. If you were an employer and you knew the cost of doing business was about to skyrocket, would you risk expanding and hiring right now?
Government debt—The federal government has $107 trillion in spending promises it has no plan to pay for, prompting Moody’s to warn of a downgrade of federal debt securities within the next decade. That’s exactly what started the debt spiral that is embroiling Greece and other European countries right now. Even Britain is realizing how much trouble they are in because of years of liberal spending. Knowing that our massive government debt could lead to an even worse economic crisis within ten years, would you expand your business and hire right now?
The keys to job creation are low and stable taxes, less government, and less spending and debt.
