Congressman Paul Ryan

The nation’s economy faces uncertainty and many challenges ahead. The first role of Congress is to do no harm. The last thing taxpayers need right now is a tax increase. Unless Congress takes action, however, taxpayers face the largest tax increase in history in two years with additional proposed tax increases to come. Congress must also combat wasteful spending and put an end to bloated government programs through hidden earmarks. Congress must also address the severe problems that lie ahead if we do not reform our entitlement programs. These programs continue to take up a larger portion of our budget each year, threaten to crowd out other government spending and hurt our economy if left unaddressed. As the Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, I have a responsibility to help improve accountability for spending requests and monitor federal spending to prevent government waste and abuse, while putting forward long-term solutions to our entitlement crisis.

H.R. 6110 – A Roadmap for America’s Future.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of the government will consume nearly 40% of the economy by the time my three young children reach my age (38). This will require more than doubling the average tax burden of the past 40 years just to keep the government afloat. Continuing down this path will eventually strangle our economy. To meet this challenge and secure our fiscal future, I’m introduced legislation, “A Roadmap to America’s Future.” Specifically, my legislation would do the following:

• Health Care: Provide universal access to affordable health insurance, by shifting the ownership of health coverage from the government and employers to individuals with a refundable tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families – to purchase coverage.
  
  

• Medicare and Medicare: Modernize Medicaid by giving states maximum flexibility to tailor their Medicaid programs to the specific needs of their populations, and secure Medicare program for those over 55 – so Americans can receive the benefits they planned for throughout most of their working lives. Those 55 and younger will, when they retire, receive an annual payment of up to $9,500 to purchase health coverage – either from a list of Medicare-certified plans, or any plan in the individual market, in any state.
  
  

• Social Security: Provide the option for workers under 55 to invest over one-third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts. These personal accounts are the property of the individual, and are thus fully inheritable. My bill includes a guarantee that no one’s total Social Security benefits from the personal accounts will be less than if he/she had chosen to stay in the current system.
  
  

• Tax Reform: Provide a flatter, simpler system for taxpayers to pay their income taxes and level the playing field for American-made products to compete against foreign competitors making it easier for American manufacturers to keep jobs in the U.S. My legislation would do the following: (1) repeal the individual AMT; (2) provide individuals an alternative tax system that is fair, simple and efficient; and (3) replace the current corporate income tax code with a tax system that levels the playing field for American businesses.

The Ryan Budget for Fiscal Year 2009 (FY2009): Balancing the Budget Without Increasing Taxes.
Since becoming Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, I have put forward budget alternatives that balance the budget by 2012 without increasing taxes and would make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent so there would be no increase in marginal income tax rates, no increase in the 10 percent bracket for low-income taxpayers, no reduction in the child tax credit and no increase in the marriage tax penalty. Unfortunately, my budget alternative did not pass the House. The House instead passed a budget that proposed the largest tax increase in American history - $683 billion over five years. Roughly 116 million taxpayers would have an average tax increase of $1,833 in 2011. Because of this, I voted against this final budget.

More Tax Increases.
CCongressman Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced in the Fall of 2007, H.R. 3970, The Tax Reduction and Reform Act of 2007. The title of this bill does not reflect the $3.5 trillion tax increase over 10 years – the largest individual tax income tax increase in history, thereby smothering any future economic growth. This is in addition to the tax increases included in last year’s budget. According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, 120 million taxpayers will receive a tax increase, while only 9 million will receive a tax cut. While the legislation repeals the individual Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), it replaces an enormous tax increase. Specifically, the legislation would impose 4-percent surtax on adjusted gross income (AGI) above $150,000 for single filers and $200,000 for joint filers. The surcharge increases to 4.6 percent for incomes over $500,000. The surtax constitutes an assault on small business, most of which pay individual income tax rates on their business income. When coupled with the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief provisions, the surcharge would effectively push the highest income tax rates from its current level of 35 percent to 44.2 percent – an increase of 26 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, roughly 75 percent of the taxpayers affected by this top tax rate are job-producing small businesses – S-corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. Recent economic research shows that an increase in the top income tax rates will dissuade these businesses from investing, hiring more workers, and paying higher wages. That is significant because small businesses employ roughly half of the private labor force and create approximately seven out of every 10 new jobs. By some measures, small businesses account for more than half of the nation’s economy.

Budget Boondoggle Award.
Building on the tradition established by the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award, I announced the Budget Boondoggle Awards for 2007. These “awards” are intended to highlight the most egregious, wasteful, and unnecessary spending American taxpayers were forced to fund. Despite claims to the contrary, earmarks continued to proliferate last year, with more than 11,000 littered throughout federal spending bills in 2007 – many of which were snuck in at the last minute, dodging congressional scrutiny. These include earmarks for ferryboats, bike trails, sidewalks, museum exhibits, and countless other projects the federal government has no business funding. The winners of this award were the $20 million earmark for the “Ferry to Nowhere”, a craft connecting the Alaskan communities of Anchorage and Port MacKenzie, serving a total of 40 residents, and the $39 million earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center’s “jobs program”, a duplicative program that the president has sought to eliminate since 2005. To put this in perspective, this is approximately the same amount as the entire 2008 budget for the City of Janesville, Wisconsin. In addition to these earmarks, there were several other wasteful spending earmarks in the Omnibus Appropriations bill which included $8.6 million for 35 earmarks for sidewalks and streetscapes, $11.6 million for 21 earmarks for bike paths and trails, $5.2 million for 12 earmarks for weed and animal waste management and $7 million for 34 earmarks for museums and museum exhibits.

Stop Wasteful Government Spending.
The amount of wasteful government spending earmarks has exploded for the past several years in Congress under both Democratic and Republican Majorities and we need to reform the process now. As a result, I, along with several of my colleagues have pledged not to submit any new earmark requests until the spending process is cleaned-up in Congress. We have also called upon the current Majority to impose a moratorium on earmarks until the earmark process is reformed. These calls have gone unanswered by the Majority.

Legislative Line-Item Veto: Targeting Wasteful Spending.
To help combat earmarks and other forms of wasteful spending, I, along with Senator Russ Feingold, reintroduced my bipartisan bill, the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act. Our legislation would enable the president to single out egregious earmarks, like the examples outlined above, when they arrive at the President’s desk for signature and send these specific items back to Congress for expedited votes on whether to rescind, or cancel, funding for these provisions. Our legislation protects Congress’ constitutional authority to make spending decisions by requiring both the House and Senate to vote to approve the President’s proposed rescissions before they can become law. If either chamber votes against a rescission by a simple majority, it will not be enacted. As a result, this legislation is fundamentally different than the line-item veto the Supreme Court struck down in 1998, which did not require Congressional approval for the President’s rescissions to take effect. I will continue to work with Senator Feingold to move our bipartisan legislation through Congress.

Additional Information.
For more information on the federal budget, please refer to the following web sites:

The Ranking Member - House Committee on the Budget: http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans

A Roadmap For America's Future: http://www.house.gov/ryan/roadmap

www.americanroadmap.org