HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Newspapers Weigh in on President’s 100 Days

Yesterday marked the 100th day in office for President Obama: 100 days that “can be summed up in three words: spending, taxing, and borrowing,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH). 

Since the President took the oath of office in January of this year, he has proceeded to spend one trillion dollars on a “stimulus plan”, passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that was over budget and laden with earmarks, proposed a $3.6 trillion budget that would raise taxes on every American and triple the national debt in ten years, and pursued policies that have weakened the ability of the government to effectively fight the War on Terror and keep the American people safe.

House Republicans have consistently offered better solutions throughout the President’s first 100 days.  From a stimulus plan that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost, to a Republican budget alternative that focused on curbing spending, creating jobs, and controlling the nation’s debt, to offering solutions to restore the American people’s savings, House Republicans have proposed responsible solutions to the problems Americans face each day.

Newspaper editorials from around the country commented on the President’s 100 days, noting how radical an agenda Washington Democrats are pushing on the country:

The Wall Street Journal: “The Liberal Hour”

Mr. Obama talks the language of pragmatism, but his program has revealed a man of the left.  He clearly views the financial crisis and the liberal majorities in Congress as a rare chance to advance the power of the state in American life.

Union Leader (New Hampshire): “The first 100 days: Obama is no moderate”

President Obama has shown that he is not content to run the federal government; he wants to run the entire country.  He wants to accumulate as much power and decision-making authority in Washington as the people will allow…In his first 100 days, President Obama has initiated the most left-wing agenda of any President in American history.  And he’s only getting started.

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House Committee Republicans Speak Out on President’s 100 Days

House Committee Ranking Members are speaking out on the 100th Day of the President’s Administration.  The Ways & Means Committee Republicans say that the first one hundred days can be summed up by: “higher taxes for families & small businesses; no reform, but more deficit spending on health care; and, more welfare checks & fewer paychecks.”  Other Ranking Republicans from the various House Committees share their thoughts on the President’s one hundred days below:

Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-WI) of the Budget Committee:

Despite claims of “fiscal responsibility,” the administration’s actual budget actions and proposals constitute a sweeping expansion of government, and extraordinary increases in spending, taxes, deficits, and debt.  In his first 3 months, the President has signed a $787-billion “stimulus” bill; enacted a $406.7-billion omnibus, which increased nondefense appropriations by 10 percent just for this year, and included 9,000 earmarks the administration dismissed as “last year’s business”; and increased this year’s deficit by more than $600 billion.

Ranking Member Doc Hastings (R-WA) of the Natural Resources Committee:

If past is prologue, President Obama’s first 100 days in office do not bode well for the future of American energy production, public use of public lands,  Second Amendment rights, energy costs and tax rates.  Simply put, we’ve witnessed changes that Americans can’t afford.  Unless the Administration pursues another new direction, Americans will soon pay higher energy bills, our country will become more dependent on foreign oil and more jobs will be sent overseas.

Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) of the Judiciary Committee:

President Obama has been very busy during his first 100 days in office.  Unfortunately, his most defining achievements have been putting American lives at greater risk and undermining American workers.

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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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NBC News/WSJ Survey Shows Evaporating Savings is Top Concern for American Families

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey conducted from April 23-26, 2009 shows that Americans remain very concerned about the collapse of their savings for retirement, which ranked as the number one issue most Americans are focused on personally. 

The Democrats have done nothing to address this issue, while House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republicans have introduced the Savings Recovery Act (H.R. 2021) to help Americans rebuild their retirement, college, and personal savings.  In an interview on the Mike Gallagher radio show today, Boehner spoke about ways in which the Savings Recovery Act can help get Americans’ savings back on track:

Americans have lost a lot of their savings.  People who are retired, near retirement or even people who aren’t have seen their 401(k)s drop precipitously in value and so we set about trying to find ways to help people rebuild their savings more quickly and finding ways for people to rebuild their 401(k)s.  And so, for those who have some assets, why not allow them to put more into their 401(k), here while the values in the market are down?  Why not open up IRAs and allow people, more people to put more money in there at a time when their accounts are low and they can begin to rebuild them.  And if we do this on a tax incentivize basis, there are people who are going to put more money in these accounts. (AUDIO)

In an op-ed published yesterday in the Hamilton Journal News (OH), Leader Boehner noted the struggle that everyday Americans are facing while their savings evaporate:

People who spent a lifetime living frugally and responsibly were hit with the terrible reality that they wouldn’t be able to retire as planned.  Parents who sacrificed and saved for their children’s college funds had to tell their kids that they couldn’t attend the school of their choice.  And every day personal savings accounts, meant to carry workers and families through a rough patch, were emptied to pay mortgages, credit cards and other debts.  And what has Washington done during all this?  It’s fiddled while you burned through your savings.  The lawmakers in charge of Congress have refused to lead, instead picking political fights and advancing a left-wing agenda that will bankrupt our state and country.

Leader Boehner has a Savings Solutions website, accessed here, with more information on how House Republicans are working to restore Americans’ savings.

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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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Small Businesses Are in For a World of Hurt Under Obama Budget

Today’s Washington Post has a front page story: “Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle,” that catalogues the burden small businesses will face under the President’s massive $4 trillion budget which raises taxes by more than $1.4 trillion.  House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has repeatedly warned that the President’s budget “spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our kids and grandkids.”

Gail Johnson, the subject of the Post’s story, is a former pediatric nurse who’s spent “20 years building a chain of preschools and after-school programs that accommodate sick children so working parents can keep their jobs,” but since, “like most small-business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return,” she’ll see her taxes go up under the President’s plan - big time.

The Washington Post notes that:

If Obama’s tax plans are enacted, her accountant estimates that her federal tax bill — typically, around $120,000 a year — would rise by at least $23,000, a 19 percent increase.

“You hear ‘tax the rich,’ and you think, ‘I don’t make that much money,’” said Johnson, whose Rainbow Station programs are headquartered near Richmond.  “But then you realize: ‘Oh, if I put my business income with my wages, then, suddenly, I’m there.’”

Small businesses create as much as 80 percent of all jobs in the United States.  Punishing small businesses will only add to the heavy burden they’re already facing in this difficult economy, as the Post article makes clear:

In a typical year, Johnson’s federal tax bill would be about $120,000.  But starting in 2011, the higher marginal rates would add about $13,000 a year, Hurst said.  Capping the value of itemized deductions at 28 percent would add another $10,000, for a total increase of $23,000.

And Johnson’s tax bill stands to grow dramatically if Obama were to revive a plan to apply Social Security tax to income over $250,000 instead of capping it at the current $106,800.  Because Johnson is an employee and an employer, she would have to pay both portions of the tax, Hurst said, tacking another $30,000 onto her bill.

Johnson said such an increase would force her to consider scaling back operations.

The President’s budget is a recipe for disaster.  Instead of encouraging economic growth that will create jobs here at home, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress are proposing a massive expansion of government that will result in higher taxes for every American and unsustainable deficits that will leave our nation so far in the red that our debt will consume more than 80 percent of GDP by 2019 under the President’s own overly optimistic projections.

House Republicans have a better budget solution.  Introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Republican Budget Alternative does not raise taxes on a single American; asks the federal government to live within its means by freezing non-defense discretionary spending for the next five years; offers an optional flat tax; and suspends capital gains taxes through 2010.  In fact, the Investor’s Business Daily said that the House Republican budget “makes 100 times more sense” than the President’s reckless budget.

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Rep. Pete Hoekstra Talks CIA Memos & Democrats on “Morning Joe”

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning where he discussed the CIA memos and what Democrats knew about its interrogation program.

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Missouri GOP Uses “Stimulus” Funds to Cut Taxes and Create Jobs

Missouri Republicans are doing what House Republicans said the Federal Government should have done earlier this year: stimulating the American economy, not the Federal Government. 

The Missouri GOP, which has majorities in both chambers of the Missouri legislature, plans to cut the income tax rate from 6 percent to 5.5 percent for two years, sending  $1 billion of the state’s $2.2 billion in “stimulus dollars” back to the people of Missouri, the Springfield News-Leader reported yesterday.

Back in January, House Republicans had a better solution to the Democrats’ trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill : an economic recovery plan that would have created 6.2 million new American jobs over the next two years, according to a methodology used by President Obama’s own nominee as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Dr. Christina Romer.  The Camp-Cantor alternative - crafted by House Ways & Means Committee ranking member Dave Camp (R-MI), Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), and members of the House GOP Economic Recovery Working Group.  The Republican plan would have created twice the jobs at half the cost.

House Republicans believe that the best way to stimulate economic growth and create jobs here at home is to allow the American people to keep more of what they earn, not by spending taxpayer money on government programs and projects. 

Earlier this month, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Mike Rogers (R-MI) announced a new online initiative known as the GOP State Solutions project, intended to highlight reforms being implemented by governors and state and local officials outside the Beltway, and to help shine the light of public scrutiny on federal waste and red tape that hinders states, communities, and families.

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Climate Change Hearings Raise More Questions about Democrats’ National Energy Tax

Today, former Vice President Al Gore testified in front of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.  Despite evidence that the Democrats’ national energy tax - known as “cap-and-trade” - will “cap” American jobs and “trade” them overseas, and will cost every American household up to $3,100 in new taxes, Democrats’ and their allies continue to call for taxing the American people at a time when they can least afford it.

Even Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) said today that “cap-and-trade” is a “big tax.”

Liberal Democrats and their cap-and-trade scheme are feeling the heat.  The Washington Examiner reported today that House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is trying to bribe fellow Democrats with exemptions:

In exchange for votes to pass a controversial global warming package, Democratic leaders are offering some lawmakers generous emission “allowances” to protect their districts from the economic pain of pollution restrictions.

Why are bribes necessary?  Kimberley Strassel, writing in The Wall Street Journal today, noted that some Congressional Democrats are skeptical of “cap-and-trade”:

To listen to Congressman Jim Matheson is something else.  During opening statements, the Utah Democrat detailed 14 big problems he had with the bill, and told me later that if he hadn’t been limited to five minutes, ‘I might have had more.’  Mr. Matheson is one of about 10 moderate committee Democrats who are less than thrilled with the Waxman climate extravaganza, and who may yet stymie one of Barack Obama’s signature issues.  If so, the president can thank Democratic liberals, who are engaging in one of their first big cases of overreach.

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House GOP Conference Releases Video on Democrats’ “Cap and Tax” Scheme

Today, the House Republican Conference, led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), released a web video highlighting the stark differences between the Democrats’ energy plan of “cap and tax” and the House Republicans’ “all of the above” energy strategy:

The Democrats’ plan on energy is to impose a new national energy tax on every American household in hopes of forcing families to use less energy.  Republicans reject that notion, and have put forward a better solution to increase production of American energy in an environmentally safe manner, promote more conservation and efficiency, and encourage the use of alternative and renewable fuels.  The Republican strategy would promote a cleaner, healthier environment, and utilize all of our natural resources - wind, solar, natural gas, and environmentally responsible American energy production to create American jobs and help spur economic growth.

The House Republican Conference is continuing to live blog the Energy and Commerce Committee hearings this week.  Visit the House Republican Conference’s blog at GOP.gov/blog for more info.

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