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John Boehner: Constituents worried about taxes, jobs and deficit

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12:56 PM Friday, July 30, 2010

Recently I held a telephone “townhall” to listen to concerns and answer questions from 8th Congressional District constituents. Not surprisingly, we spent much of the hour-long call discussing job creation, upcoming tax hikes and our government’s massive deficit spending.

One caller, Sara in West Chester, expressed her concern about the looming tax hikes that are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, hitting millions of American families and small businesses at a time when they can least afford it. Certainly, this is one of the most important issues currently before Congress.

Small business operators in the 8th District and across the country today are filled with massive uncertainty as they try to determine how all of the new government regulations and rules in Washington Democrats’ new policies — like ObamaCare — are going to impact them, and they don’t know what the tax rates are going to be. As a result, they are holding off on hiring.

With unemployment in Ohio at 10.5 percent, these tax hikes will come at the worst possible time, and threaten to kill the little bit of economic progress we’ve seen in recent months. According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, half of small business income in America will face higher taxes under President Obama’s plan. According to Republicans on the House’s tax-writing committee, the small business tax increases, along with slashing the child tax credit, reinstating the marriage penalty and eliminating the 10 percent tax bracket will amount to $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years.

Instead of continuing on with more of this tax-and-spend agenda, it’s time that Congress got serious about reducing the size of government, and providing the fiscal discipline that more than 100 economists say is needed to help small businesses create jobs and get our economy moving again.

And that is exactly what another caller, Susan from Piqua, said she would like to hear more about in the months ahead. As I explained to Susan, my Republican colleagues and I have offered a number of better solutions to help put Americans back to work, including a “no-cost” jobs plan built upon the philosophy that our economy will ultimately recover, but it will do so through the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of Americans, not more wasteful “stimulus” spending.

Another of our better solutions is called the REINS Act, and it’s being offered by my colleague Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., to put a check on open-ended expansion of government. Last year alone, federal agencies issued more than 3,000 rules and mandates — that’s an average of more than 12 per work day. For small business owners, keeping up with the rapidly expanding powers of government bureaucrats can be time-consuming and expensive.

Under Davis’ REINS Act, no new federal regulation with a major impact on our economy would be allowed to be implemented without approval by Congress. It is exactly the type of common-sense idea that is needed to help get government off the back and out of the pockets of small business owners so they can get back to doing what they do best: run and try to grow their business so they can create jobs and get our economy moving again.

As we concluded the call, one thing was abundantly clear: Washington needs a new Congress that listens to the American people and a new agenda to help families and small businesses tackle the challenges they are facing every day. That’s why House Republicans have introduced “America Speaking Out,” an initiative that allows every American — regardless of political views — to voice concerns and offer policy ideas.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to visit www.America SpeakingOut.com. Here you will find hundreds of thousands of Americans coming together, discussing the very same issues being raised by 8th District constituents in my telephone townhall, all in an effort to build a better America. That’s what America Speaking Out is all about.

U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., represents Ohio’s 8th District.

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