Issues
Taxes and Regulation
Once simple, now strangling business.
America’s federal tax system was once a simple scheme to collect revenue and fund government.
Today it strangles and directs the behavior of businesses and people.
American regulations cost $1.75 trillion annually – more than the entire gross domestic product
of Canada. Regulatory burdens in the new health care law, in Dodd-Frank, and emerging every
day from the Environmental Protection Agency kill jobs.
Businesses are dying for regulatory relief. Reduce the corporate tax rate, simplify the tax code
and adjust tax rates to also help make America’s economy more competitive. This will help
create jobs.
Debt and Deficit Reduction
Spend far less; make tough decisions.
Today the United States owes $14.2 trillion and the debt is rising $3.8 billion each day. The
current administration is projected to spend enough to add another $13 trillion to the debt in
a decade. This is unsustainable and guarantees higher taxes and interest rates in the future.
Business will suffer; more jobs will be destroyed.
Policymakers must make the courageous decisions necessary to reform and preserve Social
Security and Medicare. Our nation should install pay-as-you-go budget boundaries, limit the
national debt as a percentage of the overall economy and gain control of the national debt. This
will help create jobs.
Health Care
It needs fixing, but not this way.
America spends more on health care than any other country and we must address the challenges
facing our health care system. Recent reforms have added new costs, uncertainty and burdens
that make it far more difficult for companies to create jobs. Instead, Obamacare will kill almost
one million jobs in the next decade. (CBO)
Real health care reform means putting patients in charge of their medical spending decisions,
not big government and not big insurance companies. Reforms that harness the free market to
control costs will be far more effective and create jobs.
Energy
Drill to end dependency, lower prices and create jobs.
America is far too dependent on foreign sources of oil yet we harbor some of the most abundant
energy resources in the world. Today’s high-energy costs are an invisible tax on businesses and
consumers. As prices rise, businesses are forced to pass those costs on to consumers – and cut
jobs.
America needs an energy strategy that pursues every option and encourages – not subsidizes -
alternative energy sources. If America expands domestic oil and gas production and opens new
areas for exploration, the price of energy will drop and 160,000 jobs will be created along with
trillions in government revenues. (API)
Manufacturing
This steady decline can be turned around.
American manufacturing jobs have been in steady decline since they peaked in 1979 with eight
million fewer manufacturing jobs today. High corporate taxes, overregulation and cheaper
foreign production closed many plants and pushed many jobs overseas. Every American knows
someone thrown out of work by the slow destruction of our manufacturing base – or once lost his
own job because of it.
What was left of our manufacturing base was wiped out in the 2008 financial crisis, with two
million jobs lost – one in four factory jobs lost in the last three decades.
Congress must expand work visa programs for skilled and degreed workers, to help develop the
American workforce for modern manufacturing. Government must cut regulations and taxes
on manufacturers to help US companies compete with foreign production again. This will help
create jobs.
