Martha Roby: Turning point in Congress
This week marked a significant turning point in Congress as Paul Ryan was elected to be the new Speaker of the House. Of course, outside of his service in Congress, Paul Ryan is best known as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 presidential election. He has spent this year as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and was previously Chairman of the Budget Committee, both important positions with considerable influence on fiscal policy. He has been a leading voice for supply-side, conservative economics for years, and his “Path to Prosperity” budgets, though never passed by the Senate, were the blueprint of Republicans’ vision for conservative governing. When former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced he would retire at the end of September, it was unclear who would ultimately emerge to lead the House of Representatives. I’m a conservative, so I wanted a bold leader who could unite Republicans and advance a conservative agenda. Paul Ryan is uniquely qualified for such a task, and when he stepped forward for consideration, I was proud to support him. I sincerely hope Speaker Ryan will be able to lay out a path to success despite a tough political environment. The Senate is still badly gridlocked, and even when we do get a conservative bill through, President Obama stands ready with his veto pen. Those realities don’t change, but I believe a united majority working together in the House puts us in a much stronger position to advance good bills and stop bad ones. New leadership is a good thing sometimes. I was encouraged to hear Speaker Ryan say the House would return to “regular order,” meaning legislation is put forth from Members and Committees instead of being pushed from the very top. As he said upon taking the oath of office, “Only a fully functioning House can truly represent the people.” However, this change in leadership doesn’t mean everyone is going to suddenly start agreeing on every issue, every time. There are 435 Members of Congress from all over the country and our views are bound to vary. What’s important is to have a Speaker of the House who will listen to each Member, consider our concerns and priorities, and keep the commitments he makes to us and the American people. No matter who is Speaker, my job is to look out for the interests of those I represent and to fight on their behalf in Washington. Your priorities remain my priorities, and I’m proud to represent you in Congress. There’s lot of work to do. As we turn the page and begin a new chapter in Congress, I look forward to working with Speaker Ryan and my other colleagues to move America ahead by advancing responsible, conservative, common sense ideas. Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She is currently serving her third term.
Paul Ryan wins Republican nomination for House speaker
Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) moves one step closer to becoming the next House speaker, winning his party’s closed-door nomination for the top Congressional position Wednesday afternoon. Ryan, the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012 and the current chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, won the nomination the secret-ballot defeating rival Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida. Ryan received 200 votes compared to Webster’s 43. Next up, an official vote will take place Thursday morning on the House floor, where the House Ways and Means Committee chairman needs to secure a required 218 votes to replace retiring speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), who is scheduled to leave Congress Friday. Pending tomorrow’s vote, the 45-year-old will be the youngest House speaker since Rep. James Blaine (R-ME) when he was speaker in 1869, at age 39. Last week, Ryan wrote a letter to his GOP colleagues announcing his run for speaker. Read his full letter below: Dear Colleague: Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about our country, and it’s clear to me that we’re in a very serious moment. Working families continue to fall behind, and they are losing faith in the American Idea: the belief that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead. At the same time, a weaker America has led to a more dangerous world. Our friends and rivals alike wonder whether we will pull ourselves out of this stupor. Instead of rising to the occasion, Washington is falling short—including the House of Representatives. We are not solving the country’s problems; we are only adding to them. But now, we have an opportunity to turn the page, to start with a clean slate, and to rebuild what has been lost. We can make the House a more open and inclusive body—one where every member can contribute to the legislative process. We can rally House Republicans around a bold agenda that will tackle the country’s problems head on. And we can show the country what a commonsense conservative agenda looks like. That’s why I’m actually excited for this moment. I’ve spoken with many of you over the past few days, and I can sense the hunger in our conference to get to work. I know many of you want to show the country how to fix our tax code, how to rebuild our military, how to strengthen the safety net, and how to lift people out of poverty. I know you’re willing to work hard and get it done, and I think this moment is ripe for real reform. That’s because, whatever our differences, we’re all conservatives. We were elected to defend the constitution. We share the same principles. We all believe America is the land of opportunity—the place where you should be able to go as far as your talents and hard work will take you. We all believe in empowering every person to realize his or her potential. And we have the know-how to apply these principles to the problems of today. I never thought I’d be speaker. But I pledged to you that if I could be a unifying figure, then I would serve—I would go all in. After talking with so many of you, and hearing your words of encouragement, I believe we are ready to move forward as a one, united team. And I am ready and eager to be our speaker. This is just the beginning of our work. There is a long road ahead. So let’s get started. Sincerely, Paul Ryan
Martin Dyckman: Mike Huckabee’s tax plan is huckster’s scheme to slam seniors
There’s a Republican running for president who promises unequivocally to “protect Social Security and Medicare … to kill anything that poses a threat to the promises we have made to America’s seniors.” But he’s also calling for a “tax reform” that would bleed seniors as they’ve never been bled before. What do you call such a politician? Huckster, for one. Fraud, for another. Mike Huckabee, to be specific. “Robbing people of the benefits they have contributed is not a solution – it’s an escape,” says his website. Yet Huckabee is also the arch apostle for the so-called “Fair Tax,” which would replace income and payroll taxes with a national sales tax at likely 50 percent. Half again, in tax, added to what you pay for food, clothing, utilities and other necessities. Half again in tax, even on what you pay for doctors, medicine and insurance. That 50 percent isn’t a wild guess. It’s the sober estimate of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal group, and the bipartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, on what it would take to replace current revenue from income and payroll taxes. The tax rate could be much less, of course, if a President Huckabee shut down the Pentagon, abolished food stamps, sold off the national parks and forests, and stopped putting money into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. This radical scheme is Huckabee’s bid to win over the economically subversive wing of the Republican Party, epitomized by Grover Norquist, whose stated mission is to make the federal government small enough “to drown it in a bathtub.” Norquist and his fellow travelers have opposed Huckabee on account of some decent things he did as governor of Arkansas. Norquist himself won’t mistake Huckabee for a potential winner. But there are ordinary folk, in the Tea Party and elsewhere, who are susceptible to anti-IRS propaganda. Huckabee needs them. He figures to have a lock already on the party’s other extreme wing, the religious conservatives whose growing influence terrified even Barry Goldwater. It’s deceptively easy to dismiss Huckabee as a fringe candidate who might win early primaries in atypical states like South Carolina, but who wouldn’t be able to finish the race. One trouble with that view is in the damage he could do along the way to the not-so-whacko candidates in the Republican presidential rumble. Another is that he might give a camouflage of respectability to a “tax reform” scheme that’s beyond wrong: It’s fundamentally evil. It would switch the entire base of federal taxation from what people earn to what they spend, and from they earn to what they have saved — in many cases, on money they saved after paying taxes on it. Consider an elderly couple subsisting on Social Security, augmented by withdrawals from their small savings account. They spend all of it on necessities, most of which the states already tax. The federal government taxes none of it now. If your only income is Social Security, it is entirely exempt from the federal income tax. For those with other income, no more than 85 percent of Social Security is taxed. But while Huckabee’s scheme leaves that as it is, it would heap an enormous new federal tax on what that couple spends on necessities from their Social Security income and savings. For others whose income is great, the “Fair Tax” promises a windfall. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the top 1 percent would see their taxes fall by an average of $225,000 a year. Meanwhile, eight of every 10 Americans would be paying $3,200 more. There is a case that a sophisticated form of national sales taxation could make American exports more competitive and in that way contribute to the economy. The value-added tax common in Europe refunds the levy on goods taken or shipped out of their countries. The late Sam Gibbons, the Florida congressman who briefly chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, had this in mind when he proposed a value-added tax. But recognizing its regressive effect on most people, he would have offset it with a straight levy – with no exemptions – on higher incomes. However, that’s far from the case Huckabee is making. His is a cynical concoction of simple solutions – abolish the Internal Revenue Service, replace it with a national sales tax that the states would collect for Uncle Sam, and call it a day. This is what Huckabee claims: “The Fair Tax is the only plan that lowers everyone’s tax rates, untaxes the poor, broadens the tax base and helps protect Social Security and Medicare.” The last person who sounded like that was Bernie Madoff saying, “Just trust me.” Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg Times. He lives in Western North Carolina.
This week at the Statehouse: Legislative Days 19-20
The talk of the town this week is expected to be about the gaming proposals Sen. Del Marsh drafted and sent home to members last week and the Poarch Creek Indian Tribe’s counter offer. Then there’s the lawsuit that the State Auditor Jim Zeigler has announced he’ll drop Monday to challenge Attorney General Luther Strange for his decision not to challenge school boards from using tax payer money to lobby for tax increases. Here are some of the proposals expected to move in the statehouse this week: Sen. Cam Ward’s comprehensive prison reform bill Senate Bill 67 could go to the House floor was early as Tuesday, according to reports from AL.Com. On Tuesday in the House Ways and Means Committee there will be four bills up. They include House Bill 572 which would raise the cigarette taxes from $.425 a pack to $.675 a pack, House Bill 267 which would raise the rental car tax from one-half percent to four percent and House Bill 590 which would authorize the state skipping the 2015-2016 longevity pay paid out at the beginning of December for state employees. On Wednesday, an education policy panel will hear comments on House Bill 243 to authorize local boards of education to admit or readmit students up to age 21 into the 12th grade. That same panel is expected to vote on Erin’s Law House Bill 197, a proposal to provide age-appropriate instruction in public schools on recognizing and avoiding child sexual abuse. The health committee is slated to vote on a trio of proposals governing abortion on Wednesday. The committee declined to vote last week following public hearings on the Fetal Heartbeat Act, the Healthcare Rights of Conscience Act, and a proposal to bar clinics within 2,000 feet of a public school. Keep checking ALToday.com for updates. *Article updated to reflect tax bills heard on Tuesday not Wednesday.
