The U.S. Constitution grants the power of the purse to federal lawmakers. Article 1, section 8 says Congress “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes…[to] pay the debts and provide for the Defense and general welfare of the United States.”
The federal budget exceeds $2.7 trillion dollars. That’s an astronomical figure compared to family household budgets. Just as Americans must prioritize how they spend, save and invest their hard-earned money, lawmakers also debate where to channel limited resources. From national security to health care, transportation, food safety and environmental protection, Congress manages the federal purse strings for the federal government.
That means lawmakers share something in common with heads of households all across America. If you spend more money than you take in, your budget will come up short.
Deficit spending doesn’t seem to faze some lawmakers. But as a fiscal conservative, it goes against my Midwestern grain to spend more than we can afford. I always remember whose purse strings we’re tending in the first place: your hard-earned tax dollars.
That’s why I pushed so hard to advance the landmark tax relief laws of 2001 and 2003. As chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, I serve as the taxpayers’ guardian to remind my colleagues that Uncle Sam’s revenue doesn’t grow on trees.
It requires responsible stewardship to balance the public good with the public purse. It takes a bundle to pay for military readiness, health care and retirement benefits, safe roads and public safety. It takes even more to invest in America’s energy independence and health care research that will help find the cures and treatments that will save lives and improve the quality of life for longer-living Americans. Winning the war on terror and recovering from a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, make it all the more difficult to make ends meet.
Unlike my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I strongly disagree that raising taxes is the solution to the budget gap. The true-blue tax-and-spenders will never raise enough revenue to satisfy their appetites.
Keeping Uncle Sam on a portion-controlled diet will help keep the economy moving forward. The better way to fatten Uncle Sam’s coffers is by leaving more money in the hands of American families, small business owners and entrepreneurs. Let families decide how to spend, save and invest more of their hard-earned money. Let small businesses keep more earnings to expand and hire more workers. Let risk-takers pursue the American Dream.
Just consider farmer-investors in the Midwest experiencing prosperity for taking on the risk to add value to their crops by building ethanol plants. They are seeing good returns on their investment, creating a positive ripple effect in their rural communities and benefiting the public good by producing alternative, home-grown, renewable energy.
When the new Congress convenes in January, tax policy will take center stage as lawmakers fulfill their roles as stewards over the public purse. It’s high-time for Congress to address the perennial headache that afflicts taxpayers every tax season. I’ll work to identify and build a consensus among lawmakers and the taxpaying public to simplify and improve the federal tax code.
From my tax-writing leadership position in the U.S. Senate, I also want to protect taxpayers from shouldering an enormous tax increase by working to make permanent the across-the-board income tax reductions, including the popular 10 percent tax bracket, and the $1,000 child tax credit that the Republican-led Congress enacted five years ago. What’s more, I’ll continue advancing efforts to reduce the death tax penalty and fix the unfair Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that would otherwise penalize millions of middle-income taxpayers with a higher tax bill.
The way I see it, increasing taxes would do more harm than good.