As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, I was pleased to have helped lead the successful effort to pass marriage tax relief in the House. As I write, the outlook in the Senate is unclear. Spurred by the President, Senate Democrats seem intent on bottling up marriage penalty relief or passing a much scaled down version of it. To me, there is no defense for preserving a tax code which penalizes the institution of marriage. I hope by the time you read this, Senate Democrats have decided to drop their opposition and have worked with Republicans to put this legislation on the President s desk.
Small businesses are the engines driving our economic growth.
They employ nearly 60 percent of the workforce, create nearly two-thirds of all new jobs, and produce nearly half the private sector output. Instead of encouraging their growth, Democrats in Congress and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seem intent on holding them back with devices like another increase in the minimum wage, burdensome regulations on ergonomics, and health insurance mandates which could find small business owners dragged into courts, sharing the defense table with health plans, just for offering coverage to their employees. Republicans in Congress are pushing an agenda which recognizes that lowering taxes on small business means economic growth and higher paying jobs. The tax bill vetoed by the President last year included many important small business reforms, but many have been included in the Small Business Tax Fairness Act recently passed by the House. It simplifies the pension system to help small businesses offer a more secure retirement to their employees.