The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on America’s economic relations with China. This is easier said than done—there’s a lot of ground to cover. One topic gets the most attention, of course: China’s currency policy. We should all hope that the committee can move beyond currency. More than enough time has been wasted on this. There is no real relationship between the exchange rate and our unemployment rate. And there are plenty of other things to talk about. On China’s side, there are a number …
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) visited Heritage earlier this week for The Bloggers Briefing and stuck around to chat in our Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio. On this week’s Scribecast, we cover tax reform, Brady’s MAP ACT, free-trade agreements and what Texas can teach the rest of America. Listen to our interview with Rep. Kevin Brady on Scribecast Brady is the vice chairman and top Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and serves as chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. He was the point man for the White …
The House Ways and Means Committee welcomes former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate, to testify on alternative tax systems. The hearing will examine the value-added tax and FairTax. It will also explore consumption tax and the issues surrounding it. Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) will speak at today’s Bloggers Briefing at Heritage. The freshman lawmaker serves on the Budget, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Oversight & Government Reform committees. He will be joined by Iain Murray, CEI’s vice president for strategy, and author of “Stealing You Blind.” Finally, Sam …
Editor’s note: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently indicated she plans to use the House Ways and Means Committee version of health care reform as the base of the bill moving forward in the House. We’re reposting an analysis of what that bill looked like on the way out of committee and which amendments didn’t make it through. Just before the August recess, the House health bill (HR 3200) cleared all three panels. The next step is House floor consideration, presumably in September. The House Education and Labor Committee made a …
In mid-February, President Obama signed the massive $787 billion stimulus bill into law. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a net of 3.6 million jobs have been lost since Obama was sworn in. In addition, the numbers show that the unemployment rate has risen from 7.6 percent to 9.8 percent … a 26-year record high. Now, the latest news on the impact of the stimulus bill is that 49 out of 50 states have seen more job losses. That’s right. In a recent report from the House Ways & …
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary analysis of the proposed changes to Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit for seniors, under the Ways and Means version of H.R. 3200, the House Democrats’ health care bill. The bill would make a number of changes to the Medicare program and its drug benefit, including phasing out the infamous doughnut hole or gap in drug coverage that some seniors have run up against. In a recent letter, the CBO estimated: “That enacting the proposed changes would lead to an average …
The House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax committee that has jurisdiction over all taxes and revenue-generating programs (social security, medicare, unemployment) is saying “no thanks” to dealing with potentially one of the largest taxes in history, the cap and trade energy tax. From CongressDailyAM: “House Ways and Means Committee Democrats are likely to punt on their opportunity to help shape climate-change legislation, given a tiny window for action, zero agreement among panel members and a desire to focus instead on health care.
In order to get the Waxman Markey cap and trade bill through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, handouts had to be given. The basic idea behind cap and trade is to put a price on allowances, or the right to emit carbon dioxide. President Obama’s budget proposal suggested a 100 percent auction of these allowances so companies would bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well their companies would be severely affected, sent their best lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked.
