Bringing Relief to American Taxpayers

Americans are rightfully concerned about the direction of our economy. While inflation is no longer at nine percent, prices remain high, and the inflation rate remains double where it was when President Biden took office. According to Consumer Price Index analysis by the Joint Economic Committee, American families are facing an average of $11,400 more in annual expenses compared to prices when Joe Biden took office.

At the same time, our deficit continues to grow, with the Congressional Budget Office projecting regular annual deficits exceeding 5 percent of GDP on the back of government spending, and Americans are rightfully concerned that increasing taxes would take away even more of their buying power. Unfortunately, our deficit crisis and our inflation crisis are connected – much of the inflation of the past three years is directly attributable to overspending by President Biden and congressional Democrats after the economy had already begun rebounding from COVID shutdowns in late 2020.

At the same time, the Biden administration has been consistently implementing policies across numerous executive branch agencies, regardless of whether authority to do so has been granted by legislation from Congress. Student loan cancellation schemes, postponing—due to their worries about poor reception—implementation of a new tax reporting requirement for electronic transactions which amounts to a “Babysitter Tax”, and development of the IRS’s Direct E-File system—which I am concerned would prescribe what Americans pay rather than allowing them to maximize their legal tax refund—are all examples of this kind of executive overreach.

In the face of these concerns, I am working with my House Republican colleagues to deliver relief and hold the administration accountable for its use of taxpayer dollars. This is why my bill to rescind the $80 billion in IRS funding from Democrats' 2022 Inflation Act was the first bill passed by the 118th Congress in 2023. While the Democrat-controlled Senate has done nothing to advance the bill, I continue to have serious concerns about the lack of candor from the administration about how those funds are being utilized.

In January, I supported passage—first in the Ways and Means Committee, then the full House—of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. With measures to strengthen struggling families and small businesses and incentivize economic growth, the bill passed the House on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 357-70.

I am particularly pleased this bill includes bipartisan language I introduced to ensure capital-intensive industries, such as manufacturing and food service, can fully deduct the cost of interest from their taxes, a deduction standard known as EBITDA. Ensuring our tax code reflects the cost of doing business is essential for American manufacturing to compete in the global market.

Additionally, this bill contains tax relief boosting the ability of our agriculture producers to compete globally by extending and expanding 100 percent bonus depreciation for purchases of both new and used farm equipment. Tax relief for farms and small businesses is essential to expand economic opportunity in the Third District.

Other provisions in this tax package ensure businesses can fully deduct their domestic research and development costs and improve the child tax credit which we doubled as part of our 2017 tax cut package, Together, all of these tax provisions enhance our opportunity to develop new products in America, create jobs making those products here, and then sell those products around the world. This is particularly urgent now, as Americans continue to deal with recent high inflation and higher interest rates.

By passing the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, House Republicans have taken a massive step forward to address the affordability crisis, combat ongoing workforce challenges, encourage investment, and ensure American taxpayers are treated fairly. I urge the Senate to take up this bipartisan legislation, and I urge the president to sign it into law. We cannot afford to continue down this reckless fiscal path, and I will never stop fighting to bring relief to taxpayers.