Next week, the House of Representatives will take up Rep. Lynn Jenkins's (R-KS) bill to strengthen and expand the use of 529 college savings plans. And two recent articles make a key point in their favor: 529s promote what one writer calls "a culture of saving." In The Week, Michael Brendan Dougherty uses an example from his own life to illustrate the benefits of 529s. When he was in high school, he says, “my college dreams were completely dependent on receiving Pell grants, a generous financial... Read more

​February 17, 2015 — Members of the congressional delegation meet with Malaysian officials. On the second leg of a three-nation trip to Asia, members of a congressional delegation led by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday. Malaysia and the U.S. share a long history of cooperation, and the country has shown interest for even greater engagement with the U.S. in recent years. The country, however, has many outstanding commitments it still needs to make to concl... Read more

While in Malaysia to discuss ongoing trade negotiations, members of a congressional delegation led by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) held a meeting with Nurul Izzah, the daughter of Anwar Ibrahim, who was controversially imprisoned last week. Anwar, the Malaysian opposition leader, was jailed after a government appeal overturned an original ruling that found him not guilty. The conviction has resulted in international condemnation and doubts about the independence of the Malaysian cou... Read more

February 16, 2015—Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan speaking with Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam. On Monday, a congressional delegation led by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) held meetings in Singapore, the first of three Asian nations the group will visit on the week-long trip. Singapore is one of the United States’s strongest partners in the region, and the two nations maintain an important economic and national-security relationship. The country is also playing a critical r... Read more

February 16, 2015— Members of the congressional delegation meet with the crew of the U.S.S. Fort Worth, stationed in Singapore. During a visit to Singapore on Monday, the congressional delegation led by Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) paid a visit to the commander and crew of the U.S.S. Fort Worth and toured the Navy ship. The Fort Worth, a littoral combat ship, was constructed in Marinette, Wisconsin. The new-generation, fast-water vessel is stationed in Singapore—a demonstration of t... Read more

There is great unease today about currency manipulation abroad—and rightfully so. Some countries—particularly China—have distorted exchange rates to gain an advantage in the world market, hurting American exports by making their goods cheaper and ours more expensive. It’s a legitimate problem that deserves a real response. The United States holds the world’s reserve currency. We have a unique ability to pressure countries to stop the manipulation, and we must do more. That’s why Trade Promotion... Read more

The results are in, and experts across the political spectrum agree: Trade is good for America. First, there's a new report from the center-left organization, Third Way, which concludes that "nearly all recent trade deals have improved our balance of trade in goods, and in the aggregate the gains have been substantial."1 The authors note that because the U.S. consistently runs large surpluses in services, they focused on goods to sharpen the analysis. Further, they looked only at post–2000 trade... Read more

As the Ways and Means Committee works on legislation to promote American exports, conservative, free-enterprise organizations are speaking out for an expanded U.S. trade policy. Chairman Ryan has noted that good trade deals are good for jobs, and to get the best deals, Congress has to put in place trade promotion authority (TPA). Club for Growth President David McIntosh would appear to agree. "We’re confident it’s pro-growth and believe it’s an appropriate constitutional process," he told POLITI... Read more

"We need to fix our tax code—for everybody." That was the message from House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) yesterday. And today, the committee is turning words into action by moving forward on bills to provide tax certainty for those too often forgotten about in tax policy: Everyday Americans and small businesses. Yes, larger businesses need certainty to grow. But families and small businesses need certainty too. They deserve a simpler, flatter, fairer tax code that helps them plan fo... Read more

At today's Ways and Means hearing, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) that the Social Security trust fund is "in stronger shape now" than when President Obama took office. Really, Mr. Secretary? No matter how you look at it, Social Security has only gotten weaker. Every year, the program’s trustees figure out how big of a shortfall there is between the program’s expected revenue and costs over the next 75 years. In the last six years, this s... Read more