If you listen to any of the Democrat attacks on Medicare Premium Support, you may think that the idea was a partisan plan crafted behind closed doors.  But when you look at the true history behind Premium Support, the facts reveal long-standing bipartisan support for this plan to save Medicare. 1993 – Alain Enthoven the “father of managed competition” and former health care… Read more

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures.  GDP growth was a disappointing 2.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, well below what is needed to create jobs and put the country on a path to real growth and prosperity.  Over the course of the past three years, the actions taken by President… Read more

Washington, DC -  Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), along with all Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the Administration today about the upcoming meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED).  The letter highlights key priorities for these meetings, including the need to address long-standing and specific… Read more

Good morning, and thank you Ambassador Barshefsky for the kind introduction.  Let me return the compliment by saying that your tenure as U.S. Trade Representative was marked by admirable bipartisanship, and you laid the groundwork for much of our recent accomplishments on trade policy.   I would also like to thank all of you for being here and CSIS for hosting me this… Read more

I commend Chairman Camp for his leadership in working to overhaul the tax code.  As he said in the first hearing of this congress, tax reform will be a long process.  In the meantime we must continue our work on the current tax code. And unfortunately, the current tax code is riddled with scores of provisions that have been enacted on a temporary basis. I say riddled not… Read more

A hearing of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources this week exposed serious threats to the implementation of critical unemployment insurance (UI) reforms contained in The Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (Public Law 112-96), which the President signed into law on February 22, 2012.  Several Republican Members as well as representatives from… Read more

The article “Freshman: Bring back earmarks” (POLITICO, April 23) inaccurately characterizes the miscellaneous tariff bill process and its classification as an earmark. The MTB is actually a bipartisan jobs bill that will prevent a tax increase on manufacturers in the U.S. and help us compete with our global… Read more

As we all know, we have been paying record Unemployment Insurance benefits for years now.  Despite characterizations by some on the other side that this is the best stimulus money can buy, we know that the U.S. labor market remains in near-critical condition today: There are 5 million fewer jobs today than the Administration predicted there would be at the end of 2010; … Read more

Washington, DC - Today, Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Charles Boustany, Jr., M.D. (R-LA) sent a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner inquiring into the performance, effectiveness and evaluation of the Medicare Integrity Program (MIP) and its contractors.  Recent data indicates that CMS spends over $1… Read more

Welcome to this afternoon’s hearing on the limitations the Democrats’ health care law places on consumers’ use of tax-advantaged plans to purchase over-the-counter medication. Millions of Americans use tax-advantaged plans to save for medical expenses. Plans such as flexible spending arrangements, health reimbursement arrangements, and health savings accounts allow consumers to set… Read more