CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP REPORTS ASIAN CARP FOUND NEAR LAKE MICHIGAN ACCESS RIVER

FROM:  U.S. CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP'S WEBSITE 

Last week, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that the White House Council on Environmental Quality Asian carp director John Goss recently told a group in Milwaukee that a 53 inch, 82 pound Asian carp had been found in Flatfoot Lake, Illinois in August.  Flatfoot Lake is land-locked, but located less than a quarter mile from the Calumet River, which has direct access to Lake Michigan as well as Lake Calumet, where a live Asian carp was discovered in 2010.

Following the report Camp said, “News that a live Asian carp was found dangerously close to Lake Michigan, in Flatfoot Lake, is another reminder that we must find a permanent solution to protect the Great Lakes.  Incidents like this underscore the fact that hydrological separation is the only real way to keep Asian carp from destroying the Great Lakes.”

On the topic, The Lansing State Journal wrote, “Kudos to Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, and other Michigan officials for their ongoing efforts to prevent the potential crisis of an Asian carp invasion of the Great Lakes. They fight an uphill battle, and Michiganders should support their efforts in every way possible.”

In  2012, Camp championed legislation that is now law, The Stop Invasive Species Act, which requires the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a study on hydrologically separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins by January 2014.

HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS CHAIRMAN DAVE CAMP PROPOSES CUTS TO "WASTEFUL SPENDING"

FROM: CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP,
CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE
Stop Washington’s Wasteful Spending

While much of Washington and the news media are in a frenzy about the President’s "sequester," the simple truth is that it amounts to two cents out of every dollar Washington spends. That’s right, the President’s sequester will cut only 2 percent out of the massive federal budget.

Even as millions of Americans have been forced to cut back their family budgets, the President doesn’t think Washington should cut this two percent. Instead, the President thinks Washington should again increase taxes. But a recent report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office shows tax revenue will double over the next ten years (wouldn’t it be nice if your salary was going to double over the next decade?). Clearly, Washington is getting enough tax revenues. The real problem in Washington is the spending.

Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI) agrees that there is a better way to cut spending than through the President’s sequester plan. In fact, Republicans in the House have voted twice to replace the President’s sequester with targeted, bipartisan spending cuts.

Below are just some pieces of wasteful spending that we should cut. And, if we did, we could reduce the debt. The debt is not just some number – it has a direct impact on American families. During the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission, which Camp served on, non-partisan experts testified that when the debt gets as large as ours is, the economy begins to slow down. That has meant about one million fewer jobs for American workers and less take home pay.

Reduce Health and Human Services (HHS) International Travel
SPENDING CUT: $65.5 million

In FY2011 HHS spent $65.5 million on international travel. Trimming the Department’s international travel by a mere 20 percent could free up funds to ensure that staffing and resources are available to programs serving children and seniors.

Collect Improper Medicare Payments for Prisoners
SPENDING CUT: $33.6 million

The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report highlighting that Medicare improperly paid $33.6 million for services provided to 11,600 incarcerated individuals from 2009 through 2011.

Prisons are responsible for providing care to Medicare-eligible individuals who are incarcerated. However, the OIG noted again that the Center for Medicare and Medicate Services (CMS) did not have procedures in place to detect these improper payments. Additionally, CMS did not utilize standardized claims processing, allowing Medicare contractors to approve payments other contractors would have denied. The OIG recommends CMS recoup the $33.6 million in improper payments identified, and establish policies to detect and recoup future payments.

Implement Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Recommendations
SPENDING CUT: $8.1 Billion

The SSA OIG continually recommends numerous steps that SSA could take for cost savings. According to an April 12, 2012 report to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, had SSA implemented all open recommendations made by the OIG over the previous five years, SSA would have achieved savings of approximately $8.1 billion. SSA’s timely adoption of these and all OIG recommendations would save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Tighten SSA Bargaining Agreements to Reduce Taxpayer Funding of Union Activities
SPENDING CUT: $12.7 million

In FY2011, taxpayers footed a bill of $12.7 million for Social Security employees to conduct union business instead of Social Security business. These employees worked 229,195 hours on union activities, the equivalent of 110 people working full time to help the public with their retirement and disability benefits.

Eliminate IRS TV Production Studio
SPENDING CUT: $4 million

The IRS has a full-service TV production studio in New Carrolton, Maryland and runs the IRS Satellite Network that beams into 140 IRS offices and employs at least 8 producer/directors and spent $4 million on equipment and services in FY2012 alone.


　

CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE'S VIEWS ON THE FISCAL CLIFF, HIGHER TAXES, AND FIXING SOCIAL SECURITY

FROM: CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP'S WEBSITE
Camp Statement on the Fiscal Cliff

Monday, December 10, 2012

Midland, MI – Today, Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI) released the following statement in response to President Obama’s event in Redford, MI.

"Today the President restated his same old demand to raise taxes on nearly 1 million small businesses. The time for campaign events is over, Michigan families and small businesses are at risk. Raising taxes will not create jobs. Tax reform, however, will create jobs here in Michigan and across America and produce more revenues – something the President demands. I urge the President to abandon his push for higher tax rates that threatens middle-class jobs. Comprehensive tax reform, which is supported by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, can help solve both the fiscal and jobs crisis we face in this country."

Social Security

Social Security must be protected for all Americans, especially those who are retired or near retirement age. The Social Security Trust Fund, however, faces significant financial challenges in the coming years. Without Congressional action, retirees could see reduced benefits as soon as 25 years from now.

The biggest strain on the Social Security Trust Fund is the simple fact that individuals live much longer lives today than in 1935, and the program has never truly been updated to keep pace with America’s demographic changes. Successfully fixing Social Security means that Americans who retire in 2035 will not be faced with a system that was built for the world of 1935, but a system that has been modernized to meet the realities of the 21st Century.

While adjustments to the system must be made sooner rather than later to ensure the Social Security Trust Fund remains solvent, I believe any reforms must assure Americans they will get back from Social Security what they have paid into the system over their lifetime. I also believe that the current system should remain in place for those at or near retirement age, who would not have time to plan for any changes.

While Congress faces difficult choices in order to improve Social Security’s long term financial outlook, I know this mission can be accomplished in a way that strengthens this vital government program.

HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE AND IRS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

FROM:  CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE

Boustany Opening Statement: Hearing on IRS Implementation of the Democrats’ Health Care Law
Good morning and welcome to today’s hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s implementation and administration of the President’s health care law.

Before we begin this morning, it is appropriate to recall that eleven years ago, almost to the hour, our nation was savagely attacked. After these 11 years, each of can recall exactly what we were doing at that time. The horror of the day should make us resolve to continue doing our business and demonstrate that we won’t be intimidated or deterred. More than a decade has passed, but the attacks of that day still outrage, the tragedies still overwhelm, and the heroism still inspires us. We still mourn those lost on that day, and all those that have given their lives since in defense of liberty. And we are thankful for those who continue to stand and volunteer to serve our country both at home and abroad.

The Internal Revenue Service has enormous responsibility – it is tasked with administering our convoluted tax system and a tax code that has changed nearly 5,000 times in the past ten years alone. The agency is charged with collecting roughly two and a half trillion dollars, distributing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits, and enforcing 4,000 pages of tax laws and 80,000 pages of tax regulations.

The agency’s core revenue collection function has increasingly been crowded by its responsibility to administer many social programs. Through the years, Congress has sought to advance a multitude of non-revenue objectives through the tax code – energy policy, housing policy, and of course health care policy. Making the IRS both revenue collector and administrator of these activities has diverted IRS resources from its central mission and can diminish taxpayer service.

In 2010, the Congress passed President Obama’s health care law. Spanning nearly 1,000 pages and passed "so you can find out what is in it," in the famous words of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the health care law contained 47 separate tax provisions and charged the IRS with vast new responsibilities. These included the implementation and administration of the largest entitlement created in more than a generation, new penalty taxes on individuals and employers who fail to buy or provide government-approved health insurance, the need quickly create vast new information technology systems, and the list goes on and on.

The President’s health care law has put the federal government in charge of approving health insurance plans, subsidizing them, punishing those who do not buy government-approved plans, and many other aspects of our health care system. And the Internal Revenue Service has been saddled with the responsibility of carrying out many of these new federal activities.

More than creating new burdens on the Internal Revenue Service, the President’s health care law has led to new tax rules and regulations that will pose significant challenges to both individuals and job creators. The Administration’s own documents state that the compliance burden of the new rules it has thus far written to pursuant to the President’s health care law will add nearly 80 million man-hours each year to individuals and job creators. 80 million hours that won’t be spent creating new wealth, providing health care, or doing anything productive. 80 million hours simply complying with new rules from Washington. This is the burden from just the IRS’s new rules, when you add the new regulations from HHS, the Department of Labor and other agencies, the burden on our sluggish economy goes still higher.

As a former surgeon and owner of a small medical practice in Louisiana, I know first hand how taxes, rules, and regulations from Washington can impede not only a small business, but also patient care, so I am especially interested in hearing from the IRS and our witnesses today about the how the new law will operate in the real world.

The object of this hearing is to assess the IRS’s efforts to administer the law, including its effect on the Service’s core mission, and how the decisions made now to implement it will affect both the agency and taxpayers as the law’s provisions continue to come into effect. This is also not a hearing to beat up on the IRS – an agency run by good men and women, dedicated public servants who have an incredibly difficult job. The agency did not write the health care law – the previous Congress did. They passed it, and now we are finding out what is in it and what it means for the country, for the Internal Revenue Service, and for taxpayers.

DAVE CAMP CHAIRMAN OF HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE COMMENTS ON "LOOMING TAX HIKE"

FROM: CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE
Last week in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Dave Camp (R-Midland) led the charge to stop the looming tax hike scheduled to go in effect on January 1, 2013. In a strong bipartisan vote, the House passed Camp’s H.R. 8, the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012, which extends current tax rates for all taxpayers and prevents a $4 trillion tax increase on all taxpayers - American families and small businesses alike. During the debate Camp said the need to stop the tax hike is a choice. Congress must choose between adopting a proposal that would raise taxes and, according to an Ernst & Young analysis, destroy 710,000 jobs or stopping the tax hike and enacting tax reform that, when paired with fiscal restraint, will spur the creation of a million new jobs.


The House also voted on H.R. 6169, the Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012. The legislation, which was sponsored by Camp, lays out bipartisan principles for comprehensive tax reform and provides an expedited process in the House and Senate for consideration of tax reform legislation in 2013. We all know the current tax code is too costly, too complex and too time-consuming. Since 2001, there have been almost 4,500 changes to the tax code. This complexity causes 9 out of 10 families to either hire a tax preparer or buy tax preparation software forcing individuals, families and employers to spend over six billion hours and $160 billion a year in compliance costs according to the National Taxpayer Advocate. Through comprehensive tax reform families and employers will get some long-overdue and much-needed relief and put America on a path for sustained economic growth and job creation.
　

CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE DAVE CAMP COMMENTS ON JOBS REPORT

FROM:  CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMPS WEBSITE
The  jobs report released last week showed the economy added just 115,000 jobs last month, with a jobless rate of 8.1 percent.  However, with 12.5 million Americans still struggling to find work, the real news in the monthly jobs report was that more than 340,000 people stopped looking for work altogether and officially dropped out of the labor force.  If these individuals, commonly referred to as the “invisible unemployed,” were in the official labor force, they would be counted as officially unemployed and raise the current unemployment rate to 11 percent. Congressman Dave Camp (R-Midland) knows that the best way to spur economic growth and job creation is to promote policies that ensure job creators have the freedom and flexibility to invest and hire, and that growth starts by demonstrating  a bipartisan commitment to advancing pro-growth policies. He is working on reforming the complicated tax code, cutting red tape and empowering small businesses to use their resources as they see best – not as Washington dictates. To date, the House has passed 27 pro-growth jobs bills that are currently awaiting consideration in the Senate.