Receive Email Updates
I encourage you to sign up here to receive email updates about the work I am doing in Congress and how it will affect you.
Stay Connected
Frankly Speaking - Economy
1099 Requirement Yet Another Burden on America's Small Businesses
Mar 4, 2011Buried within the more than 2,000 page health care law passed by the former Democratic majority and current administration, one of the dozens of mandates included in the legislation had nothing to do with improving the health care in this country. This mandate--a new 1099 form expansion--requires businesses to issue a 1099 form for payments of goods and services that exceed $600 per year. This requirement creates an overwhelming amount of paperwork that would hinder the overall effectiveness of every business and reduce potential growth.
Time for Real Reform
Jan 21, 2011As one of the first acts of the 112th Congress, I joined a bipartisan group of my colleagues – including every member of the Oklahoma delegation – and voted to repeal the government takeover of health care. Also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, this bill was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010 after more than 18 months of heated debate on both sides. And while I’m sure there were people in then-Speaker Pelosi’s district in San Francisco that liked this bill, I couldn’t find many in the Third District of Oklahoma.
Filed under: EconomyThe Trouble with a Bailout
Aug 13, 2010President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have tried it their way for more than a year and a half now – expanding the size and scope of the federal government, dramatically increasing federal spending and growing the national debt, and squandering more than two trillion dollars on taxpayer funded bailouts and so-called stimulus bills filled with wasteful and unnecessary pork barrel spending. Yet as their promises of creating new jobs and resuscitating our stagnate economy continue, the facts prove those promises to be empty ones. Unemployment still hovers around 10 percent across the nation as e
Filed under: EconomyLame Duck Plan Is a Lame Idea
Jul 26, 2010It’s been a rocky year and a half for the American people, who have continued to suffer from high unemployment rates and a sagging economy. And rather than addressing these tough issues facing Americans, the 111th Congress has instead focused on controversial pieces of legislation, massive in size, dramatic in impact, and unfathomable in cost. With only a few full weeks of session scheduled before the end of the year, many Americans have begun breathing a sigh of relief that many of the most controversial pieces of legislation on Speaker Pelosi and President Obama’s agenda will most likel
Filed under: EconomyDrowning in Red Ink
Jun 11, 2010This month, our country reached a staggering milestone – the national debt topped $13 trillion. To put that in perspective, if you were to spend $1 per second, it would take you about 412,000 years to rack up $13 trillion in debt. While the median income per person in 2004 was $23,535, each American taxpayer’s share of the national debt is $118,500.
Filed under: EconomyTo Budget or Not to Budget That Is the Question
May 21, 2010In 1974, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. This legislation established procedures for how Congress creates and adopts the annual budget for the federal government. This process allows the American people to see the spending priorities of Congress and also helps to hold Congress to a spending limit. For the first time since this bill was drafted, it appears as though we may not draft and pass a budget for the 2011 fiscal year.
Filed under: EconomyTown Hall Recap: Your Voice Is Important
Apr 16, 2010Earlier this month, I wrapped up another 18 town hall meetings, including stops in Beckham, Custer, Canadian, Lincoln, Logan, Kingfisher, Garfield, Major, Alfalfa, Dewey, Woods, and Blaine counties, and am proud to report I am now more than half way through my annual 50 town hall tour of Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.
Filed under: EconomyA Disconnected Congress
Mar 11, 2010The House of Representatives spent much of yesterday discussing H.ConRes. 248, the Afghanistan War Powers Resolution, sponsored by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The resolution would have required the president to remove all U.S.
Filed under: EconomyOne Trillion, Four Hundred Twenty Billion Dollars
Oct 28, 2009One trillion, four hundred twenty billion dollars. It’s an astounding number. It’s more than the entire economy of India and enough to give every man, woman, and child in the United States $4700.
It is also our country’s federal budget deficit for 2009. That means that in the fiscal year 2009, which runs from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009, the federal government spent $1.42 trillion more than it took in. To put this in perspective, last year’s deficit was $459 billion – still an astounding number, but less than half the deficit for this year.
Fiscal Responsibility is the Best Policy
Jul 10, 2009Recently, the Obama Administration and Speaker Pelosi have joined many of their colleagues to call for yet another “economic stimulus” package, like the one passed in February of this year, as a means to encourage economic growth.
Filed under: Economy