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American workers and companies now compete with emerging economies like India and China. While we have the ingenuity and resources to succeed globally, Washington constantly straitjackets America’s advantages when it should be securing our economic future. Sen. Jim DeMint has witnessed this during years as a small businessman and up close as a member of Congress.
The United States tax code is the most complicated in the world, and our tax rates are among the highest. Meaningful tax reform is our only option. At a minimum, Sen. DeMint believes we must stop the largest tax increase in history on American families and businesses that will occur in just three years if we do not extend the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. According to the nonpartisan Heritage Foundation, the Democrat budget would impose an average of $3,000 in new taxes for every American household.
American businesses should be focusing their time and resources on innovation, growth, training, and hiring new employees; not complying with the tax code. DeMint introduced the Economic Growth Act (S. 2592) to put our economy back on a pro-growth track. This bill would allow full and immediate expensing, reduce the top corporate tax rate, end the capital gains tax on inflation and sharply reduce the capital gains rate for businesses. Investing in our private economy, not our national treasury, is the surest way to growing employment and wages.
Additionally, businesses face a daily struggle to comply with over 144,000 pages of miscellaneous regulatory rules that cost upwards of $400 billion per year. While we must maintain a healthy environment, safe products and fair standards, many well-intended regulations have resulted in excessive costs and few benefits.
DeMint introduced the Compete Act (S. 869) to ease the burdens placed on thousands of small public companies by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This legislation would give flexibility to smaller companies for whom the burdens of compliance are disproportionately harmful.
The U.S. must also develop a comprehensive national energy policy that will allow us to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and reduce high costs that act as a tax on American families and businesses. Congress and government agencies must reduce the regulatory hurdles that stand in the way of energy exploration in an environmentally responsible way, while continuing to encourage the development of new technologies, like hydrogen and fuel cells. The senator also believes in expanding nuclear energy, which is clean, safe, abundant, and currently supplies half of South Carolina’s homes and businesses.
DeMint has worked with Senators Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to open Yucca Mountain and expand the use of nuclear energy. He has cosponsored the Nuclear Waste Access to Yucca Act (S. 37) and the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act (S. 2551).
Finally, to promote a strong economy and protect American jobs, trade agreements must be negotiated that open new markets for American products. While President George W. Bush’s Administration has worked aggressively to do this, it has often done so without much support in Congress. Congress must also get serious about enforcing current trade agreements to ensure that no country is violating trade laws and unfairly hurting American businesses.
History has shown the best way to grow the economy and create jobs: limit the size of government, cut taxes, and give businesses the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. In today’s competitive world, these goals have never been more important to give America a fighting chance.
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