Legislative Priority: Cutting Taxes

As someone who has owned a small business, I know how hard families and small business owners work to make ends meet.  That's why I focus my support for tax cuts that help middle-income families and small businesses, including:

• I voted to permanently extend the child tax credit so families may claim a tax credit of $1,000 per eligible child (H.R. 4359 -- 5/20/04).
• I have voted repeatedly to eliminate the marriage tax penalty for married couples filing joint tax returns so that they can claim the same deduction per person as single tax filers. Most recently, I voted to permanently extend the elimination of the marriage tax penalty (H.R. 4181 -- 4/28/04).
• I support increasing the non-taxable cap on the value of an estate to $5 million to help Oregon's family farmers and small businesses continue to thrive as they pass to the next generation.
• I voted to extend the 10% tax bracket to benefit working families by permanently extending the increased amount of their income that is taxed at the lowest rate (H.R. 4275 -- 5/13/04).
• I voted to extend the Alternative Minimum Tax relief so that more working families' incomes would not be subject to the higher tax (H.R. 4227 -- 5/05/05).
• I cosponsored and voted for legislation to permanently extend the moratorium on taxing Internet access (H.R. 49 -- 9/17/03).
• I authored the "Five for Five Act" to encourage business investment by reducing to 5 percent the maximum rate of tax on net capital gain on assets held for more than 5 years (H.R. 2081).
• I voted to extend the Research and Development tax credit to help Oregon businesses take advantage of emerging technologies and bring more investment home.
• I voted from the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce the information collection burden on small businesses by consolidating federal agencies' information requests (H.R. 2432 -- 5/18/04).