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  • 10/1/2012

    Remembering Childhood Cancer Month

    Each September we commemorate National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Childhood Cancer is the number one killer of kids in the United States, with around 170 children in Minnesota and nearly 11,000 children nationwide diagnosed with cancer each year.

    Recently, I had a chance to meet with advocates for childhood cancer awareness in my Washington office to discuss the importance of addressing ways to combat cancer in our children, and help them lead long and productive lives. I also joined 173 of my colleagues to cosponsor H.R.3059, the Creating Hope Act, which would incentivize pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs for rare pediatric diseases, such as childhood cancers. This is a step forward in the fight to combat childhood cancer.

     

    This past Thursday, a group of advocates in our community remembered the children affected by cancer by lighting up the 35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge. The bridge was lit as a simple but poignant reminder of the youth in our community affected by cancer.

     

    We must work towards developing innovative new ways to fight childhood cancer, and I will remain committed to continuing that fight both in Congress and in our community. 

  • 7/2/2012

    Rep. Paulsen Hosts Congress on Your Corner Events

    On Tuesday, July 3rd, I will be holding two Congress on Your Corner events to chat one-on-one with neighbors.

    If you need help with Social Security benefits, Medicare, passports for overseas travel, the Veterans Administration, military or the IRS, we can help you navigate through the bureaucratic maze to obtain an answer.

    I want to hear from you, so stop by today's events, Let's chat. 

    Congress on Your Corner

    11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

    Cub Foods, Shorewood

    23800 Hwy 7, Excelsior

    Congress on Your Corner

    3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

    Cub Food, Coon Rapids

    2050 Northdale Blvd. N.W.

     

  • 5/13/2012

    Remembering All The Mothers in Our Lives

    Mother's Day is a special time for the Paulsen family. We get to celebrate some amazing women in our lives - my mom Jan, who along with my father raised four children in Chanhassen; her mother Mildred, who continues to serve as a role model for all of us at the age of 97 years-young; my mother-in-law Mary Ellen, who with her husband raised three children in Brooklyn Park; and of course my wonderful wife Kelly, who is a teacher and loving mother to our four beautiful daughters and who holds our family together while I am in Washington. Mother’s Day only comes once a year, but we all know that we should be celebrating our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and friends all year long.

    This weekend is also a reminder to honor all of the women who play an integral role in our community - the household leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, and public servants who work every day to ensure that our world is left better than we found it. 

    It’s no secret that small businesses are the backbone of our economy and will be the key to our economic recovery. Right here in Minnesota, there are more than 13,000 women-owned small businesses that employ over 121,000 people. While that sounds good on paper, the reality is that according to some studies Minnesota ranks 44th out of the 50 states in growth of women-owned businesses. Minnesota is a great state teeming with endless possibilities, but we need to be doing more to encourage women to take the leap into entrepreneurship. 

    To better understand and serve these entrepreneurs, we should learn from those women who have already succeeded in opening their own businesses. I recently spent an entire day conducting a Women-Owned Business tour where I traveled throughout my congressional district touring women-owned businesses and highlighting their work here in our community. My hope is that learning from these successful women will serve as an inspiration for more women to realize their entrepreneurial dream. I will be the first to stand up and say that women have a keen business sense and unique understanding of the world – two of the most important qualities needed for opening a business. 

    We all know that businesses won’t be successful if they don’t have a qualified work force, means ensuring that we provide our children with a solid educational foundation. My mother was a teacher and my wife Kelly, currently teaches middle school. So for all of the parents and teachers here in our community, rest assured that I hear your needs and concerns loud and clear around the dinner table! I believe that we must give every young person the opportunity for a first-class education. A child’s success should not be determined by his or her zip code or parent’s annual salary. That’s why I am a supporter of charter schools, scholarships, and nutritional programs in schools so that our students receive healthy meals.

    It is probably no surprise to hear that women make over 80% of the health care decisions in their households. I know that statistic is true in mine. For that reason, they need affordable options to make the choices that best suit their families. Recently in Congress, we held a hearing on the new restrictions that now prevent families from using their own health care dollars in Health Savings Accounts or Flexible Spending Accounts to buy simple over-the-counter medications.  Instead of walking into your local drugstore to buy pain or allergy medication with these accounts, Americans are now forced to first visit a doctor, pay a standard co-pay, and get a doctor's prescription for simple medicines like Claritin and Advil. This is not only an inconvenience to mothers with sick children, but also to the doctors who are seeing added office visits and more paperwork. I strongly believe we must fix this onerous new requirement to give more flexibility to working families.

    I continue to be inspired and amazed by the incredible women in my life. This Mother’s Day make sure to thank the mothers in all our lives for all they do for our families and community.                          

  • 3/26/2012

    Improving Our Nation's Child Support Enforcement Program

    This week, the Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee held a hearing to examine several bipartisan, no-cost ways to improve the nation’s child support enforcement program. No one wants to see a family divided, but above all else, we must do what we can to ensure that our young people are receiving the support they need.  

    The child support enforcement program was created in 1975 to reduce public expenditures on welfare by helping children obtain support from non-custodial parents.  Today, this program, which is administered by states, has grown to serve all families that request services and handles 60-percent of child support cases.  

    At this week’s hearing, we discussed ways to increase the collections of child support and reduce expenditures on taxpayers.  These included ways to step up efforts to collect support from parents who live overseas, and improving certain programs targeted to help children in need of support like TANF, child welfare and unemployment programs.  These bipartisan changes improve the efficiency of government programs and the effectiveness to get aid to children.

    I was most interested in ways to protect the personal information of these families and children who are seeking support.  I asked the Gordon Berlin, PhD, President, MDRC, and Kay Farley, Executive Director, National Center for State Courts what they do to prevent identity theft and they assured the Subcommittee that the information is encrypted, stripped of personalized, and destroyed after use.  

    Republicans and Democrats agree we can make some common sense, no-cost changes to the our child support enforcement program to ensure children are receiving the support they deserve, and our government programs are run in the most efficient manner possible.  I look forward to working with my colleagues to move these proposals through Congress.

    Watch my questioning during the committee hearing here

  • 12/15/2011

    Pressing Administration for Action on FDA

    Meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius  

    Minnesota is home to more than 400 innovative medical technology companies – employing more than 35,000 Minnesotans. From life saving heart stents to life improving artificial joints, the products and services created by these medical device companies have helped not only our families and neighbors, but the lives of millions all over the world.

    This morning Senator Klobuchar and I met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to discuss the many challenges facing this vital Minnesota industry and our concerns that American patients have access to the newest and best medical products.

    Because I have had the opportunity to meet with so many medical technology innovators and entrepreneurs, I was able to convey the extent of the threats facing the U.S. medical technology industry to the Secretary.  

    Innovators, investors, physicians, and patients have raised the alarm about companies and clinical trials moving overseas, the rate at which venture capital for medical technology is drying up, and the new 2.3% medical device tax included in the President’s healthcare law.  While other countries are actively recruiting and incentivizing medical technology companies to locate their manufacturing and do research within their borders, our own government is making it increasingly difficult and expensive to innovate and create new medical technology business here in the United States.

    The Secretary also agreed to provide feedback on the bipartisan legislation I and my colleagues in Congress have introduced to increase efficiency, transparency, and predictability at the FDA.  I look forward to receiving comments from the agency and working with the Secretary in the future.  I am thankful to both Secretary Sebelius and Senator Klobuchar for their willingness to work on common-sense reforms at the FDA. We must ensure that the FDA upholds its obligation to regulate in an effective and least burdensome way.

    I look forward to our continued work together on behalf of Minnesota job creators and patients. 

  • 12/14/2011

    Protecting High Quality Healthcare for Minnesotans

    Minnesota has long been a leader in providing high quality, low cost health care. Due to geographic disparities in Medicare payments, the state has been shortchanged by Medicare’s flawed payment system, which rewards quantity rather than quality and underpays low cost states like Minnesota.

    A 2008 report from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care shows significant variations in Medicare patient spending based on where patients live – with Minnesota on the low end.  These funding disparities are not caused by varying incidence of diseases in different areas of the country, but are due to antiquated formulas that benefit other states with high cost and low quality healthcare.

    In the bipartisan Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act, which passed the House on Tuesday, I was able to help ensure the inclusion of the Medicare Physician Work Geographic Adjustment, which equalizes payments to physicians in more states, including Minnesota. We need to find a long term solution for Medicare’s payment problems, so that doctors in Minnesota are paid fairly and Minnesota seniors continue to have access to high quality, low cost care.

    The bipartisan bill also includes a 2-year paid-for “doc fix”, the longest extension in nearly a decade, to avoid large cuts in physician payment rates, ensuring that Medicare beneficiaries continue to have access to doctors. It also calls for studies from Health and Human Services, the Government Accountability Office, and The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, to use the two years to focus on permanent solutions, instead of continued short term fixes that Washington so often chooses to focus on. 

  • 12/7/2011

    REINing in Excessive Government Regulations

    In 2010, the federal government issued 3,271 new rules and regulations.  That’s roughly 9 rules each and every day.  At a time when we are trying to expand our economy, and get our neighbors back to work, we must have better accountability and transparency in Congress for the regulatory burdens the federal government places on the shoulders of small and medium businesses as they try to steer their way through these trying economic times.

    Since January, the House has passed 25 pro-growth jobs bills to ensure we provide an environment for robust economic growth. And today, we take up another measure to protect small businesses and job creators from excessive federal regulations.

    The House will vote on the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. This common-sense legislation will be a check and balance on agencies and unelected bureaucrats who impose costly, excessive, and burdensome new regulations on American job creators. According to the Administration’s own count, more than 200 regulations are in the pipeline right now, each costing the economy $100 million or more. This pro-growth bill allows Congress to act like a Board of Directors that has the ability to ensure that future federal regulations are both cost-effective and necessary. 

    *According to the Heritage Foundation, the cost of major new regulations skyrocketed in 2010 to an estimated $26.5 billion.

    Not all regulations are negative, they protect the health and safety of our families and communities. But, by ensuring that all regulations with a significant economic impact are approved by Congress we bring forward reform, accountability, and transparency to help grow our economy.  

    Watch my floor speech on the REINS Act below:

    Click image to view video

  • 11/17/2011

    International Tax Reform For Robust Economic Recovery

    Reforming our current tax code is an important step forward in turning our economy around and getting our neighbors back to work. As it stands, our tax code is over 9,097,000 words long. Putting that into perspective, the entire Bible is 774,746 words long.

    The last thing we need to be doing is burdening economic recovery and job creation with this complicated tax code we have today.

    The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing this afternoon on international tax reform to discuss details of the corporate rate cut and participation exemption system that the Committee hopes to make a part of comprehensive tax reform.

    I had the opportunity to question tax specialists on how to properly transition into a more effective tax structure. It’s imperative that we get the transition rules right so that we don’t unintentionally harm American companies.  Watch the video of my questioning here:

    Ultimately, we must work to become more competitive in the global economy, and moving towards a territorial system will assist our job creators in doing so. I am hopeful that this shift will provide some certainty to the tax community and go a long way in helping fortify a robust economic recovery. 

  • 11/15/2011

    Ensuring the Effectiveness of the Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credit

    Employing about half of our nation’s private sector workforce and creating 65% of net new jobs, small businesses are the engines which will kick-start our economy and get our neighbors back to work. Frequently, I have the opportunity to meet with small business owners in our community regarding hurdles they see to expanding their businesses and their payrolls. For many employers who offer health care for their employees, the rising cost of coverage has been an ever growing challenge to staying afloat during these trying economic times.

    Today, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to examine the implementation of the Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credit (SBTC), and whether it is effective in reducing costs for employers. First enacted as a part of the President’s health care law, the credit was supposed to be a way to help small businesses access affordable insurance to cover their employees.

    Yet, two years later, we’ve heard from our nation’s small businesses that the tax credit is a convoluted process which only 8% of small businesses have been able to utilize. Small businesses must allocate resources to undertake complicated calculations in determining whether they even qualify for the credit, and to tackle extensive instruction and application forms. If job creators are able to navigate the calculations and confirm they are indeed eligible for the credit, they are required to follow employee compensation and hiring rules in order to keep it.

    During the hearing this morning, I had the chance to question Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, and IRS Commissioner, Tax Exempt & Government Entities Division, Sarah Ingram, on the challenges facing American small businesses with respect to the SBTC. Watch the video of my questioning here. 

    I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure our nation’s small businesses have all the tools they need to succeed.

  • 10/25/2011

    Leveling the Playing Field with China

    Not a week goes by that my office doesn’t hear about how American companies face an uphill battle against the Chinese. These questions go beyond China’s currency manipulation; they include concerns that China simply does not always play by the rules.

    On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing about how Congress can help level the playing field between American and Chinese companies. There’s no doubt that China presents a great opportunity for Minnesota companies to find new customers.   The committee discussed how we can help American companies compete to win despite China’s lack of regulatory transparency, distortive subsidies, indigenous innovation policies and  many other barriers to U.S. Exports and investment.

    A perfect example of the disadvantages facing American companies is Chinese government’s proposed policy that would strictly control the pricing of imported medical devices.  This would allow China to set the price of U.S. devices far higher than locally made Chinese devices putting American products at a distinct disadvantage.   

    Piracy and intellectual property also must be addressed.  It is estimated that nearly 80% of business software in use in China has been obtained illegally costing 60,000-85,000 jobs and $3.5 billion that could have been contributed to U.S. GDP.

    Here’s a video of my questions during Tuesday’s hearing on leveling the playing field for American businesses in China:

    The bottom line is that while China may be able to steal American ideas, it will never be able to copy American ingenuity – that uniquely American know-how to tackle tough problems and think outside the box.