Congressman Jeb Hensarling

Representing the 5th District of Texas

Jobs, Taxes, and the Economy

Jobs & The Economy: 

Having been a small businessmen prior to my election to Congress, I know it’s like to try and build a couple of companies, risk capital, and sign the front of a paycheck.  Our economy, after the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, is still limping along over five years later at an anemic pace of growth that is insufficient to provide employment for the millions of our fellow countrymen who are unemployed or underemployed.  The response from the Obama Administration has been to attempt to spend, borrow, and bailout our way to economic prosperity. 

Not surprisingly, that hasn’t worked.  Our economy will not fully recover and robust job creation will not occur until Washington stops threatening and punishing job creators with laws and regulations that discourage economic growth.

  • I’ve cosponsored and supported numerous pieces of legislation to ensure America’s job creators don’t drown in a sea of Washington red tape, including the REINS Act (H.R. 367) which would require Congress to vote on proposed regulations having an economic impact of $100 million or more annually before it could take effect.

Taxes:

Our nation doesn’t have an income problem, it has a spending problem.   I know that at a time when families are struggling to pay their mortgages, their health care premiums, and to send their kids to college, the last thing we should do is raise taxes.  I also know that our nation’s tax code is too complicated, impedes economic growth, and is in desperate need of reform.  I strongly support efforts to reform our nation’s tax code through pro-growth tax reform that will lower individual and corporate tax rates while eliminating the confusing and burdensome tangle of loopholes, resulting in a tax code that is fairer, flatter, and simpler for families and small businesses.