Published in Florida Politics, Saint Peters Blog, Sunshine State News, The Hill and Washington Examiner. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently published a report stating that federally issued Direct Student Loans placed in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans will cost the government $74 billion, which is higher than previously estimated. According to the GAO, as of June of this year, 5.3 million student loan borrowers are repaying their loans in I...
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Published in Tampa Bay Times, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Florida Politics and Saint Peters Blog. Throughout this election, throughout all of the senseless infighting and finger-pointing, throughout the deepening polarization of our country, one thing has become abundantly clear: we have to heal our wounds and reunite as a nation. How are we supposed to lead a free world, protect Americans, and promote strength and growth when we cannot seem to work together in achieving these goals? How are ...
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Published in The Ledger, Sunshine State News and Florida Politics. Last week, the Senate again blocked $1.1 billion in desperately needed funding to help research, prevent, and fight the spread of the Zika virus — all for political reasons. The last time I checked, members of Congress are sent to Washington with the duty to protect the American people, not play political games with their lives. Unfortunately, when it comes to passing Zika funding legislation, the lives of those my colleagues and...
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Published in Sunshine State News, The Hill, The Ledger and WGCU. Our state of Florida is no stranger to catastrophic storms and devastating hurricanes. With 98 percent of Florida communities participating in the federal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), homeowners and business owners know firsthand the importance of purchasing flood insurance to protect their families and businesses from disaster. In 2014 alone, and to no surprise, Florida surpassed all other states in total number of ins...
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Published in the Washington Examiner and Sunshine State News. With new leadership in the House of Representatives, an important return to regular order and a more inclusive process, the first Republican-controlled Congress in nine years ended 2015 by passing a number of substantial legislative achievements and conservative reforms that will benefit the American economy and the American people. More importantly, these legislative achievements were signed into law by a president who threatened to ...
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Published in Sunshine State News, the Tampa Tribune, The Hill and the Washington Examiner. Referring to ISIS, President Obama made the following claims mere hours before the horrific terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France: "I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they'll come in, they'll leave, but you don't see this systemic march by ISIL a...
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Featured in the Washington Examiner, The Hill and Sunshine State News. During the past few weeks and recent days, the House Republican Conference has experienced a ripple of change in our Congressional Leadership, causing us to refocus the future of our party. In assessing a resolution to this situation, the answer is not merely to rearrange the faces of our leadership and expect that our problems will be solved. In fact, the answer is quite the contrary. Because there is a clamor across our nat...
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Featured in Forward. During a presidential debate in 2012 referring to the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, President Obama declared to the American people that “the deal we’ll accept is the end of their nuclear program.” In the coming weeks, Congress will debate the Iran Nuclear Agreement recently announced by the president. After reading the deal, I participated in a classified briefing hosted by two of the deal’s lead negotiators, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Department...
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This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). This 2,300-page law has imposed more than 400 new government mandates, creating a sluggish economic recovery and uncertainty across our financial markets. Dodd-Frank established vast new government bureaucracies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), that operate largely out of the public eye. Not only do these b...
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Featured in Sunshine State News. The extra trips to the hardware store for plywood and nails to board up windows. The stocked pantries and cupboards with canned goods and water bottles. The spare batteries and flashlights stashed around the house. The safety drills to take shelter in hallways and bathtubs. These are all-too-familiar precautions we Floridians practice when hurricane season rolls around. Because, it is all about prevention. As June 1 started the official 2015 ...
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