e-News 1/8/16

• Working on the People’s Priorities
• On the President’s desk: Repealing a broken health care law
• Permanent Commuter Tax Benefit Kicks in this Week!
• Attention High School Students: Annual Congressional App Challenge
• Salute: Farewell to former State Assemblyman Frederic Remington, Jr

Working on the People’s Priorities

The Second Session of the 114^th Congress officially commenced on Tuesday amid new dangers and old challenges.  Of course, this is not the first Congress to be seated during difficult times.  However, the tasks and responsibilities before us today are truly daunting and must be met.

Despite news of a slowly improving economy, families and businesses are still stressed and strained.  From my travels around my Congressional District, I know many do not yet feel that we are in the midst of any recovery. Household budgets are stretched thin and people see chaos in world financial markets and worry about rebuilding their investments, protecting jobs and assuring their children’s future, the latter being the most important.

At the same time, weak Presidential leadership has spawned new threats to our national security and re-energized old ones.  We find ourselves confronting a more lethal ISIS, al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups.  Russia seems intent on reigniting the Cold War.  China appears committed to running the U.S. Navy out of the western Pacific.  North Korea surprised the White House and the world with an atomic device test.  Despite the President’s nuclear weapons agreement, Iran continues to violate UN Security Council resolutions and we have lost influence and friends all across the Middle East.

Lest anyone forget, we have thousands of courageous men and women in uniform – all volunteers – “advising” and fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere around the globe.    

Once again, we find our nation at a crossroads.  We understand our responsibility to govern effectively, and under the new Speaker Paul Ryan, we are looking forward to getting to work on the people’s priorities. 

In the meantime, I commend to you several articles about rising dangers across the globe and how the Obama Administration is reacting:

Read Arthur Herman in National Review “Showdown in the South China Seas.”

Read Michael Crowley in Politico, “Obama's royal pain. The U.S.-Saudi partnership may be bending toward a breaking point” here.

Read Seth Cropsey in the Wall Street Journal, “S.O.S. for a Declining American Navy. Today’s 272-ship fleet isn’t nearly enough. The U.S. needs 350 ships to meet the rising global dangers” here.

On the President’s desk: Repealing a broken health care law

We all remember the President’s rhetoric that Obamacare would drive down premiums and allow Americans to keep our doctors. Nearly five years later, it’s clear these statements were nothing more than empty promises.

Instead, premiums have skyrocketed, millions of Americans have been kicked off their plans, and businesses have been forced to downsize and cut wages just to keep the lights on. The fact is this law is broken beyond repair.

On Wednesday, using the same budget “reconciliation” process that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid used to jam the so-called Affordable Care Act through Congress, the House sent a bill repealing Obamacare to the President’s desk for the first time.

The bill we passed, the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, was originally slated to save taxpayers $474 billion. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that it will actually reduce the deficit by $516 billion thanks to the year-end spending bill, which delayed key Obamacare taxes and prevents a taxpayer bailout of the law’s “risk corridor” program.

Read Wednesday’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal, “A Victory Over Obamacare” here.

Permanent Commuter Tax Benefit Kicks in this week!

This week I am reminding commuters to take advantage of a renewed and improved federal tax policy to help pay for bus and train fares.  This change which was enacted last month puts real money back into wallets and represents a huge win for our region!

The tax package approved by Congress in December, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act (PATH) sets the maximum transit commuter tax benefit at the same level car commuters get for parking expenses. Both classes of commuters can now pay for those costs with up to $255 in pre-tax income per month.   Estimated annual savings could exceed $1,000.  Retroactively, qualified transportation benefits, such as transit passes, vanpools, and parking, provided by employers are excluded from income up to $250 a month for 2015.  This amount will increase to $255 in 2016 and is indexed to inflation. 

Northern New Jersey is the most densely populated region of the most densely-populated state in the nation and anything we can do to get commuters off the roads and into mass transit will reduce congestion and traffic jams and improve the quality of life for everyone in our region.

Until now, commuters who drive to work have regularly received greater tax relief than their counterparts who use public transportation.  In 2015, motorists were able to set aside up to $250 monthly in pre-tax earnings to cover their commuting expenses, while bus, train and ferry riders were limited to just $130 a month.

Attention High School Students: Annual Congressional App Challenge

The “Congressional App Challenge," an annual competition aimed at encouraging high school students to learn how to code by creating their own software applications for mobile, tablet or computer devices, is in its final two weeks.

Nothing is more important to our Nation’s continued economic strength than developing the talents and expertise of students interested in science, technology engineering and math (STEM) fields.  I look forward to viewing the submissions of students from New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District and urge all students to take advantage of the final two weeks of this exceptional opportunity.

The Congressional App Challenge was launched last November andcontinues through January 21.  The competition is open to all U.S. high school students in our Congressional districts. They are invited, either as individuals or as teams, to create and submit their own software application (“app”) for mobile, tablet, or other computing devices on a platform of their choice. A panel of local computer science professionals will judge the apps, and the winners in each district will have the honor of being recognized.

More information, including a full list of rules, can be found here:http://www.congressionalappchallenge.us/

Salute: Farewell to former State Assemblyman Frederic Remington, Jr., an outstanding legislator and very successful businessman from North Caldwell who was devoted to the service of the residents of our state.  He will be sorely missed.