Nan A. S. Hayworth

I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for leading this session and our chairman of the RSC. Indeed, it's true: as of January 1, 2013, in fact, Congresswoman, there will be five new burdens, new tax burdens, on the American people related to the enormous cost of the Federal takeover of our health insurance and in certain respects of our health care.

For one thing--and this is really, really a sad thing--right now, families with special needs children can use pretax dollars. They can protect those dollars to spend them on care and even education for their special needs children in flexible savings accounts. As of January 1, 2013, one of the new tax burdens on those families and on every family that relies on a flexible savings account will be that they will be limited to $2,500 per year. That's it.

Now, tuition at some of the schools for our special needs children run to many thousands of dollars a year, $10,000 or more. It used to be that families could use those dollars for their special needs children. Now they won't be able to. Does that seem fair? It certainly doesn't to me.

We will post a link, because I'm not sure they are right, but we will post a link. Dividend taxes are going to go up on our seniors, on our fixed income families, on our savers. That's another burden, the new taxes that are going to be related to health care, and there are three others other than the flexible savings.

Mr. Speaker, our work in Congress during these final weeks of 2012 is focused on the fiscal cliff. We're worried--and rightly so--about what it means to our economy, to our future, to the daily lives right now of hardworking Americans who are, in all too many cases, already struggling to make ends meet, like the mother in Carmel, New York, who told me her kids are going to have to limit their sports activities because she's having trouble finding the money to fill her gas tank a couple of times a week.

I came to Congress 2 years ago to help that mom who is doing all she can just to get by. She cares for her family, she has a job, and she is a taxpayer. She is in the middle class, and she is being squeezed from all sides. She knows, even though she has to set and keep a budget, the Federal Government hasn't been able to do that, and that's why we're facing the fiscal cliff. The Federal Government has been spending her hard-earned tax dollars like water, running trillion-dollar deficits year after year. She is angry, and she has every right to be angry.

So what are we going to do about it?

Lately, we've heard a lot of talk about raising revenues but not nearly enough talk about bringing the Federal Government down to the right size, about matching spending to the resources we have, about balancing the Federal budget. Oh, we hear about a ``balanced approach,'' but that's just a way of saying we need to increase taxes. Actually, we don't need to increase taxes. The best thing we could do would be to not increase taxes.

The best thing we can do to raise revenues is by making our economy as healthy and strong as it can be. That means we need to help our businesses grow and hire. That has become way too hard to do in the past couple of years. A businessman in Dutchess County, New York, told me that he's going to have to limit the number of employees he has to fewer than 50 so that he won't be subject to penalties under the 2010 health law. So, right now, the Federal Government is keeping him from offering jobs. That hurts the people who need jobs and who would be happy to be on a payroll on which they would be putting their own contributions into Social Security and Medicare.

Increasing taxes means less growth and fewer jobs, and that's not balanced. Three years ago, I made a pledge to oppose tax increases. I made that pledge to the citizens I serve and to no one else, and I made it because tax increases will hurt them. When Jen, the owner of La Petite Cuisine in Warwick, New York, tells me that the best thing I can do for her small business is to give her a break from high taxes, I believe her. I ran for Congress to help Jen and all the small business people like her, who are the engines of job creation. I ran for Congress to help all the people who need employers like Jen to hire them.

These good people deserve better than temporary fixes that mean we lurch from one crisis to the next. They deserve a plan that solves our economic problems for the long term. They deserve a plan that goes beyond politics and shows a commitment to putting the Federal Government on a budget and on track to eliminate our crushing debt, that respects our citizens' rights to enjoy the fruits of their labors and to spend and save and invest as they see fit, which is the best way to grow the economy and add jobs, and that allows each of them, regardless of their station in life or where they live or their ethnic background or their gender, to use their energy, talent, and common sense as free people in a Nation that must remain the strongest in the world, which it simply cannot be if it is drowning in debt.

I am here to fight for what is best for my constituents--every one of them--today and every day, in every single way I can. I am here to serve them and not any party or ideology. My constituents' future extends far beyond any election. They deserve that future to be as secure and prosperous as it can be, and it surely can be if we in Congress and the White House can have the courage to move forward together in a spirit of true cooperation. I stand ready to do that, and I stand with the people of the Hudson Valley.

Mr. Speaker, during our recess this past month, we held a small business roundtable in our Hudson Valley. Actually, everybody sat, transfixed--all the participants--for an hour and a half while talking about what our small businesses need to do and what we need to do to help our small businesses. One of the key considerations was to ease the climate for creating jobs and growing our businesses.

I am so proud to have supported the JOBS Act with our Democratic and Republican colleagues and with the Senate. It was signed into law, as we all know, in March by the President. Tomorrow, in the Financial Services Committee, we begin to review the implementation of the JOBS Act, and I hope that we can continue to work together to make true progress in growing our small businesses and in helping them by making sure that the path is clear for them to grow and thrive and prosper. This is a great example of how both parties can work together to achieve that goal.