Content by Rep. Eric Cantor
Posted at 8:39am on Jan. 14, 2008 Sign the Petition and Help Protect Our Second Amendment Rights
By Rep. Eric Cantor
In a great victory for the American People, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the DC handgun ban saying it was a violation of the second amendment. For the first time in years a court held that the second amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. Defenders of the second amendment have been working hard for just this moment in history for years.
Last Friday, the United States Solicitor General filed formal briefs asking the Supreme Court not to affirm the lower court's decision. This is just outrageous. The Solicitor General is the Federal Government’s lawyer. So, now we have the federal government using our tax dollars to argue for a delay on a ruling concerning our fundamental rights.
Let your voice be heard - sign the petition today.
Please read on.
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Posted at 1:24pm on Dec. 18, 2007 Speaker Pelosi, Fix the AMT
By Rep. Eric Cantor
This morning, I sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi calling upon her to bring the Senate-passed alternative minimum tax (AMT) relief legislation to the floor.
It is absolutely essential that Congress provide AMT relief to the American people; no previous Congress has ever failed to protect middle-class families and they deserve an up-or-down vote on the floor.
Read the letter below the fold...
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Posted at 12:54pm on Dec. 9, 2007 Pay-Go: Fiscal Responsibility or Political Cover to Raise Your Taxes?
By Rep. Eric Cantor
When the new majority implemented "pay-go" spending rules last fall, the American people thought they were getting a check on runaway congressional spending - not an excuse to raise taxes. Congress would offset any dollar of new government spending, we were told, with spending reductions in other areas.
Sadly, this year the majority has done nothing to change its profligate ways. Congress’ spending proposal came out $23 billion over the president’s budget request, an overall increase of over 10 percent from last year’s levels. Instead, Democrats have used pay-go as a pretext for a wave of new tax increases. Their strategy, disguised in the garb of “fiscal responsibility,” threatens to deal a decisive blow to American prosperity at a tense moment for our economy.
How does their stealth work? Consider the ongoing logjam over Congress’ attempt to patch up the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Because this tax was never indexed for inflation, 19 million additional taxpayers this year will be caught in its ever-expanding web, swelling the ranks of AMT payers to 23 million. Previous congresses have implemented a patch for middle-class AMT payers. But the inaction of this Congress has placed 23 million taxpayers at risk of a $2,000 tax increase this fiscal year.
Read On...
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Posted at 2:39pm on Oct. 25, 2007 Fight This Tax
By Rep. Eric Cantor
Today, Charlie Rangel unveiled his "mother of all tax hikes" scheme – the largest individual income tax increase in American history.
By 2011, if adopted, the United States would have one of the highest top marginal tax rates in the world. This tax hike is nothing less than an economic death sentence to the millions of farmers and small businesses that drive America's economic engine.
Let's not mince words, if this Democrat tax hike is adopted, Americans across the country will lose their jobs – plain and simple. If the Democrat tax hike is adopted, small businesses will close and family farms will fold; perhaps more than any other single proposal in modern history, Charlie Rangel's tax hike guarantees a serious economic recession in this country.
That is the economic reality of this legislation.
Read on . . .
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Posted at 9:07pm on Oct. 9, 2007 This is an outrage that cannot stand
By Rep. Eric Cantor
This is a news story that deserves more attention.
On September 11 2007, Andrew Larochelle requested a flag be flown over the United States Capitol – the flag was intended as a gift to his grandfather, to mark the occasion of Andrew's induction into the Eagle Scouts. They requested that the certificate read, "this flag flown in honor of Marcel Larochelle, my grandfather, for his dedication and love of God, country and family."
The bureaucrats at the Architect of the Capitol's office, which is controlled by Speaker Pelosi, removed the word God from the certificate. They have apparently, without the proper legislative authority, created new rules to prevent the word God from appearing on their certificates.
They are trying to establish a dangerous precedent that, if left unchallenged, could eventually lead to the removal of the word God from all government buildings, currency, and documents.
Let me be perfectly clear – they won't allow the word God to appear on their certificates, even when the family of the person being honored specifically requests it. In America, we are guaranteed the freedom of religion, not the freedom from religion; our nation's founding fathers and our nation today wants God in our everyday life.
Do not forget, that many of these flags are intended to honor our nation's veterans, including those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of freedom. Under the Architect of the Capitol's new rules, even their grieving families would not be permitted to have a flag certificate that mentions the word God.
This is an outrage and it will not stand.
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Posted at 5:14pm on Oct. 3, 2007 Sign the Petition - StandwithRush.com
By Rep. Eric Cantor
One failure after another, Washington Democrats have built a record of legislative failure; one disappointment after another, Washington Democrats have failed to deliver results to the people who got them there.
This must be why, just nine months into their tenure, the Democrat-led Congress hit an 11% approval rating – that is the lowest in recorded history. Facing their record of failure, Washington Democrats decided to try and distract – and so they took a man's words out of context, then they went on the attack.
It is at moments like these when we need to band together as conservatives and fight back. That is exactly what the Red State community and so many other conservatives around the country have been doing.
This issue is bigger than you or me, it is bigger than Rush Limbaugh. With the recent liberal effort to resurrect the "fairness doctrine," we have to recognize that free speech -- specifically, conservative free speech is under direct attack. These are issues that speak directly to the core of the modern conservative movement – are we going to allow ourselves to be pushed around by liberal extremists, or are we going to fight back?
Send Washington Democrats a message that their attempts to distract aren't working – to stand with Rush Limbaugh against liberal attacks, go sign the petition at StandwithRush.com.
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Posted at 11:23am on Oct. 3, 2007 The Mother of All Tax Fights
By Rep. Eric Cantor
I wanted to drop by today to let you know about a critical legislative debate that is brewing in the U.S. House, a debate that will have a dramatic effect on the nation and will directly impact you and your families.
We have long known that Chairman Charlie Rangel, the leading Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, would attempt to raise your taxes this fall. However, we did not know the tax hikes would be so sweeping and expansive.
Mr. Rangel has promised that this fall he will host "the mother of all tax bills." His objectives are clear – a sharp tax increase on American families, small businesses, and investors.
Brushing aside warnings from seasoned economists House Democrats, since taking the reigns of power, have done nothing but play petty politics with America's economy. Their reckless actions have already had a negative effect.
House Democrats have tried to hide their failures behind the tired liberal rhetoric of class warfare; yet, the simple reality is that just nine months into Democrat control, you are more likely to be unemployed in America, you are more likely to lose your home, and rising interest rates have made it harder for you to achieve the American Dream.
We may be in the minority, but conservative Republicans are not going to allow these taxes to go through without a fight. With your help, it is a fight I know we can win.
Rather than raising taxes on hardworking American families, why don't the Democrats cut wasteful spending from the massive federal bureaucracy?
The Department of Treasury internally had over $24.5 billion "unreconciled transactions" in one year alone – these are transactions for which auditors cannot account. The bureaucrats spent $25 billion somewhere on something; they don't know who spent it, where it was spent, or what it was spent on.
Bureaucrats at the Department of Agriculture wasted taxpayer dollars, by making personal purchases with federal credit cards. An internal review that sampled just 300 random employees established a 15% abuse rate among card holders; these are government workers spending your hard-earned money on Ozzy Osbourne tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments, cash advances, and more. This is just from 300 employees – over 55,000 bureaucrats have government credit cards, including 1,549 cards that are still held by people who no longer work there.
These are just two examples of unacceptable government waste by the federal bureaucracy. Yet, rather than cut this spending, the Democrats want to raise your taxes.
Charlie Rangel promised the "mother of all tax fights." Well, if he tries to raise your taxes, a fight is exactly what we conservatives will give him.
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Posted at 7:13pm on Sep. 5, 2007 We Must Stop the Levin-Rangel Bill
The Dems are One Trick Ponies. Their Only Trick is Raising Taxes.
By Rep. Eric Cantor
The Democrats came to Washington promising an innovation agenda; so far, however, the most innovative thing they have done is find new ways to tax the American People.
To Democrats, no tax increases are off limits, regardless of their detriment to the economy, the savings of ordinary Americans and job creation. That much is clear in the Democrats' unwavering support for the Levin-Rangel bill. Under the measure, business partnerships would face a whopping 133 percent tax increase on carried interest, or the profits that business partnerships earn for creating wealth.
It is in the spirit of combating counterproductive proposals like Levin-Rangel that I have launched the Coalition for the Freedom of American Investors and Retirees (CFAIR). The coalition, which a dozen of my fellow lawmakers have since joined, works to educate Members of Congress about the consequences of raising taxes on investors and retirees. Our participants are the front line of defense against the coming onslaught from tax-and-spend politicians.
Read on . . .
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Posted at 10:54pm on Aug. 1, 2007 Skip SCHIP
By Rep. Eric Cantor
The low-tax, limited regulation and small government Republican policies that have fueled unprecedented American prosperity and economic growth over the last several years are clearly under attack. Everywhere you look, it seems, another Democrat proposal pops up to raise taxes in the name of expanding entitlements.
House Democrats today pushed through an SCHIP reauthorization that amounts to a fiscally reckless $211 billion government handout. But it didn't have to be this bad. SCHIP began as a Republican program that offered federal dollars to help states insure indigent children who were not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. But the Democrats' new plan extends this entitlement to those with family incomes of $82,500 and higher. And how do they plan to pay for it? Two ways – by stripping $200 billion over the next 10 years from the more flexible privately administered Medicare Advantage, and, of course, by raising your taxes.
Beyond the SCHIP plan, the chorus of calls for tax increases by House Democrats include a $7.5 billion hit on U.S. farmers, which was enacted in the Farm bill to pay for food stamps; an $11.4 billion tax hike on domestic energy producers, which enables foreign oil cartels to capitalize on growing international energy demand and does nothing to lower the prices at the pump; and a 135 percent tax increase on the profits made by managers of investment partnerships, threatening the retirement security for millions of Americans invested in these funds.
These kinds of tax hikes magnify the differences in vision between our nation's two parties. They also set in sharp focus the obvious: that Republicans must unite now more than ever in defense of common-sense conservative solutions.
Read on . . .