This week, the House passed H.R. 2634, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation. This bill allows the U.S. to negotiate multilateral agreements to provide debt relief for poor countries. The House also passed H.R. 5715, the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act, to bring stability to the student loan market. Finally, on Tax Day the House passed H.R. 5719, a bill which eliminates the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) private collection program while at the same time tightening regulation on Health Savings Accounts.

Double Trouble

Since taking control of Congress, Democrats have promoted an agenda which is predictably different from when Republicans were in the majority. Sometimes these differences are subtle – small changes in law buried within multi-page bills. But sometimes the differences are overt, as was the case this week when H.R. 5719, the so-called Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act, was brought to the House floor. By terminating the IRS private debt collection program, this bill costs the government $578 million in revenue over the next ten years, according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation. These are tax dollars that are legally owed to the government and are otherwise very unlikely to be collected by the IRS due to workload demands. In order to comply with current House PAYGO rules, that lost revenue had to be offset elsewhere in the bill. The good news is that Democrats did not go their normal route of simply raising taxes to compensate for this loss in revenue. The bad news, however, is that they chose to raise the money by imposing new administrative burdens on the trustees of Health Savings Accounts (HSA), which currently allow more than seven million Americans to have control over their own health care spending. HSA’s were created to give health care consumers flexibility and options when it came to their own medical spending. H.R. 5719 would begin to take that power away from consumers, significantly weakening the benefit of having these accounts and preserving the status quo of third-party health care payments, which have resulted in a system that is broken. In the category of “two wrongs don’t make a right,” this bill stands out as particularly troubling.

The Pelosi Premium

Nearly one month before the Memorial Day holiday, high gas prices are already putting a damper on many Americans’ holiday plans. With the nationwide average at $3.38 per gallon of gas – and much higher in California – gas prices have increased $1.05 per gallon since January 2007, when the new Democrat majority took over the House and Senate. This is in sharp contrast to then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s election year promise that, “Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” Unfortunately, this “commonsense plan” has disappeared from the new majority’s agenda, as fuel prices have skyrocketed upward with no relief in sight. In lieu of a comprehensive plan, Democrat leaders have begun to offer their own proposals, which are pointed in the wrong direction. House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell proposed increasing the federal gas tax by 50 cents and Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar would increase it by five cents more. Furthermore, when energy legislation was brought to the floor, it discouraged domestic production by raising taxes on U.S. producers. It is time for Congress to act to end the Pelosi Premium by bringing an energy bill to the floor that encourages greater domestic production and eases the growing burden ever-increasing fuel prices are causing on Americans.

Quote of the Week

“Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation. Congress and the American public have been adamant that they want and expect border security. We're serious about delivering it, and these waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward.” – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, discussing the decision to use legal waivers authorized by Congress to streamline construction of a 670-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. April 1, 2008.