Taxes and Spending

Coloradans are struggling right now as they deal with the disastrous effects of Biden and Pelosi's destructive economic policies. They unleashed record inflation on Americans that has decimated our bank and retirement accounts, increased gas prices to record levels, raised utility bills, drove up grocery costs, and made it harder to live for most Americans. The primary root cause of this record-breaking inflation was trillions of dollars of wasteful federal spending. Biden and Pelosi have spent an unsustainable $5.7 trillion already and our national debt now exceeds $33 trillion dollars. 

Thanks to Biden and Pelosi's reckless spending, America will spend ten trillion dollars more over the next 10 years than we were estimated to spend. While the federal government continues to spend trillions of dollars it doesn’t have, inflation has hit a 40-year high and our nation is now mired in a recession. Instead of addressing these major economic concerns head-on, the Democrat “solution” to inflation is to keep spending.

This excessive spending has real consequences. American families will pay a $8,581 inflation tax over the next year. Currently, 20 million Americans can’t pay their electric bill. We have seen a 4.3% decline in real wages since Biden took office. Americans have lost more than $2 trillion in retirement savings. Gas is nearly $4 a gallon again and Americans are paying more for everything because of Biden and Pelosi's inflation.

I am working to reduce inflation by voting against reckless spending bills, cutting wasteful spending through the amendment process, supporting American energy production, opposing corrupt earmarks, voting against raising the debt ceiling, opposing tax increases, and introducing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Economic strength and job growth result from policies that unshackle job creators, allow American ingenuity, and provide certainty. I am fighting to reduce job-killing regulations and keep small businesses open.

I support a full repeal of the "death tax" as there is no reason to tax our ranchers and farmers again when they pass the family farm on to the next generation. I support making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent to prevent an unnecessary tax hike on the American people and job creators in 2025.

The tax code should be simplified into one page, not a ream of confusing and contradictory messages. Unfortunately, the Democrats are working to make taxes even worse by hiring 87,000 new IRS agents to snoop on your bank accounts. I was proud to vote against this awful bill!

I am fighting for taxpayers. When, due to a clerical error caused by “teleworking," the IRS harassed law-abiding Coloradans who had paid their taxes on time, I stood up and demanded answers from the IRS. When Democrats tried to give the IRS even more power to micromanage our lives by giving them the power to review every transaction over $600, I cosponsored the Protecting Financial Privacy Act to stop this government overreach in its tracks.

I believe that government spending should put Americans first, so when Biden proposed giving illegal aliens $450,000 checks, I introduced the We’re Not Paying You to Break Our Laws Act. My bill and successful public pressure campaign led the Biden regime to halt this awful plan.

Government spending should go to critical priorities like national defense—not pipedream liberal ideas supported by lobbyists and career politician hacks. When Congress announced the return of earmarks, I opposed them as a tool of corruption. I am calling out politicians who use your tax dollars to earn political favors, and I am working towards restoring fiscal responsibility in Congress. In March of 2022, Pelosi passed a $1.5 trillion, 2,741-page, drunken-sailor, monstrosity of a spending bill in less than 22 hours that included 2,727 earmarks totaling $4.2 billion. No one even read the bill. I voted no.

I use every opportunity in the legislative process to try and reduce federal spending, and I led Congress in the number of amendments filed to cut wasteful provisions in massive spending bills, including cutting funding for critical race theory, taxpayer-funded abortions, the Green Climate Fund, and gain-of-function research in China.

Too many programs get tax dollars by going around the law and not going through the established appropriations’ authorization process. The status quo needs to change, and Congress needs to get back to regular order.  Under regular order, Congress passes a budget resolution that caps spending levels and then reviews each federal program’s effectiveness annually through 12 different appropriations bills that are passed through both Houses. Instead of following this prudent fiscal process and allowing amendments, Congress has passed massive end-of-year omnibuses that are 2,700 pages that no one reads. Shockingly, regular order has not been followed since 1994. I took action to put America back on track by introducing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.

I fight for taxpayers every day, and I won’t stop. We need to balance the budget, significantly reduce our national debt, and restore fiscal responsibility to protect the American dream for future generations.