Issue Position: Growing Our Economy
Issue Position
Issue Position: Growing Our Economy
The Meuser Plan for Economic Growth in Our Region
The economy of Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania needs an advocate in Washington who understands how the economy works and how to improve the quality of life in our region and our nation.
Dan Meuser has 20 years of experience in growing our economy. As President of Pride Mobility, Dan helped to oversee the creation of over 1000 jobs, a $300 million plus budget, and investments in our community that total more than $30 million. Dan's vast understanding of sound economic principles comes from years of real world experience, practical experience, not merely classroom theory. His implementation of effective economics helped to grow a business from 25 employees to the international leader in mobility products that has created over a 1,000 jobs in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
As a member of Congress Dan Meuser will take his private sector business experience as well as his conservative values to Washington to work on growing our economy and improving the quality of life for Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania and our nation as a whole.
The Meuser Plan for Growing Our Economy
1. Lower the Tax Burden for Job Creators. Congress should first make the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent so that job creators can invest in their businesses through job creation, expanded benefits, equipment upgrades, or any other avenue that can help job creators grow. They will also have a predictable ceiling for taxation for their planning purposes. As we confront a changing economy, we need to find ways to further reduce the marginal rates that would afford small businesses deeper tax reductions. We must also kill the death tax once and for all.
2. Reduce Government Spending. Government spending threatens our economy and the Federal Government must drastically change its spending habits. We must root out wasteful spending and pass real earmark reform. All spending should have an up down vote on each project, so that we can debate the merits of each proposed project individually and the horse trading that leads to billions of waste is eliminated.
3. Lessening Burdensome Regulations. Too often government regulations hamper the growth of our economy. We need to roll back burdensome and needless regulations and allow the market system to remedy many of the problems facing America today. Recent studies by Freedom Works and the Center for American Business pegged the cost of complying with regulation at more than $700 billion with more than $1.3 trillion lost in time and innovation due to compliance.
4. Reforming Our Legal Climate. The lawsuit lottery mentality of our legal system has to end. It is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. As a matter of fact, The Wall Street Journal has estimated that by 2011, the "tort tax" will have cost consumers an additional $4.8 billion for products and services, which is 3 times the amount of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts combined. We must adopt meaningful tort reform including capping non-economic damages at a reasonable number, implementing federal preemption when it comes to liability cases to protect businesses that do business in multiple states, as well as stopping venue shopping and reforming joint and several liability at the national level.
5. Improving Access to Health Care. The growth of our economy is being threatened by the amount of money that is being consumed by our health care costs. According to a study done by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2006, we spend 16% of our total economic output on health care related costs. We must focus upon the issues of accessibility and cost. We must foster a competitive environment for health care, allow individuals to pull together through association health care plans, empower citizens to control their own health care, and offer tax credits to middle class taxpayers who make too much money to qualify for government programs, but too little to afford the type of health care their families need.
6. Improving Transportation and Infrastructure. One of the most important considerations for economic development is if an area has ready access to transportation arteries and a strong infrastructure. That's why we must maximize our federal investment in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania to finish key transportation projects. We must also work hard to oppose schemes like tolling Interstate-80, which puts both our region and our business community at a competitive disadvantage with others due to increased costs.
7. Investing In Our Communities. We must cease wasteful spending and shrink that amount of dollars the Federal Government wastes. We must invest in our communities through projects that offer a real return on investment, and by doing so, we will help to grow our economy while generating increased revenues from the communities that are helped.
8. Creating the right Opportunities. We need to inspire our best and brightest to stay in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania. Strong educational opportunities and industrial expansion will lead to the youth of our region staying here and raising their families here. Far too many young people feel they must leave the area for a chance to advance in their careers. Economic opportunity will allow future generations to plant deep roots here and improve the quality of life.
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