Emerson Responds to Obama Speech

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) this evening issued the following response to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress.

"I very much appreciate the intention of tonight's address by the president. National unemployment and stagnant job growth directly reflect on the policies of the Obama Administration. Cap-and-trade carbon taxes, the health care law, numerous proposed and enacted tax increases, ridiculous environmental regulations, and refusal to properly address the economic infrastructure needs of our nation all speak to the way in which the president has mishandled the U.S. economy," Emerson said.

"A responsible approach on job creation requires that we focus on small businesses and bring new market incentives for job creation to the tax code. Our corporate tax rate is the highest in the developed world, but few corporations pay that actual rate. Some pay more and many pay less. Disney pays some 39 percent in effective corporate tax rate, which GE pays next to nothing. It's not fair, and the uncertainty leads to an economic climate in which few employers can make rational decisions about the future of their businesses.

"There may be no better example of a policy that challenges job growth than the health care law. Even though most of the regulations will not go in effect until 2014, every employer with more than 50 people working in their business must consider the potential costs of being subject to the requirements of the new law. The uncertainty is more than enough to cause American employers to lay off workers just to get under the regulatory threshold and avoid being caught up in an expensive and burdensome new system.

"Excessive and unreasonable regulation by the Obama Administration is also to blame for the poor economic climate in our country. President Obama should get zero credit for refusing to implement a new ozone standard requested by the Environmental Protection Agency. Those terrible regulations would have put 85 percent of the counties in the nation in non-attainment status -- even Yellowstone National Park would have been non-compliant with the Administration's ozone standards. Their approach is absolutely contrary to creating the job growth we desperately need.

"Until there is proof that the Obama Administration is back in touch with the realities faced by working Americans in communities struggling to keep and create private-sector jobs, we will not be able to move forward to solve these problems."

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