8th Congressional District - Today, Congressman Jason Smith was sworn into the 114th Congress. This will be his second term representing the Eighth Congressional District of Missouri. Congressman Smith previously served in the 113th Congress after winning a special election in June 2013.
“I am honored, and I am humbled to be able to represent the great people of Missouri’s Eighth District,” Congressman Smith said. “As we begin the 114th Congress with much work to be done, I will continue to lead the fight for rural America and our conservative principles.”
“I am committed to working for you and ensuring that your voice is heard in Washington. I will continue working to end burdensome regulations that threaten our way of life. I will fight for a full repeal of the disastrous Obamacare law. I will continue to advocate for meaningful tax reform so that more money stays in the pockets of hardworking Americans. And, I will continue to work to make the government live within its means with a balanced budget, just as families do all across the country. By reducing the size of government, reducing regulations, and reducing government spending, we create an environment in which America can thrive.”
Congressman Smith will serve on the influential Ways and Means Committee in the 114th Congress which has jurisdiction over trade and tax issues. His priorities on the Ways and Means Committee include reforming the tax code, reforming the welfare system, ensuring Social Security solvency, and working to fix our broken health care system.
Well, the Tigers are now back-to-back SEC East champions and just won another great bowl game, so we have that goal met! But, in all seriousness, Congress made a lot of progress on the goals I laid out going into last year. First, both the IRS and the EPA have had their budgets slashed by this year’s appropriations process. We cut IRS funding to $345.6 million. That is $1.5 billion below what the president initially requested and it brings the IRS’s funding levels to below what they were in Fiscal Year 2008. In addition, the EPA’s budget was cut by $60 million, marking the fifth consecutive year that Congress has cut their budget. The agency has been slashed over 20 percent and more than 2,000 positions will be eliminated at the EPA, dropping them to their lowest staffing level since 1989.
Second, the House was able to advance seven of the 13 appropriations bills this past year, compared to only four the first year I was in Congress. In comparison, the Democrat-controlled Senate did not advance a single appropriations bill this year. Additionally, the House passed a final appropriations bill this year that cut spending by $165 billion since Fiscal Year 2010. This cut, when projected out over 10 years, will save taxpayers an estimated $2.13 trillion. While our current appropriations process is not perfect, it is moving in the right direction, and I am confident that with Republican control of both chambers next session we will make significantly more progress.
Despite all of the animosity generated by President Obama and Harry Reid$s refusal to work with us, House Republicans and Democrats were able to work together on some important solutions. We passed over 370 bipartisan solutions, including legislation to build the Keystone Pipeline, cut EPA regulations, grow jobs and our economy, protect life, guarantee our Second Amendment freedoms, rein in the IRS, ensure our veterans are provided for, and reform our broken healthcare system.
As I have mentioned before, President Obama is continuously waging war on rural America. Whether it is potentially increasing our utility rates with his “War on Coal,” weakening our property rights with his proposed “Waters of the United States” rule, or taking away our manufacturing jobs with the prospective ozone “NAAQS” rule, his disregard for our way of life is outrageous. I am completely committed to fighting against the president’s anti-rural America agenda. In the House, we have worked on legislation to prevent all of these harmful actions. Combined with the massive cuts we made to the EPA, we are in a great position to further combat the president’s attempt to regulate our way of life out of existence.
It is truly an honor to serve you in Congress. I look forward to the future and continuing to work on the goals of stopping IRS and EPA overreach, fixing the appropriations process so that it works for us instead of against us, finding bipartisan solutions, and standing up for rural America.
Lessons Learned from New Member Orientation
151st House District of Missouri - As someone who began my service in the House after a special election, I had to hit the ground running with very little knowledge of the process. That was extremely hectic as my first days in office occurred during a Veto Session that was historic in nature. Thankfully, I now have been able to become more acclimated with the legislative process, and the duties and responsibilities of my office. Something that has been an enormous help is a week-long orientation program I recently participated in that was conducted by current members and staff of the Missouri House of Representatives.
It was an eye-opening experience for me, and for my 32 freshmen colleagues, as we learned about everything from how to file a bill to how to properly engage in debate on the House floor. While I feel like I have a strong grasp on the responsibilities I will have while serving as your voice in the halls of government, the orientation gave me an opportunity to really see behind the scenes to get a better idea of the nuts and bolts of the legislative process. I know there is still a great deal to learn, but the intensive training sessions that took place in the State Capitol have now given me a much better idea of how I can be more effective more quickly as I try to represent the best interests of your family, and all families in our district.
In the next step of our orientation we are hitting the road to visit as many parts of the state as possible, and to see many of the facilities and institutions that will be impacted by the decisions we make in Jefferson City. The two-week tour will take us to almost every part of the state – from St. Joseph to St. Louis, Cape Girardeau to Kirksville, Joplin to Jefferson City. Along the way we will tour institutions of higher learning, military installations, correctional facilities, community health centers, and many other establishments that receive state funding or are impacted by legislative decisions. Again, this is a great way to gain firsthand knowledge of the impact the decisions we make as legislators will have on Missourians in all parts of our great state.
As always, I am so incredibly thankful that you have given me the opportunity to serve as your state representative. During the next two years I will do all I can to be an effective voice for you, and for everyone in our district. To help me do my job well, I encourage you to contact with me any ideas or concerns you may have. I want the lines of communication to be open at all times, and I am always ready and interested to hear what you have to say. For the next two years my office will be located in Room 407C in the State Capitol. We are currently in the process of moving and getting situated in the new space, but I encourage you stop by for a visit if you find yourself in Jefferson City in the coming months.
Forming My Legislative Agenda
The legislative session is still several weeks from beginning, but already the State Capitol is alive with activity as members have begun filing the bills they will seek to pass next year. I have already signed on a co-sponsor on three pieces of legislation that I will work tirelessly in the coming months to pass into law. Below are brief descriptions and thoughts on each of the bills:
HB 81 – This is a piece of legislation sponsored by my friend and colleague, Rep. Sonya Murray Anderson, that would strengthen and expand Missouri’s parental consent provisions in an effort to better protect the health and wellbeing of pregnant minors. Specifically, the bill requires notarized written consent from both the minor and a parent or legal guardian to be obtained by a physician before an abortion can be performed. As someone who is strongly pro-life, I believe this is an important change that will make abortions even rarer and safer here in Missouri.
HB 104 – The men and women who came to the new world did so in large part in search of religious freedom. Our founding fathers then made this idea of freedom of religion a cornerstone of the nation they created that is today the greatest in the world. As a public servant, I think it is important that we continue to protect this vitally important freedom. This year I have worked with state Rep. Elijah Haahr to co-sponsor what is known as the Student Freedom of Association Act. The bill focuses on protecting the rights of student religious organizations on Missouri college campuses. In effect it says that the institution of higher learning cannot take action or enforce a policy to discriminate against these associations.
HB 130 – The third piece of legislation I am proud to co-sponsor this year is commonly referred to as the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Act. During my time in the nursing profession I have seen far too many cases where an elderly Missourian has conflicting or duplicative prescriptions simply because they have been written by several different doctors who have no knowledge regarding what other physicians are prescribing. I think some people are shocked when they realize there is no central system tracking these items so that alarm bells are raised the second an individual is prescribed something he or she doesn’t need, or that could conflict with existing medications. However, the truth is that we do not have such a system, and Missouri is in fact the only state in the nation that does not. That’s why implementing a prescription drug monitoring program is extremely important.
A Look Ahead at the 2015 Legislative Session
It was during the November general election that the people of Missouri said they believe in the pro-growth, pro-jobs, fiscally conservative, family-oriented values that Republican legislators have fought to defend for more than a decade now as they have controlled the legislature.
Following that election, my colleagues and I met in Jefferson City to select our leadership team and discuss our agenda for the upcoming session. While we don’t have our agenda set in stone at this time, we do know that a few key areas will receive our attention:
· Economic development incentives that invest in small business
· Education initiatives that keep decisions on the local level while also improving job readiness;
· Developing new ways to bolster our vital agriculture industry; and
· Continuing our efforts to move our state toward energy independence.
These are just a few of the goals mentioned by the new members of House leadership. You can be certain that the list will grow and change in the coming weeks as the Republican caucus continues to discuss its priorities, and we continue to take input from the people who have entrusted us to serve as their voice in the halls of government.
To contact State Representative Tila Rowland Hubrecht send her a letter to 151st House District of Missouri, 201 W. Capitol Avenue, Jefferson City, MO 65101 or P.O. Box 955, Dexter, MO 63841.
8th Congressional District - The House and Senate will officially be sworn in for their next term in January and there is a lot of work to be done. In the next Congress, I will be working with a larger House majority and new Senate majority, and we will hit the ground running on day one to provide relief to Americans throughout the country, especially in rural America.
With the House and Senate finally working together, I anticipate many more bills going to the president’s desk. He has been able to hide behind the Democrat-dominated Senate for far too long. With good bills and conservative solutions coming to the president’s desk, he will soon have to decide if he is more interested in moving America forward or continuing his “my way or the highway” style.
One of the first bills we plan to send the president will be a repeal of Obamacare. Though it is unlikely the president will repeal his namesake bill, Republicans in the House and Senate will have many opportunities to send the president legislation that will fix some of the most disastrous portions of the law. I continue to hear story after story of folks being dropped from their plans, their premiums skyrocketing, and businesses laying off employees just to comply. In the 114th Congress we are going to work diligently to repeal this atrocity and offer people some relief. Hopefully our president will also be interested in alleviating the burdens that Obamacare has produced.
I am also working to make The SCRUB Act another bill that comes across the president’s desk in the 114th Congress. I’m hearing more and more stories of government regulations strangling businesses as I travel throughout the district. They are facing potential EPA regulations on every puddle of water, new ozone standards not even national forests can achieve, and the list goes on. This flood of regulations makes it difficult to do business, but The SCRUB Act offers some hope for relief. The SCRUB Act would identify and eliminate outdated and ineffective regulations. It would create a bipartisan commission to review regulations and make recommendations for repeal. The bill has also been introduced in the Senate, and I am committed to getting it passed and sent to the president for signature.
Our tax code is entirely too long and complex. Working to make the tax code fairer and simpler has been a long-standing goal of mine and is a priority of the Ways and Means Committee I will be serving on next Congress. I am pushing to make rural issues a priority when it comes to the tax code. For example there is an equipment depreciation credit which allows individuals to deduct the cost of the equipment they use on their farms and in their businesses from their taxes. It was just extended for the 2014 tax year, but making it permanent will give folks more certainty in planning for the future. Reforming the individual income tax is also important, because that is how 96 percent of farms are taxed. With a tax code as difficult to understand as ours, it’s no wonder that more than three in five Americans pay for help preparing their taxes.
There is a lot of work to be done in the next Congress. The priorities I am pursuing in the 114th Congress are the priorities of our district and rural America. We are going to have to make up for lost time while more than 387 House solutions, including almost 50 jobs bills, have been stuck in the Senate, but I have confidence we can get it done.
Governor removes restrictions on pay raise and $2 million for tourism funding; budget will remain balanced through restrictions on appropriations for repairs and renovations, which would instead be funded through bond issuance
Jefferson, Missouri - A one-percent pay raise for Missouri state employees will go into effect Jan. 1, 2015. The pay raise was appropriated in the FY2015 budget to begin on Jan. 1, 2015, but had been restricted over budget concerns.
“The citizens of Missouri appreciate the hard work our dedicated state employees perform on their behalf – especially those who work around the clock, such as corrections officers, mental health workers, veterans’ home staff and Highway Patrol troopers,” Gov. Jay Nixon said. “I am pleased that we are now able to ensure that this pay raise goes into effect at the beginning of the new calendar year,”
In addition to the funding for the pay raise, Gov. Nixon also released $2 million in funding for Missouri tourism, which will be used to enhance the state’s tourism efforts and continue moving the state’s economy forward. With the release of this restriction, funding for tourism will have increased by more than $6.2 million for this fiscal year.
“With the wide variety of attractions Missouri offers to visitors from across the country and around the world, tourism continues to generate a tremendous amount of benefit to our state’s economy,” the Governor said. “This funding will help maintain tourism’s vital role in our economic engine.”
To ensure the state budget remains in balance, the Governor will restrict $1.8 million of the $4.2 million available for state Capitol repairs, and another $4 million from a facilities maintenance fund to be used for state building repairs and renovation. Those projects would instead be included in the Governor’s recently proposed bond issuance, which has been met with bi-partisan support from the General Assembly.
