“Freshman Legislator of the Year Award”

Jefferson City, Missouri - To honor and recognize the efforts of Rep. Hubrecht R- Dexter for her work this year on the various issues and legislation that came before the Health and Mental Health Policy Committee. Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives John Diehl awarded Rep. Hubrecht the Freshman Legislator of the Year Award for Healthcare Issues.  

“I firmly believe actions speak louder than words and as an elected official, those actions are crucial to the well-being of our constituents.  I commend Rep. Hubrecht on her actions on legislation that impacts healthcare delivered to women, children and our senior citizens.  She has shown firsthand that actions demonstrate leadership for the people of her district,” said Speaker Diehl.

Through her role as a member of the House Committee on Health and Mental Health Policy, Rep. Hubrecht helped promote legislation that would ensure the safety of long term care to senior citizens and the disabled.  She is working currently to address the staffing challenges that are facing our long term care facilities throughout the state.

Rep. Hubrecht sponsored House Bills 896 and 897 to change the state’s law related to long term care facilities.  House bill 897 is associated with the building of a long term care facilities and would remove duplicative building inspections during the planning and construction of a building. 

She also authored legislation that would address the double oversight in long term care facilities related to staff being able to provide certain care to residents such as hair care.  Currently there is dispute as to whether long term care staff can wash a resident’s hair when needed or if only the facility beautician can do this task. 

Rep. Hubrecht also serves on the Ways and Means, Energy and the Environment, Elementary and Secondary Education House Committees, and the Joint Committee on Abuse and Neglect.

“I believe we accomplished a lot this year, both in the committee and in the House of Representatives,” said Rep. Hubrecht; and “I look forward to next year’s legislative session in January 2016.”

Tila Hubrecht's Capitol Report

Dear 151st District Constituents,

On Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10th, we honor the grace, wisdom, and strength of all of our mothers, and all women that have made a difference in a child’s life.

For those of us fortunate enough to have a mother living and guiding us, it is nothing less than a gift from above. I encourage you to take this day to celebrate the extraordinary contributions mothers make in the lives of their children and their families.

I also want to send a huge THANK YOU! to all our teachers, nurses and law enforcement officials!  This week was also "their week".

Friday is Truman Day.  I hope that if you don't know any background on this Outstanding Missourian, you will take a few moments and follow the link below to learn a little about Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, from Missouri!

During his few weeks as Vice President, Harry Truman scarcely saw President Franklin Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman's to solve when, on April 12, 1945, he became America's 33rd President.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/harrystruman

It has been a long week and a short week all in the same week!  Not sure if anyone else has felt that way but I think all of us here, with session winding down, feel that way for sure!  Things are moving fast with amendments being tacked onto anything that doesn't move fast enough!  If you have any questions or would like more information on any bill listed below, just give my office a call and we will get you whatever you request. 

We will be in session all of next week with session ending at 6pm on Friday.  I will possibly be late getting the Capitol Report out due to I will finish it when session officially ends.  I will also try to get an end of session report out as quickly as possible.

Until next week,

Tila

This week we celebrated the backbone of our nation’s economy with National Small Business Week.  America’s small businesses create about seven out of every 10 new jobs. Half of our nation’s workforce is employed at a small business, and 99.7 percent of all U.S. employers are small businesses.  Sadly, though, it is getting tougher and tougher for our entrepreneurs to create businesses and live the American Dream. We must stop this trend now and do more to help job creators grow opportunities.

We must grow an “opportunity economy” instead of Washington, D.C.’s economy. Tomorrow’s good paying jobs will come from small business who have the freedom to innovate from the ground up – not from top-down bureaucrats looking out for special interests. That is why I am working to advance bottom-up solutions to build a healthy economy – one that will empower all Americans to seek new opportunities and achieve a better life.  

There are an estimated 28 million small businesses in the United States and these businesses are facing overwhelming challenges of overregulation and uncertainty. In Congress, I have been working to alleviate many of these burdens on small businesses, the businesses that are the lifeblood of southeast and southern Missouri. I have introduced legislation that would help cut the regulatory red tape for job creators and families, called the SCRUB Act. We have also taken major steps to deal with the fallout from Obamacare, which is estimated to kill one million small business jobs. In addition to voting for a full repeal, the House has passed two pieces of legislation that would help small business owners hire more folks without triggering Obamacare’s mandates.

There is no shortage of people who want to start their own business. In our area, for example, I have heard about entrepreneurs with ideas for a hot sauce company, an auto detailer, and even a food truck. However, since 2008, more small businesses have closed than have opened. Even worse, this is the first time more businesses have closed than opened since we began tracking that data. Now is the time for us to turn this trend around and create an environment where we are encouraging entrepreneurship, not discouraging it. Let’s get Washington’s burdensome bureaucracy out of our local businesses, because government should be working for job creators not against them.

Dear Friend,

This week in Washington we worked to fund your priorities. This is the first time since 1974 that Congress has gotten such an early start on appropriating your tax dollars. This process gives us the opportunity to make sure your tax dollars are spent wisely on what is most important to southeast and southern Missouri. It’s the right step to appropriating funds rather than passing temporary patches through continuing resolutions which give a blank check to the administration.

I had three priorities for the funding process that I incorporated into the bill passed in the House of Representatives. First, I pushed to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from using any funds to implement the Waters of the United States rule. This rule could potentially allow the EPA to regulate nearly every area of the ground that gets wet or has flow during rainfall. The rule is too broad and could be interpreted to expand the EPA’s reach to cover all ponds, puddles, temporary or small wetlands, irrigation ditches or similar collections of water.

Next, I fought for funding for the Mississippi River and Tributaries project. This is the largest flood control project in the world, and I made sure this program had the proper funding to provide the flood control that all families in southeast Missouri deeply need.

Third, I secured language that provides funds for small inland ports like those in southeast Missouri. This provides the ports dredging funds that are important to keeping them open. Small ports and waterway traffic relieve highway congestion and are critical to moving agriculture and manufacturing goods across the country. This funding ensures waterways are navigable and protected.

Managing the purse strings is the best option to provide the most effective, efficient, accountable government. Since you elected me to be your voice in Congress, I have worked to restore regular order, pass funding bills and fully use the power of the purse given to the House of Representatives in our Constitution. This week we saw the funding process begin to work for the American people.

Dear Friend,

Tax day has come and gone for most, but some taxpayers are still trying to get their returns straight. This year, there has been an astronomical uptick in identity theft used for fraudulent tax returns. When some law-abiding citizens filed their tax returns, they discovered a thief had already used their social security number to file a return. That leaves the taxpayer with months of frustrating calls and letters to the IRS to get it straight. This week I took action to prevent this abuse on hardworking taxpayers.

The Government Accountability Office found that fraudulent tax returns cost more than $5 billion each year. The Southeast Missourian reported, “The number of identity theft/tax return fraud incidents rose nearly 85 percent, to 2.9 million, from 2010 to 2013, according to the most recent IRS statistics report available,” and folks in our area have been feeling that rise. A spokesman for the Cape Girardeau Police Department said, “We've never seen reports like this before.”

This week I questioned IRS Commissioner John Koskinen about tax fraud during a Ways and Means subcommittee hearing and shared just how hard our area has been hit by identity theft. I pushed him to provide increased scrutiny to online filings since they are more likely to be fraudulent. Right now online applications are not held to the same standards as those submitted on paper. Online filings and paper filings should have the same level of scrutiny. The IRS must also be more proactive in preventing this identity theft instead of waiting until hardworking Americans have their information stolen.

Thieves are constantly creating new ways to obtain a combination of personal information such as birth dates, social security numbers, and addresses, but there are a few ways you can avoid being victimized. The IRS recommends that you do not carry your social security card with you and only give a business your social security number when they require it. The IRS also recommends that you check your credit report every 12 months for any irregularities. Updating your computer’s software and security programs can help keep your information from falling into the hands of criminals. If you feel like you are at risk for identity theft due to having personal information stolen, please contact the IRS so they can take action to secure your account.

Both the IRS and taxpayers need to be vigilant and proactive in keeping accounts safe as identity theft continues to rise. My commitment is to continue providing oversight to the IRS and fighting to protect taxpayers, because those who work hard and play by the rules deserve our support.