Common Sense for Family Farmers

Washington, D.C., is an island surrounded by reality. The latest example is new White House proposals on raising taxes. These proposals would cause significant harm to family farmers, a reality the White House should face before going any farther.

Through his State of the Union speech, the President said he wants to increase the top tax rate on capital gains to 28 percent from 23.8 percent and subject assets passed to heirs to capital gains taxation payable upon transfer.

Farming is a highly capital intensive industry that requires significant investments in land, buildings, and farm equipment. Increasing the capital gains rate would raise a barrier to new farmers and reduce the flexibility of existing farmers to make changes in their operations by selling off unneeded assets or to expand their operations...Read more

Busy Days for Health Care Oversight

It’s been a busy few days for health care oversight. The health care co-op serving Iowa and Nebraska ran out of money and is on its way to formal liquidation. The state of Iowa is trying to re-assign health care coverage to the thousands of people affected. My role is to try to figure out the federal government’s role in CoOportunity’s collapse. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is responsible for funding the co-ops created around the country through the President’s health care law. The taxpayers have $2 billion invested in these co-ops... Read more

New Year, New Congress: Listen, Learn and Lead

Voters sent Washington a message in November. Lawmakers can make the most of the historic election in the new year by making fresh resolutions for the new Congress. Let’s listen, learn and lead.

First, listen. Voters are fed up with business as usual. Partisanship makes average citizens tune out. Second, learn. People want a government that functions with every branch doing its part and checks and balances alive and well. By the way, executive overreach by the President falls squarely into the constitutional dysfunction category. Finally... Read more

Asset Forfeiture Reforms Move Forward

Recently, the Justice Department made what appeared to be a bold step forward in reforming the asset forfeiture program run out of the department. The department's actions came after I raised concerns about the federal government’s role in joining asset seizure cases initiated by state and local law enforcement and dividing up the proceeds among the various agencies.

The bipartisan, bicameral letter I spearheaded to Attorney General Eric Holder on January 9, 2015, recommended that the department consider discontinuing the program.

I appreciate that the department announced limitations to the program, because while asset forfeiture certainly can serve an important purpose in criminal investigations, the practice as it developed raised a number of concerns. In our letter, several leading members of Congress urged the Attorney General to implement additional procedural safeguards to make sure the property of innocent Americans was not being swept up in overzealous asset forfeiture... Read more