January 10, 2023 - AIM President and CEO Ray McCarty applauded the appointment of Congressman Jason Smith (MO-8) as Chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.
"For Missouri to be represented by the Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee is a great honor and we are proud Congressman Smith will serve in this capacity," said McCarty. "We wholeheartedly congratulate Congressman Smith on this appointment."
Congressman Smith released the following statement after his appointment:
“It is deeply humbling and an honor to be selected by my colleagues to serve as the next Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. With our new House Republican majority, we have made a commitment to the American people to build a stronger economy that gives everyone – not just the wealthy and politically-connected – greater opportunity to build a more prosperous future for themselves and their families. Americans also expect us to hold the Biden Administration accountable for the crises it has caused and to once again exercise Congress’s oversight authority which has been entirely absent under one-party Democrat rule in Washington. Republicans will meet these challenges and more, head-on, every day of this Congress.
“Our first step is defunding the $80 billion pay increase Democrats gave the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents to target working families. But we are not stopping there. If confirmed, the new IRS Commissioner should plan to spend a lot of time before our committee answering questions about the leaking of sensitive taxpayer information and an agency with a history of targeting conservative Americans. We will make it clear to every IRS employee that the Ways & Means Committee welcomes whistleblower efforts to uncover corrupt behavior at that agency.
"Ways and Means Republicans will build an economy that is strong by prioritizing our most valuable economic resource, the American worker. We will build on the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and examine how our policies can reward working families with a tax code that delivers better jobs, higher wages, and more investment in America. We must also examine whether it is in the best interests of the American people to continue showering tax benefits on corporations that have shed their American identity in favor of a relationship with China.
“We will examine using both trade policy and our tax code to re-shore and strengthen our supply chains, where products and services vital to our national security are made here at home using American labor, as well as craft policies that help America achieve food and medical security rather than dependence on nations like China. We must also look at ways to encourage domestic energy production and achieve energy independence through the tax code instead of using it as a tool to punish energy producers as President Biden has suggested.
“Domestically, we cannot expect our labor force to recover if Congress makes work less valuable than a government check, as Democrats did when they dismantled the Child Tax Credit in 2021. We must provide an on-ramp for able-bodied adults to transition into the workforce, and we must also take seriously our responsibility to create the economic conditions that allow them to thrive upon reentry.
“The American people can rest assured that help is on the way. It’s time to get to work.”
As a sign that Representative Smith is going to fulfill his promises, he made these statements to the full House of Representatives Monday as they debated cancelling the $80 billion pay raise given the IRS through the Inflation Reduction Act.
“This bill rescinds the IRS funds in the Inflation Reduction Act – a law that does nothing to combat inflation but everything to empower an agency that has targeted Americans, leaked taxpayer information, and, under the Biden Administration, threatened to snoop into the bank accounts of millions of middle-class families.
“We know this because President Biden wrote such a proposal into his first budget as part of his agenda to expand the power of the IRS and shovel billions more to this troubled agency.
“At that time, we asked the Joint Committee on Taxation how many Americans might be subject to such a scheme to spy into their bank accounts. The JCT said up to 134 million taxpayers could be targeted – so much for just going after the millionaires and billionaires that our Democrat colleagues like to talk about.
“And while the Biden Administration – including Treasury Secretary Yellen – has tried to dismiss concerns over how middle-class Americans would be targeted by the IRS under the Democrats’ $80 billion infusion of cash, the Congressional Budget Office has affirmed that undoubtedly families making less than $400,000 per year would be subjected to increased enforcement and yes audits by the IRS…
“The IRS does not need a raise; it needs a reckoning. And what starts today with rescinding this $80 billion, continues through rigorous IRS oversight that Democrats ignored under the one-party rule.”
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