Summary: Financial matters dominated Congressman Jim Renaccis recent Conversation with Your Congressman event at the College of Wooster on Sept. 28.
When Congressman Jim Renacci sat down with over 150 of his 16th Congressional District constituents in Kittredge Hall at the College of Wooster on Sept. 28 one issue dominated the conversation – the economy.
During the hour and a half Conversation with Your Congressman event, Renacci shared his insights into the inner workings of Washington and Congress efforts to wrap their arms around a whole host of economic issues.
Renacci began the evening by asking those gathered to use red and green cards to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of questions ranging from whether the country is heading in the right direction to whether the government was spending too much money before presenting a brief power point presentation on the challenges facing the country and taking audience questions.
While Renacci fielded a wide range of questions from constituents of all political viewpoints on topics ranging from the use of coal to support for Israel most of the comments and questions from the audience centered around money matters including jobs, taxes, government spending and the growing federal deficit.
Taxing job creators is not the answer said Renacci in response to the Presidents call to end tax deductions for individuals and companies that would take over $400 billion out of the pockets of small businesses owners and job creators.
Renacci noted that in the coming months Congress will continue to maintain focus on an area of the economy that affects everyone – jobs.
Because jobs are not created by government, Renacci noted, its important to remove government barriers to job creation.
Burdensome regulations is one of the problems, said Renacci noting that the Small Business Administration reports that government regulations cost our economy over $1.75 billion per year and its rising.
According to Renacci high corporate tax rates also contribute to job loss.
With a combined state and federal tax rate of over 39 percent the U.S. currently has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, said Renacci noting that in order for U.S. companies to be competitive America needs to level the playing field with our competitors by lowering the rate to 25 percent.
Renacci said that he also felt strongly that loopholes needed to be eliminated and the tax code simplified noting I support efforts to simplify the code to allow businesses to spend less time on compliance and more time on hiring.
According to Renacci not only do U.S. companies receive an automatic ten percent bonus by moving operations overseas to countries with more competitive tax rates, American companies also face a whole host of other over burdensome regulations.
We need to be able to make our companies more competitive right here by eliminating some of these over burdensome regulations. If we do that they will stay here, said Renacci.
Job creators, small business owners say weve got so many regulations, we dont know whats next, we have no certainty and predictability so why would we create another job, said Renacci.
Wayne County Democratic Party Chairman David Broehl noted that while job creators felt uncertainty I think its even broader than that. I think everybody in this room is uncertain about the future.
My concern is I dont see any compromise on the part of anybody in Congress, said Broehl adding we have to find common ground and common ground comes with compromise.
When you talk about compromise its got to be both sides, Renacci responded.
Were going to have to work together because this isnt a Democrat problem or a Republican problem its an American problem, said Renacci noting that bi-partisan efforts are underway on issues such as job creation.
For more information on Congressman Jim Renaccis work log on to www.renacci.house.gov
