Henry Cuellar for Congress | Proven Leadership for Texas

Tax Breaks for Average Americans

Congressman Cuellar believes Congress has to protect the economic promise of the nation's everyday hard-working Americans. That's why since coming to Congress in 2005, he's helped pass dozen of tax breaks and economic incentives for the nation's low to middle-income Americans.

In February 2009, he helped pass the largest single measure to provide 95% of all hard-working Americans with a tax cut. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided over $100 billion worth of payroll tax cuts for hard working Americans, including over $4.2 billion for working Texans.

Tax Cutting in the State House

As a Texas State Representative and Secretary of State, Henry Cuellar supported tax cuts so that Texans could keep more of their hard-earned dollars and decide for themselves how best to invest and provide for the future of their families. While in office, Henry Cuellar co-sponsored the largest tax cut in Texas history-- billions of dollars of taxes to individuals and small businesses, while investing 75% of the new state dollars in education.

Henry Cuellar served 10 years in the House Appropriations Committee where he was one of the two most senior members, funding state priorities like education, public safety, and health and human services while the tax burden was significantly reduced for consumers and small businesses.

Results Oriented Government

As a Blue Dog Democrat in Congress, Congressman Cuellar believes in legislating in a fiscally-conservative way in order to decrease the nation's debt by ensuring fiscal accountability in Washington. That's why in 2010, he joined his colleagues in the fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Coalition to introduce a 15 point plan to reduce the nation's debt by reducing federal spending.

Within that plan, Congressman Cuellar authored a Performance Based Budgeting Bill that would mandate all federal agencies to assess how effectively they're spending taxpayer dollars and provide to Congress and the American people these annual reports.

Reducing the Debt

Congressman Cuellar believes that when you've dug yourself a hole, the best way to get out is to stop digging. That's why since coming to Congress in 2005, he's been a strong advocate for Pay-As-You-Go Spending Rules for Congress. These same spending rules helped turn around deficits in the 1990s into record-setting surpluses.

In February 2010, Congress passed PAYGO after the Blue Dog press to restore PAYGO in order to draw down the nation's debt. When looking at history, the facts speak for themselves. PAYGO ensures that Congress can't spend one dollar more than it has on non-emergency appropriations. Meaning one dollar of spending has to be offset by one dollar of savings. Thanks to PAYGO spending rules, we had a record surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001, but Congress let PAYGO expire in 2002.

Now in 2010, we have a record-setting deficit of $12 trillion. That's why Congressman Cuellar believes PAYGO needs to be immediately restored to down the nation's debt.

Serving in the State House

To help small businesses and individuals, Cuellar implemented a comprehensive review of all existing state rules and regulations to make sure they were deemed necessary. The goal was to delete or modify all unnecessary and burdensome rules and regulations to lessen the costs on the taxpayers. Henry Cuellar's leadership in implementing Performance Based Budgeting and strategic planning, enabled Texas to become a leader in providing efficient, effective and accountable government.

More importantly, Cuellar helped turn the state into a results-oriented government to better serve all Texans. By making government more efficient, effective, customer friendly and accountable to Texans, the state has become a place to do business and a place where the taxes are low, and where the burden has been reduce for working Texans.

Proven Record on Tax Cuts

As State Representative, Henry co-sponsored the largest tax cut in Texas history by:

• Cutting sales taxes on over-the-counter medicine for consumers
• Eliminating sales taxes on clothes and shoes during an annual three day “Sales Tax Holiday”
• Small businesses received an exemption from the corporate franchise tax
• Enabled corporations to receive tax credits for research and development, day-care expenses, after-school programs, and job creation
• Provided school property-tax relief

Henry Cuellar passed the first unfunded mandate legislation that prevents the state from passing mandates to local governments without providing the funding for them. The local taxpayer should not be burdened by unfunded state policies. Henry believes that budget discipline, expanded trade, sensible social policies will spur economic growth and he believes that a tax cut should meet several criteria in order to spur the new economy.

The size of the tax cut should be consistent with paying down the national debt. Debt reduction is a sound economic policy and it will improve the U.S. government’s financial position for our children’s future.

Leadership at the State Level

Henry served in leadership positions where he made government more efficient as the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Performance Measures, Co-chair of the Unfunded Mandates Interagency Task Force and member of the State Comptroller’s E-Texas Legislative Advisory Committee. Dr. Henry Cuellar wrote his Ph. D. dissertation on a comparative study of performance-based budgeting in the 50 states.

Henry Cuellar’s leadership and advocacy for cutting taxes and the regulatory burden while making government more efficient has been recognized by many of his former legislative colleagues of both parties. Henry has received the “Champion of Limited Government Award” by the Texas Public Foundation. The Texas Chamber of Commerce, the Laredo Chamber of Commerce, the Texas U.S. Customs Brokers Association, and the Free Enterprise Public Action Committee and Free Market Committee have recognized Henry’s work on business and tax issues. Henry has also lectured on efficient and accountable government across Texas and the United States.