Henry Cuellar for Congress | Proven Leadership for Texas

Henry Cuellar is an Advocate for Agriculture

Fiscal Accountability, Transparency & Public Trust

Henry Cuellar understands how now more than ever, public-private partnerships are vital to securing stability within our financial markets. Americans rely on the vitality of publicly traded companies who hold their retirement savings, 401k's, home loans, student loans and other financial investments.

Advancing Education in Texas

Congressman Henry Cuellar has been an advocate for Texas Education before coming to Congress in 2005. After 14 years as a Texas State Representative and Texas Secretary of State, Henry Cuellar understands how important education is to children and adults throughout Texas. That's why in just the past year alone, he's worked hard to secure over $5 billion in federal funding for Texas public schools, teachers, public colleges and universities.

Energy Independence

Since coming to Congress in 2005 and after 14 years as a Texas State Representative and Secretary of State, Congressman Cuellar understands how vitally important it is for the nation to secure its energy independence now and for the future. He also understands how economically important it is to Texas to stake its claim as the number one producer of domestic energy resources including oil, natural gas, clean coal, wind and solar energy.

Safer Communities in Texas

As a State Representative and Texas Secretary of State, for 14 years Henry Cuellar worked hard to fight crime to make Texas' streets and communities safer. Since his first legislative session in 1987, Henry Cuellar worked to keep criminals in prisons longer and co-authored legislation that reformed the juvenile system to provide tougher sentences and instill discipline among Americas violent youth and street gangs.

Every American should have the right to quality affordable health care. More than 41 million Americans have no health insurance and in Texas, one out of every four people are uninsured. For insured Texans, premiums have doubled since 2001. Illness should not result in bankruptcy or poverty. Losing a job should not mean losing coverage and all Americans deserve health care security for the future.

For decades, terrorists have attacked the American people. The strategy in the war against terrorism is for us to have a clear understanding of the enemy. Americans cannot continue to linger in false comfort, as terrorists conspire against us.

Terrorism is a threat to our national security. We must continue to improve security at our airports, seaports, and at our borders. Henry Cuellar will fight to provide more resources to help local governments with their efforts in providing homeland security; otherwise it becomes an unfunded mandate that local taxpayers have to pay.

A good job for everyone with a living wage and decent benefits - and the opportunity for everyone to share in the gains and profits from productivity - is the measure of a strong economy. In a slow growth economy - one like the one we are in now - layoffs are spreading, unemployment is rising, wages are losing value, families are struggling to maintain health care benefits, deficits have returned and the Social Security Trust Fund is being used for other programs.

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.

As State Representative, Henry Cuellar strongly supported legislation to help senior citizens:

• delivered the largest back-to-back tax cuts in the history of Texas
• provided a new Texas Taxpayer’s Appraisal Bill of Rights that limited appraisal tax increases
• simplified tax appeals
• reformed mass appraisals and provided portability of senior tax freezes
• established a Patient’s Bill of Rights to allow patients to obtain the appropriate and medically necessary health care
• raised the Medicaid income eligibility cap for nursi
  

Henry Cuellar supports small businesses-the backbone of the American economy. Small businesses create the majority of our jobs in our congressional district. Henry will fight to cut taxes and to get rid of duplicate, unnecessary and burdensome federal rules and regulations that stifle small businesses. In Austin, he authored and passed this type of legislation and he will do the same in Washington, D.C.

Henry Cuellar supports a strong national defense. Cuellar will fight to ensure that our armed forces have the resources they need to do their job well. Military bases and installations in our area must be protected from cuts and closures.

As a five-term member of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Henry Cuellar championed getting more funding for TxDOT’s construction and maintenance expenditures in underserved areas--the rural and border areas while not forgetting urban areas.

Henry Cuellar believes Texas must have the best transportation infrastructure in the nation to take advantage of all the opportunities of NAFTA. With NAFTA and increased truck traffic there has been a need for increased planning and construction along the border.

Under former State Representative Henry Cuellar's leadership, legislation passed in Texas restructuring its approach to developing and educating its workforce. As a co-author of HB 1863, Henry Cuellar helped consolidate twenty-seven different job-training programs that were scattered among six agencies into the new Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The administrative efficiencies from this consolidation saved taxpayers millions of dollars per year.