Each month, I want to provide you with regular updates about what’s going on in our nation’s capital and throughout the 4th District of Kansas. Here’s what happened in November.
New House Leadership and New Congress Outlook The 119th Congress is right around the corner and will be off to a busy start. Returning to session after the election, House Republicans elected a new leadership team for the 119th Congress. This includes Speaker Mike Johnson to lead the House Republican Conference and serve as our nominee for the 56th Speaker of the House when the new Congress convenes in January, Rep. Steve Scalise to continue serving as Majority Leader, Rep. Tom Emmer to continue serving as Majority Whip and Rep. Lisa McClain to serve as Conference Chairwoman.
For the first time since 2016, Republicans will have unified control of both Congress and the White House once President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in in January. Republicans will retain control of the House, but our exact majority is still being determined, with final votes being counted and some members being considered for cabinet positions. While it is great to have the House majority and Republican control of the Senate and White House, it will take some time to make sure we’re all rowing in the same direction. Each institution will have its different priorities, and we’ll need to work to get in sync with one another and deliver wins for the American people. I look forward to working together with my colleagues to secure our border, extend the Trump tax cuts, pass the Farm Bill, rein in wasteful spending, protect the rights of Kansans and more.
Since I serve on the Ways and Means Committee, the government’s taxwriting committee, I’ve been focused largely on improving and expanding the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to ensure that hardworking Kansans keep more money in their pockets and our innovative businesses can continue to grow and develop new technologies. I’ve also joined the newly formed House DOGE Caucus to support the President-elect in his mission to make the government work for the people again. With our national debt soaring at more than $36 trillion dollars, we need to use every tool at our disposal to rein in wasteful spending and be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, and President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will help do just that.
Streamlining Access to Higher Education Funding This past year, too many Kansas students and families encountered challenges when applying for federal financial aid for postsecondary education through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Following a delayed release, the processing of submitted FAFSAs was delayed and then riddled with errors, causing further delays. These delays created confusion for schools and families, making it difficult for states and nonprofits to process aid packages or award scholarships and leaving tens of thousands of families in the dark and unable to make informed choices about financing their student’s education.
In November, by a vote of 381-1, the House passed the FAFSA Deadline Act to address these problems. This bill would require the Department of Education to make the FAFSA available to students by Oct. 1 of the year before the student’s anticipated year of enrollment to ensure students and families have ample time to make informed decisions about their postsecondary education options. I was proud to support this legislation when we marked it up in the Education and the Workforce Committee and was proud to vote for it on the floor.
Standing Up for Americans and Against Terrorism For more than a year, seven Americans – three of whom are presumed to be dead – have been held hostage in Gaza following the horrendous Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. What these and other Americans held hostage by bad actors around the globe have suffered is unimaginable. I spoke on the floor of the House in support of a key bill to bring some relief to hostages when they return home and to prevent the support of terrorists who carry out the types of atrocities seen on Oct. 7.
H.R. 9495 – the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act – is a common sense bill that ends the tax-exempt status of organizations that support terrorist groups like Hamas. It also addresses a lingering issue for survivors and their families when they do return home – harassment from the IRS. Current law prevents the IRS from having the authority to extend relief to hostages beyond a single year, which is simply insufficient. The Americans held hostage in Gaza and elsewhere throughout the globe have suffered enough and don’t need their own government pursuing back taxes and fines upon their homecoming. I was pleased to vote for this bill and see it pass on the House floor.
Pro-growth Tax Reform In preparation for next year’s tax reform negotiations, I published an op-ed in Newsweek detailing what is at stake if key Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) provisions are allowed to expire. The average taxpayer in the 4th District of Kansas would see a 27% tax hike if TCJA expires. That equates to the average Kansas family seeing their taxes increase by more than $2,200. After years of elevated inflation, no American can afford this extra expense.
I also discuss the importance of TCJA’s business provisions, which could also negatively affect families and individuals if allowed to expire. Without these provisions, businesses – small and large alike – will face increased costs, which ultimately leads to higher costs for consumers. These business provisions, like the immediate R&D expensing provision I’ve championed, all help to stimulate growth and innovation in our country. We are competing globally for innovation, R&D dollars and jobs. If we don’t renew and expand our critical innovation policies, then jobs, manufacturing facilities and cutting-edge technologies will grow elsewhere.
As you know, Kansas is bustling with innovation, including breakthroughs to advance defense and aerospace technology, biotechnology, chips and semiconductors, and biofuels and carboncapture technology. But the companies making these advances are hampered by bad policies.
As a member of the Ways and Means Committee and the chair of its U.S. Innovation Tax Team, I’ve spent countless hours traveling around the district and around the country to hear directly from workers, business owners and manufacturers to understand how TCJA helped them and how they would be negatively affected if its provisions expired.
A clear, consistent message has come through: America needs a commonsense, consistent tax code that encourages growth and doesn’t penalize our workers and family businesses.
TCJA did this once before by reinvigorating the U.S. tax code and making more competitive, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in new royalties from U.S. intellectual property. These new royalties contributed tax revenue to the U.S. treasury and led to the creation of new American jobs.
By preserving, protecting and improving TCJA next year, we can reignite this same kind of growth.
Connect with Me
Interested in receiving regular updates about what’s going on in Congress? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter at estes.house.gov and please don’t hesitate to reach out to my District Office in Wichita at 316-262-8992 if you have questions, concerns or need help with a federal agency.
Ron Estes, one of only a handful of engineers in Congress, worked in the aerospace, energy and manufacturing sectors before representing Kansas’ 4th Congressional District since 2017. He is a fifthgeneration Kansan, former state treasurer, and serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means, Budget Committee, and Education and the Workforce Committee.
