With House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) running for Vice President, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about the budgets the House passed over the last two years. There will certainly be many claims thrown around about what these budgets would do to certain programs. I want to dispel some of the more prominent myths.

The attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya was organized and perpetrated by Al Qaeda associated terrorists. They used heavy weapons including RPGs and mortars to destroy the consulate and the annex building that housed U.S. officials. While the Libyan embassy requested more resources for security, they were denied the tools they needed by the State Department to protect themselves.

Some are claiming that the Republican budget attempted to cut spending for diplomatic security. This is clearly false. The budget is a blueprint, not an appropriations bill. If you read the budget from cover to cover, you will see nothing about diplomatic security. Vice President Joe Biden pretends that the budget cuts every State Department spending program equally.

What you will see in the budget is a call to reduce overall non-defense spending. With sky-high deficits, we need our government departments to trim waste and spend wisely. Claiming that cuts made at the top level will be evenly distributed to all government departments is absurd. When Congress acts to appropriate money to the State Department, we will cut vanity projects for secure embassies and spend more to protect Americans serving in vulnerable areas.

Another word you will certainly hear a lot is “voucher.” This is a scarey word that Democrats try to use to describe the Republican plan to strengthen and save Medicare. Again, you can read the budget from cover to cover and you will never read about Medicare vouchers.

According to the Medicare Trustees, the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget spending on Medicare is unsustainable. Without significant reform, it will simply go bankrupt leading to rapid and massive cuts to current beneficiaries.

If we make reforms to this program for future beneficiaries, not those currently on Medicare or nearing retirement, we can maintain the program for all future generations. Our plan calls for seniors to have an option to enroll in a premium support Medicare program. No one would receive a voucher. Instead, payments would be issued directly to health care providers who would have to maintain Medicare’s guaranteed coverage. Just like members of Congress, seniors would have options and could even choose to stay in the traditional Medicare program.

The House Republican budget calls for full repeal of Obamacare. Another claim you may hear is that this would actually increase the deficit. The fact is that to help pass the President’s health law, Democrats gamed the system by double-counting Medicare savings and including provisions that have already been overturned or simply shut down.

Obamacare takes $716 billion out of Medicare over the next ten years. Democrats try to maintain that these savings can be used to pay for new health programs and to preserve Medicare. The chief actuary for Medicare clearly states otherwise. The same dollar can’t be counted twice.

Another way the President tried to cook the books was by including the CLASS Act long-term care insurance program in the law. This was supposed to bring in $70 billion in revenue. Unfortunately, the program never would have worked and the government was forced to shut it down before a single beneficiary was enrolled and before a single dollar was brought in. In fact, millions of dollars were wasted studying a program that we knew would never work.

There is one last thing I want to make clear: we passed budgets two years in a row. In the last two years of this Congress, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats didn’t even offer a budget.

It takes courage to pass a budget when times are tough. It is far easier to sit on the sidelines and throw political bombs. House Republicans know that we have a responsibility to let the American people know how we want to spend their money. We will not hide, even in an election year.

Congressman Joe Pitts is a Republican who has represented Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District since 1997. The district covers parts of Berks, Chester, Lancaster and Lebanon counties.

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How many individual taxpayers would you expect to live at a single address? If you’ve got a big family, and a bunch of kids who are working, maybe you have a few returns being filed from your home. But what if you filed hundreds of separate returns from the same address? Wouldn’t you expect an IRS inspector to come knocking at your door?Actually, you have a pretty good chance at getting away with it. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, who is in charge of monitoring the IRS, reported this week on a number of shocking cases of fraud missed by the agency.

The Inspector General took a look at fraudulent returns and applications for the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). In one case in Michigan, an address had initially been rejected for an ITIN. However, the agency eventually approved the number and then went on to issue 640 separate refunds totaling more than $1.5 million to that one single address. All told, the IRS could lose more than $21 billion over the next five years to similar fraud.

You would think an agency with such blatant fraud perpetrated against it would do everything it can to identify lawbreakers. Unfortunately, the Inspector General found that IRS management has actually created an environment that discourages tax examiners from questioning suspect applications. In fact, the agency eliminated a working group that was actively fighting against ITIN fraud.

From 2007 to 2010, the Questionable Identification Detection Team worked to identify some $43 million in fraud and uncovered thousands of questionable applications. Instead of giving a successful team more resources, IRS management shut down the unit saying that other programs would identify the same type of fraud.

Instead of picking up where the Questionable Identification Detection Team left off, other investigative units left cases hanging allowing fraud to continue. Seven schemes identified by the team continued to operate, collecting some $9 million in fraudulent refunds.

Clearly, the IRS is doing a poor job of stopping quite obvious forms of fraud. Detecting this type of fraud should be much easier than detecting problems within a single return. This isn’t a case where an individual is fudging how much money they made or how much they gave to charity. Shouldn’t there be giant red flags when a single home tries to file hundreds of returns?

All told, underpayment of taxes costs around $345 billion a year. The IRS only has the time and resources to examine about 1 percent of individual tax returns. I’ll admit, the IRS has a very big job.

The federal tax code has grown from some 400 pages in 1913 to more than 70,000 today. There are hundreds of millions of documents being filed with the IRS by individuals, businesses and non-profits across the country and across the globe.

The more complex the tax code gets, the easier it is to perpetrate fraud. The job of the IRS is now about to get vastly more complex. The President’s health care law will require the IRS to verify whether individuals and companies are purchasing government-approved health insurance. Those who fail to purchase the insurance will pay the new penalty that the Supreme Court recently declared a new tax.

The IRS is estimating that they will hire an additional 4,000 investigators to help enforce the new rules. The agency will spend $303 million to develop new systems to support Obamacare’s complex system of tax penalties and credits.

To put it frankly, there will be plenty of new ways to defraud the IRS in the coming years. Making the tax system more complex creates openings for criminals to get money that they don’t deserve.

We should be making our tax system simpler through reform. The House Republican budget, which I supported, calls for simplification of the tax code through the elimination of many of the lobbyist loopholes and special tax breaks that have built up over the years. If the code is simpler, then the IRS’s job of hunting down tax cheats will get easier and honest taxpaying Americans won’t see their hard-earned dollars end up in the hands of criminals.

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts is a Republican who represents Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District in parts of Berks, Chester and Lancaster counties.

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Before I got involved in politics, I taught high school science and math. I don’t think a student ever tried to tell me, “My dog ate my homework.” But if one did, I think I would have called his or her parents to make sure the family actually owned a dog. If you’re going to make excuses, at least make them plausible.

This week at the White House, President Obama announced a new proposal to stop manipulation of the international oil market. He’s calling on Congress to pass legislation and spend an additional $52 million to enforce regulations.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has climbed to $3.95 in the state of Pennsylvania. Consumers expect the President to do his homework and propose solutions to stabilize and bring down prices. However, when you go looking for the market manipulators and speculators that the President blames for the current prices, they are difficult to find. You can’t blame the dog for eating your homework if there isn’t a dog.

International oil markets aren’t freewheeling saloons where gamblers play poker with each other. They are highly regulated and closely watched. Playing the market certainly entails risk, but it is not gambling. Investors analyze market forces and make informed decisions about the price of oil. Just like with stocks, they want to buy low and sell high. Investments don’t always pay off, but unlike a Vegas casino, the house doesn’t always win.

Meanwhile, multiple government agencies are watching the market, making sure that trades are being made according to the rules and that traders aren’t gaming the market. These agencies include the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The Federal Trade Commission regularly reports on the state of the gasoline market. In 2005, 2008, and just last year, they came to the conclusion that market forces were the main driver of what Americans pay at the pump. The major factors setting prices are demand for crude oil and refinery capacity.

At the start of the recession in 2008, worldwide demand for oil dipped. Now with economies recovering, especially in developing nations like China and India, demand is well above 2008 levels.

Certainly there are actors involved in the market who bend or break the rules. In last year’s FTC gasoline report, they note action taken against a terminal and pipeline owner to prevent a sale that could lead to higher fuel prices for consumers. Also, in June 2011, the FTC announced that they were undertaking another investigation into whether there is any market manipulation.

Despite this ongoing investigation, the President wants to give tens of millions of dollars to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to conduct a duplicative examination. In his speech this week, the President failed to cite a single existing case of manipulation. How many government agencies do we need to investigate the President’s hunch that something is wrong?

What is often forgotten is that speculators drive prices up at their own risk. You can certainly try to artificially inflate a market for personal gain, but if you don’t pull out at the right moment the bubble bursts and you’ve lost perhaps billions of dollars. Market manipulators risk the loss of a fortune and prosecution.

Unnamed speculators are easy targets for the President. For good reason, the American people don’t trust Wall Street traders. Even if we find speculators and crack down on them, the problems of supply and demand don’t go away.

To solve a problem created by demand, you increase supply. This week, the House attached approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to the transportation bill. It passed overwhelmingly with 293 votes, 69 of them Democrats. Keystone XL by itself will not have a huge effect on price, but it should be part of a comprehensive program to increase supply.

The President is standing in the way of solutions that don’t cost the American people one dime. In fact, increasing access on public land and allowing private development of energy infrastructure brings revenue into the government. It’s time to stop blaming the dog and do the work that needs to be done to lower gas prices.

Rep. Joe Pitts is a Republican who represents Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District, which includes parts of Berks, Chester and Lancaster counties.

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Feb 17, 2012

This morning, approximately 13 million Americans woke up and looked for work. Over 8 million Americans went to a part-time job, but would prefer to work more hours. Millions more Americans gave up looking for a job in the past few years. There are more jobs opening up, but the question for many of these job-seekers is how they will find their new employer and how they will get to work everyday.

Not everyone makes enough to own a car. According to Consumer Reports, the average American car-owner spends around $8,000 a year on their automobile. Because of the recession, fewer Americans can afford a car. In 2009, the number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million.

Many Americans rely on mass transit to find and keep a job. For many low-income Americans, this is their only option.

For many years, I’ve worked to support local mass transit agencies like the Red Rose Transit Authority in Lancaster County and the Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority. In the late 1990s, Congress passed a law prohibiting transit systems that service urbanized areas exceeding 200,000 in population from using federal transit funds for operating expenses.

This law used an out-dated and arbitrary threshold, the consequences of which were not realized until after the 2000 Census, the first census carried out under this law. Following the 2000 Census, many transit systems, including RRTA and BARTA, were forced to significantly cut routes and raise fares.

I introduced the Transit System Flexibility Protection Act to provide a long-term solution to this problem. Specifically, it adds a provision to current law stating that if an urbanized area exceeds a population of 200,000, but the transit system continues to operate fewer than 100 buses on fixed-route service during peak service hours, that transit system can maintain its funding flexibility. By offering amendments, I’ve been able to have my language included in various transportation bills.

The new House transportation bill that will be considered in a few weeks contains this provision. Unfortunately, it contains no dedicated stream of funding for mass transit. This could make it very difficult for transit systems to plan for the future.

I think this is bad news for job-seekers, especially in our area. Unlike major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, the bus is the only mass transit available. If local transit agencies have to cut back, workers and the unemployed will face a big setback.

It’s already hard for those relying on mass transit. Last year, the non-partisan Brookings Institution took a look at access to mass transit and where jobs are being created. Seventy percent of residents in major metropolitan areas have access to transit. However, a typical resident can only reach about 30 percent of jobs via transit in 90 minutes. In other words, those who only have access to transit are very limited in the number of jobs they can apply for.

Much of the job growth in our nation has shifted from urban centers to more suburban areas. Suburbs and lower-density areas offer many advantages to new small businesses that need to keep expenses low in order to grow. Cutting back on mass transit makes the climb back to employment even steeper.

The first priority of our transportation bill has to be the maintenance of our roads and bridges. Mass transit funding has always been a small but critical portion of larger transportation bills.

I know that there are many other members who agree with me and I will be working with Democrats and Republicans on an amendment to restore this dedicated funding. In a few weeks, this bill should be coming to the floor. I am hopeful that a bipartisan coalition will be able to correct the bill before it is sent to the Senate.

We want every American to be able to find and keep a job. Transit is especially important for low-income Americans, younger workers, and the elderly. We don’t want lack of an automobile to be a barrier to a job.

There's a video making its way around the Internet trying to visualize what $1 trillion looks like. One hundred million dollars in $100 bills would fit neatly on a wooden pallet. Ten of these pallets would be $1 billion. It would take 10,000 of these pallets to make $1 trillion. You would need quite a warehouse to fit all those bills. You would need more than 14 warehouses to visualize our current national debt, $14.3 trillion.

[Please see bottom of this post for the video being referenced]

Just like a home mortgage, the government pays regular interest to lenders. Debt is bought and sold on open markets. While U.S. banks and citizens own the majority of this debt, foreign holdings have increased to more than 47 percent. We owe countries like China and Japan significant sums of money.

While we certainly owe a lot, we cannot forget that the United States is still the world's largest economy. Our annual Gross Domestic Product is still larger than our debt, $14.6 trillion in 2010.

The great debate in Washington now is whether our nation should take on any more debt. This year, for every dollar in spending, 42 cents will be borrowed. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the statutory debt limit set by Congress has already been reached. Right now, Treasury is avoiding potential default by suspending investment in government funds, including employee retirement funds.

There is some debate about whether the debt limit should be raised. Some conservatives say that the Treasury Department could avoid default by prioritizing interest payments. There are some liberals who say that debt limit legislation is unconstitutional and Treasury could act without Congressional approval.

While Treasury may have some flexibility in what government accounts it will pay, we have to consider what may go unpaid without an increase in the debt limit. There may be delays in Social Security or Medicare payments. We may not have the resources to pay our troops in the field, or pay for their equipment.

There are other consequences. Each of the debt rating agencies has indicated that they would downgrade the rating for U.S. debt if the limit is not raised. Our current AAA rating means that we pay low interest rates on debt. Just a small downgrade could mean trillions more dollars in debt service over the coming years.

Some may wonder if there is a way to cut spending enough this year to avoid a debt limit increase? Under President Obama's budget, the debt for this year is projected at $1.3 trillion. The most severe spending cut plan in Congress, proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) cuts only $500 billion.

What do we need to do? The debt rating agencies have threatened to downgrade debt if the limit is not raised, but they have also indicated that our deficit is simply too large. We could also be downgraded if we do not take actions to restore fiscal order.

I support the Cut, Cap and Balance Plan to deal with our debt. This means we need to cut spending now. The House is already working through this year's appropriations bills. These bills will reduce non-security annual appropriations to below 2008 levels.

This year's appropriations bills are a good start, but we need to keep finding savings in the coming years. This means putting in place caps on spending that will reduce spending to sensible levels.

Finally, we need a solid long-term solution to prevent future Congresses from getting us back into the same mess. A balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution would place the same burden on the federal government as most state governments.

Voting to increase the debt limit without long-term solutions would be irresponsible. I believe that it is possible for us to reach a bipartisan agreement that would set our nation on a better course. I was a member of the House Budget Committee my first four years in office. During that time, we balanced the budget despite having government split between the political parties.

We have different philosophies of government, but we all recognize that our current debt situation is unsustainable. Now is the time to come together and recognize that we are spending too much. If we act responsibly now, we have a chance to make lasting change.

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts is a Republican who has represented Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District in parts of Berks, Chester and Lancaster counties since 1997.

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I’m concerned that our number-one national priority, job creation, is being ignored in Washington. Washington is too distracted by scandals, partisanship, and other things that simply aren’t as important. America is still faced with an unemployment crisis, and Washington needs to stay focused on it.

Government statistics tell us Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is 7.5 percent, more than a point lower than it was a year ago. That’s not the number I’m most interested in. The number that matters to me is 477,113. That’s the number of Pennsylvanians who don’t have jobs. Almost half a million of our neighbors can’t find work.

But even that number is misleading. It doesn’t count people who have settled for low-paying or part-time jobs. It doesn’t count those who have given up looking. Pennsylvania’s “effective unemployment rate,” which counts these people, is far higher than 7.5 percent: it’s 14.4 percent. That means nearly a million Pennsylvanians are out of work or have taken low-paying jobs out of desperation.

A key reason voters gave Republicans a second chance last year was America’s belief that the trillion-dollar “stimulus” and the multi-billion-dollar bailouts were little more than expensive failures. I and many others pushed hard for better approach.

In January of 2009, and again a year ago, I proposed a path to job creation based on six core principles. If we did each of these things, businesses could quickly begin to invest in new jobs:


Congress cannot force employers to hire. But Washington can create an environment that encourages businesses to hire. Amazingly, Washington has not only failed to act in these areas, it has actually done the opposite of what is necessary to spur job creation. Here’s an update on each of the six action items.

Action Item 1: Helping Right Now

While the best solution to unemployment is a good job, I’ve done my part to help those who need assistance in the meantime. I voted repeatedly to extend unemployment benefits throughout the recession, but I also insisted that they not be paid for with more government IOUs.

Status: When Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped below 8.5 percent, we no longer qualified for these extensions. That makes it even more important that we act quickly to create jobs for people whose benefits have run out.

Action Item 2: More and Cheaper Energy

Every part of our economy runs on energy: from driving to work to turning on the lights when you get there. Manufacturing, a key driver of middle-class job creation, is particularly dependent on energy. When energy sources like electricity, diesel, gasoline, and natural gas are expensive, companies have less money to spend on people. It is essential that we make energy as inexpensive as possible, without endangering the environment.

Status: Continued opposition to domestic energy production is hurting our economy. The Administration’s policy of keeping the dollar weak has also led to high gas prices. The House of Representatives has passed several bills to increase domestic energy production from all sources. If passed by the Senate and signed by the President, we would lower energy prices for everyone and lessen our dependence on imported fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world.

Action Item 3: Low and Stable Taxes

Jobs don’t come from the government. Jobs come from successful business that grow, take risks, and hire. For years, our tax code has been a major disincentive to hiring. Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world (though loopholes do allow some businesses to avoid paying their share.) But only half of American businesses pay corporate taxes. The other half pay taxes the way you and I do: using a 1040 form. These are usually the small, entrepreneurial businesses that are the real engines of our economy. Seesawing tax rates and frequent talk of raising taxes on the “rich” (who are often actually just struggling businesses) has made it impossible for employers to plan for the future and hire.

Status: A month after the election last year, a bipartisan agreement was reached to extend the current tax rates for two years. This averted what would have been the largest tax increase in history. While job creators still can’t plan for the long term, they at least know what to expect for the next two years.

Action Item 4: Open New Markets

New markets for American goods would very quickly create tens of thousands of new jobs. Three already-negotiated trade agreements have been left unratified by Congress for almost four years. South Korea, Panama, and Colombia are just three of the countries that are eager to buy more of our goods, but they can’t until Congress acts. That has cost jobs.

Status: While these agreements have been languishing, our competitors have been moving ahead. The European Union ratified its own trade agreement with South Korea on February 17. If we don’t act quickly, Europe, China, and others will beat us to the punch, leaving American employers at a disadvantage. That will cost jobs. Four years of inaction has already cost 250,000 jobs, according to Obama Administration numbers.

Action Item 5: Balance the Budget

Our government is more than $14 trillion in debt. About 40 cents of every dollar our government spends is borrowed. We have over $100 trillion in binding commitments we have no plan to pay for. This is extremely dangerous to our current and future prosperity. It has to stop. In a sign of how serious this is, S&P downgraded its outlook on America’s credit rating to “negative” in April, expressing pessimism that we will get our fiscal house in order. Moody’s Investor Services warned on June 2 that its rating will “depend on the outcome of the negotiations on deficit reduction.”

Status: Politics and demagoguery are the primary reasons for inaction. The truth is, if we raised the top tax bracket to 100 percent and completely shut down the Department of Defense, the budget still would not be balanced. We must save, strengthen, and fix Medicare and other entitlement programs to solve this problem. Until both parties can work together on this, progress won’t happen.

Action Item 6: Wise and Consistent Regulation

“Cap and trade,” increased government control of healthcare, and many of the other initiatives from the last Congress promised major disruptions to America’s regulatory structure. Businesses weren’t only waiting to find out what would happen to their taxes—they were also waiting to find out what new regulations were going to cost them. In the meantime, they didn’t hire. Regardless of the merits of these proposals, the timing of them was terrible.

Status: The President’s healthcare plan is now law, but that has not ended the uncertainty. The Department of Health and Human Services is working overtime to write sweeping regulations that will affect nearly every employer in America. At the same time, the law’s continued unpopularity and a strong challenge to its constitutionality make it uncertain whether the law will survive at all.

Looking Ahead

Despite Washington’s errors, the economy seems to be improving slowly. I believe there is good reason for optimism as we look ahead. Long-term, the American people won’t stand for a government that ignores our nation’s biggest challenges. But we must deal with the situation we are faced with now, and that means doing everything we can to make sure every American—and every Pennsylvanian—who wants a job can find one. This is my top priority.

For decades, the United States has been the world leader in medical innovation. Individuals come from around the world to receive the best and latest care. What was experimental just a few years ago becomes common medical practice saving and improving American lives.

Unfortunately, we are quickly losing this lead. There may soon come a day when wealthy Americans jet off to Europe or the Caribbean to get the latest surgeries while poor and middle class Americans suffer as bureaucracy delays life-saving medical devices.

In the United States today we have a vibrant medical device industry. More than 420,000 Americans work in this industry. In my home state of Pennsylvania, there are 22,000 workers.

These are good, high-paying jobs with average compensation in the industry 40 percent above the national earnings average. The field employs doctors and engineers, but also Americans with undergraduate and high school degrees. These companies compete on a global level and their products are shipped around the world.

When most Americans think of foreign competition, Chinese factories and Indian call centers are what come to mind. But in the medical device field, most of the foreign competitors are based in the European Union.

U.S. companies must have their devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has two responsibilities: protecting public health by ensuring safety and helping to speed innovations that make medicines more effective, safer, and more affordable.

Unfortunately, the FDA has become risk-averse in recent years. Approval times have crept up, nearly doubling the time required in some cases. This means that European patients are receiving access to devices two years before American patients. In some cases, devices approved in Europe have never been legal in the U.S.

Certainly, there may be disagreement between governments about the safety of devices. We don’t want our regulatory process to be a race to the bottom where we must beat the Europeans to the market regardless of safety. But according to recent studies, medical devices marketed through the shorter and more transparent European regulatory processes are statistically as safe as FDA- approved devices and have comparable patient outcomes.

The experience of NuVasive, a San Diego-based company, demonstrates how American companies are being hurt by FDA inefficiency. In the last two years, NuVasive estimates that FDA approval times have led to revenue losses of $70 million, increased operating expenses, and the loss of hundreds of new jobs.

In a letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee NuVasive describes their difficulties: “It is becoming far more efficient and faster to innovate outside the USA in such places as Europe. Non-USA systems have more timely, predictable and transparent processes. We have seen USA delays of three to 70 months which has forced NuVasive to rethink longer term strategies around where to place research & development jobs and even whether or not to invest in innovation of new products.”

Recently, venture capitalists have stated that they are far more likely to put money into European medical device companies. With capital flowing out of the U.S., it’s only a matter of time before we see a corresponding “brain drain.”

This week, the House of Representatives issued direction to the various committees to investigate federal government rules affect on jobs and the economy. The Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee has oversight over the FDA and, as Chairman, I want us to explore why Europe has gained such a significant advantage over American companies.

Medical device industry jobs are great jobs. With unemployment already high, we need this industry to grow and flourish, not be shipped overseas. We cannot let our lead in medical innovation be destroyed by poorly constructed bureaucracy. It’s not just jobs that are at stake. There are suffering Americans waiting for cures.

Bill Walton, the great college and professional basketball player, suffered such incredible back pain that at one point he even contemplated ending his life. This pain—so great that it prevented him from doing everyday tasks like tying his own shoes—was radically reduced by a NuVasive device. Life-saving cures are possible, the question is whether these discoveries will be made here in the U.S. or on foreign shores.

Still not sure who to vote for?  Take a look at this comparison of Joe Pitts and Lois Herr on the issues.  It is fully documented so you can check the facts for yourself.