Ryan helps Hultgren tilt his message toward economy
After a couple of weeks of focusing on the future of health care, 14th District U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren brought in House Speaker Paul Ryan Friday to refocus his re-election campaign on the glowing economy.
Ryan joined Hultgren at Spring Grove-based Scot Forge, an employee-owned metal forging company, along with an audience of about 125 people. Those gathered heard the Republicans run down a slew of economic accomplishments Hultgren described as "getting the boot of government off the throat of business."
Ryan thanked Hultgren, a Plano Republican, for his support of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which he said revamped what was the "worst tax code in the industrialized world." Ryan said the Republicans' tax efforts ensured businesses are rewarded for trying to grow.
"You can now write off 100 percent of the cost of your equipment, your machinery, in the year you do it," Ryan said. "That means the more you invest in your business, the lower your tax rate goes so you can invest more in your business. Including the numbers we just got, there have been more than two million jobs created in America since this tax law passed. The economy is going where we want it to go."
Ryan also highlighted Hultgren's work in committee to revise the Dodd-Frank laws put on the books to prevent so-called too-big-to-fail banking institutions from causing future recessions. Ryan said Dodd-Frank actually made the problem worse.
"It had the effect of creating a situation where big banks were getting bigger and small banks were just going away," Ryan said. "If you want to be able to borrow money, you have to have a bank that's willing to lend you the money. So many of our manufacturers get their money from our community banks. Randy and his committee fixed this law so that our businesses can go borrow money and create more jobs."
In a post-event interview, Hultgren also pointed to the Dodd-Frank reforms as a bipartisan effort that shows he works across the aisle. Even so, he said more economic reforms are needed, including reining in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Hultgren said the bureau is unfairly exempt from the congressional appropriations process, and Congress and/or the president should have more say in who runs the bureau.
His challenger, Democrat Lauren Underwood of Naperville, said during her primary race that she believes the bureau must remain funded, staffed and free "to do the job they were legislatively directed to do, which is to look out for the best interests of consumers around the United States."
Efforts to water down or eliminate Dodd-Frank are attempts to see that Wall Street "returns to this unregulated free market yahoo that had been going on for decades," she said.
Hultgren said Underwood's viewpoint is an endorsement of "completely unaccountable bureaucracy."
"Her view on that is really an attack on community financial institutions," he said. "We needed to have real reform."
The sprawling 14th Congressional District includes parts of DuPage, Kane, McHenry and Lake counties.
The election is Tuesday.