U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) made the following comments after a vote in the House of Representatives to make current tax rates permanent: "Making the current tax rates permanent for the vast majority of Americans, as this bill does, is a major accomplishment. I continue to hear from many people in our part of Texas that stability in the tax code is necessary for their families an... Read more »

In the blizzard of statistics surrounding the “fiscal cliff,” two numbers give us the essential bottom line. They are 20.6 and 24.3. Let me explain. Since World War II, the top income tax rate has varied widely. It has been as high as 94 percent and as low as 28 percent. Usually it was somewhere in between. But in all those 67 years with all of those different tax rates, the revenue collected by t... Read more »

Today, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) officials announced its plan to initiate the process to consider whether the Lesser Prairie-Chicken should be listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) made the following comments in response to the announcement: “This decision is disappointing. There is way to go before any final dec... Read more »

In an effort to begin reforming the U.S. immigration system with common sense policies, area Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) joined both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House in voting to support the STEM Jobs Act of 2012. The bill, H.R. 6429, is designed to attract foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degrees i... Read more »

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) continues to press the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to meet the needs of local law enforcement in dealing with illegal immigration. On Tuesday, Thornberry drew attention to the CBP station closures in an official House Floor statement supporting the Jaime Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force... Read more »

By Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) Special to Federal News Radio Original column can be found here. The nature of national security challenges is constantly changing. Over the centuries, our weapons have become more advanced, the strategies we use more complex and the battlefields on which we fight more varied. However, there has been no place where that evolution has been more rapid over the last d... Read more »

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) met with Texas law enforcement officials yesterday to discuss the proposed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) station closures in Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, and Abilene. Officials from about a dozen local law enforcement agencies took part in the meeting to voice their concerns over the proposed closures and to provide insight on how to ensure there i... Read more »

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a member of the Intelligence Committee, made the following comments on the U.S. Embassy attacks in Libya and Egypt: "The deaths of the Americans serving our nation in Libya are tragic and unnecessary. It reminds us that duty stations in much of the world are dangerous and that most of us take that se... Read more »

In an effort to help boost economic growth and jumpstart job creation, the U.S. House passed two measures this week aimed at tax relief for individuals, families, and businesses. Area Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) joined both Republicans and Democrats in voting to support the bills. “We need to create some certainty for taxpayers, including our small businesses which continue to struggl... Read more »

At a time when the House, Senate, and White House have been unable to come to agreement on a host of issues, the bipartisan consensus on the need to act on cybersecurity has offered some hope for action. The inability of the Senate to proceed to debate the various proposals is thus particularly disappointing. But there is a possible path forward. In April, the House passed four cybersecurity bills... Read more »