Rep. Kevin McCarthy continues push to find a vaccine for the deadly Valley Fever

House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy submits his weekly view from Capitol Hill. In his words:

 "In continuing the effort to combat Valley Fever, this week I traveled to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta to meet with CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden to discuss how the CDC can contribute to the effort that our community in Bakersfield has been leading in the fight against this disease.  In touring its facilities and laboratories while meeting with the CDC’s

mycotic disease experts, it is clear that their expertise and leadership on this issue will be imperative as we try to beat Valley Fever.

 "As a result of the meeting, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Frieden accepted my invitation to visit Bakersfield to meet with local public health officials and Valley Fever experts to develop a strategy to combat this disease from prevention to treatment to developing a vaccine. During my visit,  Dr. Frieden also committed to work with me and our community leaders to jump-start a Valley Fever public awareness campaign, and to help work through FDA obstacles that are preventing the doctors from using better diagnostic tests.  Throughout the entire San Joaquin Valley, we understand the devastating impact Valley Fever can have on family and friends, and that is why I am committed to leading the effort to eliminate this disease, one step at a time.  With Dr. Frieden’s help, I’m very confident that our partnership with the CDC is an important first step in that fight, and I look forward to working with him and our Valley Fever experts right here in Bakersfield.

 "Also this month, members of our communities and Americans around the country sat down at their kitchen tables to do their taxes.  As our economy struggles, I continue to work in Washington to push for a simpler and flatter tax code. Throughout these past few months, Americans spent some six billion hours filling out their tax forms while attempting to decipher a four-million-word tax code. It should not take an army of lawyers and accountants to do your taxes. Our tax code is broken and its complexity not just costs working Americans, it is also costing the small business owners that we rely on to create more jobs.  Since about half of the private sector workforce – nearly 60 million Americans – is employed by a small business, doing nothing about our complicated tax code and taxing small business employers until they are unable to keep employees on or hire more new workers are a major obstacle to economic growth and job creation.

 "That is why I am helping to lead the effort to reform our tax code.  House Republicans believe that income taxes should be lowered and consolidated to two brackets and rates, 10% and 25%, to ensure hardworking Americans keep more of the money they earn.  As small businesses are the powerhouse in new job creation, our budget proposes making our current corporate tax rate—the second highest in the world at 35% —comparable to other industrialized nations by making it a more competitive 25%.  Finally, taxpayers should not be subject to the ever-expanding Alternative Minimum Tax, so we are seeking to repeal this onerous provision as well.  These are just some examples of how I am working to reduce the complexity of the tax code and allow hardworking taxpayers to keep and save more of what they earn.  I believe real tax reform can jump start out economy.