Pete Sessions

Pete Sessions was born in Waco, Texas, in 1955.[1][2] Sessions earned a B.S. from Southwestern University in 1978. Sessions' career experience includes working as an executive with AT&T.[2][3]

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Campaign website

Sessions' campaign website stated the following:

A Waco native and faithful Christian, Pete Sessions is a pro-life conservative who once represented much of our congressional district.

In Congress, Pete Sessions defended our gun rights, protected our religious liberty, and stood with President Trump to build the border wall. Pete was also part of the House Republican team in the late 1990s that balanced the budget four years in a row.

PETE SESSIONS ON IMMIGRATION AND HIS PLAN TO HELP PRESIDENT TRUMP STOP WELFARE ABUSE BY LEGAL IMMIGRANTS

President Trump is trying to implement a new rule to reduce the number of non-citizens on welfare. Pete Sessions will fight to put the Trump Public Charge Rule into law… ensuring its enforcement in the future.

Click here to read more.

PROVEN CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES

PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT

Pete is a lifetime member of the Texas Rifle Association and maintained a solid “A” rating from the NRA for his votes in Congress. He is endorsed by the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund.

PRO-FAMILY

Last year, House Democrats passed a bill that would deny rights of parents to stop their minor children obtaining sex-change operations or hormone treatments. Curricula in many school districts are teaching children that transgender lifestyles are “normal.” Pete will stop laws that take away parental rights.

PRO-LIFE

While in Congress, Pete had a 100% lifetime voting record with National Right to Life.

PRO-FARMER AND RANCHER

Texas Farm Bureau gave Pete a 100% lifetime voting record.

PROVEN CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP

While in Congress, Pete had the following lifetime voting records:

✔ National Federation of Independent Business: 100%

✔ Texas Farm Bureau: 100%

✔ National Right to Life: 100%

✔ NumbersUSA: “A” Rating

✔ National Rifle Association: “A” Rating

✔ American Conservative Union: 94%

✔ Spirit of Enterprise, Chamber of Commerce Award: 91%

From 2017 through 2018, Pete supported President Trump 98% of the time.

Pete wants to go back to Congress to complete some unfinished business.

1. Lead Republicans in re-taking the majority and removing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker

2. Help President Trump finish building the wall and reform our immigration policies

3. Balance the budget without any new tax increases

Pete Sessions is asking for your vote to complete the “unfinished” business.[14]

—Pete Sessions[15]

Campaign website

Sessions' campaign website stated the following:

Pete Sessions Plan for Securing Our Border and Strengthening Interior Enforcement

Our illegal immigration and border security problems are among the greatest challenges facing our country today. The Obama Administration’s continued refusal to enforce our nation’s current laws has created a crisis on our border, eroded our nation’s rule of law, and put the safety and security of Americans across the nation in jeopardy.

I have always adamantly opposed illegal immigration, blanket amnesty, or any other reward to those who have intentionally and knowingly broken our nation’s immigration laws. Since the onset of President Obama’s lawless executive actions, I have tirelessly worked to fight against the administration’s unlawful, unwise, and unconstitutional executive amnesty plan.

As a proud Texan, I understand the need to reform our broken immigration system. An effective immigration plan must first secure our borders, strengthen interior enforcement, protect our nation’s rule of law, and prosecute and deport criminal aliens in the United States.

In this Congress, I am proud to be working with Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to introduce the strictest interior enforcement bill in the House that will protect American lives from criminal alien violence. In response to the policies of sanctuary cities such as San Francisco, and the rise of illegal aliens committing criminal activities, on July 31, 2015, I joined Senator Sessions in introducing the House companion to the Protecting American Lives Act. My legislation closes the most dangerous immigration enforcement loopholes by putting an end to sanctuary cities and establishing a mandatory minimum jail time for illegal immigrants.

The future of our country depends on the actions we take today and the American people are counting on us to act to protect our country and secure our future. North Texans, and all Americans, deserve nothing less.

Pete Sessions Plan to Restore our Nation’s Healthcare System

In 2010, Democrats defied the will of the American people and rammed a 2,700 page heath care bill through Congress that sought to take over our entire health care system. From day one, I have led the fight in the House to stop the ObamaCare train wreck, beginning when it came to the House Rules Committee in March of 2010.

North Texas families and businesses have been forced to face the damaging effects of ObamaCare. Employers have cut full-time employees to part-time and dropped employees from their preferred healthcare plan. Health insurance premiums are still skyrocketing and out of pocket costs are growing astronomically. In April the largest health insurance provider United Healthcare announced that it was abandoning ObamaCare and now Aetna, the the third-largest health insurer in the US, will also cease to expand its ObamaCare offerings. Additionally, even though the president promised Americans that if they liked their health care plan, they could keep their health care plan, he knew that this was not the case.

In short, the Democrats’ empty promises about their massive health care bill have become a frightening reality for the American people. ObamaCare is discriminatory, unaffordable, and unsustainable.

That is why for the last 18 months I have been working on a solution with my friend in the Senate, Dr. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana. In May we introduced H.R. 5284, The World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan, a sustainable, non-discriminatory alternative to the President’s onerous law. It empowers all Americans to make their own healthcare decisions, save their hard-earned money in an account that is not use-it-or-lose-it, and ensures that not only single person will ever be coerced onto ObamaCare. The basis of our bill creates a $2,500 tax credit for every American citizen as well as a $1,500 tax credit per dependent minor. This tax credit provides individuals and families with the freedom to use their own dollars to plan and save for their health care futures by assigning their credit to an employer, transferring it to a Roth Health Savings Account, or advancing it for annual distribution. Our plan takes a unique, free-market based approach to healthcare that unleashes doctors, patients, and all individuals from the burdens of ObamaCare, and puts Americans back in charge of their own healthcare.

Pete Sessions Plan for Tax Reform

Our rapidly growing national debt is one of the most pressing issues facing the future of our great country. The United States cannot continue to run huge federal budget deficits. Financing federal overspending through continued borrowing threatens to drown Americans in high taxes and heavy debt leading to a less prosperous future.

Since 1970, the annual federal budget has been balanced during only one four-year period and the federal deficit has climbed from $400 billion in 1970 to over $16 trillion today. If we continue on our current path, in 10 years 95% of all federal tax revenues will be consumed by payments of interest on the national debt and mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This will leave only 5% of our annual tax revenue available for funding national defense and other essential functions of the government.

Our national debt-to-GDP ratio rivals that of countries like Ireland, Portugal and Greece, which are facing sovereign debt crises. By the end of this decade, the federal deficit will climb to (and remain at) no less than 100% of our GDP. According to economists, once the nation’s debt exceeds 90% of GDP, it begins to stifle economic growth. President Obama has set the wrong kind of new record. The national debt has increased faster under his administration than under any other president in history. This runaway government spending paralyzes the job market, erodes confidence among America’s employers and has caused the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.

Thanks to the insistence of House Republicans, discretionary spending in 2016 has been pushed back all the way to 2008 levels. Consistent with the governing philosophy we shared with the American people when we won back the House in a historic victory in 2010, our spending victories have driven the annual deficit from $1.412 trillion in 2009 to $544 billion in FY2016. And we’ve achieved this significant deficit reduction while at the same time enacting $620 billion in permanent tax relief, including a five year extension to bonus depreciation.

Because our current path threatens our economy and is unsustainable, I have joined House Republicans in putting forward a pro-growth tax reform plan that fundamentally changes our tax policy. By lowering rates, increasing the standard deduction, streamlining seven tax brackets into three and eliminating a host of special-interest provisions, our plan simplifies the tax code dramatically for families and individuals. And by providing incentives for savings and investment, it fosters economic growth and job creation while ensuring that Americans spend far less time and money filing their taxes.

Under our plan, small businesses will no longer be taxed under the individual side of the code. Instead, they’ll benefit from a critical distinction between wage and business income. This allows for a lower tax rate for small businesses of 25%—the lowest tax rate on pass-through income since before World War II.

Job creators of all sizes will also be able to take advantage of full and immediate expensing on investments in new equipment and technology—another historic first. This zero tax rate on new business investment is a vast departure from today’s complex depreciation rules, which direct businesses to write off purchases over long and often arbitrary periods of time.

It also cuts America’s 35% corporate income-tax rate—the highest in the industrialized world—to a flat 20%. In a change designed to strengthen our global competitiveness, American job creators will no longer be taxed both abroad and at home on the same dollar of income. There will be a zero tax rate on dividends brought home to America.

The current IRS will not exist, but will be redesigned into three distinct service units—one staffed with expertise on business taxation, and another focused on state-of-the art customer service to families and individuals. A third, independent unit will be geared toward helping North Texans quickly resolve their unique tax challenges—in effect, a small-claims court for tax disputes so individuals and small businesses don’t spend thousands of dollars resolving minor tax issues.

I am dedicated to delivering a tax code for North Texans that truly works for them—one that is built on the principles of growth, simplicity, fairness.

Reducing Regulatory Burdens

This Administration’s regulatory beast is crushing businesses of all sizes in all industries. From the Department of Labor’s Overtime Rule to the EPA’s Waters of the US Rule, unelected bureaucrats are declaring war on our economy and our job creators. Industries such as manufacturing and technology are struggling to compete in a global marketplace and it’s far past time that we clear outdated and costly regulations off the books.

America’s job creators are being buried under a regulatory burden estimated at over $1.75 trillion. Recent reports indicate that each U.S. household pays a hidden regulatory tax of $15,586 per year. Major rules- those affecting the economy by $100 million or more per year- are at the heart of the problem. This is why I am a strong supporter of the REINS Act. This legislation would require specific congressional approval for any major rule before it can be implemented. While this is an important step in the right direction, there is more than can, and should, be done and I will continue to fight to roll back excessive red tape and get the government out of the free marketplace.

We must ensure that the rules governing the way we live and work reflect what is best for our state and country today- not what unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats think is best. And if any regulations aren’t doing right on behalf of the American people, they should be cleared off the books.

Pete Sessions Plan for Energy Independence

Energy security is a matter of national security. I support an all-of-the-above energy strategy that stimulates innovation, development, and security. Reliable energy sources allow the entrepreneurial spirit of Texans to thrive and promotes freedom from unstable regions often hostile to the values of America. I believe the free market should choose winners and losers in the marketplace, not radical environmentalist who have constructed this Administration’s liberal green energy agenda. There are four key reforms that I’ve tirelessly advocated in the halls of Congress and neighborhoods in North Texas:

Lifting the Crude Oil Ban

In a historic conservative victory at the end of 2015, House Republicans successfully lifted the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports. By repealing this antiquated law, we will create an estimated 1 million American jobs in nearly all 50 states and add $170 billion annually to our GDP. This was an important victory for Texas and unleashed the full potential of our already vibrant Texas energy economy.

Reining in the EPA

The EPA has been relentless in their war against the American job creator. Political agendas have dictated misguided regulatory initiatives and crushed businesses large and small. From abusive “sue and settle” litigation practices to disregard for private property rights, the EPA has proved time and again that they cannot be trusted to act in the best interest of Texas, or the nation. In the past year I have supported measures to gut the EPA by $452 million – holding the agency to its lowest funding levels since 2008 and forcing them to scale back $138 million of onerous regulatory programs. In addition I have also supported and fought for numerous legislative victories that will drive down energy prices, create American jobs, and reinvigorate our energy revolution.

Here are a few of those victories:

Prohibiting EPA from implementing new greenhouse gas regulations for new or existing power plants;

Eliminating funding for greenhouse gas “New Source Performance Standards”;

Prohibiting EPA implementation of WOTUS;

Prohibiting EPA from changing the definition of “fill materials”;

Prohibitions on new methane requirements;

Prohibiting the regulation of the lead content of ammunition and fishing tackle; and

Prohibitions on harmful changes to the “stream buffer rule”

Promoting Energy Efficiency

Consumers and taxpayers benefit when our energy use is effective and free of government mandates. Reducing government waste, prioritizing existing energy efficiency programs, and reducing burdensome federal efficiency mandates will unleash private sector technologies and spur innovation. Establishing voluntary programs, improving data gathering, and making the federal government use existing best practices related to energy usage will ultimately benefit Texans and all Americans. We need to replace mandates with incentives and regulation with innovation.

Maximizing our Natural Resources

Texas is home to a vast array of natural resources. We have the responsibility to be good stewards of these resources and balance environmental concerns with the needs of Texans. Technology has developed far beyond what we ever believed possible, and as a result we can access and develop our resources including coal, nuclear, oil, natural gas, solar, and wind. I support opening the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and federally owned land for exploration and development. The Keystone XL Pipeline offers the potential of thousands of jobs, many to Texas families, yet this Administration continues to pile on regulatory and permitting barriers. This President would rather subsidize his green energy favorites rather than agree to Republican policies that will bring economic prosperity and independence to our state and nation.

Pete Sessions Plan for Restoring America’s Future

Washington has a spending problem that has placed our nation on an unsustainable path of trillion dollar deficits and a $17 trillion national debt. That is why I have consistently voted to limit federal spending, reform entitlement programs, and am a co-sponsor of a bill that calls for the passage of the balanced budget amendment. Thanks to the Republican majority in the House, we have been able to hold the line of federal spending, putting total expenditures on a slightly downward path. Declines of total federal expenditures for the past two fiscal years are the first back-to-back annual spending reductions since the Korean War. While these reductions in spending are important, we still have a long way to go.

In 2009 and 2010, when Democrats had control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the federal government went on a spending binge. Through an $831 billion stimulus package, ObamaCare, and Dodd-Frank, Democrats dedicated themselves to more federal spending and increased government interference in the private sector. In 2009, the federal government spent $3.77 trillion and ran a $1.5 trillion deficit, both of which were the largest of all time. The federal government spent $3.67 trillion in 2010 and $3.75 trillion in 2011 and added an additional $2.7 trillion to the national debt.

In 2010, I led the effort by Republicans to take back the House and halt this spending spree. Under my leadership as Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Republicans elected 89 freshman Members of Congress and switched 63 Democrat-held seats to the Republican column. Republicans quickly went to work reining in federal spending after removing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. To begin, House Republicans forced a virtual freeze in the growth of federal spending. Despite opposition from the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House, total spending by the federal government is now growing by the slowest amount annually in over sixty years.

Since Republicans took back control of the House, I have voted for the Budget Control Act of 2011, which cut nearly one trillion in spending over a decade and led to another $1.2 trillion in sequester cuts, and the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,” which would have cut discretionary spending by an additional $111 billion, reduced mandatory spending by $51 billion, and capped federal spending at 20% of GDP. I was also a cosponsor of a proposal for a balance budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. While our annual spending is still too high, thanks to House Republicans the federal government is spending $317 billion a year less than it was in 2009.

In this Congress, I voted for Rep. Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity Budget, which would have balanced the budget within 10 years, reformed the tax code, and taken our country off a path of fiscal insolvency and onto a path towards fiscal success. This budget would also take smart and responsible steps to reform our entitlement programs. When the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to pass a budget, I backed “No Budget, No Pay” legislation that forced Senate Democrats to pass a budget or else have their pay withheld.

While the new Republican majority has succeeded in capping federal spending, Congress must continue to take even more steps to control unsustainable deficits, which, if left unchecked, will place too much of a burden on future generations of Americans. That is why I remain fully committed to taking the important steps toward fiscal reform and additional spending cuts in order to get our fiscal house in order.

Since losing their majority, House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, have argued for alternative spending plans that would have added trillions to the national debt. Their plan is no plan at all. In every situation and in every piece of legislation brought to the House floor (except for national defense), their “solution” is to spend more taxpayer money and move our nation closer to bankruptcy.

Nancy Pelosi today makes the absurd claim that “the cupboard is bare” for any additional cuts in federal spending. In the meantime, thanks to House Republicans and the leadership of Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the General Accounting Office has documented that the federal government could save $125 billion (billion!) if we stopped making public assistance payments to Americans who are not eligible under the law. Food stamp fraud amounts to billions of dollars every year and the Social Security Disability system appears to have been hijacked by trial attorneys who successfully obtain benefits for Americans who are not disabled and do not deserve disability payments.

There is a moral component to the Democrats’ constant argument for more government spending which cannot go unaddressed. If we all know that it is wrong to steal, then how can we condone stealing from future generations? If left unchecked, that is exactly what we are doing, led by this generation of Democrats and the Obama administration.

The unsustainability of today’s national debt and federal unfunded obligations is reaching a critical tipping point. Financial experts such as Mary Meeker and Stan Druckenmiller have documented that if the United States were a business, we would be broke due to our future obligated payments on the debt. Today’s entitlement programs are so over-committed that in order to meet the current payouts obligated to the Baby-Boomer generation, our children may have to pay as much as 80 percent of their incomes in taxes if the U.S. is ever to balance its budget.

What kind of future are we passing on to our children if we have so loaded down their lives to burdensome debt? This scenario of one irresponsible political class obligating future generations to debt, which they cannot afford, has been recently played out in Greece, Spain and, soon, Italy and France. In all of those countries, those younger than 30 are in despair with no real prospects for their most productive years because their countries are bankrupt. Their only option is to be on welfare for the rest of their lives or leave the nation of their birth.

The summary of Druckenmiller and Meeker’s analysis are the same as what Republicans, led by Paul Ryan on the budget, have made for years on the House floor. The federal government cannot continue to spend hundreds of billions more than it receives in taxes every year. We cannot burden future generations with trillions of dollars of debt and economic history shows that economies whose central governments owe as much as the economy produces in annual output are destined to permanently slow job growth. In cases where governments never bring their budget deficits into balance, they run the risk of sudden and dramatic currency devaluations, which has occurred in Argentina, Mexico and, likely soon, Venezuela. In all of these cases, savings of working families were obliterated by their governments.

I am committed to avoiding this same fate for my children and yours. The only responsible step is to bring federal spending under control by limiting future increases, immediately reforming entitlement programs, and quickly eradicating the federal budget with its current unacceptable levels of waste, fraud, and abuse.

[14]

—Pete Sessions' campaign website (2018)[16]

Campaign website

The following issues were listed on Sessions' campaign website. For a full list of campaign themes, click here.

Immigration: Our illegal immigration and border security problems are among the greatest challenges facing our country today. The Obama Administration’s continued refusal to enforce our nation’s current laws has created a crisis on our border, eroded our nation’s rule of law, and put the safety and security of Americans across the nation in jeopardy.

Obamacare: In 2010, Democrats defied the will of the American people and rammed a 2,700 page heath care bill through Congress that sought to take over our entire health care system. From day one, I have led the fight in the House to stop the ObamaCare train wreck, beginning when it came to the House Rules Committee in March of 2010. Let there be no doubt – I will continue to lead this fight until ObamaCare is fully repealed.

Tax Reform: Our nation’s tax code is a complicated mess that is nearly impossible to navigate. That is why I believe that North Texans deserve a flatter, fairer tax code that jumpstarts our economy and leads to job growth. Our federal government should be dedicated to letting the American people keep their hard earned dollars instead of spending them in Washington.

Job Creation: During a meeting of the White House Conference on Small Business, President Ronald Reagan once said, “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Sadly, those words could not be more true in light of the current Administration’s economic policies of tax hikes, wasteful spending, onerous regulations, and overall hostility to the free enterprise system.

Energy: Energy plays a key role in the Texas economy and creates jobs in the 32nd Congressional District. I strongly support a “all-of-the-above” energy policy that would allow the free market to unleash America’s vast natural resources, create new jobs at home, and lead the way to energy independence

Fiscal Sanity: Washington has a spending problem that has placed our nation on an unsustainable path of trillion dollar deficits and a $17 trillion national debt. That is why I have consistently voted to limit federal spending, reform entitlement programs, and am a co-sponsor of a bill that calls for the passage of the balanced budget amendment. Thanks to the Republican majority in the House, we have been able to hold the line of federal spending, putting total expenditures on a slightly downward path. Declines of total federal expenditures for the past two fiscal years are the first back-to-back annual spending reductions since the Korean War. While these reductions in spending are important, we still have a long way to go.

[14]

—Pete Sessions' campaign website, http://www.petesessions.com/issues/

Campaign website

Sessions' campaign website listed the following issues:[17]

Obamacare

Excerpt: "In 2010, Democrats defied the will of the American people and rammed a 2,700 page heath care bill through Congress that sought to take over our entire health care system. From day one, I have led the fight in the House to stop the ObamaCare train wreck, beginning when it came to the House Rules Committee in March of 2010. Let there be no doubt - I will continue to lead this fight until ObamaCare is fully repealed."

Tax Reform

Excerpt: "Our nation’s tax code is a complicated mess that is nearly impossible to navigate. That is why I believe that North Texans deserve a flatter, fairer tax code that jumpstarts our economy and leads to job growth. Our federal government should be dedicated to letting the American people keep their hard earned dollars instead of spending them in Washington."

Job Creation

Excerpt: "America’s economy continues to suffer from high unemployment and underemployment. Too many college graduates are finishing their educations without job prospects and the jobless rate among minorities and young people is unacceptable."

Energy Independence

Excerpt: "Energy plays a key role in the Texas economy and creates jobs in the 32nd Congressional District. I support an all-of-the-above energy strategy that would allow the free market to unleash America’s vast natural resources, create new jobs at home, and lead the way to energy independence. "

Fiscal Sanity

Excerpt: "Washington has a spending problem that has placed our nation on an unsustainable path of trillion dollar deficits and a $17 trillion national debt. That is why I have consistently voted to limit federal spending, reform entitlement programs, and am a co-sponsor of a bill that calls for the passage of the balanced budget amendment. Thanks to the Republican majority in the House, we have been able to hold the line of federal spending, putting total expenditures on a slightly downward path."[14]