WALLY HERGER

'Walter William (Wally) Herger, Jr.' (born May 20, 1945), American politician with swiss roots (his grandfather emigrated to USA from the canton of Uri about 100 years ago), has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1987, representing the California's 2nd congressional district. This district is geographically large, and includes Chico, Redding and Red Bluff. He was born in Yuba City, California, and graduated from American River College with an Associates of Arts and attended California State University, Sacramento for a year.
He grew up on his family’s 200-acre cattle ranch and plum farm in the northern Californian town of Rio Oso (between Yuba City and Sacramento). He also worked in the family’s oil and gas business.^[1]
Wally's career in politics dates back to 1976, starting with his election to the East Nicolaus School Board. Prior to his election to the House. Wally also served north-state California from the California State Assembly from 1980 to 1986. Herger is married to his second wife Pamela Sargent with whom he has 9 children and 5 grandchildren. He is a member of The Mormon Church and sits on the United States House Committee on Ways and Means.^[2]

Contents

Election Campaigns

House Tenure

Legislative Philosophy

Legislative Goals

Current Goals

References

External links

Election Campaigns

Historically, Herger has easily been reelected to Congress. His election campaigns are always challenged by Democratic candidates. The district also always fields a candidate registered with a third party such as the Libertarian party and, during the 1990s, the Natural Law Party. In 2002 and 2004, Herger defeated Democrat Mike Johnson, winning 67% of the vote in 2004. In 2006, Herger faced Arjinderpal Sekhon and received 64% of the vote.^[3]

House Tenure

Herger has served on the influential United States House Committee on Ways and Means since his tenure began as a federal representative. Within Ways and Means, representative Herger serves on two subcommittees, the Subcommittee on Trade, and the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support. In the 110th Congress he was named the Ranking Member of the Republican (minority) delegation to the Trade Subcommittee. Representative Herger's participation if full committee is limited to Ways and Means, in accordance with the rules of the Committee on Ways and Means.
While he chaired the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support (called the Subcommittee on Human Resources during his watch) beginning with the 107^th congress, he played a leading role in the reauthorization and expansion of the 1996 welfare reform law. While chairman of the Committee on Human Resources, he was a champion of the nation’s at risk children, introducing legislation to assist the process of moving greater numbers of at risk children into safe, stable, and loving families. He also sponsored the “Criminal Welfare Prevention Act”, which was passed as part of the larger 1996 Welfare Reform Law. This bill gave additional financial incentive to law enforcement programs that provided the Commissioner of Social Security the identities of fraudulent recipients of aid.^[4][5]

Legislative Philosophy

Herger’s primary legislative concerns as a member of congress and the Ways and Means Committee include:
#securing economic growth and encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship by reducing the tax burden on American families
#making government run more efficiently by reducing federal regulatory burdens and spending
#responsibly reforming entitlement programs to make them sustainable and ensure that they will still be around for future generations of Americans^[6]

Legislative Goals

From the Trade Subcommittee, Congressman Herger will lead in the consideration of trade agreements with foreign nations. The intent is to broaden the opportunities for American businesses to export their products to growing foreign markets. The anticipation of agreements with Panama, Peru, and Colombia will expand American exportation across the western hemisphere. The second congressional district is driven by agriculture, and to appropriately represent his constituency, Congressman Herger supports legislation to bolster free and fait trade for the fruits of America’s entrepreneurial spirit, both in terms of agricultural and industrial goods.
Herger is also a strong advocate of private property rights. As such, he is an ardent proponent of more even-handed environmental policies that balance the requirements of stewardship with the economic need for raw materials and finished goods. His work on the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act reflects this dedication. This act institutes a framework for managing federal forest assets that will be tested on federal lands in Lassen, Plumas, and Tahoe counties, and has been negotiated by a diverse coalition that includes environmental and logging interests. The intent is the reduced density of Forest Service lands, and expand the biodiversity of the forest (reduction of “monoculture” forests).^[7]

Current Goals

A current objective of Congressman Herger and many other passionate legislators is the full repeal of the 3% withholding tax slated to come online in 2011. This is a provision that would apply to governments with expenditures of greater than 100 million USD, when dealing with for-profit companies. Congressman Herger is presently co-authoring bipartisan a bill with Kendrick Meek of Florida to have this new law repealed before it goes into effect. This law would mandate that governments would only deliver 97% of a contract to the contractor, and the remaining 3 percent would be funneled off to the IRS. One fundamental problem of this new tax structure is that this would be neither a tax on profits nor taxable income, rather this would be a tax on revenue. At the end of the tax cycle, any overpayment in taxes would be reimbursed. The great concern is that many businesses operate on margins that are too thin to accommodate the de facto loan to the government that this new tax would represent. To offset this increased cost of contracts with large agencies, vendors and contractors are projected to increase their bid values to cover this new cost of operating with the government. The National Association of Counties estimates that this will cost Santa Clara County alone, 2.2 million USD, and will give Counties a competitive disadvantage when dealing with vendors and contractors. (Counties assess costs of federal ‘3-percent withholding law’)^[8][9][10]

References

1. Biography | Representative Wally Herger 2nd District of California. (2007) Retrieved July 23, 2007, from http://www.house.gov/herger/bio.shtml
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3. CA Secretary of State - General Election- --United States Representative District 2 - . (2006) Retrieved July 23, 2007, from http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/02
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5. Herger, W. (1999, May 25) Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?
6. ...
7. USDA Forest Service HFQLG Forest Recovery Act Pilot Project - Home. (2007, June 4) Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/hfqlg/
8. Hot Topics | Representative Wally Herger 2nd District of California. (2007, January 2) Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.house.gov/herger/hottopics_
9. ThreePercentWithholding. (2007, January 1) Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.abc.org/wmspage.cfm?p
10. NACo | Counties assess costs of federal ?3-percent withholding law?. (2007, January 1) Retrieved July 24, 2007, from http://www.naco.org/Template.cfm?Se

External links

★ CQ Politics in America 2006

★ Wally Herger for Congress 'official campaign site'

★ U.S. Congressman Wally Herger 'official House site'

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★ Federal Election Commission — Wally Herger campaign finance reports and data

★ On the Issues — Wally Herger issue positions and quotes

★ OpenSecrets.org — Wally Herger campaign contributions

★ Project Vote Smart — Representative Wally Herger (CA) profile

★ SourceWatch Congresspedia — Wally Herger profile

★ Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Wally Herger voting record