Calvin--
Last week I wrote to ask for your help in defeating the massive, misguided spending bill that is currently being considered in Congress.
Today the Senate will vote on the final version of the so-called economic stimulus bill, and I plan to vote against it yet again. In spite of my efforts and those of my Republican colleagues to improve this measure, both House and Senate Democrats refused to consider Republican ideas or to work with us to incorporate our ideas into a less costly bill.
To those of you who have already signed my petition to Congressional Democrats opposing spending more than $1.12 trillion (with interest) on more government programs, I thank you. If you have not yet signed, please do so now. The Senate is set to vote on final passage this afternoon.
While your support of my petition is symbolic, it is important that we let the Congressional majority know that there are millions of people in this country whose views were not heard and whose ideas were not considered during this debate. To call this bill bi-partisan would be re-defining the word bi-partisan. Republicans were completely shut out of the negotiations on this bill, which borrows an unprecedented amount of money from future generations.
Consider a few of our ideas that were rejected by the majority:
I introduced an amendment (#238) to eliminate any new government program and new spending from the bill. The Congressional Budget Office has stated that new programs have slower spend-out rates than existing programs. The purpose of this spending bill is supposed to be to stimulate the economy through a quick injection of federal funds.
Sen. Vitter’s amendment would have cut $26 billion of the most wasteful spending from the legislation.
Sen. DeMint’s amendment would have repealed the Alternative Minimum Tax, made current tax rates on capital gains and dividends permanent, reformed the death tax, made the child tax credit and marriage penalty relief permanent, consolidated certain deductions, and would have reformed the income tax into three rates: 10%, 15%, and 25%.
I introduced another amendment that would have used tax relief, unemployment benefits, and home price stabilization efforts to crate twice as many jobs as the Democrats’ bill at half the cost (as calculated using the President’s methodology).
Finally, I introduced an amendment to provide a tax rebate of $5,143 for single tax filers and $10,286 for joint filers in place of the current bill. While I don’t think we should be spending more than $1 trillion, my view is this money would be better spent by American families than by the federal government on more government programs.
Those are just a few of our amendments that that were voted down by Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
Please send this e-mail to your friends and neighbors and ask them to share their views with us in the space provided and to sign our petition.
The goal of economic stimulus legislation should have been a timely, temporary, and targeted measure that would let American families and small businesses keep more of what they earn in order to have more to invest in our economy. Instead, this bill has become a 1,075-page wish list of pet projects for Congressional Democrats that creates new, permanent government spending and explodes our budget deficit.
In spite of the Democrats’ promises for open and transparent government, the House was forced to vote on this measure only 15 hours after it was made available to rank-and-file lawmakers and the public.
Despite the shortened timeline for reviewing the bill, several questionable provisions have already been revealed, including:
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts;
$2 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, providing funds to organizations such as ACORN, which has been accused of practicing unlawful voter registration in recent elections;
$1.3 billion for Amtrak, including $450 million for a new rail security grant program not included in either the House-passed or the Senate-passed bills;
$300 million for new cars for federal employees;
$170 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to research climate change;
$400 million for NASA to accelerate climate research missions;
$200 million for AmeriCorps and other paid “volunteer” programs;
$5.5 billion for federal buildings (GSA), including $4.5 billion to convert federal buildings into “high-performance green buildings” and $450 million for a new headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security;
$1 billion for expenses in conjunction with the 2010 decennial census;
$1 billion for sexually transmitted disease (STD) education and prevention programs at the CDC;
$500 million to for a new computer system at the Social Security Administration;
While some of these items may have merit, many Americans agree that it is not appropriate to include these provisions in emergency legislation that is intended to stimulate our economy.
Again, please take time to share your views on this bill with me, and please sign my petition if you agree that this bill should have been less costly, more targeted, and temporary.
Thank you for your support. I will continue to work to keep you informed.
Sincerely,
Senator John Thune