More of the same ol' same ol'
-- Plan is Shortsighted & Fiscally Irresponsible --
(Alexandria, VA) Faced with a slowing economy, Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle today called for more of the status quo -- higher levels of
government spending and targeted tax relief for special interests, two moves
that would increase the size and power of government instead of giving the
U.S. economy the real stimulus it needs, according to the 335,000-member
National Taxpayers Union (NTU).
"Instead of working on solutions to truly help the American people, Senator
Daschle is continuing to use partisan and obstructionist tactics to split
the bipartisan coalition that has been working together in Congress," noted
NTU President John Berthoud. "Although 58 Senators, including 12 Democrats,
voted in favor of last year's tax relief bill, Senator Daschle is trying to
convince taxpayers that it was a strictly partisan effort. However, the
fact is that members of both parties worked together to pass it against
Senator Daschle's wishes and he is now using his position as Senate Majority
Leader to undermine their work and pursue his own agenda."
NTU highlighted the following problems with the Daschle agenda:
o Daschle's call for expansion of federal spending makes a mockery of his
call for "restoring fiscal discipline." Daschle asks for more federal
spending in a vast array of areas including homeland security, education,
training, technology, and federal benefit programs. This new spending would
be on top of the recent run-up in non-defense federal spending which in 2001
was over 48% higher than a decade previously (18% higher in
inflation-adjusted terms);
o Daschle is dead wrong to blame the tax cut for the diminished surpluses.
Lack of spending restraint in Washington is responsible for a far greater
drain on the Treasury than the President¹s tax relief plan. For instance,
if Congress had limited non-defense spending growth to just 3% annually over
the past decade, that would have lowered federal spending by $144 billion in
2001. Those savings over the coming ten years would have been larger than
the size of the tax cut;
o Daschle's proposal to give money to those who were not eligible for
income tax rebates under last summer's tax relief is a blatant attempt to
buy votes, since most of these individuals were ineligible because they paid
no income tax....
The complete press release is available online at
ntu.org |
