Getting the Short End of the Stick
This Week in Congress
Early in the week the Senate will consider S.2600, the “Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.” This legislation is a response to September 11th and would provide a government subsidy for terrorism insurance. The theory is that many commercial buildings can’t get insurance for terrorism costs and therefore need government funding. Unfortunately, this legislation puts the federal government on the hook for billions upon billions of dollars. Furthermore, the Senate bill does not even contain a provision limiting the amount of civil lawsuits, as contained in the House passed bill thereby allowing carte blanche to the greedy trial lawyers. CSE opposes this legislation.
The House is basically focusing on small bills this week. Up for consideration are the following:
Getting the short end of the stick.
The American taxpayer lost out last week after a shameful display of partisan politics by the Senate Majority Leader. For the first time in many years, Congress actually had a real chance to actually eliminate a tax. Considering the rhetoric from the Left you would have thought they were debating the abolition of the whole code! Don’t we wish!! But no, they were only considering the permanent elimination of the Death Tax, one of the most onerous and unfair segments of the U.S. Tax Code. And even this proved too difficult.
To maximize his advantage, Senator Daschle brought the bill up with only a few hours notice to preclude Death Tax opponents from mobilizing. While this is his right as Majority Leader, he wouldn’t even wait for tax reform advocate Jesse Helms (R-NC), who is recovering from heart surgery, to return to the Senate. Due to budgetary rules, the bill needed 60 votes to pass and failed by a vote of 54 to 44. The silver lining may be that a majority of the Senate did indeed support this permanent repeal, including nine Democrats. Despite this defeat, the issue will not be buried. Several Democrat Senators actually switched their vote from voting to eliminate the Death Tax last year to keep it this year. We will continue to berate the “flip-flop six” and push for them to once again support Death Tax repeal. The names of these Senators and a list of how each Senator voted is on the CSE website.
Disappointing as this individual vote may be, more concerning is what it portends. The Republican House has been moving forward on some very positive tax reform measures. Over the past few weeks they have moved individual bills to make components of the Bush tax cut permanent. They also recently debated a bill to require a two-third’s majority vote for any legislation to increase taxes. And they are scheduled to take up a bill to sunset the tax code. These are concrete, positive steps for anyone who actually has to foot the bill for the federal government (ie; taxpayer). But on the Senate side, Daschle has basically closed the door on any more tax reform bills.
“With all the work we’ve got to do, I think it would be difficult to anticipate another tax debate. My sense is, we’ve been there and done that,” Daschle said.
Considering everything else they plan to debate: providing seniors a prescription drug benefit, 13 appropriations bills, a multi-billion insurance bailout for terrorism, etc.; it appears that while they don’t have time to debate bills which return money to the taxpayers, they have plenty of time to consider bills which spend our money! The inequity of this situation represents a microcosm of what is wrong with Congress. They are more than happy to take valuable time and energy figuring out ways to separate you from more of your money, but when it comes to giving a little bit back, they are out of time!
In the House of Representatives at this time there are 4,928 bills. I would guess that less than 1 percent of those would actually provide any money BACK to the taxpayer. And while many of the bills may be small I will guarantee that most of them spend some amount of your money! This demonstrates why we need to get the money out of the hands of politicians through fundamental tax reform. As long as they are spending ‘federal resources’ without consequences, they will continue to spend it like water.
As a taxpayer and a citizen of the United States, I am bit tired of always getting the short end of the stick. If you are too then support our efforts at fundamental tax reform!
