Key Vote NO on the Highway Spending and Student Loans Bill
Dear FreedomWorks member,
As one of our million-plus FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and urge him or her to vote NO on H.R. 4348, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). MAP-21 makes few reforms to the federal government’s rampant spending on transportation, and has been revised to also contain a market-distorting manipulation of student loan interest rates.
The highway spending portion of this bill fails to make any significant cuts in spending to a bill that spends far more than the revenue source which is supposed to feed it – the federal gas tax. Many proposals have been made that would improve this bill, including letting states take control over their own transportation spending. Instead, the bill spends $120 billion through 2014, well more than the Highway Trust Fund can handle, and $15 billion per year more than the Republicans had proposed to spend last year.
Furthermore, the Republican leadership promised when it took over in 2011 that the legislative process would be more transparent, and that all major legislation would be posted a full 72 hours in advance of the vote so that Congress and the American people had a chance to evaluate the merits of the bill. Racing to a vote on a bill that spends $120 billion of the taxpayers’ money not only violates that promise, it is also simply irresponsible.
In addition, the House and Senate conference on this bill tacked on another piece of legislation to keep student loan interest rates artificially low. FreedomWorks has separately opposed this proposal because it distorts the market in student loans and encourages students to accumulate more debt that they cannot afford.
I urge you to call your representatives and ask them to vote NO on H.R. 4348, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. We will count their vote as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2012. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the Jefferson Award, which recognizes members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.
Sincerely,
Matt Kibbe
President and CEO
FreedomWorks
[Click here for a PDF version of this key vote notice.]
