Key Vote YES on the Toomey, Lee and Paul Budgets

Dear FreedomWorks member,

As one of our million-plus FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Senators and urge them to vote YES on the separate budget plans offered by Senators Toomey, Paul, and Lee. Under Harry Reid’s leadership, the Senate has not passed a budget in over three years. Passing an annual budget for the federal government is a fundamental responsibility of Congress. Sens. Toomey, Paul, and Lee have introduced fiscally conservative budgets that contain much-needed reforms and will significantly cut the national debt.

All three plans would balance the budget within the next ten years without raising taxes. All three would repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code, reform Medicare, and block grant Medicaid to the states. All three include proposals to reduce government regulation and revive economic growth and job creation in this struggling economy. S. Con. Res. 37, introduced by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), would balance the budget by the year 2020 and save more than $5 trillion over the next ten years. S. Con. Res. 44, introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), would balance the budget by 2017 and save $7 trillion over ten years. S. Con. Res. 42, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), would balance the budget by 2017 and save more than $8 trillion over ten years. The Paul plan closely resembles the grassroots-generated “Tea Party Budget” proposed by last year’s citizen-led Tea Party Debt Commission. Like that plan, Sen. Paul’s budget would go beyond undefined caps or vague “spending reduction” goals to shift entire federal functions back to the states. It would eliminate the federal Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development. Indeed, Sen. Paul has offered the strongest budget plan in a generation, one that would dramatically cut federal spending in order to restore fiscal sanity in Washington and move us dramatically closer to the constitutionally limited government intended by the Founders.

While we have serious concerns with the health care reform proposal in the Lee budget and the Medicare provisions in the Toomey and Lee budgets — proposals that trace their roots to the Heritage Foundation plan that provided the template for RomneyCare and ObamaCare — we believe the authors do not intend to restrict patients’ choices or promote government-run health care, and that the bills’ problems can be remedied in the legislative process. Any of the three plans, considered in its entirety, would be an historic improvement over the status quo, moving the nation closer to the critically important goals of less debt and smaller government.

I urge you to call your representatives and ask them to vote YES on the budgets offered by Sens. Toomey, Lee, and Paul. We will count their vote on each of these budgets 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.]

NOTE: The Senate is expected to vote on these budget plans starting on or around tomorrow, Wednesday, May 16.

TAKE ACTION: Tell Your Senators to Vote YES on the Toomey, Lee, and Paul Budgets