Key Vote NO on the Water Resources Development Act, S. 601

Dear FreedomWorks member,

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to vote NO on the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), S. 601. This bloated infrastructure spending bill functions more like a stimulus bill for infrastructure projects that would be better left to states and localities.  

Probably the most egregious example of the unnecessary federal spending in this bill is the new guarantees given to harbor maintenance programs.  Increasing the federal match for spending on deeper-water dredging projects will cost the federal government billions, when these projects have traditionally been at least 50 percent handled by the ports themselves or the states. Even the White House has expressed concerns about these new spending obligations.

Through the years, WRDA has also served as a hiding place for hundreds of earmarks, and President Bush actually vetoed the 2007 version of this bill for that reason.  Nowadays the Senate operates under a theoretical earmark ban, but this WRDA bill essentially allows earmarks through the Army Corps of Engineers. Instead of including a specific list of local projects to be funded (ordinary earmarks), the bill authorizes the Corps to take on any project referred to the Chief of Engineers by the time the bill takes effect.

I urge you to call your U.S. Senators and ask them to vote NO on the Water Resources Development Act, S. 601.  We may score this bill’s passage as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Congressional Scorecard for 2013. The scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe,
President and CEO, FreedomWorks