February 4th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today in a letter joined with 18 free market and limited government leaders in strongly urging members of the Senate to defeat the spending bill that “will total some $1.2 trillion when interest is calculated over the next decade, and represents an unsustainable growth of government.”
The joint letter is critical of provisions in the legislation already passed by the House of Representatives, and leaders believe it will not boost the economy.
“The irresponsible expansion of the budget to bail out state governments from their own budget deficits, expand Medicaid, boost education spending, food stamps and unemployment benefits, build federal buildings, provide more for public housing, construct climate change supercomputers, erect trade barriers overseas, create refundable tax credits, and make special interest payouts will not stimulate sustainable economic growth,” according to the letter.
The letter calls for permanent tax relief for businesses and individuals. The leaders believe that “individuals and businesses only change their spending and investment habits significantly when they expect policy changes to be permanent.”
Specifically, the letter advocates “[p]reventing tax increases on individual income, capital gains and dividends, changing the tax code to allow full-cost, first-year expensing for business equipment rather than the arbitrary IRS depreciation schedule, and lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate, among the highest in the world, would yield much more bang for the buck in ensuring a rapid economic recovery than the current package of massive spending with a sliver of targeted tax cuts.
The letter portends that the U.S. “is running the serious risk that it will default on its financial obligations, as the nation’s creditors during the current economic downturn may be unable to continue sustaining the uncontrolled growth of spending, leaving the nation in financial ruin.”
The current national debt is $10.7 trillion. That includes $4.3 trillion owed for Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas. 40 percent of the debt held privately comes due this year.
“The only way for the government to pay [the debt coming due] is to borrow yet more money,” the letter reads.
The organizations represented disagree with the idea that additional spending is not necessary to stimulate economic growth.
As an alternative the free market and limited government organizations call upon the Senate to deliver “a real plan for change, to finally set the nation’s fiscal house in order, to provide permanent tax relief to businesses and individuals, to free the American people from the boom-to-bust economic cycle, and to at last retire the national debt.”
Wilson believes that the legislation can be defeated in the Senate.
“The tide is clearly turning against the Obama trillion dollar debt stimulus plan,” said Wilson in a statement.
“It is now up to Senators who do not wish to engage in generational theft to stand up and make their voices heard, and vote ‘no’ on the ‘stimulus,’” Wilson concluded.
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Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.