news

Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) recently delivered the following statement on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding H.R. 1, the $789 Billion Democrat spending bill:

"Mr. Chairman, We have before us the largest spending bill in the history of the Congress. The price tag on this bill is $800 billion – over $1.1 trillion when you add in the interest needed to fund it. Sadly, this 1200-page bill was completed just a few hours ago in the darkness of night. No one knows what is in the bill. No one has read it. This bill is being rushed to the House floor and to the President before Members of Congress or the American people have an opportunity to even know what is in it.

"Just how much is this bill going to cost? How much is a trillion dollars? One way to look at it is that it amounts to deficit spending of over $7,000 for every family in America. Looked at another way, this is enough money to pay for four years of college tuition to a private college for every senior graduating from high school this year and next and still have nearly $150 billion left over.

"The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected a few weeks ago that the federal government will have a $1.2 trillion deficit this year. This amounts to 8.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is far higher than the previous record of 5.9 percent set in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression. In 2009, one out of every three dollars that the federal government will spend will be borrowed and our grandchildren will be stuck with the bill.

"Now, the bill before us – negotiated by Speaker Pelosi, Senate Democrat Leader Reid and President Obama – will add another $1.1 trillion to this debt. No country has ever borrowed and spent its way into prosperity, which is what this bill proposes to do. Adding further to this deficit as this bill does is unthinkable.

"The non-partisan CBO released an analysis earlier this week finding that the bill may provide a small increase in the nation’s economy in the first few years, but then this bill will drag the economy down for the better part of the decade.

"Less than 20 percent of the cost of this bill is associated with tax relief. There is virtually nothing in this bill to stimulate small businesses – the driving force in creating jobs in America. Furthermore, the signature item of the bill – working American tax cut – was the first tax cut put on the chopping block. The final bill will allow the average worker to keep an additional 20 cents an hour ($1.60 per day).

"This bill also classifies as a tax cut billions of dollars in payments to those who do not pay federal income taxes. I thought a tax cut was a reduction in someone’s taxes not simply a check from the government.

"With regard to infrastructure spending, which is what we were all promised would be the focus at the outset of this process, only 17 percent of the funding in the bill is for infrastructure. Less than one of every five dollars will go to job-creating stimulus programs.

"Rather than focus on job-creating stimulus and tax relief for small businesses that create new jobs, the final bill written by liberals in the Congress focuses on permanently expanding unaffordable entitlement programs and creating new federal programs under the guise of 'stimulating the economy.' The bill creates 33 new federal programs at a cost of $90 billion. It also expands 73 existing federal programs at a cost of $92 billion. There will be tremendous pressures in future years to continue funding these $182 billion in new programs at these new higher levels. The bill also spends $123 billion for one-time infusion of spending for 98 existing programs.

"This bill includes billions of dollars for the Public Housing Capital Fund. Yet, this fund already has an unspent balance of $7 billion. Also included is $1 billion for Community Development Block Grant program, yet this program currently has $23 billion in unspent funds. Why is the Congress adding spending to these cash rich accounts? If they were serious about stimulating the economy, Congress should simply make them spend the money they already have. Also, troubling is the fact that this bill opens up the federal Treasury coffers to groups like ACORN – a group charged with voter fraud.

"Do the provisions relating to the creation of Federal Coordinating Council in health care research move us in the direction of a national health board that would encourage federal policies that determine what medical services Americans can and cannot have? What does that have to do with stimulating the economy? How many tens of billions of dollars more will the welfare law changes end up costing the taxpayers down the road? What will be the long-term unforeseen costs associated with this bill due to the unprecedented deficit spending. Over the coming weeks as the American people have more time to read this bill we will learn more about the provisions and intentions of this bill? Sadly, the bill has been rushed to the floor without giving the Congress or the American people a chance to know what is in it.

"Let me also say that I appreciate all of the talk about the need to work together in a bipartisan fashion. While I was pleased that several Republican amendments were adopted when portions of this bill were considered in several Congressional Committees last month, I was deeply disappointed that most of these amendments disappeared from the bill between the time it was passed in committee and when it came to the House floor for a vote. Bipartisanship is supposed to be a two-way street, not simply a demand to show bipartisanship by accepting the Speaker's bill.

"The only hand of bipartisanship that has been extended to Republicans in the House has been two opportunities to vote for a bill that we were given no hand in writing. Is that the type of bipartisanship that the American people want and expect? I thought bipartisanship meant working together, having an open deliberative legislative process and combining ideas. That simply was not permitted by the liberal majority.

"If we really want to stimulate the economy, we should focus on what actually creates jobs – small businesses. Small businesses create 70 percent of the new jobs in America. Unfortunately, this bill does virtually nothing to help small businesses.

"I have voted for and will continue to advocate for an alternative that would produce many more jobs for half the cost. The bill that I voted for lowers the 10 percent tax rate to 5 percent, and the 15 percent tax rate to 10 percent. This would give all taxpaying Americans a tax cut. It leaves money in their pockets that they can use to meet their own family expenses. We provide small business tax relief, including a provision allowing small businesses to write off up to $250,000 in capital expenditures. We extend unemployment benefits through 2009 and we exempt these payments from income taxes. We also include other job-creating provisions and we do so without raising anyone’s taxes. I have also cosponsored legislation that would reduce the 28 percent tax rate to 23 percent. This will cut taxes for individual and job-creating small businesses.

"Lower taxes, not higher borrowing, spending, and debt, will put our economy back on track. I urge my colleagues to vote for lower taxes and against higher spending and debt."