OP-ED: This Congress has betrayed the American people
Jennifer Horn
16th February 2009
The ill-named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – about to pass both houses of Congress in it’s revised form – is a complete and total rejection of the democratic ideals of our founding fathers and a betrayal of the President’s promise to bring genuine tax relief to the majority of American taxpayers and work across the aisle on the most important issues of the day.
At 789 billion dollars, plus interest on repayment, it is a spending package that will ultimately cost the people of America well in excess of a trillion dollars. 789 billion dollars is nine zeros and approximately 17.5% of our GDP!
According to one evaluation of the bill, if the temporary programs become permanent programs – an outcome that we all know is possible – the total value of this spending package will exceed three trillion dollars.
At every level of government we have been betrayed by our elected representatives. Representative Paul Hodes rejected the Wall St bailout because, in his words, it did not protect the taxpayers “enough.” Immediately following the election he voted for the auto industry bailout and more recently for the so-called stimulus package.
Paul Hodes is not protecting the New Hampshire taxpayer.
In the first six weeks of 2009 we have seen the largest increase in spending since World War II. There is still three years and ten and half months left of this administration – every taxpayer in the country has reason to be afraid.
Over the past three weeks we have heard dozens of excuses why this Congress isn’t to blame for the economic mess we are in and absolutely no real solutions.
True leadership isn’t pointing fingers and playing the name game – it’s crafting real solutions to the problems we face and presenting them articulately to the American people. The first thing we need to understand is that government is the problem, not the solution and this (anti) economic stimulus package is the perfect example.
The bill is so large and cumbersome that it is virtually impossible to nail precise numbers – even the legislators voting on it don’t appear to have a full understanding of its contents. At best, over two thirds of the bill consists of new and additional spending, pure and simple: special interest projects, gimmes, and pork beyond your wildest imagination.
It is not possible to spend your way out of an economic recession. It defies logic to suggest otherwise. Over the past fifty years the only device that has consistently and successfully brought true economic stimulus to our economy has been broad based tax cuts, beginning with President Kennedy’s cuts in the early 60’s.
But tax cuts only bring long-term relief when they are accompanied by broad-based cuts in spending. This bill does exactly the opposite. It’s spending is designed for only one purpose – to create millions of new government-dependent individuals who in turn become party-in-power voters who are afraid of losing their government aid.
It is one more giant step toward socialism, slipped past the American people dressed up in pretty prose like “recovery and reinvestment.”
This bill is so bad that it does not even address what is widely believed to be the straw that broke the economic camel’s back: the mortgage crisis. First there was a $15,000. credit for new home buyers to stimulate the housing market – then there wasn’t. Then there were going to be Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reforms – then there wasn’t.
At last reading, there was new language inserted in the bill instructing Fannie and Freddie to rewrite bad loans given to individuals who could not afford them in the first place. Exactly what caused the mortgage crisis to begin with.
This bill offers no real solutions to the economic problems we face today and, in fact, increases government spending to such a degree that we are guaranteeing that our grandchildren will carry the burden.
It is impossible to list every dollar spent in this bill, impossible to enumerate every bad program created. But what remains without any doubt at all is that it is the taxpayers of New Hampshire and all of the United States who are going to be left holding the bag when all is said and done.
It is no longer about one party against the other. It is about which party is going to fight for us. Every Democrat and Republican who either voted for this package or failed to stand and fight vehemently against it, has betrayed the people of our great nation. And that includes Rep. Paul Hodes, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s betrayal of the people of the New Hampshire.