Last week, I spoke on the House Floor about why I had to vote against the so-called Payroll Tax Holiday bill (H.R. 3630), and for America’s solvency. In voting no, I joined with 90 other Republican budget hawks, and the entirety of the Alabama Republican delegation, who share my concern for the financial stability of our nation and the risk of a federal government insolvency and bankruptcy.
Rep. Brooks Addresses the U.S. House on February 17, 2012.
I voted against H.R. 3630 for the following reasons:
First, H.R. 3630 disproportionately targets and burdens America’s federal workers, takes their hard-earned money, and diverts it to those who don’t work for it. That’s not fair. That’s not good policy.
Second, America’s seniors have asked me to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits because they paid for and earned them during their working lifetimes.
Americans support Social Security because everyone contributes their fair share to their own Social Security retirement benefits. Social Security is not welfare. Social security is an earned entitlement. H.R. 3630 undermines Social Security’s foundation by threatening 10% funding cuts totaling $120 billion per year, which will, if continued beyond fiscal year 2012, breach America’s commitment to our elderly and force significant Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts.
Third, and most importantly, the name “Middle Class Tax Relief” is deceptive and false. There is no tax cut. It is a loan. In the private sector, Washington’s conduct would constitute flagrant violations of truth in advertising, truth in lending, and deceptive practices statutes. But, as we all know, Washington is all too often immune from such constraints.
H.R. 3630 is false advertising and deceptive because it is not a tax cut. H.R. 3630 is a loan that risks America’s solvency and which the American people must pay back with interest.
In this regard, the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation evaluation reveal two very troubling aspects of H.R. 3630.
First, H.R. 3630 increases the deficit by $101.1 billion during the remainder of fiscal year 2012. Second, H.R. 3630 directs the Office of Management and Budget to exclude the budgetary effects of H.R. 3630 from its scorecard of balances under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
The Congressional Budget Office report confirms that every penny of this so-called “tax cut” must be paid back, with interest. Now where I come from, if you are given money that you have to pay back with interest, that is called a loan. And that is exactly what the American people will have to do.
My parents taught me about debt. Debt never rests. Debt works against you 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 52 weeks a year. Too much debt enslaves you. Your creditors and your debt become your masters. You become their servant. This is what debt does to every American family and is doing slowly but surely to America.
According to the CBO report, H.R. 3630 racks up debt at the rate of over $12 billion per month in FY 2012. H.R. 3630 should be printed on sheets of gold because it costs American taxpayers roughly $500 million per page in additional debt burden and payments!
Why would Washington do this to America? What is Washington’s motive for this deception? The answer is simple: poll data, pandering to voters, and the 2012 elections.
Why does Washington use the phrase “Payroll Tax” rather than what so-called Payroll Taxes are: Social Security and Medicare funding taxes? Because polls show many voters don’t know the connection between Payroll Taxes and Social Security benefits! Yet 100 percent of the so-called tax cuts in H.R. 3630 are cuts to Social Security and Medicare funding taxes.
In other words, Washington politicians use the phrase “Payroll Tax” because they know using the more accurate phrase “Social Security Tax” would cause America’s voters to rise up to protect our Social Security and Medicare system!
Worse yet, H.R. 3630 deceives America’s working families into believing they are reaping a windfall when, in fact, they are being saddled with a burden that will hamstring our children, grandchildren, and America’s future with another layer of heavy, taxing, and onerous debt.
What Washington won’t tell the American people is that H.R. 3630 is another debt busting bill that further empowers China and other American creditors to become our masters while enslaving America and the American people with generations of oppressive debt burdens and payments.
America yearns for leadership that involves mature adult conversations with American voters about the financial condition we are in, and what H.R. 3630 is really about. There are simply too many in Washington who pander to voters in an election year for political gain. H.R. 3630 represents the worst of Washington.
I cannot speak for other Congressmen, but, myself and other budget hawks are standing strong for America’s future. We voted to kill H.R. 3630, stop the deception, stop the pandering, and save America from yet another mountain of oppressive debt.
Sincerely,
Member of Congress
Alabama’s Fifth District
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