Rob Wittman replied to my email with some very serious republican talking points, and a small description of his co-sponsored counterproposal to the stimulus, HR-407.
Of HR 407 he writes:
On Thu, 26 Feb 2009, Congressman Robert J. Wittman wrote:
...
To this end, I have cosponsored H.R. 470, the Economic Recovery
and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act. This legislation would reduce individual
income tax rates across the board by 5 percent, repeal the AMT, increase
the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000, permanently repeal the Minimum
Required Distribution (MRD) for Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA),
reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent, reduce the alternative
capital gains rate for corporations to 15 percent, and extend the carryback
period for net operating losses to seven years. ...
I replied:
Do you realize how much this would cost? By some estimates, it would cost up to 4.4T$. On the income tax reduction, it might be more accurate to say it lowers rates by between 0.5 and 1.75 percentage points, slanted as one might expect.
And one thing you didn't mention above was that it makes the Bush tax cuts
permanent, something McCain's economic advisor said would have a stimulus effect of 0.31 dollars per dollar, so the annual 400B$ spent on making the tax cuts permanent would buy us about 124B$ worth of stimulus. And you are sponsoring this plan.
I'd much rather you take some of the hundreds of billions out of the bank bailout and use it to bail out the tens of billions worth of state budget shortfall. Virgina's 3.7B$ is tiny compared to just Bank of America's bailouts of 20B$ + $250B$ in guarantees of worthless assets. Bailout the bankrupt states before you bailout the mis-managed banks. Or if you are serious about spending the 400B$ per year on section 101 of HR 407, spend it on the state budgets and trade that 108B$ worth of stimulus for 552B$ worth of stimulus. The 6.2% drop in GDP needs something like 8T$ worth of stimulus to pull us out of the 2007 recession that Bush feared "might be greater than the great depression", and with that hanging over our heads, wasting money on tax cuts that produce 1/5th of the stimulus possible with other spending is madness.
I'm sorry I might be a little sloppy with my facts, but if he's just going to send me some form letter with sloppy assertions, I wasn't going to work too hard with my fact-checking and linking.
His full letter was:
Dear [Anonymous Coward]:
Thank you for contacting my office to express your support for H.R. 1,
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. I thank you for
taking the time to share your thoughts with me on this important issue.
I value your views on the important issues facing our Commonwealth and
the Nation.
As you may know, the House of Representatives considered H.R.
1 for a second time on February 13, 2009. This bill passed the House by
a vote of 246-183 and included $789.5 billion in new spending and tax
provisions.
You may be interested to know that H.R 1 contains $120
billion for infrastructure and science including $27.5 billion for
highway construction, $17.7 billion for rail and public transportation,
and $14.2 billion for health investments of which $10 billion is
dedicated to the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research
and facilities improvements. This bill also contains $105.9 billion for
education including $53.6 billion for a state fiscal stabilization fund,
$25.2 billion for disadvantaged students and special-education programs,
and $8.8 billion dedicated to modernization and repair projects. This
bill also contains $4 billion for local law enforcement, $7.2 billion to
improve broadband access, and $6 billion for local clean-water
infrastructure projects.
Additionally, H.R. 1 increases and extends unemployment
benefits by increasing benefits by $25 per week and continuing an
unemployment extension program through December that was set to expire at
the end of March. $24.7 billion was included to subsidize 65 percent of
COBRA health insurance premiums for nine months for workers who have lost
their jobs. The bill also provides $19.9 billion for food stamps and a
one-time payment of $250 to Social Security and Supplemental Security
Income beneficiaries. Moreover, this bill contains an $8,000 tax credit
for first-time homebuyers and a new federal tax deduction for state and
local sales taxes on new car purchases. H.R. 1 also provides an
offsetting payroll tax credit of $400 per person and $1,000 per married
couple. The legislation includes a one year repeal of the Alternative
Minimum Tax (AMT) at a cost of $70 billion.
In the current economic environment, I believe Congress needs
to act decisively, but responsibly. I also believe these efforts should
be timely, targeted and temporary. Less than 15% of the spending for
infrastructure and other projects designed to create jobs will occur in
- Unfortunately, the majority of the spending in this legislation
simply creates or expands existing federal government programs. These
funding increases and program expansions will create enormous pressure to
continuing funding at the same levels in the future, which is expected to
cost an additional $1.7 trillion over ten years.
Many of the federal departments and agencies will see record increases in
the funds they administer but no additional oversight, which is a recipe
for waste, fraud and abuse. For example, the stimulus contains almost
$40 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE), a department with a
current annual budget of only $25 billion. The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) has previously cited DOE's current efforts to fund projects
as "inadequate" and at "high risk" for waste, fraud and abuse.
Additionally, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the
federal deficit will increase to $1.2 trillion or 8.3 percent of the
nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009. H.R. 1 also increases the
national debt limit to $12.104 trillion. This is a long-term cost that I
do not wish to transfer to our children and grandchildren.
Ultimately, I felt that H.R. 1 did not provide adequate
solutions supported by sound economic policy that were both timely and
targeted. I believe we should focus on broad, growth-oriented incentives
that encourage economic activity and job creation across all industries
in the near term, such as tax cuts and targeted spending for
transportation and other infrastructure projects. The difficult and
challenging economic environment demands timely and effective solutions
that provide relief to hardworking Americans and small businesses that
will not burden our children and grandchildren with large deficits.
To this end, I have cosponsored H.R. 470, the Economic
Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act. This legislation would reduce
individual income tax rates across the board by 5 percent, repeal the
AMT, increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000, permanently
repeal the Minimum Required Distribution (MRD) for Individual Retirement
Accounts (IRA), reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent,
reduce the alternative capital gains rate for corporations to 15 percent,
and extend the carryback period for net operating losses to seven years.
I am sorry we disagree on this issue, but I appreciate you
contacting me and hope you will continue to do so in the future. Again,
I want to reiterate that I am deeply concerned about our economy and
believe that something must be done, but it must be the right thing in
order to get our economy going again. I will continue to work with my
colleagues in Congress to promote positive, equitable solutions to our
nation's economic challenges.