Today, the Institute of Policy Innovation (IPI) awarded “A’s” in Tax Policy 101 to thirty-five members of the House.  Not coincidentally these thirty-five members all voted against the “stimulus package” that passed the House on January 29.  Yours truly was among them.  In fact, I was the only one to speak out against the package on the floor.  You can find the ten Democrats and the twenty-five Republicans that also voted against it below.

Brian Baird (D-WA)
Marion Berry (D-AR)
Allen Boyd (D-FL)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Michael Burgess (R-TX)
John Campbell (R-CA)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Barbara Cubin (R-WY)
Tom Davis (R-VA)
Nathan Deal (R-GA)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Randy Forbes (R-VA)
Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Virgil Goode (R-VA)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Tim Johnson (R-IL)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Jack Kingston (R-GA)
John Linder (R-GA)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Collin Peterson (D-MN)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Tom Price (R-GA)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Ed Royce (R-CA)
Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Adam Smith (D-WA)
Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Robert Wexler (D-FL)

Americans for Tax Reform, a non-partisan watchdog group, has put together some interesting facts about Chairman Rangel’s infamous “Mother of all Tax Reform” bills.  As you know, I have already written several times about Mr. Rangel’s proposal, but I had to share some of ATR’s findings with you:

Rangel Tax Hike Fact of the Day  #1 (Courtesy of Americans for Tax Reform)

“You don’t have to raise taxes to pay for an AMT patch or for full AMT repeal.”

Charlie Rangel sure does like tax increases.  In fact, his large grab bag of tax increases in H.R. 3970 is almost too much to keep up with.  To pay for full AMT repeal, Rangel suggests imposing a surtax of up to 4.6% on families earning as little as $150,000 per year.

Someone should have told Rangel that several Republican Congressmen have introduced measures to fix the AMT without raising taxes.

The House Republican Study Committee (RSC) has introduced H.R. 3818, the “Taxpayer Choice Act of 2007.”  This bill would repeal the AMT, and implement an optional “simplified income tax” system with a top rate of only 25% (15% for capital gains and qualified dividends).

Charlie Rangel has a choice: steal out of one pocket to put money in the other, or actually make progress.  He should patch the AMT by holding families harmless, and should work to repeal the AMT and replace it with a simplified income tax.

To access more Rangel Tax Facts, go to www.atr.org

Early in the morning on Sunday, as we were finishing up amendments on the Defense Appropriations bill, I debated an earmark challenge with the Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations, Congressman John Murtha (D-PA). The earmark allocated $2 million to Sherwin-Williams Paint Company to develop what they described as a "paint shield to protect against microbial attacks." As the sponsor of the amendment, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) did not come down to defend her earmark. The defense was left to Congressman Murtha.

Here is a link to this brief debate, now keep in mind all I wanted to know was:

1) Is this project requested by the Department of Defense? The correct answer is NO.

2) Is this a project that was competitively bid among other potential suppliers? The correct answer again is NO.

3) Will the taxpayer own the rights to any successful product developed? Again, the correct answer, according to Sherwin-Williams’ own brochure for this project is NO.

4) How do we know that this particular company is the best supplier? There are many great paint companies in America, how do we know that Sherwin-Williams is the right company to do this job? Answer never given.

5) What investigations have they done to ensure that this is the right price? Is $2 million just an arbitrary amount? Answer never given.

For those of us in Congress fighting to reform our earmark process, this video is a good example of where we need to start.

It is a rare Saturday blog but that is because we are in a rare Saturday session of Congress. I won't bore you with the circumstances that led to this weekend's legislative endeavor, I am sure you have heard or read about the mess the Democratic leadership has created over the past two days, but know that even on a weekend your pocketbooks & wallets are not safe from the tax & spenders in Congress.

One of the first items Pelosi and her team will attempt to ram through today is an Energy bill that is divided into two parts. The fiscal part of this bill is the "Renewable Energy & Energy Conservation Tax Act." Now, I am the first to admit there are several good things in this legislation and I have been an advocate of alternative energy development my whole political career including solar and nuclear energy.

However, these small concessions are overshadowed by the $15.3 billion in tax increases this bill contains on domestic energy exploration & production, creation and sale of renewable diesel, and international creation & sale of biodiesel & ethanol fuels. In addition, while the program in the bill that provides $2 billion in renewable energy bonds for the creation of renewable energy facilities is admirable, the mandate that any renewable energy facility built with these funds must submit to Davis-Bacon standards is not.

This bill will only hurt domestic energy production, increase energy costs to consumers and small businesses, and increase our dependence on foreign energy providers. This is not what should be at the core of a sound domestic energy policy, no matter how appealing the smaller pieces around the edges may be.

Last night, Republicans walked off the House Floor after Democrats changed the outcome of a vote after the final tally had been called. And this was not just any vote. The vote would have barred illegal immigrants from receiving food stamps and subsidized housing. Republicans had just enough votes to pass the motion, and we won the final vote 215-213.

That should have been the end of it. But not under the Pelosi Congress.

After the gavel had fallen, Stockton, California Freshman Democrat Jerry McNerney (CA-11) changed his vote to oppose the motion, and even though the vote was closed, they allowed the outcome to go the other way.

Last night’s walk-out didn’t happen just because of this one vote. The Democrat’s agenda is so liberal and so out of touch with the American people, that all year, they have not permitted debate or objections on legislation because they don’t want the American people to see what they’re doing. Nancy Pelosi believes that the politics of San Francisco and America are the same. They are not.

As the Majority party, they have the right to pass legislation. But they don’t have the right to suppress differing opinions and disregard the outcome of elections. That’s un-American, un-democratic, and just plain wrong.

The House is currently shut down. I will keep you posted.

Yesterday afternoon, the House Financial Services Committee of which I am a member, passed a bill on a mostly party-line vote to create a National Housing Trust Fund, or as I like to call it, the National Housing Slush Fund. This fund is supposed to help build 1.5 million new units of affordable housing; the problem is that the Democrats who designed this bill ended up creating a new bureaucracy and taxing many of the same people they are trying to help.

First, at a cost of at least $1 billion per year, this program draws money out of a slush fund created by, guess what...a new tax on every mortgage in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios. These government sponsored enterprises, which have a mandated mission to help provide home loans to low and middle income families, would be taxed to the tune of $3 billion over the next 5 years. You think those costs won’t be passed along to those low and middle income families making affordable housing more expensive? Also, the Slush Fund would use excess premiums from the Federal Housing Administration's loan guarantee program, which helps many first time homebuyers, to the tune of $350 million a year. This is one of the few programs in the federal government that actually puts money into the Treasury.

Second, the Slush Fund creates a new bureaucracy that duplicates an already existing program within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The HOME program at HUD makes grants to qualifying applicants who are in the business of constructing affordable housing. Guess what the Slush Fund does – yep, that’s right – the exact same thing. I wonder how many more units they could have built with the new administrative costs created by the Slush Fund.

Lastly, the way this program doles out money is a cause for concern. Instead of making all grants directly to entities that actually construct affordable housing, the Slush Fund can make grants to intermediaries even if they have only a small interest in affordable housing. Many of these organizations also have grassroots political activist wings and considering this money from the Slush Fund is fungible, taxpayer dollars could be used to promote political activities.

This National Housing Slush Fund is just another example how the majority party in Congress is not interested in lessening the burden on the American taxpayer, but rather appeasing constituent groups through larger government programs. If they were truly interested in creating affordable housing, we should probably cut the loan rates rather than throw more money at the problem.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) has been a hot topic in Congress over the past week and, as I write this, Democrat leadership is scurrying about to try and roundup the needed votes to pass this legislation. So what is the problem? Surely something that has the words "Children's Health Insurance" in its title should have no problem passing as Democrat Congress, right?

The problem is that the current legislation Democrat leadership is pushing would increase federal spending for the S-CHIP program by $50 BILLION over the next 5 years. And how are they going to pay for this $50 billion? Increased taxes of course, including a tax on privately held health insurance plans such as the one you probably have.

Now, the S-CHIP program was originally designed to help poverty level children, something I think we can all get behind. But who will be the beneficiary of this increased spending under the new plan? A family of 4, including adults, who make up to $81,000 per year or 400% above poverty level could qualify to be covered under this program. It looks to me more like a gradual spread of socialized medicine rather than helping the truly needy in our country. Ironically enough, under the Democrat's expanded S-CHIP program, 70,000 American families would be "poor enough" to qualify for S-CHIP while at the same time among "the rich" who have to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

As you know, I believe the earmark process must be completely reformed. The current system is neither transparent nor does it have checks and balances or accountability.

Here is a summary of my 10 point plan to reform the process. You will hear more about my plans for this in the future.

10 Point Plan for Earmark Reform

1. Members must make public and fully disclose all earmark requests when they are submitted.
   
2. Put every earmark in the text of the bill.
   
3. The bill should fully disclose all earmarks with the requesting member(s), amounts, recipients and purpose at least 1 week before any bill containing earmarks is brought to the floor.
   
4. All earmarks must be available for discussion at an open Congressional hearing.
   
5. All earmarks for programs must be previously authorized by Congress.
   
6. Earmarks must serve a federal interest and/or have a federal nexus.
   
7. No earmarks outside of a member's own state.
   
8. No earmarks to private entities without a competitive bidding process.
   
9. No earmark can be added or increased in a conference committee to an amount greater than the amount passed in either the House or the Senate version of the bill.
   
10. The dollar amount of any earmarks reduced by amendment or committee should go towards debt/deficit reduction and not be reallocated into other spending.

On Thursday night, I offered an amendment to strike a $2 million earmark offered by Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) to establish a center for public policy at the City College of New York.

My problem with the earmark? The center is named after Rangel.

That’s right, the distinguished Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants $2 million of your money to establish the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. The funding this earmark would go to would include, among other things, a library to house the Congressman’s future papers, a “well-furnished office” for him, and an endowment.

As Brit Hume put it, “he wants us to pay for a building named in his honor.”

The earmark violates the spirit, if not actual House Rules (Rule XXI, Clause 6) which says, “It shall not be in order to consider a bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report that provides for the designation or re-designation of a public work in honor of an individual then serving as a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator.”

I asked the Chairman if it would be proper for me to request an earmark for the “John Campbell School of Fiscal Responsibility.” He said no “because i don't think you have been around enough to inspire a building like this in a school.”

That’s OK, I don’t really want one. I just don't believe that we should use the power and authority we have while in office to use taxpayer funds to create monuments to ourselves.

Last year, we had the “bridge to nowhere,” I guess this year it’s the “monument to me.”

Click below to see my exchange with Chairman Rangel:

Watch video.

If you thought you’d heard it all, the Republican Study Committee yesterday revealed that Rep. Shelley Berkly (D-NV) requested a $200,000 earmark for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, NV. The academy, whose website is inactive, was established in 2001 as a tuition free charter school for local "at-risk" children. While I’m sure this is a well-intentioned program, is it really the place of the federal government to subsidize a celebrity’s pet project? The last time I checked, Agassi was not struggling to make ends meet (in 2004, Forbes Magazine named him #27 on its list of richest people under 40, worth $162 million.) If Agassi wants to help "at risk" youth, more power to him, but should he be passing the bill to taxpayers? This earmark, like the rest of the roughly 1338 earmarks in the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, needs to be stripped, and it’s up to my colleagues in Congress to do it. They must decide whether to continue their out-of-control spending or to restore fiscal sanity to our government. The ball’s in their court.

The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has posted a listing on their website listing the members of Congress who have supported every 2007 Flake (R-AZ) amendment to strike wasteful earmarks from appropriations bills. There are 42 members of Congress listed, including myself, as well as 1 Democrat, Jim Cooper of Tennessee. Perhaps Rep. Cooper can persuade some of his other "fiscally responsible" Blue Dog Democrats to join him in opposing the wasting of taxpayer funds.

The link to the NTU posting showing all 42 members is:

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=124

In dealing with the 12 appropriations bills that make up the discretionary portion of the federal budget, we are discussing billions of dollars. Amendments have been offered and voted on for 4 of the appropriations bills considered over the past month to reduce the growth of spending in each of these bills by just 1% and all have been defeated.

Why is this significant to the American taxpayer? If we could reduce the growth of spending in the federal budget by a mere 1%, we could save the taxpayer $30 billion dollars next year and that is a significant number.

Well, perhaps 1% was a little too much to ask for, so some of my taxpayer money-saving colleagues thought that perhaps we should try and reduce the growth of spending in each of these appropriations bills to only of a percent and offered amendments to the past 4 appropriations bills to do just that. I would take $15 billion in savings to the taxpayer anytime. But with nearly all of the Democratic caucus opposing these amendments to save the taxpayers money, they all have gone down in defeat.

Maybe of a percent would be more appealing?

Below is an op/ed I penned for the Washington Times about fiscal responsibility.  Later today, I will join Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, Republican Leader John Boehner, and Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis in delivering a letter to President Bush, signed by 147 Republicans, pledging to uphold his veto of bloated appropriations bills.

Inking the budget
Washington Times

Last week, I and other members of the Republican Study Committee in Congress, announced that we had obtained 147 signatures on a letter to President Bushpledging that we will vote to uphold his veto of any federal spending (appropriations) bill that exceeds his budget request. That is one more than necessary toblock any attempt to override such a veto. We will deliver the letter to the president today.

Big deal? You bet.

Some Democrats say that deficits rise because your taxes are too low. Talk about backward logic. Our deficits have been caused by the fact that Washington has increased spending at an unsustainable rate, not because you are taxed too little. And yet, the new Democrat majority in Congress wants to accelerate this spending growth and is promising to hand you what will become the largest tax increase in American history. Our nation is on a collision course with fiscal disaster and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosihas got her foot on the accelerator and seems to have lost the brake pedal. It is going to take political courage to address this reality, but conservatives in the House are ready.

Let me share a few facts about our fiscal condition:

Since the tax cuts Republicans passed in 2003, revenue to the federal government has increased by nearly 50 percent, completely undercutting the argument that America's deficits have been caused by tax cuts. The truth is that the tax relief lowered rates but raised revenues by stimulating the economy.

During the same period, spending has increased at a lower rate than revenue, leading to a reduction in the deficit. Though that is good, we could have eliminated the deficit if we had merely been able to hold spending growth to 5 percent per year. At this level, the federal government would still have grown faster than the rest of the economy.

Today, spending on entitlements like social security, Medicare and Medicaid and interest on the debt, eats up 60 percent of the entire federal budget. By 2017 that will increase to 70 percent, and by the time a 30-year-old today is ready to retire, there will be no money to federally fund anything but these programs — including a military. Even doubling tax rates would be unable to cover the massive shortfall. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said earlier this year that without "early and meaningful action" to address entitlements, "the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened with future generations bearing much of the cost." We shouldn't forget his words.

Recently, Democrats passed a five-year budget — without a single Republican vote in the House — that would raise spending and increase taxes by as much as $3,000 per taxpayer per year in 2011. Yet, despite the clear warning signs, they neglected to include any entitlement reforms considered so important by the Fed Chairman and others.

Just this year, Democrats have added over $100 billion in entirely new non-defense spending.

The total annual federal budget is now more than $3 trillion.

Does that scare you? It should, it scares me.

Admittedly, we can't fix it all in one year. But we can stop making it worse. As they old saying goes, when you are stuck in a hole, stop digging. Instead, Speaker Pelosi's troops are digging deeper. Democrats are rapidly passing spending bills to increase spending this year by nearly 10 percent — more than triple the rate of inflation. Although this is exactly the type of spending that we can easily control, the so-called "moderate blue dog" Democrats have been in lock-step with the liberals' spending splurge. Some of these representatives won election last year on promises of fiscal responsibility, yet came to Washington and decided to become big spenders. In other words, there aren't enough votes to defeat these bills in the House.

But there is hope. Thanks to the courage of 147 members of Congress to stand up and protect your tax dollar, we have the support to sustain a presidential veto of any bloated Democrat spending bill. Thankfully, the president has indicated that he will do just that.

Be prepared, because you are going to hear the tax-and-spenders play the politics of fear. They will scream that the sky is falling and they will shout and life as we know it will end without "urgent spending." It is important to understand that the president has already proposed spending nearly 7 percent more than last year. This isn't exactly draconian in the "sky is falling" sort of a way. Ensuring that spending is increased by this amount will save you $21 billion this year and well over $100 billion by 2012 in comparison to what the Democrats proposed. That's $21 billion less deficit, less borrowing and less taxes being taken directly out of your pocket.

It's not all we need to do by any means. But it's a start. And given the fact that Congress is now controlled by people who never saw a dollar that you earned that they couldn't spend, it will be an important victory and a major step toward government being accountable to the people that fund it. Namely, you.

I am pleased to join the Republican Study Committee in announcing that we’ve gathered enough signatures on our letter pledging to sustain the President’s veto of appropriations bills that exceed his request for FY08. We have a total of 147 signers, and we needed 146 to sustain the veto. Today’s news is a major victory for House conservatives, and even a bigger victory for American taxpayers who will save $23 billion.

The 147 Signers are: Alexander, Akin, Bachmann, Bachus, Spencer, Baker, Barrett, Bartlett, Biggert, Bilbray, Bishop, Blackburn, Blunt, Boehner, Bono, Bonner, Boozman, Boustany, Brady, Brown, Buchanan, Burton, Buyer, Calvert, Camp, Campbell, Cannon, Cantor, Carter, Chabot, Coble, Conaway, Cole, Crenshaw, Culberson, Cubin, Davis, (Jo Ann), Davis, (David) Davis (Geoff) Deal, Diaz-Balart (Lincoln) Diaz-Balart (Mario), Doolittle, Drake, Thelma, Dreier, Duncan, English, Fallin, Feeney, Flake, Forbes, Foxx, Franks, Gallegly, Garrett, Gilchest, Gillmor, Gingrey, Gohmert, Goode, Granger, Hall, Hastert, Heller, Hensarling, Herger, Hoekstra, Hunter, Inglis, Issa, Jindal, Johnson, Jordan, Keller, King (Peter), King (Steve), Kingston, Kline, Kuhl, Lahood, Lamborn, Latham, LaTourette, Lewis (Ron), Lewis (Jerry) Linder, Lucas, Lungren, Mack, Manzullo, Marchant, McCarthy, McCaul, McCrery, McCotter, McHenry, McKeon, McMorris-Rodgers, Mica, Miller (Gary), Miller (Jeff) Musgrave, Myrick, Neugebauer, Randy, Nunes, Paul, Pearce, Pence, Pickering, Pitts, Poe, Porter, Price, Putnam, Radanovich, Reynolds, Rohrabacher, Rogers (Harold), Rogers, Mike (MI), Rogers, Mike (AL), Roskam, Royce, Ryan, Sali, Schmidt, Sensenbrenner, Sessions, Shadegg, Shays, Shimkus, Shuster, Smith (Adrian), Smith (Lamar), Souder (Mark) Stearns, Sullivan, Tancredo, Terry, Tiahrt, Tiberi, Walberg, Walden, Wamp, Weldon, Westmoreland, Whitfield, Wicker, Wilson