Thursday, April 19, 2007
Posted by: John Campbell at 5:01 PM

Today, the House is going to vote on a bill making Washington, D.C.'s "delegate" into a full fledged voting member of the House. In order to continue the balance between Republicans and Democrats, this bill gives another seat to the State of Utah. Therefore, it would increase the size of the House by two to 437 members. Because the bill requires new funding for the two new members and corresponding staff, under the Pay-Go rules passed by the Democrat's last January, they have to find a way to pay for this increase.

Now, all the Democrats needed to do was find a relatively modest $2.5 million in wasteful spending in the budget and direct it towards these new expenses. But, what did they decide to do instead? Add accounting gimmicks and complexity to the tax code.

What they have done is offered into statute a policy that permits the IRS to take more taxes from taxpayers than they are supposed to, and then give it back at the end of the year. This way they are technically not enacting a tax increase; but, they are depriving those taxpayers of the bank interest or freedom they would have had to use that money. The essentially are "stealing" that money for twelve months and then saying "Thanks, I used it for what I wanted...you can have it back now." With this extra or "stolen" revenue the federal government is then able to collect enough interest to pay for this new expense.

Wow. This is a textbook example of the great lengths the Dem's are willing go to not even entertain the notion of spending accountability. In fact, the $2.5 million needed under the bill represents just .00014 percent of the budget. Come on...even the most ardent liberal would recognize that we could find that money in our $2.2 trillion budget. I guess the Democrat's would just rather steal from the taxpayer.

If they prefer tax gimmickry above a budget offset of .00014 percent, I don't even want to imagine what they will do with the explosion of entitlement programs, which are on course to consume 100 percent of the federal budget by 2040.



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Snooper writes: Thursday, April, 19, 2007 5:36 PM
This is news?
Or is this one of those "make ya wonder" type of posts?

Naturally, the tax and spend pukes would "Rather" spend MY money. Who spends theirs?
Steve writes: Thursday, April, 19, 2007 6:09 PM
Pass the Iodine
I've been writing lately on my site (click on my name above) about taxation in relation to one supposedly "new" Democrat, Jason Altmire, my own rep. from Pennsylvania. He turns out to be quite "old Dem" in his willingness to raise taxes. The unfunded liability for the Baby Boom generation is estimated at about $45-$50 trillion. We can handle that . . . if we raise taxes by about 70% starting right now. Oops. Or we could replace Medicare and Medicaid with a lifetime supply of band-aids and iodine.
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About John Campbell

John Campbell is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and has taken a leadership role in addressing the country's top economic issues. Campbell serves as a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and House Committee on the Budget. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Taxation from USC.

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