Today, Americans for Tax Reform and its Center for Fiscal Accountability sent the following alert to the United States Senate, urging Senators to vote no on the Cloture motion to proceed to debate on Leader Reid's flawed debt limit proposal.
Americans for Tax Reform and its Center for Fiscal Accountability urge all Members of the United States Senate to vote NO on cloture for S. 672, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s deeply flawed debt limit legislation. This bill is nothing more than a fig leaf for true fiscal restraint, and will do little to solve the government’s overspending problem and impending debt crisis.
The bill completely distracts from the real debt problem – government overspending – by slanting the deck in favor of tax increases. It establishes a joint committee that is specifically directed to consider “tax reform” while considering other bipartisan solutions available, tactility encouraging the committee to adopt Gang of Six-style bipartisan tax hike deals. The committee is directed to focus on reducing the deficit to 3 percent of GDP, rather than devise targeted spending cuts and lasting fiscal reform.
The bill eliminates basic budgeting responsibilities by “deeming” spending and revenues levels for the next two years, locking in current law and increasing the hurdles to preventing tax increases. After failing to produce a budget for over 800 days, this would allow the Senate to continue this negligence for another two years – an astounding dereliction of duty in the face of a national debt crisis.
“Deeming” a budget resolution also increases the implausibility of this bill becoming law as it assumes a massive violation of the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 and makes it extremely difficult to prevent such a tax hike form occurring. What’s more, the House of Representatives will absolutely reject a bill that assumes major tax increases; a cloture vote signals Senators are more interested in the politics of running down the clock than arriving at a serious solution to end the debt limit negotiations.
Importantly, Senator Reid’s bill fails to provide any oversight over the President’s borrowing authority. The bill would require supermajorities in both chambers to reject the President’s request for an increase in the debt ceiling, with no preconditions. Lawmaker serious about getting the country’s fiscal house in order should support the real debt limit solution passed by the House yesterday and reject the cloture vote on S. 672.
Taxpayers deserve better.
Click here for the full alert.