Federal Excess Spending: Heritage Action webinar discusses need to shut down Ex-Im Bank funding, and also why Highway Safety Fund is being robbed

Federal Excess Spending: Heritage Action webinar discusses need to shut down Ex-Im Bank funding, and also why Highway Safety Fund is being robbed

Two excess Federal spending issues were discussed in a phone conference by Heritage Action yesterday, and one will cause underfunding of corporate pensions, a BAD thing. Here are the notes they sent out:

Highway Trust Fund (HTF): Thanks in no small part to a surge of activist protest, the plan to bail out the Highway Trust Fund using “savings” from postal reform was removed from the tentative proposal. House leaders, at least for the moment, will not seek to use this particular failing institution to finance another one.

 

To replace this funding, lawmakers are considering other options to generate revenue, including pension smoothing and tax repatriation. Pension smoothing would allow companies to lower payments into pension funds, stretching them over a longer period and distorting the interest rate, to generate “savings” to the government because companies would pay more in taxes. This scheme underfunds pensions and is not a good offset for transportation spending. Repatriation would allow Congress to offer American companies a one-time tax break on condition that they “repatriated” profits stashed abroad, thus creating additional revenue. Both of these budget gimmicks have been proposed to offset a variety of spending measures in the past; neither will change the nature of the highway bailout or the fact that transportation spending is far outpacing fuel tax revenues. Congress must return transportation authority to the states by rallying behind Rep. Tom Graves’ (R-GA) Transportation Empowerment Act (HR 3486).

 

Export-Import Bank: To protect the crony capitalist vehicle known as the Ex-Im Bank, Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) is attempting to garner support in the House to have it reauthorized before its September 30thexpiration. Collins employs the status quo arguments in defense of Ex-Im, all of which have been debunked by Heritage analysis. It is no secret by now that Collins himself benefits from Ex-Im’s subsidies and distortions, and that his advocacy on behalf of reauthorization is an inappropriate use of legislative powers, to say nothing of a continued disservice to taxpayers.

 

The signatories on Collins’ letter include:

 

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Notice that Mica is the ONLY Florida Congressman to support throwing taxpayer funds at the Ex-Im Bank,

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)
Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (R-LA)
Rep. Larry Buchson (R-IN)
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC)
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY)
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL)
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA)
Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY)
Rep. Mike Grimm (R-NY)
Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH)
Rep. Peter King (R-NY)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA)
Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)
Rep. Billy Long (R-MO)
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA)
Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA)
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY)
Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC)
Rep. Mike Rogers (MI)
Rep. Joe Runyan (R-NJ)
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL)
Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH)
Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) 

Vance Jochim

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