JohnEnsign: To read my views regarding the House passage of the Senate healthcare reform bill, visit my website..http://bit.ly/9WjC5q 171 days ago.
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JohnEnsign: Senator Reid’s wife and daughter were in a serious car accident. Please pray for them. 182 days ago.
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JohnEnsign: We need long-term job creation for the private sector that won’t hinge on bankrupting America even further. http://bit.ly/cSewzo 182 days ago.
Thank you for coming out today to make your voice heard. Throughout our history, it has been the fury of the citizens that has fueled great change and quieted poor policies.
Increased taxes, big government, and obscene spending are policies that should be dead on arrival. I support your efforts today and will continue to fight excessive taxing and spending in Washington, D.C. You are proof that the people of this great country are still in charge. Your message will be heard by elected officials in Washington, and I will make sure that it is not forgotten.
President Obama's cap-and-trade plan is really a national sales tax on energy with the stated purpose of driving up energy costs by thousands of dollars.
President Barack Obama has been shockingly upfront about his heavy-handed plans to govern energy production across the country from Washington, D.C. His plan is known as cap-and-trade, but it amounts to a new national energy tax that will be detrimental to consumers' pocketbooks at the worst possible time.
President Obama noted that "under my cap-and-trade plan, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket" and his Budget Director, Peter Orszag, testified before Congress that under this program "firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices ... price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."
So we know the president's plan would raise significant revenues -- otherwise known as taxes -- paid by consumers. The question is: What will this cost the consumer?
An MIT study looked at a cap-and-trade scheme that closely tracked the president's proposal and projected revenue of $366 billion in a single year. To calculate the impact on families, we divided the revenue by the number of U.S. households to get a new tax burden of about $3,000 per family. That is a straightforward way to evaluate the tax burden per family.
Recently an employee of MIT accused Republicans of overestimating the per- household figure. The number we calculated, however, was lower than the one published in MIT's own study. Using an alternative household number, MIT estimated that $366 billion in revenue would equate to an astonishing $4,560 per family of four.
The MIT study assumed all revenues raised would be rebated back to consumers (and even after a 100 percent rebate, according to a letter they sent to Congress, they apparently conclude that energy costs would still increase by $340 a year).
It is unlikely, however, that consumers will see significant rebates from Uncle Sam because history has shown us that Washington will find ways, too often wasteful, duplicative and inefficient ways, to spend your money.
President Obama released his budget proposal for the 2010 budget (which starts 10/1/09) today.
As I have said many times in the past it is critical that we work together to solve this nation's economic woes, and President Obama has indicated he wants to do this through an 'honest' budget. But we need to remember that we don't just need an honest budget, we also need an effective one.
With this budget, Democrats have laid out their priorities for spending taxpayer dollars, and their priorities are clear: grow the size of government until it is entwined into every aspect of our lives. The era of big government is back.
This budget proposes over one trillion dollars in new taxes. Don't let the rhetoric fool you -- it is not just the rich who will be responsible for paying for this colossal spending bill -- every single American will feel the effect of this budget. If you use electricity you will be taxed to pay for this bill. It's as simple as that.
Let's get to work to craft a budget that protects taxpayers' dollars while creating jobs at the same time.
The American people deserve a stimulus package that will fix the housing crisis and create jobs. The so-called stimulus bill that was passed in the Senate today will result in higher taxes and a tremendous amount of debt with little to show toward the broader goal of helping our economy.
This trillion dollar bill does not adequately address the housing crisis, which means we're not treating the disease that took down our economy. Government has a role to play, but Americans deserve a better effort than this bill.
Their hard-earned taxpayer dollars should be spent on legislation that gives them a helping hand during these hard times, not more wasteful Washington spending.
