Skip to main content
Image
harvesters hard at work in fields

This Week in Washington – Friday, June 25, 2010

June 25, 2010
E-Newsletters

This week, we found out that the House of Representatives will not pass a budget for the first time in 35 years.

Leaders in the House will tell you it's because they are awaiting recommendations from the President's fiscal commission. The truth is they don't want to talk about how they've racked up an unprecedented amount of debt and how their un-curbed spending will cost the American taxpayers trillions more.

This year's deficit is expected to be around $1.5 trillion and the total national debt has just surpassed $13 trillion. And that's with trillion dollar deficits continuing on for years to come at current spending levels.

The bottom line is that we cannot continue to deficit spend indefinitely.

I have a couple suggestions for how we can start to right the ship. For starters, I support a cap on all non-defense funding by returning to 2008 spending levels. That alone would save us almost a trillion dollars compared to what Congress wants to spend.

I also support cancelling and returning all of the TARP and stimulus dollars that haven't been spent yet. That would save us almost another $300 billion right there.

One thing that doesn't make sense is for Congress to abdicate its responsibility over the purse strings. We're not going to solve America's fiscal problems by sticking our heads in the sand and passing the buck to an un-elected, un-accountable debt commission.

Just like every family in America, Congress must have a financial plan for the future. It may not be the easiest conversation to have, but the American people didn't send us to Washington to take the road of least resistance.

Follow Me on Facebook

I always try to stay up to speed on what's going on in the Sixth District. Interacting with you and hearing from you are great ways to do it. Now you can follow me on my Facebook page to see what I'm working on in Washington whenever you want. I encourage you to become a "fan" of my page and to stop by often.

This Week

On Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 3993, the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act, with my support. The bill would require calling card companies to identify the cards' terms and conditions on their websites, on card packaging, and on the cards themselves, as well as in any advertisements for the products. Calling card companies would also have to disclose information about the available minutes and rates for each card and include customer service contacts, refund policies and expiration dates. While I do not support arbitrarily regulating companies or industries, I was concerned about the deceptive marketing practices many of these companies engage in. In some cases they were misrepresenting the number of minutes provided on cards. Many members of the military use these cards to call home from overseas and they, along with the general public, deserve to know exactly what they are getting when they purchase a calling card.

On Thursday, despite broad bi-partisan opposition, the House narrowly passed H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act. The bill was introduced by House Leadership to legislatively overrule the recent Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court case. The legislation is a punitive measure for groups of individuals who choose to exercise their right to free political speech as guaranteed by the Constitution, and affirmed in the Citizens United decision. There were very important First Amendment issues at play here, and I believe the House infringed upon them with this vote. On top of that, several high-profile special interest groups were exempted from the bill. Freedom speech is a guaranteed right for all Americans, not specific groups. Therefore, I did not support this measure.

Also on Thursday, the House passed the conference report for H.R. 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act, with my full support. The legislation will impose new economic penalties aimed at forcing Iran to change its conduct, specifically ending its nuclear weapons program. While I supported this legislation, I am convinced we can and should be doing even more to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. I have no doubt that the Iranians will pass nuclear technology and know-how on to other rogue nations and terrorists organizations if they become a nuclear nation. Once they possess that kind of power, they would become even more belligerent in the region and toward the United States. We cannot allow that to happen.

Yesterday the House passed H.R. 3962, the Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010 with broad bi-partisan support. The bill provides a 2.2 percent increase in Medicare payments for physicians for the next six months. This is not a permanent cure for what ails the Medicare system by any stretch of the imagination. However, this bill will give Congress more time to address the problem in a suitable way and it will not increase the deficit due to offsets in other areas.

The House will be in session next week. Have a good weekend.

Sincerely,

Image
Signature of Congressman Sam Graves
Sam Graves