I wrote a note to Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, since Nan & the kids still live their and I own a house there.  It was right before the “stimulus bill” was voted on in the senate.  I finally received a response a few days ago, here’s his answer to my plea to NOT pass the bill:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the economic recovery package. I appreciate hearing from you.

We are facing tough economic times. Americans across the country are feeling the squeeze of this recession as hardworking men and women lose their jobs, state and local governments cut services to avoid deep deficits, and credit is cut back.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was developed to provide a broad mix of tax cuts, incentives, and funding to boost the U.S. economy. The tax cuts are providing tax relief to both individuals and businesses, to help them stay afloat and maintain demand. The funding includes investments to modernize our infrastructure, move forward on alternative energy development, strengthen education, provide health coverage to those who lose it when they lose a job, and provide other services in greater demand due to the struggling economy. These provisions are important steps on the road to economic recovery.

Well Senator, the tax cuts are a joke and the incentives are useless – you should have cut corporate taxes and given companies a REAL incentive to hire, keep employees, and expand their businesses or invest in their future. The tax cuts and incentives you offered have NOT maintained demand in any industry EXCEPT federal government programs.

Please don’t insult my intelligence by calling your massive spending boondoggle an “investment”. Government spending is just that, government spending. Changing the name of it doesn’t change what it does. Should the federal government spend on infrastructure, yes and in fact if congress wouldn’t have sat around and wasted years on spending on our highway and energy infrastructures they wouldn’t be in such poor shape now. The reality is that this bill provides little to infrastructure “investment” – the bulk of the bill goes to entitlement programs and give away’s that have no return in economic expansion or support.

How does spending on education expand the economy – it doesn’t! Why is the government spending money on alternative fuels – cut corporate taxes and let investors and the market find the best technologies because people looking to make a profit are always more motivated than people just looking for another grant to keep their program going.

None of the items you list have anything to do with helping the economy recover it is simply a power grab of the federal government to expand the reliance of citizens on government programs. Period.

Critics of the recovery bill argued that the measure does nothing to scale back foreclosure – the number one cause of the economic downturn. The Obama Administration has announced an aggressive new policy to stem foreclosures, and Congress is considering legislation to help homeowners stay in their homes and strengthen regulation of the mortgage market.

Well, this is an oversimplification of the current crisis and I don’t even agree that the foreclosures are the number 1 problem. More government intervention isn’t what’s needed. If the government would get out of the mortgage business, the market would correct itself. More regulation is ridiculous, there was plenty of regulation but 1) the regulators weren’t doing their jobs, 2) the investment raters weren’t doing their jobs, 3) Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were creating an environment that rewarded speculative mortgage deals, and 4) the government created this debacle by getting involved in mortgage issues back during the Carter administration. Mortgages are not the responsibility of the government – get out of it because you don’t know what you are doing and you are killing us.

Some have expressed concern that the bill adds to the federal budget deficit. While we need to address the deficit over time, the first order of business is to put our economy back on track. No earmarks were included in this bill.

Is that the understatement of the century – adds to the federal budget – get real, this multiplied the budget 100 times over. If you wanted to put the economy on track, you should have reduced federal spending and cut corporate tax rates as a REAL incentive for businesses to hire and spend money. The fact that there were “no earmarks” is laughable when you consider the total cost of the bill. The entire package was an earmark!

This legislation is a necessary step toward economic recovery.

Give me a break!!! This legislation did nothing for economic recovery – it did everything for the expansion of the federal government. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will do little in the short run and in the long run it will cost us many more dollars in economic expansion – they are politely saying – it’s a boondoggle and the American People get to pay and pay and pay and pay…

Thank you again for writing to me. I will keep your thoughts in mind as Congress considers legislation to address the downturn. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

RJD/ms

Ok Senator Durbin, you want my input – here’s my 10 point plan for fixing the economy:

  1. Rollback the stimulus bill – all of it that’s not already spent.
  2. Eliminate corporate taxes – all of them. They don’t pay taxes, they pass them onto consumers anyway.
  3. Eliminate the death tax.
  4. Eliminate the minimum tax assessment.
  5. Cut the capital gains tax by ANY amount
  6. Cut the white house legal staff in half, cut homeland security staff in half – minimum.
  7. Ban all earmarks in future budget bills.
  8. Require all businesses to utilize the social security number verification system for all hires.
  9. Eliminate all green cards for 2 years.
  10. Eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Oh, and one more thing – NO MORE BAILOUTS.

Oh, and Mr. President – please don’t insult our intelligence with your talk about making hard decisions when you increase the federal deficit and federal government without cutting anything. Lying to the American people does not instill hope but it does instill a desire for change and 2010 is just a few short months away.

You can both thank me by passing my recovery bill – I’m just doing my civic duty, I wish you would also.