Congressman
Henry E. Brown, Jr.

The Search for Economic Stimulation and Jobs for Americans

Posted by: Congressman Brown (August 27, 2009, 02:25 PM)

On August 17th, we reached the six-month anniversary of the signing of the President’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan. Since becoming law, over two million Americans have lost work and only 18 percent of Americans say that the trillion-dollar plan has helped the economy, and I would have to agree.

Since its signing on February 17, 2009, the American people have been waiting for the “jolt” to the economy and “immediate” creation of jobs that the Administration promised.  We have been waiting so long that my constituents in South Carolina are beginning to wonder if they will ever come.

The President insisted that to save or create up to four million jobs, Congress had to support this stimulus. Unfortunately, today, more than 2.8 million jobs have been lost and Congress continues to pass legislation that has added $869 billion in new debt, and will continue to further increase unemployment around the country.

We were told by the Administration that unemployment would rise as high as eight percent without the stimulus, but as we all know, national unemployment is now at nine and a half percent. In my home state of South Carolina it is 12 percent. 

It’s a shame that, while my constituents are desperately waiting for jobs, the Democratic leadership has made job creation a lower priority than growing government, increased borrowing and ever greater federal spending.

In fact, the runaway spending that has been forced through the Democrat Congress, since January, has finally added up to the unimaginable- One Trillion Dollars in a month. To put this number in perspective, One Trillion Dollars is enough money to:
•    Buy everyone in the First District their own 26-acre island in Panama.

•    Spend a dollar per second for 32,000 years.

•    Stack up $ 1,000 bills, $ 1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high.

•    Buy the most expensive house on the market in Charleston ($13 Million) 77,000 times.

•    Pay the rent of every renter in the US for 3 years and the mortgage of every homeowner for 14 months.

This type of spending shows no sign of slowing and unless we get this spending surge in check, Americans will be indebted to the recklessness of this Congress for decades to come. We must make hard choices to halt this slide into fiscal disaster to protect our children and grandchildren from an overwhelming financial burden in the future.

Republicans offered a better solution for fast-acting tax relief for working families and small businesses that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost, but unfortunately our alternatives were and continue to be ignored.

Our nation deserves a strategy for prosperity, not more spending, more taxes and more unemployment. In the next six months, Democrats must join Republicans in making our number one priority getting Americans back to work.  My constituents are getting tired of waiting.

Note: A recent Gallup poll, of 1,010 adults nationwide, states that after six months, less than two in ten Americans say they have been helped by the supposedly timely “stimulus”, with 18 percent saying that the economic stimulus plan has made their financial situation better, 13 percent saying that it has made their financial situations worse and 68 percent saying that the economic stimulus has had no effect on their financial situation whatsoever.

Posted in Economy | View Full Posting

Why I am Opposed to the Democratic Health Care Plan

Posted by: Congressman Brown (August 13, 2009, 01:54 PM)

• Millions will lose coverage, whether they like it or not: despite the President’s claim that “if you like your coverage, you can keep it,” proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan would cause 83.4 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.

• Your coverage will be affected, even if you are able to keep it: Because the Democrats’ health “reform” bill creates new standards that all plans must conform to, eventually any remaining plans will be forced to change their current benefits. These benefit “upgrades” will cause your premiums to rise.

• New government regulations will stifle, instead of increase competition: Supporters of a new government run plan say that it would force greater competition among private insurance companies. But a new government controlled health care plan, coupled with the government’s new rules for private plans, would surely put private health insurance out of business sooner or later.  

• Government bureaucrats will pick your treatments: The President has said, “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier. ... If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that’s going to make you well.” Based on statements like these, along with the creation of a new “health care tsar” who would give the final word on treatments, we can expect the government to be much more involved in choosing which treatments we can and can’t receive.

• Individuals will be mandated to buy health insurance, which means less liberty and more taxes: The Administration and Democrats in Congress are open to the idea of an individual mandate, which would require everyone to buy insurance that the federal government says is “qualified.” Individuals who did not buy the government approved health insurance would be faced with a tax penalty. Interestingly, in 2008, then Presidential candidate Obama said that he opposed an individual mandate because it would compel Americans to buy health coverage they would otherwise regard as unaffordable, and that it would be unenforceable.

• Taxes on business would be raised to higher rates than Europe: During a recession, when growth and jobs are at a premium, a surtax that will hit thousands of South Carolina small businesses has been proposed to pay for new government programs. If enacted, South Carolina’s top job creators and earners will have to bear a higher overall tax burden than Germany, France, Italy, and Japan, etc., with a national overall average tax rate of more than 52%. Raising such a tax during a recession, when we should be lessening the burden to create jobs and empower the consumer, is completely inappropriate.
  

• Taxpayers could be stuck footing the bill for abortions: H.R. 3200 does not explicitly mention abortion, but this leaves it up to the new Medicare advisory commission and the “health care tsar” to determine if it should be a basic benefit, and thus funded by taxpayers. Since 1976, bills pertaining to health care have contained the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Such an amendment was offered by Republicans in the markup of H.R. 3200, but was defeated by Democrats on a party line vote. Because of the possibility that taxpayers would be required to fund abortions under this bill, many religious organizations, including the National Right to Life, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, oppose it.

• It’s another $1 trillion bill, and once again, it won’t be paid for: According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill would cost at least $1.042 trillion, and would increase the deficit by $239 billion. However, the largest programs in the bill won’t be implemented until 2013, so we won’t know their true costs until much later.

• Rushing a thousand page bill prevents anyone from having time to read it: Policy as important to the American way of life should not be rushed. Some would like to prevent people from reading the bill, in order to prevent them from discovering provisions that could lead to loss of current coverage, rationing, interference with the doctor/patient relationship, and taxpayer funding of abortion. But when the Administration and Democratic leadership last told us we had to pass a thousand-page, $1 trillion bill in just a few days, as they did with the stimulus, we were threatened with 8% unemployment. Today, unemployment across the country stand at over 9% and unemployment in South Carolina rose over 12% on June. 

• Someone other than you may be making your health care decisions: The President has offered his diagnosis that “maybe you’d be better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker. Further, he and Congressional Democrats have promised that somehow, their plan would save money without cutting benefits. Clearly, language is needed in any health reform bill that would block rationing of often life saving care through the deciding factor of cost or a federal board. But in both House and Senate committees, amendments that would have kept health care decisions between you and your doctor, and out of the hands of government bureaucrats, were blocked along party lines.

• Would cut a half trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare: In order to pay for much of his more than $1 trillion plan to reform health care, the President has proposed cutting Medicare by more than $400 billion. Nevertheless, claims that a provision in the bill authorizing reimbursement for “end of life counseling” would encourage seniors not to utilize life saving treatments have been dismissed as untrue. Yet, despite the reduced commitment to Medicare, the President still claims the changes will be “painless.”

• Members of Congress who support a government run plan will keep their private plans: Proponents of H.R. 3200 have claimed that a government run plan would provide as good, or better, care than currently existing private plans. However, these same proponents want to keep their private plans, which do not resemble the proposed public plan they want to create. In fact, they feel their government plan is so important, that when an amendment was offered in the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s markup of the bill that would have given all Americans access to the same kind of private health insurance Members of Congress receive, they voted it down on party lines. In explanation, Chairman Waxman said, “I’d have to oppose this because it strikes the public plan.”

Posted in Health Care | View Full Posting

New Video Highlights President Obama’s Own “Disinformation”

Posted by: Brown Staff (August 11, 2009, 04:24 PM)

During President Obama’s latest town hall, he claimed there are “wild misrepresentations” surrounding his plan for a government takeover of health care.
The House Republican Conference has produced this video to highlight the true source of this “disinformation.”

Posted in Health Care | View Full Posting

Soaring deficit may defy forecasts

Posted by: Brown Staff (August 11, 2009, 12:02 PM)

 DEFICIT SOARS

The federal budget has gone from surplus to deficit during the past decade.

Fiscal year     Surplus or deficit
2000     $236 billion
2001     $128 billion
2002     -$158 billion
2003     -$378 billion
2004     -$413 billion
2005     -$318 billion
2006     -$248 billion
2007     -$161 billion
2008     -$459 billion
2009*     -$1,841 billion

* Estimate
Source: White House
        
Stagnant unemployment, shrinking tax revenue and a struggling economy threaten to quadruple the size of last year's federal budget deficit, raising more questions about the timing of costly proposals to overhaul health care. Read more here.

Posted in Economy | View Full Posting