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Kind Votes to Fiscal Responsibility, Opposes $89 Billion Deficit Financed Payroll Tax

 

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Ron today voted for fiscal responsibility, opposing the payroll tax extension that Republicans found no way to pay for, adding $89.3 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
 
“The payroll tax extension is a good thing – but I’m positive we could have found a way to pay for it instead of adding $89.3 billion to the deficit.  Too many of my colleagues talk deficit reduction but they voted in favor of extending the trillion dollar Bush tax cuts last year, making no effort to pay for them, and are now doing the same thing with the payroll tax extension. We cannot continue to spend without finding offsets in the budget, especially when there is so much government waste. We should not burden our children and grandchildren with these decisions.
 
“There are obvious ways to find savings in the budget. Every year, over $30 billion in taxpayer dollars goes to wasteful farm subsidies that fund only a few large agribusinesses, don’t help family farmers and only distort the market.  We have 80,000 troops stationed in Western Europe protecting us from nonexistent Cold War threats and the latest GAO report states that our weapons programs are $300 billion over budget. There are also savings to be found in reforming our health care system so we get better value for the dollars we’re spending. When one out of every three health care dollars is spent on things that don’t work, in the fastest and largest growing spending program in the federal budget, that’s where we can find cost savings. I’m disappointed that more effort wasn’t’ made to find appropriate ways to pay for the extension of payroll tax relief.”