Sam Brownback: Why I voted against the Stimulus Bill


Last week, the stimulus bill passed both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback voted against it and explains why here:

"I voted against the stimulus bill because a huge increase in government spending is not the answer our economy needs. There are some good provisions in this bill, but not nearly enough to outweigh the overwhelming bad. This stimulus package threatens to be the beginning of our next bubble – a big-government bubble, where we try to use debt and leverage to spend our way into prosperity. We are considering an amount of spending that, even when adjusted for inflation, far outstrips the New Deal, the Louisiana Purchase, the Marshal Plan or the Moon Race."

The stimulus package has a $787 billion price tag. It is the single biggest increase in the deficit in American history. The bill increased the debt limit to an all-time high of $12 trillion, and represents 5.5% of the GDP.

"The hastily constructed bill being labeled as stimulus is not a good plan to help our economy weather the recession. It is a highly leveraged, speculative bet on larger government and massive long-term spending as a cure for our economic troubles. This is the largest spending bill ever and it's been done in the most rushed fashion I've ever seen. In conference, the bad parts of the bill got bigger and the good parts got smaller."

"In the history of the Republic, the largest stimulus package we've had was 1.5% of GDP; this bill is over 5.5% of GDP, although most of this bill isn't stimulus, it's simply big-government spending. There is only $76 billion in actual stimulative tax cuts in this bill, out of $787 billion; less than 10% of this bill offers true stimulative tax cuts. With this spending plan we are using a speculative bet on government, using our children's future as leverage."

You can hear audio of Brownback's Senate floor statement regarding the stimulus bill by visiting the web site.

~ Via Senator Sam Brownback.
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Comments

  1. Anonymous2/20/09, 9:11 AM

    6% stimulus, 94% pork.

    Thank you Senitor Brownback! You are one of the few bright stars in Washington.

    I no longer believe we have a democratic party in this country. What we have is a George Soros party, bought and paid for by him, who call themselves democrats.

    ReplyDelete

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