The Propaganda Piece I Got Back
Today I received the following, allegedly in replay to my email to him:
Thank you for contacting me with your reservations and concerns about the House Budget Committee’s FY12 budget, sometimes called the “Path to Prosperity.”
I was proud to vote in favor of this budget at both the committee level and in the full House of Representatives as this establishes a path forward to restore fiscal responsibility for our nation. I was also proud to speak in favor of and vote for the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) budget proposal. This plan went even further than Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal; however it did not pass in the House of Representatives.
As a member of the House Budget Committee, I have been honored to work diligently with Chairman Ryan to draft a budget proposal for FY12 and beyond. When President Barack Obama submitted his budget proposal in February, it was clear that he was not taking America’s spending problem seriously. Recently we saw more of that empty discussion with the President’s insistence on partisan rhetoric without outlining serious details for achieving a balanced budget.
“The Path to Prosperity” cuts $6.2 trillion over the next decade from the President’s budget proposal. Debt held by the public is forecast to be reduced by $4.7 trillion from the President’s budget request. Indeed, we have a “choice of two futures” between the Ryan plan and the Obama plan.
The House-passed budget also calls for Congress to adopt serious proposals for tax reform by reducing corporate tax rates and broadening the tax base to eliminate unfair exemptions in our archaic tax code. In fact, the tenets of the FairTax were discussed in the report accompanying the Budget resolution.
“The Path to Prosperity” is the first serious plan in the modern era to set the fiscal tone in Washington. In recent times, the discussion has been about how much to spend rather than where to cut. Because so much of our annual spending is in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on outstanding debt, if we are to reduce our deficit we must come to terms with the cost of these programs. That is why I was so proud to support the Republican plan to reform Medicare, which would continue to serve current seniors while ensuring that the program is available to those in future generations.
In the short time that I have been serving you in Congress, I have had numerous occasions to see the future of our country through the eyes of our young people. Whether through a visit to a school in Georgia, hosting young people in Washington, or thinking about members of my own family, we have the obligation to fix a spending problem that if left unchecked would create financial ruin for our nation’s children. We are now at a critical crossroads. President Obama and my colleagues in the Senate must understand that budgetary reform is needed immediately. The House has fulfilled its leadership role; I now expect the same from them.
Thank you for contributing to the budget debate in Washington and continuing to tackle this challenge with me. I am honored to be serving you in Congress and appreciate hearing from you.
Now, where in that did he even acknowledge that I was trying to have a discussion with him? Here I was thinking he might actually be just a little bit better than his predecessor. Guess I will have to try the one thing that got something other than a form letter back from Linder…
