Stimulus price tag still not known

The scale of this legislative behemoth is simply breathtaking and the process with which it came about was disturbing. If this bill were another nation's economy, it would be the 16th largest in the world. At 1,000-plus pages in length and eight inches thick, the measure spends nearly $1 billion per page. With a base cost of $789 billion, this bill will cost at least $1.1 trillion when factoring in the $347 billion in interest payments which will be necessary over the next 10 years. Saddling every American family with $9,400 in new debt, the measure offers just $1.10 per day in tax relief for workers.

We are in a serious recession, and Congress has the responsibility to take steps to ensure our economy recovers as quickly as possible. But this process should have been transparent, allowing the American people a chance to see just what Congress was spending your money on.

Yes, there are meaningful investments in this bill. Investing in our infrastructure is a way for Congress to help stimulate the economy. However, many of these provisions could have and should have been brought up during the normal appropriations process, instead of yet another massive stimulus or "bailout" bill written by a few people behind closed doors.

Just three days before the final vote, the House voted unanimously to provide Members of Congress and the public at least 48 hours to review the stimulus conference report. Despite this bipartisan show of support for transparency, the Majority's 1,073-page bill was not made available until 11:00 p.m. on the night of February 12th, less than 12 hours before floor consideration and less than 15 hours before the final vote. You'd have to be able to read, study, and review more than one page per minute of jargon-filled legislative language to read the entire bill in that time.

Instead of racing to complete a bill to conform with President's Day, we should have taken the time necessary to honestly debate and examine the stimulus nature of such "emergency funding" as:

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA);

$300 million for plug-in and fuel efficient vehicles for the federal government;

$10 million for the inspection of canals in urban areas; and

$8 billion for a high speed rail program, with at least one project running from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

Some have suggested this measure offered the only opportunity "to do something," but that is not true. I supported legislation which was designed to provide fast-acting tax relief for working families and businesses. According to the Administration's own estimates, legislation I supported would produce twice as many jobs here in Nebraska and throughout the country as the stimulus bill which was rammed through Congress, and at a fraction of the price.

The bill I supported would reduce the lowest individual tax rates from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent. Taxpayers would experience an increase in their after-tax income of up to $1,200 on average, and married couples could keep up to $3,400 more a year, as opposed to just $800 provided by the conference report. Unfortunately, this proposal was defeated on the House floor during the initial debate of the stimulus.

The fact is, only 2.7 percent of the House-passed bill was devoted to tax incentives. The final bill scaled back these tax incentives even more, resulting in less than one percent being devoted to tax incentives for private sector investment. The imbalance between spending and tax incentives shows this Congress believes the government, not individuals and businesses, is best equipped to solve our economic woes. I disagree.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects our nation's deficit will reach $1.2 trillion this year -- more than twice last year's record deficit. With the stimulus totals added, the deficit will likely reach 10 percent of our GDP, an absolutely stunning figure.

With this legislation, Congress risked making a weak economy even weaker. Instead, our focus should now be on creating jobs and putting money back into the hands of the American people, where it can do the most good.