Concerns with H.R. 1

Piling on the debt

• The 2009 debt is already scheduled to reach a record high of $1.2 trillion. Add on to that a staggering $1.1 trillion stimulus package and the United States debt limit will reach a $12 trillion, a level which has never before been seen in our history.
• This stimulus package is the equivalent of adding $9,400 in debt to each household in America.
• The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that the dramatic increase in debt will shrink our economy over the next ten years.

Questionable Spending Initiatives

• $2 billion for ACORN, an organization that has been linked to numerous allegations of voter fraud
  $8 billion in bonuses to states that increase welfare roles over the next two years
• $45 million for fish passage barriers
• $8 billion for a magnetic-levitation railway to Las Vegas
• $5.5 billion to retrofit federal buildings including $450 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
• $25 million to re-decorate the Smithsonian Institution facilities
• Removes E-Verify provisions that require any company receiving a contract paid for with funding from the bill to verify the legal status of new employees to ensure taxpayer money is not used to hire illegal workers.

New job creation?

• Small Business tax relief accounts for 1/3 of 1 percent of the total amount of tax relief in this bill
• Spends approximately $223,000 per job created
• For every one dollar that goes to small business tax relief, 6 dollars would be used for new government programs
• Creates 31 new government programs totaling $97 billion and expands 73 government programs by $92 billion
• Adds 267,000 fewer jobs than the Stimulus Working Group alternative which I co-authored

Unfair allocation of funding

• Although California represents 12 percent of the population in the United States, only 6 percent of the funding in the bill would be sent back to the state.
• In spite of promises that spending would be allocated for needed infrastructure projects, the bill spends only 5 percent on these initiatives.