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Phone: (617) 538-3900 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
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*** Balance Budget Amendment Alert! ***
Once a month or more CLT&G participates in a conference call set up by our Washington allies, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Today we had an update on the federal Balanced Budget Amendment battle.
As you all probably know, the debate has continued in the U.S. Senate this week. Yesterday we learned that Senator Torricelli of New Jersey, who ran for that office from the U.S. House on a pledge to support the Balanced Budget Amendment, held a press conference to announce that he will vote No. Most observers think that his vote was essential and that this means the B.B.A. will lose in the Senate.
I thought our members would like to know that our counter-parts in New Jersey are already exploring the possibility of a recall campaign against Torricelli, and held a press conference today in Trenton. New Jersey has a recall provision, but it only applies after a politician has been in office one full year—they are trying to determine if his years in Congress, before he ran for the Senate in `96, count toward that time.
Once they announce the recall, they will have 320 days to collect one million signatures, so they are checking out the legal requirements before announcing. They tell us the talk shows are going wild in New Jersey on the subject of his broken campaign promise, and the phones at the New Jersey Taxpayers office are ringing off the hook. *Go get him!*
Meanwhile, Grover's guest, U.S. Congressman John Boehner, House Republican Conference Chairman, says that the B.B.A. vote in the Senate will still take place next Tuesday at 5 PM. He says the House intends to take up their own version in a few weeks, even if the Senate does not have the required 2/3 to send its version over; House supporters want their opponents on the record too. If they get their vote, they can send their version over to the Senate and we can watch them play some more.
I did ask why they don't just give in, as columnist Charles Krauthammer suggested, and call their opponents' bluff on the social security issue by excluding the social security trust fund from the Balanced Budget Amendment. As we see it, that would finally put social security out there as a separate enti-ty, and if they raid it this will be more noticeable; mean-while, the rest of the federal government will have to be cut even more to reach the balanced budget which is fine with us. I get the impression that it would be played this way if Grover were in charge, but he's not; he says that some Republicans would then jump ship and there still wouldn't be enough votes.
I don't understand why Republicans wouldn't want to be on record as “saving social security”, but then I don't understand why the Republican Congress just voted to increase the airplane ticket tax.
I asked, and Rep. Boehner said that it's just a renewal of a user fee funding airline safety and they support airline safety. Well, like who doesn't! So what am I paying all these other taxes for?
BTW, they e-mail address ATR got for Sen. Torricelli is:
senator_torricelli@torricelli.senate.gov
If you can't get through at that address (and some have been having difficulties, we're told), also try:
Why not let him know that the taxpayers of New Jersey are not alone in their outrage at his broken campaign promise?
Barbara Anderson