Today is the Day

I've been thinking about starting this blog for a couple of months now and decided to take the plunge. I write to my Congressman and Senators fairly regularly and have started saving the letters to them as well as their responses. I'll start with the last email I wrote to my Congressman Gerry Connolly and his response. I don't normally write in such a rant, but I was really so agitated that I couldn't help myself:

On July 6th I wrote:

Dear Congressman Connolly,

I listened, with dismay, to your colleague Jim Longevin (RI) in an interview last night. Two statements in particular were quite upsetting. First, like many in his (your) party, is the assertion that failure to raise taxes will somehow kill old folks, close schools and starve children. If any of these things happen it's because the "Party of Boo" (did I scare you democrats) have failed to get our economy moving and their obscene spending have failed to generate growth. The second offensive thing he said was he hoped the "grownups" would be in the room during budget talks. I guess that leaves him and all his fellow democrats out since they weren't capable of passing a budget over the last 2 years. We need REAL entitlement reform, REAL spending reductions and REAL tax reform. We don't need the government playing favorites and deciding who gets to take advantage of loopholes and subsidies and who doesn't. The American people are not buying into the scare tactics being used by our democratic representatives. Let's have a dialogue without the "Boo Factor".

Sincerely,

Palma

Palma Hutchinson

P.S. Please don't answer this email with another one of your party line responses.



Damn it Congressman, I asked you not to respond!! His response a couple of days later:

"Dear Mrs. Hutchinson,

Thank you for contacting me with respect to tax reform. I appreciate your interest in this issue, and your views are important to me.

The federal tax system, both for individuals and corporations, needs to be modernized. For example, while individual tax rates are at their lowest levels in decades, the Alternative Minimum Tax continues to threaten millions of middle class families every year. Similarly, the nation's top corporate tax rate is among the highest in the world; however, the tax code provides a number of credits that allow many corporations to effectively lower their tax rate, in some cases quite significantly. There is an effort underway in Congress to simplify the tax code. As the Co-Chair of the New Democrat Coalition's Innovation, Competitiveness and Tax Reform Task Force, I remain committed to exploring how best to reform the nation's tax code in a manner that will encourage economic growth and promote fiscal responsibility. As Congress continues to deliberate tax reform, I will keep your views in mind.

Once again, thank you for expressing your concern on this very important issue. I enjoyed hearing from you. For more information on my views on other issues, please feel free to visit my website at http://connolly.house.gov. I also encourage you to visit the website to sign up for my e-newsletter.

Sincerely,

Gerald E. Connolly"

This really sounds so good, doesn't it? I'm certainly glad he is so committed to exploring tax reform. I looked up this New Democratic Committee and the Task force is titled the Innovation and Competitiveness Task Force. He must have thrown in the "Tax Reform" part to make me feel better. Co-chairing a "New" democratic committee in a republican controlled house, while commendable, will probably not have much of an impact. Surely there must be a bi-partisan committee? But please, keep exploring and let me know how that works out. I'd really like it if you explored how the government can create an environment for growth rather than working on a committee to create more bureaucracy and spend more money. The website is www.ndc.crowley.house.gov
The primary tenets of this committee:

1. Funding the Innovation Agenda (aka doubling "our" research investment
2. Creating an equitable tax code to spur innovation (aka let the government decide who gets tax loopholes)
3. Achieving Universal Broadband Access (aka the government wants to spend taxpayer dollars so everyone has internet access)
4. Strengthen Small Innovative Businesses- (aka the government investing in small business. Again, they decide in which small businesses to invest)
5. Educating and Expanding STEM Workforce- The Science, Tech, Engineering, and Mathematics. (This is no aka. This is copied from their website: "Our immigration laws should be updated to allow highly skilled foreign students with degrees in STEM fields to stay here when they graduate to supplement the domestic workforce;" I guess this is AFTER the government using taxpayer dollars to educate.
6. Reform the Patent System- (I'm not sure what the aka is for this one: more bureaucracy or less?) Letting the patent office keep the application fees seems to be the main point of the legislation associated with this.