The Spending Must Stop

Curtis Dubay / May 25, 2010

Congress is at it again, spending more taxpayer money and significantly adding to the deficit in the process. This latest bout of irresponsible spending is $174 billion tacked on to an otherwise necessary bill to extend long-established, mostly sensible tax-reducing provisions known as the “tax extenders.”  The legislation, dubbed Stimulus IV by some, is officially called The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, which either evidences a peculiar form of dark humor or simple political cynicism.

The new spending in the bill arises mostly from extending 4 programs: increased Medicare spending, also known as the doctor fix ($63 billion); continuing the extension of unemployment insurance at 99 weeks ($47 billion); yet another Medicaid bailout for the states ($24 billion); and an extension of COBRA health insurance coverage ($8 billion).

The Heritage Foundation recently posted an analysis of all the provisions – including all the new spending, tax hikes and other bad policy choices – in the tax extenders bill which can be found here. (more…)