The following is a written statement by Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national budget watchdog on efforts to add energy amendments to the Internet Tax Non-discrimination Act of 2003:
Washington, D.C. - We applaud the efforts of Senators to block the attachment of ethanol and energy amendments to Internet tax legislation. Both of these amendments are yet another misguided last-ditch effort to hitch these pork filled special interest giveaways to the latest legislation train leaving Capitol Hill. These proposals are legislative zombies - no matter how many times they are killed, proponents keep bringing them back to life. These Sisyphean efforts need to be subject to a three strikes and you’re out rule.
Between initial passage on the floor of the House of Representatives and the energy bill's emergence from a sequestered conference committee, the bill's price tag ballooned by 50% from $46 billion to over $72 billion in authorized spending. Senators Daschle and Domenici are now trying to hang this pig on steroids on the Internet tax moratorium. These legislative proposals are chock full of subsidies, pork barrel projects, and unnecessary spending and have little, if anything, to do with our nation's energy needs. With any luck, this bill powered by pork has finally run out of gas.
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