rssGregg: Loan Guarantee Funding Is Safe, Grandkids Are Not
Thursday, August 06, 2009 at 5:14 pm
- 8 Comments
We ran a piece this morning examining some lawmakers’ concerns about the future of the $2 billion that was plucked from a renewable energy loan guarantee program to extend cash for clunkers.
But at least one lawmaker has no such worries. Not only will the $2 billion be replaced, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said on the chamber floor this afternoon, but it’ll be borrowed, adding further to the nation’s enormous debt.
“This is the ultimate bait and switch,” Gregg said.
Democratic leaders, from President Obama on down, have repeatedly said that the $2 billion cash for clunkers extension is paid for because it dips into unused stimulus funds earmarked for the loan guarantee program. But if that loan funding is replenished sometime later — and if the replenished funds aren’t covered by increasing revenues or enacting cuts elsewhere — then the clunkers extension will effectively have come from borrowed funds.
“The bill to pay [for] those cars is going to come due on our children and grandchildren,” Gregg said. “This is nothing more than a program which is being funded entirely by debt.”
Indeed, on the House floor last Friday, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wanted assurance that, if the cash for clunkers extension passed, the $2 billion siphoned from the loan guarantee program would be replaced.
Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, responded:
I share the gentleman’s view that the Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program is of vital importance to creating a new, green economy. We have talked with the White House. We have talked with the Speaker, and I want to assure you that all of us certainly have every intention of restoring these funds.
Of course there’s always the possibility that Obey could reneg on that promise, but Gregg thinks it’s unlikely. “This is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee,” Gregg said. “When he assures you, you can be assured it’s for sure.”
8 Comments
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Comment posted August 6, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
The comment that the “bill” will be passed onto your kids and grandkids is a very bogus and gratituitous one. They know better. It just riles people up. When we have such extensive unemployment in our country then those idled workers and their lost production is what will be passed onto our kids and grandkids. The schools not built. The textbooks not written. The scientific labs not built.
When people are out of work not only that lost production but the lost taxes to both the federal and state are incurred. People need work for dignity. Our nation needs to create employment to restore demand. We need full employment so that the taxes that are paid with full employment can reduce the debt. Until then we need the government “spending” to create the demand that the private sector is lacking and the jobs that the private sector is sheding.
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Pingback posted June 19, 2010 @ 3:45 am
[...] 9.Gregg: Loan Guarantee Funding Is Safe, Grandkids Are Not « The We ran a piece this morning examining some lawmakers’ concerns about the future of the $2 billion that was plucked from a renewable energy loan guarantee program to extend cash for clunkers. http://washingtonindependent.com/54170/gregg-loan-guarantee-funding-is-safe-grandkids-are-not [...]
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