Letter
Support the Taxpayer Receipt Act!
An Open Letter to the United States Congress
May 3, 2011
An Open Letter to the United States
Congress:
Support the Taxpayer Receipt Act!
Dear Member of Congress:
On behalf of the 362,000 members of
the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), I urge you to support legislative efforts to
provide taxpayers with a receipt showing how their federal income tax is being
spent. The “Taxpayer Receipt Act,” introduced as S. 437 by Senator Nelson (D-FL)
and Senator Brown (R-MA) and as H.R. 1527 by Representative Quigley (D-IL)
would provide taxpayers with an invaluable educational tool that will allow
them to take their rightful place at the forefront of the conversation over how
to deal with the budgetary challenges facing our nation.
In recent years, successive
Congresses and Presidents have expanded federal programs at an alarming pace,
to a point where federal expenditures have reached record postwar levels. An
aging population and a fiscally dysfunctional entitlement system will only
worsen the problem. As our government’s debt has grown, so too has taxpayer
skepticism about how their money is being spent. A recent Pew Research poll
found that just 29 percent of Americans believe they can trust Washington to do
what is right always or most of the time. As Congress begins the debate over
how best to deal with our $1.6 trillion deficit and $14.3 trillion debt,
providing taxpayers with an honest and accurate picture of the problems we face
will be imperative to rebuilding that trust.
The “Taxpayer Receipt Act” provides
a welcome dose of transparency by offering taxpayers a glimpse into where their
money is going, as well as clearly showing how much the federal government is
borrowing in their name. This legislation would provide a written or electronic
receipt from the Internal Revenue Service that is broken down into key
categories such as Medicare, Social Security, national defense, net interest on
the federal debt, education and federal employee benefits. Given that
entitlement reform will be a necessary part of any successful long term
spending reduction package, NTU would have like to seen Medicaid, one of the
chief drivers of our deficit, receive its own category rather than be lumped in
under the umbrella title “other federal health programs.”
That said, your bill is full of
positives for taxpayers. Chief among them is the inclusion of separate line
items detailing the amount of debt and additional borrowing for every taxpayer
in the United States. This allows the receipt to highlight our drastically
unbalanced budget that obscures the true cost of our federal government from
the taxpayer. In so doing, this bill uncovers the very real threat that today’s
deficits pose to future generations.
For these
reasons, NTU applauds the introduction of the “Taxpayer Receipt Act” and we encourage
all Members of Congress to work toward passage of H.R. 1527 and S. 437.
Sincerely,
Brandon Greife
Federal Government Affairs Manager
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