The National Taxpayers Union Foundation released the latest information on the President’s State of the Union speech this morning. Covered on CNBC, US News & World Report, and Investors Business Daily, the study authored by Senior Policy Analyst Demian Brady also appeared at the top of the Drudge Report. A part of the Foundation’s SOTU coverage, Brady examined the speech line-by-line to give taxpayers a cost of the President’s proposed agenda. Here are a few highlights:
- 2011 SOTU Net Spending: $21.349 billion per year
- 2010 SOTU Net Spending: $70.46 billion per year
- Number of Spending Proposals: 15 (5 boost spending, 3 cut spending, 7 unknown spending impact)
- Largest Spending Increase Item: “Investment” in transportation infrastructure ($50 billion)
- Largest Spending Cut Item: Two-year extension of last year’s proposed three-year discretionary spending freeze (-$15 billion)
- Highest NTUF Recorded SOTU Net Spending: President Clinton’s 1999 speech ($305 billion)
- Lowest NTUF Recorded SOTU Net Spending: President Bush’s 2006 speech ($1 billion)
NTUF also announced the panelists who will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference next week in Washington DC:
- The Honorable Devin Nunes of the House of Representatives
- Maya MacGuineas, President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
- Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum
- Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
- Steve Moore, Wall Street Journal
The Taxpayer’s Tab included four newly scored bills in the 112th Congress:
- HR 403, Homes for Heroes Act of 2011
- HR 38, a bill to rescind funds appropriated to the Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund under the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
- HR 27, Lumbee Recognition Act
- HR 90, a bill to provide for federal research, development, demonstration, and commercial application activities to enable the development of farms tha are net producers of both frood and energy, and for other purposes.