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Dear FreedomWorks member,
As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators and urge them to support two amendments sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that would stop major accounting gimmicks in Washington. The first amendment is a point of order against legislation that increases direct spending in any of the four 10-year periods beginning after 2023. The second amendment is a point of order against legislation that increases the deficit in any of four 10-year periods beginning after 2023. These amendments would stop Washington from hiding the true cost of legislation by shifting costs beyond the ten-year CBO window.
Washington famously used these budget gimmicks to pass ObamaCare in 2010. Supporters of the massive health care overhaul legislation wanted to trick the American people into believing that it was an inexpensive bill that would reduce the deficit. In order to get a low cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, they made it so a significant amount of spending in ObamaCare takes effect after 2020 and is therefore not counted in the ten-year CBO cost projections. These dishonest accounting gimmicks have repeatedly been used to make massive legislation appear less costly.
Americans deserve to know exactly how much a bill is going to cost taxpayers. I urge you to contact your senators and urge them to support these two amendments that would stop major accounting gimmicks in Washington.
President and CEO
[Click here for a PDF version of this letter.]