From Congressman John Campbell 's laptop to yours... (What are the Democrats up to?)

From Congressman John Campbell 's laptop to yours:

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

New Warning: OK, I'm having to keep my desk clear now of any objects that can be thrown. Otherwise, I would be tossing stuff all over the place. The Democratic majority is just going haywire here with their reverence for illegal immigration, increased taxes, union bosses, and trial lawyers. And giving you all a daily dose of what I am seeing back here in Washington may get under your skin too. So, those of you who prefer lower taxes, legal immigration, free markets, and sensible litigation reform, may want to keep your desks cleared too.

Illegal Alien Security: Many of you are upset that the Republican controlled Congress did not do enough to stop illegal immigration. And you are correct, we didn't. But at least we made some positive headway. This Democratic controlled Congress is moving in the opposite direction. They are putting together a bill to provide a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in our country and then plan to give these illegal aliens Social Security benefits derived from their illegal work. Simply amazing.

And there’s more. Last night, the House passed a funding reauthorization bill for the Department of Homeland Security. You may be aware of a program under which the law enforcement officers in the County of Orange and the City of Costa Mesa have become involved. In the program, our local police are assisted and trained by federal officials, so that they may aid in apprehending illegal alien criminals during the course of routine police work. This has been a very effective program. Last February alone, the Sheriff’s office identified and placed detainers on 481 illegal immigrants in their Intake/Release Center – 308 which had committed felonies.

However, when Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) offered an amendment to improve this program, the Democrat’s blocked it from getting to the floor for a vote. They also weakened enforcement efforts to prevent alien smuggling and plans to implement biometric testing to better identify people entering the United States illegally.

Oh, and they also made another change. Right now, the Department of Homeland Security employees (TSA at airports, etc.) specifically do not have "civil service" status. This was done after 9/11 to make sure that the agency was as flexible as possible and to prioritize the actual providing of security rather than the protection of government jobs. But, since the Democrats have never seen a government job they didn't think should be unionized, paid more, exempt from performance discipline, their new bill removes this status. Thereby hindering the agency from performing at maximum efficiency.

Housing for Illegal Aliens: In the Financial Services Committee, of which I am a member, a bill recently passed which taxes holders of mortgages (1.2 basis points tax) with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order to set up a new $500 million annual housing fund to build more soviet-style government housing. That's bad enough. But half of the funds are available to provide free or subsidized government housing to illegal aliens. Tax citizens and then give away that money to foreign nationals illegally living in this country. That apparently is the new Democrat solution to the immigration problem.

Why Raise Taxes? This week, the federal government reported record revenues in April. In fact, more tax money was deposited by the United States Treasury on April 24th, 2007 than on any other day since the founding of the Republic. Revenues for the fiscal year are now up 11.3%. That's after they were up 11.5% last year. And 14.6% the year before that. If I was to add those up without compounding, that's 37.4% for the last 3 years. That's pretty darn good. Way over the historical average. Did your salary go up that much in the last 3 years?

So why are the Democrats so determined to raise taxes? Is a 37% increase in 3 years not enough? Do they want to increase spending by more than that? Of course they do. There's no other explanation. If we held spending to no increase for next year, the deficit would be gone in one year if this revenue increase pace were to keep up. There is simply no logical reason to increase taxes with revenue going up so much. But, they will likely vote to raise taxes as soon as next week.

Clearly, whatever we send them of our money, it will never be enough.

I have attached a clip of a one minute speech I gave on the floor this morning relative to this topic. It was followed by applause from groups of people in the gallery. To my knowledge, I do not know any of these people and they had not clapped for any of the previous 12 speeches. The speaker immediately gaveled them down since you are not supposed to express opinions from the gallery.

Your Tax Increase: The non-profit Heritage Foundation recently did a study of the largest tax increase in American History, as proposed in the majority's new budget.

They assembled the figures according to congressional district. In the report, they found that the average taxpayer in the 48th Congressional District of California, which I am privileged to represent, will pay $4,743 more in federal taxes per year under the Democrat budget. That's you. You didn't really need or want that money did you? Especially when you know how effectively the government spends your money...heavy sigh...

Until tomorrow, I remain respectfully,

Congressman John Campbell