National Taxpayers Union's blog

Since its beginnings in Spring 2007, the Show Me the Spending Coalition, a growing group of over 30 organizations, has stood firmly committed to transparency in government spending. Today, the National Taxpayers Union announced that the Coalition has partnered with one of its members, the Sam Adams Alliance (www.samadamsalliance.org), to create a collaborative transparency portal.  Thanks to Wikipedia-like software, now everyone from Coalition members and staff to citizen activists will be able to share transparency news with others, and to update their states' transparency pages.

Promoted by Matt Moon - When it comes to using conservative principles to propose new, creative solutions to the challenges of our time, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

The bailout happened. What now?

There’s a lot of finger-pointing around Washington about who’s to blame – for both the conditions that necessitated a rescue package and for allowing one of the largest-ever government intrusions into the private sector to become law.

Today, the National Taxpayers Union and the Competitive Enterprise Institute launched BeyondBailouts.org to answer three main questions: How did this happen? What do we do now? How can I get involved? BeyondBailouts.org seeks to move past the blame game by learning from what went wrong, enacting policies to address those mistakes, and enabling taxpayers to get involved and take control of their hard-earned dollars. Among the reform recommendations:

• Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
• Prosecute Corrupt Officials;
• Suspend Destructive Accounting Rules;
• Repeal the Community Investment Act; and
• Clean Up the Tax Code

As part of the site, NTU and CEI have launched a new “No More Bailouts” petition to provide taxpayers the ability to contact their representatives in Congress and the President with their thoughts on bailout-mania. Visit BeyondBailouts.org and get involved today! 

[Promoted - Jon Henke]

Fiscal conservatives have reason to be alarmed leading up to November. The current political climate is such that populist Democrats are poised to make significant gains on Capitol Hill, while Republicans are frantically moving to the center in order to stay in office. This likely means an increase in your tax burden, and a perpetually expanding federal budget (which has nearly doubled since 1980).

It goes without saying that those in favor of pro-growth public policy, with low taxes and sensible government spending, will be furious if a merry band of tax hikers is sworn in to Congress and state legislatures nationwide next year. What is less certain is whether these candidates are aware of America’s preference for policymakers keen on allowing citizens to spend their own money, rather than insisting the government spend it for them.

To that end, the National Taxpayers Union has launched its “I Don’t Vote for Tax Hikers” campaign to mobilize the grassroots movement and present a formal rejection of the tax-and-spend policies that threaten to further inundate government at all levels. The logic behind it is quite simple: Politicians respond to the demands of voters. This campaign is an incredibly important way to remind elected officials that there is a coordinated taxpayer lobby – and we vote, too.