As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I support budget priorities that will stimulate our economy, restore confidence to our financial markets, and focus attention on issues that Americans care about such as improving our schools, expanding affordable access to health care, cleaning up our environment and helping us achieve energy independence. One of the first steps is honest budgeting that does not hide costs and addresses the needs of Americans without increasing our budget deficit.
I also have...
- Co-sponsored the stimulus package to provide rebate checks to middle-class and low-income Americans, 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans;
- Co-sponsored the Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008, which addresses the root causes of high gas prices by rolling back tax breaks for oil companies and adding windfall profit taxes; encourage investment in renewable energy; suspend purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; protect consumers from price gauging, and stop market-price speculation;
- Co-sponsored the Foreclosure Prevention Act, to help families keep their homes by allowing finance agencies to issue bonds for refinancing and allow judges to modify primary residence mortgage debt;
- Authored the First-Time Homebuyers' Tax Credit to provide a refundable income tax credit for the purchase of a principal residence by first-time homebuyers;
- Supported a permanent fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is affecting an increasing number of American families, and
- Supported reducing our budget deficit, which is projected to reach $410 billion this year.
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