GOP lawmakers push taxpayer debt reduction measure

The bill – which is being sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as well as Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) – would allow up to 10 percent of a taxpayers’ liability to go toward narrowing the debt. In a release, the lawmakers also stressed that their measure would not ask anyone to give up any of their tax refund.

“If Congress won’t put us back on a sustainable fiscal path, why not let taxpayers help?” Flake asked in a statement.

Under the measure introduced this Congress, lawmakers would be given first crack at cutting the amount of spending assigned by taxpayers. Across-the-board cuts would be enacted if that sort of agreement could not be reached, with exceptions made for benefits for Social Security and uniformed service members, as well as for net interest payments. 

McCain and Flake introduced a version of the “Debt Buy-Down Act” last year, but it received only around three dozen co-sponsors in the House and none in the Senate. Lawmakers also plugged the idea back in the 1990s.  

In an op-ed written to publicize last year’s bill, McCain and Flake, who are ardently anti-earmarks, noted that this was the sort of earmark they could get behind. 

“Spending has become a widespread epidemic in Washington, D.C., and many members of Congress are unwilling to pursue meaningful steps toward reining in our escalating national debt,” they wrote. 

Groups such as the National Taxpayers Union and the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste also supported last year’s version.