First Part of “Jobs 2020” Plan Funded by Suspending Current Stimulus Program, Repaid Bailout Funds Would Go To Social Security

Indianapolis, IN — Congressional Candidate Brose McVey today proposed the first element of a new Jobs 2020 economic growth plan that he would pursue if elected to Congress next year. The initial phase of McVey’s plan:

• Calls on Congress to enact a six-month Payroll Tax Holiday;
• Calls on Washington to cancel and suspend the remainder of the “stimulus” plan and use the unused funds from that program to pay for the payroll tax holiday, and;
• Recommends that payback to the federal government of bail-out funds by banks and financial institutions be sent to strengthen the beleaguered Social Security Trust Fund.

“A payroll tax holiday will reduce the cost of labor, put real cash in the pockets of every American worker within weeks, allow employers to keep more folks on their payrolls, and requires no bureaucracy to administer. It is the kind of economic injection we should have enacted six months or a year ago,” said McVey.

“For the average Hoosier family earning $50,000 per year, this tax holiday would put over $1,900 in their pockets in the next six months, and it would do the same for their employers,” said McVey. According to the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were nearly 400,000 people employed in the Fifth District from 2006 to 2008.
“If enacted by Congress immediately, my plan would begin work today and send a strong signal to entrepreneurs, employers, investors and bankers that we are committed to long-term, sustainable growth. Both are possible — and critical — if we are to slow the alarming Federal deficits that threaten our very future,” McVey said.

McVey’s proposal is being rolled out during Global Entrepreneurship Week, an effort by universities, schools, civic and non-profit corporations, and large and small businesses in 81 countries to celebrate self-starters and innovators.

“As a small business person myself, I understand the burden that our 15.3 % withholding places on our employees and employers. As the President prepares for an „economic summit‟ and Congress begins to consider a second stimulus plan, I want to set forth the kinds of policies I would advocate if I were in Congress today,” McVey said.

“My plan avoids “old school” public works projects like those in the so-called stimulus plan. It doesn’t pick winners and losers—like the clunkers and bailout plans did. And, importantly, it is fiscally responsible and would save the taxpayer money, when compared with the so-called stimulus plan enacted by Congress. To pay for it, I am calling on Congress to suspend further commitments of unused funds authorized under the current stimulus program, and to direct that funding instead at a six-month payroll tax holiday.

“Further, as banks and financial institutions rush to pay the Treasury back for loans and investments made by taxpayers, under the bailout programs, I am calling on Washington to send those funds for use in shoring up the Social Security Trust Fund,” said the Republican candidate for Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District.

In addition to today’s short-term program, McVey’s Jobs 2020 plan will include intermediate and 10-year goals and objectives, giving investors, businesses and the markets a clear pathway ahead into the next decade.

In talking about his 10-year economic growth plan and the need for a long-term direction for federal economic policy, McVey said that “we must begin to look toward the horizon and act now in accordance with a long-term, sustainable, across the board economic policy that will unleash economic growth for generations to come.”