Last fall, voters sent a clear message to cut spending and get the country's fiscal house in order. These same voters should take heed because some of the candidates they elected are suffering from temporary insanity when it comes to a classic Washington giveaway: the tax credit.
Nearly 80 Republicans, many of whom ran on restoring fiscal sanity to Washington, have joined 100 liberal Democrats in sponsoring HR 1380, the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act, known colloquially as the NAT GAS Act.
This legislation aims to boost the production and use of natural gas vehicles by offering an estimated $5 billion in tax credits to the manufacturers and equipment suppliers who produce NGVs, and the consumers who buy them. This bill will harm economic growth, not help it.
The way to do increase growth is to have a simple tax code with lower rates, not one with higher rates where politicians pick winners by handing out tax credits.
The NAT GAS Act provides tax credits of up to $4,000 per vehicle to NGV manufacturers; $7,500 per vehicle to consumers who purchase light-duty cars; $64,000 per vehicle for those who buy heavy trucks; $2,000 for consumers who install home refueling units; $100,000 for businesses that install commercial fueling stations; a 50-cent per gallon credit for consumers who use natural gas fuel for transportation; and large block grants for the development of new NGVs and natural gas engines.
While developing sustainable forms of energy is a noble goal, with our ballooning budget deficit, taxpayers cannot and should not be subsidizing private industry to achieve that goal.
I agree that natural gas should play an integral role in our national energy policy, along with nuclear, oil and solar. Natural gas is not the problem with this bill; distorting the market with federal subsidies is.
The goal should be creating a sustainable market, not a false one. It is not the role of Congress or the federal government to pick winners or losers in the broad field of energy alternatives. Backing any one industry over another distorts the market and destroys our system of free enterprise.
It is simply baffling that scores of self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives who were swept into office on a wave of public demand for fiscal responsibility -- many with strong Tea Party ties -- are now sponsoring a government handout for the natural gas industry.
Their campaign rhetoric of radical change in federal policies, stopping out-of-control spending, abolishing earmarks and ending corporate welfare simply does not sync with their actions.
By sponsoring this bill, they are not only reneging on their cost-cutting promises, they are foisting yet another costly industry subsidy on already cash-strapped taxpayers.
The Club for Growth strongly supports the efforts of pro-growth conservatives like Reps. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, to target these energy tax and spending policies.
Are congressional conservatives truly serious about fiscal reform? If so, they can't run on a platform of less government, smaller deficits and pro-growth fiscal policy, and then create a new multibillion-dollar subsidy to support an industry that's in the midst of a huge financial expansion.
This may be business as usual in Washington, but it is not what these members' constituents had in mind when they cast their votes.
These new "conservative" members of Congress are still very early in their terms, but those who sponsor this bill have reached a crucial decision point: Are they for the free market, or are they for the intrusion of government into America's energy markets? HR 1380's sponsors should thoughtfully consider that question. Voters will.
Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman, is the president of the Club for Growth.
