Republican lawmakers discuss economy at Lincoln Days

The federal stimulus package was brought up frequently by speakers.

By Andrew Denney

Published Feb. 21, 2009

KANSAS CITY — Although the 2010 Senate race was a heavily discussed issue at the second day of the Missouri Republican Party’s Lincoln Days event, the federal stimulus package was the topic du jour.

The annual event is held to commemorate Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, and features panel discussions and other social events with lawmakers from every level of government and supporters. The event is usually around the time of Lincoln’s birthday, and this year is his 200th. Some attendees donned stovepipe hats and chin beards to honor Lincoln.

The GOP officials invited to the event spoke about a number of issues including campaign strategies, national security and the merits of instituting a fair tax code. The speakers spent most of their time criticizing the federal stimulus package.

The measure, which will cost $787 billion, was signed into law just days before the event and continues to draw the ire of Republicans both at the state and national levels across the country.

Like most of the Republican legislators serving in Congress, all six Missouri Republicans — one senator and five representatives — voted against the measure.

At a town hall forum held on Saturday morning featuring national and state Missouri lawmakers, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said when he and fellow former attorneys observe the wording of the stimulus package, they feel like “mosquitoes in a nudist camp, trying to pick out what to attack first.”

“I’d like to see the states be forced to clean up their own acts rather than see you and me bail them out,” Bond said.

Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., applied his background in engineering to his assessment of the measure.

“The problem with the bill is it just won’t work,” Akin said. “It’s like trying to build a bridge with the wrong sized pieces of steel.”

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said federal policymakers have been going down the road to socialism.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Luetkemeyer said. “We might be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape for our kids than when we received it.”

The congressmen even had different names for the stimulus measure. Akin called it the “porkulus” bill, and Bond called it the “spendulus package.”

Audience members asked the legislators about a variety of other issues, including the enactment of a fair tax. The Fair Tax Act, which was proposed last month in the U.S. House, would abolish all federal taxes, personal and corporate, for government services and would instead levy a single retail sales tax.

The lawmakers and the audience seemed receptive to the idea. Akin co-sponsored the House legislation along with 44 other Republicans, and said he is comfortable with the idea of the plan.

In discussing issues specific to Missouri, Bond said he supports term limits for presidents and governors but said term limits for state legislators should be repealed.

State lawmakers didn’t spend as much time discussing the federal stimulus package and were pressed for time at the forum because it had run past its scheduled time slot, but economic issues constituted the majority of their speeches.

Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, discussed a bill he proposed in the Senate this week that would lift the corporate income tax in the state in 2011. He also said further easing regulatory control over corporations would aid the state’s economy by creating jobs.

“The big corporations don’t get corporate income tax,” Shields said. “They are able to shift their income off to other states. Corporate income tax is mostly paid by small- and medium-sized business that operate right in Missouri.”

— Staff Writer Will Guldin contributed to this report.