The Senate Finance Committee

We formally petitioned the Senate Finance Committee in December to make the reauthorization of the Liberty Zone program subject to a cost/benefit analysis of the World Trade Center project. The pressing healthcare legislation pushed consideration of “The Tax Extenders Bill” over into the New Year, so we waited to distribute copies to the individual members of the committee until after the recess. As of the end of January, the matter is still on a back burner.

We know that there are a still matters that take legislative precedence, but now that the 111th Congress is back in session we are hopeful that the obviously reasonable request will receive the consideration it deserves. It is as uncomplicated as it could be. An in depth understanding of the issues is not required, but only the acknowledgment that the public is entitled to an independent evaluation before another penny is pledged or spent on a project that raises many unanswered questions regarding its feasibilty.

Glossing over this request might have been standard procedure in years past, but the electorate’s mood following the Washington establishment’s massive failure to govern responsibly and to protect the public’s best interests is making lawmakers a little more responsive than usual.

The citizens of the United States cannot afford to sit back and assume that our officials have things covered. Officials need our input – and we need their cooperation.

Our Statement for the Record regarding H.R. 4213 was sent to the Senate Finance Committee in December. We have now faxed the statement below to every member of the Senate Finance Committee, as well as to other prominent officials. Rather than clog their fax machines with the supporting documents, we advised that the material would be found here.

Submission to individual members of the Senate Committee on Finance 1-19-10

Submitted on 12-17-09, in addition to the Statement for the Record, were these two TTA statements at the 12-3-09 Liberty Bonds hearing, challenging the issuance of the bonds and characterizing the overall project:

Hughes Remarks 12/3/09   Donovan Remarks 12/3/09

The Liberty Development Corporation officers rubberstamped the issuance of the Silverstein bonds by misrepresenting both the urgency of the issue and the basis of our objections. We informed them that the Tax Extenders Bill would be effective retroactively, so there was no danger of forfeiting the bonds and asked them to withhold their support for the $2.6 billion issue until the Senate Finance Committee decided on the requested cost/benefit analysis. We made it clear why there is a credible basis for believing that the result of an analysis would make the approval of the bond issue under those circumstances a very bad move, further complicating a bad situation. Following is the webcam video of the hearing. The Donovan and Hughes remarks are 20 minutes into the hearing. The Donovan remarks are available (not a transcript.) The Hughes remarks were unprepared:

LDC Hearing Webcast 12/21/09   Donovan Remarks 12/21/09

In the follow up to the LDC vote we wrote them the following — we hope that we will not be in the sad position of writing something similar to the Senators on the Finance Committee. The request is entirely reasonable and does not require Senators to make any finding of fact except for one — that the American people are entitled to know whether or not the current project is fiscally sound. If they do not approve our request, we will keep on pressing this case on behalf of the American people. But this would certainly be the most straightforward remedy.

…you could have acted to put a brake on an out-of-control project. You chose instead to recklessly enable it. Just because some officials have so far managed to keep this matter from being handled properly, none should assume that our representative democracy won’t eventually respond to our good faith efforts, because that would be a bad bet. We will not give up fighting for something we believe is vitally important.

TTA Response to the LDC Approval of Silverstein Bonds