If we are going to be successful beating Republicans in this political environment, it's not going to be good enough to just bash Republicans for ruining our country during the Bush years. Our candidates need to demonstrate that they're working to fix things.
Which is why I found Brad Ellsworth's column at Huffpo yesterday so refreshing:
Studies by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have repeatedly shown that thousands of federal contractors owe over $5 billion in unpaid taxes. Despite these disturbing numbers, federal agencies are not required to consider tax debts in making contracting decisions. In fact, current law actually prohibits agencies from accessing the tax data necessary to identify and stop these tax cheats from receiving taxpayer-funded contracts.
Everyday Americans play by the rules and pay their taxes; I don't think it's too much to ask companies that receive millions, sometimes billions, in taxpayer dollars to do the same. Not only do these bad actors cheat our government of tax revenue, they also gain an unfair advantage over businesses that are doing the right thing.
That's why I teamed up with Senator Claire McCaskill to introduce the Contracting and Tax Accountability Act. The bill requires contract and grant applicants to give contracting officers permission to check their tax status, and it withholds large federal contracts from businesses and organizations that fail to file tax returns and are delinquent on their taxes.
This is exactly the type of commonsense measure that will help Democrats who need to win in conservative leaning states like Indiana innoculate themselves against attacks of fiscal irresponsibility.
We need to spend to get out of the economic crisis, but closing these types of loopholes shows voters that we're also serious about cracking down on dumb spending. And that, coupled with the charges about Republicans taking us from record surpluses to record deficits, could be a recipe for success in 2010.