Presenting TPA’s 2024 Taxpayer Turkeys

Lawmakers may be home to roost for Thanksgiving, but it’s still open season for taxpayers. There’s no shortage of stuffing in the budget process or regulatory agenda. The national debt is now more than $36 trillion, or about $5.5 million for every wild turkey roaming America’s vast pastures. Meanwhile, interest payments on the debt—which will soon total $1 trillion per year—are quickly gobbling up a bigger percentage of federal spending. Instead of working earnestly to solve these issues, politicians have the gall and gizzard to deflect and pursue their pet projects. Unfortunately, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Oregon) have hitched a ride on the gravy train and have failed to address the concerns of taxpayers and consumers. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) calls on these Taxpayer Turkeys to keep their fowl policies far from the dinner plate:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren

This turkey needs no introduction. Sen. Warren never fails to serve up half-baked ideas marinated in debt and overregulation. The lawmaker has long advocated for a $20 trillion “Medicare for All” program, paid for with higher taxes, lower salaries for workers, and soaring costs imposed on consumers. Then there’s Sen. Warren’s postal banking proposal, predicated on the bird-brained idea that the U.S. Postal Service—which lost an astounding $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024—can somehow be trusted to manage banking consumers’ finances.

Lately, Sen. Warren has turned into even more of a wingnut. She recently made headlines by calling for the government to break up Citibank, while failing to mention the destructive precedent that would set. Despite the lawmaker claiming that Citibank has become blunder-prone and too-big-to-manage, she offers little concrete justification for such drastic action against the bank. There’s a reason why antitrust regulators only break up companies as a last resort – or, at least, they used to. Such drastic action has a dramatic chilling effect on companies expanding and hiring workers, jeopardizing stability and rule of law. Yet, Sen. Warren continues this reckless drum(stick) beat.

Sen. Warren also wants to break up Apple’s supposed smart phone monopoly because of green texts on messages. “‘Green texts on iPhones, they’re ruining relationships,’ she said. ‘That’s right, non-iPhone users everywhere are being excluded from group texts from sports teams chats to birthday chats to vacation plan chats. They’re getting cut out, missing out on plans and conversations. And who’s to blame here? Apple.’” She, of course, ignores the fact that so many have green messages means that so many people have phones that aren’t iPhones, making the claim that Apple has a monopoly even more ridiculous.

Finally, Sen. Warren has been gung-ho about a plan (called “Direct File”) to have the Internal Revenue Service do Americans’ taxes for them. As any student of history could attest, giving the abuse- and scandal-prone agency this kind of power is a bad clucking idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall

Sen. Marshall is determined to gobble up Americans’ credit card points, just in time for Thanksgiving and the whole holiday season. This bellicose bird has tirelessly pushed for a piece of legislation called the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) , which would heavily restrict or prohibit credit card companies from offering rewards programs. This proposal is not only misguided and based on specious factual assumptions but could deal a heavy blow to the American economy. It would make many Americans just like turkeys – flightless.

Proponents of the CCCA, such as Sen. Marshall, claim that credit card rewards are causing a “reverse Robin Hood” effect. They claim that low-income households have lower access to rewards credit cards relative to high-income households while still bearing the costs of interchange fees through higher prices at the counter. They also claim that these higher prices mean cash and debit users are also subsidizing high-earner’s rewards programs. Additionally, they also claim that low-income households are more likely to be charged a higher interest rate, so the cost of interest will offset the benefits of rewards programs.

These claims are false. A recent study by the Electric Payments Coalition (EPC) revealed that low, middle, and high-income households all earn and redeem credit card rewards at similar rates. Additionally, rewards card offerings for lower-income households have increased to a point where low-income households are equally likely as higher-income households to have a rewards card in their wallets. The report also noted that there is little correlation between risk score and income levels, which means that lower-income households do not necessarily face higher interest rates. The study also tackled claims that rewards cards lead to higher overall prices at the counter. In reality, merchants oftentimes benefit from accepting rewards cards, making the need to compensate for interchange fees unnecessary.

Credit card rewards benefit everyone around the Thanksgiving table, from visiting relatives who spent big on airfare to Costco Turkey Day warriors. If the pilgrims had faced obstacles like Sen. Marshall, they may have never made it to America in the first place. Sen. Marshall has shown his true feathers by trying to take away Americans’ hard-earned points.

​Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer

President Trump’s nomination of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Labor is most certainly not a gravy pick for millions of workers and consumers. This union-basted bureaucrat has co-sponsored and repeatedly touted the half-baked Protecting the Right To Organize (PRO) Act. This piece of legislation is about as desirable as that burnt piece of stuffing we all prefer to keep at the edge of our plates. Just like Aunt Gertrude pressuring her guests to keep eating under-seasoned Brussels sprouts, the PRO Act forces workers to join unions if they want to keep their jobs.

The legislation pulls off this horrifying feat by abolishing state-level Right-to-Work laws, which protect workers from pro-union “security clauses.” These clauses require companies to fire employees who refuse to join unions or pay onerous union fees. Workers have escaped these horrible clauses by trotting to states with Right-to-Work laws, but if the PRO Act becomes the law of the land, Right-to-Work may soon go the way of the California turkey.

The lawmaker also co-sponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would make it more difficult for workers to dissolve unions that don’t pass the cranberry mold sniff test. Competitive Enterprise Institute research fellow Sean Higgins sums it up nicely: “While it is hard to predict what she would do as a Cabinet member, what we do know is not encouraging. In any event, Cabinet secretary shouldn’t be a place for on-the-job training. Trump should keep on looking.”

In Conclusion…

Taxpayers and consumers may feel cooked this year, but fortunately, TPA will keep the heat on flight-prone lawmakers. We wish you a delightful and delicious Thanksgiving!