CDFA – SAMPLE LETTER
The following letter should be used to help CDFA’s legislative efforts. Use this sample text to craft
your letter.
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Letters should be tailored to reflect your state/city and placed on your organization’s letterhead.
For full Congressional office contact information go to www.house.gov or www.senate.gov.
Letters should be faxed to your Congressional offices.
Do not mail letters as they will take several days to pass through Capitol Hill security.
For assistance with crating your letters, do not hesitate to contact CDFA.
Send a copy of your letter to CDFA at kwhite@cdfa.net.
Be sure to remove this header from your letters.
DATE
The Honorable (FULL NAME)
U.S. Senate
ROOM NUMBER BUILDING NAME
Washington, DC 20515
Dear SENATOR NAME,
The tax reform plan introduced by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman David Camp (R-MI) is
unacceptable. Representative Camp’s plan would eliminate the tax exemption for Qualified Private
Activity Bonds (PABs) and apply a new 10% surcharge on municipal bonds and eliminate advance
refundings for bonds issued after 2014. Tax-exempt PABs are the number one job creation and private
sector investment tool for catalyzing economic development. Their elimination would result in economic
catastrophe.
Chairman Camp’s proposal would raise an estimated $23.9 billion over ten years by eliminating PABs,
however, no substantive alternative has been offered for how non-profits, hospitals, manufacturers,
housing agencies, energy providers and other public-private partnerships would access affordable
capital.
Camp’s reforms continue to show the growing disconnect between tax-reform discussions in
Washington, DC and state/local economic development leaders throughout the country. If eliminated,
thousands of projects throughout the country would lose access to the affordable and flexible capital
provided by the tax-exempt private activity bond market, almost certainly resulting in economic
development stagnation. Important infrastructure, education, health care, and community amenity
projects would be delayed, scaled back, or all together eliminated.
As you consider Chairman Camp’s tax reform proposal, please keep in mind that tax-exempt PABs are the
bedrock of public finance and job creation. They have been used to help build roads, bridges, sewers,
dams, city halls, prisons, schools, hospitals, libraries, low income housing, and thousands of other public
and private projects. Eliminating tax-exempt private activity bonds would be detrimental to your state
and its development.
Sincerely,
NAME
TITLE
Cc: Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA)