Repugs Pass an Austerity Budget That Would Make Greece Look Prosperous

Five Trillion dollars cut from every domestic spending program that does not engorge the already obscenely rich, fossil fuel companies and military contractors.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has the details.

Fortunately, it's dead on arrival, thanks to the Kenyan Usurper.  Unfortunately, the budget that would actually rescue the country from Greece's fate will never make it to the president's desk.

But it's amazing what you can do with a budget when your goal is to make the economy work for the non-rich.

Crooks and Liars:

Once again, I've yet to hear our corporate media talking about this progressive budget, which includes things that voters actually want. I wonder why! Via Vox:

Every year, the Congressional Progressive Caucus releases a budget proposal, and every year it gets roundly ignored. As the big budget plans — the White House's, the House Budget Committee's, the Senate Budget Committee's — are vigorously covered in the press (including by me!), nary a word is said about the CPC's offering.

This makes sense, of course. The CPC represents a little more than a third of the minority party in the House and has one member in the Senate; its plans are objectively less important, and less likely to shape policy, than ones coming from the president or the majority parties in the House and Senate.
But its budget — or "the People's Budget," as CPC likes to call it — deserves your attention. It's a far better contrast to the aggressive spending cuts of the House and Senate GOP budgets than President Obama's much more timid offering. Like the congressional GOP, and unlike Obama, the CPC isn't trying to lay out a realistic spending course or create a starting point for negotiations. It's trying to lay out a comprehensive vision for transforming the federal government, to give grassroots activists something to rally around and to pressure presidential contenders. It sets out a clear theory for where the Democratic Party should head next that Hillary Clinton and others need to reckon with.

House and Senate Republicans would cut trillions from the budget, mostly from health and social welfare programs. So naturally the CPC budget adds trillions to the budget. While the Congressional Budget Office projects the federal government will spend about $49 trillion between 2016 and 2025, the progressive budget envisions $52.4 trillion in spending — a net increase of about $3.4 trillion.

And with those trillions, it does just about everything a progressive could ask for, short of fully implementing Swedish social democracy in America:
$745 billion goes to an infrastructure program, meant to both create jobs and repair deteriorating roads, bridges, and the like.

$128 billion goes to a new tax credit for low- and middle-income workers.
The debt limit deal of 2011 — including the budget sequestration — is repealed in full, and more spending on non-defense discretionary programs is added on top of that, for a total discretionary spending hike of nearly $1.9 trillion.

A bevy of new education programs are introduced, including universal pre-K and a matching fund to help public universities "increase aid to students to help them cover the total cost of college attendance without taking on debt."

While the budget declines to change Social Security (believing that to be an issue best addressed outside of the budget process), it calls for the program to be significantly expanded.

Go read the rest, and share with your friends. The media continues to turn this into the Invisible Budget -- don't let them!

"Wages you can live on, savings you can retire on, and health care that’s there for you when you need it. "

No, Mr. President: your proposed budget does NOT ensure "opportunity for all hard-working Americans." Your budget ensures that the parasites and thieves on Wall Street will continue to live high off the hog the rest of us sacrifice everything to feed.

One budget and one budget only ensures opportunity for all hard-working Americans and that's the Back to Work Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.



Full transcript here.

How About a "Better Off Budget"

You know, a reality-based budget that makes the rich pay for the wealth they've stolen from the middle class, that restores the social safety net, that rebuilds our infrastructure, that creates good jobs, that invests in the future.

The kind of budget the Congressional Progressive Caucus produces every year.

Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) issued the following statement (this week) as the CPC released its Better Off Budget:

“During our economy’s best decades, Congress invested in the American workforce and every family was better off for it. But recent years have been dominated by growing inequality and a Republican majority in Congress obsessed with slashing the budget, making it harder for working Americans to find decent jobs and save for the future. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Better Off Budget reverses the damage their austerity agenda has inflicted on hard-working families and restores our economy to its full potential by creating 8.8 million jobs by 2017.

“The Better Off Budget reverses harmful cuts that have hit working families the hardest—starting with repealing across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester. It creates a fairer tax code so that low and middle-income families no longer pay more than they should while the world’s biggest corporations benefit from unnecessary loopholes. Our budget reverses harmful pay freezes, expands benefits for federal retirees and strengthens federal health care and retirement programs Americans rely on.

“When the federal budget invests resources wisely, we can meet the needs of working families and shrink the deficit. The Better Off Budget not only creates jobs, it reduces deficits by $4.08 trillion over the next 10 years. It’s the right budget for the country, for working families and for our future.”

The release of the CPC’s Better Off Budget comes a week after President Obama presented his budget proposal to Congress and well ahead of Rep. Paul Ryan’s expected plan being made available. A brief summary of the Better Off Budget’s key provisions and topline numbers is available here and more detailed description of the budget, including job creation and deficit reduction impacts is available here.

As Digby writes:

The derision with which this budget has been received by the Villagers in general, much less this provision, has been overwhelming. If only these hippies could be as respectable as that nice Paul Ryan, the man who went on the radio this week and basically accused African Americans of being the causes of poverty, what with all their shiftlessness and laziness. (And that was after he'd been shown to have basically copied and pasted erroneous conclusions to his big "study" apparently to pad it with citations that don't apply. Very very serious.)

So the Progressive Caucus puts out a budget in which the numbers all add up, the deficit is cut, people are put to work, kids are educated and old people are taken care of and it's declared dead on arrival by all the pundits. Why? Because it raises taxes on millionaires --- which is such an outrageous proposal it might as well have been a proposal to fund the government with unicorn spit.

If only they'd strap some guns to their legs, slap some tri-corner hats on their heads and start babbling about tyranny and liberty then maybe the media would take it seriously.

Down with Tyranny:

Here's how Grijalva explained the budget to his constituents in Tucson:

During our economy’s best decades, Congress invested in the American workforce and every family was better off for it. But recent years have been dominated by growing inequality and a Republican majority in Congress obsessed with slashing the budget, making it harder for working Americans to find decent jobs and save for the future. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Better Off Budget reverses the damage budget austerity has inflicted on hard-working families and restores our economy to its full potential by creating 8.8 million jobs by 2017.

The Better Off Budget reverses harmful cuts that have hit working families the hardest-- starting with repealing across-the-board budget cuts known as the “sequester.” It creates a fairer tax code so that low and middle-income families no longer pay more than they should while the world’s biggest corporations benefit from unnecessary loopholes. Our budget reverses harmful pay freezes, expands benefits for federal retirees and strengthens federal health care and retirement programs Americans rely on.

When the federal budget invests resources wisely, we can meet the needs of working families and shrink the deficit. The Better Off Budget not only creates jobs, it reduces the deficit by $4.08 trillion over the next 10 years. It’s the right budget for the country, for working families and for our future.

Although creating jobs is the top priority, there are several other pieces of the budget that should play well among voters. For example, the budget

• Eliminates the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.

• Enacts a Financial Transaction tax on various financial market transactions.

• Implements Chairman Dave Camp’s financial institution excise tax

• Allows states to transition to single-payer health care systems.

• Closes tax loopholes and ends subsidies provided to oil, gas and coal companies.

• Implements comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship.

• Calls for transparency in national security budgets to bring accountability to bulk data collection programs.

• Funds public financing of campaigns to curb special interest influence in politics.

• Endorses “Scrapping-the-Cap” and expanding Social Security benefits separately from the federal budget process.

Kentucky Repugs Voted Down Only Budget That Does What Kentuckians Want

The Back to Work Budget creates jobs, grows the economy, helps the middle class, protects social security and medicare, maintains the social safety net and yet reduces the deficit.

But Kentucky's congressional repugs voted it down: cAndy Barr in the Sixth District, Hal Rogers in the Fifith, Thomas Massie in the Fourth, Brett Guthrie in the Second and Ed Whitfield in the First.  All voted for the granny-starving economy-killing Blueprint for Feudalism of Paul Ryan, but not for the one budget that would help Kentuckians.

John Yarmuth, of course, voted for it.

Down with Tyranny:

No one thought it would pass. It's far too good-- too sensible, too weighted towards the non-rich-- for any Republican to consider voting for it. It failed today 84-327 and, sure enough, not a single Republican voted for it. But, then again, neither did most Democrats. More than a few non-Progressive Caucus Members voted for it-- like Stephen Lynch who desperately wants Massachusetts Democratic primary voters to think he's a progressive-- but I was horrified and disappointed by the CPC members who didn't vote for it, as well as by other progressives who voted NO.

Last week, writing at Huffington Post, R.J. Eskow, explained why the CPC budget vote is the most important budget battle in the country.

We won't have a functioning democracy until more of our representatives stand up for the principles in this document. That's why every Representative's vote for this budget matters. It's why each member of the House, and each of us, needs to stand up and be counted.

The CPC budget is smart, effective, and practical, creating up to seven million jobs while reducing the Federal deficit by $4.4 trillion. And yet it's being marginalized by the press and dismissed by leaders of the CPC's own Democratic Party.  Its provisions are enormously popular with voters across the political spectrum. And yet in Washington's insular world of self-fulfilling prophecies we're told that this budget is unimportant because "it will never pass."

...The CPC budget begins by recognizing what most sensible economists understand: A lingering recessionary economy like ours needs an up-front jolt of public investment. (The first one wasn't big enough.) It invests $2.1 trillion in public investment and jobs growth, with $700 billion in its first twelve months.

That sounds like a lot until we compare it to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which, as Bill Moyers notes, may be as much as $4.4 trillion (plus another trillion in interest). Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that it will take another $3 trillion just to cover the overall cost of medical care for wounded soldiers.

Next to that, $2.1 trillion to restore our damaged economy is a bargain. The budget would create an estimated 6.9 million jobs, cut wasteful Pentagon spending, reduce Medicare costs by ending corporate giveaways, modestly increase tax levels for high- and ultra-high-income Americans, and assess Wall Street for its excessive risk-tasking behavior.

It reduces the deficit in part because its up-front expenditures are an investment, not a military waste of money (or, far more tragically, of lives).

The only high-ranking House Democrats who voted for it were Jim Clyburn (SC), the Assistant Majority Leader and Xavier Becerra (CA), the Caucus Chairman. The rest of the leadership team all voted with the Republicans: Pelosi, Hoyer, Crowley, Israel... Wasserman-Schultz hid in the ladies room during the vote.

I'm not going to bother to mention all the Blue Dogs and New Dems who crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans against the only sensible budget that's been proposed this year. But I do want to point out a list of Congressional Progressive Caucus members who voted against the budget; just shocking:

SNIP

Being pro-Choice or pro-gay marriage or against racism doesn't automatically make someone a progressive. If you don't care about economic justice issues... you're something else.

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

As Yglesias says, Brooks ends up making the case about as well as anyone actually trying to make it could.  The former’s summary is useful:

Long story short, I would say the CPC budget has the following main advantages over the Ryan budget:

• More food and medical care for poor children.
• Less air pollution and a meaningful chance to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
• Lower taxes on middle-class and working-poor families.
• Medicare reform focused on reducing the unit price of health care services rather than increasing it.
• More funding for transportation infrastructure and basic research.

Brooks says the Ryan budget has the following main advantages over the CPC budget:

• High-income individuals will be less inclined to take vacations or retire and more inclined to work long hours.

This is…not a difficult choice.

John Yarmuth Not Awesome on Social Security, Medicare

I am disappointed.  Yarmuth's proud liberal stances have earned him the sobriquet (coined by LEO's Joe Sonka) of "Congressmen Awesome," yet on one of the most important progressive issues today, he's absent.

In fact, Yarmuth is not even a member of the Congressional Progressive caucus. 

Is his reason for not joining the CPC the same one for not committing to protect Social Security?

Now we know.

Every member of Congress has chosen whether to sign a letter making a crucial commitment: “We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.”

The Democratic Party hierarchy doesn’t like the letter. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has said that cutting Social Security would “strengthen” it, and President Obama’s spokespeople keep emphasizing his eagerness to cut Social Security’s cost of living adjustments. The fact that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit is beside the austerity point.

Since mid-February, across the country, many thousands of people have sent personal notes, submitted petitions and made phone calls imploring members of Congress to sign the letter, initiated by Congressmen Alan Grayson and Mark Takano.

Twenty-eight members of the House of Representatives have signed the letter.

Here are their names: Brown, Cartwright, Castor, Clay, Conyers, D. Davis, DeFazio, Ellison, Faleomavaega, Grayson, G. Green, Grijalva, Gutierrez, A. Hastings, Honda, Kaptur, Lee, Lynch, C. Maloney, Markey, McGovern, Nadler, Napolitano, Nolan, Serrano, Takano, Velazquez and Waters.

If you don’t see the name of your Congress member on that list, you live in a House district without a representative standing up for economic decency.

Especially noteworthy are 49 members of the House who belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus but have refused to sign the Grayson-Takano letter. In most cases, they represent districts with a largely progressive electorate. In effect, their message is: We like to call ourselves “progressive” but we refuse to clearly stand up to an Obama White House that’s pushing to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits. To see the names of those 49 members of Congress, click here.

Yarmuth calls himself a progressive, and his votes almost always back that up. Maybe he's being a loyal soldier on this one and following the dead-wrong and self-destructive Democratic Party "leadership." If so, he should know better.

The Back to Work Budget

Funny how the MSM budget coverage never even mentions the plans that reflect actual economic reality and the preferences of the American people.

Because there is one that does, and of course it's from the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Digby:

Hey guess what? It's possible to cut the deficit without making the poor and middle class suffer. Plus jobs!

Personally, I don't think worrying about deficits at the moment makes any sense at all, but if we are going to worry about it at least it would be nice if some alternatives to cutting the daylights out of everything people need were on the table. It could be done. Unfortunately average people won't be suffering for the sins of their betters so I suppose that's out of the question.

Anyway, here's the summary of the CPC's new Back to Work budget which does just that:

We’re in a jobs crisis that isn’t going away. Millions of hard-working American families are falling behind, and the richest 1 percent is taking home a bigger chunk of our nation’s gains every year. Americans face a choice: we can either cut Medicare benefits to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or we can close these tax loopholes to invest in jobs.

We choose investment. The Back to Work Budget invests in America’s future because the best way to reduce our long-term deficit is to put America back to work. In the first year alone, we create nearly 7 million American jobs and increase GDP by 5.7%. We reduce unemployment to near 5% in three years with a jobs plan that includes repairing our nation’s roads and bridges, and putting the teachers, cops and firefighters who have borne the brunt of our economic downturn back to work. We reduce the deficit by $4.4 trillion by closing tax loopholes and asking the wealthy to pay a fair share. We repeal the arbitrary sequester and the Budget Control Act that are damaging the economy, and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, which provide high quality, low-cost medical coverage to millions of Americans when they need it most.

This is what the country voted for in November. It’s time we side with America’s middle class and invest in their future
Job Creation
• Infrastructure – substantially increases infrastructure investment to the level the American Society of Civil Engineers says is necessary to close our infrastructure needs gap
• Education – funds school modernizations and rehiring laid-off teachers
• Aid to States – closes the recession-caused gap in state budgets for two years, allowing the rehiring of cops, firefighters, and other public employees
• Making Work Pay – boosts consumer demand by reinstating an expanded tax credit for three years
• Emergency Unemployment Compensation – allows beneficiaries to claim up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits in high-unemployment states for two years
• Public Works Job Programs and Aid to Distressed Communities – includes job programs such as a Park Improvement Corps, Student Jobs Corps, and Child Care Corp
Fair Individual Tax
• Immediately allows Bush tax cuts to expire for families earning over $250K
• Higher tax rates for millionaires and billionaires (from 45% to 49%)
• Taxes income from investments the same as income from wages
Fair Corporate Tax
• Ends corporate tax bias toward moving jobs and profits overseas
• Enacts a financial transactions tax
• Reduces deductions for corporate jets, meals, and entertainment
Defense
• Returns Pentagon spending to 2006 levels, focusing on modern security needs
Health Care
• No benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security
• Reduces health care costs by adopting a public option, negotiating drug prices, and reducing fraud
Environment
• Prices carbon pollution with a rebate to hold low income households harmless
• Eliminates corporate tax subsidies for oil, gas, and coal companies

It would be really neat if the press could pay as much attention to this as they do every one of Paul Ryan's dystopian nightmare plans. I suppose it would be silly to hold my breath.

Cheney Was Right: Deficits Don't Matter

But it sure as hell does matter that Democrats in Washington are preparing to shred the already tattered social safety net in the name of meaningless deficits.

Digby:

This is where I think rhetoric plays a big part. Nobody's making any argument against cutting spending. The need for a big deficit reduction plan is an article of faith and the question is only if they can get Grover Norquist to sign off on raising some phony tip money from millionaires or if they can out-maneuver the Republicans on the Bush tax cuts and raise some money that way. So, if a faction of progressives were to obstruct any deficit reduction bill that incorporates the stated goal of raising taxes "a little bit" on millionaires, it would be greeted with stunned disbelief. After all, that's what has been touted as the big victory for the Democrats.

If the Party, including the President, would drop all this "balanced approach" hoohah and ran solely on the idea that we need jobs and growth and that worrying about deficit reduction right now is like selling your car to pay for your new couch while your house is burning down, some Democrats might be able to block a new Simpson-Bowles-PetePeterson-Grand Bargain extravaganza. At least people would understand that they are not doing it out of unreasoning petulance. But that's not happening so we are stuck hoping against hope that Grover Norquist still has enough juice to blow up this deal one more time. I don't know if he does.

Read the whole thing.

Actually, someone is making the argument against cutting spending. It's just not anyone establishing Democrats pay any attention to: the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Down with Tyranny:

Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) have asked their colleagues in the caucus to sign on as cosponsors to a Resolution that expresses "the sense of Congress that any deal replacing the 'Budget Control Act of 2011' must contain serious revenue increases and no Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefit cuts. Each member of the caucus got a note from Grijalva and Ellison asking them to sign up and explaining why they have to move now.

With the start of sequestration and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts coming at the end of the year, we are already beginning to hear discussion of another attempt at a “grand bargain.” Unfortunately, the debate has focused on just how far we are willing to go in making deep cuts to government spending.

These debates have already placed Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at risk. Democrats must insert themselves into the national debate and push back against cuts to these much needed social programs, which are overwhelmingly supported by Americans. In addition, we must show there is a block of votes that will stand against a deal that doesn’t include serious revenue increases to prevent drastic cuts to programs that middle class families and those who aspire to the middle class rely on.

We invite you to join us in cosponsoring a resolution that sets out our requirements for any deal on taxes and spending replacing the Budget Control Act. This resolution firmly states that we will not accept a bargain from Congressional Republicans that balances the budget or reduces the deficit on the backs of working families. In addition, this resolution declares the necessity of reduced defense spending to focus on modern threats and increased economic growth through strong levels of job-creating federal investments.

Within a couple hours they already had 40 co-sponsors and they're calling the Resolution, the Deal For All, which will serve as a framework for progressives during the Grand Bargain negotiations. Here's the exact wording as it went to congressional offices (in July).

Read the whole thing. Then send it to your Congress critters and demand they sign on.

Oh, and why don't deficits matter? Let the Voice of Courage, Alan Grayson, explain:

I must concede that it is rather difficult to reconcile the conflicting statements of these two gentlemen, Messrs. Levin and Cheney. Evidently, they believe deficits are a terrible tragedy when a Democrat is President, and a wonderful gift when a Republican is President.

There has got to be a more objective standard than that.

Here's one: the federal deficit is a problem when long-term interest rates are high, and not much of a problem when long-term interest rates are low. The Federal Reserve dictates short-term interest rates, but long-term rates still are, pretty much, set by the market, in its usual ruthless fashion. (Which is why James Carville said that after he dies, he "want[s] to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.")

When long-term interest rates are high, a federal deficit competes against and "crowds out" private borrowing and investment. When long-term interest rates are low, the federal deficit is not taking away from borrowing by the private sector. On the contrary, the federal deficit is acting as a needed boost to aggregate demand in the economy, an action also known as "fiscal policy." When the economy is slack, every dollar of reduction in federal spending takes three or four dollars off of our gross national product.

So, by that test, where are we? Well, as I explained last week, long-term U.S. interest rates are at their lowest in history. So what does that tell you about the deficit?

Sorry – I didn't mention that there was going to be a quiz.

When Ronald Reagan was President, long-term interest rates sometimes exceeded 15% – ten times as high as long-term interest rates today. The market was screaming at the top of its lungs that the Reagan deficit was too high. And today? Silence.

Look around the world. The ten-year note in Greece yields a little less than 30%. Pakistan, 13%. Portugal and Venezuela, 12%. In those countries, the bond market is shouting, "Cut that out!"

Not here.

Thanks to all the deficit-mongering by Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News," etc., a lot of Americans are scared by the federal deficit. The advice from Democratic pollsters is to go along with this hand-wringing. But there is an alternative: Explain to the American people when a federal deficit is bad, and when it is not.

Like I just did.

Progressive Progress in the Economic Stimulus

As the Senate girds for battle over the repug-sabotaged economic stimulus, Talking Points Memo brings us a reminder of the progressive priorities that made it into the House bill and deserve saving in the Senate.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus just released a memo that offers a worthy counterpoint to our discussions today about the Republicans' baldly misleading message on the stimulus.

The Progressives have rounded up elements of their proposed $1 trillion stimulus that ended up making it into the Democratic leaders' final bill, in part or in whole. It's a list that's worth remembering while tax cuts seemingly dominate the airwaves.

The highlights of the memo:

• Unemployment benefits (UI) extension. Cost = at least $12.7 billion

• Anti-hunger provisions

* SNAP - 20% temporary increase in maximum food stamp level above the FY2009 level for two years. Cost = approximately $24 billion and increase in funds for state food stamp administrative costs Cost= $250 million;

* WIC - increase funding to make up for shortfall not covered in the current Continuing Resolution. Cost = $450 million and increases for management information system and related infrastructure improvements. Cost = $50 million;

* School meals - provide a 15% increase in funding for breakfast and school lunch programs. Cost = $1 billion;

• Medicaid payments to states (FMAP). Cost = at least $15 billion

• LIHEAP assistance to provide low-income Americans relief from higher energy costs. Cost = at least $5 billion

• Job creation via down payment on rebuilding America's infrastructure and schools, starting with massive investment in commercialization of green technologies and related job training that promote environmental protection and energy independence. Cost = at least $100 billion

** In general:

• No funds for Iraq or Afghanistan wars and no funds for defense procurement.

• Prevailing wage to be paid for jobs created and upholding of Davis-Bacon Act

These are, of course, just a downpayment on the long list of repairs to the New Deal and Great Society needed after three decades of repug destruction.

But if these provisions remain in the final bill and President Obama signs it by Darwin Day, then I'd say we're well on our way to recovery.