How Compromise Kills

Yes, Virginia, there is an alternative to the budget of the Austerity Thieves, although you won't hear about it from the Beltway Babblers.

The Budget for All increases funding for a variety of successful job creation programs, restores high earner’s marginal tax rates to Clinton-era levels, and preserves Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid without making benefit cuts. The plan builds on the successes of the CPC 2012 proposal, The People’s Budget, which garnered praise from notable economists such as Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs and outlets such as The Economist.

A one-page summary is available at http://1.usa.gov/H6u4lI and the executive summary is available at http://1.usa.gov/GQRcVC.

From David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

Digby asks the right question:

While everyone coos and drools over Paul Ryan's Very, Very Serious plan to cut the deficit, the progressive caucus can't even get progressives to pay attention to their budget. This is a budget that preserves all the things we care about, even raises benefits for the elderly and cuts the deficit more than Paul Ryan does...Evidently anything that doesn't demand pain from ordinary people just doesn't interest the Villagers or anyone else. Why is that?

The easy answer, of course, is that public policy is designed by and conducted on behalf of the very wealthy. But there's another connected factor, too: the fact that at least a significant portion of one side is willing to compromise, and the other is not.

The reason the progressive budget doesn't get a second look by the media is that it has zero chance of passing. It would take a full 60 uncorrupted Democratic/Sanders Senators, a majority of Democratic representatives, and an unwavering Democratic President to pass the thinot the world in which we live.

In this case as in so many others, Democratic compromise doesn't beget centrist policy and an appreciation for the grown-up willingness of the left to cooperate with its adversaries for the good of the country (not that such a thing is desirable.) Rather, it begets a media fetish for extremist conservative policy because only the latter falls within the realm of the possible.

Tell everyone you know: there is a progressive, reality-based budget that creates jobs and grows the economy, and it needs your support.

A one-page summary is available at http://1.usa.gov/H6u4lI and the executive summary is available at http://1.usa.gov/GQRcVC.