Associated Press
Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raul Grijalva (R-Ariz.) are the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
For just a minute, put aside what you know about the partisan makeup of Congress. While you're at it, forget about filibusters, committees, and what's considered "feasible" on Capitol Hill.
Then take a look at the deficit reduction plan (pdf) presented today by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Sure, it's not going to pass. And yes, it will be largely ignored by news organizations. But as Greg Sargent noted, the plan features popular, sensible ideas that work.
In a nutshell, it outlines three stages of deficit reduction, two of which have already happened. The first: $1.7 trillion in spending cuts Dems agreed to as part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal that ultimately led to the sequester. The second: $737 billion in new revenues that Republicans agreed to as part of the fiscal cliff deal earlier this year.
The third stage is the key to the plan. It proposes to replace the $948 billion sequester with roughly the same amount in new revenues achieved by closing loopholes and deductions enjoyed by corporations and the wealthy. That makes a total of $3.3 trillion in deficit reduction when all three stages are taken together, evenly balanced between cuts and new revenues.
Meanwhile, the plan also invests in job creation -- and pays for it by cutting defense spending. The total in defense cuts is $278 billion, which would then be plowed into infrastructure spending and other stimulus ideas in Obama's American Jobs Act.
I'd love to see a pollster put something like this to the test. Take competing deficit-reduction plans from the various players -- House Republicans, the White House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, etc. -- and present them to survey respondents without any names or parties attached. Just have the pollster put it in the field as Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and so on.
The media and the political establishment tend to scoff at the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but is there any doubt their plan would fare very well with the American mainstream? For all the talk about the "center-right nation," is it really outrageous to think that the plan crafted by House liberals would enjoy broad public support?
What's more, the Congressional Progressive Caucus aren't relying on magical asterisks or smoke and mirrors to make their numbers add up -- it's a straightforward approach based on numbers that are fully calculator friendly.
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is revered as a "serious" budget wonk and fiscal hawk, despite the fact that he voted for fiscally reckless policies throughout the Bush/Cheney era, and despite the fact that his budget plan for the near future is a complete fraud, based on numbers that don't add up.
But Congressional Progressive Caucus is made up of policymakers perceived as silly hippies, while Ryan is taken seriously.
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Now THIS is a good idea. But of course, when did good ideas ever win support in Washington?
This part struck me,
Meanwhile, the plan also invests in job creation -- and pays for it by cutting defense spending. The total in defense cuts is $278 billion, which would then be plowed into infrastructure spending and other stimulus ideas in Obama's American Jobs Act.
So we take jobs away from engineers and highly skilled well payed manufacturing workers and give money to SIGN MAKERS and low tech and low paid concrete workers.
That seems like a good way to start us on the path to being a third world toilet in no time at all.
What a crock...
Guys, you got your revenue, promptly spent it on Sandy, and now you're stuck. Deal with it.
Shooter
If it rained vanilla ice cream you would complain that you wanted chocolate...
You need better antidepressants or something...seriously
What part of this monstrosity are you likening to ice cream?
I wasn't talking about the plan I was describing you and the fact that your discontent is so regular I could set my watch by it.
Shooter 242 #2
Republicans have yet to propose a plan that reduces the deficit according to anyone's arithmetic, right or left. That leaves you with a choice - you can support the adults who reduced the deficit 21% already or you can support the Gang That Can't Add. The parable says it best: remove the plank from your own eye BEFORE you remove the speck from your neighbor's eye. We will be glad to help since we see fine.
Still scratching the Hemorrhoid with a wire brush. Way to go, folks. Way to go.
Of course the Progressive Caucus Plan would work. Which is exactly why both the corporate owned lame-stream media will ignore it and the rest of the politicians & pundits will pretend that they never heard about it. The "hype" is that the GOTP are deficit hawks, the truth is that they're busy pillaging the public treasury for the gain of their 2% pimps! They aren't really serious about the "deficit or the debt" but they want to be seen as being serious by their base. In the meantime their sheeple will also be punished from these austerity measures.
But I do agree with you a "blind" test of all of these plans - put them before the public and I bet the Progressive plan would come out on top.
Clearly the Republicans are not deficit hawks. They are just hawks. They want to further expand the bloated defence budget because they are still living in the cold war era. If they cared about the deficit they'd raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for their damn unnecessary wars.
They believe in credit card debt, not deficit reduction. Fox and friends keeps that lie going for the gullible. In fact, Fox keeps all their lies going for the gullible.
Republicans are always the same. Spend like drunken sailors when in power then complain bitterly about the deficit when out of power. Grow government to feed their fat cat supporters then complain the government is too big with too many 'regulations' when out of power. They want the treasury in their pockets and under their thumb.
They have no 'credible' business being in government pushing only for personal financial gain and power.
Didnt Obama just sign the fisical cliff deal that gave 60 billion in tax breraks to the rich ( Hollywood NASCAR ETC ETC)? I hear you but Obama and the dems look out for certain rich folks as well ( mainly the ones who give them big contributions). I hear all this talk about the repuks but when you look at actions I be damned if Obama and the dems aint doing the same damn thing. I call that blowing smoke up peoples asses.
The biggest reason why none of these plans matter is because any plan that comes from the left is utterly doomed it wouldn't matter if they were saying we should build more tanks and aircraft carriers and go back to the gold standard...The right will just simply not allow the left any kind of political "Victory" on policy.
Oh and just as an aside about the progressive caucus...I honestly deeply wish we had just one dyed in the Red card carrying Communist in congress...just because every time he/she walked into the room the Tea Party people would go into apoplectic fits
You implying I should run for congress??? :-)
Maybe. I will vote for you as long as you promise to wear one of those little green Chairman Mao hats to committee meetings and on the Sunday shows.
I agree that a blind test of all these plans would put the progressive one on the top - as long as taxpayers are educated about what their own tax situation is currently. It's no secret that thanks to the misinformation pumped out by Fox, Rush, etc. and the cooperation of other media, not to mention Congress, most Americans don't have a clear read on what their tax liability actually is, compare to the Mittens of this world. Ex. 1 - the estate tax, which I'm sure most Americans think is going to hit them, rather than the richest 2 in 1000 estates.
The photo on the right above is captioned Raul Grijalva (R-Ariz.) I think this would come as a surprise to his constituents in AZ-7 who consider him a D.
Actually he seems to represent AZ-3. The Google description says 7, but the web site says 3rd district. http://grijalva.house.gov/
Yes, Raul is our DEMOCRATIC representative....we have some Democrats as Reps but can't seem to elect a Democratic Senator...next time?
I like the outline that this article presented. Still need to vote out republicans and blue dogs in the upcoming election cycles.
Sweetie there is no such a critta as a "blue dog" democrat anymore. Where on earth have you been in recent years?
A skunk cabbage by any other name...
Somebody get on the horn to PPP and get them to do a poll on this against the other heinous budgets.
"But Congressional Progressive Caucus is made up of policymakers perceived as silly hippies, while Ryan is taken seriously."
According to my reading of scholarly economic theories, all of them (Congressional Progressive Caucus), all Dems in Congress, ALL Repubs, almost all of you (the readers of this blog), and almost all Americans need to relearn economics.
We are not on the sold standard any more.
Everything we know about economics only applies to nations on the gold standard or using the Euro. It need not apply to the US. It applies only if we stupidly let it.
Try reading this--
http://agonist.org/modern_monetary_theory_an_overview/
All that is true, but try reading this 1st--
Remember, "If it is too good to be true, it probably isn't." Unless it is true.
The 1st here is the introduction. The 2nd is where you will find them all.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/12/a-meme-for-money-part-1-introduction.html#more-3842
http://www.modernmoneyandpublicpurpose.com/blog.html look in "Blog" and look for "A meme for money."
"We are not on the sold standard any more."
Oops, 'sold' should be 'gold'.
If we really want to reduce the deficit, we need to reduce unemployment. Deficits are largely endogenous, meaning that as revenues tank (ppl losing jobs no longer paying taxes) and automatic stabilizers kick-in (unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc), the deficit explodes all on its own.
It's basic math. And for all the applause for Clinton and his "surpluses", he fell into that for the same reasons listed above. He had strong economic winds at his back by way of the dot.com bubble increasing tax revenues; unemployment fell to 3.7%, reducing automatic stabilizers. And predictably, the deficit disappeared. Until the economy crashed, producing deficits again. Rinse and repeat.
We have a $2.2T infrastructure deficit in this country right now. But for whatever reason, we think letting everything crumble around us will somehow "save" our grand kids. Because, you know, we're "broke". We are not. And it's frustrating to see us focus on the wrong targets. Great discussion here via HuffPo Live on this very issue:
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/us-economy-stock-exchange/510fd41102a7603382000725
Clinton also had a repuks controlled house and Senate an actualy fact that gets over looked a hell of alot.
I would take this in a heartbeat over what the President wants to do, which is cut Social Security and Medicare. Oh, sorry, "reform."
That is not what the rest of us want.
Hello Rachael Madow I am a very simple minded person but I an confussed about this. According to you our debt is shrinking under Obama but the debt clock is moving higher not lower. I am confussed at you saying that we dont have a debt problem. If what you are saying is true then why is the debt clock getting closer to 17 trillion. It should be going down if its shrinking under Obama. I know your not saying that only spending 1.3 trillion a year is a good thing are you ? The problem is our debt clock is getting higher not lower this is why what you are saying seems very irrelvant to our aactualy debt climbing instead of lowering.
Funniest thing I've read all day.
Missooshi do you really find us owing almost 17 trillion and climbing in debt funny? All I can say is wow.
High Rolla
Rachel Maddow reported that the DEFICIT decreased during the Obama Administration. The deficit decreased 21%, which is 21% more deficit reduction than any proposal from Republicans does no matter who does the arithmetic. So you can either support the adults who are reducing the deficit or the Gang That Can't Add.
Of the proposed new $950 billion dollars in tax revenue received by closing loopholes and deductions enjoyed by the wealthy, how much of it comes from the bottom 90% of the country and how much from the top 10%?
Of course, most of America is going to endorse a plan like this because it does not cause them to personally have to make any sacrifice. If Democrats are going to continue to blame the Bush tax rates as being part of the reason that we have the problems we have today, then EVERYBODY who received benefits from the lower tax rates should be responsible for helping to fix the problem. Not just the top wage earners in this country.
just saying...
There are $1 trillion of spending cuts ALREADY IMPLEMENTED from the sequestration negotiations that shows the poor, middle class and seniors HAVE contributed. The missing contribution, defense spending the Defense Department says it does not need, tax breaks for companies that take jobs overseas, negotiated prescription drug prices for Medicare, oil company subsidies and other corporate welfare, need to be done BEFORE requiring the poor, middle class and seniors to sacrifice AGAIN. This is called being fair and balanced. This is what Americans voted for in November.
The Democrats do not blame the current increase in deficits on the Bush tax rates, the Congressional Budget Office does. According to the CBO, the tax rates and the wars fought off budget account for most of the future deficits. Without those items, future budgets would approach BALANCE. Republicans have yet to propose a plan that reduces the deficit according to anyone's arithmetic, right or left so if they have a plan to reduce the deficit, why do they keep it a secret?
The parable says it best: remove the plank from your own eye BEFORE removing the speck from your neighbor's eye. I suggest you do so before you 'just say' anything else.
Have they contributed on the same percentage of benefit that they received?
just asking...
Since the 1% each get 26 TIMES the income someone in the 99% gets and owns 52 TIMES the wealth someone in the 99% has because of the economic policies that put this country in this mess I would say the 99% has contributed MORE than they received and not from their excess like the 1% would be. You might have had a point if these 'job creators' did not use their wealth to take jobs overseas, buy elections and intimidate voters by threatening their jobs. Everybody needs to work to fix this mess and the President recognizes this by implementing $1 trillion in spending cuts on top of sequestration. It is past time the 1% chipped in.
The last time I checked, tax rates were assigned to income, not wealth.
the 1% should "chip in"...what a crock. They pay the vast majority of all the taxes in this country. Almost 50% of the people pay ZERO federal income tax. It is time for them to have some skin in the game.
"Job Creators" are free to send their jobs wherever they want to...they own the business and it is theirs to do with whatever they want.
Since more of the 1% receive their money from the quarterly dividend and not actually creating commerce like their predecessors did (witness George Romney and his son, Mitt) wealth does translate into income. The fact that wages have leveled off while income for the 1% has gone up over 200% over the past 33 years confirms who has benefited and who has not. The fact that there was AT LEAST $1 trillion of spending cuts OVER AND ABOVE the sequestration cuts ALREADY IMPLEMENTED shows the 'skin' the poor, middle class and seniors have lost. ZERO federal income taxes does not mean ZERO federal taxes since every wage dollar is taxed for Medicare and Social Security, something dividends ARE NOT subjected to. 'Job creators' are free to create jobs wherever they want to but if jobs are not created where they sell their goods their business will suffer. Henry Ford (a charter member of the 1%) realized this but his successors can only look as far as the next quarterly dividend and demand it increase AND their taxes decrease no matter what happens to the business climate that creates those dividends. They chop their nose off to spite their face, and using their wealth to try to buy elections and intimidate voters by threatening their jobs only reinforces their folly. The 1% have made money hand over fist in the current environment at the expense of the 99% and the consequence is the current mess. During this 'trickle down' period wealth has flown TOWARD the wealthy, not AWAY. It is past time those who benefited so much from these conditions do more to support the society that brought about their privileged status.