Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The People's Budget: What a "Centrist" Budget Should Look Like
WASHINGTON - Just when it seemed that all of Washington had lost its values and its connection with the American people, a bolt of hope has arrived. It is the People's Budget put forward by the co-chairs of the 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their plan is humane, responsible, and most of all sensible, reflecting the true values of the American people and the real needs of the floundering economy. Unlike Paul Ryan's almost absurdly vicious attack on the poor and working class, the People's Budget would close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, taming health care costs (including a public option), and ending the military spending on wars and wasteful weapons systems.
There are now four budget positions on the table. Far to the right is Paul Ryan's plan, an artless war on the poor that would take a meat-cleaver to Medicaid (health care for the poor), food stamps, support for child care, the environment, and the rest of government other than the military, Social Security, and Medicare (that is, until 2022, when the slashing would begin on Medicare coverage as well). Ryan would keep taxes below 20 percent of GDP (specifically, 19.9 percent of GDP in 2021), at the cost of destroying entitlements programs and other civilian spending.
Then there is President Obama's budget, which is really a muddled proposal in the center-right of the political spectrum. It would keep most of the Reagan-era and Bush-era tax cuts in place. Like the Ryan proposal, Obama's tax proposals would keep total taxes at around 20 percent of GDP. The result is a major long-term squeeze on vital programs such as community development, infrastructure, and job training. Also, Obama's plan never closes the budget deficit, which remains as high as 3.1% of GDP in 2021.
In the progressive middle is the People's Budget. Like Ryan's plan, the People's Budget would cut the budget deficit to zero by 2021, but would do so in an efficient and fair way. It would close the budget deficit by raising tax rates on the rich and giant corporations, while also curbing military spending and wrestling health care costs under control, partly by introducing a public option. By raising tax revenues to 22.3 percent of GDP by 2021, the People's Budget closes the budget deficit while protecting the poor and promoting needed investments in education, health care, roads, power, energy, and the environment in order to raise America's long-term competitiveness. The People's Budget thereby achieves what Ryan and Obama do not: the combination of fairness, efficiency, and budget balance.
The fourth position is the public's position. The Republicans often say that they want Congress to respect the voice of the people. The voice of the people is crystal clear. In one opinion survey after the next, the public says that the rich and the corporations should pay more taxes. The public says that we should tamp down runaway health care costs through a public option, one that would introduce competition to drive down bloated private health insurance costs. The public says that we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce Pentagon spending. (Just yesterday, Defense Secretary Gates let loose the predictable Pentagon canard that we should stay in Iraq if the Iraqi government asks for it. Better yet, we should respond to what the American people are asking for: to bring our troops home).
The fact is that the People's Budget is the public's position. That's why it is truly a centrist initiative, at the broad center of the U.S. political spectrum. Ryan reflects the wishes of the rich and the far right. Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists that Obama courts for his re-election. Many Democrats in Congress have also gone along with the falsehood that deficit cutting means slashing spending on the poor and on civilian discretionary programs, rather than raising taxes on the rich, cutting military spending, and taking on the over-priced private health insurance industry. Only the People's Budget speaks to the broad needs and values of the American people.
The current budget negotiations have been a dialogue among the wealthy. The big debate has focused on which programs for the poor should be axed first. There has been no discussion of raising taxes on the rich, and quite the contrary, the White House and the Republican leadership agreed to further tax cuts last December. Obama has repeatedly expressed regret at slashing community development, energy support for the poor, and other programs, but he is not fighting the trend, only regretting it.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
39 Comments so far
Show AllAnd the winner is...
The far-right Paul Ryan plan.
Thank you M$M for your fair and balanced reporting so that this plan could be enacted. They alone (along with the other corporations) realize that reducing military spending would drastically increase our safety and security and that is something that must be prevented at all costs. The business of America is business and that business is making weapons. Therefore, we need all the insecurity we can buy so that we can sell more and more weapons. Plus, if our populace was not subjected to the economic draft, where would we get the soldiers to spread additional insecurity throughout the world?
And thanks to all the overpaid M$M talking heads and pundits for never discussing all those high-end tax cuts from which they will personally benefit.
Dems caving to Republicans in 3, 2, 1...
It isn't so much "Dems caving to Republicans" as it is Dems having the exact same agenda as Republicans, only pretending to represent the people. They are not an "opposition party" to the Rethugs. They are the exact same party with the exact same moneyed corporatist agenda.
Absolutely! "Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy..." WHAT "true values"? D'storm has it right. The Democrats' values ARE the values of the wealthy. They don't "waiver", they're complicit. They are Ginger Rodgers to the Repub's Fred Astaire. Each movement is the exact opposite, but it's the same dance.
Is that why the Dems went after the public employees unions, like in Wisconsin? Or why they are trying to shut down Planned Parenthood?
I don't like the Dems, either, but to conflate them with the Republicans on every issue is to disassociate from reality. Obama is awful, sure, but he's always been awful. He was awful as a candidate. I like him even less now.
Living in Ohio, I can say that Strickland wasn't a good governor, and I didn't vote for him. However, to say that Strickland and Kasich are exactly the same means that you're no longer describing anything remotely looking like reality.
Less hysteria. More insight.
The Dems do not act like the Rethugs - blatant corporate whores who charge head-on against the people and common good. If they did, there would be no visible difference between the two parties. They have always played the Washington Generals vs. the Rethugs' Harlem Globetrotters. And they do it very well.
Pay attention to more than just the window dressing. Strange, isn't it, how the Dems have had control of both houses of Congress and the WH for years, and somehow - hmmm! - just weren't able to pass single payer healthcare, stop the wars in Afghan/Iraq/Pakistan/etc. - stop rendition, close Guantanamo, stop torture, condemn Israel for its wholesale murder of the Palestinians and illegal blockade of same, stop the cutting of taxes on the rich, get an alternate green energy program going, stop the outsourcing of jobs to 3rd world countries, hold the Bush (and Obama) war criminals accountable, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, ETC.
Hmmm! I wonder why not???
Wake up, my friend. The Dems paint a nice, flimsy picture of "opposition" so they can maintain the illusion they are the "working people's party, the opposite of the Rethuglicans," but when it comes down to brass tacks, they are right up the oligarchy's rear ends just like their buddies across the aisle.
Demonstorm,
Thank you.
How interesting that the only time we see even a mildly pro-populo budget from the so-called Progressive Caucus is when there's no chance of getting it enacted. Lip service über alles.
Exactly.
Doomed to fail, yes, but they will fight *so* hard for it.
At least that's what their fund-raising appeals will say.
Dear Mr. Sachs,
Can you please stop using sayings like "the voice of the people," "The American People this or that." Your views don't reflect mine and my views don't reflect the majority of American people, mostly because they are chronically misinformed. These soundbites are disingenuous and have no meaning in the real world. I'm tired of being told by schmucks like you, who don't have a clue, what I think.
Thank you very much,
BProgress
Obvious to us but apparently Obama thinks he can present his center right budget as middle of the road public consensus. Given how biased our corporate media is, how uniformed and indifferent the US public is, (even the recent election in Wisconsin election only a third of the eligible voted) it is entirely possible that Obama will get away with this mis perception. .
Never gone to happen. We the People Don't have a chance of winning such a sensible budget. We are Not Rich and Powerful Politicians. The major part of the public has been Duped into this world that is getting darker all the time.
Its defeatist attitudes like yours (gnken1) that has made the rich so powerful. We have given them this dark world with our apathetic unresponsive behavior over the centuries.
Today we sit and type and F'ing click to sign petitions and watch video bytes and do nothing else. Each day goes by and we sit watch our TV's and internet machines for answers and we end up with another day gone to stand up and take it back. It's only going to get worse if WE let it. There is many more of US than them.
These people that rule this country and world are not US. Don't let'em BE!
Couldn't agree more. If everyone e-mails their friends about the Fairness of Taxation Act, maybe we can force Congress to vote on it. We don't have to take to the streets, just to our computers. 81% of Americans think that the rich aren't paying their fair share. It is ONE issue the majority agrees with. We need to use it to start to take back our government.
Obama makes it look like a good fight before caving into the rich, every single time. I guess he's laughing all the way to the bank.
That's what the Democrats' job is: "making it look like a good fight." If it were only possible to disabuse U.S. citizens of the notion that the two party system is the way things are and must always be.
Progressives need to take a page out of Frank Luntz's book. They should label the Republican's draconian cuts "The Raw Deal". And they need to keep repeating "The Raw Deal" over, and over, and over...
Or perhaps they should label the Republicans' draconian cuts "The Ryan Raw Deal".
"FDR gave us the New Deal, and
Truman gave us the Fair Deal, but
Now the Republicans want to ram the/their '(Ryan) Raw Deal' down our throats!"
"and promoting needed investments in education, health care, roads, power, energy, and the environment in order to raise America's long-term competitiveness"
This author and those he supports are stealing the people's place at the political table, claiming to vouch for the people with their "People's Budget". But as you can see from the above quote, the author's arguments are based on bogus assumptions that we need, for example, "merka's long-term competitiveness", as some kind of "top priority".
But we localists understand that "merka's competitiveness" means nothing because we don't want/need anyone competing against us in producing for our local communities. What's wrong with that guy?
Furthermore, competition is a generally bogus idea so on at least two levels the guy is seriously misguided. You only have to look at the freakish value placed on competition in merka and see what it has caused, to understand this.
Furthermore, merka is the last nation on earth that needs to increase its competitiveness. Merka needs to cut its production by a factor of four because 3/4 of what merka produces is totally unnecessary and highly net destructive. Look at the waste in its medical industry, look at the waste in its litigation industry, its transport industry, its military destruction industry! Its education industry, its marketeering industry! Stop the waste! And get a real reason for setting the budget! Try the wellness and happiness of the people! You don't get it? Keep trying until you do!
Wonderfully well said!
US economic competitiveness helps only one group: the wealthy. As you say, we don't need to compete globally to provide for ourselves. If we stop being profligate, we have nearly everything we need and can trade fairly for the rest.
We have a 3 of things or people like the 3 Stooges, the 3 Wisemen, the 3 Amigos; well, this is my 3 for this country. This country has 3 groups of assholes; there are the Executive Assholes, the Legislative Assholes and , of course, the Judiciary Assholes. If it had been a movie, a tv show there is no way someone could dream up how bad these 3 branches of Assholes are and were.How long have we got for the shit to overflow from these Assholes? Tony
Thanks for this article, Mr. Sachs. I so wish the media would give it expansive coverage. They certainly spent a lot of time on Ryan's nonsense.
Yes, I guess one would expect this from a HuffPo blog:
"Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists that Obama courts for his re-election."
Just like Kuttner's "Obama's aspirations" in yesterday's article, I mean, really? Ah, Obama's true values -- the values that came through loud and clear when there was a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate.
And then he ends with this:
"Obama has repeatedly expressed regret at slashing community development, energy support for the poor, and other programs, but he is not fighting the trend, only regretting it."
Yes, I'm sure Obama regrets. He's also been expressing his regrets practically since day one at cutting the middle class to pieces, so that nobody has anything to aspire to anymore.
Exactly! Why is CD posting Huffington tabloid style Obamabot journalism here? After blasting them for being corporate sellouts--why post their yellow journalism here?
Foreign aid is another budget item which seems to be as much off the table as bloated military spending. But two are closely related. Three billion to Israel comes back to MIC as military purchases. The same is true for the 5 billion to Saudi Arabia and so on. Also, why do we have 5000 US Marines in Uganda? It's because they have that universal curse -- OIL.
No Tax Without Representation
Revolt or Run
Jeff Sachs
Thanks for a nice, balanced article explaining so admirably but briefly which Budget proposal is what. Even the most attention- span challenged will be able to read through your one page analysis.
To the FIRST 20 raving posters on this thread who are scared stiff that perhaps Jeff Sachs plain language may inform the masses in America and thus who are hell bent on killing the messenger or diverting attention to nit picking trivia as Sachs using the phrase "People's Budget", your disgusting nihilistic rants SHOULD NOT put off the more sane commentators on CD. However, I believe that if most of the other regular CD posters don't see through this ploy to put off someone else trying to read this article, then they are not honest progressives of any sort whatsoever. They are of the same dubious Vichy infiltrated agents of the Corpocracy on CD as the first 20 of the 22 posters.
First of all, Jeff Sachs is one of the main and higly regarded WORLD WIDE progressive economists at a top University - - Columbia - - running the distiguished Earth Watch Insitute. This Institute has its primary goals to reduce abject poverty world wide by 2015 or 2020 at the latest by practical, scalable schemes employed in black (sub Saharan) Africa; and in fighting for Climate Change awareness and funding vigorously. If these credentials don't make Sachs a progressive, then perhaps posters like rtbury, chelsea girl, and others spiting out venom at him can provide us what makes an economist "progressive".
Nihilism is a veneral disease acquired by corporate pimps who troll on progressive sites such as this and infect any sane and sustained discussion of any issue. To kill the one sane and coherent piece produced by Huffpo in the most important subject of budgets and deficits by an eminent economist as top class as Joe Stiglitz in the comments section of CD and to put off other genuine commentators who may want to tighten their comprehension of all the budget hullabaloo is disgusting. CD please note this censure.
As to the People's Budget, as a trained economist myself, it appears to be EMINENTLY feasible. First, the tax burden by 2021 is just 23% of the GDP instead of 20% by the other proposals. That is just 3% larger, or increase of 3 CENTS to the dollar. But this combined with cuts in OIL COMPANY subsidies, an idea from 1916 carried on to this day, and in AGRICULTURAL subsidies to fat, rich farmers who turn around and support cutting help to the poor, and curtailing military spending rather than shutting the Penatagon down, achieves EVERYTHING the public seems to want--budget balance, deficit reduction, fairness in taxation, aid to the poor and the sick and the elderly and children, education funding, infrastructure funding, green economy funding.
The ONLY issue that is not covered by Jeff Sachs article IMHO is that of getting out the DETAILS of this sensible budget to millions of the public who will then pass it by word of mouth to their neghbours until the informed % and polled % are equal. Then we will have a true gutting of the RW oligarchy and their puppets in Congress and Obama Banana.
Question then is: How do progressives bypass the MSM and get this PBudget to at least 10 million Americans such as teachers, union members, students at colleges and just plain decent folk who can then create a mass movement that would allow the Progressive Caucus in the House to split off from the Dems and start a THIRD true-left party whose aim is to destroy both Obama and Ryan/Boehner and their Neanderthal supporters from Protestant Evangelical Storm Trooper Christianity?
Wonderful comment here. Hard to find intelligent, cohesive commentary. thank you
A "Centrist Budget" is still a capitalist budget and will be paid for by the working class as always happens with a capitalist budget.
Dialog among the wealthy is certainly the best description!!!
Poor Obama's muddle. He wants to do the right thing, but those mean old campaign contributors will abandon him so what's a fellow to do?
Anyone remember his latest promise? He will fight to end the tax cuts for the rich in 2012. Right. Just like Bush looking under his desk for WMDs. We've already seen how Obama fights for anything.
Our household is doing what we can here to stabilize our US economy. We voted for Kucinich for US President in 2008. We'll vote for him if or when he runs again.
By the way, Kucinich is one of many Democrats that are caucus members of the People's Budget. Knowing how this guy thinks, he could have written a similarly highly moral budget.
It's wonderful seeing the liberal whiners cry to each other. You've lost, you're going to continue to lose, and no one else cares.
Except most of the whiners aren't liberal. Not all poor people, old people, women, students, the sick, are liberal. They are the also the radical right who just got sold a bill of goods by the Koch brothers, Rove, Cheney, et al, and are hiding because they feel like a bunch of fools.
Oh darling, so have you. so have you all.
All this drama over the budget. Its a big Play put on for the public. It came out pretty much as expected. Same with elections. All this is a waste of time and money. Our government is bought and paid for by the wealthy. Anyone who does not believe this is either willfully ignorant, or gullible . Money is power. I feel bad for you who suffer with expectations of these cold, greedy people. If you wake up, check out http://www.osixs.org and if you want to Do something consider signing the
The Declaration of Dissolution and Termination. Recall them all. Start over. Sounds difficult and it will be, but what other choice do we have. Democrat or Republican, very little difference in the scheme of things...Government is Broken. Our founding fathers tell us it is our DUTY.
How could you say that "there's been no discussion of raising taxes on the rich," when Obama's deficit speech centered on just that? I see now that you wrote before the President's speech took place - please update this article because as it stands now it is not accurate. Thanks!
"Discussion" implies serious consideration. There hasn't been any of that. The proposed budget and Obama's speech were not intended to be taken seriously, and everyone except the fellow-travelers, the naive, and the grasp-at-any-straw desperate know that.
Both the budget and the speech are the kind of lip service produced with clockwork regularity during the run-up to elections. They aim to re-kindle as much false hope and therefore votes as possible, but less honestly and at a lower cost than the formerly-traditional offer of a douceur.
[where the hell is RichM these days? he could say this far better than I]