Congressional Progressive Caucus lays out "The Peoples' Budget"

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Katrina vandenHeuvel @KatrinaNation o
Congressional Progressive Caucus lays out "The Peoples' Budget"/ The One Sensible Budget in Washington | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/201857/one-sensible-budget-washington …


This week, Washington descends into its annual budget brawl. House Republicans unveiled their plan on Tuesday, with Senate Republicans to follow Wednesday. Their hope is to pass a common budget resolution through both bodies by mid-April. Their incentive is that if — and that is a big if — Republicans in the House and Senate can agree, they can use the process known as “reconciliation” to pass various right-wing passions by majority vote, no filibuster allowed. The House budget plan, for example, calls for repealing Obamacare, partial privatization of Medicare, turning Medicaid and food stamps into block grants for the states, and tax reforms that lower rates and eliminate any taxation on profits reported abroad, turning the rest of the world into a tax haven for multinationals. The president can veto the appropriations bill containing these items, setting up another government shutdown melodrama. This is not the way to run a railroad, much less a government...

On the investment side, the CPC expands investments in areas vital to our future. It would rebuild America, modernizing our outmoded infrastructure. It would invest to lead the green industrial revolution that is already forging markets and creating jobs across the globe.

The CPC understands that we must do the basics in education. It would provide pre-K for every child, the most important single reform we can make in education. It calls for increasing investment in our public schools, helping to mitigate the destructive inequality between rich districts and poor. It would provide students with four years of debt-free college education, and pay for renegotiating existing student loans, relieving the burden now crushing an entire generation.

The CPC recognizes that more seniors are facing a retirement crisis. On budget, it would adopt an inflation measure for Social Security that reflects the rising costs seniors face in areas like health care. Off budget, the CPC calls for expanded Social Security benefits, paid for by lifting the income cap on Social Security payroll contributions. No longer would Donald Trump pay a lower rate in Social Security taxes than the police who guard his palaces.

The CPC would also expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, giving a break to low-wage workers and to parents struggling with the costs of childcare. And needless to say, the CPC would defend Medicare and Medicaid, not privatize it, and strengthen health-care reform, not eliminate it...

We now suffer dangerously extreme inequality, so the CPC would increase taxes on those who make $1 million or more. High-frequency trading on Wall Street is dangerously unstable, so the CPC would levy a small tax on speculation to slow it down. CEO pay has soared while workers haven’t shared in the profits they have helped to generate, so the CPC would end the loophole that allows companies to write off obscene bonuses and stock options as a business expense...


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-one-sensible-budget-in-washington/2015/03/18/14b3169a-ccf2-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html

related:

“The People’s Budget: A Raise for America”
http://betteroffbudget.squarespace.com/#peoples-budget

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