No Senate Super-Committee Deal is the Best Outcome for the American people

[Better Believe It]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 21, 2011

United for a Fair Economy: No Deal is Best Outcome for American People
UFE Applauds Super-Committee Outcome

BOSTON - November 21 - United for a Fair Economy (UFE) praised Democrats on the Super-Committee who blocked Republican members’ demands for bigger tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires coupled with deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that would hurt most Americans.

“Democrats on the Super-Committee said the right way to reduce the deficit is to require – once again – that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes, while cutting unnecessary military spending. The Super-Committee was not able to reach agreement because Republicans refused to ask millionaires and corporations to pay one more dime,” said Lee Farris, Federal Tax Coordinator for United for a Fair Economy.

Farris continued, “We at United for a Fair Economy are telling our thousands of members to urge Congress to refocus on creating jobs and on ending tax breaks for the wealthy. Polls show that a clear majority of Americans at every income level share these priorities. Americans know these priorities are the best way to build an economy that works for everyone, not just a few in the wealthiest 1%.”

Mike Lapham, Director of UFE’s Responsible Wealth project, noted that more than 100 wealthy business owners and investors, including a number of millionaires, had signed a letter to the Super-Committee < PDF>. The letter stated the signers were willing to pay higher taxes, and did not want to see cuts to programs like Medicare that help everyday Americans. They also noted that the lack of a Super-Committee deal would not change their investment decisions. Lapham said, “Responsible Wealth members are glad that Super-Committee members heard our message and stopped the bad deal sought by Republicans.”

The following individuals are available for comment regarding the Super-Committee outcome:

•Arul Menezes, Research Manager and Software Architect, Microsoft Research, WA: “As an upper-income taxpayer whose wealth was entirely earned, rather than inherited, I feel my success was in great part due to the egalitarian and meritocratic society I encountered when I came to the U.S. That society has been all but destroyed by the current tax code. Today, much of my income is from capital gains and dividends. I find it grotesque that these forms of income should be taxed lower than income from work.”

•Phillippe Villers, President of Grainpro Inc., Concord, MA: “I am willing to pay more taxes to save the American economy. As an investor, I make decisions based on the opportunity offered, not the tax rates for wealthy Americans. Cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will not help to revive our struggling economy. I strongly oppose any compromise in the Super-Committee that does not include new revenues from those who can afford them, like myself. At least half or more of any deficit reduction plan should come from progressive revenue sources.”

•Jim Wellehan, President of Lamey-Wellehan Shoes, Auburn, ME: “I find it terribly frustrating that other large national and international companies pay little to no taxes. To continue with an unfair tax code is to encourage cheating. We should tax incomes of all types at the same rates, be they from capital gains, rent, dividends, interest or work.”

•Lee Farris, Federal Tax Policy Coordinator for United for a Fair Economy.

•Mike Lapham, Director of UFE’s Responsible Wealth project.

•Dozens of other business owners, investors and wealthy individuals in the top 5 percent of the U.S. economy who signed the letter to the Super-Committee.
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United for a Fair Economy is a non-partisan organization that helps people of all races, ethnicities and classes work to reduce economic inequality.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/11/21-11


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Don’t Cry for the Super Committee
By Matthew Rothschild
Editor of The Progressive
November 21, 2011

Thank God the Congressional Super Committee failed to reach an agreement.

It focused too much attention on deficits, which aren’t the biggest problem we’re facing right now. High unemployment is the real crisis, and the more obsessed we all are with deficits, the less room there is to address unemployment.

The Super Committee also was a bad idea procedurally as it bypassed the usual way Congress makes laws. In this sense, it was an end around democracy.

And that was intentional because the vast majority of the American public wasn’t in favor of the one item that both parties and Obama seemed prepared to agree on—and that was monkeying with the way the cost of living adjustment is calculated for Social Security.

Read the full article at:

http://www.progressive.org/super_committee.html

[Better Believe It]

1. Why the Super Committee is Super Illegitimate

Why the Super Committee is Super Illegitimate
Members of Congress can't serve big money donors and the general public at the same time.
By Lynn Parramore
November 21, 2011

This time the dog-and-pony show is the super committee, whose members were given the right to decide where government spending will be slashed over the next decade. Only they couldn’t seem to decide. So today, the committee is likely to throw in the towel, and its unfinished business will set up more battles to come over automatic cuts in defense and domestic programs scheduled to go into effect in 2013 in the absence of a deal.

Let's start with the premise of even having a deficit super committee in the first place. Basic macroeconomics tells us that trying to reduce the deficit before you have tackled the jobs crisis is great recipe for making things worse, largely because the lack of tax revenue that comes with high unemployment is a primary contributor to the deficit, and slashing government spending does not create jobs—quite the opposite. The idea that you can slash-and-grow the economy is an economic fairy tale that has been thoroughly debunked and has demonstrably failed in places like the U.K. Sensible approaches to the deficit from reality-based economists like Joseph Stiglitz (i.e. reduce unemployment and tax the top) have been around for some time, but they can't seem to penetrate the bubble of economic delusion that is Washington, D.C.

What too few are wiling to say is that the fundamental goal of the super committee—that of deficit cutting in the face of a weak economy and jobs crisis – does not serve the welfare of the public (something our Constitution states clearly that our government is supposed to do, btw). The truth is that the super committee can't properly devote itself to the general welfare because it has other constituencies to attend to, namely those who contribute big political money.

Concessions. Decisions. Speeches. Offers. Deals. Here’s what it all amounts to: The super committee is a failed project based upon a failed premise resting upon a failed democratic process in a failing political system.

Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/153152/why_the_super_committee_is_super_illegitimate/?page=entire