The Economist approves of the Progressive Caucus budget plan

[FLPanhandle]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/debt_proposals


Mr Miller's column notes that "the Congressional Progressive Caucus plan wins the fiscal responsibility derby thus far; it reaches balance by 2021 largely through assorted tax hikes and defense cuts." Which is pretty interesting. Have you ever heard of the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget plan? Neither had I. The caucus's co-chairs, Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, released it on April 6th. The budget savings come from defence cuts, including immediately withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, which saves $1.6 trillion over the CBO baseline from 2012-2021. The tax hikes include restoring the estate tax, ending the Bush tax cuts, and adding new tax brackets for the extremely rich, running from 45% on income over a million a year to 49% on income over a billion a year.

Mr Ryan's plan adds (by its own claims) $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, but promises to balance the budget by sometime in the 2030s by cutting programmes for the poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus's plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people. Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not.



This really needs some air time.

[Demoiselle]

1. Is it possible that they'll pay it some attention now...

Doesn't everybody who's anybody read the Economist? (Or pretend to?)
It sounds great to me...fiscally conservative AND socially progressive!

[monmouth]

2. Keith Ellison is doing fine work..He's a real asset...n/t

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[Diamonique]

4. I know the House will never take this up for a vote...

... but is there a way to get it brought up in the Senate?

[white_wolf]

12. I could be wrong, but I think spending bills have to orginate in the House.

[socialist_n_TN]

5. But we might as well not talk about it...........

It doesn't have a chance of passing. It's idealistic and utopian, so why bother even discussing it?

:sarcasm:

The above attitude by "pragmatic moderates" is ALL compromises are right wing compromises.

[Scuba]

6. The Peoples Budget

The Peoples Budget


http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70

http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20...


This needs to be pushed as the path to the 2012 elections and future of America. Not perfect, but such a striking contrast with the Ryan disaster will be easy to explain to the public.


Here's Rachel's coverage last night... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel... /


Here's an excerpt from the pdf...

http://imgur.com/aT80H >

[freshwest]

8. Thanks Scuba, will distribute these today.

[RickFromMN]

7. In the comments section at the URL, an economist talked about a Balance Sheet Recession.

Not being an economist, I haven't heard of this view before.

The person, in the comments section, was Pauldenice (Paul TREHIN).

I listened to the 21 minute video of Richard Koo.
http://ineteconomics.org/richard-koo

I haven't tried to read the PDF file at URL:
http://www.ucc.ie/social_policy/EU-docs-socpol/Fouarge_costofnonsoc_final_en.pdf
I probably don't have the background to understand it.

Could some economists share their thoughts on the concept of a Balance Sheet Recession please?
Hopefully, some of the concepts can be explained in such a way, a layman like me, can understand.

Listening to Richard Koo talk,
I got the impression our Great Depression of the 1930s suffered a balance sheet recession.
I got the impression we need massive infrastructure spending.
I came to the conclusion the austerity proposed by the GOP will make matters much worse.

I found what Richard Koo said very believable. I would like to know what economists think of him.

[Poboy]

9. R'd!

[crickets]

10. The Economist is blogging positvely about this?

That is a big deal, hopefully a foot in the door to getting information about the CPC budget into the mainstream.

[Poboy]

11. .

[Poboy]

13. .

[ReggieVeggie]

14. oh...isn't that sweet?!

that should make a difference!