The Economist: Courageous Progressive Caucus Budget

[Scuba]

http://www4.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011...


<snip>

"...Republicans are refusing to raise the national debt ceiling even though their own budget raises the national debt by $6 trillion over the next decade, and no one in the national press corps seems to be pointing out the contradiction.

"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.'

<end snip>


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 week... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel ... /


Here's the Progressive Caucus website.... http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70

Here's the pdf of the Progressive Caucus Budget.... http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf

[Tesha]

1. Krugman (in the NYTimes) has a good editorial about this today as well.

The comments are even supportive (for the most part).

Tesha

[annabanana]

2. Yup.. THIS is the budget that deserves the "courageous" label that

was so slathered all over the "send granny out shopping with a coupon" budget of Ryan's