Congress sort of put the 2011 budget to bed last Friday with an 11th hour deal that forestalled a federal government shutdown. Teapublicans had a laundry list of progressive legislation that they wanted to completely defund or dramatically reduce:

• Head Start (which helps poor children be prepared to enter school) and public education, in general,
• Pell Grants (which help poor and middle class children go to college),
• AmeriCorps (which gives young people community volunteering experience and, in turn, helps pay their college tuition),
• Planned Parenthood (which helps poor and middle class women receive birth control),
• Community health centers (which help poor and middle class people get basic health care),
• Biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health (which spurs innovation and creates jobs–WTF?),
• National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System (which help us elites stay stay up-to-date on progressive politics and research breakthroughs– sarcasm alert).

Missing from the Teapublican budget-balancing list is any mention of:

• Cutting military spending, scaling back the wars, and stopping US imperialism,
• Closing unnecessary military bases (particularly in Europe– let them pay for their own defense!),
• Closing tax loopholes (so corporate giants like Bank of America have to actually pay some taxes),
• Taxing corporations for every job, factory, or bank account they send abroad,
• Raising taxes on the richest Americans to lessen the growing income disparities in the US,
• Intervening with lenders to help people stay in their homes (which would help middle class homeowners who have been hard hit by unemployment or other effects of the Great Recession)
• Ending the war on Drugs (which is a huge waste of money and never worked),
• Legalizing marijuana (which would put a dent in the drug violence and smuggling while raising sales tax revenue, but, of course, the big tobacco and big booze wouldn’t like it; the feds eased the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s when they ended prohibition),
• Allowing Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate prescription drug prices (a very easy way to “fix” those programs without dismantling them),
• Adopting universal healthcare (a great way to keep healthcare costs down),
• Legalizing undocumented workers (so they can be paid a decent wage and contribute to social security),
• Allowing workers to organize (so they can be paid a decent wage and contribute to social security),
• Preserving public and private jobs,
• Creating jobs (duh).

What makes the first list so attractive to Teapublicans is that– except for the last two items (medical research and public broadcasting)– the cuts only hurt the poor and middle class families. These groups are too disorganized, too uninformed, or too distraught trying to find food and shelter to fight back. Teapublicans, Republicans, and some Democrats don’t want to touch most of the items on the second list because each item has at least one group of corporate lobbyists protecting it.

Except for throwing Washington DC’s reproductive health services under the bus (what’s up with that?), the top list of programs survived the recent budget battle which cut $38 billion from the current budget. (Tepublicans also wanted to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s [EPA] ability to protect air and water from pollution and weaken the Food and Drug Administration’s [FDA] ability to protect the food supply, but I couldn’t find an online reference for how those proposals faired in the 11th hour of budget negotiations. Except for the fact that deregulation is at the top of every corporate wish list, these EPA and FDA cuts would harm the public health and safety of all Americans.)

2012 Teapublican Budget
Now the 2012 budget battle begins. Ultra-conservative Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan would:

• Defund and dismantle the Affordable Care Act (which saves money),
• Destroy Medicare for people under 55 by changing it into a voucher system, thus forcing patients to absorb ever-increasing costs — not the government, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare institutions, or insurance companies. (How business friendly could you be?),
• Destroy Medicaid by giving block grants to the states to manage it (Oh, God, the Arizona Legislature would give the money away to a group of corporations to run the program or just give it away in tax cuts!),
• Cut spending to 2008 levels,
• And, of course, promise to lower taxes (probably for the rich).

Although some tout Ryan as a conservative visionary with his brave budget-balancing act, I call him the ultimate hypocrite flip-flopper, since he was in the drunken sailors club that created the budget deficit during the Dark Ages (AKA the Bush Administration). Now he’s got religion and wants to cut-cut-cut, since that is currently popular in conservative circles.

2012 People’s Budget
To counter Ryan’s “artless war on the poor”, the 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC)– co-chaired by our own Representative Raul Grijalva and Representative  Keith Ellison– revealed the People’s Budget. According to their website, the CPC proposal:

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021.
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program.
• Protects the social safety net.
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly).

Also according to their website, the CPC proposal accomplishes:

• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.4% by 2021, down 16.9 percentage points from a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.7 trillion over 2012-21
• Both outlays and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021.

Ironically, if you want to learn more about a proposal made by a Southern Arizona Congressman, you have to go to the Huffington Post– or the TucsonCitizen.com– because it was not covered by the Arizona Daily Star. From the Huffington Post…

Their [the Progressive Caucus'] 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.

So, the question is: Going forward, do we want the People’s Budget or military-industrial complex’s budget? Do we want government for the people or against the people? What transpires in the coming months is gravely important for future generations; we have to pay attention as events unfold in Washington.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 8:11 am and is filed under Arizona, Arizona Legislature, Capitalism, Congress, corporatists, democracy, Democratic Party, equality, fiscal responsibility, Geroge Bush, Healthcare Reform, Immigration, jobs, Progressive Democrats of America, Raul Grijalva, taxes, Tea Party, Trickle Down Economics, Tucson, unions. Tags for this post: Arizona, business friendly, capitalism, Congress, PDA, Raul Grijalva, war on poverty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.