If You're Spending 5 Minutes Laughing At The Trumpanzee Budget, That's 5 Minutes You're Not Spending On His Collusion With Putin

I was surprised on Monday when Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget said that the budget the Trumpanzee Regime presented to Congress is not serious. Putin put a post-literate monstrosity in the White House. Jonathan Bernstein pointed out that Trump didn't read-- let alone write-- the budget; Mulvaney and his staff did. "It includes proposals that Trump has little interest in supporting or fighting for." It's more like a Freedom Caucus budget than anything Trump's going to back. Normally White House budgets are regarded as a statement of the president's preferences and priorities.

Congressional leaders and appropriators won't treat this budget that way. They've learned that Trump is indifferent to most policy questions, inconsistent on others, and easily rolled on almost anything. They know he doesn't even bother reading his presidential daily brief-- so there's no reason to think "his" budget is anything different. It doesn't help that Trump, unlike normal presidents, didn't coordinate initiatives detailed in the budget with his State of the Union speech. The effect is to further distance the president from the budget.

But even Mulvaney, a Freedom Caucus extremist, admits that if he were still in Congress he wouldn't vote for the budget he created. It would increase military spending, build the Great Wall of Trumpanzee and slash spending for America's working families. Had Trump run on the budget Hillary wouldn't have beaten him by three million votes; she would have been him by 10 million votes.

Infact, Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing pointed out that the Trumpanzee infrastructure plan ignores the Trumpanzee Buy America jobs promise he made over and over again during the campaign, when he was vowing to invest in American jobs. Buy America preference--  which ensure domestic manufacturers and workers get the first shot at government procurement contracts- have covered federal highway and transit spending since the 1980s. But growing loopholes allow projects like the Chinese-made San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to support foreign jobs with our tax dollars.

"The president promised on Inauguration Day that his infrastructure plan would 'follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.'

"Today, that promise seems to have disappeared. We hope the White House will swiftly clarify its position on Buy America for infrastructure.

"American workers are eager to supply the steel and other materials that form the spine of our nation's infrastructure. They deserve a policy that explicitly supports and expands Buy America.

"Infrastructure investment is vital to our economy. We look forward to working with Congress and the White House to advance a real plan for robust infrastructure investment into law."

Pramila Jayapal represents Seattle in Congress and is the vice ranking member of the House Budget Committee. She didn't seem any more pleased with Trump's budget than Paul Scott was, asserting that the "budget proposal makes it clear, all over again, that his administration does not care about working people. His budget takes from middle class families and the most vulnerable and gives to the rich. It guts anti-poverty and health care programs, and slashes investments in economic growth. All of this in order to pay for the GOP’s tax scam that handed trillions of dollars to the wealthy and large corporations. This is the last step in the GOP’s three-step dance to rig the economy in favor of the top 1 percent. The adverse impacts of Trump’s budget on working people will be extreme. It guts $263 billion from programs designed to lift people out of poverty. It cuts $214 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that protected 44 million people from food insecurity and hunger in 2016. Trump is attempting to destroy Medicaid by gutting $1.4 trillion from the program, jeopardizing the lives of seniors and children. The budget also cuts $266 billion from Medicare, hurting seniors across our country. Budgets should reflect our moral priorities. This budget demonstrates that Trump’s only commitment is to lining the pockets of his wealthy friends. We need a budget based on equity and compassion that puts working families first-- that’s the kind of budget I will continue to fight for."

Raúl Grijalva represents the Tucson area and he's been in Congress for a lot long than Pramila but sees Trump's budget similarly emphasizing that it "merely shows what we already know: the White House lacks any interest in seriously investing in the well-being of American families and workers. Trump’s hollow promise of 'making America great again' seems not to apply to anyone other than his wealthy friends. Trump’s disastrous budget cuts would decimate programs that benefit American families. The proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition, and anti-poverty programs alone would devastate millions who rely on them to meet their daily needs. Education cuts would eliminate important teacher training programs and after-school program funding for needy children. In addition to requesting non-military funding that would be $57 billion less than the budget deal that just passed, Trump is also leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for his divisive border wall that Mexico would 'supposedly' pay for. Trump touts his plan as a $1.5 trillion investment in America, yet the only ones who benefit are Trump’s wealthy friends. Environmental and labor protections are waived, jobs for America’s workers are an afterthought, and there is no committed revenue stream to fund the proposal. Instead of investing public money into dynamic infrastructure projects that benefit the public good across the United States, Trump’s plan will incentivize projects in populated, wealthy areas while neglecting much-needed improvements in rural America. Trump’s infrastructure plan and budget are all smoke and mirrors and emblematic of what he does best: conning the American people. The American people need an infrastructure plan and a budget that will revitalize America’s cities and towns, expand employment opportunities, grow wages, and invest in important programs that help families succeed. These latest White House proposals accomplish the opposite, and are a slap in the face to Americans across the country."

Randy Bryce has to beat Paul Ryan in southeast Wisconsin before can take his seat and start legislating but in case anyone was wondering where he would be coming from when he has to deal with Trump's crap between 2019 and January of 2021 when we'll see the last of Trump-- unless he goes back on that rancid reality show of his-- Bryce issued this statement to voters in Racine, Kenosha, Janesville Elkhorn and Burlington:<

This infrastructure plan is all smoke and mirrors. It pushes the funding burden almost entirely onto local communities who truly can't afford it, depriving them of much needed infrastructure improvements and the good-paying jobs that come with them.

But what's even more upsetting is the larger budget proposal this fake-infrastructure plan is wrapped in. Republicans are trying to avoid looking hypocritical for raising the deficit, after decades of promising to lower it, by slashing Medicare. You cannot tell me that we can afford to give away billions in tax cuts to the wealthiest, but we can't afford to take care of our disabled and our seniors. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker Ryan has described this package as "thoughtful." Two decades in Washington has clearly distorted who Paul Ryan's thinking of because all this package does is deprive the First District of good-paying jobs, stronger infrastructure, and threaten our healthcare.

I think what most people know about the Trump budget so far is that it will make us all have to pay tolls on the freeways for the first time, freeways that our tax dollars paid for. But there's a lot more to it-- and progressives need to think clearly about how to talk about it beyond just saying Trump's an asshole. Lucky for us, Kate Aronoff has a firm grasp of how to effectively resist Trumpism. The $7 trillion deficit doesn't need to be criticized by preaching austerity. Leave that for Republicans and other conservatives. We shouldn't be doing Paul Ryan's job for him.

Deficit spending isn’t a sign of moral or economic failure. But looking at the headlines about the Trump administration’s last few weeks of economic policymaking, you might think otherwise.

Referring to Democrats and Republicans both, the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson bemoans that, “Ever-larger budget deficits have become their means of making policy and practicing politics.” He points to the $1.7 trillion spending agreement reached last week, the $1.4 trillion tax plan passed recently and the White House’s 2019 budget proposal, which-- if passed in full (something that basically never happens)-- would add $7 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

As John Cassidy at the New Yorker puts it, “the country’s finances will be in a wretched state once the GOP’s recent tax-cut bill is fully enacted.” He laments the “sea of red ink that now stretches into the indefinite future.” We have to “keep the deficit numbers in check,” he says. But Republicans-- committed to small government and even smaller budgets-- simply aren’t up to the task. The irony!

Top Democrats adopted a similar line. “If you’re a deficit hawk you’ve got to be a deficit hawk all the way through,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a crowd on in response to Rand Paul’s rejection of the budget deal, noting the Republican’s hypocrisy in voting for the GOP tax cuts. “For both sides to get the deficit down, each side can’t say, ‘Well I’m a deficit hawk on this issue but not on that issue.’ If we’re going to get the deficit down.”

In the push to condemn Trump, it seems that everyone’s become a deficit hawk, blurring the line between calling out Republican hypocrisy and Democrats’ proclamations that America needs to get its fiscal house in order before slipping irreparably into the red. Yet, the problem with the budget the White House proposed yesterday lies not in the amount of money it proposes to spend-- but the programs it aims to cut. The plan would take a sledgehammer to America’s social safety net and public sphere, cutting deeply into Medicare and food stamps while selling off vital national infrastructure. So why are Democrats still fixating on the debt as Republicans abandon the pretense that it ever mattered?

The GOP has been lying about the impacts of the federal deficit for well over 30 years. Despite campaigning against so-called wasteful spending, Republican administrations have reliably driven up huge deficits: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford are responsible for the third, fourth and fifth largest debt hikes over the course of an administration, respectively. Today’s breed of deficit hawkishness might most accurately be traced back to budget talks in the mid-1990s, when Republican strategists ingeniously compared the finances of the world’s largest economy with the everyday economic trade-offs of hardworking Americans.

“You simply can’t draw enough parallels to the family budgeting process,” pollster Frank Luntz has advised GOP lawmakers. “It forces voters to evaluate the U.S. budget for what it is, rather than as some abstract governing concept … Keep it simple and force Americans to apply some common-sense kitchen-table economics to the budget process.”

NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley echoed that refrain on Sunday, arguing that “if you outspend your paychecks a month, you might put the difference on your credit card. The government does the same.”

Americans poring over their monthly bills, of course, don’t enjoy either the power of taxation or access to a sovereign currency. The issue when the federal government deficit-spends money isn’t the amount they spend, but what they spend it on: There’s no finite amount of cash the Treasury is pulling out of a vault. There are also no ominous bill collectors-- vigilante Chinese bondholders, for instance-- who are going to cross the Pacific Ocean to shake us down for what they’re owed and threaten our sovereignty, no matter which party drives up the bill. Simply put, there’s no inherent reason to worry about the size of the deficit itself.

As former Senate Budget Committee chief economist Stephanie Kelton said recently, Republicans’ outright embrace of deficit spending in this context should be treated as a gift to Democrats. “Take that gift,” she said, “and say, ‘Look, you’re willing to do $1.5 trillion. We’re willing to do $1.5 trillion. But you’re making your check paid to the order of big wealthy corporations and the richest people in this country. Let me show you how we’re going to write our checks for $1.5 trillion.’”

...A growing deficit has little effect on the macroeconomy, and can be spent on important goods like infrastructure and job creation that would be a sum positive for the public. Markets balked recently over fears of inflation-- something which could theoretically rise if the economy truly does become overheated-- but there’s little reason to expect it will anytime soon. Common wisdom has held that a so-called “natural rate” of unemployment around 5.5 percent is ideal for warding off inflation, yet the unemployment rate has fallen steadily below that since 2015, with few signs of inflation on the horizon.

Economist Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, suggests seeing how low unemployment can drop before inflation kicks in, in the process improving the lot of people still struggling to recover from the last recession. While the economy is relatively close to what we call full employment, nearly all the jobs the United States has created since 2005 have been temporary. Wages are only just now starting to rise for the first time in years. If the economy really is moving in the right direction, why stop stimulus spending now?

“The unemployment rate has now been well below [5.5 percent] for more than two-and-a-half years,” Baker writes, “and there is still no evidence of an inflationary spiral. In fact, the inflation rate remains well below the Federal Reserve's 2-percent target.”

Deficit hawkishness has been a Republican con for decades. That a few people were dumb enough to drink the Kool Aid in that time isn’t all that surprising. Take Mick Mulvaney, who is now inexplicably both the head of the Office of Management and Budget and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As a Tea Party Congressman from South Carolina, he pushed to cap spending and balance the federal budget, and arrived to the Trump Administration promising to “restore fiscal sanity.”

Introducing the 2019 budget proposal yesterday, Mulvaney admitted that it wouldn’t amount to a balanced budget, going on to say, “I will always be a deficit hawk … I am today, I was yesterday, I am tomorrow.” But whether Mulvaney, Paul Ryan or other alleged deficit hawks actually believe what they say can be left up to their therapists: What’s relevant is how they actually vote.

For years, cable news channels gave equal time to earth scientists and climate deniers, poisoning the national debate on global warming to disastrous effect. The conversation around the deficit might be even more dire still: Deficit hawkishness—based on a series of fantasies about how modern economies work-- has by now become common wisdom, including among otherwise shrewd pundits and politicians. Fearmongering about the debt is its own kind of trap. Doing so in the name of partisan politics is another. With any hope, Democrats will avoid both in crafting their own policies moving forward.

The Smartest Economist In America Explains What Deficits Really Mean

In early October one of the brightest economists in the country, Stephanie Kelton-- who had served as the Democrats’ chief economist on the Senate Budget Committee and as Bernie’s chief economics adviser during his presidential campaign-- penned an especially instructive OpEd for the NY Times, How We Think About the Deficit Is Mostly Wrong. At the time, it helped open the eyes of dozens of members of Congress and congressional staffers. It needs to be more widely distributed since American have been schooled their whole lives to not understand public deficits. We are constantly told to think of deficits the same way we think of personal debt. There’s a big difference.

Kelton’s OpEd was written about 3 months before the Trump-Ryan Tax Scam passed. She pointed out that the preliminary 9-page framework “achieved a rare feat of bipartisan agreement in Washington-- worry from the left and the right about the plan’s potential to increase the deficit. Chuck Schumer warned that the plan would deepen the deficit by $5 trillion to $7 trillion. Bob Corker said, “If I think it adds one penny to the deficit, I’m not going to vote for it.” Schumer was wrong and Corker was easily bought off. Kelton is no fan of this monstrosity, but not for Schumer’s hypocritical reasoning.

Are the proposed tax cuts a huge giveaway to the rich? Most definitely. Will they, as advertised, create a booming economy with benefits that trickle down to everyone else? I don’t think so. Mr. Trump’s plan will widen the country’s already dangerous wealth and income gaps, and because the gains go mostly to those at the very top, the tax cuts won’t do much to promote broad-based consumer spending or overall job growth.

That’s enough to reject the plan. But it would be unwise to oppose tax cuts, or any other federal legislation, simply because they add to the deficit.

Why? Because bigger deficits wouldn’t wreck the nation’s finances. Unfortunately, budgetary effects are the sun around which everything revolves in Washington. Should we invest a trillion dollars in our crumbling infrastructure, offer Medicare for All or pass the biggest tax cut in the country’s history?

Propose any of these, and the first question on everyone’s lips will be, “How are you going to pay for it?” The reason is simple: Lawmakers are obsessed with avoiding an increase in the deficit.

The impulse is so strong that it’s almost Pavlovian. It’s also holding us back. Politicians of both parties should stop using the deficit as a guide to public policy. Instead, they should be advancing legislation aimed at raising living standards and delivering the public investments in education, technology and infrastructure that are critical for long-term prosperity.

Right now, anything ambitious requires a score from the Congressional Budget Office. A “bad” score-- one that adds to projected budget deficits-- can easily doom good legislation because lawmakers are told that their math doesn’t add up. And that’s a problem.

Because, actually, the math always adds up. To see why, we have to look beyond the government’s balance sheet. Think of it this way. Government spending adds new money to the economy, and taxes take some of that money out again. It’s a constant churning of pluses and minuses, and their minuses become our pluses.

When the government spends more than it gets in taxes, a “deficit” is recorded on the government’s books. But that’s only half the story. A little double-entry bookkeeping paints the rest of the picture. Suppose the government spends $100 into the economy but collects just $90 in taxes, leaving behind an extra $10 for someone to hold. That extra $10 gets recorded as a surplus on someone else’s books. That means that the government’s -$10 is always matched by +$10 in some other part of the economy. There is no mismatch and no problem with things adding up. Balance sheets must balance, after all. The government’s deficit is always mirrored by an equivalent surplus in another part of the economy.

The problem is that policy makers are looking at this picture with one eye shut. They see the budget deficit, but they’re missing the matching surplus on the other side. And since many Americans are missing it, too, they end up applauding efforts to balance the budget, even though it would mean erasing the surplus in the private sector.

And because there is so much misunderstanding, Americans are vulnerable to nationalist scare tactics that warn of the perils of relying on foreigners to pay our bills. The truth is, there’s no reason to worry about China (or any other entity) refusing to finance our deficits. In fact, we should think of the government’s spending as self-financing since it pays its bills by sending new money into the economy.

When there’s a deficit, some of that new money can be traded in for a government bond. What’s often missed in the public debate is the fact that the money to buy the bond comes from the deficit spending itself.

What isn’t missed is the fact that the government pays interest on those bonds. Lawmakers are obsessed with this line item in the budget, as if it’s akin to a cable bill that keeps taking a bigger and bigger bite out of your household budget. It isn’t. Unlike a household, the government doesn’t have to trim other parts of its budget to make ends meet. Congress can always create more room in the budget by adding rows or widening the columns to put more resources into education, infrastructure, defense and so on. It is purely a political decision.

Of course, there are real limits to what can be done. No country can commit to large-scale infrastructure investment unless it has the available labor, machinery, concrete and steel. Trying to spend too much will cause an inflation problem. The trick is to adjust the budget to make efficient use of the people, factories and raw materials we have.

But all of this goes unrecognized on Capitol Hill, where the very words “debt” and “deficit” have been weaponized for political ends. They serve as body armor to politicians who would deny resources to struggling communities or demand cuts to popular programs.

Perhaps no one is more skilled in the dark art of deficit deception than Representative Paul Ryan, the House speaker. He has described the budget outlook as a “fiscal train wreck,” and he has demanded cuts to programs like Social Security and Medicare in the name of protecting future generations from a “crushing burden of debt.” His language is poll-tested and inflammatory by design. It’s intended to create a sense of urgency to move the budget into balance, where, we are told, the math of federal spending will finally “add up.”

In a more rational world, lawmakers would abandon the crude C.B.O. scoring model and recognize that the risk of overspending is inflation, not bankruptcy. They would avoid fruitless battles over the debt ceiling, and they would acknowledge that the deficit itself could be deployed as a potent weapon in the fights against inequality, poverty and economic stagnation.

Deficit Spending And Populist E-Mail Chains

This has been circulating in Nashville's music community this week and, at first, I was surprised to see the progenitor was-- at least inspirationally-- Warren Buffet, rather than Jimmy Buffett. "Let's see," it begins, "if these idiots understand what people pressure is all about."

Salary of retired US Presidents ... .. . . ..$180,000 FOR LIFE.

Salary of House/Senate members ... . . .$174,000 FOR LIFE. This is stupid

Salary of Speaker of the House ... .. . . ..$223,500 FOR LIFE. This is really stupid

Salary of Majority / Minority Leaders . . ..$193,400 FOR LIFE. Stupid

Average Salary of a teacher . . ... .. . . .. $40,065

Average Salary of a deployed Soldier . . .$38,000

In July of 2011, as the Republican threat to shut down the government was heating up, Warren Buffett, was on CNBC, went after the debt ceiling and deficits, although as Snopes.com notes, "more in the nature of a wry commentary on the workings of Congress than a serious proposal for tackling the budget deficit."

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."

Without deficits there is no progressive agenda and no big things to work towards accomplishing. It's as absurd a proposition as the assertion that Buffett asked his statement be sent around in an e-mail chain (which he never did). The people who did, however, knew exactly what they wanted, which is what all conservatives always want: shutting down the progressive agenda and ending all social safety net programs. "Warren Buffett," they claim dishonestly, "is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise." It then devolves into a hodgepodge of proposals that a bunch of Obama haters came up with in 2009, ideas not remotely connected to Warren Buffett. Today they're calling it the Congressional Reform Act of 2017, which sounds pretty alluring... until you get the #7, the actual key to what these people are trying to accomplish.

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman / woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present, & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 3/1/17. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.

Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and go back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people, then it will only take three days for most people in the U.S. to receive the message. It's time!

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree, pass it on

And if you're smart, don't. Just ignore it and work to defeat corrupt conservatives in Congress and elect progressives instead. I contacted Stephanie Kelton, formerly the chief economist for the Senate Budget Committee Democrats, about the Buffett quote (the real one) and she was surprised. "He’s got to be kidding," she told me. "If he’s not, then it is one of the most economically illiterate things I’ve ever heard. First of all, there is nothing inherently wrong with a budget deficit-- it’s simply a mechanism to put more money into the economy. Deficits can increase because of voluntary choices made by policymakers-- eg the Trump tax cuts-- but they can also increase on their own, say, in a depressed economy as tax receipts fall off and spending to support the weak economy (unemployment compensation, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.) automatically increase. This is what happened during the Great Recession, when federal budget deficits automatically rose to about 10% of GDP. As Krugman observed, those Deficits Saved the World. With this 'Buffet Rule' in place, not only would we have added 535 more people to the ranks of the unemployed, but we would almost certainly have ended up with a full-blown depression on our hands."

Deficit Talk Is a Trap. Will Democrats Fall Into It?

Government can spend money on the many, on the few, or on no one (by running a budget surplus). Which is the better choice?

by Gaius Publius

A budget surplus on the government side is a budget deficit on the economy's side.

–A fact you'll rarely hear spoken on big-donor-owned media

Just a few simple points about the recent tax bill here, but points critical to understanding what will unfold in the coming months and years.

1. As they did in the 1980s, Republicans are laying a "deficit trap" for Democrats. As they did before, they're blowing up the budget, then using deficit scares to force Democrats to "be responsible" about cutting social programs — "because deficits matter."

2. Big Republican donors want to see social programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — cut to the bone. (Big Democratic donors want the same thing, by the way. It's why Obama's many Grand Bargain attempts didn't cost him a dime in big donor campaign contributions. But Republican are in charge now, so the attack is coming from them, and quite an attack it is.)

In the 1980s Republicans ran up the deficit, then forced Democrats, via the Greenspan Commission's Social Security "fix," to raise taxes on the middle class to unnecessarily over-fund the Social Security Trust Fund. This converted SS from a mainly pay-as-you-go system that increased revenues as needed via adjustments to the salary cap, to a pay-in-advance system, the excess money from which was then loaned back to the government to appear to offset large deficits.

Notice the use of deficit fear in the push for cuts to social programs.

Today, Republicans are expanding the deficit again with their big "tax reform" plan — a giveaway to the donor class of both parties — and are already starting to use deficit fear to argue for cuts in what they call "entitlements" — Medicare, Medicaid, and eventually Social Security, even though Social Security is self-funded.

Notice the use of deficit fear in the push for cuts to social programs.

To the extent that Democrats are willing to accept the obligation to "be responsible" — under an entirely big-donor definition of "responsibility" — those cuts will be agree to. (Big donors think it's irresponsible to give money to anyone but themselves.)

3. The reality — Deficits aren't dangerous at all until there's a big spike in inflation, which is nowhere near happening and won't be near happening for a generation, after which global climate chaos will make all economics discussions moot.

4. The reality — Government spending is good. It's the way government puts money into the economy, making it possible for you and me to buy things.

So ask yourself: Do you want your government to shrink the money supply for no good reason, year after year after year, by running budget surpluses, or to grow the amount of money in the private sector, making more available for use by people like ... you?

A budget surplus on the government side is a budget deficit on the economy's side. Do you want the government to be taking money out of the economy each year, or putting money into it?

5. The reality — Everyone in DC knows these realities. That's why both parties increase deficits when they want to spend on something they want, like war, and claim to fear deficits only when they don't want to spend on something you want, like affordable health care, or free colleges. You know — to buy you nice things.

Consider: The trillions spent on this giveaway to the already-rich could have been given to college students in debt, or people still underwater in their mortgages since the Wall Street-created crash of 2008. What would be the effect of that reallocation of money? People who are struggling would spend it and grow the economy.

What's the effect of giving money to the already-rich? They buy another chateau in France, or bid on the next Van Gogh that turns up at Sothebys. Or give it to their tax lawyers to send to the Bahamas.

6. The question for you — Which of these three options would you rather the government choose:

1. Spend money on the already-rich and none on you and your needs?
    
2. Spend money on you and your needs and ignore the pleas of the already-rich?
    
3. Hoard as much money as possible in a vault and spend the least possible on anything?

The first is a plan for the few, disguised as the current big donor "tax" proposal.

The second is a plan for the many, a truly progressive, FDR-style economic policy.

The third is what Democrats will be asked to do after the already-rich have gotten their pile.

This is a trap. But there's a way out. You can have nice things. All you have to do is convince your neighborhood Democratic Party office holder to give them to you.

Update: Here's the above "what is money?" explanation in easy-to-digest (and share) video form:

Thanks to Twitter friend Alan Parker for the link. Enjoy.

GP
 

The Catfood Commission's Dark Vision For Our Country Isn't Inevitable

When Obama decided to create what Digby dubbed the Cat Food Commission he solicited nominations from all the usual suspects. I'm sure he was very relieved that Boehner gave him his favorite Wall Street shill, Paul Ryan who, like Obama-- and their mutual campaign donors-- isn't in the "sanctity of Social Security" camp. On the other hand, Pelosi's nomination of longtime Obama ally Jan Schakowsky, an intrepid fighter for ordinary working families, could have only been viewed as potential trouble brewing. And yesterday that trouble manifested itself in the form of an alternative proposal to the reeking pile of garbage released last week by Obama's two handpicked chairmen, conservative Republican Alan Simpson and conservative MorganStanley board member Erskine Bowles.

Unlike conservatives and reactionaries, Schakowsky is seeking to reduce the deficit without further breaking the back of the middle class-- and without continuing the trend of redistributing the nation's wealth upward and concentrating it in the hands of fewer and fewer ultra-wealthy families, something most Democratic voters who supported Obama were certain he would also favor. The realization that that isn't part of Obama's agenda is probably what kept Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents home of November 2-- and what threatens to make Obama a one-term president. Schakowsky's plan is meant to re-balance the budget, as though Bush and the Republicans had never put it in such dire straights between 2000 and 2008, by 2015 and her plan includes another $200 billion worth of desperately needed stimulus spending for unemployment insurance extensions and aid to states.


Her plan reads like a progressive manifesto for governing on behalf of ordinary working families rather than on behalf of a plutocracy and includes adding a public option to the health care reform bill and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices-- two fixes that will save the government over $17 billion. She's aiming at cutting $8.55 billion in non-defense discretionary spending and $110 billion from the Pentagon. and she would close lots and lots of corporate loopholes by which American corporations pay less tax than corporations in almost any other developed economy in the world. Her plan eliminates the grossly unfair Social Security payroll tax cap on the employer side and would tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary income.

Last week Bernie Sanders also put out a statement trying to spark a progressive alternative to the Catfood Commission:

“Everyone agrees that over the long-term we have got to reduce the record-breaking $13.7 trillion national debt and unsustainable federal deficit,” Sanders said, but he stressed that deficits mushroomed in recent years because of two unpaid wars, tax breaks for the wealthy, a Medicare prescription drug bill written by the pharmaceutical industry, and the Wall Street bailout. “The national debt is a very serious issue and we’ve got to tackle it but we can do it without balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class.”

Sanders, in a letter, invited progressive activists and economists to meet next week to develop a progressive plan to reduce the deficit. “We all know that there are a number of fair ways to reduce deficits without harming the middle class and those who have already lost their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college.  The time has come to put these proposals into a package so that a fair and progressive deficit reduction plan will become part of the national discussion,” he said.
 
Sanders’ own deficit reduction proposals include ending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. He also favors ending expensive and outdated Cold War-era Pentagon programs and has proposed elimination of tax credits for big oil companies that have amassed the fattest profits in history.

Raúl Grijalva was one of the progressives in Congress to step right up and back Schakowsky's proposal, which, he points out, would reduce the national debt by $427.5 billion in 2015, surpassing the $250 billion target President Obama gave the Commission when it began its work. “From large elements to small, this plan is a vast improvement over the Bowles-Simpson proposal and represents a more thoughtful approach to debt reduction,” Grijalva said. “Our middle and lower class families did not cause our current budget shortfalls-- they were largely caused by the avoidable housing crisis, by irresponsible Bush-era wars paid for with borrowed money, and by unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest earners. Rep. Schakowsky’s plan reflects the fact that, as she has said so often, the sacrifices of the past several years have all been made by the middle class. It’s time we stopped telling these hard-working families to tighten their belts again for the sake of another millionaire tax cut. We need to bring our taxing and spending in line with reality, and her proposal is a big step in the right direction.”

Many Reactionary Democrats Are Blinded To The Benefits Of Emergency Deficit Spending

Ellen Tauscher-- lurking in the darkness

Monday D-Day wrote about New Democratic Coalition leader Ellen Tauscher's insatiable appetite for more homeless people. The former Wall Street stock broker and fiscally conservative (though socially moderate) Democrat led the reactionary/Blue Dog revolt against Nancy Pelosi's attempt to pass "cram down" legislation that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify terms of mortgages on primary residences to prevent more of this kind of destruction of social cohesion across the country. Tauscher isn't a Blue Dog but she works closely with them to drag the Democratic House caucus away from pro-working family positions and towards her the special interests of her sleazy corporate patrons. She certainly cares more about the banksters than about her own constituents. Her New Democrat Coalition-- which is much bigger than the Blue Dog caucus-- isn't considered quite as venal as they are. But they share many members and when it comes to protecting special interests (of their corporate donors) they can be just as fierce as Blue Dogs and Republicans.

The NDC-- like the Blue Dogs-- has grown wary of "outing" their new members. Neither group has updated its membership lists to include freshmen and both still include right-wing Democrats who followed their reactionary precepts are were defeated in November, Nick Lampson and Tim Mahoney. The last available NDC membership list:

Ellen Tauscher (CA), Chair
Ron Kind (WI), Vice-Chair
Artur Davis (AL), Vice-Chair
Adam Smith (WA), Vice-Chair
Joseph Crowley (NY), Vice-Chair/Whip
Jason Altmire (PA)
Michael Arcuri (Blue Dog-NY)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Melissa Bean (Blue Dog-IL)
Shelley Berkeley (NV)
Bruce Braley (IA)
Lois Capps (CA)
Russ Carnahan (MO)
Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA)
André Carson (IN)
Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)
Joe Courtney (CT)
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Susan Davis (CA)
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Bob Etheridge (NC)
Bill Foster (IL)
Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ)
Kirstin Gillibrand (Blue Dog-NY)
Charles Gonzalez (TX)
Jane Harman (Blue Dog-CA)
Stephanie Herseth (Blue Dog-SD)
Brian Higgins (NY)
Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN)
Rush Holt (NJ)
Darlene Hooley (OR, retired)
Jay Inslee (WA)
Steve Israel (NY)
Ron Klein (FL)
Nick Lampson (defeated Blue Dog-TX)
Rick Larsen (WA)
John Larson (CT)
Tim Mahoney (defeated Blue Dog-FL)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Kendrick Meek (FL)
Gregory Meeks (NY)
Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Dennis Moore (Blue Dog-KS)
Jim Moran (VA)
Chris Murphy (CT)
Patrick Murphy (Blue Dog-PA)
Ed Perlmutter (CO)
David Price (NC)
Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog-CA)
Adam Schiff (Blue Dog-CA)
Allyson Schwartz (PA)
David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)
Joe Sestak (PA)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL)
David Wu (OR)

This morning's Hill reports on conservative Democrats' yipping and yapping about the deficit, playing right into Republican strategy for derailing President Obama's ambitious plans to start down the road to restructuring American society in a more equitable direction. They're grousing that although Obama's plans for bringing down the Bush deficit by more than two-thirds, it could start growing again in 2014. It shocks me when naive Democrats join with corporate shills to empower treacherous Republican partisans.

In this new Republican strategy there is an incongruity. GOP lawmakers have said the stimulus bill heaps too much debt on the next generations. Where were these reborn fiscal conservatives when the prior administration ran a war-- whose costs now rival World War II-- on a credit card?

One of President George W. Bush's most damaging and self-destructive choices was to make the war on terrorism a partisan issue. It was a Karl Rove tactic designed to produce "a permanent majority." By doing that and by shunning the sympathy of other nations, Bush turned a golden moment into a dead-end strategy. And now the diminished Republican numbers in Congress are making the nation's economic recovery a partisan issue. Indeed, they are betting on calamity.

The congressional Republican profession of horror at the site of deficit spending resembles the feigned surprise of the police chief in the movie Casablanca who was "shocked" there was gambling at Rick's Cafe and then was handed his winnings. The GOP's new deficit spending mantra is a lot like congressmen and senators who shun certain health care funding scenarios because they "don't want to see health care rationed." In truth, we ration health care now. In fact, every culture has rationed health care. It's simply a matter of how we choose to ration it. Will some of us get health care, or will a broader swath of Americans get it?

Deficit spending is worth it if a nation gets something for its money. The infrastructure elements of President Obama's stimulus package are especially worthy. It is the largest such package since the Eisenhower administration, when America built the interstate highway system. This is a good marriage of an urgent need and a pressing moment.

CQPolitics reported this morning that the Democratic culprits working with the Republicans to derail Obama include Utah and Arizona reactionaries Jim Matheson and Gabby Giffords. And they're not alone. Almost 50 Blue Dogs and NDC members are skulking around plotting with the GOP about eviscerating Obama's plans to help the middle class. These are all members of Congress who always put the special interests first and their own constituents last. It's what got us into the mess we're in in the first place.

A dozen of them were among 20 House Democrats who voted against the $410 billion discretionary fiscal 2009 spending package (HR 1105) on Feb. 25. Another group later forced House leaders to sideline a contentious bill (HR 1106) to allow bankruptcy judges to modify home loans.

Although only a handful of moderate and conservative Democrats abandoned their leaders during party-line votes on the economic stimulus law, the group of vulnerable Democrats branded the omnibus spending bill as a budget buster and questioned whether the mortgage bill would raise interest rates on average home-owners and cause some struggling homeowners to rush to bankruptcy.

The defections could cause heartburn for Democratic leaders charged with ushering through Obama’s three biggest priorities: a health care overhaul, a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions and his fiscal 2010 budget blueprint. The president might also have trouble winning their votes for an anticipated second financial bailout package.

...Many of the 49 Democrats in the group have particular concerns about Obama’s call for allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for wealthy families to expire.

“I don’t agree with the administration about letting all those tax cuts expire for upper-income families,” said Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz. He argues for retaining the current 15 percent rate on capital gains and for permanent reductions in the estate tax.

Sounds exactly like a Republican, doesn't he? He called me when he was running for office in 2006 against an incredibly worse Republican, J.D. Hayworth, and even then I had to choke back the stench of reactionary shit-brains to not warn Arizona voters that they were trading in an "F" for a "D-minus." On key substantive issues, Mitchell has voted like a Republican from the moment he got into office. Let's hope the folks at Accountability Now are watching.