An elephant is prowling the Capitol

By James Hauser and Kate Hunter

Our leaders are debating the federal budget in the marbled hearing rooms and mahogany chambers of Congress, in the cubicles of the White House West Wing, and in the Oval Office itself.

And in each of these rooms is an elephant; an elephant called the U.S. Defense Budget. The national media urges you to follow our leaders: Don’t think of the Elephant.

• Don’t think about the defense budget having doubled during the past ten years.

• Don’t think that the U.S. spends almost as much on the military (this year alone about $780 billion) as the entire rest of the world combined.

• Don’t think about the Pentagon never having completed an audit, nor about the General Accountability Office finding $300 billion in cost overruns in the past five years.

• Don’t think that here in Washington State we have paid $28 billion just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; nor that our state legislators and governor have proposed drastic cuts in our safety net to fill a $5 billion shortfall projected over the next two years. Don’t divide 5 into 28.

• Don’t think of the dead – nearly one million soldiers and civilians dead as a direct result of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Iraq Body Count).

• Don’t think that with Osama bin Laden dead, there is no justification for remaining in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In fact, to follow our leaders, perhaps we should not think at all.

Luckily for us some in Congress HAVE been thinking and have drafted “The Peoples’ Budget.” Presented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, it would:

• End the wars in Iraq and Afghani¬stan and bring home the troops.

• End overseas military emergency supplemental funding starting in Fiscal Year 2013.

• Reduce baseline defense spending.

It would also:

Allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, but extend marriage relief, credits, and incentives for children, families, and education.

• Immediately rescind the upper-income tax cuts in December’s tax deal.

• Increase millionaire tax rates (add¬ing 45%, 46%, 47%, 48%, and 49% top rates).

• Tax all capital gains and qualified dividends as ordinary income.

• Tax U.S. corporate foreign income as it is earned.

• Eliminate corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies.

• Add a financial speculation tax (derivatives, foreign exchange)

• Reinstate Superfund taxes.

• Negotiate costs of pharmaceuticals with companies.

These major shifts in government policy would allow Congress to:

• Enact a public health care option.

• Raise the taxable Social Security maximum on the employee side to 90% of earnings and eliminate the taxable maximum on the employer side.

• Increase Social Security benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side.

• Search out and punish Medicare and Medicaid provider fraud.

• Prevent a cut in Medicare physician payments for a decade.

• Invest $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy and broadband infrastructure, housing, and R&D.

It’s time we urged our leaders to cut military spending to free up money for states’ needs. According to a University of Massachusetts-Amherst study, military dollars spent in a state yield the least number of jobs, compared to public investments in health, education, transportation and even tax cuts.

The elephant in Washington, D.C. tramples the grass in every state.

A common sense ‘People’s Budget’

By Will Parry

In what should have been big news to the mainstream media but wasn’t, 79 (seventy-nine!) members of Congress have rolled out “The People’s Budget” for fiscal year 2012, a common sense plan that would eliminate the federal deficit, create jobs and protect the American people.

The budget is the work of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, comprised of 77 House members plus Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Senator Tom Udall of Utah. It is the largest caucus in Congress. Washington’s Rep. Jim McDermott is a member.

Here in summary is the caucus’ budget proposal: End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Enact a public option for health care. Reform the tax system so that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share. Protect the integrity of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Invest $1.45 trillion in job creation, education and infrastructure.

“The Republican budget will wreak havoc on hard-working Americans,” Caucus Co-chairs Rep. Raul M. Grijalva and Rep. Keith Ellison declared in a letter to Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat in the House. “They have proven, once again, their unwavering commitment to taking trillions of dollars from the pockets of the middle class and giving ever more generous windfalls to millionaires and large corporations. They want to throw seniors off Medicare. Their slash-and-burn tactics will throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work. They will eliminate health care for children and those with disabilities.

“We can present a clear alternative to the American people. We can and must produce a budget that eliminates the deficit, protects the American people, and creates jobs,” the co-chairs wrote. “We hope that you will give this due consideration as we move through the budget process.”

Reporting day after day on Republican budget gymnastics and on the efforts of a handful of senators to cobble together a bipartisan alternative, the media has largely ignored the bold and thoughtful proposal from the Progressive Caucus.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a veteran of many political battles and a member of the Progressive Caucus, said the only way the People’s Budget will get traction is if progressives fight for it. “It’s about time we started joining with our allies and marching and protesting and going to the White House,” he said. “The rhetoric is beautiful, the speeches are great, but until we start protesting with thousands of people backing up the Progressive Caucus, we’re just another group that issues press releases on Wednesday.”