Political Courage
Is this right? Well, here’s a test case. 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.
I’m not really sure what “courage” is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards. For 30 years, certainly since Walter Mondale got creamed by Ronald Reagan, the most dangerous thing a politician can do has been to call for tax hikes. Politicians who call for higher taxes are punished, which is why they don’t do it. I’m curious to see what adjectives people would apply to the Progressive Congressional Caucus’s budget proposal. But it’s hard for me to imagine the media calling a proposal to raise taxes “courageous” and “honest”. And my sense is that the disparate treatment here is a structural bias rooted in class.
I still don’t understand why a budget made with phony numbers that supposedly gets rid of the deficit in 30 years is “courageous.” What is Ryan proposing that Republicans haven’t proposed before? It’s all tax cuts for the rich and cutting programs that Republicans don’t like. The only “courageous” thing about it is how blatant it is to cut Medicare to pay for tax cuts for the rich. But was anyone surprised at this?
The interesting thing about the Progressive Caucus budget is that it’s not very radical. It returns tax rates to historical levels and it cuts defense while leaving social programs intact. If you look at polling, this is what people say they want. Why isn’t this budget proposal getting the same breathless coverage as the Ryan plan?
And there are other budgets too:
Chris Van Hollen proposed a budget for the Democratic portion of the House Budget Committee. This budget cuts even further than the President’s budget in defense spending and agriculture subsidies. It also lowers the deficit $1 trillion more than the President’s budget.
The Congressional Black Caucus also proposed a budget. This budget reduces the deficit by almost $4 trillion over the next decade — closing a bunch of tax loopholes, instituting a financial speculation tax on trading and bringing back the public option for the ACA, among other things.
ALL of these budgets are serious efforts at deficit reduction. What these budgets DON’T do is to fit into the media narrative, as The Economist points out. Since all of these other budgets raise taxes on somebody, apparently the media decision is that there is something unserious about them — even though some of these budgets go even further in deficit reduction that either Ryan’s plan or the President’s plan do. So I’m thinking that the rule here is that you get to be serious if you are talking about using entitlement programs to reduce the deficit, but not if you decide to raise revenues on the people who can best afford it.
Adam Smith, father of free market liberal capitalism, declared that the most fair tax of all was the Estate Tax. A pure meritocracy requires that we all start at (or near) the same starting line and an unfettered inheritance makes that impossible. The Estate Tax should definitely be brought back to restore some equality to the playing field (although, if they want to wait until my own mother kicks the bucket, I’d appreciate it).
One of my bosses use to say that “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” I’d like to add that most of them write budgets too. Behold the return of “voodoo economics” and “fuzzy math”.
Cassandra’s right – the media ignoring the progressive budgets allow the frame of Obama’s budget is left, Ryan’s is right so the deficit commission budget is the middle.
UI just whacked the mole!
The Progressive Caucas put together the Peoples Budget based on polls they did in every state, asking the people to vote on a variety of issues. If you read the Washington Post or NYtimes neither of these supposed “record of the people” even discuss the Peoples Budget which doesnt cut social security, medicare or medicaid and balances the budgets in 6 yrs. Its a better budget than Obama’s which would cut 4 trillion as opposed to Ryans which destroys the safety net, adds another trillion in tax cuts and does no cutting on defense. the progressives budgets will cut defense and end these illegal wars. Why isnt Obama standing with the majority of democrats…cuz he is far right of center hoping to appeal to teabaggers which he will never win over.
I blame the biased liberal-corporate media.