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The Congressional Progressive Caucus has responded to President Barack Obama, who said progressives would have to be “sold” on deficit reduction. Specifically, he claimed that “if you are a progressive, you should be concerned about debt and deficit just as much as if you’re a conservative.”
CPC Co-Chair Raul Grijalva had this to say:
The Progressive Caucus has introduced the only budget that creates a surplus by 2021 because we take seriously the need for a strong economy and manageable debt. Our budget eliminates the deficit in 10 years and creates jobs while protecting the programs our constituents rely on. We stand ready to work with you, as we have throughout this process, to solve the budget impasse in a way that helps rather than punishes the American people. With the House under tea party control and the Senate held hostage by Mitch McConnell, it is up to you to fly the standard of the people who elected you. We feel our budget achieves your policy goals, and we look forward to producing a successful outcome for our economy and our constituents at home.
Importantly, the The Progressive Caucus Budget, known as the People’s Budget, accomplishes this without doing any harm in the near term. Quite the opposite. It includes a stimulus package of public works and infrastructure funding to get people working immediately. It brings taxes back to the Clinton level and makes them more progressive. It ends military overspending and is content with spending a little less than the rest of the world combined on the military, rather than more than it. It taxes financial speculation and includes a public option in health care, too.
In other words, the People’s Budget addresses every single root cause that President Obama said drove the deficit to the heights we see now.
It turns out that our problem is we cut taxes without paying for them over the last decade; we ended up instituting new programs like a prescription drug program for seniors that was not paid for; we fought two wars, we didn’t pay for them; we had a bad recession that required a Recovery Act and stimulus spending and helping states — and all that accumulated and there’s interest on top of that.
So the way out of that is to return the tax revenue to the level it was when we created 23 million jobs, end the wars, get people working again, and change the health care system so it’s cheaper and more effective. Which is almost exactly what the People’s Budget does.
It’s typical to discount leaders who dare to have the correct solutions to our problems. Grijalva isn’t having any of it.
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Viva Grijalva!
Yes, Obama deserves to have the so called progressive caucus shove his theory right back at him. Problem is, their budget, like all the others, assumes the deficit hawk notion that we have a debt crisis that requires dramatic reductions in budgets and that only that will lay the foundation for growth and employment. Nope.
As you point out in another post, the private sector, particularly consumers, are having to cut their debt, because they lost trillions in the burst housing bubble. The net trade position is negative. As long as both of those are true, it is impossible for the Feds to avoid deficit spending. Mathematically impossible. No one talks about this in the DC discussions.
If the Feds forced themselves to balance their budget, whether via progressive or conservative budgets and taxes, and there was no massive improvement in net exports, it could only happen by draining the private sector, which would require, mathematically, a massive debt and lost incomes in the private sector. It would cause another recession or worse. That’s exactly what we see in the states that are imposing austerity on their citizens and employees as the means to balance their budgets. Doing that nationally would be catastrophic.
Bottom line. Obama is an economic moron. And the progressive caucus is only a kinder, gentler version that might avoid the catastrophe of a rapid balanced budget, but only if we were very careful about not getting to the false goal of a balanced budget too soon. Sad.
I’ve had it with this hippie punching, progressives are nothing but bargaining chips, in the “grand bargain”.
The far right is a problem. It got to be a problem that can’t be stopped through 30 years of centrist enablement and surrender.
How dare anyone blame progressives! Progressives haven’t had a seat at the table in 30 years.
If Obama wants to see who is to blame he can look in his mirror.
Exactly, Scarecrow.
David, Scarecrow and selise are going to some length to clarify the concern a number of us have with accepting, and repeating, without context or perspective, certain notions about what “deficit” means, and given the oft repeated claim that, “… the federal budget is just like everyone’s budget, at home …”, it is very important to those of us reading your words that there be some clarity as to your concerns regarding the concept of “deficit” and what it means, in the most basic terms.
By my lights “conventional” wisdom is wrong, and deliberately so, with the intent of protecting the “interests” of the few.
I do not imagine that we are simply “stuck” with what “is”, but that understanding requires a far broader and deeper open-mindedness, that we may not only understand the real truth of affairs as they exist, but also, how they might be improved upon.
For instance, does a governmental “deficit” mean simply that there is a corresponding “surplus” in the so-called “private sector” or does it mean, somehow, the end of the world?
That second notion is what is currently being shoved down everyone’s throats because it is the conventional “view”.
However, there are MANY adults paying ever closer attention, who have reason to view things differently.
I am interested in understanding your views, and hope that you might share them.
DW
You’re correct but is this a case where a half a loaf of bread is better than the ‘let them eat cake’ approach that is being touted?
I’ve called my Senators Feinstein and Boxer about coin seigniorage but they seem to have no clue about it and my Rep is a Paul Ryan fan who is even more a moron than Obama.
The question is: What is Grijalva prepared to do if Obama wants to pass the monstrous safety net-cutting “grand bargain”?
Just throwing another UI extension on there is hardly going to balance out the real damage that will be done. Everything in the deal for which Obama himself advocates runs directly counter to the stated goals of the People’s Budget.
What will Grijalva do if the final deal cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Is he prepared to “take hostages” the way that the teabaggers – and their bosses the moneybaggers – do?
More importantly, what will we do?
Kabuki today, origami when the votes are needed.
Any UI extension MUST include benefits being extended for the millions of folks who are no longer counted due to exhausting theirs! Until everyone starts talking about this issue correctly, the vast majority of Americans believe that all unemployed people have what they need instead of understanding that many of them are looking at homelessness, hunger and suicide as their only options.
Overall, Obama himself said today that he does not watch cable tv or read anything talking about him, so how exactly are we supposed to get his attention to even present this budget option?
Good for Raul but we still need to create good long term green jobs. How to do it?
Easy.
We use 63 million barrels of oil for gasoline per week. SOR has 727 MILLION barrels in it. Have the PRES. announce that he will release 7 million barrels per week from Strategic Oil Reserve (10% of our demand)until the price of gas has dropped to $2.50 per gallon. Why will this happen? Because the speculators will realize the gig is up and that there is now a counterpoint to their abuse. Even if Obama had to continue to release 7 million barrels per week it would take 727 divided by 7 per week or 2 FULL YEARS before SOR is emptied. It would never get to that point though because of next step which would be to add a 50 cent per gallon tax to the now $2.50 per gallon gas. Since we are talking 63 million barrels per week we are really saying 63 million barels times 42 gallons in a barrel or 2.6 billion gallons. A 50 cent tax would be 1.3 BILLION PER WEEK!!! Now have 100% of this new tax go to subsidize green energy (my suggestion would be a subsidy to purchase of electri cars–go chevy Volt or Tesla). Since average electric car currently in 25 k range a 80% subsidy would mean 20k subsidy per car making cost to consumer only $5,000. With that 50 cent per gallon tax we now have ability to subsidize 80% purchase price of 65,000 electric cars per week or 3,380,000 electric vehicles per year. Welcome new green industy.
BUT it doesn’t stop there. With 3.5 million electric cars on the road demand for oil goes down so at some point demand price should drop to say $2 per gallon but gov keeps price at $3 (to push conservation). Viola is now $1 per gallon available for electric car subsidy so subsidy could raise to 6,760,000 cars per year. But wait there is another consquence of this. Because we have a demand for vehicles we quickly have an economy of scale where the cost per car would drop considerably say by 20% or so. We now have a $20,000 electric car subsidizes by 80% $16,000 which lowers cost to conumer to $4,000 bumping demand again. Plus look what that now $1 per gallon tax will get. 2.6 billion gallons at $1 pr week buying electric cars at 80% rate of $16,000 or 162,500 electric cars per week or 8.45 MILLION cars per year. Auto plants in US are now booming and we are the green energy center of the world. And all because we released some oil from the reserve and used the money wisely instead of dumping it into corporate profits for those assholes at Oil companies. Before long those bums will need their subsidies. Added benefit no need to fight wars over foreign oil we no longer need. Zero overseas oil dependence in less than 5 years. Many say no way but forget that is how the Japanese government helped subsidize Toyota to its world prominence.
selise: why should progressives want to reduce the deficit?
bingo. only thint is too bad grijalva isn’t one of them…. in fact, i don’t know of any in deecee. real leaders with real solutions apparently only exist outside the beltway. please see l. randall wray’s post here at fdl, A PROGRESSIVE APPROACH TO FEDERAL BUDGETING.
what scarecrow said!
If you expect a People Budget to pass, then you must fund it with only tax cuts and no added revenue, or you must drastically reduce the number of Republicans in Congress to the level of the 1935 Congress.
The last time a Republican in Congress voted for any bill with a tax hike was in 1991 – that’s two decades where ZERO Republicans have voted for a tax hike while collectively, I’m guessing they have voted tens of thousands of times for tax cuts.
And campaigns are run against all members of Congress just on the basis of a tax hike vote.
The President, no matter who he is, can’t vote to pass a tax hikes.
A President Bernie Sanders can not get a tax hike in this or the previous Congress.
A President Ralph Nader can not get a tax hike in this or the previous Congress.
Obama got a tax hike in ACA with the help of a Republican who was defeated for supporting Obama on ACA, and did not have to vote for a tax hike, but only allowed a vote for a tax hike. Democrats who voted not but voted to allow the vote were defeated for allowing a tax hike.
Progressives MUST develop a pledge to hike taxes and force every Republican to sign the pledge or face a progressive focus on defeating each one who will not pledge to hike taxes. And progressives must educate voters to vote only for candidates for office who have pledged to hike taxes.
Obama is responsible for progressives failing to get elected to be seated at the table?!?!
Obama is responsible for the progressives not getting elected ever since he was 19 years old??
Congressman Raul M. Grijalva’s July 15, 2011 Press Release restated:
I have introduced the only budget that creates a surplus NOW (see
http://www.mjbarkl.com/usbudget.pdf ) because I take seriously the need
for a strong economy and manageable debt. My budget eliminates the deficit
NOW (without a debt ceiling increase) and creates jobs while protecting
the programs the people of this country rely on. I stand ready to work with
you, as I would have throughout this process if allowed, to solve the budget
impasse in a way that helps rather than punishes the American people. With
the House under tea party control and the Senate held hostage by Mitch
McConnell, it is up to you to fly the standard of the people who elected
you. I feel my budget achieves your policy goals, and I look forward to
producing a successful outcome for our economy and the American people
at home.
Best wishes,
–Mike Barkley, Candidate for Congress, http://www.mjbarkl.com/run.htm
Put Grijalva in a room with Obama for five minutes and he’ll come out saying the retirement age needs to be raised and Social Security should not be tied down to COLA.
Good Lord, they really don’t know what they’re talking about do they? Even if we need to additional taxes (to reduce inflationary pressure if the economy was at full employment or to replace existing taxes), Congress never has to vote to raise taxes.
Since 1947 the Federal Reserve has refunded its net earnings to Tsy General Fund. And since 1980, Congress has allowed the Fed Board of Governors to levy and adjust its own transaction fees. When you add those two steps together, it means the Fed can tighten or loosen US fiscal stance simply by amending its fee schedule.
Along these same lines, UW-Madison Econ professor Edgar Feige gave an excellent presso to the Bush tax reform panel in 2005 about his “Automated Payment Transaction” tax.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25299549/Feige-APT-Presentation-to-Tax-Reform-Panel-2005
Others have hinted at this but I will put it directly:
David, what’s with the progwashing puff piece?
Why are you setting yourself up for the inevitable failure when Grijalva folds like a limp rag?
And btw… why isn’t he here to explain to us himself about how he going to arrange it so that he won’t fold this time?
Grijalva has no credibility.
Yes, unfortunately party solidarity trumps public solidarity for the “Progressive” Caucus.
gotnogame, your ideas are logical and would improve the economy and the environment greatly. However, as Obama has no interest in seeing either improve…
It’s a start, I guess. But spending almost half the world’s military budget is still not “ending military overspending” in any reasonable “people’s budget.”
‘If you want to reduce the deficit…’
Big ‘if’. It has been observed often on these tubes that deficits only matter when a Democrat is president. As Atrios has been telling us forever and aye, no one gives a crap about deficits.
Nice comments. Since we all know Mitch McConnell’s first priority is to make sure Barack Obama is a one-term president, why would Democrats capitulate to anything Republicans propose? If Obama caved in as he did in December 2010 all he will accomplish is a short term deal which already expired. There will be no elimination of corporate subsidies which every Republican believes are entitlements. On the other hand, Obama tipped his hand when he said he would cut funding for Social Security and Medicare, suggesting means testing and a higher eligibility age from 65 to 67-years-old to receive medical benefits.
This is a Hobson’s choice for Democrats and Obama. They can’t win and the odds are, no matter how many concessions Obama makes he will still be portrayed as a tax and spend Democrat. Republicans will run the table in 2012 and Grijalva can retire. As a matter of fact, all Democrats should retire and cede our country to the Koch brothers who are running most of it anyway.
You have to remember that they’ve gots an empire to run. They certainly haven’t given up on that fantasy…
All of us should understand that there are many people far left of the progressive caucus, let alone the Third Way wunderkids. If you anger the American people too much, they will revolt – a sad, but dangerous prospect in a country with weak gun laws and little public respect for government.
So if Obama took McConnell’s no-frills Plan B, (he won’t since he wants cuts), he would win, we would win…voters don’t give a fig about debt ceilings.
And please remember: Medicaid cuts, the bastard child in the room.
The ironically named House “Progressive” Caucus (who typically fold like wet paper with the slightest pressure). Those “progressives”?
Ding!
These are the same folks who write sternly worded letters weekly and then vote for whatever crap Obama tells them to because they’re “pragmatic.”
Dude, the progressive caucus is proof that progressives have been elected. The problem isn’t that they haven’t been elected. The problem is that any solution they have offered has been ignored and they’ve been pretty much forced to go in another direction.
The progressive caucus wanted a public option. They didn’t want women utilized as a bargaining chip. They wanted more infrastructure spending, less tax cuts in the stimulus. Unfortunately it’s always the Blue Dog caucus that Obama listens to you know the folks who WANTED a Stupak amendment and INSIST we need at least 2 trillion in spending cuts(Conrad of Senate).
Last fall Grijalva wrote that he and the CPC would never allow cutS to SS. Now he pens a plea for progressives to show concern for deficit spending that paves the way for cuts to the social safety net. This is exactly why Grijalva has no credibility.
what scarecrow and selise said.
It’s a trenchant commentary on the interests the government represents when there has to be a “People’s” budget plan alternative to the official budget.
Interesting platform Mike. You’re 180 degrees out of phase of reality about balanced budgets– but that’s an easy fix.
Start here,
http://pragcap.com/resources/understanding-modern-monetary-system
The larger problem is your platform is all over the place. You need to focus on two or three popular issues and beat them like a drum. If you run on a laundry list with all sorts of controversial proposals, you won’t make any headway unless your goal is rile people up (Advocating the repeal of the 2nd Amendment is a Very. Bad. Idea.).
I see a portrait of Obama locked up in some obscure closet in the WH that is turning more grotesque and hideous with each passing day.
So the first question that comes to mind is this: Will the members of the “Progressive Caucus” stick to their guns on this? Please forgive my skepticism, but I think it’s more than well-deserved.
Hey Progressive Caucus: Time to dig in your heels and prove you’re real. Failing that, I’ll go ahead and consider this to be just another heapin’ helpin’ of empty rhetoric.
The Teabaggers are willing to burn down the government to get their way. So when they hold their breath people cater to their tantrums.
The Progressive Caucus wants to govern. So they cave in order to make a deal happen. Every time. And they get ignored.
Anybody see a pattern, here?
EDIT:
This is as good a time to dig in your heels as any. It’s easy to say “this issue is SOOO important that we’ll cave JUST THIS ONCE and let it slide”. This is a wholly artificial issue, so it’s as good a chance as any.
The Progressive Caucus needs to stand up and say “no debt ceiling vote without one dollar of tax increases for every dollar of increase”. Say it, mean it, vote it down, over and over again. Be the Anti-baggers.
There are always a few places the budget can be trimmed, and the defense budget is many times the size it needs to be.
But it is important for every Progressive, every Socialist, every Green, every Democrat, every elected official to say, over and over again, that there is no budget solution without raising taxes.
Hey selise: I know you dig James Galbraith. Here’s an interview from a few days back…
Could progressives possibly have less influence in the Democratic Party than they do? Has anyone ever heard a Tea Partier mocked for wanting to “heighten the contradictions”? Progressives’ strategy vis a vis the Democratic Party is sort of like American health care policy — we’re willing to try anything except what demonstrably works.
Yes a too depressing pattern.
It *appears* as if the USG (or whatever) “caters” to the Tea Party, but in reality, the Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidieary of Koch Industries. So the “catering” going on is to the usual suspects: the upper 1%.
Tea Partiers are pretty divorced from factual reality, so they *think* that the PTB are catering to them. They’re not.
I’ll believe it only when I see it happening, and not one nanosecond before that.
gotnogame @ 10,
A big flaw I see in your scenario.
When we have 3.5 million electric cars on the road, the price of gas will go up, not down. As demand goes down, price will go up to cover the oil companies bottom lines.
The fatal flaw underpinning this proposal is that it assumes that Obama really wants to honestly address the alleged deficit problem. He doesn’t.
If he did, he wouldn’t be engaging in this cynical charade with the GOP.
Economic arson.
BINGO! It must be an amazing feeling to be one of the dozen people in the country with the intelligence to understand the problem. (Krugman and Stiglitz are nitwits. Dean Baker’s what, a half-wit?) I long for the day when someone with comparable intelligence emerges to communicate successfully the solution to a majority of the American people.
Grijalva is operating in an environment where the Republicans have defined the debate so thoroughly, with Obama’s help, that the American people are getting more concerned about the deficit than about jobs.
The progressive budget says things that may resonate with the middle class. The budget is occasionally mentioned in the mainstream media. It creates a tax structure that is substantially more progressive than current law and could be a beginning to a reversal of the concentration of wealth that, in addition to creating an economic nightmare that is destroying the country,has corrupted our political system.
The progressive budget also stresses green jobs. Green jobs reduce oil consumption, which reduces our balance of payments problem.
There are two kinds of mistakes. In 2008 many allowed the label “Democrat” to be a sufficient reason, in an of itself, to cast a vote. At the the other extreme, a test of ideological purity that eliminates everybody who might be willing and able to help isn’t likely to lead to a massive epiphany and the transformation of American politics.
Selise, I truly enjoy your comments on debt and the information you provide. I visit your link and links you recommend. I learn from you. But I’m willing to support anyone trying to move the country from where it is today to where I’d like it to go.
Yes! Everyone could see this coming. The ideal time to have resisted extortion would have been over the Bush tax cuts. Democrats could have stood by while all the tax cuts expired, then proposed middle class tax cuts every week.
But raising the debt ceiling has tremendous importance for people of wealth. The Republicans need this more than Democrats. Fox news analysts have already called for raising the ceiling as has the chamber of commerce.
The trouble is that Obama wants to cave. He just wants a bit more cover than the Republicans have so far provided. The progressive caucus can make one more Republican vote for the debt increase with every vote they withold.
I didn’t notice anyone pumping the People’s Budget – beyond some liberal blogs. Didn’t hear Obama/Biden/Pelosi. Obviously not MSM or the Rethugs. And the few passing comments weren’t pumped up.
The People’s Budget died of neglect.
what yellowsnapdragon said– no credibility. no with me at least.
Let me complete the “government is like a family’s budget” analogy:
1. The family has the ability to require the sources of the family’s income to increase that income to the family. (that would be the fat cat employer who profits off the family’s labor, and for the past 30 years has been keeping more and more of the income the labor of the family produces.
2. The family has a large hobby where they make bombs and weapons and indescriminately drop bombs and kill other families in the neighborhood, which is very expensive. So, yes the family could probably cut back on this addiction for violence to save money.
3. The family spends a lot of their income paying “extortion” to the local mafiosa in the neighborhood who provide energy, healthcare, financial and communication services and industrial food products to the family. To save money, the family would probably want to ask these mobsters to leave their neighborhood permanently and require only honest businesses to provide these essential services at a regulated profit margin.
This completes the “government is like a family” analogy.
It only paves the way for those cuts because that is how Obama, the GOP, and the Blue Dogs have framed this. You could just as easily balance the budget by decreasing spending on defense(which Obama has said that he doesn’t agree with)and by increasing taxes on the rich as well as creating a ceiling for health care costs.
Nowhere in this budget is there actually any talk of cutting safety nets.
The problem isn’t the caucus or its ideas, it’s the framing half the party has adopted because it’s too lazy to fight GOP framing.
Same poop, different day
The GOP frames an issue and it’s the only side that anyone ever hears.
Obama didn’t need to do any of that. The Bush tax cuts were set up to sunset. All he had to do was veto any extension of them.
But Obama made a big deal of only ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, so he felt compelled to extend the cuts for everyone else. While this was only a pittance for folk like me, it adds up to lots for the budget since there are hundreds of millions of folk like me. But anyway…
Obama still could have done this if he’d simply included making the middle class tax cuts permanent in the Stimulus when he had the political capital. But he didn’t. He put it off.
This is not just Congress fault. This is Obama’s fault.
Oh come on, people. Such cynicism.
If you’d been paying attention all along, this budget Raul Grijalva is talking about would be much more out and on the table and have a bigger shot.
Why?
This budget was released to counter the Ryan budget about two weeks after that budget was released. That’s right, a long time ago in these negotiations. How do I know that? Because my congressman, Mike Honda, also on the Progressive Caucus, was one of those who put this People’s Budget together, and he held a phone conferenced town meeting for over an hour with his constituents to explain it when it came out.
It’s not a last minute response, it is a serious budget, it does close some of the deficit in the long term but it’s primarily a budget to get the economy going again. It’s plenty worth supporting, it was originally and always the progressive counter to the Ryan budget, and it seeks to create jobs.
Stop being so cynical. There really are some good people in amongst the 435.
Get some links so we can read more write a diary:)
I don’t know.
Yeah, it seemed to happen 18 months ago when the progressive caucus caved to support Obama’s health care deform. But the argument then was the need to support the President on this so he could continue to have political capital to do good things for the rest of his presidency.
18 months later I think progressives have realized that Obama idea of what are good things are so far apart from theirs that they no longer would buy into that argument.
Of course this only is so if there wasn’t a more sinister argument in those private meetings.
Could Progressive Caucus really becoming a Centre-Right Caucus with rotating villains. I say its looking allot like Christmas in July again. Remember The Public Option.
I respectfully suggest you got that backwards, so…
Unfortunately it’s always
the Blue Dog caucusObama thatObamathe Blue Dog caucus listensto…How about this scenario: After the Dems lose the 2012 election, a cowardly Congress votes to renew the Bush-Obama Tax Cuts For The Rich. A lame-duck President Obama vetoes the bill, restoring the Clinton-era tax rates.
The question is will the Progressives stand firm or fold? Will they try and get on the news or the Lefty blogs if they can’t get on the news and answer our questions to raise publicity?
Are they willing to listen to our ideas to make their budget better? Nothing helps gets support than actually making people feel included in the process.
Even if the Progressives lose if none of them votes for the Ryan/Obama budget they will have clean hands when Obama and Ryan cut SS and Medicare.
Plus if no Progressives vote for the Obama budget then the GOP will have to force the Tea Baggers to vote for the Ryan/Obama budget.
Right now the Tea Baggers expect the Dems to commit political suicide and vote for the Obama budget while they have clean hands and their banker friends get what they want.
If the Progressives show they got Stones then they can win next election as the tea Baggers lose seats.
If they fold we look for a third party.
The electic car people need to solve the problem that caused people to abandon electric cars in the 1800s: portable fuel in the event of running out of energy. They need to move from battery to fuel cell technology and the bidirectional PEM technology they need to use is one in which the fuel under consideration is liquid, reasonably non-volatile, and dispensable.
If they do that, people will adopt electric cars and throw away their alternatives without subsidies, without politics, and without any further ado. But go look at the money and the basic grants being put out: Nobody wants to solve that. So the technologies going out on the road don’t reflect real solutions that abandon the internal combustion engine and don’t reflect a real quantum leap forward. It’s what happens when too few minds are put on problems, but that’s what consolidation in academia buys you.
He had political capital, but not the votes in the Senate.
Franken wasn’t seated yet. Specter was still officially a Republican. Kennedy managed to make it to the floor to break the filibuster, but IIRC that was his last vote. Byrd was in poor health and it was never certain that he would be able to make any particular vote. They needed Collins and whoever else they cut a deal with, and there was probably no way to add Bush tax cut changes into the mix and still get a deal.
The real tragedy of this Administration, perhaps even more than Obama’s closet Reagan fetish, is that the first act of the new Congress was not to kill the filibuster. At that point, the die was cast. Everything else followed from that.
If there had ever been an intention to implement Hope and Change (there never was), killing the filibuster was what it would have taken to make that happen. You could probably have gotten 51 Senate votes for a lot of good legislation. Obama would have been dragged along, kicking and screaming. Voters would have responded to the momentum of good legislation and turned out and actually increased the Democratic majority.
But they were never serious, it was all just marketing BS.
At Friday’s press conference, NBC News’ Chuck Todd asked President Obama whether he regrets not backing the debt commission proposal to address the debt situation. The President replied that he was concerned with the debt commission’s cuts to defense spending. Really? Cuts to defense spending?
We can’t live in despair, but neither can we live in denial of reality.
And the reality is that the Progressive Caucus is noted for only one thing that matters: caving when people are counting on them the most.
The “People’s Budget is irrelevant. It’s not even a “damned piece of paper.”
Implementation is what matters. And the ones promising to implement it are the same ones who have always caved in the past.
What can Grijalva et al offer as proof that they won’t simply cave again?
Waiting…
Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the Catfood Commission, said on Chuck Todd’s show, as shown in a clip on today’s “Meet the Press:”
AARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
There, now I can explain why this common wisdom, so rampart in the bubble of the village and expressed her by Bowles is utter nonsense.
Our creditors, the folk who own U.S. Treasury Savings Bonds and those who might want to buy more, are HAPPY with our debt situation, in fact they’d be happier if we had MORE debt.
It’s just supply and demand. It gets confusing because we talk about the U.S. selling bonds and the creditors buying them. But the reality is that they are selling us loans and we’re buying them. The price of buying that loan is the interest rate. If interest rates are low then the price of buying a loan is low, if it’s high the price is high.
Right now we have record low interest rates and no sign they are going up. That means the demand to buy loans is low compared to the supply. That means a lot more folk out in the bond market want to sell us loans than we want to buy. (Using the backwards language of bonds there are more folk who want to buy U.S. bonds than we want to sell.)
Furthermore those who are willing to sell us loans are willing to do so at an enormous low price because they consider it a safe transaction, even when we have trillions and trillions of debt we need to buy.
THERE IS NO DEBT CRISIS.
Grijalva and the Progressive Caucus in presenting the People’s Budget are buying into the big lie of our age. THERE IS NO DEBT CRISIS.
We should raise taxes on the rich and cut the military budget not because there is a debt crisis but because we should stop pouring tax payer money, rather directly or through buying loans, into the MIC and its empire and because the wealthiest in this country should pay their fair share of the cost of the commons and our shared social justice. The savings this would provide really shouldn’t be used to pay down the debt; it should be used to rebuild our infrastructure and thus get us out of this terrible economy.
But we’ll never get there if those supposedly on the Left Flank in D.C. are promoting the big lie too. Oh well.
Yes. And. The history of the CPC is that it states a policy goal and then votes for legislation that does the opposite of that stated goal. Grijalva telling progressives to care about the deficit is a way to give the caucus cover for voting for legislation that cuts social security. Where, exactly, the legislation originates is less important than the CPC’s caving on their promise to protect social security.
President O’bomb-a
on his radio address this morning,
“I’m willing to do what it takes solve this problem [debt ceiling].
…And I expect leaders in congress to show that same willingness to compromise.”
Get ready for the cave.
Either the one you want to hide in till this is all over, or O’s cave-in.
Except the debt ceiling is not connected to the budget except after the fact. By doing what you say when addressing the debt ceiling they would be helping the liars sell their lie.
How about instead, “Raising the debt ceiling is properly a house keeping item to set it at the level that fits what was decided in the PAST. We will vote against anything that says otherwise and ties it to FUTURE changes in the budget.”
you’re right! thanks for the link!
The POTUS has mostly rejected a Keynesian approach to restoring the economy. While he suggests that government spending cuts should not be near term to avoid killing off whatever recovery exists — which does show some deference to Keynes — he has swallowed and is preaching a decidedly non Keynesian approach. It goes without saying that his words and approach are the exact opposite of those espoused by Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Politically, the really thorny problem is that the majority of Americans support such views. They believe the federal government is, or should be, just like a family. They support a balanced budget amendment and now believe that lowering the deficit and debt is the way to restore economic growth. More than stimulus. Put another way, the public is fully behind all of the stupid economics that Obama is spouting.
Given that context, there is nothing wrong with observing that the “People’s Budget” is more much progressive than the POTUS’s approach. It IS — immensely so. There is nothing wrong with writing that the People’s Budget reduces the deficit more than does that of the POTUS. It DOES. And, finally, there is nothing wrong with writing that, if one’s objective is to reduce the deficit, the People’ Budget should be the choice. These are FACTS.
In the current political environment, insisting on arguing that deficits really don’t matter — even though I believe that to be correct — is a nonstarter. IMHO. If I were forming a movement, that would be one of my cornerstones. And the posts and comments on FDL designed to educate readers about MMT are very helpful and justified.
But to insist that FDL front pagers never make a factual statement about a deficit reduction proposal without, in effect, trashing the proposal by noting that deficits really don’t matter, is a bridge too far.
In this political environment, progressives can’t be taking the position in public debates that deficits and debt don’t matter. Our approach has to be more subtle and nuanced. MMT cannot become a battering ram to drive away those who have our goals. Accepting MMT cannot become the litmus test for being a “true progressive.”
Before the flaming starts, I would note that I count myself as a supporter of MMT. YMMV.
no special wit here….
but things don’t usually change because one person “emerges.” it takes all of us attempting to move the conversation a little bit every chance that we get.
it’s not about withholding support. it’s about telling the truth to the best of my ability. and it’s about changing the environment instead of conceding to live in a dishonest one created by dishonest politicians and pete peterson types.
if we can’t tell each other the truth — here at fdl of all places — then what the frack are we doing?
I couldn’t agree more. This is why I expect nothing from “progressives” in American politics.
deficits do matter. no one is saying otherwise.
mmt economists have countered this claim again and again. it’s inexcusable for anyone, especially someone who claims to be a supporter, to misrepresent them and their work in this way.
There is a branding problem with calling it “The Peoples Budget”. It conjures up like, North Korea or that goofy Hey Hey Ho Ho… chanting at demonstrations
Grijalva’s “People’s Budget” has absolutely no prayer of ever getting out of the House. Even if a vote on it were allowed (it will never happen), no House GOP member would vote for it, and heaven knows how many Democrats would even vote for it…many won’t, especially Blue Dogs. Grijalva wouldn’t even stand firm on the “public option” when he was part of a large House majority. Grijalva and his caucus is marginalized and pretty much irrelevant with Obama in the White House. I don’t know why anyone would pay attention to what he has to say. Obama certainly doesn’t.
L. Randall Wray: Deficits Do Matter, But Not the Way You Think
L. Randall Wray: A PROGRESSIVE APPROACH TO FEDERAL BUDGETING
it’s value is — or rather, could have been — in educating progressives and working towards changing the political environment.
instead if was a just another piece of political propaganda aimed at progressives. and whatever the intent, the effect is to keep us ignorant of the lies we are told about the desirability of federal budgets designed to reduce deficit spending.
economic ignorance means we progressives don’t know enough to be able to advocate for policies that are consistent with our values.
our ignorance is part of what makes us ineffective.
To my knowledge, the People’s Budget has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
It has been analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute but as they helped write the plan, they would not qualify as “independent analysis”. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad plan or that their numbers are wrong, just that it hasn’t really been examined properly at this point.
Bullshit. I’ve seen these fruitless back-and-forths about the meaning of the term “matter.”
The prevailing (non-MMT) view of deficits (which I believe to be wrong) is that they reduce nongovernmental savings, raise interest rates, and lead to inflation. MMTers hold that deficits at less than full employment NEVER inevitably lead to any of those outcomes. NEVER. (Only at or near full employment might deficits pose an inflation threat and that is easily avoided.)
So MMTers reject that deficits “matter” in the way that non-MMTers insist they “matter.”
In other words, they DON’T matter in the way that most economists think they matter.
They’ll fold like paper in the rain.
Exactly right! But Obama seems to be acting more like the imaginary Ronald Reagan than even the REAL Ronald Reagan, you know, the one that raised taxes eleven times or so.
And I’ll throw in one other point, having the US taxpayer assume the debt of broke TBTF banks was a horrible disaster, bankruptcy and failure NEED to happen in order to have a successful economy. The Wall St fraud and corruption need to be resolved in bankruptcy court, not on the taxpayers back. CEOs and other corporate officers need to go to jail for their crimes. We will not have new, successful business enterprise until the corrupt, broke, unsuccessful ones are removed.
this sounds great and I would support it but President Peterson..oh I mean President Obama wants to these to give Wall st a chance to privatize…oh I am sorry I mean Obama wants to cut to save SS Medicare and Medicaid oh silly me… Peterson inc will go along with the cuts…damn,,there I go again..I mean the Democratic party will go along with the cuts…as far as the People’s budget the Peterson PR team will never discuss with the public…what is wrong with me today? I mean the mainstream media will never discuss
I disagree. My opinion is Barack Obama wouldn’t know an original idea if it bit him in the butt. Even as far back as before he hit the Senate he had evidence that he was a puppet. (Remember a Chicago politician proclaiming he was gonna “make a US Senator” outta Barack Obama) The blue dogs have been around and impeded our country longer than Barack Obama has been around. Lieberman was this guy’s mentor.
Barack Obama is not a leader, he’s a follower and he’s doing exactly what the folks leading him around want him to do.
They may be really good people but thus far they have shown to be politically lacking the will necessary to play hardball.
If they were/are serious about this then they need to go on record as a no when the vote comes to cutting the safety net. Otherwise it won’t matter that they come up with really good ideas that will never get implemented because they lack the same ability the GOP has to threaten to hold their breath if they don’t get their way.
There is not a thing that is going to provide them cover if they vote for those cuts to the safety net. If they think putting out this statement will provide cover then they are delusional. People vote on actions, not words.
As someone pointed out above though this “budget” was actually prepared as a counter to the idea that cuts were necessary to the safety net offered by Ryan back when his plan was introduced.
Speak for yourself.
Assuming you were simply trying to attempt at humor otherwise your command of economics is challeneged. #1 economic equation is law of supply and demand. As a commodity becomes less available if demand is the same price will go up. If commodity becomes more available if demand is the same price will go down. So if you make available more oil with same demand price goes down. If following that demand goes down because more and more are using vehicles that don’t use oil price goes down again. But it is much more complicated than that because a good $2 of a current price of a gallon of oil is due to speculative upward price pressure. Once the speculators realized there was now the other side of the trade (downward pressure by release of oil weekly)price would come way down inreaction. Lots of good things here as greedy wall street speculators get crushed, a new green energy industry is created, conservation is maintained by holding gas price to $3 per gallon, the economy is helped by average consumer paying around 75 cents per gallon less at the pump, Oil companies get it in the shorts, and as US is weened fromoil demand foreign policy is changed as we won’t be fighting to protect oil supplies and pipelines anymore.
Proof please? Have you looked at the budget? Did you even hear about it when it came out?
I submit that its failing is not caving. Its failing is inept marketing. But then again, if it rolls out to the kind of crappy response it gets from people like you, what good is good marketing? Go read it. See what you think. Then decide whether you should support it. Instead of playing Kremlin watching and head games all the time, decide what policy you support. Hating people is easy. It just makes you a loser.
Again, a comment on the people, not the budget they put together. So if a wimp proposes single payer, I should cat call and not support it?
Actually, Dennis Kucinich lacks the political acumen to pass just about anything at all, but he’s a frigging hero around these parts. Explain.
If the Progressive Caucus doesn’t primary Obama, they are irrelevant.
I agree that this will not provide cover. However, Grijalva *probably believes* that it will if he convinces progressives that there is a deficit crisis. Shock doctrine. Gotta follow the Prezident!
Remember that what the CPC says and what it does are two different things. No one has any intention of making law from the People’s Budget.
We conveniently forget that in our failure to “demand” of our Democratic-affiliated Senators, to establish an erstwhile Progressive Caucus in the Senate, is our primary fault and to the point of our political neglect for the “process.”
As such, we allow folks as Schumer and Durbin to call themselves “progessive” without their ever delivering ‘valued’ legislation as well their intentional disrespect for “coordinating” their activities will the House Progressive Caucus. In failing to do so, we inadvertently denigrate the members that are the Progessive House Caucus.
Need more be said?
Jaango
Proof of what? Grijalva et al caving or the People’s Budget being irrelevant because Grijalva et al are the ones pushing it?
One is a matter of record and the other is a matter of logic, and simple logic at that: since the caucus folds like a broken rod under pressure what they support or do not support is not relevant.
And that actually makes them just as much the tools of the plutocrats as Obama, Boehner and Reid… whether they like the label or not.
Yes and yes. What of it?
Then you do not understand the problem.
The budget is worthless unless the legislators pushing this in D.C. are willing to put their political careers on the line in order to ensure that it passes.
Unfortunately the people who are supposed to be pushing this budget in D.C. are the Progressive Caucus… the serial cavers who cannot even admit that they’ve had a caving problem.
And you have placed the cart before the horse. Legislation in D.C. is only as strong as the juice of the pols behind it… the ability of those pols to draw a line and STICK TO IT. And the pols required to carry this particular legislation off happen to be… the folding caucus.
And, again, it doesn’t matter what I think of it. What matters is that I’m being asked to trust Grijalva et al again to carry it out… and the only rational response to that is “Why should I?”
… only to have that policy thrown away by the pols entrusted to see it through?
Your emotions have gotten the better of you, I’m afraid. What would make you think that I hate Grijalva and/or his caucus?
But it wouldn’t be doing them any favor to pretend that the caving is not and will not be an issue. People remember.
This kind of symbolic gesture will be comforting when people have the Grand Bargain shoved down their throats.
ACTIONS MATTER. They have a history of offering up decent counter positions but it doesn’t matter because in the end they have lacked the political will to stand behind it. Instead they have bent to whatever atrocity the other side has presented out of pragmatism. Policy doesn’t matter if it doesn’t get enacted.
Heck, the progressive caucus couldn’t get a public plan when the House had a DEMOCRATIC majority. Now we’re supposed to believe they’ll manage to get one into the budget?
As for Kuchinich, I have no idea who idolizes him and who doesn’t. I see him as a person. Someone who has good ideas but can be fallible. I don’t pretend to speak for others, just myself.
He can probably believe until the cows come home. There will be no political cover for him or anyone else who votes to steal from the constituency who put them into office. Social Security was a retirement plan that Congress took trillions from, I’ll be darned if they get away with not paying that money back for what it was intended.
I have little doubt that they could manage to get a public option, as I pointed out to a poster above, they couldn’t even do so when they had a Democratic majority.
That being said we should not be discouraging them from speaking up and offering up an altenative to cutting the safety nets many rely on.
We can tell each other the truth and I invariably appreciate your efforts. The point I was trying to make is better expressed by Econobuzz in #69.
There is a place for education and I commend you. There is also a place for coalition building, and if Rep. Grijalva stays firm I commend him.
cwaltz said
An alternative that is worthless when the President has already demanded cuts to the safety nets and has a clearly documented history of steamrollering those of his party who get in the way of his more right-wing demands.
An alternative that is backed up by… the folding caucus.
frmrirprsn said
“If…”
Reliving “Waiting For Supercaucus” only invites a replay of the health care debacle.
If Grijalve et al want to actually rebuild the credibility of their caucus, and thus build the power of their caucus, then the solution is simple: they’ve got to figure out a way to get some seriouus votes on meaningful issues in the queue and then stick to their fucking guns and not cower behind excuses.
They need to take the tough votes whether they win or lose. And then, quelle surprise, people will listen to the progressive caucus and will fight alongside them… rather than just jawboning the good fight.
But how many such votes will it take to live down the health care disaster? I don’t know, but right now they literally have nothing to offer a coalition. Any other pols who simply take the progs word would not be acting rationally at best and might be set to bolt on cue at the worst.
first, i’ll try to unpack the bit you quoted from econobuzz:
a) what political environment? the one at fdl?
b) i’m insisting on no such thing. i don’t even agree that “deficits really don’t matter.” in fact i think that statement is wrong, absurd, misleading and a gross misrepresentation of the economists who do this important work.
it’s also the statement mainstream economists have used to denigrate and dismiss them. it’s such an important point, i went to the effort of writing a couple of diaries about it when krugman did it after being corrected the first time (see here and here — and while you’re at it check out econobuzz’s comment on the first diary. i think ec knows very well, or at least knew not long ago, that to say “deficits don’t matter” is a mischaracterization.)
second, wrt to your points:
thanks for the kind words. i’m happy to support grijalva whenever he does something i think is worth supporting. but imo support has nothing to do with telling the truth (to the best of my ability) in a comment on a news thread at fdl. especially when the truth has been so deeply obscured, including by progressives, that almost none of us even have a clue (i know i didn’t 3 years ago. that’s what i’ve been trying to change — first, my ignorance and then by sharing what i learn).
i sure wouldn’t. i hope i’d support good policy no matter who proposes it… even a political opponent.
but the cpc budget is no single payer.
huh?
you’re ignorance doesn’t help make you ineffective?
or do you claim to be omniscience? or maybe you think ignorance is no impediment to effective progressive policy?
An excellent dodge; deflects the question by a question, paints the host forum as hostile by mere punctuation.
not a dodge.
what question do you think i was deflecting?
the only question was mine. which i asked because i don’t know which political environment frmrirprsn was referring to with the quote from econobuzz.
jeeze.
what nonsense. that may be your interpretation, but it’s not mine. fwiw, i think fdl IS the relevant political environment and therefore discussion about what is real and what is nonsensical is entirely appropriate.
and please note that in my original comments @12 and @13 i 1) painted inside the beltway as hostile to real solutions and then gave a link to what i do consider a real solution – a post at fdl, btw. and 2) gave scarecrow a cheer.
………
i’m happy to address criticism at least the first few times it is made.
manufactured strawmen though, not so much.
Here is a link to an OpEd News article detailing Grijalva’s appearance at the SpeakOut for Good Jobs tour in Miami this past Saturday. The People’s budget was discussed.