The progressive People’s Budget
Byron York reports on the budget that the House’s Progressive Caucus would like to see passed. The caucus is not small; it contains “76 members, about 40 percent of the 192 Democrats in the House,” including Barney Frank, John Conyers, George Miller, Charles Rangel, Rosa DeLauro, Jerrold Nadler, and Louise Slaughter.
And the name of the budget that I put in my title above is not my own ironic invention; it’s theirs. Here are some of the details:
How can such fiscal miracles be accomplished? By tax increases that would make even some top Democrats gasp. Perhaps the most extraordinary is the caucus plan to raise the Social Security tax to cover nearly all of a taxpayer’s income. Right now, the tax is imposed on the first $106,000 of earnings. For people who make more than that, the caucus would tax a full 90 percent of income — no matter how high it goes. The caucus would raise the Social Security tax that employers pay as well.
The caucus would create three new individual tax brackets for the highest incomes, topping out at 47 percent. It would also raise the capital gains tax, the estate tax and corporate taxes. It would create something called a “financial crisis responsibility fee” and a “financial speculation tax.” And of course it would repeal the Bush tax cuts.
As if anyone needed reminding, the “People’s Budget” is proof that the liberal idea of budget balancing is tax, tax, tax. If you’re looking for spending cuts, you’ll find just one really big one: national defense.
York mentions that in the olden days Obama would have been one of the supporters of the plan. I have no doubt he’s right. And I agree with him that at this point Obama would oppose it for political reasons. However, since the House is in Republican control right now, the People’s Budget is so much hot air, except as an indication of what liberal Democrats would do if they had the chance and the power.
Strangely, they did have the chance and the power, last session. They had the House, the Senate, and a simpatico president. But they didn’t try to pass any budget at all. Hmmm.
They remind me of little kids. When my children were small and I wouldn’t buy them something they wanted, they would say “why not? you have plenty of money.” These politicians believe the taxpayers have plenty of money to pay for everything the politicians want.
Frankly, I think this is great news. The Progressive mask continues to slip. In the past, people have referred to the “tax and spend” Democrats, and I believe that most people thought it was a mean-spirited attempt to insult the Dems; you know, good motives, the people’s party and all.
Now, people are beginning to see that it is more a statement of fact than a casual insult, The penultimate step in the process is for people to begin standing up at a public forum and demand that these people, so intent on raising taxes to create revenue, begin writing checks to the govt out of their own personal accounts. They should lead from the front and spend their own money first, or shut up and retire! (like that’ll ever happen!)
I am hoping that Obama and the far Left Democrats in Congress–an oxymoron, I know–just believed their own BS, just got too overconfident, and made their move too soon, and that, as a result of prematurely showing their hand, their “Long March” toward Utopia, paid for by you and me, has been dealt a serious blow.
However, even if this is the case–which I fervently hope it is–just their preparations alone, so far, for their “Long March”; the disastrous and “unsustainable” economic path they have put us on, with their astronomical economy and job killing spending, fiscal and monetary policies, and the weakened, stagnant economy and massive inflation they invite, their crippling Energy policies, the bailouts, the Economic Fascism of their attempts to acquire control over or to purchase outright large sections of our private sector, their attempts to control the Energy, Automotive, Housing, Insurance, and Health Sectors, their takeover of the Student Loan industry, the pernicious flood of radical, “transformative” legislation and, perhaps more importantly, the many thousands of pages of Regulations issued so far, and their crippling and dislocating actions, the concealed booby-traps, time bombs, and land-mines they have put in place, will perhaps take decades to identify, defuse, and reject or destroy, and to repair the damage they have done already.
Ray,
You are absolutely correct. The liberals have it absolutely backwards. They see the economic pie as finite but see the govts ability to tax as infinite.
Of course, under their policies it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. They raise taxes, suffocate the economy and then say “see, we told you the economy was finite and limited.”
In fact historically, tax revenues remain relatively constant at ~18.9% of GDP. Thus if you raise tax rates the govt gets a larger part of a smaller pie, if you lower tax rates, the govt gets a smaller %-age of a larger pie. The left just hasn’t figured out that 10% of $1 million is greater than 20% of $100,000. But in reality, I don’t think they care because they’re anti-capitalists anyway; it’s not about increasing revenue, it’s about concentrating economic power and a smaller pie is easier to control.
P.S.–Good news, though!
Today comes word of the contemplated sale of a majority stake in GM to a Chinese automotive company.
Hurray!
Wolla Dalbo,
I think you meant to say “redundancy” instead of “oxymoron.”
I agree, it will take d long time to reverse the course, but this debacle wasn’t built in one congressional session either. Paradigms and thought processes must be changed and we are only at the beginning of such a trend, but IMO, the damage is not necessarily irreversible.
Jeffrey Sachs (Economist and Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University) writes at Huff Po:
“The fact is that the People’s Budget is the public’s position. That’s why it is truly a centrist initiative, at the broad center of the U.S. political spectrum.”
He calls Ryan’s budget “an artless war on the poor that would take a meat-cleaver to Medicaid (health care for the poor), food stamps, support for child care, the environment, and the rest of government other than the military, Social Security, and Medicare (that is, until 2022, when the slashing would begin on Medicare coverage as well).”
He calls Obama’s budget “a muddled proposal in the center-right of the political spectrum. It would keep most of the Reagan-era and Bush-era tax cuts in place. Like the Ryan proposal, Obama’s tax proposals would keep total taxes at around 20 percent of GDP.”
It’s obvious to anybody with a brain, meaning everybody that Sachs knows or likes, that Ryan and Obama are at different extremes on the right, and that the Progressive Caucus lives in the center.
Anybody know if I can get a gig at the Earth Institute, Columbia University? My world is cluttered with things like reality.
Tax the rich! Why didn’t we think of this before?
Oh, wait — we did. It’s been tried millions of times since at least the Bronze Age and has crushed the wealth creators of society every … single … time.
T is right: this has nothing to do with revenue, government or otherwise — it’s about power. Note Mr. Obama’s “issue of fairness” statement back in the distant ’08 campaign. This crowd embraces that wholeheartedly — and I rather doubt the president has changed his tune.
Why wait for that golden goose to lay only one egg at a time? Cut it open and you can have all the golden eggs you want.
Social Security taxes are limited because benefits are limited to covered income. Raising the tax to cover all earned income would result in annual Social Security payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars for some individuals which would have to be paid out.
Back in my youth, anything that was labeled The People’s ……. was well known to be something put out by the communists. Attending the Berkeley of the Rockies (Univ. of Colorado) in the early 70’s we had a whole bunch of People’s stuff; and I think they still do in Boulder.’
It’s time we started attaching labels to these folks like they do to us all the time. Forget the “Progressive” BS, let’s just start calling what they really are….. communists.
I don’t think you guys who are talking about it taking a long time to reverse are right. If not reversed in the next two years, I don’t think it will EVER be reversed. And that’s not a scare tactic, it’s what I really believe.
The Democrats decided 80 years ago to create a dependency class that is so large that transfer payments (otherwise known as socialist redistribution of income/wealth) could never be repealed. Robert Samuelson wrote a recent article in Newsweek demonstrating just under 50% of the population now gets some sort of handout. After the health scam is fully implemented, it will be WAY over 50%. At that point, it will be impossible to reverse using the political election process. And Americans are now so soft, any idea they will rise up in a violent way seems unlikely.
We’re running $1.6 trillion deficits, and the Democrats characterize these modest cuts they’ve been fighting over as an inhuman crime. And much of the public agrees. I really believe the Democrats have decided to collapse the system and create a new one. At the height of the financial crisis, Soros is on tape saying the system failed and we need a new one. He just concluded a Bretton Woods II conference with a bunch of left wing ideologues. It’s coming.
The urgency we hear in the voices of Michele Bachmann and Steve King about the need to repeal Obamacare is real. They know that if it’s not repealed after the 2012 election, the 236 year American Experiment devoted to individual liberty, which has been grossly perverted the past 80 years mostly by Democrats but with considerable Republican help, will be lost forever.
We are two years away from driving over the cliff to statism.
THEY know that such would require totalitarianism, but implementation is now how they sell it, presumption is how.
remember… the saying
“the end justifies the means”
is wrong in construction..
why?
it assumes that the end is acquired…
when in reality, such people as progressives are really trading the presumption of an end for the means.
Since utopia is not attainable, at best they are selling magic beans… the presumption of something in exchange now..
or following the negative definition of leadership
how to get something from someone today for a promise of something never received tomorrow.
this is why i said… compare what the feminists OR ANY such group says they are going to provide in exchange for you being a membe of their army and doing it for free..
compare that to the outcomes recieved… i should say that becoming an underage desease vector unsuitable for creating a family while believing otherwise was NEVER waht they promised…
what DID they promise to their own, and ALL made the same promise?
that they were going to make a communist dictatorship..
and since feminism, progressive, neo liberalism, fabianism, socialism, fascism, and communism are all the same thing (variations on one theme)
i will dare say that everyone DID get what they were promised in reality. they just were to busy not listening.
Strangely, they did have the chance and the power, last session. They had the House, the Senate, and a simpatico president. But they didn’t try to pass any budget at all. Hmmm.
they were waiting for someone to carpe diem…
remember?
and when he didn’t seize it, they were stuck
They’re statists (who like the idea of running the state, BTW). Why not just admit that all wealth belongs to the state do divvy up and be done with it.
he penultimate step in the process is for people to begin standing up at a public forum and demand that these people, so intent on raising taxes to create revenue, begin writing checks to the govt out of their own personal accounts.
then i suggest reading
“Not yours to give”
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee
Originally published in “The Life of Colonel David Crockett,”
by Edward Sylvester Ellis
but who wants to listen to a long dead white man who long ago made the same argument your making..
sad part, is that he had to be RE-Taught by a sockdolager
so that point was lost long ago..
once we allowed Harvard to change law and business
“The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.’
Liberalism is a shop whose goods are never in stock, always soon to be shipped, but for which payment is always required up front. Not original with me, of course; I forget the author.
The good news in the Progressive Caucus’s social security proposal is that it advocates a flat tax all the way up the income ladder. We should take that ball, run with it to the opposite goal (all the way down the income ladder), and make them eat it in other tax schemes.
Exactly. Prefacing something with “The People’s” even back in the 70s at Berkeley was a frank admission of communist linkage. But then, so was “progressive,” a favorite term of the USSR to refer to fellow travelers abroad, and commonly used as a more polite synonym for “communist.” It was therefore a bit surprising that leftists elsewhere began characterizing themselves as “progressive;” were they breaking cover in a rare moment of candor, or did they not know of the association?
Tom, and the next time progressives claim Jesus was one of them, someone should ask why church tithing isn’t 50% for those over two hundred grand.
Ah, more money for this crowd “to do good” with. These proposals are another reminder of Margaret Thatcher’s comment, “[t]he problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” This non-starter would merely accelerate that process.
I’m not sure they intend to pay it back. I think they intend to move towards a more obvious wealth redistribution model.
“Strangely, they did have the chance and the power, last session. They had the House, the Senate, and a simpatico president. But they didn’t try to pass any budget at all. Hmmm.”
Are you humming with your tongue in cheek? 😉
I suspect we all realize they didn’t use their ‘chance’ right before an election because they knew there was more than a chance the voters would hand them a total defeat. So they shirked their responsibility to pass a budget, kicked the can down the road, and lost only the House instead of both House & Senate.
If I was prone to conspiracy theories I would say they want to crash the economy and send the public into total panic mode looking for salvation from the nanny state. Since I not a fan of conspiracy theories I’ll go with wishful ignorance; aka progressive utopia.
Scott says, “If not reversed in the next two years, I don’t think it will EVER be reversed. And that’s not a scare tactic, it’s what I really believe.”
I agree the reversal does have to begin within 2 to 3 years. Otherwise, IMO, there will be a big collapse (contraction/depression far worse than the 1930s). The bond vigilantes are not going to let things get out of hand, they will take their marbles elsewhere (PIMCO leads the way). Nor will the Chinese continue to prop us up indefinitely. They have myriad problems of their own. Plus, Japan will be selling T-bonds soon to pay for recovery. And finally, there is a finite amount of US T-bonds the Federal Reserve can purchase before the credit bubble bursts. (This one is really scary!)
So, yes Scott, the reversal has to happen soon. That said, even if we begin the reversal before its too late I think we’re looking at a decade (or perhaps more) of hard times to correct the excesses of the last 40 years.
Everyman for himself, government against all.
An important point to realize and not forget: By and large, progressives do not care about the poor, as such. I think that most everyone on this blog understands that, but it is worth repeating because many individuals (including some conservatives), get confused here. They will concede that most progressives are sincere in their concern for those in poverty and disadvantaged, even if their methods of alleviating poverty are short sighted and often counter-productive.
But this is not true. A few sincere, well-meaning (albeit naive) progressives are genuine in their altruistic devotion to helping the poor. By and large, however, the left’s concern about the poor is entirely self-serving. Those in poverty, the disadvantaged, the working class just above the poverty-line, etc. are useful to the left as a means to more power.
Nor are progressives all that concerned about that almighty ideal: “equality” or “fairness”. This is another canard endlessly spewed by the left. It is once again ancillary; the fight for equality is a means to an end: more power and more control.
Given all of this, I would be willing to wager the following: If it could be proven conclusively (and even to the progressives’ satisfaction) that this “People’s Budget” (a loaded term; progressives always imply that only they speak for “The People”) would result in a significant reduction in wealth creation, would lead to higher unemployment, would lower the incomes of the middle class and would drive more people into poverty…very few progressives would abandon their support of it.
Why? Because the ultimate goals of much of the progressive movement are power and control. Power and control by the right people…namely themselves. Redistribution for the sake of redistribution; because the right people are deciding who gets what; the “smartest”, most “educated”, most “eloquent”, most “sophisticated” individuals should be in control, period. The ideal progressive “philosopher-king” would have an Ivy League education in the social sciences or humanities, a graduate degree in either of the above, or in journalism, law or education, would have spent their entire life since college in a large coastal metropolitan area, would have spent 90%+ of their career in government, academia, or “public interest” groups and would have no experience in or knowledge of, private business and job/wealth creation. But man, could he stick it to those stupid, knuckle dragging, boorish businessmen, accountants and engineers who are so obviously his intellectual inferiors.
If, in the course of the progressive “philosopher-king’s” orgy of redistribution and revenge, the poor, the working class, etc. DID actually benefit, well…all the better. But, that is an ancillary goal. The raison d’etre of most progressives is the will to power by the “right” people.
It is pretty bad when what you would have thought at first glance was a Onion Parody is actually being put forward as policy.
I note that poll analysis from a friendly source to the dems shows horrid losses in just about all but college educated women for Obama.
I then also note that many areas of this budget proposal are simply directed at flooding more money to the areas of greatest weakness.
Kind of reminds me of the dems throwing money at people to buy health care votes.
Read more: http://nanosecondinv.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=18780#ixzz1JMIibxAc
Every now and then I still encounter someone who thinks that Obama will not complete his term, he will collapse psychologically in some way, or maybe even simply lose interest and go join the pro golf tour or something. It always reminds me of Huxley, who haunted this site for a while up until just over a year ago, when the health care bill whose doom he had confidently predicted finally passed. Huxley thought–or said he thought, anyway–that Obama was not going to complete this first term. I know others here sometimes think of Huxley, too, and wonder where he’s lurking about these days; artfl, for one, has mentioned him now and again.
Most recently, I had an exchange with a man who thinks Obama will give it up and be gone within the next 6 months because he won’t be able to stand the pressure from $5/gallon gas prices. But this is crazy. If gas prices rise to $5/gallon, it will have been in very large part because Obama’s policies on both the domestic and international fronts have brought it to pass. He is nonplussed by everything he sees, and knows he’s moving us towards the goal he has set–fast. I don’t know whether he’s a narcissist or simply a dim-bulb puppet (although I doubt that one, really I do), but he’s watching all this with satisfaction and probably a growing sense of accomplishment. And he isn’t going anywhere.
The Republicans are maybe starting to wake up to what’s going on, but only maybe, and even at that they don’t seem to have a clue as to the magnitude and stakes of the battle they’re in. I’m not hopeful they’ll pull it out for us. They might, but they’re going to have to show a lot more fire and fight if they’re going to have anything like a good chance of success.
I’m afraid I’m with Scott and Parker. This freight train is coming at us at a helluva high speed, and too many of us are not even sure we can see it yet.
Yep. The Reds’ strategy is simple, if cynical: convince losers that they’re not really losers (despite all indications to the contrary), they’re really winners who were cheated out of their due, but if they support the Reds, then the “vanguard of the proletariat” will see that they get what they “deserve” (as the ads aimed at losers invariably proclaim). Peggy Joseph is the matron saint of such losers – someone too fundamentally stupid to realize that a President — even one of her race – would not and indeed could not pay her mortgage along with those of everyone else similarly situated.
betsybounds says, “I don’t know whether he’s a narcissist or simply a dim-bulb puppet (although I doubt that one, really I do), but he’s watching all this with satisfaction and probably a growing sense of accomplishment. And he isn’t going anywhere.”
Oh, he’s a supreme narcissist alright. (He’s not a dim-bulb either as you well know.) He’s a nowhere man believing in all his nowhere plans. The guy would be an object of pity for his dogmatic, crippled mindset were he not president. And, he’s not a Machiavellian plotter either because simply he’s not that smart. IMO he’s a puppet that believes he is the hand when in fact he’s only the puppet.
“Peggy Joseph is the matron saint of such losers – someone too fundamentally stupid to realize that a President — even one of her race – would not and indeed could not pay her mortgage along with those of everyone else similarly situated.”
What a bummer! I was expecting a free, month long Obamacare, all expenses paid, vacation in Aquitaine.
“The ideal progressive “philosopher-king” would have an Ivy League education in the social sciences or humanities, a graduate degree in either of the above, or in journalism, law or education, would have spent their entire life since college in a large coastal metropolitan area, would have spent 90%+ of their career in government, academia, or “public interest” groups and would have no experience in or knowledge of, private business and job/wealth creation.”
In other words, someone quite similar to the wannabe philosopher-king who currently occupies the Oval Office.
or maybe even simply lose interest and go join the pro golf tour or something.
Maybe as a caddy, but not as a player. You obviously haven’t seen him golf.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZjc7q2h5dA
As the anonymous commentator says, he sucks. He is truly, truly awful, and laughably, hopelessly unathletic.
OB,
But I won’t fault him for bad golf (Lord knows, I can fault him for so much else).
I’ve played golf for years, but when asked if I play the game, I make it a point to note that I swing clubs; it’s not the same as playing golf. One of the goals on my bucket list is to break 100 (on the FRONT nine).
Will to power, check.
Don’t forget malicious envy, though. That is a Big One, and powers a lot of the hatred felt by the small fry on the Left.
One of those, an indie filmmaker (gray ponytail) I know posted an angry message on facebook about a Chinese dissident artist, and fulminated, “FASCISM is the death of all art!” In spite of my better judgement, I posted, “Fascism? I thought the Chinese were Communists.”
I know there’s a flame war in my future. I’m completely apolitical on that thing, which is in itself a “tell,” I suppose, but calling the Commies “fascist” was too freaking much.
This same loon sent everyone an admiring post about the Paki actress who eloquently ranted on tv to that imam. When I said “go, girl,” or something like that, the Loon replied, “we Really have to worry about the Christians here in the US!”
He used to hang out with Warhol. They’re all insane and this guy, in particular, is boiling over with hatred for his native country. As long as I live, I’ll never understand these people.
OB – My husband is a PGA member and has been teaching golf for over 20 years. He says Obama has a truely horrible swing that needs a lot of work to undo some very bad habits. However, some people refuse to fix a bad golf swing because they think they know better than the golf instructor.