Prosperity, Not Austerity: An Economic Budget Solution That Doesn't Hurt Working, Elderly And Poor

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/Channels/Story.aspx?ID=1320494

12/1/2010

By Doug Cunningham

Prosperity, not austerity. That’s the federal budget alternative for working people advanced by progressive economists and organizations. It’s a budget blueprint for delivering fiscal responsibility without carving up our social safety net. And it’s remarkably different from the deficit commission plan that slashes Social Security and Medicare and ignores the need for job creation while not touching Wall Street. Tamara Draut is Vice-President of Policy and Programs at Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization based in New York City. She says without jobs there’s no hope of erasing the deficit and federal debt. And she says a financially responsible budget can be created without hurting working people, the elderly and the poor.


: “Our answer is in the short term we have to focus on economic recovery. So our blueprint makes a major down payment on job creation and public investment to get the economy going again. What is hurting working people the most is we aren’t creating jobs. And, two, that the basic essentials – from the need to pay for child care to health care have gone through the roof while earnings have been stuck in place. So unless we solve some of those fundamental imbalances, working people are going to continue to get a raw deal. We set out to figure out how can we do right by the American people and get on a sustainable fiscal path. And I think our blueprint shows you can do it. And you don’t have to slash social insurance and you don’t have to cut important programs that help seniors and low-income people.”

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[geckosfeet]

2. Also - check out 'Our Fiscal Security' - they have some excellent economic policy ideas.

There seems to be no shortage of realistic, enact-able progressive economic policy proposals. Why is it all we hear about on the MSM is the cat food commission's RW fringe bull shit?

A few days ago in a post on DU there was a link to a joint progressive think tank web site on economic policy. At the site there is a plethora of insightful, sane and pragmatic thoughts on economic policy.

Investing in America’s Economy

Our suggested budget blueprint achieves lower deficits in the medium term and balances the primary federal budget (the year’s current revenue and spending, not counting interest payments on past debt) in less than a decade. Tis path recognizes the need to increase revenue while targeting certain areas for reductions in spending; in particular, our proposed path reallocates spending away from the Department of Defense by adopting common sense spending reductions.

Finally, the blueprint protects core priorities such as Social Security and health care from economically counterproductive reductions in benefits. The net impact of the spending and revenue adjustments we put forth in this blueprint will produce the following short- and long-term results:

• Substantial and sustained increased funding for job creation and investments, especially in the near term


• A budget path that significantly improves the 10-year budget window


• A transition from a primary deficit to a primary surplus in 2018, and sustainable debt levels by the end of the decade


• An improvement in the path for public debt in the long term (stabilizing debt as a share of the economy beyond 2025)


• A solid footing for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for the long term


• A modernized tax code that raises adequate revenue fairly and efficiently

Just as an investment-oriented federal policy helped to create a thriving middle class in the postwar period, an ideology of disinvestment has helped to erode it over the past 30 years. Another path is not only possible, but necessary. Although there are many paths to fiscal balance – some of which include drastic spending and entitlement cuts and the continuation of a regressive tax system – only a path that fosters broadly shared economic growth and security will be sustainable in the long run.

Investing in America’s Economy

As much sanity, logic and reason as you can take at the link.

This fiscal blueprint demonstrates to me that we know what to do and how to do it. Now - if we can muster the political will and know how to enact policy.