5 Things Terribly Wrong With the Ryan-Murray Budget Deal

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/5-things-terribly-wrong-ryan-murray-budget-deal



1. It assumes that deficits are still America’s fundamental problem. Wrong. Our fundamental problem is that Americans are struggling to find decent work. We are halfway into a lost decade marked by mass unemployment, stagnant wages, rising inequality, growing insecurity and a sinking middle class. As President Obama stated in his address on inequality: “A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.”


2. The deal refuses to repeal the mindless sequester cuts that were designed to be abhorrent. Instead it “pays for” alleviating less than half of them over the next two years. And it insists that the relief be allocated equally between a bloated Pentagon, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and threadbare vital domestic programs like infant nutrition, support for schools, clean energy R&D.

3. The deal accepts the bizarre Republican position that no billionaire’s tax rate can be raised, no multinational’s tax dodge shut down to provide resources for investments vital to our future. So investments that even the Chamber of Commerce would agree are essential to an efficient economy – like rebuilding our decrepit infrastructure — will not be made.

4. The deal accepts the risible Republican position that the rich have too little money and workers too much. So new federal workers will pay more for their pensions and military retirees will get a cut in their pensions. But none of the global corporations that ship jobs and report profits abroad to evade taxes will pay a penny more.

[Gothmog]

1. The only way to get a better deal is to win control of the House

This is not a great deal but given the control of the House, it is the best deal that we could get. I hate the sequester but this stupidity is the law and cannot be changed without getting control of the House

[ananda]

2. Agree.

..

[jeff47]

3. Yep, that's the thing terribly wrong with this article. (nt)