Liberal Leaders Meet To Launch Progressive Alternative To Debt Commission's Draft Report

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) met with labor unions, seniors organizations, and liberal members of Congress Thursday afternoon to develop an alternative proposal to the deficit commission's draft report released last week.

The meeting included Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Lynne Woolsey (D-Calif.), as well as groups such as the AFL-CIO, Campaign For America's Future and Social Security Works.

The Vermont Independent hopes to eliminate Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy, tax credits for big oil companies, and Cold War-era Pentagon programs, among other things.

Jan Schakowsky, herself a member of President Obama's deficit commission, announced her own proposal to cut nearly $430 billion from the deficit by reducing various corporate tax breaks and sharply cutting defense spending.

Sanders said he thinks Schakowsky is moving in "exactly the right direction" but suggested that consensus on an alternative progressive plan remains elusive.

"There may be a little bit of disagreement here and there among the groups that we met with today," said Sanders, noting that three for four different groups are working on separate proposals. "But the important point now is to mobilize ordinary people... I think the vast majority of the American people agree with what we're trying to do in that room."

Fourteen of the deficit commission's 18 members must agree on a proposal by Dec 1 before it can proceed to Congress for a vote, something that looks increasingly unlikely to happen.

Sanders went on to say that it's incongruous for deficit hawks backing the Simpson-Bowles proposal to also support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

"The idea that any honest person would be talking about deficit reduction and at the same time fighting to give $700 billion a year more in tax breaks to the top 2 percent -- that's totally hypocritical," Sanders told a handful of reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday.

Sanders's slight is the second hypocrisy charge to be leveled at Republicans this week. (On Wednesday a handful of House Democrats used a particularly embarrassing moment for Republicans to spotlight the hypocrisy of GOP talk of repealing "Obamacare.")

Sanders said the Simpson-Bowles proposal to raise the retirement age for Social Security, when the entitlement program is solvent until 2037 and contributes nothing to the national debt, seems to be something of a non sequitur.

"It is totally absurd that some of the richest people in this country have an effective tax rate lower than a policeman or a fireman," he told reporters. "I'm afraid some of my right-wing friends would not agree with that assertion and they will try to make a regressive tax system even more regressive."

Someone will have to pay, and Sanders insists it should not be middle-class Americans.

"The question at the end of the day," said Sanders, "is who is going to end up being asked to pay more in taxes? Is it going to be the middle class and working families through increases in regressive taxes? Or are we going to move toward a progressive income tax and progressive corporate taxes?"

Comments

[Siebenstein]

03:55 AM on 12/11/2010

Bernie Sanders is one of my beloved political figures.
A man of integrety, principle, warm heart, and brilliant mind, unlike the boggleminds around him.

Thank you Bernie for your thoughts about the people you want to serve.

[jimpager]

09:14 AM on 12/09/2010

Get em Bernie. So how DO we finance the future of America? For openers...

1) Stop the war on terror...in weeks not months. Don't fall for the crap about "precipitous" withdrawal. We've already been there longer than world wars one and two combined. Its over. If the druglords crash and burn, sorry about their luck. We've got some nationbuilding to do ourselves...in America.

2) Stop tax breaks for the rich...cold. Now.

3) Pass an offshored job tax on American companies who send their jobs overseas and tax incentive for jobs here. If corporations push back, throw their ass out of the country.

4) Shut down the empire. What other country has 700+ bases outside its borders? And runs a massive deficit to pay for them?

5) Bring the offshore garrisons home and at least spend that money in America.

6) Demobilize say...half of the returning troops.

7) Single payer health care...eliminating redundant, and non health care producing, health insurance CEO structures, sales structures, marketing structures, legal structures, lobbying structures, and claims structures. We use single payer in our military, education, police, fire, and medicare and it works just fine.

8) Across the board ~2% increase in taxes.

9) Remove the cap, COMPLETELY, on Social security withholding.

10) Equalize capital gains rates vs personal income marginal rates.

11) PayGo

12) Flat, mildly progressive tax rates? The 9000 page tax code was written by K-streeters for the benefit of the wealthy...not for everyone.

[Keon Moreno]

07:13 PM on 11/26/2010

Close tax loopholes
restore taxes for top 10% to Kennedy levels and next 10% to Reagan era levels
make 100% of income taxable for social security (not only $106,000 as i the case currently)
Cut defense contracts
Cut military budget by 20% (at least)
Increase minimum wage to $10/hr to boost disposable income of individuals and households
These are some ideas for dealing with the deficit

[Longtimeliberal]

12:25 PM on 11/26/2010

Thank you Senator Sanders and all others who understand what a catastrophie this would be for so many when there are alternatives.

[Dee Amschler]

12:13 PM on 11/26/2010

In many ways, doing this NOW (especially openly) is (pun not intended) a day late and a dollar short. But at least they're FINALLY doing it. They're right though, it's not going to work by doing it all with cuts, with cutting stuff (like Soc. Sec.) that aren't part of the budget itself, and balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and middle class. INCOME (i.e. taxes) needs to be increased and increased on those making the most money - the rich and corporations. THEN we can start talking cuts - and IMHO, I'd start with the sorts of stuff mentioned above and corporate welfare (NOT the safety nets that are already dysfunctional due to underfunding - if anything these are something way overdue for a funding INCREASE despite the budget). If getting this done means at least a temporary expiration of all tax cuts, then so be it. That's less than ideal but it sure beats letting the tax cuts on the rich continue - those shouldn't have been passed in the first place.

[hamsteronwheel]

11:48 AM on 11/20/2010

we are all hamsters on neocon "financially engineered" wheels

Neocons Talk Deficit but Won’t Budge on Defense Cuts

"China spends half the share of its GDP on defense as the U.S. — less than $100 billion last year... That’s less than 15 percent of what we spent.

According to SIPRI, the military budgets of EVERY NATION other than the U.S

added together would only come to 46 percent of the total.

In other words, the U.S. defense budget is 54 percent of world military spending.

The idea that we need a defense budget almost 60 percent larger as a share of GDP than a decade ago is ludicrous.

...that isn’t enough to justify spending more than half of the world’s military expenditures.

Almost all our NATO allies get by spending well less than half what we spend as a share of GDP."

http://www­­­­­­.thef­i­s­c­a­l­­ti­me­s.­c­o­m­/­I­ss­u­es­/­Bu­­d­ge­­t-Im­­­pact­­­/­201­0­/­10­/­0­8­/N­e­­oco­ns­-­­­Tal­k-­D­­­efic­it­-­­­­but-Won­­t­­­­-Bud­ge-­on­­­­­-Def­ens­e­-­C­­­uts.­­asp­x

Irving Kristol, FOUNDER of the neocon movements and father of leading neocon Faux News blowhard Bill Kristol, was honest: "it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.

[wuggaslady]

01:04 AM on 11/20/2010

Bernie is right on the combination of maintaining the Bush tax cuts and the Deficit commission recommendations. Actually the commission calls for more extensive tax cuts for the rich, which would actually increase the deficit even further than extending the Bush tax cuts, while making sharp cuts to programs that would benefit the "bottom" 98% of Americans. Side point: Only in America can there be a "bottom 98%" of income earners.

[Ferretseeker]

10:56 PM on 11/19/2010

Sensible Approach to Developing Federal Budget Plan
By Dan, Seattle
11/19/2010

What's notably missing from the two plans proposed so far is justification for choosing various revenue sources over others. As well, the plans don't realistically capitalize on the vast wealth available; incredible disparity among individuals has emerged over the past few decades. In truth, there is plenty of money available.

So then it comes down to the steps and logic of choosing what to tax--the rules:

(1) Identify large, taxable revenue sources.
(2) Assess the impact of taxing sources, and weigh each against each other.
(3) Keep an eye out for beneficial side-effects.

The Simpson-Bowles plan derives only about 5% of the savings coming from increased general revenue. The Rivlin-Domenici plan appears no better.
...
Now, starting over...

To begin with, the Bush tax cuts need to expire, period. Moody's bond rating agency has given notice--an IMPORTANT signal that the US is in fiscal danger. This fact cannot be understated. The US cannot endanger its credit rating (see link below).
...
And THEN you can proceed with a plan for cuts. You cannot cut spending as your initial and primary action, as it will negatively impact GDP, and likely lead to another recession or worse. You have to size up what revenues you have first, and then reel back initial taxing proposals as approriate. Nothing could be more sensible.
...

Full:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9594806

[HenHouse]

11:29 PM on 11/19/2010

my solution
split the tax rolls in two.
section one:
Tie half of all tax revenues (which come from workers income) to the half of the budget which is allocated to social programs (SS, Medicare, education, food stamps, school lunches, unemployment, , etc.)
section two:
All other taxes including tariffs, capital gains, corporate taxes, government fees and fines, to be tied to everything else. (Defense, Justice dept, Congress, FDA, EPA, INS, Nasa, IRS, you get the point.)

With this system the personal expectations of the individual taxpayer would be more realistic.
The added benefit is that the Military/I­ndustrial/­Infrastruc­ture complex will be forced to carry their own weight.

Can you imagine the incentive to cut out waste with this system?

[rebel7]

10:08 PM on 11/19/2010

Go, Bernie. I wish you served my state so I could vote for you!

[ewldest]

10:01 PM on 11/19/2010

The Democratic Party may take Nov. '10 lying down - Obama seems headed that way - but progressives are picking up steam. We have not yet begun to fight, and the GOP may find themselves sorry for working the fear pedal a little hard this year.

[binksmom85]

09:51 PM on 11/19/2010

END THE FED and issue 'greenback dollars' as unemployment benefits, and the deficit will disappear and jobs will magically appear

[PaidSubscriber]

08:07 PM on 11/19/2010

I'd like to see the tax cuts limited to those earning under $250K as promised by the president, but another thought is to just let the Bush mess expire in the interest of cutting the deficit. Everybody goes back to the Clinton-era tax rates, make capital gains taxed as regular income, and change the death tax so those inheriting, more than $5 million get taxed and under that they don't. They could probably pass these ideas on a straight 51 vote majority because it would be budget deficit related. I'd also like to see that legitimate small businesses (and large ones too) get the ability to write off R&D expenses that would help them develop new products and give them a tax credit for each new R&D hire and another for new hires that stay employed say 24 months, without loopholes. We need to pass the unemployment extension but the good guys will have to publicly shame the bad guys into it to.
The president should address a joint session and give a "pep talk" in very plain English explaining what has happened so far, what needs to happen, and point a finger at the GOP and tell Americans that these same Republicans who have been in congress and helped eliminate fiscal regulation, endorsed more defense spending on unnecessary wars, and point out that passing tax reductions for millionaires like hedge fund managers, CEOs, CFOs, Lobbyists, and Law firms is foolhardy.

[ewldest]

09:58 PM on 11/19/2010

The simple truth.

[gmb007]

07:45 PM on 11/19/2010

I wish to God every Congressman had the 24K steel cojones that Sen. Bernie Sanders does.

How pathetic, they've not only sold their souls to the highest bidder, but are spineless and ball-less as well. Their personas are held together with nothing more than campaign promises, back room deals sealed with a Judas kiss and crisp dollar bills.

[shaitan]

07:39 PM on 11/19/2010

When Obama was elected Editor of the Harvard Law Review he chose to not pick the liberals who mostly elected him and instead picked mostly the conservatives for his editorial board. That should have been a clue to us but he swayed us all with his rhetoric. He dropped the public option even before giving it his all.Had it failed at least the Democratic base would have felt he tried. Now he has compromised on top bracket tax cuts even before the negotiation starts. Will he ever change?

[hetrose]

06:34 PM on 11/19/2010

Go get 'em, Bernie!