Priorities

The Progressive Caucus actually put together a budget, with numbers, that accurately describes their values and suggests what could be possible if everyone were actually straight about the needs of the American people separate from the needs of lobbyists and greedheads on Wall Street:

CPC Budget cuts and revenue raisers highlights:

· Elimination of unneeded, unwanted, and unproven Cold War Era weapons systems ($60 billion/year);

· Elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse at DOD. ($8.7 billion/year);

· Redeployment of all U.S. troops and military contractors out of Iraq ($90 billion);

· Repeal of Bush tax breaks for the top 1% of taxpayers ($222 billion);

· Instituting "Make Wall Street Pay For Wall Street's Bailout" tax of .25% on all stock transactions ($150 billion/year);

· Closing egregious corporate tax loopholes ($100 billion/year);and

· Cap on tax deductibility of excessive executive compensation ($20 billion/year).

CPC Budget investment highlights:

· Provides $991 billion for non-military discretionary spending in FY10, $469 billion above President Obama's request, primarily to help rescue the faltering U.S. economy and those Americans hardest hit;

· Provides $479 billion as sufficient defense spending level;

· Provides a strong economic stimulus package of $300 billion that includes an extension of unemployment insurance, an increase in assistance for food stamps, transportation infrastructure, school construction, water and flood control projects;

· Provides $120 billion a year for health care for all Americans; and

· Provides $1.22 trillion to cut the poverty rate in half over the next decade.

That's a real-live progressive budget - what's more, it's no less fiscally responsible than the President's, with the $469 billion in spending more than canceled out by the $600 billion-plus in savings. Rep. Lynn Woolsey has more. This actually went up on the House floor today. They got 84 votes for it, which isn't a bad starting point for real change. But it got approximately no news.

Meanwhile, the idiotic Republican "budget," which assumes Americans would pick a higher tax bracket in order to balance it, gets all kinds of ink. And John S. McCain offered his budget, which included a total spending freeze, today in the Senate, and he got 38 Republican votes for it, including Arlen Specter, who voted for the stimulus package, which included, you know, spending.

It's important for the Progressive Caucus to set this marker every year, to create a budget and argue out in the open. They just need a better publicist.