Jared Bernstein: The Budget Debate, and What Should Be Obvious

[flpoljunkie]

After watching the heart wrenching 60 Minutes clip posted by Cali_Democrat on child poverty, this from Jared Bernstein seems especially relevant.

The Budget Debate, and What Should Be Obvious


Jared Bernstein
Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The case for revenues is a simple one. Given the level of deficit reduction to which both parties are committed, around $4 trillion over 10-12 years, if you try to get there solely by cutting spending, you'll be forced to cut too deeply into parts of government that vulnerable people depend on. In short, you'll do more harm than good.

Specifics? Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, embraced by House Republicans, is a good example. As my CBPP colleague Bob Greenstein shows here, two-thirds of its spending cuts, almost $3 trillion, come from programs that help low-income families:

$2.17 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and related health care; $350 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid ; $400 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs.

More specifics come from this important editorial in the New York Times, which points out that exempting low-income programs from deficit-cutting deals "has been a major feature of deficit deals going back to 1985." That tradition is especially germane today, with the economic recovery still far from reaching the most vulnerable among us.

All this from a plan that delivers $700 billion of permanently extended Bush-era tax cuts to the wealthy. If you dropped in from outer space and looked at the Republicans' budget, you would conclude that the big economic problem facing our nation is that poor people have too much income and rich people have too little.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/the-budget-debate-and-wha_b_884908.html

Also cross posted at his blog: http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/

[OHdem10]

1. Excellent!!! Keep this thread circulating.