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Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) criticized Democrats for trying to “scare” seniors by suggesting that Republicans want to make cuts to Social Secur
#DefundTheMilitary
Who really thought we needed a Space Force?
Talk to me when we get a United Federation of Planets.
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Election’12 Republican/T POTUS Candidate, Speaker Newt Gingrich-A, CAUCUS ROOM CONSPIRACY: Sedition, Corporate Fascism, Economic Sabotage, 01-20-09; <<>> “GOP’s Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night of Inauguration” ~ @samsteinhp; Excerpts from Robert Draper’s 2012 Book: “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives” <<>> “Plotted ways to not just win back political…
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Raising revenues must be central goal of budget talks
Column by Frank Clemente The recent federal budget agreement was a missed opportunity. It is good news that conservative ideologues did not force another government shutdown and that some deep cuts to critical services were avoided. But our political leaders missed the chance to create a better budget and a fairer tax system by closing loopholes and using those new revenues to meet our pressing…
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Congress gears up for major budget talks with White House
Congress gears up for major budget talks with White House
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Sept. 29. (Photo: Michael Reynolds, European Pressphoto Agency)
September 29, 2015
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders are gearing up to begin budget talks with the White House aimed at setting federal budget outlines for the next two years in the hopes of averting another government shutdown threat in December.
T…
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These House Members Didn't 'Embrace The Suck'; They Embraced the Jobless by admin
On Thursday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi reportedly told her fellow Democrats to embrace the suck” and vote for a federal budget deal that, in the name of bipartisan compromise, compromised away financial support for more than a million of the long-term unemployed and placed heavier financial burdens on the backs of already battered federal employees.
Thus was born one of the most disappointing spectacles of the 113th Congress, as 163 Democrats voted with 169 Republicans to support an economically bad and morally repugnant budget agreement.
But there were those who put principle before the political expediency of compromise for compromise’s sake. They were among the 32 Democrats who voted not to “embrace the suck” but instead embrace the unemployed and public employees.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., was one of them. “I am disappointed that I cannot vote in favor of the budget proposal on the House floor today,” he said before the vote. “While I commend the budget conference committee on its work to reach a deal, just because Congress has a deal does not mean Congress has done its job.”
In particular, he said, “At the end of the day, the bill abandons 1.3 million Americans who desperately need unemployment insurance, and does nothing to promote economic growth or job creation. Furthermore, the legislation is paid for on the backs of the middle class and military families, while not touching the wealthiest amongst us and allowing corporations to continue to benefit from tax loopholes.
“Congress shouldn’t be patting ourselves on the back just because we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot.”
“It is unconscionable for Congress to go home after leaving such critical work undone,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement, adding that “Funding for what should be our top priorities — education, health, child care, job training and infrastructure — has steadily eroded.”
“Congress must pass a budget that invests in good jobs, the economy and education and that rejects proposals to cut pensions and retirement,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who condemned the bill for cutting off, “three days after Christmas,” extended unemployment benefits. “It is time to look at closing corporate tax loopholes. It’s time to ask corporations that shift jobs overseas, oil and gas companies, and private jet owners to contribute their fair share.”
Even Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., known for being a moderate, establishment voice in the Democratic Caucus, could not bring himself to support this deal. “It’s unconscionable that the budget deal before us today does not extend unemployment insurance, which helps those who are most at risk in our society, and if we do not help them, the economy will suffer and 200,000 jobs are predicted to be lost.”
Hoyer also underscored that the deal “does not replace the full sequester,” the mindless, job-killing across-the-board cuts to federal spending that went into effect earlier this year. And it “turns once again to middle-class workers” to carry the full load of the compromises needed to strike a deal, while asking nothing from millionaires and billionaires.
More than 1,000 of you answered our call Thursday to tell Congress vote no on this budget deal and to keep Congress in session until there was an agreement that at least included continuing benefits for the long-term unemployed. Though the House as a body disregarded our calls, these Democrats heard us and voted “no.” They deserve to be saluted. The list includes these Progressive Caucus members.
Rush Holt, N.J. Barbara Lee, Calif. Frank Pallone Jr., N.J. Linda Sånchez, Calif. Loretta Sanchez, Calif. Janice “Jan” Schakowsky, Ill. Louise Slaughter, N.Y. Bennie Thompson, Miss. Nydia Velåzquez, N.Y. Maxine Waters, Calif. Melvin “Mel” Watt, N.C. Keith Ellison, MN Yvette Clarke, N.Y. Chellie Pingree, Maine. Kurt Schrader, Ore. Marcia Fudge, Ohio. Cedric Richmond, La. Karen Bass, Calif. Lois Frankel, Fla. Mark Pocan, Wis.
These Democrats also voted “no”:
Judy Chu, Calif. David Cicilline, R.I. Colleen Hanabusa, Hawaii. Steny Hoyer, Md. Sander Levin, Mich. Mike McIntyre, N.C. Gloria Negrete McLeod, Calif. Peter Visclosky, Ind.
Derek Pugh contributed to this post.
Tell Congress: Don't Go Home Without Extending Jobless Benefits by admin
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today said that continuing extended unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed will be the first order of business in the Senate when it returns after Congress’ Christmas vacation.
Good, but not good enough for the 1.3 million long-term unemployed who are going to lose their benefits by the end of the year unless Congress acts this week. These are some of the more than 4 million people nationwide who have been out of work for six months or more, and are being denied jobs simply because they have been unemployed for so long. They are not, as conservatives blithely claim, people who have been made lazy and soft by a $300-or-so-a-week check. They have been trapped in an endless loop by prospective employers who won’t even give these workers a chance to prove themselves.
Nonetheless, too many in Congress do not think that it is a priority to make sure that these 1.3 million people should be able to continue fighting in this hostile job-search environment with the most minimal lifeline – not even enough to pay rent and utilities in most cases.
That is why we have been calling on our supporters to flood their members of Congress today with this simple statement: “A budget deal that abandons the unemployed is no deal at all.”
Use our click-to-call tool to get in touch with your congressperson’s office.
“There are people who are going to lose their homes over this,” said Judy Conti of the National Employment Law Project. That’s not hyperbole: After six, nine or sometimes more than a year without a permanent job, most of these 1.3 million people now collecting extended unemployment benefits have exhausted their savings, and sometimes what whey can get from relatives and friends as well.
Conti said that starting on December 28, after the last checks go out under this program, we are going to see an uptick in people showing up at homeless shelters and food banks – during what is shaping up to be a particularly harsh winter in much of the country. “It’s not pretty,” she said.
Remember that these benefits were enacted by Congress specifically because of the massive loss of jobs that accompanied the financial crash – and we are still years away from repairing the damage done to the job market. In fact, perversely, ending these benefits for the long-term unemployed will actually result in more unemployment – an estimated 300,000 jobs will be lost – because of the spending that will be taken out of the economy when we cut these benefits.
What Congress should be doing is taking immediate steps to accelerate economic growth. The number one priority should be marshaling our resources for such tasks as revitalizing our transportation networks, fixing our schools and investing in clean energy and conservation – steps that would create jobs in the short run, help us sustain long-term economic stability and make it easier for us to address our long-term deficit.
House Republicans are insisting that we should somehow “pay for” these benefits. That is especially ridiculous coming from conservatives who have embraced years of “unpaid-for” tax giveaways to the wealthy and corporations. If anything needs to be paid for, corporations should be finally asked to pay for the legal tax evasion they have engaged in thanks to policies conservatives have put in place.
But we must not wait for that argument to be settled. Congress is about to literally leave 1.3 million Americans out in the cold. Tell your member of Congress that lawmakers should not go home to the comfort of their congressional districts until they make sure that struggling unemployed Americans can keep the lifeline of expended unemployment benefits.
A Small Victory: For Now, Hands Off Social Security by Richard Long
There was one small victory that progressives could claim from the otherwise troubling congressional budget deal that was announced Tuesday: Social Security and Medicare were left untouched.
Credit goes to progressives who made calls, signed petitions and showed up at rallies to tell Congress to not cut these earned benefits as part of any budget deal, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said at a press conference this afternoon.
“Make no mistake about it, these people were hoping and praying to get into our important social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and they didn’t do it,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said. “They have been trying to get a piece of it for a long time and you all stood up and backed them down, and chased them away from it. They knew they couldn’t get it.”
“Senator Murray and Representative Ryan announced a budget deal [last night] that specifically didn’t deal with Social Security or Medicare,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). But, he added, “Many of us have concerns about that deal, that doesn’t include investment in jobs, the precedent that it sets for pensions for federal employees, and no real tax reform fairness in closing loopholes and creating some revenue.”
“I think it all stems from the fact that we are working from within a box that shouldn’t be there, with the Budget Control Act,” Grijalva continued. “Our goal is to remove this so that Congress can play its legitimate role of setting policy, setting priorities, and setting the budget.”
Ellison defined the parts of the deal that should be disappointing to Democrats. “To understand this deal, you need to understand the difference between doing good and holding on. You need to know the difference in making moves for the American people and just holding the space while we are keeping the wolves outside the door.”
Ellison lamented that neither unemployment insurance nor trade adjustment assistance was included in the agreement. He also called unacceptable the fact that $6 billion were being removed from the pensions of federal workers in the future. “Future government employees want to retire too, right? We should be expanding retirement, not shrinking it,” he said.
The $6 billion cut from future federal employees pensions is worrying due to recent attacks many federal employees have faced at the behest of conservatives in Congress. These include furloughs due to the sequester, sixteen days off due to the Republican-imposed government shutdown, a wage freeze and pension cuts. “They think that I should feel good because they cut six billion as opposed to 20 billion, like I’m grateful for that? They should be expanding, not decreasing [federal pensions],” Ellison said.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) turned the conversation onto going on offense on the budget negotiations, instead of always trying to protect the earned benefits of Americans. To this point, she noted that we could improve the solvency of Social Security by removing the cap on payroll taxes collected from high earners, allowing students to receive Social Security benefits while pursuing a degree, allowing maternity leave, and improving the cost-of-living allowance to reflect more accurately the average American senior’s living expenses – instead of the “chained CPI” proposal that would cause benefits to fall behind the increased costs seniors face.
While Social Security and Medicare have been protected, that does not mean that Democrats should be content with the deal. Millions of Americans could be left out in the cold if Congress neglects to act on unemployment insurance, and we need a budget agreement that strengthens the social safety net and the economy.
Democrats Must Not Abandon The Unemployed And The Hungry by Terrance Heath
Despite the excitement over the latest jobs report, it’s too soon to celebrate. Millions of Americans are still struggling with long-term unemployment and hunger. Now is not the time to abandon them.
Democrats, in particular, shouldn’t be fooled. A good-but-not-great jobs report is no reason to let emergency unemployment benefits expire, or allow further cuts to food stamp benefits.
According to the November jobs report, the economy added 203,000 jobs, and unemployment dropped to 7.0 percent — the lowest it’s been in five years. But, as Bob Borosage wrote, we’re still nowhere near pre-recession job levels. At the current rate of job growth, about 194,000 jobs per month, it will take another five years before America returns to our 4.7 percent jobless rate before the Great Recession began in December 2007. Long-term unemployment is at its highest rate since World War II.
So why is the extension of unemployment benefits not in the budget agreement being hammered out between Democrats and Republicans in Congress? On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats wouldn’t accept any budget deal that doesn’t extend unemployment benefits for another year. Now, it’s being reported Democrats and Republicans are close to a deal that does not include extending unemployment benefits.
As Jared Bernstein explains, a half-way decent jobs report doesn’t mean we don’t need to extend unemployment benefits.
Here’s the argument: the Senate and the House are working on a budget deal, and key Democrats, including the White House, are arguing that the deal should include another extension of UI benefits. Opponents say, “been there, done that.” We’ve already extended benefits a bunch of times and now that the job market’s getting stronger, we don’t need to do so again.
Not so. As I wrote this AM, “Policy makers must not conflate an improving labor market with a healed job market. Until job opportunities are more robust, the extension is needed, both for the sake of the long-term jobless and the macro-economy (since UI has a large multiplier).”
We may be creating jobs, but we’re not creating nearly enough jobs. And many of the jobs created are the same kind of McJobs that thousands of workers walked away from on Thursday, to demand better wages. Nearly a quarter of the new jobs in this months jobs report were in the retail and restaurant sectors, that don’t pay livable wages, and don’t come with benefits.
That’s why it’s also dismaying to hear that, on the same day that President Obama spoke about poverty and inequality, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow was busy cutting a deal with House Republicans to cut another $8 to $9 billion from food stamps. It’s a sad confirmation of what I predicted earlier: that Senate and House negotiations on the farm bill would probably yield a “compromise” that cut food stamps by less than the $40 billion cut by the House bill, and far more than the $4 billion cut by the Senate.
Though this “compromise” only gives House Republicans about one fifth of the cuts they wanted, it can still be read as a Republican victory. House Republicans used one of the oldest negotiating tactics in the book: Start out asking for far more than you know you’re going to get, and you’ll get more than you might have otherwise. It appears that Democrats fell for it.
Even the most delusional tea partier understood that Democrats were never going to agree to $40 billion in cuts to food stamps. But it looks like asking for that much got Senate Democrats to more than double the cuts in the Senate bill. Not only that, but House Republicans managed to get a Democratic-controlled Senate to propose cuts to food stamp for the first time in history.
“That was the first time in history that a Democratic-controlled Senate had even proposed cutting the SNAP program,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “The willingness of some Senate Democrats to double new cuts to the program…is unthinkable.”
What’s even more galling is that this “compromise,” will leave food stamp recipients with even less money for food. Under the Senate bill, 4 billion in cuts would have caused about 500,000 Americans to lose $90 per month in benefits — one week’s worth of meals. This “compromise” will take even more food assistance away from the neediest Americans, while re-opening loopholes for multi-million dollar farming entities.
On Wednesday, the president spoke of the need for food assistance programs on a very personal level.
The president recognized in a very personal way the need for a SNAP program that protects families from severe hardship.
“When my father left and my mom hit hard times trying to raise my sister and me while she was going to school, this country helped make sure we didn’t go hungry,” he said.
This “compromise” turns its backs on families facing the same hardships today.
We’re in a hole, and millions Americans — 20 million under employed, 11.3 million unemployed, 4.7 million long-term unemployed, and 47 million struggling with hunger — will fall further into the abyss.
Democrats are fooling themselves if they think compromises like these will somehow make it possible to revisit unemployment benefits and food assistance after the latest manufactured budget “crisis” has passed. Unlike Democrats, Republicans are not in the habit of ceding ground after victories like these, which essentially reaffirm that conservative positions that unemployment benefits must not be extended and food stamps must be cut.
“Bipartisanship” borrowed at the expense of the jobless, the poor, and the hungry will not be bought back so easily when Democrats go back to the bargaining table.
