Category Archives: budget crisis
The Real Crisis: When Everything Decent Is ‘Off the Table’
By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue
Leave it to the New York Times to look for a silver lining in the dark cloud of a Wall St-right wing victory on ‘The Deal’ over the phony budget crisis.
“Democrats can look forward to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts next year,” says their Aug 1, 2011 editorial, “and will have to make the case in the 2012 elections for new lawmakers who will undo the damage.”
In other words, the bondholders will be paid on time, the markets will be stabilized for a short time, and matters will continue to get worse for the jobless and the rest of us. Tighten your belt another notch and get used to it. As for 2012, you have ‘nowhere to go’, so don’t expect much.
Continue reading The Real Crisis: When Everything Decent Is ‘Off the Table’
How To Deal Seriously with Health Costs
Save Lives and Money by
Expanding Medicare to All
By Dr. Quentin Young
Beaver County Blue via Fire Dog Lake
July 31, 2011 – With media attention focused on the debt-ceiling drama in Washington, and with so many Americans rightly preoccupied with the frightening level of joblessness and bleak state of the economy, it might seem strange to urge a national celebration of Medicare’s 46th anniversary this Saturday, July 30.
After all, if we’re to believe top lawmakers, Medicare is part of the problem, right? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67, reducing benefits, increasing seniors’ co-pays and deductibles or, even more dire, abolishing the program altogether and handing seniors vouchers to buy private insurance?
Wrong. Despite its market-obsessed detractors and those who would weaken the program in the name of deficit reduction, Medicare is the solution, not the problem. More precisely, an improved Medicare for all – a single-payer health system – is the right prescription for treating not only our health care woes, but our ailing economy as well.
How so?
The biggest albatross around the neck of our health care system is the private insurance industry, which remains firmly entrenched under the new federal health law.
Debt Hoax Swindles: Turn on the Lights, and Watch the Roaches Run
Hidden In The Budget:
The End Of Almost Every
Major Environmental Regulation
Today via Fast Company
Once the debt ceiling debate is settled, Congress is going to have to re-focus on the budget that almost shut down the government a few months ago. As part of that process, members of Congress have attached various provisions to the appropriations bills. One bill includes policy riders that deal with longstanding environmental rules–things like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. It’s called the 2012 Interior and Environmental Appropriations bill [1] and as currently written, it would scale back or reverse decades of environmental protections, including:
Removing Clean Air Act protections
One rider on the bill would nix the EPA’s funding to enforce the Clean Air Act’s upcoming Mercury and Air Toxics standards for power plants, which are intended to cut soot and smog pollution. The same rider would stop the EPA from enacting the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (aka the "good neighbor policy"), which limits power plant pollution that drifts into other states.
Most of the regulations being targeted are Clean Air Act rules put on the books in 1990 (signed by the first President Bush). "These are things people have been aware of for a long time," says Tony Kreindler, director of strategic communications at the Environmental Defense Fund. "Most companies out there that are affected have been preparing for a long time." But Kreindler explains that some companies–such as American Electric Power–have been bitterly fighting the rules, saying they haven’t had enough time to prepare, "while all along everyone else has known somehow that the day has been coming for 20 years."
If funding for the Mercury and Air Toxics rule is upheld, Kreindler estimates that it could prevent 17,000 premature deaths. Another 17,000 could be saved by the good neighbor policy. So if these policies are not upheld, well, do the math.
Continue reading Debt Hoax Swindles: Turn on the Lights, and Watch the Roaches Run
Turn the Tables on a Rigged Game
By Carl Davidson
Our local conservative newspaper, the Pittsburgh Business Times, carries an instructive story this morning, July 21, 2011, about how to solve our revenue problems, only it fails to make the critical point. So I’ll lend a hand. It says:
“Pennsylvania casinos brought in $81.4 million in tax revenue from table games during the fiscal year that ended last month, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. Of that, about $71.3 million went to the state’s general fund and another $10 million went to local municipalities and counties that host the state’s 10 table game casinos.
“The Rivers Casino on the North Shore was responsible for $8 million in state tax revenue and $1.2 million in local payments through its table games operations during the past fiscal year.”
It goes on to break the numbers down even more.
Now I can enjoy a day at the Casino. I recently took my Mom and stepfather, a retired J&L worker, to the Rivers for his 84th birthday. I hit the nickel slot for $1.50 on my first try, but ended up leaving $5 in the hole.
No More Excuses: Bring Our Troops Home!
Dear Friends,
Bin Laden is dead. The US military killed him. Some people rejoiced in the streets. Others felt relief because the manhunt was finally over. And, still others felt a sense of foreboding. We all wonder, "What will happen next?"
Bin Laden was an angry, violent man who reaped what he sowed. Now that we have our pound of flesh, we, too, will reap what we’ve sown in the War on Terror unless we tether the dogs of war now and exit Afghanistan, as soon as humanly possible.
This long-awaited event will, as Martin Luther King said, "bend the arc of history." But in which direction? Let’s do everything in our power to bend the arc away from vengeance and towards peace and environmental, economic, and social justice.
We no longer have a mission in Afghanistan. We can expect the war hounds to bark out new excuses to stay in Afghanistan and even escalate. We must keep reminding Congress that the mission has ended: It’s time to bring our troops and war dollars home. Click here to send a message to your member of Congress.
Please, mark your calendars for the Brown Bag Lunch Vigil (BBLV) on Wednesday, May 18. We are challenging Congress to bring our troops home now and asking them to support:
HR 780: Rep. Barbara Lee’s Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act
HR 676: Rep. John Conyers’ Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act
HR 870: Rep. John Conyers’ Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act
Pro-war voices in Washington are many and well represented. We must be persistent in our demand to get out of Afghanistan. Email your member of Congress, go to a May 18 BBLV, and stay tuned for the next action!
For Healthcare NOT Warfare,
Tim Carpenter
PDA National Director
Budget Debate: Getting Us Headed in a Progressive Direction
Photo: Progressive Caucus Members announcing their alternative
The People’s Budget:
Quick Summary of a Good Plan
By Kay Kirkpatrick
Beaver County Blue
Among the budgets proposed in Congress recently, one eliminates the deficit in 10 years, puts Americans back to work, and restores our economic competitiveness.
Unlike the GOP proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the People’ Budget does not seek to crush those with a low-income, the elderly or otherwise cripple vital government services.
Instead, it preserves Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits; expands jobs and job training programs; shifts the tax burden off the backs of the people; eliminates tax credits for the oil and gas industries and subsidies for new nuclear power plants; invests in infrastructure and brings our troops home.
This version of our financial future, proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), is not only in keeping with priorities of the majority of the American people, it is viable, reasonable and sustainable.
The CPC plan ends the budget deficit two decades earlier than the Ryan plan. Specifically, the budget offers:
· $5.6 trillion in deficit reduction
· $869 billion in spending cuts
· $856 billion net interest savings
· $3.9 trillion revenue increase
· $1.7 trillion in public investment, and
· $30.7 billion in a budget surplus in 2021.
Continue reading Budget Debate: Getting Us Headed in a Progressive Direction
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 