The Battle of the Budgets

Media tells us that there are only two sides to this debate, the Republicans and the President.  The big money donors scramble to decide which one works better for them and then begin to invest millions into making sure that the others never see the light of day.  Each side must now present their take to the public and give them a choice.  This is how Washington is supposed to work.  Every once in a while though, the mold is broken and another voice sneaks through.  This is the case here between the battles of the budgets.  President Obama proposed his budget last week after Republicans revealed theirs and the battle was joined.  Comparing those two led many of us to believe that the best one was the White House plan, we now know better.  In the battle of the budgets there is one and one only which does more and better than any of the others.  It’s the little known U.S. House of Representatives Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus called The People’s Budget.  Compare it to the others and you be the judge.

Overview of Our Policies

Individual Income Tax Policies

• Allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, but extend marriage relief, credits, and

incentives for children, families, and education

• Immediately rescind the upper-income tax cuts in December’s tax deal

• Index the AMT for inflation for a decade (the AMT patch is fully paid for)

• Schakowsky millionaire tax rates proposal (adding 45%, 46%, 47%, 48%, and 49% top rates)

• Tax all capital gains and qualified dividends as ordinary income

• Progressive estate tax (Sanders’ estate tax, repeal of Kyl-Lincoln)

• Limit the rate at which itemized deductions can reduce tax liability to 28%for high earners

• Replace the tax exclusion for interest on state and local bonds with a subsidy for the issuer

Corporate Tax Reform

• Tax U.S. corporate foreign income as it is earned

• Eliminate corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies

• Enact a financial crisis responsibility fee

• Financial speculation tax (derivatives, foreign exchange)

• Reinstate Superfund taxes

Health Care

• Enact a public option

• Negotiate Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies

• CMS program integrity and other Medicare and Medicaid savings in the president’s budget

• Prevent a cut in Medicare physician payments for a decade (maintain doc fix)

Social Security

• Raise the taxable maximum on the employee side to 90% of earnings and eliminate the taxable

maximum on the employer side

• Increase benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side

Defense Savings

• End overseas contingency operations emergency supplementals starting in Fiscal Year 2013,

providing $170 billion in FY2012 to fund redeployment, while saving more than $1.8 trillion

from current law spending levels over ten years. 

• Reduce baseline defense spending by reducing strategic capabilities, conventional forces,

procurement, and R&D programs

Comprehensive Jobs Program

• Invest $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy and broadband infrastructure,

housing, and R&D

• Infrastructure bank

• Surface transportation reauthorization bill ($213 billion)