The Inspiration Budget (Congressional Progressive Caucus)

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From TomPaine.com:


The Inspiration Budget
Jared Bernstein and Deborah Weinstein
April 02, 2007



Jared Bernstein is a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy. Deborah Weinstein is the executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs.

A couple of weeks ago , we posted articles here lamenting the spending priorities of the Bush administration. In “There’s Always Money for War,” one of us asked why it should be a piece of cake to get Congress to sign a $100 billion check for the war when human needs goes wanting. In the same spirit, “Undoing Bush’s Budget Priorities ” provided stark details of the president’s proposed cuts to programs that mean a lot to people, from education to housing to kids’ health care.

Well, we’re back to heap a load of praise on an alternative budget created by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), a bicameral bloc of 72 members of Congress led by California U.S. Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee. It is devoted to tapping the breadth and scope of government to tackle the big challenges we face.

This budget is a deeply impressive document. It reflects the spending priorities of the majority of Americans who would like to see our role in the Iraq war come to a close, and for Congress to address domestic priorities relating to economic security. As such, it stands in direct contrast to the president’s budget and war supplemental requests, which consistently and perplexingly ignore both the public and the Congress’s shifting sentiments regarding guns and butter.

The theme of the CPC budget is to shift resources from war, weapons, and tax cuts for the wealthiest to domestic spending. The contrast to the budgets proposed by the president and the House Republican minority is striking. The CPC invests in health, education, housing, rebuilding communities and developing renewable energy sources. The conservative hawks plow money into the military and high-end tax breaks.
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We know we sound a bit star-struck—only in the beltway do people drool like this over a budget—but you’ve got to appreciate the liberation that the CPC budget offers. Sure, federal budgets are starchy documents, but nowhere else do we so clearly express what and whom we really care about as a nation.

The two pieces we wrote earlier in this process were inspired by the callous disregard for the will of the majority, and the CPC seems to have heard us, and millions of others like us. The House ultimately got behind the budget of the Democratic majority, a plan that’s not as far-reaching as the CPC’s, but is nonetheless a step in the right direction.

What’s important now is for these members to keep the CPC priorities foremost in their thinking. The work of the caucus has the potential to imbue the budgeting process with a deep concern for the future of our nation, both in foreign and domestic policy fronts. By fearlessly yet carefully going after military waste, war and tax cuts for the wealthiest, they create the space to do precisely what people want our government to do: stop creating problems, and start solving them. ........

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/02/the_inspiration_budget.php