A people's budget

Mostly the whining coming out of Washington about budgets and the deficit is just cover for a partisan attempt to trash whatever safety net has so far survived thirty years of Reaganism. The very rich already have got hold of most of the country's wealth, but they are feeling deprived because they want it all.

In reality, this is still a rich country and we can pay our bills and take care of our people if our rulers will let us, despite our current trio (!) of dumb wars and habit of coddling failed financial speculators.

Progressive Congresscritters have introduced a "People's Budget" that shows how. Our rulers aren't going to give us anything so sensible unless or until we beat them into it, but progress starts with a picture of where we want to go. The People's Budget serves that function.

Don't take my word for it -- Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman agrees that this is how we need to be thinking.

... it increases revenue partly by imposing substantially higher taxes on the wealthy, which is popular everywhere except inside the Beltway. But it also calls for a rise in the Social Security cap, significantly raising taxes on around 6 percent of workers. And, by rescinding many of the Bush tax cuts, not just those affecting top incomes, it would modestly raise taxes even on middle-income families.

All of this, combined with spending cuts mostly focused on defense, is projected to yield a balanced budget by 2021. And the proposal achieves this without dismantling the legacy of the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, and the Great Society, which gave us Medicare and Medicaid.

Here's a 7 minute clip that explains all this from the Thom Hartmann show, pulled together by Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By.