Thursday morning we mentioned the votes in Congress against the People Budget (the Progressive Caucus) and the Congressional Black Caucus budget Wednesday night. Hours later Congress voted down the official Democratic Party budget-- with 32 Democrats, mostly Blue Dogs and New Dems, voting with the GOP against it-- and then narrowly passing, 219-206 Paul Ryan's GOP budget. 18 Republicans voted against it, primarily Republicans in swing districts fearful of their constituents, like Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Patrick Meehan (R-PA), Peter King (R-NY), Brian Mast (R-FL), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ryan Costello (R-PA) and Rod Blum (R-IA).Just before the vote, USA Today released a poll Suffolk University did for them that shows 62% of registered voters now have an unfavorable view of the GOP, a 7-point jump in unpopularity for the party since the same poll in June. Poll director David Paleologos stated flatly that "The Republican Party is in freefall. In March the GOP had a 48 percent unfavorable rating, in June the negative swelled to 55 percent. Today the GOP unfavorable is 62 percent. What’s next?" (34% of registered voters view Trump and his administration favorably and 64% of voters say the country is on the wrong track.)One of the questions, "When it comes to next year’s congressional election do you want to elect a Congress that mostly cooperates with President Trump, or one that mostly stands up to President Trump?" should be worrying to Republicans in Congress:
• Cooperates with Trump- 33.0%• Stands up to Trump- 56.9%• Undecided- 9.5%
In the face of these-- you could say withering fire-- Ryan led his caucus up another hill sure to increase the toll of midterm casualties-- that budget vote. 219 Republicans voted to cut Medicare, Medicaid and education to give immense tax breaks to corporations and to the super-rich. This is what Ro Khanna (D-CA) had to say about their approach during the budget debate:Harsh! But there's every reason in the world to predict that the voters are going to be even harsher in 2018. House Republicans just passed, in the words of Americans for Tax Fairness, "$5.8 trillion in cuts over the next decade to Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure and other critical services while paving the way for trillions of dollars in tax cuts that would mostly benefit the wealthy and corporations."That budget resolution they just passed also set up a procedure for fast-track consideration of tax legislation, enabling Senate Republicans to bypass bipartisanship to pass a tax plan with just 51 votes, rather than 60 votes typically required for such contentious legislation.So what's in it. The framework Trump and Ryan released last week includes massive tax cuts that will cost at least $2.4 trillion, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. The wealthy-- as well as the corporations primarily owned by rich shareholders-- are the big winners. About 80% of the tax cuts will flow to the top 1% by 2027, when they would get a tax cut of $207,000, on average. That year under the plan, 3 out of 10 middle-class families making between $50,000 and $150,000 a year will pay $2,000 more in taxes, on average, depending on their income.A bigger problem for America is that these large tax cuts are consciously designed to balloon the deficit and existentially jeopardize funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public education, programs popular with the public and long-hated by the GOP, especially Paul Ryan. Included in the $5.8 trillion in cuts to services under the House-passed budget are Medicaid and other healthcare programs ($1.5 trillion), Medicare ($487 billion), and nutrition assistance ($150 billion).Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness said that "This budget resolution is the first step toward an immoral tax scheme that will hand trillions of dollars to millionaires and corporations at the expense of millions of America’s working families, many of whom will actually see a tax increase. These tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations will ultimately be paid for by cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, education, disability services, and other national priorities, while the expansion of the deficit will further threaten Social Security. The Republicans who voted to advance this plan owe their constituents an explanation.”The chart below is an explanation of the tax cuts proposed under the Trump-GOP tax framework compared with the spending cuts proposed in the House budget resolution that passed yesterday. Do you think this is going to make the Republican Party less hated by the general public?Jared Golden is Majority Whip of Maine's House of Representatives and he's irunning for the congressional seat in the sprawling 2nd congressional district. After the Republicans passed their budget he wrote to me to say that it "speaks volumes about priorities, doesn't it? Where's the infrastructure investment that the President promised? Why is Bruce Poliquin voting to take Medicaid away from tens of thousands of Mainers instead of trying to expand coverage and fix our unstable health care market place? Did you see that Anthem is pulling out of the ACA in Maine because of the unstable conditions that Bruce Poliquin and the GOP have created? Isn't it disappointing that the GOP wants to give 80% of these proposed tax cuts to the richest 1%! I guess they didn't get the message that voters were trying to send in 2016. It's almost as if they took part in a different election." And he wasn't done. He added this:
I'm not at all surprised that Bruce Poliquin voted for Paul Ryan's budget. This budget outlines Bruce's priorities perfectly: tax cuts for corporations and the richest 1% at the expense of poor struggling families that need food assistance, the elderly that need Medicare and Medicaid for long-term care services, and the working and middle-class people that would see their taxes go up under this budget scheme.Bruce votes for special interests, like the insurance and drug companies, the big banks and his wealthy political donors that stand to gain from this budget plan, and he ignores the people in his district who would suffer the consequences. Just as bad is how willing he is to give these massive handouts to the super rich without fully paying for them, which would only increase our deficit. Is that what Bruce Poliquin and Paul Ryan call fiscal responsibility?After defeating Bruce, I'll go to Washington to put the focus back on the working, middle-class people that make up the great majority in Maine's Second Congressional District. That's who should get the benefits of health care and tax reform.
If you'd like to help Jared win his race. Please click on the thermometer on the right. And on that same page, you'll find another progressive candidate, Derrick Crowe, who is running in the Texas congressional district held by crackpot science-denier Lamar Smith (Austin, San Antonio, Hill Country). After Smith voted for the GOP budget, Derrick told me that "Our way of life is built on the idea that we care not just for our own well-being, but also the well-being of our communities. The Republicans dragged those values through the mud today by approving a vicious budget motivated by extreme materialism. Today's vote shows that the Republicans aren't governing-- they're looting. Our congressional district gets more support from the federal budget than any other district in Texas, yet Lamar Smith is willing to sell out his constituents' well-being to give rich people more tax cuts. We should be expanding Medicare into a Medicare For All program, providing free college and fighting the student debt crisis, taking strong action on climate change and fighting income inequality. This budget does the opposite, and the GOP will pay a price for it in the coming elections."
