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<DIV class=content-body>Among Democrats this year, it was rejected 84-102,
<P>A list of those Democrats who voted against the CPC budget, which included
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.),
can be found <A
href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll085.xml">here</A>.</P><A
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<P class=photo-caption>Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), co-chair of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, speaks at a January 16 news conference to
announce new legislation about eliminating the federal debt ceiling. (Alex
Wong/Getty Images)</P>
<H5 class=article-dateline>Web Only// Features » March 22, 2013 </H5>
<H1 class=article-headline>84 House Democrats Say ‘No’ to Austerity</H1>
<P class=article-deck>The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ budget may have
failed, but it failed well.</P><SPAN class=author>BY <A
href="http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/174415">Cole Stangler</A></SPAN>
<DIV class=content-body>
<DIV id=article-inset>
<P class=pullquote>The Back to Work budget, among other things, called for
raising taxes on the highest income bracket from 45 to 49 percent, taxing
capital gains in the same way as ordinary income, enacting a financial
transactions tax, returning Pentagon spending to 2006 levels, and implementing a
carbon tax.</P></DIV>
<P><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">On Wednesday, the House of Representatives
took up floor debate and voted on three Democratic alternatives to the Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) budget—the first a version of the Senate Democrats’ budget, the second
a proposal from the Black Caucus, and the third a budget crafted by the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, which with 72 members is the largest
Democratic Caucus in the House.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">The CPC’s <A
href="http://backtoworkbudget.com/"><SPAN
style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px; COLOR: rgb(2,30,170)">Back to Work
budget</SPAN></A>, like the other Democratic budgets, never had a realistic
possibility of passing in the House, which is dominated by a Republican majority
that has now passed the Ryan budget three years in a row. But the CPC’s ability
to garner support on the Democratic side for its budget serves as one way of
evaluating the kind of leverage the caucus has today in Congress. And while most
media attention focuses on the supposedly deep ideological divisions within the
Republican Party, the vote on the CPC’s budget can serve as a lens into similar
kinds of splits in the Democratic Party in the House.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">At a meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday,
supporters and allies of the Progressive Caucus said they were hoping the budget
would receive more than 100 votes—a figure that would mean that more than half
of the Democratic caucus supported the budget. The CPC’s budget ultimately fell
short of that target, losing by a vote of 84-327. In 2012, by contrast, it was
rejected 78-346. Among Democrats this year, it was rejected 84-102, good for a
six-vote improvement from last year’s Budget for All. </SPAN></P>
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href="http://bit.ly/105zVxw">What issues should <I>In These Times</I> cover in
2013? We want to hear from you. Take our quick poll.</A></B></FONT></P>
<P><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">CPC Executive Director Brad Bauman was
hoping the budget could do even better, but said that he was “happy that we are
moving right direction as far as building more and more support for these
baseline progressive ideals.”</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">The CPC has advanced similar budget
proposals over the last three years. This year’s budget, like those previous
efforts, stood in contrast to other congressional budgets that included cuts to
social spending and other “entitlement programs” while maintaining steady growth
in military spending. The Back to Work budget, among other things, called for
raising taxes on the highest income bracket from 45 to 49 percent, taxing
capital gains in the same way as ordinary income, enacting a financial
transactions tax, returning Pentagon spending to 2006 levels, and implementing a
carbon tax. </SPAN></P>
<P>As CPC members took to the House floor in defense of the budget, many
criticized the Republican Party’s insistence on deficit reduction above all else
and stressed the need to address the jobs crisis. The CPC’s budget was estimated
to create 6.9 million jobs, according to an <A
href="http://www.epi.org/publication/back-to-work-budget-analysis-congressional-progressive/">analysis</A>
from the Economic Policy Institute.</P>
<P>“The number one issue before our country is not the deficit. It’s getting the
economy going and creating jobs,” said Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). “Instead of
balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class and the neediest, the Back
to Work budget has the back of America’s middle class.”</P>
<P>This time around, the CPC’s budget seemed to avoid a media blackout and
actually penetrated the liberal mainstream fairly successfully—problems that
have plagued it in the past.</P>
<P>One of the few times the budget received any coverage in the mainstream press
in 2011 was <A
href="http://www.fair.org/blog/2011/04/14/dana-milbank-red-baits-the-peoples-budget/">the
red-baiting masterpiece</A> from the <EM>Washington Post</EM>’s Dana Milbank. He
wrote:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px">[The CPC budget] gives a sense
of how things would be if liberals ran the world: no cuts in Social Security
benefits, government-negotiated Medicare drug prices, and increased income and
Social Security taxes for the wealthy. Corporations and investors would be hit
with a variety of new fees and taxes. And the military would face a
shock-and-awe accounting: a 22 percent cut in Army soldiers, 30 percent for
the Marines, 20 percent for the Navy and 15 percent for the Air Force. The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would end, and weapons programs would go begging.
… Their oft-repeated slogan, “The People's Budget,” conveyed an unhelpful
association with “the people's republic” and other socialist
undertakings.</SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>This year, though, the Back to Work budget was <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WdUhvuKyoQA">featured
prominently</A> on Bill Maher’s show and praised by unexpected supporters like
Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias. And in what can only be taken as a positive sign
of the budget’s growing visibility, it was even the target of a <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/opinion/brooks-the-progressive-shift.html?_r=2&"><SPAN
style="LETTER-SPACING: 0px; COLOR: rgb(2,30,170)">rant</SPAN></A> by David
Brooks, who in his New York Times column was scornful of progressives
“hermetically sealed in the house of government” who “seem to believe that
government is … the source of growth, job creation and prosperity.”</P>
<P>Fortunately for Brooks, Wednesday’s vote showed that most Democrats in
Congress have yet to adopt such progressive beliefs.</P>
<P>A list of those Democrats who voted against the CPC budget, which included
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.),
can be found <A
href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll085.xml">here</A>.</P>
<P>While it did earn the support of more centrist Democrats, the Black Caucus’
budget fared only slightly better, losing <A
href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll084.xml">105-305</A>. The Senate
Democratic budget lost <A
href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/289325-house-rejects-dem-budget-plans-gop-slams-obamas-missing-budget">154-261</A>.</P></DIV>
<DIV class=moreby>
<H2 class=sechead-article-author>ABOUT THIS AUTHOR</H2>
<P><B>Cole Stangler</B> was a summer 2011 <I>In These Times</I> editorial
intern.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></NAV></DIV></DIV>
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<P>Only 84?? The ones who didn't vote against this should be subject to
primaries and removed. They are the enemy as much as any GOP
hard-liner.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV><FOOTER>
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<P>Pathetic. </P>
<P>The idea that a few fake-progressive Democrats can stop austerity measures
is preposterous. The worst austerity measures so far have come from Obama in
the form of union busting and not one these people lifted a finger to stop
them, not one of them walked a picket line. Not one of them proposed
impeaching Obama for his attacks on unions. </P>
<P><B>Obama and Emanuel tried to bust the Chicago Teachers union. </B>Obama
appoints another union busters as his chief of staff: In these Times 01 29 12
“<I> Obama’s Union-Busting New Chief of Staff? Jacob Lew Helped Destroy Grad
Students’ Union at NYU When Obama’s new Chief of Staff was NYU executive vice
resident, school ceased recognizing the grad students union” </I><A
href="http://www.alternet.org/story/153935/obama’s_union-busting_new_chief_of_staff_jacob_lew_helped_destroy_grad_students’_union_at_nyu?page=entire"
rel=nofollow>http://www.alternet.org/story/...</A></P>
<P><B>Obama attacks airline and rail workers</B>: LABORnotes 02 15 12<I>“Two
years after President Obama and Democrats abandoned labor’s much-anticipated
Employee Free Choice Act, they have refused to block Republicans intent on
making life miserable for airline and rail workers. A bill reauthorizing the
Federal Aviation Administration, voted up 75-20 in the Senate, changes federal
labor law to make organizing more difficult for railroad and airline unions.
New rules will make it easier to decertify unions and harder to win elections
when employers merge.”<BR></I><A
href="http://labornotes.org/2012/02/obama-democrats-deal-setback-airline-workers"
rel=nofollow>http://labornotes.org/2012/02/...</A></P>
<P><B>Obama attacks the UAW HuffPo 09 03 2010</B> <I>“The White House is
forcefully pushing back on former (Obama) car czar Steve Rattner’s upcoming
book about his time in Washington, specifically the allegation that Chief of
Staff Rahm Emanuel once blurted “Fuck the UAW” when told that tens of
thousands of autoworkers’ jobs were at stake in the restructuring of the auto
industry.” </I><A
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/steven-rattner-interview-_n_737966.html"
rel=nofollow>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...</A></P>
<P><B>Obama attacks federal workers and postal workers</B>LABORNotes 03 06
2012 <I>"During the Obama administration, and especially during its first two
years when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, the alliance between
unions and their political patrons began to wither. The Employee Free Choice
Act, the law that would have eased union organizing drives, was shelved. When
the administration bailed out the auto companies, it dictated wage cuts, plant
closings, and tens of thousands of layoffs, and stripped workers’ right to
strike. The health care bill attacked union-negotiated plans. A green-job
transformation for the economy stalled. Then Obama announced in December 2010
that salaries for federal workers, already low compared to those of
private-sector workers with similar education and longevity, would be frozen
for years into the future</I> <A
href="http://labornotes.org/blogs/2012/03/labor-overlooks-bipartisan-attack-federal-workers"
rel=nofollow>http://labornotes.org/blogs/20...</A></P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<P>INTERNET HEADLINES I DETEST/LIKE<BR>House Republicans Unanimously vote down
minimum wage<BR>Sherrod Brown goes after Big Banks<BR>America Third Least
Taxed in OECD nations<BR>210 new members on Forbes Billionaire list<BR>Housing
Starts Start up<BR>16 Giant Corporations that have basically stopping paying
taxes<BR>Paul Ryan's Budget will not balance the budget in ten years<BR>Paul
Ryan Budget has $1.4T in hidden cuts<BR>What happened to worker
wages?<BR>Economists disagree with Paul Ryan claim “Debt is crushing our
economy”<BR>Beware the new Corporate Tax Cut Scam:LIFT is a Big Lie<BR>House
Democrats unanimously oppose extreme Republican budget<BR>As the provisions of
the Affordable Care Act becomes into effect over the next year we must
continue to make sure it works for everyone<BR>The Democratic Budget
alternative has the right priorities for America<BR>The Obama Make It In
America Program will enable more of our businesses<BR>to afford investments in
America <BR>Democrats have led the fight to restore fiscal responsibility
after President Bush and the Republicans left behind deep deficits. The
Republican record of Fiscal Irresponsibility<BR>turned surpluses into massive
deficits by borrowing trillions to finance two wars, Huge tax cuts for the
wealthy, and major increases in spending.<BR>The President has proposed to let
the high-income tax cuts expire and uses the $1Trillion over ten years to
reduce deficits and debt and put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course
that includes $2.50 of spending cuts for every $1 of revenue<BR>How the
Billionaires Class is Destroying Democracy<BR>Lords Of Disorder: How the Big
Banks are designed t6 prey off Economic Misery<BR>Obama's Shakedown Of
Medicare<BR>The Economic Challenge Ahead: More Jobs and Growth,, not deficit
reduction</P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<P>If you mean Roll Call 89 for this year, it says 82 democrats voted no not
84. 115 house democrats voted yes. </P>
<P> </P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<P>In America, austerity starts at the bottom, taking from those who have the
least, protecting those who have the most. Obviously, Clinton already began
imposing the austerity agenda back in 1996 by wiping out poverty
relief.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></LI></UL></DIV></SECTION></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>