Shared Sacrifice: Less money to keep the poor alive, more money to the pentagon [New]
Travis Waldron at Think Progress:
Poverty in America is only getting worse, with data showing rising income inequality and the startling fact that half of all Americans are now either in poverty or considered low-income. Were it not for the government programs that comprise the social safety net, those numbers would be even worse. More than a quarter would live in poverty without the safety net, according to one study, and Social Security alone kept 14 million out of poverty last year. Despite that, Congress — and particularly Republicans in Congress — have made cuts to various programs meant to aid the poorest Americans.
Congress reached a deal Thursday to avert a shutdown that would have begun at midnight tonight, and in doing so, Republicans found another low-income program to target, cutting funding for subsidies that help the poor stay warm during the winter by nearly 25 percent. At the same time, however, the Pentagon’s budget is getting a 1 percent boost, as the Associated Press noted:
Highlights of the $1 trillion-plus 2012 spending legislation in Congress:
—$518 billion for the Pentagon’s core budget, a 1 percent boost, excluding military operations overseas. [...]
—$3.5 billion for low-income heating and utility subsidies, a cut of about 25 percent.
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) has become increasingly vital for American families affected by the recession, and it is utilized more and more by military families. One of every five families using LIHEAP is a military family, a 156 percent increase from 2008. Congress, however, decided to cut that program to give a boost to a budget that already makes up 20 percent of the country’s total budget and has been spared in multiple spending agreements this year (the super committee trigger a notable exception).
Plenty of evidence exists that Congress should be focused on investing into programs that boost economic growth and job creation, rather than chasing fiscal austerity toward another recession. If it insists on cutting spending to deal with the deficit now, however, the least it could do is not take the knife to each and every program that helps the poor.
Congress wasn’t satisfied with only half of the people on poverty or low-income…
What Do You Think?
2 Responses to 'Shared Sacrifice: Less money to keep the poor alive, more money to the pentagon'
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David [New]
Saturday, 17 Dec, 2011 at 6:35 am
You get to the heart of it right here. We’re not having an argument about how best to solve the problem of inequality, we’re having an argument about whether we need more or less. I don’t know why people have so much trouble talking about what they are trying to achieve.
Krugman made the same point the other say with respect to deficits. Ezra claims the GOP’s position is odd, since they claim to care about deficits and yet fight to make them worse:
Emocrat [New]
Saturday, 17 Dec, 2011 at 11:40 am
Great point. But the reason some people have a very difficult time talking about this in real terms is most people really would not appreciate the goal of creating more inequality and the mass poverty that goes along with that.
This is especially true for Democrats, since they claim to be playing on the other team. This makes honesty well nigh impossible, so they have to keep muddying up the argument along the lines of “fiscal responsibility.” It works the same for both parties, even though the GOP has a little more wiggle room with their open hostility to anything resembling equality in the first place. But even they have to lie about the “business environment” to justify their positions, by claiming that shoveling more money at “job creators” (never mind they’re creating jobs in Asia, not the US) is somehow “good for the economy.”
But I’ll even quibble with Krugman on his claim,
The fact is, the GOP position on the economy, welfare state and inequality has been largely the same for most if not all of the last century, post-Teddy, Nixon’s own maneuvering aside. They even created the Business Plot against FDR, they hated economic progress so much. As such, damaging Obama makes for a better Team Blue talking point than anything else. Why else would Team Obama go along with the GOP on economic matters most of the time?
They have always essentially been what amounts to economic saboteurs, as their historical record of economic management confirms. The only thing that has really changed over the last few decades is the Dems have also come around to their position.