Progress Report
June 24, 2011
What the GOP Really Means by ‘Shared Sacrifice’
Yesterday, we covered the GOP’s temper tantrum, as the New York Times called it, in which Republican leaders bailed on negotiations to avert a default on our obligations — a default that is only on the table as a result of the GOP’s willingness to keep paying the bills we started racking up as a result of Bush-era policies. While GOP infighting certainly played a role in yesterday’s shenanigans, the core issue is the GOP’s unwavering devotion to protecting (and even expanding) tax giveaways for the wealthy, Big Oil, and other special interests. These giveaways have been put on the national credit card, and now the GOP wants to forward the bill to the rest of us or simply not pay it at all. (Good luck getting a decent loan for a new house, a car, or a student loan if they go down that road.)
We thought we’d keep it real simple and break down who gets to sacrifice and who gets off easy if the GOP gets its way.
ON the GOP’s chopping block:
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- Social Security
- Tax cuts for people making less than $500,000
- Government programs and services that tens of millions of Americans depend on each day
NOT on the GOP’s chopping block:
- Tax giveaways to Big Oil
- Tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas
- Tax loopholes for hedge fund billionaires
- Wasteful tax loopholes used by huge corporations to avoid paying their fair share
- Tax breaks for yachts and vacation homes
- Tax breaks for people making more than $500,000
In one sentence: The GOP is willing to risk another economic calamity when we can least afford it if that’s what it takes to protect tax breaks for the wealthy, Big Oil, and huge corporations — tax breaks paid for by ending Medicare, slashing Medicaid and Social Security, and cutting the government programs and services we depend on each and every day.
Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed
Just hours after ThinkProgress reported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) would be signing his controversial budget into law at the business of a convicted tax felon, his office claimed they knew nothing about his background. A Walker spokesperson has since announced the bill will now be signed in a new location.
Conservative Tea Party activists have started their own production company to combat the raging liberalism of Hollywood. Colony Bay Productions will release its first film straight to DVD following an initial screening.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair Netanyahu, made racist comments about Muslims and Arabs on his Facebook page, writing “The Arab sons-of-bitches desecrated our holiest day… it is our duty to do the minimum to save our honor and boycott ever Arab business or product.” +972′s Noam Sheizaf reminds his readers that two years ago, the prime minister’s aids were scrambling to explain racist comments made by his 99 year old father Ben-Zion Netanyahu.
The Obama administration’s Libya intervention could have avoided recent congressional backlash had the administration been more proactive about briefing Congress on Libya and if White House aides “not been too physically exhausted to pay a little more attention to Capitol Hill,” reports the Cable’s Josh Rogin.
President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan is “insufficient” and the “anti war movement in Congress is going to continue to grow and intensify,” Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) Jim McGovern (D-MA) told ThinkProgress. McGovern criticized both neoconservatives and the editorial page of the Washington Post for pushing for continuing the war in Afghanistan.
Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) says Justice Clarence Thomas’ many ethics scandals are starting to rise to the level where there should start to be some real investigations as to whether Thomas can continue to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court.
Privatizing Medicare is a terrible idea that has already failed.
If President Obama decides to save the world economy by ignoring the debt ceiling, it’s likely that no one can stop him.
Vote suppression guru Hans von Spakovsky claims to have the smoking gun proving voter fraud is a real problem that has to be stop. Turns out Spakovsky’s gun shoots blanks.
News You Can Use: The GOP is Now Refusing To Pay the Bills Their Policies Racked Up
Why do we have to raise the debt ceiling at all? In order to pay the bills we’ve already racked up as a result of failed Bush-era policies — namely massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and two wars. This chart says it all:
As our friends at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities note, “Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the [Bush] Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade.”
http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/the-gops-plan-for-unshared-sacrifice/
© 2005-2011 Center for American Progress Action Fund
No comments:
Post a Comment