Budget 2.0: It’s just dead on arrival
Comments (...)Springtime is just around the corner. Soon, tourists will flock to Washington, D.C., to view the cherry blossoms in full display on the Potomac. Perhaps it would be wise to recommend that they also schedule a tour of the Library of Congress.
Back in my youth, when I was an intern on Capitol Hill, I enjoyed walking past the Library of Congress. It is one of the most beautiful buildings in Washington, not to mention the national treasures it contains. On those rare weekends when I am not working as a TV political analyst or pundit, I find myself strolling inside.
One of the permanent exhibits is called “Creating the United States,” and it is filled with original documents of our Founding Fathers, as well as a duplication of Thomas Jefferson’s library. The revolution those early leaders undertook changed the world.
And the Constitution we forged remains to this day one of the most copied on earth. Let me quote from the pamphlet the Library of Congress has for the exhibit: “America’s search for a plan of national government was a slow, difficult process. Compromise, cooperation and creativity were required (to create) a strong, national ... government.”
The adoption of the Constitution was a near miracle; opponents were so adamant against a federal government that they stayed away from state legislatures to prevent quorums. In the end, everyone realized compromise must prevail, or disunity and dissolution would follow.
So, here we are in the year 2012, about to consider a new federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Nowadays, passing a budget that must be a result of genuine, country-above-party compromise is all but impossible. Both sides want to prevail in the ongoing national dialogue about ways to go forward after the Great Recession.
This past week, President Obama submitted to Congress his budget blueprint for next fiscal year and beyond. Sadly, the proposals the president submitted remain an anathema to the Republicans. Many of them have already proclaimed it “Dead on Arrival” or “Debt on Arrival.”
By the way, if you haven’t been keeping count, “dead on arrival” is a stock phrase for most budgets submitted in an election year. Before Obama’s proposals are discarded, it’s important to read or understand what he is proposing for the country.
The administration’s budget, like every presidential budget, especially in an election year, reflects its values and vision. President Obama is going to present tax fairness as an issue of fiscal responsibility as well as one of social responsibility. But his budget proposes more than $350 billion in short-term measures for job growth starting this year.
According to White House sources, they include:
• “The extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance benefits for the rest of 2012;
• an upfront investment of $50 billion from the surface transportation reauthorization bill for roads, rails and runways to create thousands of quality jobs in the short term;
• continuing to allow businesses to write-off the full amount of new investments;
• $30 billion to modernize at least 35,000 schools, and $30 billion to help states and localities retain and hire teachers and first responders;
• Project Rebuild, a series of policies to help connect Americans looking for work in distressed communities with the work needed to repurpose residential and commercial properties, creating jobs and stabilizing neighborhoods;
• a new tax credit for this year focused on small businesses, and that gives businesses that add jobs and wages a tax cut equal to 10 percent of up to $5 million in eligible wages per employer.”
The administration also proposes investments in American innovation — especially clean energy and manufacturing — to create good jobs and more goods stamped Made in America.
It also provides for tax incentives for manufacturers who create jobs here at home, and approximately doubles the deduction for advanced manufacturing; ends tax deductions for shipping jobs overseas; and establishes a manufacturing communities tax credit to encourage investment in communities affected by job loss.”
The good news about the economy is that we have had 23 consecutive months of job creation; the bad news is that we have four unemployed workers for every job opening and historically high levels of unemployment. That is why the president’s budget is correctly focused on job creation, since we won’t make any meaningful progress on the deficit until more Americans have jobs.
What will the Republicans do? How will they respond to the president proposals? Will they simply stand in the way of any policies that create jobs and insist on more radical budget cuts? Their fetish-like opposition to having high-income people pay their fair share of the cost of government means big cuts in popular programs, like Medicare, that help everyone else.
One thing for sure, the budget debate will help set the terms of the upcoming election. Both sides should welcome this debate.
Donna Brazile is a senior Democratic strategist, a political commentator and contributor to CNN and ABC News, and a contributing columnist to Ms. Magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine.
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