Debt Ceiling Debate

The Four Great Hypocrisies of the Debt Deal

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:20:11 -0400

Capitulation

Robert Borosage — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:54:31 -0400

The raw deal on the budget ceiling has been cut. The Tea Party terrorists – the extremist faction willing to hold the economy hostage to get their way – have won. The Republic, common sense and decency have been trampled.

With the economy deeply depressed, 25 million people in need of full time work, the raw deal will impede any recovery. It precludes any serious action on jobs from the federal government. It will cost jobs as spending is cut. Instead of getting serious about a plan to revive this economy and put people back to work, Washington will remain fixated on what and how much to cut. From the President to the Tea Party zealots, politicians will tell Americans that this agreement is “important to our economy.” Yes, it is important – important in the way a virus is important to a sickly patient. It will make things worse.

With Gilded Age inequality, and hedge fund billionaires paying a lower effective tax rate than their secretaries, the deal contains no tax hikes. Poor and working Americans are asked to pay to clean up the mess that Wall Street’s excesses created.

Although the terms of the agreement are complicated, the capitulation is clear. There will be deep cuts in discretionary spending—$900 billion over 10 years, one-third from the Pentagon—in the first step. There are no tax revenues, much less higher taxes on millionaires in that mix. (The President touts that domestic discretionary spending will be slashed to levels not seen since the Eisenhower administration, presenting a travesty as if it were a victory.)

Then a rump congressional committee—a gang of 12, split between Republicans and Democrats—will be given the charter and extraordinary powers to find another $1.5 trillion over 10 years, from cuts in Medicare and Medicaid or possibly with revenues from closing loopholes (raising tax rates seems to be off the table.) Republicans have already pledged to allow no revenue increases.

If the committee gridlocks, there will be an automatic $1.2 trillion in across the board spending cuts, with the Pentagon and Medicare on the chopping block, while Medicaid, Social Security, veteran’s pay and programs for the poor are exempted.

The raw deal sets a precedent that Republican leaders are already celebrating: from now on, they boast, every debt ceiling vote will be the occasion for holding the economy hostage to more extreme demands. A balanced budget constitutional amendment. A two-thirds vote for any tax hike on the rich. Privatization of Social Security. The demands will get more extreme over time.

No progressive can or should vote for this capitulation. Republicans have won big. They should be forced to produce the votes to pass this in the House. If they can’t, the president should do what he should have done from the beginning. Stop the negotiations, demand a clean lift of the debt ceiling, and invoke his constitutional powers to avoid default.

If the deal passes the Congress, then congressional Democrats should insure that no Democrat named to the Gang of 12 will accept any agreement that does not include more revenues than spending cuts, while defending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from a rump process.

Given Republican intransigence, that will force deadlock, triggering deep spending cuts that won’t go into effect until January of 2013. Americans can then decide in the election whether they want to vote for those who would gut Medicare and Social Security to protect tax breaks for the wealthy.

The media will trumpet the agreement; the markets will exhale; the pressure to fall in line will be great. But when the dust clears, the economy will still be in trouble, and the federal government will be less able to help. Americans will see investments in schools, research, public health, clean energy, transportation cut back. Inequality will grow; poverty will spread.

Voters will have to decide. They know Republicans are prepared to go to the mat to protect the wealthy from tax hikes, even to the point of endangering the economy. Will voters have any clue about what Democrats are prepared to fight for?

Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the FDR Way

Sam Pizzigati — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:37:04 -0400

At times of national fiscal crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt ever so firmly believed, you don't give the awesomely affluent a free pass. You pound them — and then you pound them some more.

Against a Congress where zealously rich people-friendly conservatives hold the upper hand, how much can a President of the United States committed to greater equality realistically hope to accomplish?

The answer from today’s White House: not much. Advocacy for equality has to take a backseat, Obama administration insiders insist, once fanatical friends of the fortunate in Congress recklessly put at risk our nation’s full faith and credit.

But history offers another alternative. Back in 1943, halfway through World War II, a President of the United States confronted a debt ceiling crisis eerily similar to our own. That President, Franklin Roosevelt, faced a congressional opposition to inconveniencing the rich — with higher taxes — every bit as rabid as ours.

FDR's choice, in the face of this opposition? He doubled down on equality.

Roosevelt’s debt ceiling battle actually began in the months right after Pearl Harbor. The nation needed dollars — and lots of them — to wage and win the new war. FDR wanted those dollars raised as equitably as possible.

That would require, FDR and his New Dealers believed, a steeply graduated income tax, with tax rates on income in the top income brackets much higher than rates on income in the bottom brackets.

How high should the top rates go? All the way, FDR proposed, to 100 percent. At a time of “grave national danger,” the President told Congress in April 1942, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year,” an income just shy of $350,000 in today’s dollars.

The year before, gun executive Carl Swebilius had pulled in $243,204 after taxes, the equivalent of over $3.7 million today. Steel exec Eugene Grace had grabbed $522,537, over $8 million today, in 1941 salary. But conservatives in Congress looked the other way. They never gave FDR’s plan any love.

Four months later, Roosevelt would try again. In his Labor Day message, FDR repeated his $25,000 “supertax” income cap call. Again Congress ignored him.

FDR would not back down. In early October, the President flexed his authority under the newly enacted Emergency Price Control Act and issued an executive order that limited top corporate salaries to $25,000 after taxes, a move, he pronounced, needed “to correct gross inequities and to provide for greater equality in contributing to the war effort.”

America’s wealthiest, New Dealers explained afterwards to the press, “should be willing to get along on more than $2,000 a month while marines endure tortures on Guadalcanal Island for $60 a month and room and board.”

FDR’s executive order would infuriate conservatives. They saw red, literally. The “only logical stopping place for this movement,” fumed Princeton economist Harley Lutz, would be “a completely communistic equalization of incomes.” FDR’s salary cap, roared New Bedford publisher Basil Brewer, just might “lose the war.”

In Congress, meanwhile, lawmakers vowed to kill FDR’s executive order by any legislative means necessary. Roosevelt, in response, simply kept pushing. In January 1943, he reminded Congress that “the receipt of very large net incomes from any source constitutes a gross inequity undermining national unity” and asked lawmakers to make taxes on America’s highest incomes “fully effective.”

Roosevelt also asked Congress, in his 1943 budget message, to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Conservatives indicated they would — if the ceiling bill included a rider that repealed the President’s $25,000 salary cap executive order.

Lawmakers would not go along with a debt ceiling hike, California Republican Bertrand Gearhart told reporters, until FDR's “thoroughly un-American” salary cap, “fraught with such disaster to the Republic, is wiped from the books.”

At this point, no “realistic” observer could have faulted FDR if he simply threw in the towel. The 1942 mid-term elections the previous November, after all, had significantly strengthened the congressional conservative camp, in large part because millions of New Deal voters — soldiers overseas and workers who had migrated far from home for wartime factory work — couldn’t vote.

But FDR threw in nothing. To reporters and Congress, he reiterated his support for the $25,000 salary cap. Of course, the President added, he would “rescind” his cap in an instant if Congress passed legislation that limited all individual after-tax income, not just salary, to $25,000.

And if Congress couldn’t see fit to go that far, the President helpfully suggested, he hoped lawmakers would enact “steeply graduated rates” that brought taxes on top-bracket income up to the 90 percent neighborhood.

Eventually, both the House and Senate would pass the debt ceiling bill — with the salary cap repeal rider attached. Most Democrats went along, noting, as Senator Alben Barkley put it, “the importance of increasing the debt limit.”

Roosevelt well understood that importance, too. He would let the higher debt ceiling bill become law, without his signature. But FDR quickly signaled no surrender in his continuing battle to make sure that “not a single war millionaire will be created in this country as a result of the war disaster.”

Congress, Roosevelt pointed out, “had authorized the drafting of men into the armed forces at $600 a year regardless of what they had earned in civilian life,” but, with the salary cap repeal, had “refused to reduce the salary of a man not drafted no matter how high his income might be.”

The President, to be sure, had definitely lost the debt ceiling battle over his executive salary cap, as he no doubt knew he would. But sometimes a President can win by “losing.” FDR did not prevail on the salary cap. He did prevail in his far broader struggle to shape the wartime finance debate.

Roosevelt's relentless campaign to cap top incomes kept that debate focused on taxing the rich. Conservatives didn’t want to do that taxing. They wanted a national sales tax instead, as do many conservatives today. But FDR’s aggressive advocacy for equity never let that regressive sales tax notion get traction.

The war revenue debate would be fought on Roosevelt's terms — not on whether to tax the rich, but on how much. And, in the end, that “how much” would turn out to be quite a great deal. By the war's end, America’s wealthy would be paying taxes on income over $200,000 at a 94 percent statutory rate.

Americans making over $250,000 in 1944 — over $3.2 million today — paid 69 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find. In 2007, by contrast, America’s 400 highest earners paid just 18.1 percent of their total incomes, after loopholes, in federal tax.

None of the debt ceiling “deals” that House and Senate leaders advanced last week asked any of these top 400 — or any other rich Americans — to pay a penny more in taxes than they do now. In the 2011 debt ceiling struggle, inequality has clearly triumphed.

So what ought we learn, amid this triumph for greed, from FDR’s debt ceiling battle? Maybe this: We really can have a more equal America. We just need to fight for it.

Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality published by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies. Read the current issue or sign up at Inequality.Org to receive Too Much in your email inbox.

The People's Budget Balances The Budget -- Why Isn't It Part Of These "Deficit" Talks?

Dave Johnson — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:14:55 -0400

The Congress is fighting over how to cut the 10-year deficit, and this fight is at the edge of putting the country into default. The thing is, all of the things that polls show the public wants our government to do are off the table in these discussions. The public is not stupid -- the very things the public wants our government to do will actually get rid of the deficit and grow the economy. There is a budget plan before Congress that does just what the public wants our government to do. It's called The People's Budget.

Why isn't The People's Budget part of the deficit discussions in Washington? The answer is because it doesn't give huge favors to Wall Street, multinational corporations or the wealthy. It just helps We, the People have a better life, while growing our economy so our smaller businesses and startups can have a chance to compete.

The People's Budget

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has offered The People's Budget -- a responsible budget that does not just cut the deficit, it eliminates the deficit, balancing the budget and begins to pay down the debt. And it does this while investing in the very things that we need to do to grow our economy, without cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

How does The People's Budget accomplish this? It look at the things that caused the deficits, and reverses them. What a surprise! Before we started having these huge budget deficits taxes were higher on the wealthy, the military budget was much lower, and we invested in the things that grow the economy, including infrastructure, education and science. Then we cut taxes dramatically for the wealthy, and everything started to go haywire.

The People's Budget creates a fairer tax system, but without putting rates back to where they were before Reagan. It:

Ends the recently passed upper-income tax cuts and lets Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012
Extends tax credits for the middle class, families, and students
Creates new tax brackets that range from 45% starting at $1 million to 49% for $1 billion or more
Implements a progressive estate tax
Eliminates corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies; closes loopholes for multinational corporations
Enacts a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange

The Bottom Line

The People's Budget:

Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
Spending cuts of $1.7 trillion
Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
Public investment $1.7 trillion

Isn't this exactly what both sides in DC say they want?

Congress Should Wake Up. We Have a Jobs Crisis, Not a Debt Crisis.

Robert Borosage — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:11:26 -0400

Get out the togas; Congress is fiddling while Rome burns.

As the grim economic numbers show, this economy is barely moving, crippled by government cutbacks that once more cost jobs. 25 million people are in need of full time work, a number that is growing as the economy is failing to generate enough jobs even to employ those coming into the labor market for the first time.

And while this is happening, conservatives in Washington are intent on exacting even more cruelty on the vulnerable. It is simply beyond shame that Tea Party Republicans suggest that the Boehner plan isn’t harsh enough, demanding that deep cuts in Pell Grants that allow deserving low income children a chance to afford college. The notion that Pell grants that help low income kids go to college is a way to sweeten legislation to make it more attractive to right wing extremists is unspeakable. The Tea Party right in Congress offends not only the majority of Americans, but the majority of their own supporters.

Every plan before Congress will make the economy worse. Every plan tramples the priorities of the vast majorities of Americans.

This week, hundreds of Americans crowded into, phoned or emailed Congressional offices at home and in Washington to make their displeasure known. We need to keep the pressure on and continue to demand that Congress listen to the vast majority of Americans, who want Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid protected, and millionaires and billionaires and corporations to pay their fair share.

We will continue to build a movement to defend an American dream that is increasingly being shattered by corrupted policy and perverted values.

Saturday Morning Civics Lesson For The Tea Party

Terrance Heath — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:54:31 -0400

I didn't think it was possible, but I found something more pathetic than John Boehner scrambling for GOP support for his debt limit bill, only to end up postponing the vote indefinitely. More pathetic even than Boehner telling is caucus to "get their asses in line" and vote for his bill, only to tell his caucus the next day to "get their asses in line" for a big kiss — if it'll get them to vote for his bill.

What could be more pathetic? They may have brought Boehner to his knees, but the tea partiers literally don't know what they're doing in the legislative process.

Of course, this is nothing new. Ignorance of how bills become laws — or that the constitution establishes a legislative body and a legislative process for all that stuff the constitution doesn't specifically mention — goes all the way up to what passes for tea party leadership.

And usually I end explaining what I thought we all learned in our eighth grade civics classes, if not over our Saturday morning cereal. Article I of the constitution establishes Congress as a legislative body, and in Section 7 lays out the process by which legislation passes both houses of Congress, makes its way to the president’s desk, and … Well, you know how it ends if you saw that first video.

Until we can get middle school civics teachers to storm Capitol Hill en masse, can we at least ask anyone in a congressional office who shares a hallway with a tea partier to walk over with a laptop or smartphone and show them this video?

It might help if you take over a bowl of breakfast cereal for them to eat while they watch it. At least, that's how I remember learning it.

Resistance Against The Dream Killers: Hundreds At Capitol Rally

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:12:12 -0400

As House Speaker John Boehner today was busy getting his "asses" in line behind a horrific piece of budget legislation that would kill jobs and heighten the economic insecurity of millions of Americans, several hundred demonstrators gathered at the U.S. Capitol to demand an end to the right-wing obstinacy in the debt ceiling talks.

Speakers, who ranged from an unemployed military veteran to members of Congress, had a consistent message: We do not stand for balancing the federal budget on the backs of seniors, youth and low-income people, while millionaires and billionaires are not asked to sacrifice anything.

"I am continually shocked at how little politicians seem to care about how regular people like me are doing," said Tiffany Mellers, who has three children and remains unemployed a year after serving a tour of duty as an Army reservist in Iraq. "This can't go on any longer. Struggling Americans like me are in every corner of the country and in every single congressional district and we are are finally saying, 'Enough is enough.'

"Instead of balancing the budget on our backs, we are demanding our politicians come up with economic solutions that work for the middle class."

The rally was organized in roughly 24 hours by the Rebuild the Dream organization, working with MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and several labor organizations. As the rally was being held, Boehner was struggling to get enough Republican votes to pass a proposal that would demand $900 billion in budget cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling of just a few months. The bill would force another request by the White House to increase the debt ceiling again, in the heat of the 2012 election campaign, presumably to set up partisan attacks over the debt ceiling increase on the campaign trail.

But as Sarita Gupta, the executive director of Jobs With Justice, pointed out at the rally, "At the root of what Congress is debating is not the debt ceiling or the national deficit. The root of the debate is whether the role of our government is to serve and protect working people, or is the role of our government to make it easier for corporations and Wall Street and the ultra rich to make swelling profits on the backs of our communities."

Gupta called on Congress to "save Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security; don't default; and send Wall Street the bill for the nation's deficit."

Gupta shared the story of Mary, "a wonderful elderly woman, who sat there and told me that she had to go back to work at Walmart after being retired, after having a full career, because all of her retirement benefits were on the chopping block. That's just wrong. We shouldn't have people who have been on retirement come off of retirement and go back to work because of the state of our economy."

"I'm going to tell you about a dream I have," said Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md. "I have a dream of an America that looks out for and protects our senior citizens. I have a dream of an America that looks out for our young people and says that every young person should have the ability to match their opportunity with their capacity. I believe in an America in which people get up in the morning and can go to a good job that pays them a good salary that provides benefits and that looks out for them in the long term and enables them to take care of themselves and their children."

She closed by saying, "We cannot allow America to default on its obligations, while we say to our Social Security recipients, women, our seniors, those who are on disabilities, children who have lost their parents, veterans, we are going to reach into your pocket instead of reaching into the deep pockets of those who have gotten away with everything. That's not our America. That is not our dream."

"This is a people's movement," said Van Jones, the organizer of the Rebuild the Dream movement. "If you love America, and you like the Tea Party, you join them. But if you love America, and you detest the kind of stuff that the Tea Party is doing, join us. If you love America, and you believe in America the beautiful, and you want to be with people who are defending that beauty from the clearcutters, and the oil spillers, and the mountaintop removers, you should join the American Dream movement ... If you believe that we are one country, if you believe in e pluribus unum, if you believe that the worst thing that you can do to country that is as big and beautiful and diverse as America is to divide it against itself, if you believe that in a crisis Americans should turn to each other and not on each other, join the Aerican Dream movement."

The next action in the effort to resist the dream killers will take place Friday. There will be "rapid-response rallies" at targeted Senate offices around the country. The message continues to be a demand that conservatives in Congress stop holding our economy hostage in order to protect tax breaks for millionaires and corporations, and urge Congress not to make a debt deal that cuts Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. To get more information, visit this event site set up by MoveOn.org.

Thursday Call To Action: Resist The Dream-Killers On The Capitol Steps

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:57:38 -0400

The clock is ticking toward a likely economic Armageddon, and House Speaker John Boehner is wasting time trying to score political points rather than address the need to raise the nation's debt ceiling and work toward a balanced solution to the nation's long-term debt problem.

On Thursday, the resistance that we saw Tuesday with thousands gathering outside congressional offices in almost every congressional district in the country must make itself felt on the east steps of the Capitol.

RALLY AT THE U.S. CAPITOL
DON'T DESTROY THE AMERICAN DREAM!

East side steps of the Capitol Building
First Street NE, Washington, D.C.
12 noon, Thursday, July 28

MoveOn, the major labor unions and several progressive organizations, including Campaign for America's Future, are urging their members to gather at the Capitol at noon Thursday. That happens to be the day that the House will vote on Boehner's reckless, and ultimately pointless, scheme to avoid compromise on raising the debt ceiling.

The legislation that Boehner is putting to a vote forces devastating cuts on programs that low-income and middle-class people depend on for economic security, but it asks nothing of the millionaires and billionaires who are prospering in spite of today's financial crisis. But even worse, it deliberately forces the nation through another potentially debilitating debt crisis in a matter of months, just to give Republicans another chance to play it for cheap political points in the midst of a presidential election campaign.

This is what I call dream-killing legislation. It would mortally wound dozens of programs that help low-income people get back on their feet, from nutrition assistance ("food stamps") to job training. It would make it impossible to make many of the improvements we need to make today in our transportation systems, thus foreclosing the possibility of creating hundreds of thousands of additional jobs that would lay the foundation for future economic growth and competitiveness. It would mean less invested in education, with the effects ranging from larger kindergarten classes to college students graduating with higher levels of debt. And, of course, it would set the stage for reduced Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, leaving seniors, the disabled and the poor more sick and increasingly impoverished.

The message to Congress is simple: Don't destroy the American dream. Fundamental to that dream is the principle that everyone pays their fair share toward supporting the general welfare of the nation. The proposal being pushed by the House Republican leadership violates that principle. It holds the richest Americans and largest corporations exempt from sacrifice, while it tells a college student to look forward to higher debt payments on their tuition, a single working mother to expect less help for her child, a 55-year-old blue-collar worker to work a year or two longer on a physically taxing job before receiving retirement benefits that by design would force him or her deeper into poverty over time.

This legislation is a travesty in its own right, but its consideration rises to the level of criminality in the context of a debt-ceiling deadline that on Thursday would be five days away. Even if Boehner succeeds in getting this monstrosity through the House—which is in some doubt because many of the Tea Party members in the House believe the budget cuts in this proposal are not harsh enough—it is clear to everyone, including Boehner, that the bill will not pass the Senate and would not be signed by President Obama.

So what is the point beside a fundamental disdain for the American Majority, which has clearly said in poll after poll that it wants the debt ceiling raised, and the budget deficit addressed, based on principles of shared sacrifice, and not based on harming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries?

The good news is that average Americans are showing that they are not going to passively accept the hostage-taking efforts of the extremist conservative, Tea Party politicians, who are acting as willful agents of corporations unwilling to play by the rules and the greedy who can't be bothered to pay their fair share toward addressing the nation's long-term fiscal problems.

Within minutes after President Obama on Monday night told the nation to call their members of Congress and tell them that they supported a balanced approach toward addressing the budget deficit, congressional web sites and phone lines crashed under the load.

On less than 24 hours notice, on Tuesday an estimated 20,000 people showed up at congressional offices all over the country, with hand-made signs and a simple message: Don't kill our dream. Focus instead on putting our unemployed neighbors back to work and rebuilding the middle class, and stop pushing policies that will increase the economic insecurity of our elderly and those who are financially struggling.

Thursday is another I'm-mad-as-hell-and-I-am-not-taking-it-anymore moment. The my-way-or-the-economy-dies Tea Party Republicans need to see that just as there was a wave of anger that washed them into office, there is a wave of righteous anger that can wash them out if they persist in being obstacles to a sensible compromise to our budget and debt problems. Likewise, lawmakers who stand with the middle class and are prepared to be defenders of the American Dream will know that thousands of people on the Capitol steps, and the millions more they represent, have their back.

Let's stand against the dream killers Thursday at noon on the East side of the Capitol.

Even if you can't make it to D.C., you can still take action by emailing your members of Congress to demand a clean, unconditional increase in the debt limit. Take action now »

This Is Our Moment

Keith Ellison — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:07:15 -0400

Rep. Keith Ellison is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and will be a featured speaker at the Take Back the American Dream conference, being held in Washington, DC from October 3 to 5. The following originally appeared at The Huffington Post.

America has an historic opportunity. We have the chance to address our budget deficit in a manner not seen since President Bill Clinton created a budget surplus in 1999. And if we do it right, we could pave the way for a vibrant American economy based not on gimmicks like giveaways for special interests, but on job creation for working Americans. As co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, I urge us to avoid a default on the faith and credit of the United States while protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

At every step of the way, Republicans in Washington have blocked a fair plan. The American people are demanding that our government resolves deficits while maintaining our promises to the middle class. Yet, an uncompromising political faction is stonewalling and ignoring the clarion call of this historic moment.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus stands with the American people. Long before Republicans took our economy hostage, we introduced the People's Budget, the most fiscally responsible deficit plan introduced this year. The People's Budget would eliminate the deficit in 10 years. Economists across the political spectrum have called it courageous and responsible. Introducing this budget was one of my proudest moments as a Member of Congress, because it shows the power of Progressive policies and values. Creating an economy that reduces deficits and creates jobs is a progressive value, not just a slogan as it is for the Tea Party.

As the People's Budget has proposed, and the president has affirmed, our solution must reflect the same values that have motivated us historically. We believe in a fiscally healthy America because it leads to an economically healthy America. A balanced budget is critical precisely because it allows us to maintain the services that the middle class depends on. Any deficit deal that takes money away from seniors and American workers who rely on Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid undermines the original goal of deficit reduction. Any deficit deal that cuts food stamps but pampers the wealthy is not only bad for the most vulnerable Americans, but damages our fiscal health.

Progressive economic policies lead to a sustainable economy. Americans understand this and history confirms it. Progressive policies implemented since the early 1900s launched America into the modern age and created a vibrant, middle class. Yet, for 10 years, Republicans have given more money to special interests, while the middle class has footed the bill. They passed the biggest tax cut ever for millionaires and billionaires, without paying for a dime of it. They passed a giveaway to the pharmaceutical lobbyists that will cost $1 trillion over 10 years. And it was George W. Bush, not President Obama, who ran roughshod into two unfunded wars, which alone are estimated to have cost us $4 trillion, more than 20% of the deficit.

The stakes are too high now. Republicans have taken us to the brink of default, and it is already hurting our economy. If we do default, the pain our middle class feels would be even worse. Retirement investments would be threatened by plummeting stock prices; higher interest rates would make it more expensive for Americans to pay off credit bills; and the unemployment rate would skyrocket in the face of decreased consumer spending. House Speaker John Boehner's proposal is less a good-faith effort to avoid a default than an appeal to a narrow sliver of his political base. As Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote yesterday, "[Boehner's plan] could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history." Most worrisome of all, it wastes our opportunity for a long-term solution and stalls progress for another six months. Credit agencies have already hinted Boehner's plan would not convince them that America is able to pay its bills.

Progressives know this is America's moment to lead. The deadline is upon us -- but so is the opportunity.

Grassroots Resistance Against The Dream-Killers

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:15:13 -0400

Thousands of citizens fanned out to congressional offices across the country this afternoon to tell their members of Congress to not pay the ransom being demanded by congressional conservatives—deep cuts in economic security programs for seniors, the sick and the economically struggling while protecting the tax breaks of millionaires and billionaires—in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

They were responding to Monday's call by MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream, Campaign for America's Future and other organizations for progressives to flood congressional offices with phone calls and emails on Monday and to show up in front of congressional district offices at noon today.

"I stand behind Obama and do not support cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. COMPROMISE," a person identified as LeaSpiritLove wrote to us on Twitter while heading to the office of Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa. Twelve people showed up in from of Rep. Altmire's office in response to the call for mini-demonstrations, LeaSpiritLove reported, using the hashtag #saveamericandream.

The head of Rebuild the Dream, Van Jones, captured the basic message of the actions in a media statement released earlier today. "The folks in Washington should not force seniors, the middle class and the poor to bear the burden in a debt deal just so millionaires and corporations don't have to pay a dime more in taxes," he said. "We need a balanced approach to our budget problems and there's nothing balanced about gutting Social Security and Medicare in the midst of an economic crisis."

Some first-term Republican House members who rode the Tea Party wave into office saw some of the biggest turnouts in front of their offices. Thirty people showed up at the office of Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark. A similar-sized crowd showed up at the office of freshman Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., with signs saying, "Where are the Jobs”, “Save Social Security” and “Preserve Medicare.” A rally at the office of freshman Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., featured a woman identified only as Rachel whose story was transmitted via Twitter: "no #HC [health care] used all savings, mortgaged -multi health problems ... I used to be middle class. I cannot pay for medicine now."

CAF senior fellow Dave Johnson was among the more than 40 people who showed up in front of the office of Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. A group that called themselves the Raging Grannies sang protest songs set to familiar melodies, such as a song set to the tune of "Frere Jacques" with the refrain "Don't Throw Grandma Under the Bus."

In Nashua, N.H., a group of protestors held their signs in sight of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who was lunching at a restaurant with his wife, according to one report collected by Rebuild the Dream staff.

The plan to encourage people to stage these impromptu demonstrations at congressional offices was conceived by a group of activists over the weekend, with emails going out Sunday afternoon and Monday. The effort appears to have been boosted by President Obama's statement in his address Monday night that people should contact their members of Congress and let them know they support a balanced approach to deficit reduction, not the slash, crush and topple approach being demanded by House Republicans. As a result, there were widespread reports of crashed websites and jammed phones on Capitol Hill.

"Due to overwhelming volume, my website has been down all morning," reported Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., on Twitter.

The fact that groups of anywhere from a dozen to more than 50 people would show up in front of their congressional district offices in the middle of a Tuesday, with as little as a day's notice, speaks to the support for a balanced deficit plan that asks millionaires and billionaires to do their part and does not put the entire burden of addressing the nation's debt on the middle class and the economically struggling. Conservatives who claim they are pursuing their agenda on behalf of "the American people" were shown once again today that they are out of step what what the American majority is demanding of Washington.

It is now up to Congress and the Obama administration to heed today's oft-tweeted message: "Raise the debt ceiling. No conditions. Save the American dream."