This deal stinks but the media can't wait to celebrate a deal no matter how wrong headed the provisions or who has to pay for it. This is a more critical look at what it wrong with this deal ironed out by the two corporate parties and their respective Representatives in the Nation's Capital
5 Things Terribly Wrong With the Ryan-Murray Budget Deal
Every assumption of the deal is wrong-headed.
By Robert Borosage
December 11, 2013 |
The Beltway breathed a huge sigh of relief with the announcement of the budget deal cobbled together by Senator Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan. It is the deal, not the substance, that is being applauded. If it overcomes opposition from a hostile right and largely resigned liberals, it could provide a two-year truce from the budget wars, hostage taking, and threatened government shutdowns. But business as usual is hardly a virtue when that business isn’t addressing what needs to be done.
And that is the reality of this misdeal. It keeps government open (at least until March when the borrowing authority is exhausted and another debt ceiling crisis looms), but it punts on any of the pressing challenges this country faces, a failure that only adds to the hole we are in.
Every assumption of the deal is wrong-headed.
1. It assumes that deficits are still America’s fundamental problem. Wrong. Our fundamental problem is that Americans are struggling to find decent work. We are halfway into a lost decade marked by mass unemployment, stagnant wages, rising inequality, growing insecurity and a sinking middle class. As President Obama stated in his address on inequality: “A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.”
This deal says that for two years, the federal government will do nothing to address that opportunity deficit.
2. The deal refuses to repeal the mindless sequester cuts that were designed to be abhorrent. Instead it “pays for” alleviating less than half of them over the next two years. And it insists that the relief be allocated equally between a bloated Pentagon, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and threadbare vital domestic programs like infant nutrition, support for schools, clean energy R&D.
The rest of the list is here: http://www.alternet.org/5-things-terribly-wrong-ryan-murray-budget-deal
5 Things Terribly Wrong With the Ryan-Murray Budget Deal
Every assumption of the deal is wrong-headed.
By Robert Borosage
December 11, 2013 |
The Beltway breathed a huge sigh of relief with the announcement of the budget deal cobbled together by Senator Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan. It is the deal, not the substance, that is being applauded. If it overcomes opposition from a hostile right and largely resigned liberals, it could provide a two-year truce from the budget wars, hostage taking, and threatened government shutdowns. But business as usual is hardly a virtue when that business isn’t addressing what needs to be done.
And that is the reality of this misdeal. It keeps government open (at least until March when the borrowing authority is exhausted and another debt ceiling crisis looms), but it punts on any of the pressing challenges this country faces, a failure that only adds to the hole we are in.
Every assumption of the deal is wrong-headed.
1. It assumes that deficits are still America’s fundamental problem. Wrong. Our fundamental problem is that Americans are struggling to find decent work. We are halfway into a lost decade marked by mass unemployment, stagnant wages, rising inequality, growing insecurity and a sinking middle class. As President Obama stated in his address on inequality: “A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.”
This deal says that for two years, the federal government will do nothing to address that opportunity deficit.
2. The deal refuses to repeal the mindless sequester cuts that were designed to be abhorrent. Instead it “pays for” alleviating less than half of them over the next two years. And it insists that the relief be allocated equally between a bloated Pentagon, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, and threadbare vital domestic programs like infant nutrition, support for schools, clean energy R&D.
The rest of the list is here: http://www.alternet.org/5-things-terribly-wrong-ryan-murray-budget-deal
