Senate "Gang Bangers" - Millionaires All - Set to Gore Workers in Debt Deal
About the not-so-grand "compromise"
Gangs are bad, m'kay? Except in the United States Senate, where they get to determine the future (un)happiness of the American people.
The self-titled "Gang of Six" has put forth a compromise (read: total capitulation) to raise the nation's debt ceiling in exchange for only spending cuts (to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, slash federal unemployment benefits and critical investments in public health, transportation, and innovation) and no new revenues.
In other words, working families and retirees are once again being told to sacrifice their retirement, their health care, and their future prosperity so major corporations and rich people can pay less...
AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka is having none of it:
Both parties keep telling us that deficit reduction requires "tough choices" and "shared sacrifice" and "taking on sacred cows." But then we keep seeing bipartisan support for plans like the so-called "Gang of Six" that cut Social Security benefits, kill jobs, give tax incentives for corporations to export good jobs overseas, tax health benefits, and lower tax rates for billionaires and corporations.
There's no shared sacrifice here. The only sacred cows being gored are working people, the middle class, seniors and the poor. Though the plan is very specific when it comes to spelling out tax cuts for rich people, there are still a lot of blanks to be filled in. Even so, we've seen enough to know that there is nothing here for working people.
We need to keep asking our leaders: "Who got us into this mess?" It wasn't working people. The people who got us into this mess are getting off scot-free, and this Gang of Six proposal shows they have accomplices in both parties.
Ganging up on the poor to give to the rich
According to analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies, 100% of the deficit reduction in the debt deal would come from social programs. But wait, there's more bad news about this debt deal in the latest Institute Index:
Amount by which the plan cuts Medicare, the health care program for seniors, over a decade: at least $298 billion
Amount by which it would cut military benefit programs, such as health plans for soldiers and veterans: $80 billion
Portion of the immediate deficit reduction savings outlined in the proposal that would come from reducing Social Security benefits: 1/5
Under the plan, amount less per year the average Social Security recipient would receive at age 75: $560
At age 85: $1,000Current top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations: 35%
Lowest rate to which that would be reduced by the Gang of Six proposal: 23%
Estimated amount in profits being held offshore by U.S. companies, which under the plan would see an end to taxation of most of their overseas profits: $1 trillion
Amount by which the Gang of Six plan claims to reduce deficits over the next decade: almost $4 trillion
Amount by which the plan would actually reduce revenue by 2021, compared to the Congressional Budget Office's current law baseline: $1.5 trillion
Number of weeks left to reach a deal before the U.S. could begin to default on its debt obligations: less than 2