Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Thom Hartmann: Video: The Progressive Budget vs. The Paul Ryan Budget



This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

I wish I knew how many members would have actually voted for the so-called House Progressive Caucus budget.  I actually posed that question that on Google+ and Twitter.  You can see for yourself, if you have absolutely nothing else to do, if you've tired of watching  paint dry.  I can tell you how many people voted for the official House Democratic budget, the Van Hollen/Pelosi budget, 160 Democrats.

If you want to get an idea about the Progressive Caucus, think Green Party and the Democratic Socialist Party.  Look, I'm sure that there are some actual Progressives in the group, at least two, maybe more.  Most members of this caucus  are Democrats in name only because that is the way they can get elected in American politics, outside of getting elected statewide for governor or U.S. Senate.  They come from the furthest left districts in the country that have been gerrymandered so that they can be elected and reelected.

To be honest with you, I haven't actually read the CPC budget.  The CPC is made up of the most left Representatives and a few Senators in Congress.  If it is anything like the 2011 CPC budget that repealed all of the Bush tax cuts, included a fifty-percent tax hike on the middle class, and got something like forty votes in the House, then this budget never had the Chicago Cubs chance of winning the World Series of ever passing.  Most Congressional Democrats are smart enough not to vote for middle class tax hikes in an election year.

There has to be some choice between the Paul Ryan/Ayn Rand plan that balances the budget by having middle class seniors pay more for Medicare and guts public assistance to people who have to have it in order to survive and the Progressive Caucus/Socialist plan which turns almost everything in the country over to the Federal Government and lets the Feds run our lives for us.  Some choice to give voters and why neither of them will ever become law.