Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (309356)	11/6/2006 7:34:25 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1575596

Congressional Black Caucus fights Clinton-GOP budget cuts by Fred Gaboury pww.org ( You're just WRONG. You have NO LINKS that support your lie. ) This article was reprinted from the May 24, 1997 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits. NEW YORK - Defenders of Medicare and other benefit programs kept the House of Representatives in session until the wee hours of Wednesday morning in an effort to defeat a budget deal between the White House and the GOP leaders that cuts entitlement programs in order to finance $250 billion in tax breaks for the rich. The House budget resolution, which closely follows the behind-closed-doors deal worked by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Speaker Newt Gingrich on May 2, sets the broad outlines for tax and spending legislation for Fiscal Year '98 which begins Oct. 1. The budget deal was approved by a 333-99 bipartisan majority after the House voted 358-72 to reject an alternative budget submitted by the Congressional Black Caucus. Several other amendments to he budget resolution were also defeated. The CBC budget, offered as a substitute by caucus chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), would have restored $89.5 billion of the Medicare cuts and added nearly $100 billion to discretionary spending above what President Clinton requested in his proposed budget of last February. The Black Caucus budget, worked out under the leadership of Mississippi Congressman Bennie G. Thompson, would cut out more than $185 billion in corporate welfare and slash the military budget by nearly $190 billion over the next five years. Speakers supporting the CBC alternative pointed out that it included $20.6 billion in welfare "addbacks" as well as $12.5 billion to restore SSI, Medicaid and Food Stamp programs. In the wind-up speech in support of the CBC budget, Rep. Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.) called upon the House to look beyond "security" in purely military terms. In arguing for major cuts in military spending, Dellums said, "Indeed, a strategy that ignores the contributions to national security" made by investments in education and science research and development "is not a comprehensive strategy - and therefore is one that is bound to fail." At press time, a companion resolution was under consideration in the Senate. Once House and Senate versions are reconciled by both houses, 13 appropriations sub committees in the House will set actual spending limits which will then be incorporated in the Fiscal '98 Budget. Final action will come later this fall. In a statement released on May 21, Rep. Bernie Sanders, (I- Vt.), said the budget was "simply not fair. At a time when the distribution of income and wealth has been growing more unequal ... This budget provides huge tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans while cutting Medicare and other programs of importance to working people." Max Sawicky, an analyst for the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, said the House had passed a "good-for- nothing budget" that is a "boon to the wealthy but not the economy." When reached his office following the House vote, Zawicky said the House budget resolution sacrificed working people in order to "increase the current incomes of wealthy Americans, maintain excessive military spending and reduce deficits in the near term only to increase them in the long term." EPI estimates show that under the House budget the country will continue to slight investment in infrastructure, research and development and education and training. Spending for these programs in 1998 will, in all probability, be below 1.6 percent of GDP. "In contrast," Zawicky said, "such spending was as much as 1.9 percent of GDP in the Bush administration and 2.5 percent when Ronald Reagan was president. Merely returning to the Reagan-era level would require more than an additional $60 billion annually." Zawicky criticized the tax cuts in the resolution, saying that cuts in the capital gains tax, which are the centerpiece of the GOP tax proposals, "serve no productive economic purpose." Pointing to the fact that after-tax profits are the highest in 40 years., EPI says if this rate doesn't provide an incentive for investment, it is difficult to see how a capital gains tax cut "could have a positive impact." Studies show that as recently as 1992 only 30 percent of households owned at least $2,000 of stock and that three quarters of all stock owned by individuals is held by households with annual incomes of $100,000 or more. Chris Hellman, a researcher at the Center for Defense Information, said the center sees no reason to maintain military spending at near Cold War levels. "We've been doing a lot of thinking on this and see no threat to justify even a small increase in military spending." CDI studies show that if U.S. military spending were cut from the present $265 billion annually to $200 billion, "we would still be out spending Russia by a factor of four. If you ranked the top ten nations according to military spending, the United States would top the list and its spending would be greater than the total of the next nine." At its May 7 meeting the AFL-CIO Executive Council described the May 2 budget deal as a an agreement that "rewards upper-income tax-payers at a time when they need it least." The AFL-CIO statement added that "tax cuts for those who benefited from the boom ... took priority over the needs of working families."