Every penny of this plan must go to a job -- not to a tax incentive in the hopes that somebody creates a job. This two-year jobs program will help get the economy up and running again while investing in critical areas of our nation’s infrastructure. The New York Times said in an Editorial this week that this plan is an idea worth fighting for.
Jan's blog
Support the Jobs Agenda
I will be introducing a bill, The Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, to put over 2 million people to work. Economists estimate a 1.3 percent reduction in unemployment. It costs $227 billion dollars for 2 years and can be paid for by requiring millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share as in my Fairness in Taxation Act.
Every penny of this plan must go to a job -- not to a tax incentive in the hopes that somebody creates a job. This two-year jobs program will help get the economy up and running again while investing in critical areas of our nation’s infrastructure. The New York Times said in an Editorial this week that this plan is an idea worth fighting for.
Every penny of this plan must go to a job -- not to a tax incentive in the hopes that somebody creates a job. This two-year jobs program will help get the economy up and running again while investing in critical areas of our nation’s infrastructure. The New York Times said in an Editorial this week that this plan is an idea worth fighting for.
The Debt Ceiling Vote
Although I’ve voted in the past to raise the debt ceiling, I could not vote for this deal that asks for #1 trillion dollars worth of sacrifice from students, seniors and the poor while millionaires and billionaires are asked to sacrifice nothing.
The Republicans in Congress and the radical Tea Party members held hostage the full faith and credit of the United States. They wanted to create a crisis to claim their ransom, cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to the clean Water and Clean Air Acts.
Even the bi-partisan deficit reduction committee, whose final recommendations I did not agree with warned against deep cuts during a lagging economy. This bill could increase unemployment, slow economic growth and deepen already historic income inequality.
We need to stop wasting time on ideological crusades and address the real crises in America: the jobs crisis, the foreclosure crisis, an income inequality crisis, and the disappearing middle class.
I’m going to keep fighting in Washington, to make sure were doing what we can in Congress to make job creation a top priority, to protect our seniors from cuts, and to make sure that all Americans pay their fair share.
The Fairness in Taxation Act
We have a growing crisis of income inequality in this country. We are at levels of income disparity that we have not seen since right before the Great Depression, in 1928. Over the last 30 years, the failed GOP policies of Reaganomics and weakening regulation has led to a situation where the middle class has shrunk and the richest 1% own 34% of our nation’s wealth - - that’s more than the bottom 90% of American who own 29 percent.
Now the Republicans -- the same ones who squandered the surplus by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and engineered the policies that allowed Wall Street to drive our economy off the cliff, -- are demanding sacrifice from the middle and low-income earners.
The Republicans want to slash the bedrock safety net programs by promoting deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and, Medicaid, and other vital domestic spending programs. Not only would these cuts punish those who have suffered the worst under the failed GOP policies, they would put an additional 600,000 to 800,000 people out of work. Despite GOP cries for austerity and fiscal restraint, they continue to defend corporate subsidies like tax breaks for oil companies and more tax breaks for the wealthiest.
A Frightening "Roadmap" for America in the Republican Rebuttal to the State of the Union
If part of you clings to that vision of an America where opportunity for all is possible or if you believe that it's time to take the somewhat tarnished American Dream out of cold storage, then be prepared to be deeply disappointed -- frightened even -- by Republican Representative Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's State of the Union Address. Ryan is the newly crowned Chairman of the House Budget Committee who was given control over how the House of Representatives allocates funding. His Republican colleagues voted in January to give him unilateral, unprecedented authority to set spending limits for everything from defense to education.
Stop The Repeal!
I hope you join me in signing this petition to stop GOP efforts to repeal President Obama's landmark Health Care Reform law that was passed last year.
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
This online petition was started by John Atkinson and his wife, who live in the Chicago area, whose lives were greatly impacted by the high cost of health care. John has set a goal of delivering 20,000 signatures to John Boehner's office next week, I'm sure we can help him reach his goal.
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
Sign this petition and share it with your friends, we need to send a strong message to the GOP leadership that we don't want to move backward!
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
This online petition was started by John Atkinson and his wife, who live in the Chicago area, whose lives were greatly impacted by the high cost of health care. John has set a goal of delivering 20,000 signatures to John Boehner's office next week, I'm sure we can help him reach his goal.
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
Sign this petition and share it with your friends, we need to send a strong message to the GOP leadership that we don't want to move backward!
http://stophealthcarerepeal.com/
Why I Voted Against the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Reduction Plan
While I cannot support the Simpson-Bowles plan, I thank the co-chairmen for their dedication to our difficult task over the last eight months, and I agree with them that the work was constructive despite our inability to get fourteen votes.
I offered my own plan to achieve the goal outlined by the President to achieve primary budget balance by 2015 with one very different assumption. I believe that we can do it without further eroding the middle class in America.
It pays to remember that just 10 years ago we had a budget surplus and the debt was rapidly decreasing. During the Bush years, those surpluses disappeared and huge debt accumulated due to two unfunded wars, two unfunded tax cuts that mainly enriched the already wealthy, and a blind eye to the recklessness of Wall Street which caused 8 million Americans to lose their jobs and millions more to lose their savings, the value of their homes and the homes themselves.
Now we are on an "unsustainable fiscal path," to quote the report, which threatens our future economic viability. But there is another grave threat to both our economy and our democracy, and that is the alarming redistribution of wealth that is shrinking the middle class. The top 1% of Americans now owns 34% of our nation's wealth - more than the combined wealth of 90% of Americans. Even during this great recession, the top 5% of households have seen their income rise. Just this week, two million Americans lost their unemployment insurance benefits. If we fail to extend them, not only will that be another slap to the middle class, but it will hurt the economy by depriving our businesses - large and small - of money these struggling Americans will rush out and spend.
And now we have a commission report that glibly talks about "shared sacrifice" and making "painful" decisions. I ask, "Painful for whom?" These recommendations ask those who have already been and are sacrificing, to sacrifice further. Those who have not enjoyed the prosperity party over the last many years are being asked to pick up the tab.
We do not need to do this. There is another way.
* My plan recognizes the need to create jobs - a deficit-reducing strategy - that some, incorrectly, view as just more spending. Their plan does not include up front investments to lower the unemployment rate. It is important to note that if America's unemployment rate were still at its pre-recession level of 4.5%, we would only be facing a modest deficit.
* Their plan addresses rising health care costs by asking elderly Medicare beneficiaries to pay more out of their own pockets, even though they already pay about 30% of their mostly meager incomes (the median income for seniors is $18,000 per year) on their own. Their plan cuts Medicare by $110 billion by imposing higher cost-sharing requirements on seniors and people with disabilities. Mine requires Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices like the Veteran's Administration does, bringing down the cost to seniors and the government by billions of dollars. It also would implement a public option, which we already know would save $10 billion by 2015.
* Their plan cuts the bloated military budget, which is a very good thing. Mine does as well, but not by freezing noncombat military pay for three years or by cutting military health care benefits. These military families are not getting rich serving our country and should not be the target of deficit reduction.
* Responding to Republican calls to slash spending, the Bowles-Simpson plan calls for deep cuts in domestic discretionary spending. Using the Bowles-Simpson formula, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities calculates a 22% cut in current funding levels in 2020, jeopardizing everything from nutrition and education to medical research and job training.
* Amazingly, their plan opens a new huge loophole to incentivize companies to outsource jobs. By adopting a territorial tax system, U.S. based multi-national corporations will never have to pay taxes on profits earned from subsidiaries in foreign countries.
* Finally, the Bowles-Simpson plan would require cuts in Social Security benefits. The good news is that they acknowledge that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, and their plan is to make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years and not to use it for debt reduction. The bad news is that average benefits for middle-income workers (average lifetime earnings of between $43,000 and $69,000 per year) could be cut up to 35% depending on when they retire. There is no need to cut Social Security in order to save it as my plan proves.
I have highlighted just a few of the ways that the Bowles-Simpson plan further erodes the middle class and threatens low-income Americans. There are many things in their plan that are also in mine, however. I appreciate that there has been consensus that the defense budget must be subjected to scrutiny and trimming in ways never seriously suggested before. It is very significant that tax expenditures, or as they call "tax earmarks," all those deductions that are largely skewed to the wealthy, are finally being recognized for what they are - spending, but through the tax code.
Some will criticize my approach to deficit reduction as politically impossible. But I gladly subject my ideas to the public, knowing that protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits, investing in jobs, and asking the richest Americans to contribute more, represents a majority view despite the inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom of what is possible. No wonder people are angry. They watch Wall Street tycoons getting bonuses and government bailouts, shopping for holiday gifts at Tiffany's, while they are trying to scrape together enough money for the rent.
Bottom line, this Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has proven that fixing our nation's fiscal challenges is not mission impossible. I look forward to the constructive debate that has been started and I will continue to stand up for low-income and middle class Americans so that we can uphold the truly American notion of leaving each generation better off than the one that came before it.
My Plan for Reducing the Deficit
As a member of the President’s Fiscal Commission, my task is to put forward a responsible plan to reduce the deficit and balance the primary budget by 2015 while ensuring that the economic needs of my constituents and the American people are met. Because of that responsibility, I cannot endorse the plan laid out last week by co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Their plan asks those who are suffering the most from the current economic downturn to sacrifice even further.
We must remember that the goal of fixing the deficit is not an end in itself. Economic policy does not exist in a vacuum, the federal budget represents our shared priorities as a nation, those things we all believe we need to do together. We also need to remember that the deficit was caused by two wars that weren’t paid for, and a massive tax cut that benefitted mainly the wealthiest Americans.
That is why I’ve released my own plan (Click Here for the details), because we can achieve sound fiscal policy without doing it on the backs of poor and middle class Americans. Long-term economic growth requires that we put a stop to the troubling trend of concentrating more wealth in the hands of the rich and less in the hands of a middle class.
Here is what my colleague in the House, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, had to say :““From large elements to small, this plan is a vast improvement over the Bowles-Simpson proposal and represents a more thoughtful approach to debt reduction. Our middle and lower class families did not cause our current budget shortfalls – they were largely caused by the avoidable housing crisis, by irresponsible Bush-era wars paid for with borrowed money, and by unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthiest earners. Rep. Schakowsky’s plan reflects the fact that, as she has said so often, the sacrifices of the past several years have all been made by the middle class. It’s time we stopped telling these hard-working families to tighten their belts again for the sake of another millionaire tax cut. We need to bring our taxing and spending in line with reality, and her proposal is a big step in the right direction.”
Think Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, also weighed in: “"Rep. Schakowsky's Deficit Reduction Plan should be given as much consideration as the Bowles-Simpson proposal... She's shown that there is a way to balance the budget while simultaneously protecting the middle class and making important investments, and she should be commended."
My proposals aim to bring the federal deficit under control using policies that will put people to work and strengthen the middle class.
Stand with me, help me send a message to Congress and the media, sign on to my plan.
What Have We Bought for $1 Trillion Dollars
As of 10:06 on Sunday, May 30th, we will have spent $1 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A trillion dollars is a baffling amount of money. If you write it out, use twelve zeros. Even after serving in Congress for over a decade, I, like most Americans, still have a hard time wrapping my head around sums like this.
This month, we mark the seventh anniversary of President Bush's declaration of "mission accomplished" in Iraq, yet five American soldiers have been killed there in May alone. Iraqis went to the polls nearly three months ago, but the political system remains so fractured that no party has been able to piece together a coalition. There are some indications that sectarian violence is again on the rise.
A trillion dollars is a baffling amount of money. If you write it out, use twelve zeros. Even after serving in Congress for over a decade, I, like most Americans, still have a hard time wrapping my head around sums like this.
This month, we mark the seventh anniversary of President Bush's declaration of "mission accomplished" in Iraq, yet five American soldiers have been killed there in May alone. Iraqis went to the polls nearly three months ago, but the political system remains so fractured that no party has been able to piece together a coalition. There are some indications that sectarian violence is again on the rise.
Remarks at the 2010 Power Lunch
A major highlight of my life is looking out at the beautiful crowd that has gathered for each of the last nine years of now nearly 2000 women and as always, a healthy number of very secure men. Thank you all for coming! I hope you feel even just a fraction of how good I feel surrounded by the warmth and solidarity that fills this room. Of course this is a place to see and be seen, and you do look marvelous. But I hope that an even bigger draw for this lunch is the knowledge that this is a welcoming and safe place; a place where you feel supported and encouraged and inspired by amazing women like Helen Thomas; perhaps here you can connect with someone that can help you, or maybe you will leave feeling strong enough to solve a problem, take on a new challenge, or discover a project that you can get involved in.
This is where the old girls network gathers, right along side younger women who are raising your families and/or trying to balance a job or career, or maybe still figuring and scheming and dreaming about the right path to take; and this is where I delight in seeing the students that are here including those from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, the “Women in History Class” at Oak Park and River Forest High School, and Zafra Lehrman’s science students. And of course, the children who are still getting ready to launch like my grandchildren Isabel, Eve, Lucy and William. My daughter and friend Mary is here, and I do love seeing the men that are here too including my husband Bob, the love of my life, and my wonderful son Ian. To all of you who are mothers, have mothers, know mothers, I wish you a very happy Mothers’ Day.
This is where the old girls network gathers, right along side younger women who are raising your families and/or trying to balance a job or career, or maybe still figuring and scheming and dreaming about the right path to take; and this is where I delight in seeing the students that are here including those from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, the “Women in History Class” at Oak Park and River Forest High School, and Zafra Lehrman’s science students. And of course, the children who are still getting ready to launch like my grandchildren Isabel, Eve, Lucy and William. My daughter and friend Mary is here, and I do love seeing the men that are here too including my husband Bob, the love of my life, and my wonderful son Ian. To all of you who are mothers, have mothers, know mothers, I wish you a very happy Mothers’ Day.
Let's Make the Welfare of the American People the Goal of the Fiscal Commission
I presented the following remarks at the first meeting of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform:
We members of the Fiscal Commission are charged with a critical mission: "Identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run."
We gather, not as accountants, actuaries, bean counters looking through green eye shades at columns of numbers, but as policy-makers who care deeply about the lives of the American people of today and tomorrow who are impacted by the economic policies of our country. As the President said last week, "...some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged there's a family looking to buy a house, or pay for an education, open a business, save for retirement. What happens on Wall Street has real consequences across the country, across our economy."
The exact same can be said about the task in which we are engaged. Balancing the budget and reducing the debt are not ends in and of themselves. The welfare of the American people must be the goal of our fiscal policy. Everything we do here must be measured in terms of the impact on the well-being of our people, the opportunities we provide to our children and the values of our democratic society.
We members of the Fiscal Commission are charged with a critical mission: "Identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run."
We gather, not as accountants, actuaries, bean counters looking through green eye shades at columns of numbers, but as policy-makers who care deeply about the lives of the American people of today and tomorrow who are impacted by the economic policies of our country. As the President said last week, "...some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged there's a family looking to buy a house, or pay for an education, open a business, save for retirement. What happens on Wall Street has real consequences across the country, across our economy."
The exact same can be said about the task in which we are engaged. Balancing the budget and reducing the debt are not ends in and of themselves. The welfare of the American people must be the goal of our fiscal policy. Everything we do here must be measured in terms of the impact on the well-being of our people, the opportunities we provide to our children and the values of our democratic society.
