Conservatives are using the sequester as leverage in their latest attempt to hold our economy and government hostage. All in all, nine percent of non-defense programs and 13 percent of defense programs will be cut in a seven-month time span. Aside from the million jobs lost, threat of a double-dip recession, and risk to our national security, the automatic cuts are simply egregious to human needs.
But what Congress created, it can end. On March 20, join CAF, more than 60 national organizations, and the AFL-CIO for a national day of actions at congressional offices and communities to ask Congress to cancel the sequester. Here at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), we have one simple message for Congress: “Cancel the Sequester!”
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More than 20 members of Congress responded to over 300,000 American voices calling for passage of legislation that would repeal of the federal budget sequester. The bill, H.R. 900, is direct and can be summed up in one sentence: Cancel the sequester. Passing the bill will be “a simple solution to a knotty problem” said [...]
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Gimme an "S"! Gimme an "E"! Gimme a "Q"! Gimme a "U"! Gimme an "S, T, E, R"! What's that spell? That depends. If you're almost everyone else, the sequester spells an onslaught of unnecessary, painful, and "just plain dumb" spending cuts. If you're one of the GOP's "Sequester Cheerleaders," it spells sweet, sweet, victory.
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The smackdown that President Obama delivered today to people who assert that he and others are exaggerating the impact of the sequestration for dramatic effect is worth publishing in full: Q: What do you say to the people like Mayor Bloomberg — who is no critic of yours in general; he endorsed you — who [...]
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Today is the day the package of budget cuts they call the “Sequester” takes effect. There will be endless postmortems and realtime analyses. But as its draconian effects, there’s one thing to remember above all: Congress did this. We’ve criticized both the President’s handling of this situation and the media’s reporting of it. But, in [...]
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This month’s budget breakfast group meeting was even more extraordinary than usual for one reason: The same people who typically analyze what’s ahead on the budget with remarkable precision months before it happens all basically admitted that the current situation is as complex, hard to read, and even harder to predict than any they’ve ever seen.
Here are the moving pieces.
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The United States is in the midst of the most protracted unemployment crisis in modern history, and for vast segments of the population, the recession has never ended. Wages are still sinking; more than 20 million people are in need of full-time work. Yet, the national debate is fixated on fixing the debt rather than [...]
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It now looks like the Senate on Wednesday will pass the "no budget no pay" version of the debt ceiling increase that has already been adopted by the House.
This will be the third GOP budget miscalculation, misstep and mistake in a row.
The problem with the no budget no pay plan is that, while the Senate will likely pass its own version of a congressional budget resolution because of the law, will not spur any real action on budget issues. The ultimate result, therefore, will be that the GOP talking point will be gone -- after all, the Senate will have adopted a budget -- but Republicans will have gotten nothing real for allowing the debt ceiling to rise.
Here's why.
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When it comes to beating back extremists, I'm all in favor of living to fight another day, so the idea of kicking the can down the road on some horrible debt deal never seems like the worst thing that could happen. But I can't figure out why everyone seems to believe that by extending the debt ceiling three months the House Republicans have been vanquished for all time. It doesn't sound as if the Republicans believe that.
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Given what happened in July 2011 when they decided to do the opposite (you remember the anything-but-super committee, right?), we should all be happy House Republicans have agreed that this time they won’t hold hostage the increase in the federal debt ceiling the Treasury says will be needed by the end of February. We should [...]
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