Three reasons Congress's budget deal is bad for US
The budget deal patched together this week is a bad deal for at least three reasons, Reich writes. America would do better with another temporary spending resolution than with Congress's budget deal.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, left, and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, announce Tuesday a tentative agreement between Republican and Democratic negotiators on a government spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington. The budget deal is topsy-turvy and makes no fiscal sense, Reich writes.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
About the only good thing that can be said about the budget deal just patched together by House Republican budget chair Paul Ryan and Senate Democratic budget chair Patty Murray is that the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers鈥� Americans for Prosperity oppose it.
But that doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 a good deal for the country. In fact, it鈥檚 a bad deal, for at least three reasons:
First, it fails extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million jobless who will lose them in a few weeks. These people and their families are still caught in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
Almost three Americans are jobless for every job that鈥檚 available 鈥� a ratio worse than it was at the bottom of the last downturn.聽
Moreover, the nation still harbors an unprecedented number of long-term unemployed. In past recessions emergency benefits continued until the rate of long-term employment hovered around 1 percent or less. But the current level of long-term unemployed is聽.
The second reason this deal is bad is it contributes to the nation鈥檚 savage inequality. The deal doesn鈥檛 close a single tax loophole for wealthy, and it doesn鈥檛 restore food stamps to the poor.
Third, the deal makes no fiscal sense. It鈥檚 topsy-turvy: The deal contains no short-term stimulus, and does nothing about the long-term deficit.
Although the deal overrides the dread 鈥渟equester鈥� that mindlessly cuts domestic spending (except for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), it doesn鈥檛 put an end to the sequester. It merely postpones the sequester for two years.
The deal does remove the treat of another government shutdown January 15, when the stopgap spending resolution that reopened the government in October runs out. But it doesn鈥檛 prevent another standoff over the debt ceiling next March when the borrowing authority of the government is exhausted.
I can understand why Republican leaders like this deal. They don鈥檛 want to risk another government shutdown, given how badly they got burned by the last one earlier in the fall. As the midterm elections loom, they鈥檇 rather keep attention focused on whatever they can find that鈥檚 wrong with the Affordable Care Act 鈥� or, more accurately, whatever trumped-up charge they and their megaphones at Fox News and yell radio can bring against the Act.
But America would do better with another temporary spending resolution than with this raw deal.
On hearing of the deal Tuesday, President Obama said, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 the way the American people expect Washington to work.鈥� Sadly, he was not being ironic.