Saturday, February 11, 2012
My Top Four Democratic Legislators (As of Today)
Dick Durbin, Kent Conrad, Chris Van Hollen, and Ron Wyden - the first two for their work on and vote for the Bowles-Simpson proposal, the third for his willingness to use said proposal as a good first step in budget negotiations, and the fourth for his reaching across the aisle and working with Paul Ryan on a Medicare compromise..............................................................................................P.S. An honorable mention should probably go out to Senator Kerry for his work with Kay Bailey Hutchison on a proposed infrastructure bank.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
You actually found THAT many? It truly comes as a surprise...
A veritable wasteland, isn't it?
fer sure!
MY top 4 Democratic Legislators are... Sherrod Brown (for opposing free trade), John Conyers (for his support for single-payer), Raúl Grijalva (for calling for a withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan) and Jan Schakowsky (a member of the Simpson-Bowles commission who voted NO, and offered a superior alternative).
I also give a "dishonorable mention" to Ron Wyden for working with Paul Ryan to dismantle Medicare, and "dishonorable runner-ups" to Dick Durbin, Kent Conrad, and Chris Van Hollen for their support of the catfood commission (AKA Simpson-Bowles). See my post on the topic, w-dervish's Top Four Democratic Legislators for further details and explaination.
The "People's Budget", while I do agree with some of it (the reduction of military spending, for example), would basically represent the largest American tax increase since hard-core Keynesian Herbert Hoover's 152% increase in 1930 (we all know what happened after that). Removing the cap on SS would absolutely gouge people in the $110,000-200,000 salary range and end up making the effective top rate (49%+7.65%) 56.65% - way too high to be competitive with emerging nations. Overall, I'd give it an A for intention but a C- for substance.
Post a Comment