The Washington Post recently released a handy state-by-state breakdown of how the sequester cuts will affect jobs and services in every state. These figures are based on White House estimates. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) also details these harmful cuts here .
See how the sequester would affect your state here .
Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs, released a statement yesterday that there is one simple way we can deal with the upcoming Republican-manufactured faux budget crisis designed to extract painful benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: eliminate it.
A new, non-partisan study by Thomas Hungerford of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service confirms that the explosion of income inequality over the past 15 years is fueled by rapidly rising income from capital gains and dividends.
"Fix the Debt" portrays itself as a nonpartisan group designed to convince government to do something drastic about the national debt, which it says is a significant danger to the country. And despite widespread evidence from economists that their proposals would hurt the economy, Fix the Debt's members are pushing for a set of policies based on tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans and benefit cuts to lifelines like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
The president opened last week's State of the Union address, calling for "modest" changes to contain Medicare costs. One of the president's primary audiences, Congress, faces a series of deadlines in the coming months, including automatic spending cuts on March 1, expiration of the federal budget patch on March 27 and the impending debt ceiling this summer. Any one of these deadlines may force decisions about Medicare's future.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) continues to lead the Republican charge to the March 1 deadline, when arbitrary, across-the-board sequestration cuts in everything from mental health services to public safety kick in. In a cynical drive to wring massive concessions in cuts from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Boehner and the Republicans are willing to inflict hardships on working families and bring disaster to the economy.
Back in January, House Speaker John Boehner was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article claiming Republicans have leverage in the fiscal showdown fight because they're willing to use sequester cuts to extract massive concessions in the form of cuts to vital lifelines, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
It's back. No matter how many times working people reject the Bowles-Simpson "B-S" budget plan that cynically claims it would "promote economic growth "—but would actually snuff out the recovery and cut lifelines for working families—it keeps coming back to the table.
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson released another tired plan today that would cut Social Security COLAs to pay for lower tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, among other things.
Working families rallied on Capitol Hill last week, calling on Congress not to make any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They also told Congress to close tax loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest 2% and to prevent the sequester from going into effect and harming the country.
Another Republican- manufactured fiscal crisis is fast approaching and it threatens the fragile economic recovery with the automatic, across–the-board sequestration budget cuts scheduled to kick in on March 1. Republicans have indicated they will block any attempt to stop the sequester unless there are benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
But a majority of House Democrats late last week signed a House Progressive Caucus letter to President Obama opposing benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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