Occasional forays to the dark side of progressive thought can serve to remind us of how invidiously damaging their proposals can be. Such trips serve to reinforce the importance of keeping such political elements at bay. This past weekend such a trip was undertaken; it was not a pretty sight.
Recently the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) sent a letter to the editor to their foot soldiers “suggesting” that the letter be sent their local papers. The subject of the letter was “The People’s Budget” for 2018, in which it is stated:
“There is a budget proposal before Congress that would boost the economy for all of us while cutting the number of people in poverty in half. … The People’s Budget invests in safe and productive infrastructure, education, affordable housing, health care and nutrition, child care and working family tax credits.”
A quick internet search revealed the letter, virtually word for word, appeared in a minimum of a half dozen papers from New Jersey to Hawaii. The writing of letters to the editor is a well-established tradition, one which I fully support. However, the words need to come from the heart and not via a mass email directed to those lacking original thought.
The letter though did prompt the previously mentioned venture to take a closer look at the “People’s Budget.”
The CPC, at 71 members it is the largest Congressional Caucus in Washington, with the expected extremists on board: Raúl Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Elijah Cummings, John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Hank Johnson (of “Guam might tip over” fame), Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and others.
Such luminaries as these refuse to learn from history, if they did, they would know that the roots of the term ‘War on Poverty’ extend back over 100 years. Yet the battle rages, approaches at solutions are repeated, ‘wealth disparity is again, the crisis du jour and inevitably, the results remain unchanged.
Students of English history may recall the term “Peoples Budget” from a bill introduced to Parliament in 1909 by future Prime Minister (1916-1922) David Lloyd George.
“(the Bill) is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests,” George said on April 29, 1909.
Looking closer at the recently re-introduced “People’s Budget,” we see both expected and actually unexpected ideas. I say “unexpected” because I found myself thinking that some ideas, well one anyway, actually had merit, a rarity indeed from the progressives.
First the expected: Massive increases in spending for a myriad of projects favored by the CPC. From the Budget summary:

* Invests $500 billion to update our energy grid to better support renewable power and increase energy efficiency.
* Robust investments in public transportation network, including passenger rail, buses, biking and walking paths.
* Gives states the freedom to transition to single payer systems.
* Expands eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
* Devotes significant resources to DOJ programs to empower communities to end racial profiling and to crack down on the rise of hate crimes.
* Increased funding for the DOJ’s Voter Protection Program and voter protection agencies, including funding for the Help America Vote Act.
* Revitalize the work of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division and FTC Bureau of Competition by increasing their budgets by 20 percent.
* Establish the Federal Interagency Working Group on Reducing Poverty to implement a national strategy to reduce poverty by half in 10 years.

The above is a sampling of what could be in store from this group.
The budget also calls for 3.7 trillion in new expenditures. A reasonable person might ask; How is this to be paid? The budget has the answer with at least 12 tax increases, including:

* A $10.25 per barrel fee on oil paid by oil companies.
Raises the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 50 cents per pack.
* Financial transaction tax.
* Financial institutions annual tax of 1.4 percent on assets valued at $500 billion.
* New Progressive tax rates on annual incomes above $250,000.
* Estate Tax reform.
* Tax deduction caps.

There are a few other gems to consider:

* Excludes expenditures to expand “President Trump’s” border wall.
* No taxpayer dollars shall be used to conduct immigration raids.
* CPC stands with sanctuary cities and does not support eliminating federal funding for such jurisdictions.
* Ends deferral and requires multinationals to pay the taxes they owe on the profits they have stashed offshore.

I mentioned earlier an item worthy of further consideration. I was referring to the CPC support of H.R. 399: Stop Subsidizing Multimillion Dollar Corporate Bonuses Act. Originally introduced in 2015, this bill has languished without success for some time. The bill seeks to re-establish the maximum tax deduction of one million dollars for CEO compensation. Considering the structure of CEO compensation today, some form of reform is worthy of consideration. But this bill is not it. Certainly companies should be allowed to pay whatever they feel their CEO is worth. But why should we as taxpayers be expected to sponsor their extravagance?
The 40-page document is rife with attacks and slams at President Trump, certainly no surprise in that, after all attacking Trump is what they do. What they also do, again not unexpected, is refrain from mentioning any adverse impact as a result of the previous administration. Case in point: Infrastructure spending.
The budget calls for $2 trillion (see page 4) in infrastructure spending (note: no time frame was specified for this expenditure). In support of the need for such an expense a chart appears indicating that infrastructure spending decreased $330 billion in 2003 to a low of $225 billion in 2013, a 32 percent decrease. What is omitted is fully 25 percent of that drop occurred after 2009. The CPC is now asking us to pay for the budgetary omissions of the prior administration.
The central theme to this budget can be summarized in two words: “wealth redistribution,” as the focus is aimed at increased taxation of the wealthy and increased services for the poor.
I am not opposed to helping those in need. What I am opposed to is to, once again, attempt to aid the poor, by using the same failed policies of the past: More money thrown at them, increased taxation and creating even more bureaucracy. David George failed, Lyndon Johnson failed and the CPC will fail as well.
As a nation, we need to reconsider how we conduct the country’s business. The primary opposition to serious changes comes from those who have obtained their political power based on the exploitation of the poor for their own self-aggrandizement.

Dennis Lund is a mechanical engineer who lived in Benicia for more than 20 years.

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