Weekly Audit: What Will the GOP Cut?

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger The Republicans won control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate in the midterm election on nebulous promises to slash spending and reduce the size of the federal government. House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to reduce spending to 2008 levels, as per the GOP's campaign manifesto, known as the "Pledge to America." But as Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones, while the Pledge calls for a 21.7% reduction in spending on non-security discretionary programs, it doesn't commit to any specific cuts. Medicare and Social Security are safe from this round of cuts because they are not discretionary. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities tried to give a glimpse of what the federal government might look like if all eligible agencies took a 21.7% budget cut across the board. As Kroll notes, it's more likely that some programs will be spared, some trimmed, and some eliminated entirely. However, the CBPP's analysis gives a stark picture of the magnitude of the proposed cuts, Kroll writes: What it found was grim, with middle class Americans set to lose the most. K-12 education funding, the CBPP found, would drop by $8.7 billion, and food stamps for at-risk pregnant women, infants, and young children would lose $1.6 billion in funding. State- and local-run housing programs would lose $6.9 billion, and children and family social services would lose nearly $2.2 billion. Already pinched state budgets would take massive hits as well, losing out on $31.6 billion in federal funding. Cuts to state budgets mean even deeper cuts to education and social services that benefit working families. Starving the states is also a strategy to force state governments to default on their pension obligations to unionized public sector workers. But the magnitude of these cuts might be giving the GOP cold feet. In January, Speaker Boehner told Brian Williams at NBC that he couldn't name a single program that he planned to cut. Inequality is personal Paul Buchheit points out on AlterNet that if middle- and upper middle-class families had the same share of the economic pie that they did in the 1980s, they would be making $12,500 more per year. In other words, the economy has become vastly more productive over the last 30 years, but the extra wealth has become overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the very richest Americans at the expense of working families. U.S. GDP quintupled since the 1980s, but most of the extra wealth has gone to the top 1% of earners. Nobody begrudges entrepreneurs a healthy return on their capital, but what about the 99% of earners who provided the labor. Where's the return on their investment? With looming government spending cuts to domestic programs, the middle- and upper-middle classes will face an even bigger hit to their real standard of living. Local and state governments are cutting back on services while hiking taxes and fees. The richest 1% won't feel these cuts as acutely as middle class families. If you have your own private swimming pool, you may not notice that the public pool is closed because the city can't afford lifeguards. If you send your kids to private universities, you won't be biting your nails over potential tuition hikes at public universities. MLK's legacy The nation honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday. Roger Bybee of Working In These Times points out that, while King is remembered as a civil rights leader, he was also deeply committed to economic justice for all Americans. The politicians who praised King's legacy on Monday should remember that Dr. King's last great crusade was on behalf of sanitation workers in Memphis, public employees struggling for a decent standard of living. Beck sets sights on 78-year-old CUNY prof Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Frances Fox Piven, a 78-year-old distinguished professor of political science at the City University of New York, who may be the first person to inadvertently spark prime time conspiracy theory in the pages of a Media Consortium outlet. Right wing talk host Glenn Beck has identified Piven as the co-author of a violent blueprint to crash capitalism itself. As Piven explains to Goodman, the bile stems from the suggestion made by her and her co-author Richard Cloward in a 1966 article in The Nation that social activists should help poor people access the benefits they were already legally entitled to. At that time, Piven recalls, the welfare system denied benefits to more than half of its eligible recipients. She and Cloward believed that the poor would become a more politically powerful and visible part of society if society suddenly had to make good on its promises of aid. In July, Richard Kim of The Nation explained how an obscure 40-year-old article was recast as the "Rosetta Stone" of lefty politics, the blueprint to usher in an economic crisis which the left could exploit to bring about socialism. Since Beck seized on Piven's work and labeled her a violent revolutionary, she has been the target of death threats by commenters on Beck's website. Political operatives posing as students came to her home to interview her. The interview later showed up on Andrew Breitbart's conservative website. Piven seems both concerned and bemused that her brief for reforming the welfare system of the 1960s has been labeled as a blueprint for destroying the capitalist system. This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. 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