Motley Moose – Archive

From The City Club of Cleveland

Transcript: Remarks by the President to the City Club of Cleveland

Introductory remarks:

Now, over the course of my presidency, one that began in the depths of a historic crisis, no issue has been more important than the future of our economy.  That’s certainly been of great interest in Ohio and in Cleveland.  No topic has weighed more heavily on the minds of ordinary families, and no subject is more worthy of a great, big, open debate.

Seventy-five years ago, another President came here to Cleveland to engage in this debate.  He was nearing the end of his second term, eight years in office marked by a devastating depression, a hard-fought recovery, fierce political divisions at home, looming threats overseas.  But for all the challenges of a changing world, FDR refused to accept the notion that we are anything less than the masters of our fate.  “We are characters in this living book of democracy,” he said.  “But we are also its author.  It falls upon us now to say whether the chapters that are to come will tell a story of retreat or of continued advance.” […]

Well, after 12 million new jobs, a stock market that has more than doubled, deficits that have been cut by two-thirds, health care inflation at the lowest rate in nearly 50 years, manufacturing coming back, auto industry coming back, clean energy doubled — I’ve come not only to answer that question, but I want to return to the debate that is central to this country, and the alternative economic theory that’s presented by the other side.

Because their theory does not change.  It really doesn’t. It’s a theory that says, if we do little more than just cut taxes for those at the very top, if we strip out regulations and let special interests write their own rules, prosperity trickles down to the rest of us.  And I take the opposite view.  And I take it not for ideological reasons, but for historic reasons, because of the evidence. […]

So when we, the American people, when the public evaluates who’s got the better argument here, we’ve got to look at the facts.  It’s not abstractions.  There may have been a time when you could just say, well, those two theories are equally valid.  They’re differences of opinion.  They could have been abstract economic arguments in a book somewhere.  But not anymore.  Reality has rendered its judgment:  Trickle-down economics does not work.  And middle-class economic does.

More …

The Republican Budget ….

From the White House: FACT SHEET: House Republican Budget Resolution: Same Failed Top-Down Economics

With more than 12 million private-sector jobs created over the last 60 months, it is clear that the President’s middle class economic agenda is working.  But instead of taking the steps we need to strengthen the standing of working families, the House Republican budget for fiscal year (FY) 2016 would return our economy to the same top-down economics that has failed us before. The Republican budget cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires, while slashing investments in the middle class that we need to grow the economy, like education, job training, and manufacturing.  The Republican proposal stands in stark contrast to the President’s FY 2016 Budget, which would bring middle class economics into the 21st Century.[…]

The consequences of the Republican budget approach for the economy and the middle-class are stark. The budget’s own numbers show that its deep near-term spending cuts would reduce the size of the economy by an average of 0.5 percent over the next three years, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Its cuts to investments in education, training, research, and manufacturing would have compounding effects on the economy over time.

Instead of the same top-down economics that led to the financial crisis, the President’s Budget invests in an economy that puts the middle class first and cuts the deficit in a balanced way by closing tax loopholes to ensure millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. Now is the time to strengthen the standing of working and middle class families, not go back to the same failed Republican top-down economics.

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Paul Waldman at WaPo: Give House Republicans credit for producing a budget this cruel

…  when a group of politicians throws caution to the wind and tells us what they really think despite the political risk, they deserve our praise. So it is with the House Republicans, who have just released their new budget.[…]

But let’s give the House Republicans credit. They aren’t shying away from talking about voucherizing Medicare (as their Senate colleagues did), and the rest of the document lays out a virtual war on the poor and middle class. They may toss the word “opportunity” in here and there, but the document is a bracing statement of Republican ideology.

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From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP): Statement by Robert Greenstein, President, On House Budget Chairman’s Plan

With widespread and growing bipartisan consensus that the country should do more for struggling families of modest income, House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price offered a budget plan today that does the opposite.  Largely a retread of budgets that House Republicans adopted in recent years, it calls for $5 trillion in budget cuts, mostly through steep reductions in programs for low- and moderate-income Americans, as well as deep cuts in investments that strengthen productivity and future economic growth such as education, training, and basic research.

Like the last few House budgets, the new budget packs its priorities into a policy path that would bring the budget to balance within the decade without raising any new revenue.  Also like those previous budgets, it doesn’t change Social Security and makes relatively modest cuts to Medicare (though it proposes the dangerous step of converting Medicare into a voucher program for future retirees).  In addition, it boosts defense spending, starting in 2016 with a budget gimmick, and in the years thereafter.