Labor & Employment Law

Bring a Working Family?s Voice to Deficit Commission Debate

By Mike Hall

There?s a national town hall meeting this weekend?at brick and mortar sites in dozens of cities and also online?to discuss ways to address the nation?s budget, fiscal future and economic recovery.

The meetings begin Saturday, June 26, at 11:30 a.m. EDT. They will be connected via satellite video, webcast and interactive technologies. Click here to find an event in your area and here to join the discussion online.

Working families need to take part in the discussion to make sure our views aren?t drowned out by deficit hysterics who have Social Security and Medicare in their crosshairs.  The nonpartisan group sponsoring the national town hall?America Speaks?will submit the budget strategies and priorities that come out of the weekend?s meeting to President Obama, Congress and the budget deficit commission Obama formed in February.

It?s certain some panelists and participants will point to Social Security, government spending for job creation, rebuilding our infrastructure, providing educational opportunities or even immigration as problems at the center of the budget deficit.

But Social Security can pay full benefits through the 2040s and can be brought into long-term actuarial balance with relatively modest adjustments and without cutting benefits.

Also, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, most of the deficit over the next 10 years will come from the Bush administration?s tax cuts for the rich, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the staggering economy. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

The main driver of the recent increases in deficit projections is worsening economic conditions?in short, the present deficit crisis is largely a symptom of the jobs crisis.

Solving the jobs crisis and the deficit will require large amounts of public investment in the short term, which should be paid for in future years by taxing Wall Street.

If we create jobs today, the payoff comes not just in workers? paychecks now, but in a stronger economy and smaller deficit in the future.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 24, 2010 (boomark / email).