Faith Based Budget
HTolley
THE GOOD NEWS & BAD NEWS ABOUT THE FEDERAL BUDGET DEAL
(& One Easy Thing You Can Do)
President Barack Obama and members of Congress negotiated an eleventh hour federal budget "deal" that included both good and bad news. Let's celebrate that our justice network and many other people of faith were able to speak out and can see some positive results. There was some "good news" in this deal. Let us also prepare to have our voices heard even more powerfully over the next two months about bad news that could happen to the least fortunate among us as these budget negotiations continue. This alert includes an easy ACTION you can take to help push Congress to move toward more just, humane national priorities.
THE GOOD NEWS:• 99% of Americans (per Wall Street Journal writer Laura Saunders) will see little or no change in their income taxes for 2013;
• Wealthy individuals with incomes above $400,000 a year will pay higher income taxes (I would have liked a lower definition of "wealthy");
• Capital gains and dividends taxes were raised from 15% to 20% (though 20% is still low compared to the 35% highest tax rate workers pay on wages);
• Congress extended unemployment insurance for those still struggling to find work;
• The Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families was extended a year;
• The American Opportunity Tax Credit (for college expenses) was extended five years;
• No cuts were made in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or safety network services.
• Contrary to what some believe, it's a good thing that Congress let the payroll tax "holiday" expire -- it was undermining the integrity of the Social Security Trust Fund, a social insurance policy that protects workers from losses due to death, disability and old age.
THE BAD NEWS:
• Across the board cuts in military and domestic spending ("sequestration") were postponed for just two months -- more battles are ahead regarding our national priorities;
• More than a dozen tax loopholes, many of which will benefit Wall Street financial firms and some of the nation's biggest corporations, were tucked into the deal. These breaks will cost billions of dollars in the coming year (see Huffington Post, 1/3/13);
• Some politicians have been sharpening their knives to seek cuts in programs and services, specifically Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other programs for education, health care, transportation, employment, etc. that sustain our quality of life, instead of closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations;
• It's tragic that Congress isn't yet talking much about trimming the fat from the Pentagon budget that has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. "We're Not Broke", a December 2012 report by the Institute for Public Policy, documents we can cut $195 billion/year in military spending without hurting our national defense.
SOMETHING YOU CAN DO:
Martin Luther King Jr., who we will honor on January 21st, once prophetically said:
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom".
In the spirit of Dr. King and the interfaith "Faithful Budget" campaign (http://faithfulbudget.org/) (of which the UUA is a member) you are invited to sign a Jobs-Not-War petition. MUUSJN is working with 132 peace and justice groups to collect signatures on this petition that will be presented to Congress and the President during the upcoming budget debates. So far, we've collected over 21,000 signatures. Click the link below to READ and SIGN this petition:
Please forward this email widely to others so more people can become aware and get involved.
Robert Letcher
what ever happened to FR's notion of "Progressive tax rates" and justice? what makes "99% of Americans [seeing] little or no change in their income tax for 2013" be Good?
bob letcher, phd