The House of Representatives will be voting on a number of budget resolutions today. The best of these—
The People's Budget: A Raise for America—crafted by the Congressional Progressive Caucus won't pass the Republican-dominated body. But it's important for us to persuade as many Democrats as possible to vote for it anyway.
That's why we're urging you to call your congressional representative today, as in now.
Some background on the People's Budget can be found here and here.
And here's a highly condensed version of what the budget proposal contains adapted from Thomas L. Hungerford's analysis at the Economic Policy Institute:
Accelerate the economic recovery. The People’s Budget would sharply accelerate economic and employment growth. It would boost gross domestic product (GDP) by 3.9 percent and employment by 4.7 million jobs at its peak level of effectiveness (within one year of implementation).[...]
Promote job growth and achieve full employment. The budget’s near-term economic stimulus measures would create 4.7 million jobs in calendar year 2015 and an additional 3.8 million jobs over the following two years. By the end of calendar year 2018 the People’s Budget would support 9.1 million job years and would ensure a prompt and durable return to full employment.
Make necessary public investments. The budget finances roughly $528 billion in job creation and public investment measures in calendar year 2015 alone and roughly $1.34 trillion over calendar years 2015–2017. This fiscal expansion is consistent with the amount of fiscal support needed to rapidly reduce labor market slack and restore the economy to full health. [...]
Strengthen social insurance. The People’s Budget strengthens the social safety net and proposes no benefit reductions to social insurance programs—in other words, it does not rely on simple cost-shifting to reduce the budgetary strain of health programs. Instead, it uses government purchasing power to lower health care costs (health care costs are the largest threat to long-term fiscal sustainability) and builds upon efficiency savings from the Affordable Care Act. [...]
Smartly cut spending. The budget focuses on modern security needs by repealing sequestration cuts and spending caps that affect the Defense Department but replacing them with similarly sized funding reductions. [...]
Ask everyone to contribute his or her fair share. The budget restores adequate revenue and pushes back against income inequality by adding higher marginal tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, equalizing the tax treatment of capital income and labor income, restoring a more progressive estate tax, eliminating inefficient corporate tax loopholes, levying a tax on systemically important financial institutions, and enacting a financial transactions tax, among other tax policies.
To reiterate:
call your congressional representative and urge him or her to vote for the People's Budget.