On February 15, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the U.S. Treasury Department will exhaust its ability to pay its bills sometime between July and September, unless the current $31.4 trillion cap on borrowing is raised or suspended.
The bipartisan CBO report intensified an already raucous debate about the federal debt and federal programs.
In this highly charged atmosphere, the voice of the working class must be heard: Not one cent can be cut from vital social programs!
Let’s be clear on what caused the debt crisis: A gigantic, bloated military budget and massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires – not social programs. For more than two decades, the federal government has financed its “global war on terror” by borrowing funds instead of raising taxes or issuing war bonds. By 2020, the debt incurred for $2 trillion in direct war-related spending had resulted in billions upon billions of dollars in interest payments.
The war budget of the United States far exceeds that of any other country. In fact, it is larger than the war budgets of the next 10 nations combined. In late December 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act into law, allocating $816.7 billion to the Defense Department. Significantly, more than half of the military spending of the United States goes to private, for-profit contractors who have an economic interest in promoting war.
If the discussions on the debt ceiling drag on in Washington, the danger mounts that “centrists” in the Democratic Party (such as those in the “Problem Solvers Caucus” in the U.S. House of Representatives) will make common cause with the more “reasonable” Republicans and use the threat of a default as a pretext to gut essential social programs. The American people cannot let that happen.
President Joe Biden has a long record of advocating cuts in social programs to balance the federal budget. As early as 1984 and as recently in 2018, Biden was willing to consider major cuts in Social Security. On February 7, Biden emphatically supported Social Security and Medicare in his State of the Union address, and dramatically challenged Republicans to do likewise.
We will all have to hold Biden to that promise. There can be no haggling with Congressional Republicans in the months ahead. The debt limit has to be raised without any cuts to programs that benefit the poor, the hungry, the homeless, and the disabled.
Across the country, voices are being raised to protect — and expand —those social programs. For instance, some 56 labor unions and progressive advocacy groups have endorsed legislation to expand Social Security. A group of law-makers in Congress have unveiled a bill that would increase Social Security benefits by at least $200 per month. The bill would prolong the program’s solvency for decades – by finally requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share. The Social Security Expansion Act introduced by U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would add an additional $2,400 in beneficiaries’ pockets each year. It would ensure the program is fully funded through 2096. This bill must be supported.
We cannot allow this country’s rulers to use the debt ceiling problem to further impoverish those with the least.
We have to insist that the tax cuts given to billionaires by former President Trump be rescinded. If any federal program is to be cut, it should be the gigantic, bloated U.S. military budget.
We all have a stake in this fight. When it comes to the much-discussed “debt crisis,” we need to send a unified message, loud and clear: Make those at the top of society pay, not those at the bottom!
