Hawkins Blasts Both Major Parties for Killing Economic Stimulus While Bailing Out Wall Street and Increasing Military Spending
Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org
Media Release
For Immediate Release: Sunday, September 28, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress in the 25th District, blasted Senate Republicans and House Democrats today for killing a $56 billion economic stimulus package for average Americans while continuing to push a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street financiers. The bill included money for public infrastructure, including Amtrak and sewer systems, and for Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment benefits.
"The Republicans in Congress think it is critical that we give away $700 billion to the Wall Street robber barons, but they won't spend $56 billion to help put more food on the table for working class Americans. The House Democrats waited until the stimulus bill was defeated in the Senate before conducting a toothless symbolic vote for their own $61 billion version of the bill. Do the major parties really think $56 or $61 billion is enough to stem the recession while $700 billion is needed for the banksters who threw us into the economic ditch? Why do Democrats and Republicans always think it is critical to immediately rescue the rich from their own follies and misdeeds but OK for working Americans to drown under economic problems they did not create?" asked Hawkins.
The stimulus bill would have extended unemployment benefits and boosted funding for food stamps. In the economic stimulus package that Congress passed earlier this year, the House blocked a 20 percent increase in food stamp benefits that had been supported by the Senate. Many families have been hard hit by rising food prices combined with increasing unemployment. The stimulus measure would have helped states pay health-care costs, which is particularly critical for New York with its high Medicaid expenditures partially financed through county property taxes.
Hawkins said that while the Senate Republicans blocked the economic stimulus package, the Democrats failed to make it a priority. The House Democrats waited until the last days of the Congressional session and until after the measure was defeated in the Senate before putting it up for a vote.
"The Democrats were more interested in scoring a political sound bite than they were in helping working class Americans," Hawkins said
Hawkins also blasted Congress for adopting the $634 billion stopgap-spending bill, which now allows lawmakers to skip town for the election campaign and to avoid a post-election lame duck session without adopting a budget for FY 2009, which begins on Tuesday, October 1. The Senate passed the bill 78-12 on Saturday, following House passage by a vote of 370-58 on Wednesday. The bill will keep federal programs running through next March 6.
Most of the money appropriated is for military-related expenditures, including $488 billion for the Pentagon, $40 billion for Homeland Security, and $41 billion for Veterans Affairs. $70 billion of the Pentagon appropriation is for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As adopted, the bill eliminated a provision that would have required Congressional approval of a security pact with Iraq, which is needed as a legal cover by the US occupation forces before their UN mandate runs out at the end of this year. The US invaded and occupied Iraq without UN Security Council authorization, but the Security Council subsequently gave the US the legal responsibilities of an occupying power to restore orderly government. While Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki approved the annual extension of the UN mandate at the end of 2007, the Iraqi parliamentary majority voted their disapproval, which the UN Security Council ignored. Malaki is currently negotiating a security pact with the US administration to replace the UN mandate, which Congress has now ceded its right to review.
"Once again, the Democratic majorities in both Houses have caved in to Bush and the Republicans by voting to continue funding the Iraq war and ceding the war powers vested in Congress by Article 3 of the Constitution to the imperial presidency," Hawkins said.
The platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties call for increasing military spending, including increasing the number of soldiers and marines on active duty on the order of 92,000 (Democrats) to 150,000 (Republicans). The full military spending plan for FY 2009 that Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating would authorize a record $612 billion for the Department of Defense, but that is only part of total military spending. The budget plan also includes more than $50 billion for Homeland Security, $20 billion for nuclear weapons in the Department of Energy's budget, $10 billion for the Coast Guard, $10 billion for foreign security assistance, $91 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and some $125 billion in other military-related programs in other sections of the federal budget. When one adds in the interest on the national debt attributable to past deficit spending for military purposes, the estimates of which range between $200 and $400 billion, total military-related spending in FY 2009 will come to well over $1 trillion.
"This is what all the rhetoric from both parties about bipartisanship really means: bipartisan cooperation on $1 trillion dollars for the military and $700 billion for the rich, but next to nothing for working people. Middle class and low-income working families are struggling in a declining economy to keep or find jobs and afford housing, heat, electricity, food, health care, and education. The economic crisis, as well as the global climate emergency, cries out for massive public investment to build a 21st-century green infrastructure. Instead we get a massive military budget that is more about global empire than homeland defense and a massive tax giveaway to the rich that will be paid for by average taxpayers for years to come. It’s time to throw the bums out of Congress from both of the corporate-financed major parties and elect new representatives who are independent of corporate control," Hawkins said.
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