The PC concentration on stimulus reflects the lack of commitment to spending without the excuse of a recession.
My $50B number refers to their proposed *budget* last year. Single-payer was not in their *budget*, their endorsement of it notwithstanding. We've given Bush a lot of flack because he never put foward a *budget*, so the PC *budget* is fair game in the same terms.
The sum of whatever individual members support separately is not very important politically. What matters is a proposal for taxes and spending with some minimal level of internal consistency that commands some kind of group support, also known as a fiscal policy or *budget.*
mbs
> -I wish. The Progressive Caucus budget, considerately off the median,
> -called for about $51 billion in new domestic spending (gross), as well
> -as a bunch of cuts in domestic spending.
>
> Actually, the Progressive Caucus is not that far off the median;
> they include
> about a third of the caucus and often aim to get half the caucus on votes
> that they propose.
>
> And the Caucus just proposed a $200 billion stimulus plan
> including over $60
> billion in expanded unemployment benefits, over $60 billion in health and
> social spending and $35 billion in public works.
>
> This is on top of their ongoing support for a Prescription Drugs
> benefit for
> Medicare and universal health care for everyone, reasonably pricy
> items. You
> add up the whole Progressive Caucus agenda and is amounts to pretty hefty
> increases in social spending.
>
> And beyond the caucus, I will note that over 100 Democrats,
> roughly half the
> caucus (ie. the median Democrat) endorsed single payer health
> care and Dems
> have overwhelmingly supported every labor law reform proposed in the last
> forty years. If the median Dem was deciding things, labor law in this
> country would be radically different for workers.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>
>