1 thought on “Sunday Open Thread:

  1. With Congress now on recess in the midst of budget concerns, we need to look at the progressive legislation recently introduced for consideration.

    Elizabeth Warren has co-sponsored a bill for reinstating the Glass-Steagall banking measures (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/247093-warren-mccain-introduce-bill-to-bring-back-glass-steagall). With all the unproductive speculation now happening, please notify your member of Congress to tell them we need this bill to pass.

    A bill to expand Social Security was introduced, co-sponsored by 156 of the 193 House Democrats–staying true to his Third Way pedigree, Ron Kind chose not to. (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/05/these-156-lawmakers-support-expanding-not-cutting-social-security-does-yours).

    The defeat of Trumpcare has opened the pathway toward providing Medicare for All, based on John Conyer’s H.B.676 bill (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/03/29/crash-trumpcare-opens-door-full-medicare-all).

    A new bill providing aid to college students has also been introduced (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/04/sanders-democratic-colleagues-introduce-new-free-college-bill).

    Congress has appropriated some $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending for FY2018. So far, only $59 billion has been allotted for the Department of Education, dwarfed by the portion directed to military spending. The DOD alone gets an enormous share, $638.6 billion (55+% of discretionary spending), not counting the other agencies that support military operations (NSA, etc.), making the real military cost some $824 billion, more than 71% of the discretionary budget.

    The bloated U.S. military budget is greater than those of the next ten largest-spending countries combined. This sad situation needs to change, for the sake of us all.

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