Sponsored by: Jo Six, Washington County Approved: 08/12/2018
A RESOLUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF OREGON
WHEREAS, Pay-go is a budget rule requiring that new legislation affecting revenues and spending on entitlement programs, taken as a whole, does not increase projected budget deficits, meaning that the government cannot increase spending unless there is an increase in revenue, and
WHEREAS, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”, and
WHEREAS, 50% of all Americans live in or near poverty, and
WHEREAS, House Republicans on June 19th quietly unveiled their 2019 budget proposal that calls for $537 billion in cuts to Medicare, $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, and $4 billion in cuts to Social Security, and other cuts over the next decade in an effort to pay for their deficit-exploding tax cuts for the wealthy, and
WHEREAS, 83% of the recent Republican $1.5 trillion tax cuts will go to the top 1%, and
WHEREAS, government sources indicate $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments have been reported for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015, and
WHEREAS, 89% of Democratic Senators voted to pass the $696.5 billion defense bill, and
WHEREAS, an additional $61 billion was allocated in 2018 to the Trump administration for defense, boosting its overall budget to $700 billion, a 40% increase since the height of the Iraq war, and the US spends more than the next 9 countries on defense, and most of those countries are our allies, and
WHEREAS, the Pentagon is slated to receive more than $6 trillion over the next decade, and
WHEREAS, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts the annual deficit will top $1 trillion by 2020, and
WHEREAS, Democratic Party leadership has publicly committed to “pay-go” should Democrats win the House in the 2018 midterms, and that “the policy would be a 2019 priority”, and
WHEREAS, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said the Democrats would be foolish to adopt the fiscal restraints, especially in light of the Republicans’ newly adopted tax-reform law, which is estimated to add almost $2 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF OREGON RESOLVES AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. We call upon Democratic Leadership to renounce their pay-go commitment and agree to increase spending on policies like Social Security, Medicare for All, a living wage, tuition-free college, elimination of student debt, a jobs program and other programs that benefit the American people and help our economy.
Section 2. We call on the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) to publicly denounce the House’s pay-go plan.
Section 3. We call on the DPO to officially thank Senators Merkley and Wyden for NOT being part of the 89% of senators who voted for the Defense bill.
