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Capitol View®
Brett Neely

With budget battles fading, Ellison rolls out progressive budget vision

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison introducing the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget to reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on March 12, 2014. (Brett Neely/MPR News)
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison introducing the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget to reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on March 12, 2014. (Brett Neely/MPR News)

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U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison introducing the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget to reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference on March 12, 2014. (Brett Neely/MPR News)

WASHINGTON - The Washington Budget Wars of 2011 to 2013 ended with last December's budget deal, essentially a cease-fire that locked in the bulk of spending cuts Republicans had gained over the previous three years while Democrats got slightly higher spending numbers and the ability to fund new programs, shuffle around money and protect entitlement programs. For now, most members of Congress acknowledge that the budget battles aren't likely to be reopened unless Republicans take the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections this fall.

But U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and some fellow members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus he co-chairs would like to re-open the debate with a budget they've introduced that would raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year, slash defense spending, close the deficit to levels not seen since the 1990s and pour money into a domestic spending plan that they say would create more than 8 million jobs over the next three years.

"We believe that a budget should reflect the values of our nation and what we value is putting people back to work," said the Minneapolis Democrat at a sparsely-attended Capitol Hill news conference.

Unlike past CPC budgets, this year's version comes ahead of the House Republican budget expected to be introduced by Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan later this month. Ryan's past budgets have called for dramatic cuts to federal spending and taxation, and the GOP has coalesced around those proposals even in the face of withering criticism from Democrats about the impact of those cuts on the social safety net.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House will likely get a chance to vote on the CPC budget plan when the Republican budget comes up for debate. Unlike the GOP budget, Democrats have united far less behind their party's most liberal wing with just 84 of the House's 199 Democrats voting in favor of the CPC budget in 2013. The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate is unlikely to take up a new budget this year.