The so-called
congressional “super committee,” charged with finding ways to
reduce the U.S. budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years,
admitted defeat on Nov. 21.
Its members, composed of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans,
were unable to compromise on key elements of a deficit-reduction
package. This means that in addition to the “compromise” $917
billion in budget cuts announced in August, an additional round of
“across-the-board” automatic cuts is scheduled to go into effect
in 2013.
As negotiated over
the summer, roughly half of the cuts—around $600 billion—is
supposed to come from the military budget, while the rest will come
from vital social programs, including education, unemployment
benefits, Medicaid and HIV prevention.
It is certain that
the military budget will only be trimmed by a fraction of the amount
currently laid out, if at all.
The costs of maintaining the U.S. empire, after all, are more likely
to rise than to fall as resistance to imperialist plunder grows
around the world. Even the relatively modest cuts projected will
leave U.S. military spending by far the largest in the world.
Meanwhile, the vast
majority of the cuts to education and programs within the social
safety net will likely be enacted with little more than a whimper
from their “supporters” in Congress.
Without a
congressional extension of benefits, 2 million unemployed workers
will run out of unemployment insurance in early 2012.
A year later, 70,000 teachers will be forced out
of work, while over $1 billion in Title I grants for poor districts
and $900 million for special education will disappear.
Vital medical programs, like the Ryan White CARE Act, will lose their
funding. And, of course, Social Security and Medicare are sure to be
on the table for substantial new cuts once the 2012 elections are out
of the way.
A dedicated new
movement is emerging that is energetically fighting back against
ruling-class efforts to gut essential programs working people fought
so desperately to gain, and against the rulers’ efforts to make Main
Street pay for Wall Street’s crisis.
With militarism on
the rise and capitalism in decline, a mass movement of the 99
percent, led by a politically conscious, multi-national
working-class, can direct the same energy to overturning the rule of
the 1 percent. Such a movement can achieve the fundamental social
change that is urgently needed—replacing production for profit with
planned production to meet human needs.
