At last, a humane budget.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Political Eye - Column

There are so many reasons the Paul Ryan budget and the rightwing approach to economics make no sense.

To start with, the budget deficit is not our nation's most pressing problem. The real crisis is unemployment and lack of job growth. As the employment picture improves, deficits have actually been going down every year since the height of the recession in 2009.

Trickle-down economics and deregulation have been tried and have failed. How do you think we got here?

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Austerity is disastrous--check out what is happening in Greece and Spain.

Social Security is currently running a surplus in its separate, off-budget trust fund, could remain solvent with a modest tax increase on high earners, and shouldn't be on the table at all in budget talks. Yet the President has been telling Republicans he is willing to break his promise to seniors and consider "chained CPI"--an adjustment in the cost-of-living calculation that would severely reduce Social Security benefits.

So, in the current political environment, it is a huge relief to read the House Progressive Caucus "Back to Work" budget. The budget shows what a Democratic Party that had the courage of its convictions would actually do.

It is Paul Ryan in reverse--a fundamentally humane proposal.

It has a stated goal of eradicating poverty, and a target of cutting poverty in half in ten years. Plus, it puts the problem of the jobs deficit ahead of the budget deficit, and makes a major investment in infrastructure.

In many ways, it makes good on the promises that won President Obama both his elections.

It immediately repeals the sequester, and allows the Bush tax cuts to expire for families earning over $250,000 a year. This is certainly a better deal than the one Obama recently struck with Republicans, which only repeals the Bush tax cuts on families making $450,000 and individuals who earn $400,000--a staggering new definition of "middle class."

It brings back the "public option" in health care reform, helps the states set up a single-payer health care option under the Affordable Care Act, and strengthens Medicare and Medicaid, which, the Progressive Caucus points out, "provide high-quality, low-cost medical coverage to millions of Americans when they need it most."

The health care portion of the budget, which flies in the face of the Ryan Medicare privatization plan, makes the Progressive Caucus budget a much more serious plan to address the long-term issue Of budget deficits than...