Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib on Tuesday became the first sitting members of Congress to join a new pressure campaign demanding that President-elect Joe Biden keep Bruce Reed — an unapologetic architect of Bill Clinton’s disastrous “welfare reform” and notorious austerity proponent — out of the White House.
The “No Deficit Hawks” petition, launched by advocacy group Justice Democrats and backed by other progressive organizations, comes as Reed is reportedly under consideration to lead Biden’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a key agency that will be tasked with crafting the incoming administration’s budgetary agenda amid a devastating economic crisis.
“Putting someone who will prioritize paying down the deficit ahead of all other concerns in charge is a recipe for cutting our earned benefits and turning the Covid recession into a depression,” the petition states. “Rejecting Reed will be a major test for the soul of the Biden presidency.”
A long-time Democratic operative who has advised and worked for Biden for years, Reed helped craft the 1996 welfare reform law that produced a massive surge in extreme poverty, inflicting severe damage on vulnerable children. Reed, who in 2016 characterized the law as an overall “success,” has also been credited with authoring Clinton’s infamous vow to “end welfare as we know it.”
In the wake of The American Prospect’s report last week that Reed is under consideration to head OMB, progressives spotlighted Reed’s role as executive director of the Bowles-Simpson Commission, an Obama administration initiative that recommended slashing Social Security benefits.
Social Security Works, one of the backers of the new petition, said it is imperative to “keep Reed and his toxic austerity politics out of the Biden administration.”
Omar echoed that message in a tweet on Tuesday, declaring: “If the Biden administration is serious about protecting Medicare and Social Security, they must not appoint one of the biggest champions of cuts to lead their budget agency.”
If the Biden administration is serious about protecting Medicare and Social Security, they must not appoint one of the biggest champions of cuts to lead their budget agency.
Join me, @justicedems, & our progressive coalition in saying no to deficit hawks: https://t.co/0BjuQj5dwm
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 24, 2020
Other signatories of the new petition include the Working Families Party and Data for Progress as well as Reps.-elect Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), incoming progressive members who have also spoken out against the Biden team’s reported consideration of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for a White House role.
“Bruce Reed helped develop the ’94 Crime Bill, pushed broken windows policing and cuts to Social Security and Medicaid,” Bush tweeted Tuesday. “We want an administration that prioritizes programs that protect all of us. Mr. Reed is not someone our communities trust.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy