The Senate Budget Committee on Thursday approved what Sen. Bernie Sanders called a “devastating” budget. The environment committee held a hearing Wednesday on toxic chemicals in consumer goods. The percentage of middle-class households shrank in every state between 2000 and 2012, according to a new study released Thursday. Pew also released a poll on Thursday finding that more than three out of every five Americans think the wealthy and corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes. 

Devastating Budget Sent to Senate Floor Slated to come before the full Senate on Monday, the budget would throw millions of Americans off health insurance; cut $4.3 trillion from programs like Medicare, food stamps and Medicaid; scale back education programs; freeze Pell Grants for college students and roll back regulations on Wall Street enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.  What it doesn’t do may be worse. It doesn’t address the 11 percent real unemployment rate in the United States. It doesn’t create any jobs. It doesn’t fix crumbling roads and bridges. It doesn’t make college more affordable. It doesn’t raise the minimum wage. Despite Republicans’ professed concerns about deficits, their plan would leave in place tax loopholes that let the wealthy and big corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. A Sanders amendment to create millions of good-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure was shot down in committee. Sanders’ amendments to raise the minimum wage and reform campaign finances also were rejected on party-line votes.

Watch the jobs amendment

Watch the minimum wage amendment

Watch the campaign finance amendment

War Funds The Senate Budget Committee added $38 billion in military spending through a war account not subject to statutory spending limits. Sanders said the budget gimmick belied Republicans professed concern about adding to the deficit. “You're always telling us the deficit is so bad we've got to cut programs for the elderly, for the sick and for the poor, and suddenly all of that rhetoric disappears,” he told Republican senators. He worried that the “lays the groundwork for another unpaid for war.”

Toxic Chemicals Sanders wants stronger curbs on the use of dangerous chemicals in consumer products but at a hearing on Wednesday he criticized a bill that would take away from Vermont and other states the power to protect consumers with new state regulations. In the absence of effective federal safeguards, the Vermont Legislature last year passed the Toxic Free Families Act. The state law gave the Department of Health authority to limit the use of toxic chemicals. “To tie the hands of states which have been active on this issue doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me,” Sanders said. He also found it ironic that Republicans want to give the EPA exclusive power to regulate chemicals while also advocating major cuts in the agency’s budget. “I don’t think that passes the laugh test,” Sanders said. Read more

Middle Class Collapse The percentage of middle-class households dropped in every U.S. state between 2000 and 2013, according to a new analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Stateline blog. Even with median income on the decline in most states, the number of people making between 67 percent and 200 percent of median income shrank. Read more

Tax Fairness As the April 15 filing deadline nears, Americans’ main complaint about the tax system is not how much they pay. It’s the sense that some corporations and wealthy people do not pay their fair share of taxes. A Pew poll found 27 percent were bothered “a lot” by the amount they pay in taxes but 64 percent are bothered a lot by the feeling that some corporations do not pay their fair share. And 61 percent say the same about some wealthy people not paying their fair share. Read more

Global Warming As winter turned to spring, the amount of ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole was smaller than at any time since 1979, when satellites began tracking it. The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center released the update on Thursday.