Community organizers from a Chicago-based group stormed the lobby of the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday in Washington, DC. holding up signs and middle fingers in protest over the budget blueprint the conservative think tank shared with President Donald Trump.
About 100 people affiliated with The People’s Lobby, a radical left-wing group with a manifesto that calls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “mainstream Democrats,” filled the lobby briefly before being ushered back outside where they stayed for about an hour.
Protesters claim the Heritage’s budget plan favors corporations over people and the planet, which are both threatened by climate change, they claim.
But Wesley Denton, group vice president of communications at Heritage, said it’s ironic that the budget blueprint wants to “end corporate welfare” and stop wasteful spending of taxpayer money in the federal budget.
“These kinds of bullying tactics are nothing new from the radical progressive left, but it won’t deter Heritage or our hundreds of thousands of members across America from fighting for a balanced budget that improves the lives of all Americans,” Denton told Breitbart News. “If the protestors truly opposed the special-interests, they would support Heritage’s Blueprint for Balance which calls for an end to corporate welfare and ending wasteful Washington spending on failed programs.”
The Heritage 2018 budget blueprint is summarized in the report:
- Slow the growth in spending, while fully funding national security needs;
- Cut taxes by more than $1 trillion over 10 years;
- Balance the budget within seven years;
- Reduce spending by $10.0 trillion and cut the deficit by $9.0 trillion over 10 years;
- Eliminate budget gimmicks and improve the budget process; and
- Eliminate programs that produce favoritism and limit opportunity.
The People’s Lobby website reveals a much different vision for this country’s future:
The People’s Lobby is a fast-growing, membership-driven organization devoted to organizing widespread support for public policies and candidates — including people from our communities — that put the needs of people and the planet before the interests of big corporations and the very rich. We train leaders to build bases in our communities, organize elected officials and other powerful people to put the interests of people and the planet first.
The People’s Lobby’s Center for Progressive Strategy and Research’s lengthy manifesto says, in part: “There is a silent progressive majority to the left of both the Tea Party and mainstream Democrats like Clinton and Obama, and it is ready to be transformed into a populist progressive movement in electoral politics. Such a movement would capture a much larger base than that of the Tea Party, and it would be much more powerful. We must seize this opportunity by building indecent political organizations capable of electing movement progressives to office.”
It also states it supports globalization and rejects national borders.