(Headline USA) The Democratic Socialists of America are staring down bankruptcy, leading the leftist organization to make drastic budget cuts to protect its bottom line.
DSA, which includes leftist members of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., revealed this week that it must cut at least $500,000 from its expenses to deal with a self-inflicted “financial crisis.”
A proposal by the group’s National Political Committee admitted the budget cuts would result in job losses, according to the New York Post.
“We will first ask for volunteers from both director-level and bargaining unit staff to have their position cut and receive severance,” it said. “If necessary, we will then explore initiating lay-offs according to the DSA union’s contract.”
DSA said it had no choice but to cut staff, since “staff-related costs account for 58% of our total expenditures and 72% of our projected income,” and funding has all but dried up.
“The current deficit will force us to make 7-figure budget cuts,” DSA informed its employees.
“This will require us to make painful decisions that will impact all levels of the organization,” it added. “… Given our current financial state, we do not believe we can have a healthy, democratic, and effective organization while spending the amount we currently do on staff.”
The leftist organization has been in internal turmoil ever since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, which DSA refused to condemn. One of the group’s founding members, Maurice Isserman, even publicly left DSA over the group’s response.
“I left to protest the DSA leadership’s politically and morally bankrupt response to the horrific Hamas October 7 anti-Jewish pogrom that took the lives of 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and saw over 200 hostages carried off to Gaza, both groups of victims including children and infants,” she said at the time.
DSA members have, in the past, served as paid activists for various protests and resistance movements, some of which are underwritten by billionaire George Soros.
It is unclear whether the group receives any outside funding from organizations like the International Communist Party, to which it also has been loosely linked.
One place it is unlikely to receive a bailout, however, is from its most famous member. Ocasio–Cortez has notably abandoned at least one other group that helped to launch her political career, the Justice Democrats.
After it was forced to lay off half its staff last year, some of that group’s leaders slammed the opportunistic “Squad” member for quickly forgetting her roots and core values as soon as fame and fortune presented themselves to her.
“It took all the wind out of our movement,” said Justice Democrats co-founder Cenk Uygur at the time. “…Our movement is shrinking and losing all hope because the people we sent to D.C. chose their personal comfort over their voters.”
Uygur is currently challenging incumbent President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.
