Never to Low to GOP

So here's reality: Republicans control many of the states in this country with the worst education systems, the biggest fiscal crises, the lowest income earners and the least skilled and educated people. In order to galvanize the fear of those people into greater gains for their vision of an America in which the state abdicates most if not all of the services we have come to rely on, even utilities such as water, they have created this narrative that starts with the notion of a fiscal crisis.

Yes are most of the states facing budget shortfalls? Yeah, they are, and part of the reason for it is because taxpayers are having to makeup the cost of the pension money of public workers that was lost when markets crashed two years ago. Those pensions were contractually negotiated years ago. Those people have earned their money. Now should contracts be renegotiated, maybe, but is it the responsibility of public workers to give up benefits that were contracted to them and that they've earned?

What is more, this narrative of fiscal crisis, accompanied by genuine deficits, has allowed people to buy into this idea that tax cuts are the answer to everything, to job creation, as well as to their own personal financial woes. Historically tax cuts have never worked to create jobs, and historically the majority of people suffer when the government has to cut programs that are vital to the lives of most Americans. (See my previous posts about union busting and public education).

So what is the balance, here, if people rely on basics like emergency services and public education, not to mention road repair and basic utilities like water? How are we going to make up that deficit if cutting from the budget is not enough? It's simple.

This whole narrative, this whole idea that we have no money, that we're broke, that we already are running in the red, all of it is because we are not taking in enough revenue, not on the state level and not on the federal level. Now is there fat to trim at all levels? Yes, bureaucracies need streamlining, programs not meeting goals need to be revisited and retooled. But make no mistake, the real answer involves raising taxes. No one likes that idea, though, but so many people seem to think that if we raise taxes on one tax bracket it's bad for everyone. That is just categorically untrue. The taxes of all go up because Republicans refuse to raise taxes on the top 2%, something that is overwhelmingly popular with the American public when faced with the choice of cutting from Medicare, Social Security or Education.

But what is even more damaging are the budgets proposed and likely to pass in states like Michigan and Florida. Florida, the governor is going to cut $1.75 billion dollars from public education, with most of it coming from K-12. $1.6 billion of that will be to pay for tax cuts for corporations and for property tax cuts. That means only $150 million will be left over to help cover any state budget deficits. According to the Palm Beach Post, that means the average teacher salary would lose more than $2,300 while the average property tax break of about $45.

In Michigan the governor would raise tax rates on the elderly and poor and in Georgia the legislature is trying to apply sales tax to the fund raising efforts of the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts, so that Girl Scout cookies are taxable. All of this goes on while making public worker unions into the easy targets for the public campaign to justify cuts to corporations that are not hiring jobs and to the wealthy who are not only not hiring but also investing that money into financial instruments that make more money while not supporting any substantive growth to the economy.

So the point of this piece is, really? You're going to tax grandma and Girl Scout cookies but you aren't going to increase the taxes on the 400 people who own more wealth than more than 50% of the rest of the country?