State Budget Lunacy

The following was sent out by the California Teachers Association (CTA). It is a pretty good summary of some of the more egregious examples of how states are squeezing working people for the benefit of the rich. It is no coincidence that California has been left out of their list. CTA is complicit in the state’s gouging of working people, including their own members, the teachers. They are even trying to rally teacher support for a state capital protest to force legislators to allow an extension of regressive taxes that would further squeeze working people, while letting the rich off the hook. 

Florida

In Florida, Governor Scott is proposing a K-12 education cut of 10% or $700 per student. Schools are considering cutting football and athletics programs. At the same time, Scott has proposed cutting the corporate income tax from 5.5% to 3%, and fully eliminating it by 2018. The tax cut will cost the state $459 million in 2012. Florida is already 50^th in per capita state government expenditures for all education and 43^rd among the states in state tax revenue per capita [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; News 4 Jacksonville, 3/14/2011; Highlands Today 2/10/2011; Florida Times-Union 3/29/2011]

Maine 

In Maine, Governor LePage is cutting the alternative minimum income tax in 2012, lowering the top income tax rate from 8.5% to 7.95% in 2013, and in 2014 doubling the tax exemption in the estate tax. These cuts will cost the state $203 million over the next two years, but Mainers earning between $28,139 and $48,050 would only get a tax break of about $83 in 2013. Meanwhile, LePage is cutting health care for seniors, including a $14 million cut to Maine's Medicare Savings Program that would drop 40,000 people from the program which helps seniors and the disabled afford prescription medication. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; WABI, 3/31/2011]

Michigan 

In Michigan, Governor Snyder wants to eliminate the state business tax, replacing it with a flat 6% corporate income tax. He is also wants an additional $1.8 billion in business tax cuts. Yet, Snyder recently signed a law cutting unemployment benefits from 26 to 20 weeks. He also wants to cut $470 per pupil from K-12 education spending and a 15% cut in state support for public universities. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; Detroit Free Press 3/29/2011; Detroit News 4/1/2011]

Minnesota

In Minnesota, the Republican Senate has enacted new tax cuts costing $200 million in 2012-13 and $435 million in 2014-15. The tax breaks will be paid for by cutting the “Renter’s Credit” which provided a tax refund to over 300,000 low and moderate income households. [MN Budget Project 3/29/2011]

New Hampshire

Gov. Lynch wants to cut 23% of state funding from public universities ($750 per student) and 21% from community colleges ($400 per student). The New Hampshire house just passed a budget bill cutting $115 million from hospitals, $5 million from childcare aid for mothers trying to get off welfare, $90 million from the University System and $11 million from the Community College System. At the same time, the bill adds funding for charter schools and eliminates a $30 per vehicle registration fee.  [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; Union Leader 3/31/2011]

New Jersey

Gov. Christie is proposing a 25% reduction in the corporate minimum tax, and he wants to raise the estate tax exemption from $675,000 to $1 million. These cuts will cost the state $200 million in 2012. He also gave away $800 million in corporate tax cuts through his “Back to Work NJ” program, while rewarding millionaires with tax breaks. At the same time, he cut $1.3 billion in state support for education. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; Daily Record, 12/28/10; Office of Legislative Services Budget Analysis, April, 2010; NJPP Report 1/24/2011]

Ohio

Gov. Kasich is proposing a K-12 education cut of 10% ($489 per student) and a higher education cut of 11% ($510 per student), while giving away $1.2 billion vouchers and charters schools subsidies. Kasich cut Medicare by $1.4 million. Meanwhile, Kasich left 128 business tax exemptions, credits and deductions worth $7 billion in lost revenue and he is implementing an income tax break that will cost Ohio $800 million in revenue. [Policy Matters Ohio 3/25/2011; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; Policy Matters Ohio 3/29/2011; Toledo Blade 3/20/2011; Columbus Dispatch 3/17/2011]

Pennsylvania

Gov. Corbett refuses to collect revenue from new natural gas drilling, while proposing a k-12 education cut of 10% ($550 million), plus an additional $500 million in cuts to implement effective educations practices, train teachers, and maintain tutoring programs. He is also wants to cut more than 50% from higher education ($271 million) and reduce community college funding by 10%. Yet, there is plenty of money for tax breaks for businesses, like the elimination of capital stock and franchise taxes. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, 3/11/2011]

Wisconsin

Gov. Walker gave away $117 million in tax breaks for corporations and has promised to corporate taxes by $82 million. Meanwhile, he wants to cut education by 8% ($749 million) over the next 2 years, with an addition $250 million cut from state universities. He also wants to slash Wisconsin’s SeniorCare program. [Associated Press 2/4/2011; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/21/2011; WHBL News 3/31/2011]

Jersey Workers Take Fight to Capital

The class war continues to spread, as thousands protested outside the New Jersey Capitol in freezing rain on Friday. Gov. Chris Christie has called for drastic cuts to education, health, transportation and other services. He wants public workers to pay for 30% of their benefits, while refusing to renew a tax on millionaires. The benefits cuts would amount to a $5,000 pay cut for teachers. Christie also wants to gut tenure protections and increase privatization of public schools.

As typical, the union bosses were there, too, shedding crocodile tears for their members, while bending over backwards to accommodate the demands of the ruling elite. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, for example, suggested that union leaders were willing to "find reasonable answers" to budget deficits at the bargaining table. Similar concessions were made by the WEAC and SEIU in Wisconsin. "They've been abusing us for years," said Trumka. "They've taken a lot from us. But they can't take our rights."

In other words, the unions will help the ruling class to squeeze workers as much as they like, so long as they allow unions to exist and the union bosses to continue getting their six-figure salaries.

Christie Proposes A Kinder, Gentler Teacher Basher

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, taking a page out of the Bush playbook, is offering a kinder, gentler assault on teachers, by proposing the elimination of tenure only for bad teachers, backpedaling from his earlier goal of eliminating tenure entirely. Christie intends to mandate the system on all districts and prohibit if from being altered in union negotiations, effectively eviscerating the teachers unions. He also wants all layoffs to be based on primarily on evaluations, not seniority.

The rating system will be based at least partly on students’ test scores, which will result in some teachers losing tenure because they happen to work in low income schools, which tend to have lower test scores. It will drive many of the best veteran teachers away from the neediest schools in a desperate attempt to protect their jobs. It will also create a teacher shortage in the neediest schools, as many aspiring teachers will either refuse to take jobs at low income schools, knowing that the prospects for a good evaluation are much lower there, and because many aspiring teachers will be fired because of poor evaluations due to the low test scores at those schools.

Name-Calling From the Left Doesn't Help

I like Jim Horn’s wit, and his empathy for students and teachers certainly come from a good heart. But when he resorts to the same kind of shock jock name calling of his pet bogeymen, (e.g., Beck and Limbaugh, et al) he insults and potentially turns off many of the same regular folk who we need on our side in the fight against the corporatization of the public sector.

Today he justifiably went after Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, but unjustifiably attacked its poor white rural residents as “hate-filled Indiana hillbillies who get lathered up daily watching Fox and listening to Clear Channel.” Certainly we should be concerned about the near monopoly on public opinion held by right-wing media, but it is overly simplistic to blame them for Americans’ misdirected anger. If our unions were doing their jobs, people would be much better organized and educated about working class issues. They’d have a sense of solidarity and, instead of only 9% of the workforce being unionized, virtually all workers would be members of unions and willing to fight to defend their interests. However, it is also simplistic to blame the bureaucratic and collaborationist mainstream unions. They have been failing to do their jobs, but they have also been hamstrung by years of anti-labor legislation and court rulings.

It is also overly simplistic to blame the media for people’s understanding of the world and their attitudes about it. This notion is particularly shocking to come from an educator who surely understands that learning does not occur simply by funneling facts (or propaganda) into the ears of learners. People construct their knowledge and understanding based on prior knowledge, preconceived notions, social and cultural attitudes and world views. Much of the hate-filled propaganda of Fox and Clear Channel (as well as the less hateful stuff on NBC, CBS and ABC) is consistent with the delusional American Dream fantasy and Protestant notions of work and personal responsibility and therefore easy to swallow for many viewers. It is also much easier to hate and attack those who are your equals than to go after the big boys (i.e., ruling elite) who have all the guns and money on their side.

Then there’s Horn’s disdain for fat people.

I agree with him the Chris Christie is a nasty, dangerous bone head, but it is completely unnecessary and gratuitous to attack his body as he did in New Jersey’s Fat-Headed Governor, calling him “lard ass,” and a “morbidly obese loud-mouthed bully,” the latter insult he repeated here, and here. He loves this insult so much that he used it against Rush Limbaugh, too. Rhetoric like this makes Horn sound like the demagogues he hates, and has the potential to turn off the 63% of Americans who are overweight, many of whom are teachers and students.