Laura mentioned Paul Krugman’s excellent op-ed. He and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald have been thinking along similar lines. Here are some of the stories that inspired them:
The city of Camden, NJ is permanently closing its library system by the end of the year:
Camden is preparing to permanently shut its library system by the end of the year, potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the United States unable to borrow a library book free.
At an emotional but sparsely attended meeting of the library board Thursday, its president, Martin McKernan, said the city’s three libraries cannot stay open past Dec. 31 because of severe budget cuts by Mayor Dana L. Redd.
“It’s extraordinary, it’s appalling,” McKernan said.
All materials in the libraries would be donated, auctioned, stored, or destroyed. That includes 187,000 books, historical documents, artifacts, and electronic equipment. Keeping materials in the shuttered buildings is a fire hazard, officials said, and would make them vulnerable to vandalism and vermin.
Camden is a city of over 500,000 people, who will have no access to free books or to free library computers and internet.
Ripping up the roads:
Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.
In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as “poor man’s pavement.” Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel.
Remember when America’s roadways and highways were something to be proud of?
Utah looks at making the senior year of high school optional:
The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.
The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican’s assessment that many seniors frittered away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters, including in his hometown of West Jordan.
“My parents are against it,” Williams said. “All the teachers at the school are against it. I’m against it.”
Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
There’s more. In the NY Times we learn of a Georgia public bus system being shut down completely:
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
and Hawaii furloughed schools:
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation and sending working parents scrambling to find care for them.
We’re in a big, big mess – and there aren’t any real solutions being offered. Cutting taxes for the wealthy isn’t going to dig us out of this hole. Worrying about the deficit isn’t going to dig us out. Cutting food stamps or Social Security isn’t the way forward. President Obama has said that everything other than defense is on the chopping block. We are supporting over 1000 overseas military bases. Is this really making us stronger or safer? If we can cut food to hungry families without even blinking, we shouldn’t be afraid of reevaluating how we spend our defense dollars.
Tags: Education, public services, public transit, state budgets, sustainable governance
By Kim McMurray — Pennsylvania
This week, a new report by the Rockefeller Foundation showed that Americans are more economically insecure now than in the past three decades. The report measured the percentage of people who saw a household income decrease of 25% or more in the past year. More Americans are facing complete economic devastation. They are out of savings. They need to choose between a mortgage payment and food. They don’t know where to turn.
This isn’t breaking news for the Working America community. Every night, we go out and talk to people who are experiencing financial hardships because of the economic downturn. It seems like everyone has a story about unemployment. It could be her son who graduated college two years ago but is still living at home. His sister-in-law who prays he won’t get sick. Or her husband who spends his days on their couch battling depression.
Things started to look up. Congress passed an unemployment benefit extension and for the first time in eight years, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a budget on time. You would think that there would be a collective sigh of relief in the Commonwealth that finally, finally, something passed on time, but the new budget cut essential services that working families depend on, especially in this time of economic need.
Our member’s stories are not unique. Rather, they are far, far too common. Howard was laid off two years ago and he has been unable to find work since. He sends out applications each week and is currently working to complete his GED at a job training program near Allentown. His family is now facing foreclosure. This is the time when the Hillers need state services the most, but housing and legal assistance have both seen drastic cuts and are stretched thin.
Lorraine runs a day care business in Philadelphia. She has been working in the industry for over ten years. She built her business with the help of the Keystone Stars program which provides resources so that childcare providers can enhance early education programs. The children in her care benefitted directly from these resources and Lorraine was able to build her business, though she still has further to go. However, this program as well as other early education programs were severely cut this year and will be forced to shorten their reach.
The solutions are simple. Instead of cutting essential services that families rely on, our elected officials need to close the corporate tax loopholes that allow big businesses to get away with not paying their fair share. There are four main ways they can do this.
The first is to close the loophole which allows 70% of businesses in Pennsylvania to avoid paying income taxes. Multistate companies like WalMart avoid paying income taxes in Pennsylvania by setting up subsidiaries in tax-haven states like Delaware. These subsidiaries can be nothing more than a post office box. One address in Delaware is home to over 14,000 of these subsidiaries. Closing this loophole would bring over $616 million to the state annually which could go towards funding public schools, libraries, homeless shelters and mental health clinics, all of which experienced significant budget cuts this year.
Second, we have to close the tax breaks big corporations receive for collecting state sales tax. This outdated system allows corporations to keep 1% of the 6% sales tax for filing on time. The tax break dates back to shopkeepers manually calculating and collecting the tax. However, it is now collected by computer. It is a tax break which could bring in $74 million a year. The Scranton School for the Deaf, which lost 100% of its funding this year? $5.4 million.
Third, we need to impose a tax on smokeless tobacco products. Pennsylvania is one of two states that doesn’t do this. If Virginia and North Carolina can benefit from taxing tobacco products, so can Pennsylvania.
Last, we need to pass a strong natural gas severance tax. Pennsylvania has an abundance of natural gas and our citizens should benefit from its extraction. Instead they are left with poisoned drinking water and unsafe drilling methods as funding for safety inspections saw significant cuts.
With the unemployment level still hovering over 9%, our Pennsylvania Senators had a chance to show that they care about working families and their struggles by funding the programs that they depend on, but they chose to lend their support to corporations who refuse to pay their fair share. The fight is just beginning for next year.
The federal government, though it plays a huge role, is not the only body responsible for pulling our country out of this recession. The state governments need to play their part as well.
Tags: public services, state budgets, sustainable governance
Paul Krugman on what’s become of America:
…A country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.
And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.
-snip-
In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.
It’s a disastrous choice in both the short run and the long run.
Read the whole thing, if you haven’t already. (If you have, send it to a friend.)
Tags: Education, state budgets, sustainable governance, taxes
