National Teach In at Sac State

On Tuesday, April 5, over 185  universities,  schools and community groups will participate in a teach-in on debt, austerity and how people are fighting back hosted by Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven from 11Am- 2PM.  A national teach-in will be streamed live from New York City, followed by local teach-ins and strategy discussions around the country.

Our Sac State  event will be in the Foothill Suite  of the  University Union from 11am- 2pm, April 5. Sponsored by DSA and the Campus Progressive Alliance.

It will be used to build for CFA day of Class Action on April 13.

Please see http://www.fightbackteachin.org for more information. 
and  http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/national-teach-in/


Wall Street Banks, American corporations and their political allies have declared a one-sided war on the American people. This war is being waged at our schools and colleges, the workplace and in our communities.
 
Today, we are all  working harder and earning less while corporate profits soar .

Please encourage your friends, colleagues, co-workers and students to participate.

For more information contact Duane Campbell at campd227@pacbell.net. Or see our blog at 

http://progressiveforum07.blogspot.com/.

Budget cuts in Portugal and California

The Austerity Delusion

By PAUL KRUGMAN; NYT.

Portugal’s government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up.

What do these events have in common? They’re all evidence that slashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. Austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong.

It’s too bad, then, that these days you’re not considered serious in Washington unless you profess allegiance to the same doctrine that’s failing so dismally in Europe.

It was not always thus. Two years ago, faced with soaring unemployment and large budget deficits — both the consequences of a severe financial crisis — most advanced-country leaders seemingly understood that the problems had to be tackled in sequence, with an immediate focus on creating jobs combined with a long-run strategy of deficit reduction.

Why not slash deficits immediately? Because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. And cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks.

------------------------

This is the same policy being recommended for California by the Republicans. 

 Read the entire column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html

 Read the entire column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25krugman.html

Cut head start while giving tax subsidies to big oil ?

Robert Creamer 

Earth to Boehner... come in! When you look carefully at Republican Speaker John Boehner's spending proposal for the rest of 2011 you'd think these guys must have been hanging out on one of those newly-discovered exo-planets on the outer edger of our solar system.

The Republican proposal, HR1, actually proposes cuts in the Head Start program that would mean:

• 218,000 children from low income families will lose Head Start/Early Head Start services;
• 16,000 Head Start/Early Head Start classrooms will close;
• 55,000 Head Start/Early Head Start teachers and staff will lose their jobs;
• 150,000 low-income families and their children will lose assistance in paying for child care.

They say they need to make these cuts because we must "tighten our belts" to cut spending because "America is broke." But at the very same time they voted to cut Head Start, the Republicans voted tocontinue $4 billion worth of subsidies to Big Oil. That's right, they want to continue to hand over $4 billion of the taxpayers' money to companies like Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in human history.

These subsidies are suppose to provide an incentive for them to produce more oil -- as if the price of oil that closed yesterday at $105.02 per barrel does not do the trick.

In the last quarter of 2010, Exxon-Mobil's profits surged 53% to $9.25 billion on the strength of rising oil prices and increased demand for petroleum products. That means Exxon-Mobil is earning profit at a rate of about $37 billion per year.

How much is $37,000,000,000? It's what 740,000 average American families make for working all year long.

So while the Republicans have proposed to cut back on providing a critical educational boost for the future generation, they have voted to have a tag day for the most profitable company that has existed since the dawn of humanity. Now I'd call that seriously out of touch with the priorities of everyday Americans.

Of course that's not all. The Republicans in the House voted to cut Pell Grants, that help middle class kids go to college, by 25%.

They voted to kill a program that helps low-income families weatherize their homes and permanently reduce their energy bills. Guess we just have to tighten our belts!

They voted to cut funds for employment and training service for jobless workers -- so much for "jobs, jobs, jobs."

They voted to cut funding for clean, safe drinking water by more than half, to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 10% and to cut funds for the Food and Drug Administration by another 10%. All the while handing out billions to the oil companies.

And remember, they are giving handouts to the oil companies at the same time that oil and gas prices have been skyrocketing.

Increases in gas prices siphon money from the pocketbook of ordinary families. The New York Timesreports that some economists calculate that, "each $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil knocks 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points off the growth rate of the economy." According to a report by Morgan Stanley investments earlier this month, "... a US$1 sustained increase in gasoline prices will act like a US$120-130 billion tax hike, equal to 1.1% of disposable income."

There are, however, two big differences in the "tax hike" caused by gas price increases and a real tax hike. First, most of the money comes from the pockets of ordinary middle class Americans. Second, it all goes into coffers of Big Oil companies instead of paying for things like education, public safety, roads, bridges, subways and health care. It goes instead into the pockets of these huge companies and their shareholders -- who are overwhelmingly the wealthiest people on the planet.

Then, of course, Exxon-Mobil has to be able to afford to pay its CEO, Lee R. Raymond, who last year made $25.7 million dollars. In case you're counting, Mr. Raymond earns 514 times the salary of the average $50,000 per year worker. He is paid $12,355 per hour (for a 40 hour work week). Which means he is paid as much as a minimum wage worker makes all year long in the first hour and half of his first day of the year.

Mr. Raymond made more money before he had a coffee break on January 3rd this year than many moms who get on a bus at 5 AM every day, take no vacations, and scrub floors for eight hours every day -- and repeat that drill for 260 work days all year long.

And with all of that, the Republicans think the taxpayers should reach into their jeans and hand over yet another subsidy from the federal treasury, while at the same time they are cutting slots in Head Start because, Boehner claims, "America is broke." I guess unless you happen to be an oil company -- or a Wall Street speculator.

Increasing oil prices not only benefit oil companies -- whose reserves of oil skyrocket in value with every increase in world oil prices. They also benefit Wall Street speculators who are the proximate cause of current world oil price inflation.

At the moment, the supply of oil is adequate to meet world demand. We are not experiencing an oil shortage. The price of oil has gone up because Wall Street speculators are betting the turmoil in many Arab counties will disrupt oil supplies and make oil scarcer in the future. It's their bets -- and their trading strategies -- that are making world prices rise, not short-term fluctuations in supply and demand.

The influence of speculators on oil prices could be limited if the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) were to vote to impose position limits that restrict the ability of speculators to influence oil prices. The CTFC was mandated by Congress to set those limits by the first of this year, but have not yet done so. They have dragged their feet because Republican Commissioners and Republicans in Congress oppose tough position limits since they would also limit the amount of speculative profit that can be made by the base of the Republican Party: Wall Street.

The latest spike in oil prices shows us once again, that our dependence on oil is a grave danger to our economy and our national security. That uprisings half a world away can threaten our economic stability -- at the same time they enrich oil giants -- should send a clear signal. America has to free itself from our addiction to oil.

It also demonstrates the danger posed to our economy by failure to effectively regulate Wall Street speculation.

But the Republicans not only want to give subsidies to the oil companies, their spending plan would cut our investments in clean energy that would allow us to throw off the yoke of foreign oil. H.R. 1 slashes key Department of Energy (DOE) programs that promote clean energy by about $1.7 billion -- approximately a 23 percent decrease from current levels. What's more, they have included non-budget "riders" that gut the clean air act.

The Republicans are not only endangering our economic security. They are endangering our national security by guaranteeing we are held hostage by whoever happens to control the oil fields thousands of miles from our shores.

In fact, a good case can be made that the Republican Party should register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign power: international oil companies that operate across the world's borders, owe no allegiance to any country -- and are perfectly happy to compromise America's economic and national security so they can continue to make more and more money by siphoning dollars from the pockets of America's middle class.

Boehner's Republican Party is certainly out of touch with everyday Americans -- and its spending priorities endanger America's future.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

Cruel budget cuts to Texas Schools.

Texas is cutting its school budgets _ like California.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-03-11/save-our-schools/

What the Republican budget cuts propose

Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans' Immoral Budget

At the national level the Republican budget would:

1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.

2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.

3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers—which will deprive more than 3 million low-income people of health care over the next few months.

4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.

6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.

7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would "send shockwaves" through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research, and cause job losses.

9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women's health care.

10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.

We've got to get the word out about this awful budget—right away. Please, share this with your friends on Facebook and Twitter, or by forwarding this email, today.

Sources:

1. "GOP spending plan would cost 700,000 jobs, new report says," The Washington Post, February 28, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206357&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=6

2. "GOP budget would cut funding for public broadcasting," The Washington Independent, February 14, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206513&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=7

3. "NACHC Statement in Response to the Budget from the House Appropriations Committee," National Association of Community Health Centers website, accessed March 4, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206514&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=8

4."Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli.," The New Republic, February 12, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206104&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=9

House Republican Spending Cuts Target Programs For Children And Pregnant Women 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206566&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=10

5. "Obama and the GOP's Spending Cuts: Where's the Outrage?" Mother Jones, February 18, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206569&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=11

6. Ibid.

7. "Deficit Reduction on the Backs of the Most Vulnerable," Center for American Progress, March 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206518&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=12 (PDF)

8. "The GOP Budget and Cancer—Why New Research Is at Risk," Politics Daily, February 27, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206515&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=13

"Republican Budget Cuts at Heart of Medical Research: Albert Hunt," Bloomberg, February 20, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206516&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=14

"Durbin: Cuts to NIH put research jobs at risk," Business Week, February 28, 2011 
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9LLSCB00.htm

9. "GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206105&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=15

10. "House GOP Spending Cuts Would Prevent 10,000 Low-Income Veterans From Receiving Housing Assistance," Think Progress, March 1, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206517&id=26412-2956400-6Ty4_mx&t=16

Want to support our work? Move On.  We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

How Public School Budget Cuts Herald the End of Equality in the U.S.

How Public School Budget Cuts Herald the End of Equality in the United States

By Mark Naison

Throughout the United States, the nation’s public school system is being savaged by budget cuts that will make a mockery of federal legislation designed to reduce the achievement gap between children in low-income and high-income districts. 

In Detroit, the school district has been told by the state to close half of its schools to close a $347 million deficit, leading to high school classes that could contain as many as sixty students.  Providence, RI just handed out pink slips to its nearly 2,000 teachers to reduce its deficit (although, in an astonishing feat of creative accounting, most—but not all—of the teachers are expected to be rehired); and Austin, TX may do the same in a response to a ten percent reduction in state funding.  And in thousands of school districts throughout the country, teachers are being fired, sports and arts programs are being shut down, AP classes are being cancelled, and class size is going through the roof while state and local governments radically cut education funding to balance their budgets.

Make no mistake about it, these budget cuts will have a disproportionate effect in the poorest school districts, where parents depend on schools to impart skills which, because of educational background or language issues, they often lack.  You cut arts and science programs in a upper-middle-class school district, parents will compensate by finding private tutors or funding additional classes through the PTA.  In poor neighborhoods, once such programs are gone, they are gone for good.   You can squeeze the teachers in poor districts all you want to produce magical results on test days; as opportunities to give students individual attention and special training in arts and science disappear, the test score gap will grow wider, the dropout rate will increase, and college admission from such districts will plummet.

What makes this a bitter pill to swallow that the dream these budget cuts will destroy was one nurtured by a Republican president, George W. Bush.  Never mind that the dream was based on false data from the Houston school district; never mind that it was used by politicians, business leaders and the media to divert attention from confronting sources of inequality outside the school system.  It is still held that every child in America has the right to a great education and an opportunity to attend college if they take advantage of that opportunity.

Now that very dream is in tatters, not just because of the decision elected officials made to cut public school budgets, but because of the decision they didn’t make:  to TAX THE RICH.  Make no mistake about it, in every state where these budget cuts are being made the vast majority could have been avoided if taxes were raised on the wealthiest five percent of the population, a group which controls nearly 40 percent of national income!  Yet in state after state throughout this country, as well as in Congress, such taxes were declared “off limits” by politicians of both parties.

Let us be very blunt about the consequences of this choice.  In the midst of the worst economic crisis in modern U.S. history, our political leadership has decided to exempt the very wealthy from sacrifice while tragically weakening the one avenue our society has identified for reducing inequality in the nation—our public schools.

Not only is it profoundly immoral to impose hardship on  the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society, targeting schools for such huge cuts does violence to the very ideal of equality of opportunity which once used to unite liberals and conservatives.

If the only schools that can function well are in communities where parents have the resources to compensate for the budget cuts, then we are basically creating a social order where children will remain in the social position of their parents into the next generation, and where poor and working-class children are doomed by inferior training to be a servant class for the rich, if they are lucky enough to find jobs at all.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds more like the ancien régime in France or pre-revolutionary Russia than the country which Abraham Lincoln once praised “for lifting artificial burdens off the shoulders of men.”

The American Dream is dying before our eyes.

Will we have the courage to rescue it?

Republished with permission from the History News Network.

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book, White Boy: A Memoir, was published in the spring of 2002

Oppose the Right Wing/Republican assault on students, unions, and the California Dream

Oppose the Right Wing/Republican assault on students, unions, and the California Dream.

Students are needed to  build a resistance!

The nation,  including California, is suffering a severe recession.  In this crisis  we need to rebuild the promise of California.  That promise is a good job for all,  the opportunity to have  a rewarding career, a decent life,  and the chance for a good education.  The budget cut mania  does not promote good jobs nor  rewarding   careers.  It only digs the hole deeper. Cutting k-12 and higher education makes the state economy  worse.

   The  economic crisis has already  forced the cutting of higher education, of k-12 education, and of social welfare systems.

What caused this crisis ? It was caused by the greed and avarice of the financial class and aided by the politicians of both major political parties.   The  major banks and corporations looted the economy creating an international meltdown.  Now, they have been rewarded with bail out money.  The crisis was not caused by students, teachers, public employees  nor recipients of social security.   We already suffer from  cuts in parks,  in universities, in nurses, libraries and police and fire  protection.

   The  continuing economic decline has had a devastating impact on the California budget- and the budgets of 42 other states.   Revenues have continued to plunge and  legislatures  have been forced to make a series of deep cuts to virtually all of the state's programs, including the university systems.  Finance capital stole the future of many in this generation.

  For this year Governor Brown proposes a budget with  $14 billion in more cuts.  In addition, the Governor proposes ballot initiatives for June to extend the current tax rates for five more years.   Republicans are trying to keep these initiatives off the ballot.  If these taxes are not extended, the total cut to the budget will be some $26 billion dollars. The Governor’s  current budget proposal would reduce the state general funds allocated to the CSU to $2.29 billion in 2011/12, 12.5% less than the 2010/11 budget act –this on top of  over $4 billion in prior years’ cuts.   If the taxes are not extended, these cuts would at least double and tuition would increase by up to 50%.  These cuts would be devastating for students and working families.

   This fiscal crisis in the state did not fall from the sky; it resulted from the Great Recession and the looting of our economy by Wall Street and Corporate America.  The proposed budget cuts will only lengthen and deepen the Recession.  Some politicians claim that we can’t afford public education and good universities.  However, there is plenty of money to fund basic human services if we go where the money is; the rich who have gamed the system and accumulated vast wealth in the last three decades.

While  working people  are loosing their jobs in budget cuts, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. If you have  one dollar  in your wallet, you’re paying more than the  combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and Bank of America.

Evan worse, the very wealthy such as the Koch Brothers, are using the budget crisis they created to attack union workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana.  Make no mistake about it- if they win in Wisconsin the fight will be brought to California.

Alternatives to painful  budget cuts

Repeal or tax the Republican/Obama Tax Cuts for the Wealthiest 5%.  This would generate about $8 billion annually in California.

Enforce the current law taxing sales of goods by out of state companies (such as Amazon) over the internet.  $1.2 billion.

Tax Oil Extraction when companies take our oil out of the ground.  Alaska, Louisiana, and Texas charge about 12.5%.   $10 billion.

Close Prop.13 Commercial Property Tax Loophole.  $7 billion annually.

Repeal the 2008 California  tax cuts given to corporations. $ 1 billion.

Cut the military budget by 30%.   $420 billion (nationally.) California’s share would be $42 billion.

Details of these proposals are here. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/response-to-gov-browns-state-of-state.html

Things you can do :

Attend YDS/DSA conference, with Cornel West and others in NYC.  March 18-20. 

Their Crisis is Our Pain: The Democratic Socialists Response to the Great Recession. http://www.dsausa.org/yds/Mar2011/conference.html

Read. Inform yourself.  Join Sacramento DSA. https://sites.google.com/site/sacramentodsa/

Take Class Action.  Join the protests on April 13, 2011, at your nearest California State University campus.   Join with the  Campus Progressive Alliance to help to plan and carry out these demonstrations.

Defend Ethnic Studies.

Defend immigrant workers.

Politicians (Particularly in Texas) Leave the Children Behind

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Will 2011 be the year of fiscal austerity? At the federal level, it’s still not clear: Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.

And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children.

Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. Back during the 2000 campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush, touting the “Texas miracle” of dramatically lower dropout rates, declared that he wanted to be the “education president.” Today, advocates of big spending cuts often claim that their greatest concern is the burden of debt our children will face.

In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.

Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first.

Texas likes to portray itself as a model of small government, and indeed it is. Taxes are low, at least if you’re in the upper part of the income distribution (taxes on the bottom 40 percent of the population are actually above the national average). Government spending is also low. And to be fair, low taxes may be one reason for the state’s rapid population growth, although low housing prices are surely much more important.

But here’s the thing: While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.

And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

But wait — how can graduation rates be so low when Texas had that education miracle back when former President Bush was governor? Well, a couple of years into his presidency the truth about that miracle came out: Texas school administrators achieved low reported dropout rates the old-fashioned way — they, ahem, got the numbers wrong.

It’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education.

But things are about to get much worse.

A few months ago another Texas miracle went the way of that education miracle of the 1990s. For months, Gov. Rick Perry had boasted that his “tough conservative decisions” had kept the budget in surplus while allowing the state to weather the recession unscathed. But after Mr. Perry’s re-election, reality intruded — funny how that happens — and the state is now scrambling to close a huge budget gap. (By the way, given the current efforts to blame public-sector unions for state fiscal problems, it’s worth noting that the mess in Texas was achieved with an overwhelmingly nonunion work force.)

So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.

But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.

The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?

Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”

State spending cuts make the recession worse

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Deeper spending cuts by state and local governments weighed down U.S. economic growth in the final three months of last year. The government's new estimate for the October-December quarter illustrates how growing state budget crises could hold back the economic recovery.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that economic growth increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the final quarter of last year. That was down from the initial estimate of 3.2 percent.

The weaker figure was disappointing and prompted some economists to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the current January-March quarter. State and local governments, wrestling with budget shortfalls, cut spending at a 2.4 percent pace. That was much deeper than the 0.9 percent annualized cut first estimated and was the most since the start of 2010.

State spending cuts are the wrong way to go. They don’t work.

You can’t cut your way out of the recession. Cutting jobs makes the recession worse. Just look at the current situation of Ireland and Great Britain. You can see what a budget cut approach produces- stagnation.  This is what California is producing. See the story above from the Associated Press.

We need to build the promise of California.  That promise is a good job for all,  the opportunity to have  a rewarding career, and the chance for a good education.  The tax and budget cut mania  does not promote good jobs, rewarding   careers.  It only digs the hole deeper. Cutting k-12 and higher education makes matters worse.

So, we need to put teachers, firefighters, nurses, police back to work and stop cutting these jobs.  Then, they will buy groceries, gasoline, pay rent, buy houses, and create private sector jobs.  It is called demand.  You can’t cut your way out of the recession. Cutting jobs makes the recession worse. Just look at the current situation of Ireland and Great Britain. You can see what a budget cut approach produces- stagnation. 

See my post here  “An Open Letter to Governor Brown “  http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=11455634 providing a list of revenue sources to allow California to grow needed jobs.

We need to repeat this message over and over again, in all available venues.

LAO identifies massive cuts if tax extensions fail

If lawmakers pursue a cuts-only budget to solve the state's $26.6 billion deficit, they could eliminate class-size reduction, require that kindergarten students be 5 years old at enrollment and hike university tuition by another 7 to 10 percent, according to a new review by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

There's also a stark option for state workers: reduce pay by an additional 9.24 percent (equal to two furlough days) and reduce state contributions to employee health care by 30 percent.

The Feb. 10 letter responds to Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who asked the Analyst's Office what the Legislature could do if voters or lawmakers reject tax revenues proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The LAO offered $13.5 billion in alternatives, presuming under Leno's request that the ballot taxes would not succeed and other revenue ideas like eliminating enterprise zones would fail. (end Sac Bee blog)

The LAO list is revealing.  That is the kind of a state that the anti tax radicals  want. There are no quick nor easy solutions. We can not simply cut our way out of the crisis; budget cuts and lay offs make the recession worse.

School funding reveals the nature of crisis.  In the last two years the k-12 budget “solutions” have cut 4.6 billion dollars from the schools. We have larger classes and fewer teachers.  These cuts would devastate our schools ( your grandchildren), the police, the fire fighters, the county health workers.  Who is going to protect you from the West Nile Virus?

Instead of these cuts, we need to spend more state money to improve schools, to develop roads and infrastructure, and to create jobs. 

Those who are well educated are more employed and paying taxes while those with less education, those who leave school, are in a prolonged economic crisis.  It is well documented that our schools and our universities are in a finance crisis – in part created by the corporate subsidies hidden in Proposition 13.   We need to be preparing young people for new jobs and to create new industries.  Improving education, including both k-12 and higher education, makes California more likely to attract investment and the creation of new jobs and new industries.

As a consequence of the recently passed federal tax reductions, including the reduction of taxes to the wealthiest taxpayers,  Washington-based Citizens for Tax Justice estimate that  California’s richest taxpayers will be saving about $14 billion annually on their federal taxes. The next wealthiest 4 percent, with an average income of $310,000, will save another $6.5 billion.  State taxes should be increased on these two groups to secure this available 20.6 Billion dollars to avoid these cuts.  However, passing legislation to tax these folks requires a 2/3 vote, and the Republicans and the Tea Party types will protect their corporate sponsors.

To calculate the benefits that the rich in California  received from the Obama/Republican compromise.   Citizens for Tax Justice. http://www.ctj.org/

  

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What California should learn about schools, budgets, and taxes from Texas

The so-called Texas Miracle is in trouble, demonstrating that fashioning fiscal policies strictly along low-tax lines doesn't protect you from budget deficits or business slumps or make your residents necessarily happy or healthy.

Michael Hiltzik Feb.9, 2011.

Billions of dollars in government red ink. Classroom spending near the bottom of national rankings and heading down. Desperate appeals to Uncle Sam for emergency funds to stave off cuts to the poor and elderly.

All this points to the obvious question: What's the matter with Texas?

Texas? Yes, the so-called Texas Miracle is in trouble. Unemployment soared and state tax revenue came in sharply below estimates during the recession, and the deficit mushroomed.

California's Legislature has won national renown for its dysfunction, but Texas lawmakers know how to squeeze dysfunction until it squeals. The late Molly Ivins reported years ago that when a good-government group ranked the Texas Legislature 38th among the 50 states, the reaction among knowledgeable Texans was, "You mean there are 12 worse than this?"

Maybe things have improved in the Texas statehouse since Ivins' day. But given that the legislators put off action on the budget this year so they could first debate an anti-abortion measure, a balanced-budget amendment for the U.S. Constitution and a voter-ID law, maybe not.

Pondering the problems of Texas isn't merely an exercise in schadenfreude, the pleasure one takes in the misfortune of others (some examples evoked by the puppets of the show "Avenue Q": "Football players getting tackled; CEOs getting shackled … "). The goal is to gain perspective on our own crisis and the conventional proposals to address it. The bottom line is that fashioning fiscal policies strictly along low-tax lines doesn't protect you from budget deficits or business slumps or make your residents necessarily happy or healthy.

The budget crises afflicting states coast to coast arise from a combination of the nationwide recession and obsolete or wrongheaded state taxing schemes. The National Council of State Legislatures says that at least 15 states face large deficits this year and 35 in fiscal 2012.

As things stand now, the council's figures place California's projected 2012 deficit at $19.2 billion, or 18.7% of its general fund, and the Texas deficit at $7.4 billion, or 17% of its budget. States with broad-based tax policies that balance property, income and sales taxes are best equipped to ride out economic cycles, because those levies don't all move in lockstep with the economy. Neither California, with its over-reliance on income and sales taxes, nor Texas, which has no income tax, qualifies.

Many state budgets will get worse before they get better, because federal stimulus funds used to close their gaps over the last two years are drying up. That points to a fact that hasn't been widely remarked upon: President Obama's stimulus program helped both California and Texas — indeed, many states — manage their deficits.

While Texas Gov. Rick Perry sucked up to the "tea party," declaring himself opposed to "government bailouts" and prattling about seceding from the union, he papered over his state's budget gap with $6.4 billion in Recovery Act funds, including increased federal handouts for education and Medicaid. So when you, the California taxpayer, hear talk of the Texas Miracle, you should take pride in having helped pay for it.

The supposed superiority of Texas over California in fiscal policy long has been a conservative article of faith. In 2009 the libertarian American Legislative Exchange Council published a report co-authored by the conservative economist Arthur Laffer underscoring the contrast. The report posited that "Texas' superior policies over the past several years are making the Lone Star State more resilient to the current economic downturn."

But Texas was hardly immune to the recession. From 2006 through 2010, the unemployment rate in Texas soared from 4.4% to 8.3%. Yes, that's a better showing than California, which went from 4.9% to 12.5%, but the difference may reflect the huge effect on California's economy of the popping of the housing bubble, which jumped our unemployment rate to a new magnitude and is likely to keep it there for a while.

The Laffer report focused chiefly on tax policy, its guiding principle being the lower, the better. Yet Texas' resistance to raising taxes to cover the cost of state government hasn't proved to be any more sustainable on the banks of the Rio Grande than it is on the shores of the Pacific.

With a Republican legislative majority in Austin adamantly refusing to raise taxes to cover a shortfall estimated at as much as $27 billion over the state's two-year budget cycle, budget drafters are talking about shutting dozens of nursing homes, taking a hatchet to college financial aid and university budgets and paring K-12 spending by $5 billion a year.

That last action could drop Texas out of its 2009-10 rank of 37th among states and the District of Columbia in per-pupil spending, as calculated by the National Education Assn., depositing it firmly in the cellar with California (42nd).

Laffer's admiration notwithstanding, part of the problem in Texas is fiscal stupidity. Californians love to cut their own taxes and expand spending programs; Texas in 2005 cut property taxes, which fund the schools, by one third, while increasing business taxes. But the business tax doesn't bring in as much money as the property tax did, and is more vulnerable to the economic cycle besides. The result was a widened budget deficit.

Curiously, Texas' reputation as a low-tax, business-friendly state survives although its state and local business levies exceed California's as a percentage of each state's business activity (4.9% versus 4.7% in 2009, according to a report by the accounting firm Ernst & Young). What's different is that Texas business taxation relies more on property, sales and excise taxes and government fees than California, which relies on taxing corporate income.

Of course, one reason many business owners and executives favor Texas over California is that the Lone Star State doesn't have a personal income tax — a big deal when you're pulling in a Texas-size paycheck.

But self-interest aside, what's at stake from fiscal policy in both states is the same — the services and programs that really matter to business owners, such as functioning schools, high-caliber universities and serviceable transport infrastructure.

Even more important are the measures that point to public well-being. In many categories, California and Texas are closer together than either state's residents would probably find comforting.

But here are a few where they're not: Texas ranks 49th in the nation (that is, third worst) in teen births; California 22nd. In providing prenatal care to expectant mothers, Texas is dead last, California eighth. Texas ranks 34th in median family income, with $47,143; California 13th, at $56,852. This is the harvest of its "superior policies," and given the current budget crisis, it's bound to get worse. Miraculous.

Article at latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110209,0,573520.column

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

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