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Tuesday Talk: How do we move from “or” to “and”?
There’s a difference between prudent financial decisions and being so cash-strapped every fiscal question revolves around an either/or scenario. Before conservative “no-new-taxes” policy, Minnesota could afford both sound education investment and robust transportation funding; health care for the most vulnerable and aid to local governments. Now policymakers have to decide on either shifting more education funding or cutting health care deeper.
With a year left to balance another state budget, how do we begin moving past “either/or” and back to “and”?
Comments:
May 10, 2012 at 8:03 am
Half of the best thing we can do to improve our economy and our public services is to UN-elect those who push nonsense like the large percentage of Americans who “pay no taxes.” The truth is that everyone pays withholding taxes for Medicare and Social Security plus other federal, state and local taxes (real estate directly or through rent, sales tax, gasoline tax, etc.). These are the low-wage workers who earn so little they don’t pay federal income tax.
The other half of the best thing is to elect those who understand that without strong governmental support for education, health care, infrastructure and other aspects of the common good, both the public and private sectors will eventually collapse. For the Right to say that expenditures have to be within revenues received is to announce that they intend to (1) shrink revenue and (2) shrink government by reducing spending to match.
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Mr. Hamm: Without unions, we would return to the bad old days when workers had no protection from abusive employers, worked for well less than a living wage for 10 or 12 hours a day, and lost their jobs if they were injured at work, and could be fired at any moment for no reason (or a reason such as the boss wanting to give his/her nephew a job).
To suggest that unions are responsible for the large numbers of people of color in prison is impossible. That honor belongs to right-wing Law and Order politicians and capitalist operators of private prisons who want to keep them full.
May 8, 2012 at 3:29 pm
I am not sure I understand one of the comments about job killing and raising the taxes on the rich. Is there a correlation. As I remember President Clinton raised the tax rate on the rich and during his 8 years in office 20 million jobs were made. When President Bush did his tax cut that affected the rich, in his 8 years 4 million jobs were created.
I believe there should be a different tax reform for all in that everyone(including the rich) pays 3%) on their gross income . Then those who AGI is less than a million would either pay on their AGI 10 or 15% depending on income
The upper incomes would then pay from 25% -40% again going by income (AGI)
To me this method would eliminate those who end up paying nothing or a tax rate lower than the middle and lower incomes
Perhaps this is a crazy idea but it would create a solution
In addition we could create one or two more deductions that those who make less than 75,000.
Look at all of the deductions the rich do have.
We all drive down the same roads and use the rivers, use water and seweretc…..
We all do not get as CEO a three million dollar bonus
THE rich do not have to decide to pay for groceries but not insurance, they do not have to drive a 1982 car that brakes down and prevents them going to work
Their choices are not buying as many homes, cars, etc
They have the basics and then some.
I am all for reducing the debt etc…..
In the household reducing that means cuts and more revenue(getting another job .......the big US household has an avenue to get more revenue and that is a fair tax system with a fair TAX RATE
May 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Sue, You are absolutely correct. The role of Government is to problem solve not dismantle society.
It must be noted that the United States spends a small fraction of its Gross Domestic Product on her people (Safety net). Do not let Republicans and the lazy, corporate, media-journalists tell you different. The fact is we pay far less than most advanced nations and pay far less than even we did years ago on our people. Tax the rich. It is the only way to have a functioning society. John Maynard Keynes was a genius. Spread the wealth - not evenly, but fairly - across all the productive members of society.
If we maintained the old tax rates, your property taxes would look a lot better. Along with: tuition, Social Security, Medicare and the national debt. This is simple. Tax the rich much, much more. They will survive just fine.
May 8, 2012 at 11:56 am
A few years ago, a former Republican governor (I think it was Elmer Anderson) wrote about how things used to be done in St. Paul in the days when members of both parties actually came together to work for the good of the citizens of the state, not their own greed and power. FIRST, they determined what the NEEDS of the state were, and THEN they figured out the best way to pay for them. They may not always agree on the details, but they worked them out. Today, politicians have it backwards. They pick an imaginary number out of thin air and tell you, “This is what you are getting…not a penny more…deal with it.” This backward way of ‘dealing with’ the budget just doesn’t work. The Pawlenty years were a disaster for the quality of life in the state. Cities and towns had to raise property taxes sky high to pay for basic services like police and fire. My income as a public school employee remained flat while, my property taxes tripled in those same years. It had taken over 30 years for my property taxes to triple from about $500 to $1,500, but less than a decade to triple again to nearly $5,000, just in time for retirement (thanks, T-Paw). Income taxes are much fairer than the regressive property taxes. If we want our state to have a high quality of life, people need to understand that that doesn’t come free. We all need to pay more taxes, including corporations.
May 8, 2012 at 10:04 am
There is a lot of truth in all the above statements. I come from an earlier age perspective being almost 92. I lived through the Great Depression and have seen America at it’s worst and at it’s best. I watched the devastation of a world in poverty and the programs that brought us out. I was in High School when Social Security was started because a lot of caring legislators from both parties had seen the tragedy of the elderly and widows and knew they never wanted to see that again. They could come together and pass that legislation looking to the future. We all owe those people a big vote of thanks!
Given a choice of a time I really felt good about where Minnesota was headed I would say it was in the late 80’s and through the 90’s when the legislators there could still work together for the good of our State. WE passed Minnesota care as a bipartisan bill with a GOP Governor and DFL in the majority “THE Gang of Seven"as the legislator’s were terrific, as they were called, deserve a
big thank you! They ended with a good surplus and had they done as Senator Moe tried to do, put aside a bigger rainy day fund instead of the big give it back of the Ventura Days and the Vodoo borrow and call the money a surplus that Pawlenty did we would be in better shape. I blow my top when the Majority Party brags of a million dollar Surplus and we have a 2 Billion deficit to Education. Do they really think people accept that blarney?? Let’s get out there and change the Climate of Government is here to solve all the social issues, not our problems.
May 8, 2012 at 9:04 am
Raise taxes… a lot. We have a lot of distance between our current problems and the New Deal’s solutions. The government is broke for one simple reason. The right-wing nut jobs have hypnotized dense middle classers into believing lower taxes for the mega-rich and corporate America will lead to a better life for them. Duh.
Check it out. We will give all the money and tax breaks to the filthy rich and magically the middle class and poor will live better fiscal lives. Who the hell still falls for that BS. Wake up people.
May 8, 2012 at 8:48 am
It’s not what you say Joe, it’s what you leave out. Proffesor Angela Davis has been feachered recently on PBS where she explains where all those education, healthcare, and social service dollars went. Back in 1974, 10 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act Richard Nixon signed us into the Drug Wars even after being told it would be Racially applied. Nation wide now we persecute 4 times as many people of color as whites for these crimes. In Minnesota the figure is 9 times as many mostly Black and Native American, over 1% per year of these populations are being harvested like cattle to keep your Union prison system running at full capacity. It isn’t just that we get to pay for those facilities and their maintenance, we pay wages and benifiets to their workers, we pay to house feed and care for the inmates, and then we get to pay for the families we have destroyed by taking these mostly non violent people off the street. Mrs. Davis clearly shows where all the money went and why this needs to end now. Then there is Michelle Alexander and her book, “The New Jim Crow”, that helps explain the new brand of institutional Racism again benifieting Public Employees. The new Union Racism where the benificiaries are Union Public employees.
May 8, 2012 at 8:40 am
To pay for all our needs and yet still CUT taxes, we need to stop destroying good, private-sector job opportunities.
We fund DEED with over $1B of taxpayer dollars to “create jobs”, while we allow our major employers to stifle employee creativity with crippling “Employee Agreements” (EAs)!
The typical EA claims blanket ownership of employee inventions 24/7/365, but devlops only a select few and DESTROYS the many remaining unwanted ones (so that no one can produce new businesses, new jobs and additional tax revenue with them)!
We have introduced a NO-COST reform bill (SF 78) to recapture this huge loss by requiring employers to “Use or Return” all employee inventions which they claim.
The 2011-2012 “do-nothing” legislature refused to even give this NO-COST reform a hearing! Moreover, the mainstream media refuses to expose this huge “black hole” which devours our wasted source of good jobs and tax revenue! Go figure!
Dan Conner says:
May 20, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Yes Bernice, and what the heck do people think represent CEO’s but an informal union. They work together and collude to set each other’s salary as high as possible. In addition, they have the power and influence with their boards. They hire the consulting firms and recommend to the consultants the salary that should be set for them. It’s the fox guarding the chicken coop.
Most boards meet quarterly in a posh setting entertained and informed by the CEO. It’s a giant “good ‘ol boys club.”