Monday, February 28, 2011

The New State Budget May Cut 189,000+ Public Education Jobs

The Center for Public Policy Priorities today released some devastating county-by-county analysis of the state budget cuts proposed by Gov. Perry and the Republican controlled legislature:
Impact By School District
ISD Funding
change in
2012($)
Job loss Private
sector
job loss
Total
job
loss
Allen (13,949,745) (347) (485) (832)
Anna (2,339,745) (58) (81) (140)
Celina (1,402,810) (35) (49) (84)
Farmersville (478,114) (12) (17) (29)
Frisco (87,276,087) (2,171) (3,035) (5,206)
McKinney (25,950,220) (646) (903) (1,548)
Melissa (1,431,237) (36) (50) (85)
Plano (62,715,776) (1,560) (2,181) (3,741)
Princeton (1,421,577) (35) (49) (85)
Prosper (15,206,604) (378) (529) (907)
Wylie (5,947,427) (148) (207) (355)
Community (749,628) (19) (26) (45)
Lovejoy (14,484,554) (360) (504) (864)
Totals (233,353,524) (5,805) (8,116) (13,921)
The public education analysis projects that as many as 189,000+ public education jobs will be eliminated in Texas. Almost 14,000 public education jobs may be eliminated in Collin Co.

The state is short $27 billion, more than one-quarter of the state’s discretionary budget, of which about 91 percent is consumed by public schools, higher education, and health and human services.
Texas already spends less per capita than almost any other state, but Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden -- a Republican who Rick Perry has described as the smartest budget man he knows, and someone he implicitly trusts with the budget -- warned today the proposed budge cuts will “decimate public education."
Texas Republicans would rather put our children's future at risk than allow corporations to pay their fair share to help build the well educated workforce Texas businesses need to prosper in the future.

Texas Observer: Gov. Rick Perry has repeatedly said Texas’ deficit is “reflective of the national recession’s lingering impact on state revenue.”
In fact, the recession has little to do with the $27 billion budget shortfall. Back in 2006 the Republican controlled Legislature concocted a Rube Goldberg-style [school funding and business tax reform] measure that simultaneously cut property taxes, implemented a new “margins” tax on business and rejiggered the way public schools are financed.
Problem was, as the state Legislative Budget Board pointed out at the time, the plan’s math didn’t wash because the margins tax wouldn’t bring in as much as the Legislature thought. In fact, the board said, it would leave a $5 billion hole in the state budget every year.

The upshot: Perry, who pushed the swap, knew full well he was helping to create today’s “crisis.”
Star-Telegram: A 68-page report released by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs on Monday reveals that Texas will give business $32.2 billion worth of tax exemptions for sales, franchise, and gasoline and motor vehicle sales taxes for the 2011 fiscal year that ends on Aug. 31, 2011.
Exemptions to the state sales tax, the state's biggest source of revenue, will total $30.8 billion for the current fiscal year, Combs said, although some items exempted from the sales tax are taxed from other sources. Gasoline tax exemptions will amount to $113 million. Motor vehicle sales tax exemptions will total $125 million.

"While sales and use tax collections totaled $19.6 billion in fiscal 2010," Combs said, "the tax is limited in scope when compared with the total number and kind of transactions in the economy, because of various exemptions and exclusions," Combs said.

A number of lawmakers are calling for the elimination of at least some exemptions to boost revenue and help offset deep service reductions proposed in preliminary draft budgets. Others say canceling the breaks amounts to a tax increase, which Gov. Rick Perry and Republican legislative leaders have vowed to oppose.

Read more at the Star-Telegram
NYTimes OpEd "Leaving Children Behind" by Paul Krugman:
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.”

Gov. Walker's Wisconsin 'Union Busting' Exposes 'Tea Party' Scam, Duped Americans

Time for those [Tea Partiers] formerly hoaxed by duplicitous corporate schemes to wake-up and smell what billionaire sociopaths are shoveling...

Guest editorial at BradBlog by Ernest A. Canning
This is not a budget issue," the policeman speaking to the cheering protesters jammed inside of the capital rotunda in Madison, WI, shouted this weekend, "This is a civil rights issue!"

"Mr. Walker, if you are listening to me, let me tell you something," he continued through the bullhorn as the crowd rallied, "We know pretty well now who you work for. Let me tell you who we work for. We work for all of these people!"

"We're not here, Mr. Walker, to do your bidding. We're here to do their bidding!" he told the crowd in a remarkable video-taped moment posted by RAW STORY on Sunday.

While a wide swath of Wisconsin society, entailing not only both public and private union members, but students, doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers (like the one mentioned above), and fire fighters have swarmed the streets and public buildings of Madison as part of a mass movement rivaling those we've recently seen on the streets of Cairo, there is one sector of our society who should be especially angry with the Wisconsin branch of Corporate America's wholly-owned, public subsidiary, GOP, Inc.

It is the uninformed and misinformed working class stiffs, aka "Tea Partiers," who should be most disturbed by the scam they've been subjected to over the past two years (and many more). It is they who were taken in by the lies and deceptions of billionaire sociopaths, like oil-baron David Koch of the infamous Koch Industries. Koch's aim is not liberty, freedom, and jobs but American fascism, corporatocracy, and the "eternal subjugation of the common man"...

Read the rest of the story at BradBlog

Murphy / Walker call - Part 1

Murphy / Walker call - part 2
Thanks to a citizen journalist blogger named Murphy, we know how much Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is in bed with the conservative billionaire Koch Brothers, who are one of the main funding sources for the national Tea Party movement.

It was Murphy who, by impersonating the billionaire and Americans for Prosperity money man David Koch, punked Gov. Walker into a 20 minute phone call where Walker revealed his real union busting political motives.

The transcript of the call is unbelievable.

In one key exchange the Koch impersonator says, "What we were thinking about the crowds was, planting some troublemakers." To which Walker replies, "We thought about that. My only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I talk to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.The teachers union did some polling and focus groups..."

A watchdog group is actively investigating whether Walker admitted to breaking any campaign finance or ethics laws in the conversation.

Click to Murphy's blog.

Many other citizen journalists are at work in Wisconsin and across the nation make sure the full factual story about the national Republican strategy to bust employee unions is told.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

What Is The Real Agenda Of The Budget-Cutters?

Campaign for America's Future: What is the real agenda of the budget-cutters? Are they really trying to bring the country back from the edge of financial ruin? Or did they bring about the appearance of a borrowing crisis to create a public panic that enables them to impose "solutions" that change the very nature of our country -- while doing little about the borrowing?
In the news this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "ginned up" a budget crisis, then introduced legislation that removes collective bargaining rights from public employees, and over time effectively destroys their unions. Similar measures have been introduced by Republican governors or legislatures in several other states.

This legislative attack on public employees follows more than a year of "preparing the ground" with a coordinated campaign from conservative organizations to convince the public that public employees are overpaid and that their pensions are "bankrupting" state governments -- not the effects of the recession.

In the news soon, the coming strategic "shutdown" of the federal government by Republicans. After decades of forcing through tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, again and again -- most recently just a few weeks ago -- Republicans and corporate conservatives are engaged in a national campaign promoting the belief that there is a "deficit crisis." Their solutions involve gutting the things government does for We, the People like consumer, health, safety, labor and financial, retirement and income protections, while keeping things the government does for corporations and the wealthy "off the table."

We see variations of the same formula over and over. Here is how it works:
  1. Cut taxes for the rich and corporations (corporate stock is mostly owned by the top 1%); big deficits result.
  2. Claim a deficit emergency and use their domination of corporate-owned media to whip the public into a panic, creating the appearance of demand for corporate-approved "solutions." Manipulate the appearance of consensus.
  3. With taxes and military “off the table” push through cuts in the things government does for We, the People.
Repeat as often as needed to create a plutocracy.

Read the rest of the story at the Campaign for America's Future.
Texas Observer: For many Texas legislators and conservative activists, the budget crisis is a thing of wonder—a once-in-a-generation chance to drown government in the bathtub, to use anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist’s infamous phrase.
In the mid 1980's conservative activist Grover Norquist famously said, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

"Starving the beast" so it is small enough to "drown in the bathtub" is a fiscal-political strategy adopted by American conservatives in the 1970's to create and greatly increase budget deficits via tax cuts so that it forces ever increasing reductions to government.

The term "beast" refers to the government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Public Schools. [see Forbes]

As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst succinctly put it in his inaugural speech: “We pronounce the word ‘C-R-I-S-I-S’ as ‘opportunity.’” [Texas Observer]

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Why Budget Cuts Don't Bring Prosperity

The Democratic Strategist: New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt wrote a piece yesterday that every Democratic activist and elected official should read and then try to put into as plain a form of English as possible.
Its title is plain enough: "Why Budget Cuts Don't Bring Prosperity." And its content wouldn't have seemed that striking until very recently, when one of America's two major political parties suddenly embraced the belief that government spending had somehow caused a private-sector housing and financial crisis and then a demand-side recession, and that radical cuts in government spending would put the economy on the right track via "business confidence" or some such magical term.

The simplest term for this delusion is probably Hooverism, since many Americans are aware, however dimly, that the Great Depression was significantly worsened by the policies of a president who was ideologically opposed to any major stimulation of the economy by the public sector.

Read the full story at the The Democratic Strategist.
Starving the government beast [see Forbes] in Texas Governor Perry and the Republican-controlled Texas legislature propose to cut up to $31 billion more from the next state budget, without using any money from the $9 billion rainy day fund, to cut government spending by firing tens of thousands of teachers, closing K-12 schools, closing of community colleges, eliminating tuition support for 60,000 college students, closing correctional facilities and drastic reducing state services for the poor, elderly, and young and for those with mental health problems.

Texas Republicans would rather put our children's future at risk than ask corporations to pay their fair share to help build the well educated workforce Texas businesses need to prosper in the future.

Off the Kuff:
Giving Texas Corporations Taxpayer Money: Apparently, the idea is that the [Corporate Welfare] slush funds Gov. Perry controls are good for job growth. How you can believe that while pushing budgets that would result in the firing of 100,000 teachers, among other things, is a special talent on loan to our Governor. Here’s more about this, with Sen. John Whitmire playing the “you’ve gotta be kidding me” role.

More Enterprise Fund failures - Gov. Rick Perry’s office has rewritten contracts for companies that are struggling to create the promised number of jobs after getting millions of taxpayer dollars from the Texas Enterprise Fund
Texas Observer: For many Texas legislators and conservative activists, the budget crisis is a thing of wonder—a once-in-a-generation chance to drown government in the bathtub, to use anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist’s infamous phrase.
As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst succinctly put it in his inaugural speech: “We pronounce the word ‘C-R-I-S-I-S’ as ‘opportunity.’”

The state is short $27 billion, more than one-quarter of the state’s $100 billion discretionary budget. About 91 percent is consumed by public schools, higher education, and health and human services. Texas already spends less per capita than almost any other state, but even more “devastating” cuts are all but certain.

In case anybody’s looking for a culprit, Gov. Rick Perry said Texas’ deficit was “reflective of the national recession’s lingering impact on state revenue.” In fact, the recession has little to do with the $27 billion shortfall.

Back in 2006 the Legislature concocted a Rube Goldberg-style [school funding and business tax reform] measure that simultaneously cut property taxes, imposed a new “margins” tax on business and rejiggered the way public schools are financed. Wowee zowee—three birds with only one stone!
Problem was, as the state Legislative Budget Board pointed out at the time, the plan’s math didn’t wash because the margins tax wouldn’t bring in as much as the Legislature thought. In fact, the board said, it would leave a $5 billion hole in the state budget every year.

The upshot: Perry, who pushed the swap, knew full well he was helping to create today’s “crisis.”
The budget shortfall is not the cause of the pain. It’s the justification. For 30 years, anti-government forces have been in the ascendancy with a platform of free markets, deregulation, privatization, the evisceration of social programs and the systematic debasement of the greater good.

In Texas, where Republicans control more than two-thirds of the state House and a little less than two-thirds of the state Senate, this ideology now has its moment in the sun.

“The bottom line is there are no excuses now,” Republican Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, the right-wing radio talk-show host and founder of the Tea Party Caucus, told the Associated Press in January. “It’s a perfect storm, in a positive way, for conservatism.”
John Heleman, chief revenue estimator for Comptroller Susan Combs, in testimony before state senators in early February 2011 said Texas' budget problems will not go away when legislators eventually sign a balanced budget later this year. The school funding and business tax reform legislation passed in 2006 generates at least a $10 billion budget short fall every year. [Texas' Finances Not As Rosy As They Seemed and Budgeting with smoke and mirrors]

That means Texas parents should expect even deeper cuts to K-12 and college education spending when the next Texas legislative session convenes two years from now in 2013. Soon the conservative dream to fully privatize public education will be a reality.

As conservatives continue their ideological push to privatize all government services they will soon cut government funding for public eduction so deeply that parents will be forced to send their children to private for profit schools.

Soon, education and the better live it brings will be within the reach of only the wealthiest children. Is that really the American Dream we want?