Following the mid-term elections in November we knew the future plans -- lower taxes, limited government -- of newly elected Republicans in Congress and in various State Houses. We were told again and again that this formula would unleash the can-do spirit of American entrepreneurs that would, in turn bring an end to the Great Recession and prompt a new era of prosperity. They celebrated their victories and talked of the "mandate" that the voters had given them. Several months later, it is becoming increasing clear what "lower taxes and limited government" will mean for the future of our society and the quality of our lives.
Study of the budget proposals put forward by Republicans in Congress as well as Republican Governors in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania gives us a rather bleak vision of the future of social life in America. We are told that we have to live within our means. We are told that public employees -- civil servants, teachers, and sanitation workers -- are a primary the cause of deficits in state budgets. The public employees, we are told, have cushy jobs with bloated salaries and overly generous benefits. We are told public education, a great source of scientific and economic innovation, must be cut -- and cut severely. None of these claims are, in fact, true. But that doesn't seem to matter. In Pennsylvania, the state where I work as a professor at a public university, newly elected Republican Governor Tom Corbett, a former prosecutor and State Attorney General, who seems to know little about education or, for that matter, economics, wants to chop the state allocation for higher education by more than 50 percent. What does this mean? It means that at the University of Pittsburgh, according to Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, there would be an $80 million reduction in the general education funds used to support the training of the next generation of Pennsylvanians. It would also result in the complete elimination of roughly $17 million that funds programs in the health sciences. This cut would be a severe blow to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which is one of America's leading centers of innovation in the health sciences.
If that isn't sobering enough, the impact of Governor Corbett's short-sighted cuts to Pennsylvania's higher education would have a catastrophic impact on the Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, Lincoln University as well as the 14 campuses that comprise Pennsylvania's system of state universities. Because of a longstanding allocation agreement made with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the state and state-related universities have provided world-class education at a relatively reasonable cost for the children of working families in the Keystone State. Similar kinds of cuts to public higher education are planned in many other states.
When we get to the budget proposals that Congressional Republicans have offered, we get an equally bleak picture. They want to cut student loans, the lifeline for millions of contemporary college students who come from families of modest means. To reach their goal of a lower taxes and limited government, the Republican budget cutters also want to reduce funding for climate science, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Public Radio (NPR), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Is this political madness? Why would they sacrifice our economic and social future in the name of lower taxes and limited government?
It is indeed difficult to interpret the ramblings of budget-cutters who appear to live in an alternate universe of meaning in which history is either misread or unknown, in which budget calculations are suspect, in which tax increases are equated with original sin, in which corporations are infallible, in which the mysterious forces of "the market" have taken on God-like status. Trying to understand the insufferably inarticulate talk of someone like Sarah Palin who recently suggested that tax dollars should not support the "frivolous" activities of NEH, is perhaps less important than attempting to consider how the right-wing vision of America, which is reflected in these budget proposals, will alter the lives of our children and grandchildren.
Thinking about the future quality of our social life is a profoundly anthropological question. How might this pivotal moment in our political history change our society? What will happen to us if our system of public education is decimated? In the future what will our children and grandchildren think about today's public officials who wanted to end government support for the "biased" public media, the "trivial" arts, and the "frivolous" humanities while giving hand-outs to their "far-sighted" corporate cronies?
What many public officials like Sarah Palin, Tom Corbett, Scott Walker and John Kasich fail to understand when they cobble together budget proposals or speak irresponsibly about climate science, the arts and the humanities, is that their seemingly misguided plans will not only increase an already growing income disparity in America, but will also reduce the future quality of life for our children and grandchildren. In elementary and secondary schools, many, if not most of our kids won't be able to participate in arts or music programs. In college qualified kids may be unable to attend medical school or law school. If our kids get sick, they may not qualify for life saving medical treatment in a medical system that, because of ongoing budget cuts, will lag behind health care in nations that invest more in basic research and technology. These kind of cuts lead to the kind mean-spiritedness witnessed last year in rural Tennessee when a family watched their house burn down because the local fire department refused their calls for assistance: they had forgotten or were able to pay the local fee and were "not on the list." Such are the amoral realities of lower taxes and limited government.
The legislative debates on these ill-advised budget proposals are now underway. It goes without saying that the results of these deliberations will have far-reaching social ramifications. What kind of society do you want your children and grandchildren to live in?
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It would have a tremendous effect on the never end strings congress and states attach to each dollar that requires loads of administrators and others to track, count, report etc. Lets cut overall spending but raise the min level of each dollar to the classroom to 80%. This provides a 20% overhead for a school district. Far from reasonable in the real world, but this is after all government. What I do know is nothing I just suggested would be worse than the current system.
Since "decimated" means to cut by 10%, nothing would happen.
Moreover, all tha tone need do is diviide the total amount spent annually on any sector of education, e.g. K-8, by the number of students served to see that most of the money is NOT spent in the classroom, but pi$$ed away on various forms of social engineering.
One need look no farther than the results obtained by this profligate spending to see that the entire system is an abject failure and needs to be replaced wholesale.
If a county wants to hire new teachers, and wants to attract the best, it will have to pay for the new teachers. If it's competing with the county next door who pays it's teachers 50k then it will have to pay more or provide something else. If the union has negotiated starting pay, the county has no option. If no teachers want to work in a particular county then something has to change. I see the unions as limiters not enablers.
One way or another, the system itself must change to get results.
Republicans have been on the ascendancy since shortly after Obama's inauguration. They rode into power last November on a wave of popular emotion, and if they think it was anything else, they are mistaken. Now, as if on cue, they are overplaying their hand, and the people are beginning to remember just why it is that they disliked Republicans in the first place. The tide is turning. I can feel it.
Oh, and I think the tea party is a spent force. They will decline now, and fade completely away in time for 2012.
How can we respect them, when they bully the smart people, belittle the cultured ones. Possessing knowledge of history or philosophy is derided, all the GOP does is scream louder and louder about deficits, while offering nothing that might make the country move one step forward.
What happens if we go too far with our spending? What will our children and grandchildren think then?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/cbo-obama-policies-would-require-deficits-of-95-trillion-through-2021/2011/03/18/ABnyUfq_story.html?hpid=z3
Businesses don't pay taxes. Taxes applied to businesses are forwarded on to the consumers in the product cost. So raising taxes on businesses is a regressive tax system that ultimately punishes the poor. Larger businesses, like BOA, have entire departments dedicated to decreasing the tax burden on the business. This is also costly to a business. Why do business outsource, to decrease expenses. Why do you think that raising taxes on a business won't cause businesses to change their behaviors. They may raise prices, layoff people, move to more tax friendly states or countries. Reality is that when they raise taxes on businesses they often build in loop holes for certain segments why else is the US tax over 16000 pages long. So while you may get some additional revenue it won't make much difference. You state that businesses have had tax breaks for the last 10 years. Try more like 50, but not all businesses only the connected.
Besides, the US's issue isn't revenue, it's spending. It's not just taxes either it's a whole host of things like the so called "free trade" agreements that really aren't. While the US abides by the treaty the other countries skirt the treaty and still manage to jack up the price of the US goods in favor of their own. We spend more per child then most countries for education, I don't think it's the money.
Professor: Your recent articles have been very thoughtful, cut to the core of and articulate issues facing us and the long term ramifications to our society. Some comprehend the issues, but woefully, too many just don't want to hear it. We DO need to tighten our belts, but not in ways proposed by the shortsighted politicians who are more interested in saying what they think people want to hear, rather than what they need to hear.. pandering to the "squeakiest wheels" and the lowest common denominator of emotional decision-making-- to obtain or stay in office - exploiting people they know do not have critical thinking skills, or whose self-interest blinds their perception and understanding of the need to take actions for the "greater good" and for society's long- term welfare. Have we become a society of solipsists, ignoramuses or both?
I lived in Niger 45 years ago when its capital had only one traffic light, and farther north in Tahoua.. in
a walled mud brick compound -walled to fend off the roaming camels- animals with not the best of temperaments.. no electricity, no toilet, community well water which had to be boiled, filtered and treated with iodine pills, "navy-bucket" showers, and for lack of entertainment, named the ginormous "cafards" for amusement by painting them with nail polish, swallowed flies while imbibing the local beer, "Braduni".
On the other hand, the Equatorial/Southern starlit sky at night is like no other...
The point? We don't need 80 % of what most think is needed to survive.
What we DO Need is to ensure that our youth is well nourished, provided with good health care and educated.. fundamentals for the well-being and prosperity of our society. The people I worked with there were eager, however, to improve their living conditions and to learn how to do that.. through education in sanitary health practices and in basic academics. And most importantly, they made their decisions within the framework of what was in the best interests of the general welfare.