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The Yapping Begins
Almost before Governor Paterson finished his speech this evening, union leaders and other representatives of special interest groups were complaining about looming cuts, and trying to find ways to "warn" the Governor and the legislature not to cut their particular piece of the shrinking pie.
The problem, of course, is that none of these demagogues will have any solutions. It has long seemed to me that if you're going to criticize someone else's plan, you should offer an alternative. But it's a great bet that every one of the yapping crowd will be too busy complaining to advance any alternatives.
The time has come to challenge all of them -- including those we consider friends. Governor Paterson should meet with every one of these "leaders," and challenge each of them to provide an alternative to cutting their budgets.
He should also do so publicly. Quite publicly.
Some of the complainers will shut up long enough to formulate something that at least resembles an alternative. Others won't bother. Only then can Governor Paterson separate those he can work with (because they'll have proven a willingness to work together) from those who don't merit his time. Meanwhile...
Meanwhile, he should be willing to put everything on the table. That means trying to reopen contract talks. It means cuts to the education budget. It means the "millionaire's tax" and other taxes. It means cuts to each and every department, and possible new sources of income.
It also means going to Washington and demanding some help from them.
Most importantly, it means we can finally begin to ignore those blowhards who don't deserve a place at the table.
Perhaps that's the good thing that can come out of this economic difficulty. Perhaps the dead weight that these people represent will fall by the wayside, which is exactly what economic downturns are supposed to accomplish.
I wouldn't bet on it, and certainly many of them will be back once things improve, but one can always hope.
As goes the NY budget, so goes the national budget.
Last year, we spent $133 Billion on the Iraq war. If our elected officials had been investing in our economy here at home, we could have paid for: health care for 3,920,9905 people for one year, Head Start for 18,251,681 students for one year; and we could have powered 137,823,834 homes with renewable electricity for one year.
To bring this information home to all Americans, Progressive Future has built an online tool called the Invest in US Calculator. The calculator takes a person’s 2007 income before taxes and tells you how much of that person’s tax money went to fund the war (average: $235), and how many seconds of war that bought (average: .04 seconds). Then it tells you, with that money, how many days of health coverage that could pay for (average: 25), how many days of Head Start education (average: 12), how many days of heating a home with renewable energy (average: 78), and how many days of veterans’ higher education benefits (average: 5) that money could have paid for. Then we are asking users to sign our Invest In US petition, which we plan on taking to Congress, the Platform Committees, and the media to push for new priorities for tax spending.