Misplaced Anger

by Keith Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, July 15, 2010

In my brother Gordon’s column, he simplifies the issue facing New York State, its governor and legislature with regard to its budgetary problems. He argues that there are simply two choices to be made. One can increase income to state coffers by raising taxes or cut spending by slashing program funding. The fact is that most likely a combination of higher taxes and reduced spending will be necessary to make up for current shortfalls and deficits.

I can see Gordon’s point, as can many who are frustrated with the state’s high rate of taxation (especially in comparison with other states). I do, however, call into question some of the conclusions he draws and the presumptions he asserts.

Gordon argues that a mass exodus of tax payers and businesses (most notably of high-incomes) is being replaced with a few freeloading new New Yorkers migrating here to sponge off our generous social programs.

First of all, I find it difficult to believe one can look at the report he references and conclusively determine that the high taxes have been the impetus that has resulted in the flight from New York. Just in the past few weeks there has been news of the closing of one of Southern Tier’s most prominent industrial employers, the Schweizer East facility plant in Horseheads. I have not heard high taxes in the state cited as the cause for the shutdown. In fact, the official line is that the facility fails to meet internal standards and will be torn down to pave the way for a future site and expansion that promises to bring more jobs to the area.

Part of the disparity in population of wealthy and average or below average income residents of the state can be traced to the trend of widening wealth gap throughout the country. Increasingly, the percentage of the population with the highest income and wealth holding is shrinking and the percentage of the population with the lowest incomes (below middle class and below poverty levels) is growing. In past columns I have mentioned the growing wealth gap in the United States and the vast disparity between CEO and executive salaries and the wages of the working class. I won’t rehash that material but it is important to bear this factor in mind.

As manufacturing and skilled labor jobs are moving not just out of the state but out of the country, the void left is being filled with low-paying retail and unskilled labor jobs. What we are finding more and more then, is a majority of the population without resources to adequately provide revenue to the state through taxes. This shifts the burden of necessity to the balance of the state’s residents. Unless we look at the real causes for the wealth-to-poverty ratio and the dynamic of the population – unless we stop focusing merely on high tax rate as the reason for population shifts – we will continue to see the tax burden rise and no amount of spending cuts will sufficiently address budget shortfalls.

Gordon also focuses on the cost of education as a major contributing factor to the bloated state budget. This is not a surprising approach to the issue. There has been a concerted effort within the conservative arena to essentially cripple the public education system. This is not to say that the movement wishes for the public system to be completely dismantled and supplanted with private enterprise solutions. Indeed there are private institutions, charter schools and voucher programs that are siphoning vital funding away from public school districts and bankrupting the system, but the agenda appears to be to hinder public education so the consumers of that system will receive an education of poor quality.

Households with higher incomes will always enjoy greater choice and higher quality when it comes to education (especially at the K-12 level). The No Child Left Behind program that was the banner education policy of the Bush administration was an attempt to further debilitate low income schools by requiring ineffective standardized testing to prove their viability and then withholding funding from the neediest. The result is that public schools are dumbed down by teaching to the test, and forced to cut academic curriculum as well as extra-curricular programs by strapped budgets.

Another tactic among neo-conservatives is to attack public schools as evil institutions seeking to indoctrinate children with liberal propaganda and undermine religious ideals (primarily Christian ideals). Rush Limbaugh (the conservative’s favorite spokesman) constantly refers to public education institutions as “screwels”. Other conservatives like Bill Bennett advocate home-schooling and alternative school solutions, and expend huge amounts of energy and time deriding the public system as inadequate and fatally flawed. The message is that public schools are tools liberals are using to dismantle “American” values.

Gordon’s indictment of schoolteachers and district employees also fails to mention the disparity between the salaries of teachers and the average worker. Teachers are professionals with high academic degrees who are paid less than the average worker’s wage. For example, the Corning-Painted Post district pays its average teacher a meager $39,000 – below that of the average worker. Anyone who has ever known a public school teacher or other district employee would have a hard time believing that his or her salary and benefits represent high-finance corruption that is inflating the state budget to the point Gordon implies. Certainly, some waste exists in our public schools, but slashing education costs (while popular among some, including our governor) will only serve to leave children behind and further tilt the wealth imbalance.

A measured and realistic look at the state budget and the requisite taxation of New Yorkers is necessary before knee-jerk spending cuts are presented as the only solution.