Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer issued the following statement on Governor Snyder’s budget proposal:
“This budget fails to address the gaping hole in our K-12 public education system left by the Republican budget from one year ago. Governor Snyder and Republicans robbed $1 billion from public education in order to pay for a $1.8 billion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy CEOS, which has failed to produce a single job. This budget does not restore those funds.
“We need to be investing in our kids who are the future of this state and this country. Governor Snyder’s alleged ‘increase’ in public education funding doesn’t even match the rate of inflation. This budget will lead to further cuts in our schools, including more layoffs and larger class sizes for our kids.
“If the Governor and the Republicans are serious about investing in public education, they should restore the funding they cut last year. We need to be investing in our kids and giving teachers the tools they need to succeed. This budget does nothing to accomplish those goals.”
The nation’s biggest oil companies — many of them headquartered in oil-rich Texas — areraking in record profits this year and don’t need any more incentive to keep doing business. But Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and his hand-picked appointees are giving them one anyway, and literally taking money away from children and schools to pay for it.
Public education — along with Medicaid,women’s health care, and the Texas Forest Service — was gutted in the budget Perry signed this year. But the governor’s hand-picked appointees on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality look likely to raid another $67 million from public schools to give Big Oil a tax break:
Three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry may grant some of the nation’s largest refineries a tax refund of more than $135 million — money Texas’ cash-strapped schools and other local governments have been counting on to help pay teachers and provide other public services.
The refund would mean more pain for some communities after a year in which state lawmakers had to grapple with a $27 billion shortfall and slashed spending on public schools by more than $4 billion. Nearly half the refund would be taken from public schools, and those in cities where the refineries are based would be hurt the most.[...]
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is evaluating 16 requests for the refund, which concerns a piece of pollution-controlling equipment. If granted, the refund total for those requests could add up to more than $135 million, according to county tax data and application documents analyzed by The Associated Press. What’s more, agency documents show that if the commission grants the requests, at least 12 other refineries that have not sought a refund also could qualify.
The commission has signaled its support for the refund in the past, and Perry has indicated he will fully support the $135 million tax break at the expense of public education. One of the companies that stands to profit the most from the refund, Valero, just happens to be one of Perry’s biggest all-time contributors. Valero, the company that has most persistently lobbied for the refund, could get more than $92 million from the commission. Perry has received more money from the company than any other politician in the country except one.
Texas schools are already plagued by under-funding, low graduation rates, and high childhood poverty. Millions of Texas students began the school year without new textbooks and other essential school supplies because of the cuts Perry approved.
It’s disturbing that during an education and budget crisis in the state, government officials would prioritize the profits of the oil industry over the needs of children and communities. By accepting the refunds, oil companies are taking money away from nearby schools — which should disappoint Texans who place a premium on being good neighbors.
At a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday, Perry added something else to the long list of things he insists are beyond the federal government’s power — any involvement whatsoever in education:
QUESTION: I would like to know your position on the federal government’s role in my children’s education.
PERRY: I don’t think the federal government has a role in your children’s education. . . . I know there’s probably a few of you in here who have not read my book “Fed Up.” But I talk about the intrusion into our lives by the federal government in a host of different areas. Education is one of them.
But Perry’s blanket statement that the federal government doesn’t have any role in education whatsoever goes much further than his previous position that Texas should simply be able to suckle at the federal Department of Education’s teat. If the federal government truly has no role in education, that means millions of college students must lose their Pell Grants and federal student loans overnight, depriving many of them of their ability to pay for higher education altogether. And that’s just the lucky students who are still able to get accepted into college after their public schools lose all federal funding — funding that disproportionately benefits the most needy schools.
As these conservatives are cutting these services for hard-working middle class Americans, they are claiming they are acting out of need for “shared sacrifice.” Yet at the same time, the right continues to advocate for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-IL), along with a number of her progressive congressional colleagues, has introduced a plan that demands real “shared sacrifice.” Her plan, The Fairness in Taxation Act, calls for creating new tax brackets for the richest Americans, starting at a 45 percent rate for people whose income is $1 million. Her bracket would impose the highest rate — 49 percent — on billionaires.
A chart provided by her congressional office demonstrates that asking the wealthiest among us to pay a little more would actually save more money than all of the House Republicans’ cuts to domestic spending combined. House Resolution 1, which gutted funding on Pell Grants, low-income housing aid, community health centers, and other important programs for Main Street Americans, cut a total of $61 billion. Meanwhile, Schakowsky’s plan saves $78.9 billion, considerably more:
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Schakowsky said that she is “hoping” to build enough momentum within Congress to make her proposal the main alternative to the conservative slash-and-burn budget effort, saying that it is a “winner” for Democrats, both politically and on policy grounds. She said that the House Progressive Caucus is planning to do a road show in the summer to campaign on tax justice and endorsed the Main Street Movement that is defending the middle class across America:
THINKPROGRESS: You’ve mentioned a few times the grassroots movement that’s going on…that’s something that we here at ThinkProgress have dubbed the Main Street Movement, all around this country we’re seeing working families rise up. [...] I wonder if you’ve and your colleagues on the Progressive Caucus have thought about similar kinds of tactics [to the Tea Party], a road show, holding rallies, trying to engender grassroots momentum around your proposals.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, the Progressive Caucus is planning a road show this summer. This will be a central theme of that. [...] But I think this needs to be bigger than that. [...] I like the idea of branding, I like the idea of the Main Street Movement, and I think it is beginning to seriously come together. I think all of the pieces are out there to put this together right now. This is a moment. I want to capture it right now by introducing this legislation that clearly states an alternative that is very popular.
Listen to it:
Indeed, taxing the super-wealthy is quite popular. A March 2 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of Americans prefer taxing the wealthiest Americans more as their top choice for deficit reduction, while less than a third of Americans endorsed policy options like cutting funding to education and health care.
UPDATEThinkProgress commenter Jay Kimball used IRS data to put together thefollowing graph showing how the richest 1 percent of Americans is nearly earning more money than they ever have while they are paying the lowest taxes in decades:
By Sahil Kapur
A Tea Party-backed Republican congressional nominee has championed abolishing public schools in California, and is currently the favorite to win his November election.
The candidate, David Harmer, a corporate lawyer who has yet to serve in public office, is up against two-term Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney for California's 11th district -- located in Northern California -- in the House of Representatives.
Framing the issue as a struggle between government tyranny and freedom -- a preferred political tactic of conservatives -- Harmer wrote: "In the freest and most prosperous country on Earth, in the midst of the information age, government ownership and operation of the schools is a counterproductive anachronism."
He added: "So long as the state Constitution mandates free public schools, a voucher system (or refundable tuition tax credit) is the best we can do. To attain quantum leaps in educational quality and opportunity, however, we need to separate school and state entirely. Government should exit the business of running and funding schools
The GOP candidate argued in the Chronicle that his vision for education reflects "the way things worked through the first century of American nationhood." As Baumann notes, that was an era "when educational opportunities for poor people, African-Americans, women, the disabled, and others were, to say the least, extremely limited."
Although Harmer holds a slim lead in the polls -- 49.4 to 48.4 percent -- polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times analyzes the dynamics of the race and gives the Tea Party favorite a considerable 54.7 to 45.3 percent chance of victory next month.
Yet Harmer's views on education, largely ignored so far, could hurt him in a state where the public school and college system is so treasured that even Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman -- bucking her party's trend of defiance to publicly-funded education -- has pledged to strengthen California's public schools.
M.C.L Comment: Another example of why liberals should vote in three weeks, I'm currently going back and forth with one of these "concerned" citizens on the right and I told him if Dems lose this election I won't be angry at the tea party people or blue collar conservatives for the simple fact these idiots since the election and re-election of President Reagan have always voted against their own best social and economic interest it's nothing new but my anger would be direct on our side because we knew what was at stake and we knew what will happen if the orange bastard becomes speaker Orange Bastard. But instead of voting just to keep some form sanity in the government liberals decided because President Obama didn't handle their pet political issues the way they wanted, they took their ball and ran home thus allowing the forces of the greedy and the stupid to take over the country. And the people on the left who advocated this plan of staying home and allowing Republicans to obtain power will be the first ones screaming about how crappy the outcome is the morning after.
