A frieght train heading our way
State budget axes to fall after elections
By Deirdre Griswold
The budget crisis in Maine is so severe that tax forms may
not get printed and delivered in time for next year's filing.
State legislators can't agree on what the tax laws should say
in time for the printer's deadline.
The governor of Massachusetts wants to cut an additional
$300 million from the state budget, which will eat into schools
and Medicaid.
Virginia needs to borrow $1 billion to repair its crumbling
schools and parks.
Minnesota's budget deficit is now over $3 billion. The state
is contemplating painful cuts in education, health and human
services.
In Tulsa, Okla., once a center of fabulous oil wealth, 500
low-income mental patients may lose their health care because
of the state budget crisis.
School districts across Texas are in crisis and face either
raising taxes or cutting budgets. Reports a special committee
on revenue and school funding: "Texas is perilously close to a
collapse of its public school system." (Long View
News-Journal)
Billionaire New York mayor Michael Bloomberg flies two state
legislators to his fancy Bermuda estate for a private
discussion on the state's budget crisis. On his return he
announces a city hiring freeze and an additional 2.5 percent
cut in city agencies' budgets on top of a 7.5 percent cut
earlier.
It's the same all over this country.
Some 37 states are reporting severe budget crises as tax
revenues dip with the economic recession. There is no question
that the axe will fall on many thousands of workers as soon as
the elections are over and cuts in services will deepen.
For years, the federal government has pushed the burden of
social programs onto the states so it could devote itself with
greater single-mindedness to the task of building the most
ominous and destructive armed force the world has ever known.
At the same time, the rich set up think tanks and committees of
legal experts to "guide" the Congress through passing tax cuts
that save them billions of dollars at the people's expense.
Now the other shoe is dropping: a push for higher sales
taxes.
No one likes income taxes, but they are supposed to be
structured "progressively"--in theory, at any rate, the rich
are supposed to pay at a higher rate than those who can barely
live on their meager earnings. Now that many states have
eliminated income taxes altogether, and taxes on stock market
earnings as well as wages are down, the right wingers have a
new cause: raise sales taxes on everything from gasoline to
housewares.
Sales taxes always hit the poor the hardest. The rich have
gimmicks to avoid them, like getting themselves incorporated.
This writer knows someone who once worked in the office of the
Rockefeller family foundation. These billionaires didn't even
pay taxes on their toilet paper. They bought it tax-free
through the foundation.
But there's only so much blood you can get from a stone.
Workers can't pay much more than they are doing already. So the
other option the capitalist politicians provide is budget cuts.
Cut schools, hospitals, parks, libraries and all the other
necessary services.
Cuts are just another word for layoffs. When factories
started closing, service jobs were supposed to be the new
growth industry. Now these are the very jobs that are
threatened, along with the services they provide.
Layoffs and cutbacks on top of recession and war--that's
what the rulers of the richest, most powerful country in the
world are offering the people. They're asking for a social
explosion--and they'll get it.
Reprinted from the Nov. 7, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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