In a subtle but important and consistent manner the campaign and its many advocates worked hard to reconnect Oregonians to what was at risk — the fundamental public systems and structures that the state depends on and that are essential to their shared qulity of life.
This was different than merely offering a laundry list of the dire cuts that would ensue without new revenue. It was a coherent narrative about Oregon and its future. This excerpt from a letter to the editor by State Representative Chris Harker is emblematic:
“As a small-business owner, I'm convinced that in order for Oregon to prosper we need to have the courage and the will to create an enviornment that's profitable both for businesses and for the communities on which our businesses rely. Unless we properly fund our education system and protect working families and the services they need, we're going to struggle to compete in the growing global economy. The days in which low skills could generate high pay are disappearing. These tax measures are the next necessary steps to promoting the health and well being of our state as a whole.”
Getting back to Government as “us”– as a tool for getting things done– is an essential ingredient for winning tax and revenue debates. As Massachusetts citizens and advocates work to protect public services and programs in this difficult budget season they can learn from the Oregon experience and take heart in its success.
(Patrick Bresette is Associate Director of Public Works:the Demos Center for the Public Sector and has been working with ONE Massachusetts since its inception. Parts of this post first appeared in the Demos Ideas and Action Blog
crossposted at ONE Massachusetts
See the post about the Woods Hole housekeepers being treated just like the Hyatt housekeepers this month – decent wages becoming wage slave penury.
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p>Adam Smith postulated that for gentlemen, a good income was enough, and that greed for more and more would not rule.
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p>Unfortunately, he was wrong, and there seems to be an elite that is quite willing to sacrifice decent working class and middle class jobs for a higher and higher standard of living and income for themselves.
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p>As with Hyatt, the sacrifice of decent, living wage jobs was not needed to stay viable – just to ensure that the rich got richer.
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p>The same thing is going on in our local lawfirms – layoff, staff forced to work harder, owners gaining increased profits.
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p>Similarly, a sound revenue structure is about fiduciary responsibility to current and future generations. Will we leave our children living wages, safe infrastructure, thriving public education including higher education – or a choice between leaving the state, and taking minimum work and living at home until their parents die and they inherit homes as the only option for some to stay.
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p>You are right. The discussion is not only about “what do we want from government” but who are we as a people.
Government can’t save you from wage slavery. The only thing that can save you is more competition for your labor. Raising taxes will depress the economy and raise unemployment, thus lessening competition among employers for your labor.
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p>It is funny that you picked this example to illustrate how taxpayers feel becuase I would have picked a very similar example (below)
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p>I wish I knew someone from the State DPW who could tell me how much this bridge/overpass has cost us. 2005… 2007… and I drove under last week and IT STILL ISN’T DONE!!!
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p>We don’t like paying taxes because we feel our government does not pay the necessary attention to spending those tax dollars wisely. THey feel they can take it from us in any way they want and pay for excesses, incompetence and others wasteful spending like “prevailing wages”. I think if government could get the “spending” right, us tax payers would be better with paying more taxes.
I don’t want to get into a debate about why it has taken four previous governors 20 years to finally get close to finishing this particular bridge, but like every other constuction job in a dense high traffic it looks to me like it has been entangled in a lot of local controversy.
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p>Two links from last October 08, and May 09.
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p>Looks to me like the city’s Transportation Chief and the Mass Highway department are working together to do it right.
The overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature?
is trust. When elected officials lose the trust of their citizens, anti-tax fever rises. When the headlines are full of scandal, full of shocking instances of waste and self-interest, it’s hard for citizens to feel good about any sacrifice they’re asked to undertake. They’re not stupid; no one wants to be played for a fool or taken for granted.
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p>If we’re ever going to get back to “government as us” – we’re going to need to do a better job of governing. Governor Patrick has squandered a huge opportunity that had been given to him in 2006. The people of this state we so hungry for his words then; he was inspirational and unabashedly vocal in his vision for change. He asked the voters to gamble on a candidate with no elective office experience. Yet, here we are nearly four years later, and its not a stretch to say that our citizens have lost faith. All we got was the “same old, same old.”
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p>So, before the “T” word – Taxes, we need to discuss the “T” word, Trust.
I agree Deval Patrick’s campaign speeches were inspirational and full of hope, especially when he talked about his vision for change, and I too, suspended my hard earned pragmatism to work for someone with no experience in elective office.
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p>I trusted my own instincts and thought he could be an honest, kind and principled public servant and an inspirational leader. I got part of that part right.
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p>I trusted his vision for change and I hoped he would be successful at “changing the way things are done on Beacon Hill”, and by doing so he would be able to help us repair and rebuild the public’s confidence and trust in their own government.
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p>Well, some silly missteps of his and some events not of his doing ran over him (and those of us who hoped and trusted) as various admininstrative and legislative players were caught up in their own public relations troubles and legal scandels.
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p>I still trust the Governor’s vision for change, but I should have trusted my instincts about this hope business.
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p>Hope is not a course of action. But trust building is.
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p>Changing the way things are done on Beacon Hill requires more than holding out hope and providing inspirational leadership to your public as you present solutions to pressing public problems to another equal branch of government “ta-da!”, or by pointing a blaming finger or threat to veto this or that if they don’t do this or that.
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p>Public officals in the administration and the legislative branches build the public’s trust in government by the transparent sharing of blame as well as credit and most of all, by sharing power.
…progressives actually have to be in a lot of ways the greatest fiscal conservatives. Our side needs to call out waste, even and especially in programs we hold most dear. Only then do we get the credibility to say we really need these funds in order to accomplish x, y, and z. If we prove to be better stewards of tax dollars maybe people won’t be so quick to avoid paying by doing things such as shopping in NH.
Inflation
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p>With the expansion of the national debt and deficit combined with the unprecedented expansion of the money supply most economists agree that inflation is coming. How much, how fast and when are all in question, but at some point we will likely see inflation. Whether it is a tame rise in rates like the 1990s or the ultra high rates of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when mortgage rates in the 20% range where not unheard of, remains to be seen.
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p>Why is inflation something that we should be worried about now? Quite simply, if we experience high rates of inflation, MA will be in for a municipal funding crisis that we do not presently seem fit to address.
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p>The amount that municipalities can increase their local tax base without a vote is 2 1/2 percent. If we encounter high inflation (let’s say 8% as an example), the cost of government will increase far faster than the ability of local municipalities to increase their tax base. COLAs on pensions and health care costs will lead the way, but there will be other large costs. The imbalance in the cost of local government and the ability of people to pay for it (or their willingness to fund significant annual overrides) will result in significant cuts in services, the impacts of which will be felt unequally across “rich” and “less-rich” communities. In this case rich and poor will not be solely determined by income but also by the ability to either increase taxes up to the 2 1/2 level without a vote or successfully pass a 2 1/2 override.
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p>I raise this concern now as we are focused on today’s budget crisis which is bad, but we need to start planning now for inflation lest the next budget crisis be catastrophic.
To date, government spending has served to offset the deflationary pressures resulting from the big recession. As the economy recovers and demand increases, we could see inflation, but there is plenty of room for the fed to increase interest rates to counterbalance it. We have not seen serious inflation since when, the Reagan administration?
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p>The bigger short term risk is that inflation hawks will act too early and send us back into recession.