Boston is the 26th-wealthiest city on the entire planet, according to a Brookings Institution report, yet it is declaring it can’t afford to invest in its future. The city is slashing its school budget, laying off hundreds of teachers and support staff, and lengthening student commuting times. How does an allegedly progressive state let this happen?
First, the gory details. As James Vaznis reports in today’s Globe, Boston Public Schools are looking at a $107 million cut, roughly 10% of the budget:
Boston Interim Superintendent John McDonough Wednesday night presented a balanced budget for the next school year that calls for cutting about 120 central office positions and slashing bus rides for seventh- and eighth-graders.
The $973 million spending plan, which requires School Committee approval, would also eliminate nearly 250 teachers, classroom aides, and other school-based positions.
Notice how the places where schools are getting taken over by the state are also places where the budget is getting slashed and huge numbers of teachers are getting laid off because of state aid cuts? That’s not a coincidence. We’ve already seen how this cycle works in other places like New Bedford:
- Hire for-profit companies to implement high-stakes testing schemes
- Slash school budgets, lay off teachers
- Blame remaining teachers for poor test scores
- Divert money from school budgets to for-profit companies to create charter schools
- Repeat
It’s not just children who are being hurt. The cuts would also devastate adult education:
Laura Buckmaster, a student in the adult education program, pleaded with the School Committee to restore money for the program, which is losing all city funding and will have to rely on minimal grant dollars.
“The adult education program is my hope,” said Buckmaster, who shared a personal story about how the program has helped her learn how to read. “It’s a light in the community. … Please find a way to fund the program.”
This is the reality of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mythology in the Age of Austerity. Sorry, we had to cut your bootstraps because suburban Democrats won’t raise taxes on their wealthy constituents.
with an otherwise spot-on piece:
When urban issues are talked, a dichotomy generally is invoked of the “wealthy suburbs” and the less-wealthy city. In my experience, representatives from “wealthy” suburbs like Newton, Lexington, Concord, Wayland, or Acton often are more likely to support raising taxes at the state level than are representatives from less affluent suburbs. The strongest example I know of a Democrat who doesn’t like to raise taxes represents Winthrop and Revere. Billerica. Wilmington. Weymouth. Woburn. Haverhill.
This is why I believe we’ll really need progressive taxation here soon. People in less affluent suburbs (and some people in places like Newton and Lexington) really are struggling to get by. They legitimately feel like they can’t afford an increase. Meanwhile, budgets are slashed in our cities and many suburbs alike while that top few percent is doing better than ever.
Too many of the residents of those conservative less-affluent suburbs actually believe the Rush Limbaugh lie that it is *because* of “high taxes” that they are so challenged. This dissonance is like the heavy smoker dying of cancer who insists that his or her biggest problem is that cigarettes are too expensive.
We desperately need higher taxes on the very wealthy. We don’t need a constitutional amendment to impose large increases in the capital gains tax and gift/estate tax — yet our “Democrats” in power refuse to talk about them, and of course our “liberal” media refuses to educate the public about the reality of our wealth disparity.
I have to believe that an above-the-fold front page “human interest” story in the Globe — comparing a day-in-the-life between, say, a one-percenter in Concord and 99-percenter in, say, Lynn (my towns chosen arbitrarily) would be a far greater public service than much of the garbage that now fills each daily issue (never mind front page).
Our elections apparently are won and lost based on whether candidates demonstrate sufficient fealty to the Red Sox (who know OWN the aforesaid Boston Globe), while the acute wealth disparity of the Commonwealth remains unmentionable even as its symptoms become more and more difficult to deny.
that many people are 100% wrong about the CAUSE of their economic distress. They’re not going to be easy to convince, and they’re certainly going to balk at higher taxes (particularly on them) as long as their income’s not getting any better. And far more people are in a precarious situation now than were a few decades ago.
I’m all for raising the capital gains tax and estate tax. My only point here is that the problem is less the “wealthy suburbs” than the “Reagan Democrat” suburbs. Having spent much of my life in large cities, I’ve seen the tendency to consider “the suburbs” as a comfortable monolith. I think that view misstates the real political problem we have as we make the case for more revenue.
not a suburb. Our population is working-class. They are at least as opposed to taxes as the people in the suburb that I work in.
Is the working-class population of your town opposed to “taxes”, or are they opposed to raising taxes on themselves?
It’s easy to understand why somebody already struggling to get by objects to losing another $15 or $20 per week (or more) on a paycheck from a job whose gross pay hasn’t changed or has been going down.
What I find harder to understand (and why I wrote my comment) is the opposition of some to, for example, increased capital gains taxes on non-household capital gains in excess of, say, $5 M.
We can raise the taxes paid by the very wealthy TOMORROW if we want to. The added revenue could provide significantly more goods and services for your town — not to mention increasing local aid without needed to sell more lottery tickets.
Why do working-class people in your town object to this?
I’ve heard countless times from veterans of the last progressive income tax vote that people out there across Massachusetts simply don’t believe the taxes will be on someone else rather than them – even when the point of the initiative is to enable the leg. to raise taxes on high incomes without raising them on their. Even when the tax would fall exclusively on “non-household capital gains in excess of, say, $5 M.”
The next layer of resistance is the “class warfare” and “punishing success so you can give lazy moochers welfare” nonsense. At this point we’re talking about basic infrastructure maintenance and having functioning public schools. But it’s our job to start communicating ideas more clearly and more broadly.
When someone says the rich should pay more taxes, the definition of rich changes from the selling to the implementation to mean “not in poverty.”
Also, it usually seems to me that people are more inclined to support some additional taxes IF they know what it is to be used for, and have some confidence that it will be used wisely. People do not necessarily have any confidence that generic higher taxes will be spent on anything at all.
I think what you meant to say is that people aren’t confident that more taxes will be spent on anything worthwhile. (For values of ‘worthwhile’ that vary widely, of course.)
Who, as a general principle, feel it’s not my right to take something from someone else if I’m not willing to make the same sacrifice. Just because someone else has more than I have, does that give me some right to take from them? And no, I am not wealthy.
Have at me.
You’re entitled to your beliefs. Sad for you that they have so little influence.
Much depends on how you define “same sacrifice”.
“Fred” is a Massachusetts resident who owns several homes (some outside the state), owns a fleet of automobiles and a staff to drive them, and makes more in one day’s worth of portfolio gains than a year’s pay at minimum wage. “Ralph” shares an apartment with three other men and depends on the 66 bus to get from his home to his job, where he buses tables for less than minimum wage.
Are you prepared to argue that when service on that 66 bus is reduced or eliminated because the government is broke, Fred and Ralph make “the same sacrifice”?
Life is more than money, and “sacrifice” is measured by more than tax dollars.
Not “the same sacrifice”, but a sacrifice. It’s easy to vote for tax increases when you’re not voting to increase your own. Same goes for the draft, and other areas where society has needs to be met. Just not fair to ask of others what you wouldn’t do yourself. It’s the way I was raised.
What about my question? Do you think it’s fair to take from someone, just because they have more than you?
In our system taxes can only be raised by consent, either directly or through representatives. You have every right to vote accordingly if you don’t want taxes raised. It is absolutely fair to expect those with much to share with those less in our COMMONwealth.
I’ve not said I’m against taxes. I’ve not said I don’t want taxes raised. I hesitate vote to raise taxes on other people while remaining unaffected myself.
It reminds me of the arguments about military service and the draft. Is it fair to some to vote others into the military to fight a war to which they themselves have no exposure? That too has always bothered me.
The rate you pay is probably far more burdensome to you, as a middle class person, than that paid by 1 per enters and their ilk, for whom a “sacrifice” might be giving up a fourth mansion or some such thing. Whereas if your taxes go up it might mean sending your kid to a public university instead of that first choice they worked so hard to get accepted to. And don’t imagine that the rich lose any sleep when user fees go up or services get cut, which will often affect the less wealthy disproportionately. Given the historical record I doubt they would hesitate for a minute to raise your taxes, lodger, while remaining unaffected themselves. After all, that’s what loopholes and high-priced accountants are for.
Yes, the rate I pay might be more burdensome, so what? I prefer not to spend my time comparing myself endlessly to others who have more than I. Avarice and jealousy don’t help make my life any better. Some people are wealthy, good for them. I just don’t feel I have some claim on their property because they have more than I do. Others here disagree with that, and I understand their arguments. My original point was simply to explain why “I” often hesitate to vote to raise taxes.
Avarice and jealousy (ouch!) aside, there are people in the world (even in this country) who have difficulty putting food on the table, partly because so much wealth has been sucked upward by the oligarchs. Is it more reasonable to add to the ranks of the poor by taxing the middle class at higher rates in order to fund government and provide assistance to the needy, or to tax those who have hundreds of times more wealth than the average person? What seems more just? Just because you are fairly comfortable doesn’t mean everyone is. Your noble attitude toward the wealthy actually strikes me as a little bit of a luxury.
In a word, yes.
It takes only the most superficial read of history (including recent history) or economics to understand that unrestrained wealth concentration — as we saw in the Gilded Era and are seeing again today — destroys our society for everyone.
I find this particularly true when that person who has more than me gets it by plundering the already poor and weak.
Let me pose a question to you and your sense of morals:
What, if any, obligation do you feel to protect someone you see being bullied or plundered by a more powerful exploiter?
But I don’t think I should do it by ordering you to help them while I do nothing.
It sounds as though you are arguing against ANY government authority to coerce ANY behavior.
That was tried regarding taxation and failed (see Articles of Confederation).
It is, of course, purely coincidental that your argument happens to leave more of your money in your pocket while those far less fortunate than you suffer. I get that you believe that this benefit is a purely coincidental side effect of a moral argument you would make anyway.
I hope you’ll forgive me for not sharing that belief.
And…you’ve turned my belief that I have no right to YOUR property as being selfishly motivated. Too much. My words won’t prove you’re wrong or change your mind about me. I wrote that I try to avoid avarice and jealousy, I also try not to judge others, especially if I know little about them, but I guess I’m not as insightful as you are.
And who am I to forgive you?
I do not accept as sacrosanct the vast disparity in income and wealth distribution generated by the “free market” (quotes because, in truth, such a thing never has existed). Capitalism may well be a tremendously productive system, but it generates disparities that are inherently incompatible with the egalitarian ethos of democracy.
Progressive taxes are a democratic society’s modest “market correction,” a way of saying, “Look, we’re fine with having an economic system that allows some to accumulate huge wealth, but this is a civilized society organized to function for the benefit of all. So you’ll get to keep a lot of that wealth, but not to the point that our public goods are strapped and everyone else struggles through a harsh existence.”
I think it’s a good deal for the wealthy as well as the non-wealthy. And every time in our history we’ve gone without regulation, protection of labor rights, and sharply progressive taxation, we’ve seen regular and spectacular crashes due to the bursting of speculative bubbles. 1819, 1837. 1873. 1893. 1907. 1929. 1987. 2008. There was one long period in there where we didn’t have these problems, and it coincided with financial regulation and top tax rates as high as 91% on extremely high incomes.
Here in Massachusetts instituting a progressive income tax would not be taking exclusively fom the wealthy so much as it would be bringing our state in line with 36 others, the federal government, and every other OECD country. It would be rectifying a century’s worth of bad policy based on a wrongly-decided court decision undergirded by discredited legal reasoning.
But if you want the bottom 2/3 to make “a sacrifice,” let’s count the stagnant or declining wages despite increased productivity, longer hours, and large GDP growth since the 1970s. Let’s count every time a parent pays $1,000 to let a kid play on a high school sports team because there’s been a 40% reduction in state aid to municipalities since 2001. Let’s count the out-of-control housing costs fueled by irresponsible speculation that benefit mostly people at the top. Let’s count the 6.25% sales tax that hits poor people disproportionately in our regressive state tax system.
The argument you’ve raised, though I believe it’s meant sincerely and with good intent, was the cause of much suffering in the 70 years following the Civil War. We’ve been heading back into that kind of economy and I’d like to slam the brakes on that process.
“just because” is fraught with tempations, don’t you think?
Mitt Rmoney does not have more money than I do, “just because.” He has more money than I do because the laws regarding finance, taxation, equity and investment are skewed to give him more money.
Warren Buffett does not have more money than I do, “just because.” He has more money than I do because the post war growth, fueled by the government, combined with post-depression and post-war fears, led to greater, near universal, adoption of insurance and the resulting Government Employees Insurance Corporation (GEICO).
Bill Gates does not have more money than I do ‘just because’. Bill Gates has more money than I because he’s a rapacious and ethically challenged businessman who exploited the growth of the personal computer at a time when government spending on the growth of the personal computer and internetworks was through the roof.
Each of these man made their riches on the backs of a government that built great and wonderful things. They hung around and, while these great and wonderful things were being built, started charging people for some aspect or other of the great and wonderful thing. No government, no Mitt Rmoney. No government, no Warren Buffett. No government, no Bill Gates.
They should be taxed more because they have been given more. They should give back.
I proposed a dramatic increase in the tax on non-household capital gains in excess of $5M. I, frankly, don’t see how even the most scurrilous tax-and-spender can make that apply to someone barely above the poverty line. Similarly, the gift/estate tax ALREADY falls pretty much exclusively on people who are comfortably above the poverty line. Whatever we might say for or against it, a dramatic increase in either or both of these taxes is NOT going to be paid by anybody outside the top 1/2%. They will, of course, be paid by those who own and control our media outlets and by those who similarly own and control our elected officials.
I don’t see these as proposals for “generic higher taxes”, and the spending that we desperately need is on areas like transportation, education, and local aid — people who assert that such spending is not necessary are, frankly, simply wrong.
I enthusiastically agree that episodes of, for example, twenty-five million dollar MBTA pension fund losses with ZERO oversight make the already difficult task we face much harder.
Our “liberal media” has, in my opinion, completely abrogated its duty to inform the public about the FACTS of the dire fiscal straits Massachusetts now finds itself in. It is similarly derelict in its duty to spell out the immediate and concrete consequences of the knee-jerk no-new-taxes mantra that the right wing has been repeating for so long.
for Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren. They would say that taxes hinder business and economic growth. A lot of these folks think of themselves as small businessmen, though it’s more accurate to call them self-employed.
Their identity is wrapped up in their stance toward government in general. It’s tied in part to ideas of their own self-sufficiency. There may be some idea of not wanting to contribute to the laziness of “those people” who might be on welfare, but that’s secondary to the feeling that they work hard and take care of themselves. The other thing is that many are in the part of the middle class that feels the pinch of the economy. They might lview welfare as a relief, but one they wouldn’t want to take.
Not sure what you are quoting there. The Brookings report appears to be looking at GDP of Metro areas not cities. Furthermore, if you go look at the interactive widget on their site (http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/global-metro-monitor-3) and hover over Boston. It claims that in 2011-2012 Boston is 117th out of the 300 largest metro areas, not 26th.
The wikipedia link ranks cities by GDP, essentially market value, and I can entirely believe that Boston ranks 26th in the world, despite any misgivings about Brookings.
The widget you point to also says that, for the same time period, New York City was 255th (out of 300)…. so it’s not an absolute measure of riches (which is what GDP attempts to measure) but a relative measure of growth coming out of the recession.
Yes, Boston is 26th out of a list of arbitrarily chosen cities on a Wikipedia page. The Brookings report definitely does not rank Boston as the 26th richest city in the world.
In any case, it was totally unnecessary for the poster to make inaccurate claims about the relative wealth of Boston in order to make the point that we should be able to come up with more money for schools.
My point is tax some rich people and use the money to pay for teachers. What’s yours?
The wiki page in question is a listing of cities by GDP. The listing under the “Brookings” heading lists Boston as 26th. The listing under “official estimates” lists Boston as 14th. Brookings most certainly does list Boston as 26th richest city in the world. I don’t understand why you refuse to believe it.
The Brookings institute also lists Boston, as you pointed out, lists Boston as in 115th place in a listing of Cities growth (change of GDP).
I don’t see inaccurate claims. You might be able to get farther calling it imprecise but it’s not inaccurate: Boston has tremendous riches. We also have a long history of not talking about money… so there’s that, too…
Was Menino hiding the dire financial picture, or is education just less of a priority for Walsh? Was there ever a cut like this during the Menino administration?
Is overcoming the severe fiscal conservatism that is preventing much needed revenue in transit, education, healthcare, and jobs. We need more revenue, and it’s high time we gave up the Ed King era aversion to progressive taxation. This shouldn’t be sold as a tax increase but a fairer way to collect taxes that will lower them for most, raise them for the wealthy few, and give us the ability to make long term investments in our commonwealth and it’s communities. We should be a leader in progressive policy and an incubator for innovation-and we can’t do that if we keep relying on budget tricks, regressive casinos, or prohibitive fees to raise revenue. Soak the rich to water the seeds of growth.
Having lived through the ballot attempts for a progressive tax – I can assure that is exactly the way proponents argued – fairer way to collect, lowered taxes for most, etc. The problem was that many people just did not believe it and the “other side” spent a lot of effort making sure that people did not believe it.
One of the problems is that a lot of people (a) believe they are in the middle class or will soon be and (b) they are the folks whose taxes will be increased now or in the future. An example of this is the surveys that were done when there was a lot of press about the estate tax — many, many, many more people thought that the estate tax would apply to them now or in the future – when in reality it applied to very, very few.
So – I am not saying this should not be raised again – but I am not sanguine that the very reasonable proposal you make for how to “sell it” would work now any better than it did in the past.
JAS
PS – on a totally different subject – jconway, do you know that there is a CRLS alum group that has recently formed? If not – I can send you information.
I took a look at the web site for the Boston Public Schools. I found these statements:
Regarding the current budget:
The proposed Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) general fund budget totals $934,360,000, representing a 6.9% increase from the FY13 appropriation of $873,693,227.
Regarding the upcoming budget:
The proposed FY15 budget totals $973.3 million and reflects our commitments to allocate financial resources equitably to schools to meet the needs of students. The proposed budget expands educational opportunities and continues to improve school quality across the city. The figure is approximately $36 million higher than FY14, thanks to Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s decision to increase the city appropriation to schools by nearly four percent when other city departments are facing reductions.
Massive cuts?
The Globe story also says $973 million. What is going on?
The truth is in the story cited in the thread-starter, but well-buried.
The “massive cuts” appear to be the changes made to the original proposal (emphasis mine):
The headline writer could just as accurately have written “School committee pads initial budget proposal” — we don’t know.
Here’s the real meat of the issue, if there is one:
Here’s what the facts, as reported here, look like to me:
– The lege refused to raise taxes as requested by Governor Patrick
– Right wing anti-government anti-tax drivel drives state aid downward
– The same right wing “austerity” lies drive federal aid downward
– Mayor Walsh has increased funding from other sources as much as he can and it’s still not enough
– Payroll costs continue to rise
In other words — our refusal to pay taxes is destroying our school systems and destroying our transportation infrastructure. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization — and we are refusing to pay that price.
Tell to Speaker DeLeo, and tell it to our Democratic gubernatorial candidates.