From: Andrea Ball <aball001@neo.rr.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:56 PM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Fw: [progchat_action] Anti-Austerity Alliance Wins in Illinois
To: forum_for_disclosures@yahoogroups.com
(Meanwhile in Illinois, protestors took to the streets to call for a raise
in taxes and end to cuts tio needed public programs and they won. MG)
This article is permanently archived at:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/6945/
Anti-Austerity Alliance Wins in Illinois
A 300-member
coalition helps raise taxes to save essential services.By
David Moberg February 16, 2011
Last April, Sandra Wiekerson took a day off from her work
caring for elderly people in their homes on Chicago's
northwest side. She joined 15,000 other Illinoisans in the
state capital of Springfield for a historic rally and
lobbying day.
"Raise my taxes," they chanted. "Show some guts, stop the
cuts." Participants in the 'Save Our State' rally, one of
the largest demonstrations ever directed at the Illinois
legislature, urged the state government to raise taxes so it
could pay for essential services, including $6 billion in
unpaid bills carried over from the previous year.
The Responsible Budget Coalition (RBC) called the rally as
part of a long, multifaceted campaign to fix fundamental
flaws in the state's tax structure that the recession
worsened. The RBC is comprised of more than 300 groups,
including social service agencies reimbursed by the state,
public employee unions, and community, religious and citizen
advocacy groups concerned about the welfare of vulnerable
populations.
Wiekerson, 58, represents both dimensions: As a member of
the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), she wants
to preserve her own job. But she is also committed to her
clients, who include an elderly man with heart problems and
glaucoma, confined to a wheelchair with no family to help
him.
"If the agency closes, who is going to take care of them?"
she asks. "I see myself in these people, and I hope there
will be somebody who will be around for me. We should ask
the question, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' "
Anatomy of a crisis
That question may not have been on Illinois state
legislators' minds during a January lame duck session. More
likely, it was how the state could pay its bills. But by the
narrowest of margins, Democratic lawmakers passed a
substantial increase in state income taxes--67 percent
higher for individuals and 46 percent higher for
corporations (that is, for the less than one-third of
Illinois corporations who pay any income tax). The newly
re-elected Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn swiftly signed the bill
into law.
The Illinois tax package is among the largest of the revenue
increases that have been enacted since the financial crisis
began. According to the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities (CBPP), 30 states have already taken such
measures, including 12 that have raised income taxes. During
the past two years, 46 states including Illinois have also
reduced public services.
The tax hike only did "the bare minimum they had to do,"
certainly not all that the coalition wanted, says Ralph
Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for
Tax and Budget Accountability, a member of RBC. The increase
is temporary. It provides no relief for lower-income
taxpayers from the constitutionally mandated flat tax. It
imposes a spending cap. And until the legislature approves
new bonding authority, it does not permit the state to
promptly pay its old bills.
Without new revenue, Illinois faced a $15 billion budget
deficit. Even before the recession deepened its fiscal
crisis, the state suffered from a severe structural deficit,
which grew out of a tax regime that disproportionately
burdens lower-income people and does not generate enough
revenue to meet growing state needs.
Illinois does not face deficits because it is poor (it ranks
fourteenth among states in per capita output in 2009) or
because it is profligate. It spends far below average in
proportion to its wealth and capacity; in 2008 it ranked
forty-fourth in total state and local taxes as a percentage
of income.
The problem is that during the past two decades, Illinois
leaders have been spineless and irresponsible. Republican
Gov. Jim Edgar embraced progressive tax reform after being
elected in 1994, but his own party rebuffed his plan. Then,
in 2002, Democrat Rod Blagojevich was elected governor,
promising "no new taxes" at a time when his party could have
easily raised and reformed taxes in Illinois.
Opportunism knocks
It's a familiar story playing out (in less severe fashion)
across the country, as states governments currently face
their "most difficult year on record," CBPP reports. These
state budget crises have ominously drawn a response by a new
conservative crop of Republican governors and legislators
(see Frontline story, page 11), joined by some Democrats
like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to promote deep budget,
service and job cuts that will surely hinder the recovery.
At the federal level, Newt Gingrich and other right-wingers
propose granting states the right to declare bankruptcy as a
tool to escape pension obligations.
In a broadside attack on unions and worker rights,
politicians are exploiting the current crisis to promote
restrictions on collective action by both public- and
private-sector workers. Proposed restrictions include new
right-to-work laws; elimination of public workers' rights to
unionize or strike; rollback of state minimum wages; and
prohibiting union recognition through majority sign-up.
Unions are resisting these assaults with public education
campaigns that rebut the misconception that public workers
are overpaid and have unaffordable pensions, and that shift
blame for the crisis from workers back to Wall Street. Paul
Booth, assistant to the president at AFSCME (American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers), says
that his union is also "appealing to rank and file members
of organized labor to take matters in their own hands."
Unions and progressive allies in many states are taking
matters in hand by preparing their own set of initiatives.
These include granting workers paid sick days and family
leave, raising the minimum wage, enforcing laws against
"wage theft" and progressively raising taxes. For example,
Citizen Action New York is proposing measures to create jobs
and improve schools with revenue from higher taxes on
millionaires.
The RBC's victory "gives people a sense that it could happen
elsewhere and provides a model for organizing," says Jeff
Blum, executive director of USAction, a national coalition
of groups like Citizen Action/Illinois, which helped to
raise Illinois' income taxes. "We can't just be
defensive."
Building and executing the campaign
It's obvious that progressives should take the offensive and
promote fairer taxation and closing corporate tax loopholes.
So how did they do it in Illinois, with substantial (albeit
imperfect) results?
Over the years, various budget coalitions have formed to
promote higher, more progressive income taxes and sales
taxes on services, most recently with a promise of more
school aid and property tax relief. But the business people
and hedge fund investors who in 2007 had been part of that
effort--dubbed A+ Illinois--dropped their support for tax
hikes to better fund public schools. Instead, by late 2008,
most began promoting charter schools.
Citizen Action, AFSCME and other groups began re-forming a
coalition in early 2009, soon joined by another coalition
started by SEIU. By the summer of that year, John Bouman,
director of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty
Law, had assembled a broad coalition by overcoming past
tensions among different constituencies, such as social
service and education advocates, provider agencies or firms
and unions, low-income groups focused on progressive taxes
and organizations focused on raising revenue. The RBC was
born.
RBC initially united on four principles: no major service
cuts, significant new revenue, more tax fairness, payment of
back bills and later, no built-in spending constraints. But
House Speaker Michael Madigan--a powerful but conservative
and cynical Democratic leader--wanted a bill that would draw
some Republican votes, giving House Democrats bipartisan
cover in the next election.
Nevertheless, RBC pressure solidified Democratic lawmakers'
support for a tax hike. And the work of many coalition
members enabled Quinn, who supported an increase, to
narrowly win re-election, even if some endorsed him
reluctantly following his cuts to services and to new
workers' pensions. In negotiations Madigan prevailed, but
the concessions he forced won no GOP votes.
"Madigan thinks the state spends too much, and he doesn't
much care about improving education or human services," says
AFSCME community and political affairs director John
Cameron. "So forcing him to pass any tax increase is a
victory for the progressive movement. But it is what it
is."
That is to say, it's a real, if limited, achievement showing
what savvy, inclusive organizing can do in these hard
times.
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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