budget priorities

The Eastern Massachusetts water crisis of 2010 offers us a teachable moment about the importance of the public systems and structures we depend on in Massachusetts.

It goes without saying that we take for granted the clean water we depend on every day for all our needs. We turn on the tap and know that the water that comes out will be drinkable and will never be in short supply. But the public systems that ensure that this water is inspected and safe and the public structures that collect, convey and clean the water are invisible to us. Out of sight, out of mind.

The water system is the perfect metaphor for the challenges we face in making the case for government. Most government systems that keep us safe and make life possible in our country are invisible to us: regulatory systems, air traffic controllers, environmental protection, social safety net services. We depend on these systems and thrive because of their existence. But when most of us think of government, we bring to mind the most visible forms of government, like elected officials and police. Our interactions with the public face of government and what we read about them in the media – good or bad – colors our opinion of government. The rest of government we think of as a vast, amorphous bureaucracy.

It’s an unfortunate characteristic of human nature that we often don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it. And we also often don’t notice our public systems and structures until they malfunction. A busted traffic signal gets more attention than a functioning one, in the same way we notice potholes more than smooth stretches of road, failing bridges more than safe ones, corrupt public servants more than those who do the job we elected them to do. While a broken water conduit is a rare occurrence, it grabs headlines in ways that the well-functioning water system we’ve depended on all our lives ever could.

This is why it’s much more likely that our friends and neighbors will have a negative view of government than a positive one.

CNN: Hudson River Plane Crash

As people across our state deal with flooding in our communities, I am reminded of the media response to the terrible Hudson River Airplane Crash just over a year ago.

Though the situation was clearly different - a very short-term, localized emergency event - the coverage seems familiar.

Nationwide coverage and popular response focused almost entirely on Chesley B.
"Sully" Sullenberger, the heroic pilot who landed the flight, but in large part, failed to fully-recognize  the carefully-coordinated efforts of private and public employees working together to make sure the safe landing stayed a positive story.

Ferry drivers, Coast Guard and Fire Department members, paramedics, nurses and doctors all followed plans from emergency coordinators with practiced contingency plans - built in advance so that tragic events can go as smoothly as possible.

CNN: Northeast Flooding 2010

Reading through flood coverage - and seeing it covered on both local and nationwide news footage - I see a lot of the same reaction. People on every channel and in every publication are shocked by the road-rivers flowing past homes and are worried about losing power to pumps working hard in their basements. People are shown being rescued from homes and vehicles by emergency workers and checking into their flood insurance policies.

And while all of these are very important stories, not enough people are speaking publicly about the historic causes and long-term planning we need to do to protect our communities for future natural disaster such as these floods. How are we going to repair and maintain the structures in our cities and towns that keep us safe?

It's time to take a long, hard look at what we value in our state - and how we want to support it. Last week, we discussed some potential revenue options.

Do you have ideas on how we should build a sound fiscal foundation for Massachusetts?

The ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team is meeting on April 2nd, and we're interested in using your suggestions to build our agenda for the upcoming budget season.

ONE Massachusetts network members are encouraging their legislative delegations to build new revenue options in next year's budget. Are you ready to encourage your legislators to take a close look at how they will support our communities - and avoid drastic cuts - with revenue options?

Here are a couple of sample talking points that could get you started...

As we look at the status of the Massachusetts budget, it is easy to forget that we are not alone in making some very important decisions about our state and our communities.

Not only can we learn from the consequences of our own state's historic budget and revenue decisions, we can learn from other states working through the same issues!

Sunday's Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune Op-Ed, "The case for paying higher taxes, happily," laid out a scenario that was all too familiar - a state facing a structural deficit, another round of budget cuts, and advocates calling for even more tax cuts for big businesses. The authors, though push back, calling for a more balanced look at the effect of tax cuts:

What's good for General Mills usually is good for Minnesota. And despite the state's gigantic revenue shortage, some proposals at the Capitol to give further tax cuts and credits to businesses deserve a serious look.

But the assumption that more tax cuts are the only way to strengthen the state's economy is just plain wrong. It misses the truth on the flip side: What's good for the public also is vital for business in the long run.

The letter lays out a list of the ways those tax dollars would get spent that benefit large and small businesses as they do individuals throughout the state:

• ...Courts and the rule of law are essential not just for public safety but also for conflict resolution and contract enforcement for businesses.
• Delays and deteriorating roads -- due to the state's fast-growing congestion and crumbling transportation infrastructure -- build higher costs into the prices of products produced or sold here.
• Our public schools are being forced, in effect, to loan money to state government. Students at Minnesota's two-year colleges pay the third-highest tuition and fees of all 50 states. And Minnesota faces a growing achievement gap between white and nonwhite, and between affluent and poor households. These trends represent an erosion of Minnesota's educational advantage, the bedrock of our economic success.
  

As we move into the season where state legislators will decide on what gets funded in the state budget and what gets cut, we wanted to share various organizing materials for your use.

The most important single thing you can do during the next 5 months when the budget decisions are made is to organize a local meeting with your state representatives and state senators. Here you can tell them why these programs are important to you, why their funding must not be cut and cuts made should be restored, and the tax and revenue options that could enable this.

Each of your legislators will be meeting 1:1 with the powerful House and Senate Ways and Means Chairman during the next two months to tell them what their budget priorities are.

So when you meet with your legislators, you have a specific "ask" or proposal for them, namely, will they make funding the specific programs and at what funding level you care about be one of the budget priorities they make in their meetings with the Ways and Means Chairman.

You decide, based on your priorities which specific programs you want to bring up at these meetings. For example, as a youth violence prevention and teen jobs advocate, I will be bringing up programs like Shannon, DPH Youth Violence Prevention Program, Teen Jobs--YouthWorks and School to Career, ASOST, and/or Mentoring.

Remember that potential allies may be wary of promising support for our priorities while our state operates under a $3 billion deficit. They are forced to build budget priorities in an environment in which many worthy programs are competing against each other to be spared.

If we come to the table with suggestions on how to face our ongoing budget issues, options like reforming our current tax breaks, utilizing our Rainy Day Fund, and raising new, progressive taxes, then our credibility in asking for programmatic funding, or rolled back budget cuts is vastly improved. 

We wanted to share these documents for your use from a statewide training we did at the beginning of February:

1. Understanding the State Budget: how we got a deficit, what combination of cuts, savings, taxes was made last year, and what could happen this year.
2. Organizing meetings with legislators: A guide to setting meetings with your legislators, talking to them about your budget priorities, and what you can say on revenue if they say, "there's no money".
   

The Governor's budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which starts on July 1, 2010, along with some severe cuts, is proposing some modest new revenue streams that will help us address our structural deficit.

The Governor's budget proposal (House 2) continues budget cuts from the prior two years and recommends further cuts in several areas. It also generates revenue by reducing three business tax breaks and by extending sales taxes to cover soda, candy, cigars and smokeless tobacco. In addition it relies on continued significant federal assistance and on other temporary revenues including a modest withdrawal from the state stabilization fund.

A Preliminary Analysis from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center describes some of the major cuts and other initiatives used to balance the budget

As one of the long time community activists organizing to strengthen our neighborhoods and our communities through the Coalition of Social Justice and the Coalition against Poverty in the various South Coast cities and towns, I can tell you first hand how low and moderate income people have been carrying more than their fair share of the pain imposed by past budget cuts.

As members of ONE Massachusetts, we've been learning a lot about the various tax credits offered to corporations, especially the Film Tax Credit. We've studied reports from DOR and Mass INC, and are not convinced that we get a good return on the dollars we invest by paying 25% of the enormous salaries, the likes of Tom Cruise.

The Governor has taken an important step by imposing a temporary cap on the film credit although it still allows $50 million dollars in credits for FY11 and FY12. We'll be supporting this proposal, and may even be suggesting more!!!

We would all love to fully-fund each and every great public and nonprofit program that folks in our state work so hard on, and that make our state a better place to live. Unfortunately, each budget season, we find ourselves competing for a limited pool of funding for the good of our programs.

Lew Finfer, ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team member and Director of the Massachusetts Community Action Network, goes a step further. He integrates support for additional revenues into each of his budget requests.

Here is an example of a request Lew recently made to his network of advocates working on youth violence prevention and teen jobs programs:

The things that make Massachusetts a great place to live – including the public structures that many of you are fighting to support – are things that we are not able to do as individuals. In order to build safe, healthy communities, we must all work together to support our state.

Due to decades of deliberate tax and budget decisions, along with the national economic downturn, our state currently faces a $2-3 billion budget deficit. Because states are not legally allowed to run deficits, our state leadership must balance the budget using more cuts, tax increases, or a combination of the two options.

Last year, we saw big budget cuts across the board, but many cuts were reduced or avoided because they also raised the sales tax from 5% to 6.25%, bringing in over $700 million each year in new tax revenue.

The next time you set a meeting with your legislators, it is likely that they will ask you how they can justify voting for an increase for teen jobs and youth violence prevetnion programs (or even spare those items from cuts) in the face of a $2-3 billion deficit. They may even ask you what programs should be cut instead of the one for which you are advocating.

As our community leaders and advocates look through the dramatic cuts being made to all manner of state structures and programs, we thought it would be good to look at one of our many success stories. This is just one example of a victory we can achieve if we work together to give it the proper support:

Drop in Smoking RatesState coverage for cessation programs hailed
Lower income Massachusetts smokers have dramatically abandoned their habit amid a major state campaign that vigorously promotes and pays for tobacco addiction treatment, according to a report scheduled to be released this morning.

Smoking rates among the poor plummeted 26 percent in the first two years of the ongoing state program, a striking result that is already drawing national attention to the effort. Officials targeted a population that historically had the highest smoking rates in Massachusetts. [Full Globe Article]

Although the study shows great success, including decreases in smoking-related health issues like  asthma and heart attacks - funding for Massachusetts smoking prevention and cessation programs has been decreased by budget and 9C cuts from over $12 Million spent in FY2009 to $4.5 Million for FY2010. [Funding Details]

Governor Patrick, in Wednesday's speech on employment for those with disabilities, announced that:

"There are going to be some programs, a limited number, that will be eliminated entirely." Patrick said his team was working with unions, and has previously said that up to 2,000 layoffs could result from the cuts... The governor's budget remedy package, including a request for expanded "9C" authority, is due tomorrow. "I've got a few more decisions to make. I'm close," he told reporters after his speech at the Westin Copley Hotel. "I'm going to do the very best I can, particularly to protect services for vulnerable people and education." [State House News Service]

And although tomorrow's 9C Cut announcement is being overshadowed by the great focus on Senate and Mayoral races, some community members and organizations are reaching out to the Governor and his staff, pushing for the programs they care deeply about.

Just one example is the push-back against Patrick's "plans to furlough workers and possibly cap staffing at the Massachusetts Disability Determination Services... a belt-tightening move that could worsen a Social Security backlog, leaving tens of thousands of disabled citizens desperately waiting for benefits." [Herald Article]

Another example is Tuesday's rally to protest cuts to Clubhouse services, with folks lining up from the plaza near the Department of Mental Health, proceeding to the front of the State House and ending at Governor Patrick's office.

In the past, these pleas have too often come in the form of "don't cut me, make cuts somewhere else!!" Thankfully, this is beginning to change.
Many of those mental health advocates are not only asking for their program to be spared cuts - they are joining ONE Massachusetts in our Virtual Rally - telling Governor Patrick to take a balanced approach to resolving our budget shortfall - closing the gap between shrinking revenues and the increasing need for services to in a time when all families have been hit hard in their own budgets!

This means not only making cuts, but looking to increase our state revenue in ways that are stable, adequate, and balanced. It also means taking a thoughtful, careful look at the loopholes included in our Tax Expenditure Budget.

For centuries, our state and local governments have been responsible to our communities for the creation and upkeep of our public structures. This has made us a competitive state, across our region and our nation.

Now, the combined effects of an era of tax cuts in Massachusetts and a suffering federal fiscal climate are limiting our ability to fulfill those responsibilities, and to ensure a healthy, vibrant state to all who live here.

This challenging time calls for wise and thoughtful measures. Our Governor, Legislature, and local governments have a difficult set of decisions to make in order to support our public structures. Just this weekend, a state sales tax increase went into effect, and a new set of revenue reforms - both increases and cuts - are already being discussed for the fall.

It is time that we, as a community, have some serious conversations about we value in our communities and how we should pay for it as ONE Massachusetts. If you have ideas about our best options as a state, and are interested in having a statewide discussion, please contact ONE Massachusetts today!

[Below the Fold: Revenue Reform Options]