About a million jobs in America’s cities, counties and schools could be created within months if Congress would pass legislation President Obama has proposed.
But that is not a good reason to ship billions of dollars to state and local governments from Washington. Teachers shouldn’t be hired to boost the economy. They must be needed in classrooms before they are put on the payroll. Ditto for firemen and law enforcement officers.
There is no disputing that the worst recession since the Great Depression has hit states and local governments hard. Tax revenues have fallen. Budgets have been slashed. Public sector jobs have evaporated. It is also obvious that those job losses make up a substantial chunk of the 8.1 percent of the nation’s workforce, which is unemployed. Federal grants to the states could restore those jobs and lift the nation’s economy.
That may be, say congressional Republicans, but the money would have to be borrowed because we aren’t about to raise taxes — especially just now, when the primary effect would be to give the president a political boost. And that brings us back to the matter of need and responsibility. Are those teachers, firemen and policemen and other public workers really needed? If they are, who should pay their salaries?
These questions aren’t being addressed frankly and honestly on the campaign trail. Voters should demand straight talk about them.
LET US FIRST agree that in a growing nation like the United States, government’s payroll will increase or government services will decline. It is not reasonable to expect public schools to do a better job of teaching a growing number of students with fewer teachers who are paid lower wages. Bigger cities also require more first responders — or public safety will decline.
If these basics can be agreed upon, then the question becomes who pays.
Over U.S. history, responsibility for paying the bill for government — for the things Americans do for each other through public agencies — has shifted from local government to the state and national government. Cities, counties, school districts and states still raise and spend a great deal of money every year, to be sure. But Uncle Sam has also picked up a significant share of local government budgets.
The explanation for the shift has been that most of us agree that government should be an equalizer. Every kid should get a good education, every citizen should be protected from crime and given help when afflicted by disaster, have health care, clothing and a roof over his head and given a fair shot at a good life, etc., etc., etc.
Because wealth is not apportioned equally among states or within states it was natural that the nation’s lawmakers and administrators agreed to apportion government services according to need and to get the resources to pay for those services from those areas which were most prosperous.
THIS PHILOSOPHY is under direct assault by the Republican Party in this election. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are pledged to reduce the amount of money the federal government gives to states, cities, counties and schools and are calling upon states and local units, such as schools, community colleges and universities, to pay more or agree to cut their budgets. If adopted, this approach will devastate the nation’s poorest states, poorest cities and school districts — and the poorest citizens.
Kansans in general and Iolans in particular can understand how the Romney/Ryan creed will hammer areas like ours. Before the state took over the financing of the public schools about 20 years ago, the Iola school district was forced to pay a property tax levy about three times that of wealthy Johnson County and still had far less to spend to educate an Iola student than did its big city counterparts. When the state took over and the public schools were supported with statewide taxes, USD 257 property owners saw their school taxes drop like a stone.
Shifting more of the education, Medicare and Medicaid budgets to states and individual citizens — as Romney and Ryan are pledged to do — will hurt poor states and poor individuals the most. And refusing to raise taxes on those most able to bear the increase will keep the deficit growing while government services shrink.
This isn’t political rhetoric. It is plain, 2+2=4 arithmetic. Do the homework, then decide.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
