By
LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council
37, AFSCME
Falling revenue has torn gaping holes in our city and
state budgets, but our mayor and governor are wearing blinkers. They are narrowly
focused on the spending side of their fiscal plans and are not looking at the
revenue possibilities. Their proposed budgets would slash spending through billions
of dollars of cuts in jobs and public services cuts that are unwise, unjust
and unnecessary.
The deep and devastating cuts would chop hospital and
school funding, raise subway and commuter rail fares, deprive vulnerable students
of drug and alcohol counselors, shut free school dental clinics, cut ambulance
service, contract out programs for seniors and youth and eliminate thousands of
jobs (see
details).
I urge every member of District Council 37 to fight back
with me to defend our health care, our schools and our jobs. Join the huge labor
and community rally against the cuts and layoffs at City Hall at 4 p.m. on March
5. And participate in the mighty union lobbying effort on March 31 in Albany,
where we will press the Legislature to cancel the worst cuts and support public
services with fair taxation (see
details).
The mayor and the governor are asking for everyone to
share the sacrifice except the ones who can best afford to pay, the richest New
Yorkers.
I cannot see depriving the growing numbers of uninsured people
of health care or letting teenagers fall into drug dependence, when modest tax
increases for those who can afford it could replace these cuts. I cannot see throwing
dedicated public servants out of work instead of asking for a reasonable contribution
from the extremely wealthy New Yorkers who can well afford to shoulder their fair
share of the burden.
After eight years of tax giveaways to the rich, the
American people voted for change. They voted to get rid of those who said government
is the problem, not the solution, and left us with millions of families
thrown out of their homes and millions of breadwinners thrown out of work.
As
Obama tries to save jobs, NY pols would wipe them out
Did our city
and state leaders learn nothing? Their spending cuts would slow economic activity
at a time when we need a speedup. Their budgetary attacks on the working class,
the middle class and the poor are the exact opposite of what President Obama is
trying to do. He is going all out to save jobs while they are wiping out jobs.
I agree with the president that we must invest in one another and build up services
like hospitals and schools that only government can provide.
I ask the
mayor and governor to take a serious look at the modest tax increases I am talking
of The Fair Share Tax Bill proposed by progressive legislators in Albany would
raise rates by less than 1½ percent on those with incomes over $250,000.
It would cost someone making $300,000 per year who brings home almost $6,000
a week just $88 a week more (see
details). Yet it would bring in $6 billion.
The fair tax plan would
simply ask the people who got all the tax breaks under Bush and Pataki to pay
their share to reduce the misery their broken bubble economy has dumped
on the rest of us.
And I am reminding the mayor that the city is still
squandering an outrageous $9 billion a year on contracting out public work to
the private sector. We have shown the city how to save money by reducing some
of this waste. No responsible government can in good conscience cut vital services
and lay off hard working public employees while real savings are within reach.