The right wing agenda and the fightback: one state's experience
In April 2014, Tom Corbett, Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, opened his reelection bid in television advertising saying "I didn't come to Harrisburg to make friends - I came to do a job - we have reduced the size of government back to what it was 50 years ago..."
The Governor is right. Corbett hasn't made friends among most of the state's voters, and services to the people of the state are declining along with the number of state workers. His popularity, as well, has dipped to a low point as his support of the national right wing agenda alienates growing numbers of voters. This article will attempt to explore and expose the Corbett record on a range of issues.
Public education is a primary example. As one would expect, the number of teachers in the state's school districts is down because the Governor and his Republican legislature have cut more than a billion dollars from the education budget since he took office. Surveys have concluded that over 18,000 education jobs had been lost in the state due either to layoffs or positions left vacant between 2010 and 2012. (Lehigh Valley Morning Call September 15, 2011; October 2, 2012). This is forcing local school districts across the state to make painful decisions: continue to cut staff or services, or raise local property taxes. Educators are still the largest single contingent of public workers, but the State Senate finance committee, in line with the governor's agenda, is considering legislation to further reduce the state responsibility for funding its public schools. Touted as a response to popular frustration with rising property taxes, the right wing-controlled committee is building support for SB 76 which would partially replace local property taxes with an increase in the state wide sales tax, from 6 to 7% and add the number of products subject to the sales tax.
Allegheny County (home of Pittsburgh) and Philadelphia, the two largest municipalities in the state already collect an additional 2% to help fund local needs including a starved public education system. This legislative package proposes to increase yet another flat regressive tax, the state income tax, from the current 3.07 to 4.34%. This would add to the tax burden on wage workers, low and middle income people in Erie, Pittsburgh, Altoona and other urban, suburban and rural communities. Public education advocates opposing the legislation point out that these proposed regressive tax changes will actually decrease revenue. One education advocate quipped that the Republicans in their infinite wisdom forgot to include a provision for kettles and bells.
The keystone state is not alone, and education is but one example. Dramatic increases in income inequality across the nation have been well documented by labor, liberal and progressives economists. This has been underscored by President Obama and other Democratic office holders supporting an increase in the minimum wage, money for crumbling infrastructure and extension of long term unemployment insurance. In addition to stagnant and reduced wages, one need only look at the reduction of government's role in providing many services, chief among them public education. The many sided attack underscores income disparity, a declining standard of living for the 99% and the increasing share for the very top.
This is turning out to be a high stakes election year. In addition to governors in some 37 states, voters will, of course, elect the entire House of Representatives and more than l/3 of the Senate seats. As of this writing, indications are that the Democrats will have a fight on their hands and a rough road to maintain their Senate majority. The series of recentSupreme Court decisions regarding money in elections as freespeech raises the stakes and threatens to open the flood gates for the right wing PACs with their easy access to corporate money.
The Corbett Administration's record: right wing slash and burn
A summary of the Corbett administration's record in Pennsylvania (in addition to its attacks on public education) reads like a laundry list of reactionary initiatives and gives a stark example of the right wing at work. Look, for instance, at the fate of the much beleaguered Affordable Care Act. Originally Corbett simply refused the federal Medicaid money saying that it would cost the state too much down the road. After seeing the nationwide response of millions signing up for the ACA and feeling pressure from healthcare advocates across Pennsylvania, the governor offered a "compromise". Corbett proposed to take the federal money but asked the Obama Administration to permit them to further privatize Pa.'s Medicaid system. Health and Human Services declined the bait. All of Pennsylvania's Democratic contenders for the governorship, including eventual primary winner, Tom Wolf, committed to accepting the Medicaid money without strings. Some 500,000 more Pennsylvanians, in a population of nearly 13 million, would be eligible for this benefit.
As if health care and public education were not enough, the governor has aroused the ire of environmentalists and clean energy advocates as well. Pennsylvania is among the states moving full steam ahead to exploit the natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. The process known as fracking hasbecome a "front burner" and divisive environmental issue. Fracking literally injects a combination of chemical compounds followed by large quantities of water and sand into the shale to extract natural gas. The impact of the chemical compounds on the water table has yet to be fully assessed, but many have already concluded that Eastern and Central Pa.'s water table is being damaged. Many environmentalists suggest that Pennsylvanians will pay the price further down the road. In the state's northeast region, once the center of anthracite mining in the US, land owners have reported contamination of drinking water and water faucets that ignite when turned on. On the other hand, the extraction of natural gas has brought money and at least temporary jobs to communities that have not seen economic growth for decades.
Natural gas investment is almost exclusively by big oil companies.The Corbett Administration has resisted any taxes on the extractive industry and, in addition, has proposed leasing public lands to the industry. This is likely to go forward only in the event of a Corbett victory in November. Corbett's reelection coffers are stuffed with money from the natural gas and oil industries. Pennsylvania's Democratic Party candidates for governor, including winner Tom Wolf, favored an extraction tax, and all favored subjecting the fracking process to greater scrutiny.
(Environmentalists as well as many progressives favor a ban on fracking . The new abundance of natural gas promotes and helps to continue the pattern of fossil fuel usage, the burning of which is the main culprit in global warming already impacting global weather patterns. To win the cessation of fracking will require higher levels of political unity and increased numbers of voters gaining greater and broader understanding of the damage being done to our people, land, water and climate. A greatly increased development of available and renewable energy is thepractical, game changing alternative to the frenzied search andextraction of climate changing fuels. This will, of course, require government action/investment.)
Among the first legislative initiatives of Corbett and company was a voter identification law. Passed in 2011, in the early days of the new administration, Republican legislators famously boasted about their success in enacting such a restrictive a voter identification law. A government issued photo ID card was to be required to cast a ballot. The now familiar argument that the law was needed to prevent in person voter fraud was widely blasted as a transparent disguise for voter suppression. Hundreds of thousands of Pa. citizens would have been barred from the electoral process. African American, Latino, and white as well as immigrant voters who couldn't produce a birth certificate would be out of luck.
On passage of the legislation, a large and broad coalition mushroomed statewide leading the fight to overturn this law in the courts. Three years later, as matters now stand, Commonwealth Court Justice McGinley has twice struck down the law. Judge McGinley cited the difficulty for large numbers of the states eligible voters to get the required IDs and the failure of the state to present any evidence that in person voter fraud is a problem. Recently Governor Corbett has declined to appeal this decision but haspromised another legislative run at a voter suppression law.
Another Corbett aim is to further decrease corporate taxation. Over the next 10 years this tax with big loop holes allowing for non payment would decline to around 7%. Citing neighboring states similar action as a justification, Corbett makes the standard argument that lowering corporate taxation helps create jobs. Opponents charge that the proposed lower tax rate on corporations is locked in for a decade regardless of the economic conditions in the state. Further that reduction of corporate taxes in other states has not resulted in job creation. Sharon Ward of Pennsylvania's Budget and Policy Center notes that buried in the proposal is the overlooked fact that the top 1% of all the state's corporations will get 80% of Corbett's tax cuts.
Pennsylvania has a state system of publicly owned liquor stores. The State Liquor Control Board is responsible for the purchasing and selling of liquor in the state, with some exceptions. The revenue, the profit, from this publicly owned and managed enterprise goes into state coffers. The organized workers employed by the LCB are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers. The local has an enormous body of experience and knowledge in legislative and political work and has led a state wide coalition to beat back privatization. The union has spearheaded successful efforts to upgrade the state liquor stores and expand their offerings. It is their leadership together with their coalition supporters that has weathered these efforts so far. Counter proposals from the UFCW urge greater state investment to further modernize the retail business better meeting current standards and demand. The union points to the loss of good jobs at decent wages, should the stores be sold. They too are involved in the electoral campaign. Over the years the workers and their union have managed to buck the anti-union, anti-worker trend across the country and have won above average wages and conditions, which has made them another target of the Corbett administration.
While the threat to privatize the stores and eliminate the union has continued over most of the last 30 years, this administration has been a bit more zealous. It has generated well funded campaigns attempting to discredit the union and the entire state system of liquor sales: the refrain has been that the state stores don't carry a good selection and are not up to date in retail practices. In addition there have been allegations of corruption in the hierarchy of the SLCB. All the campaigns have had one goal - to lay the basis in public thinking for privatization - the sale of liquor stores. In the current legislative session several schemes for privatization have been considered but to date none of them has managed to build sufficient support.
Recently a big effort was undertaken to bring "right to work for less" to Pennsylvania. The state AFL-CIO, local labor councils a wide variety of community and civic organizations rallied to oppose this legislation, which, for now, appears for now to be on the back burner. Still the threat of right-to-work hangs over the Keystone State. The governor has suggested that he intends to deal with union political activity in 2015. One such move would likely be an effort to stop the dues check-off, which would prevent public unions from collecting monies used in their electoral/political campaigns.
The emerging fightback: broad and deep
But mobilizing and preparing for elections is not the sole province of right wing candidates and big business PACs. Challenges to the right are emerging from Texas to Georgia to Pennsylvania - challenges by serious candidates who are generating interest and can command support from the electorate. Such candidates buoyed by grass roots organizing are helping to build an electoral infrastructure that is broad in scope and not necessarily tied to the traditional parties.
Trade unions and civic organizations of all kinds are entering this election campaign in a big way. The AFL-CIO has committed $300 million this year to state elections as well as to House and Senate races. State federations and local labor councils are gearing up and tapping into traditional sources of activism--members, families, activists, community leaders, block captains-with determination and energy. Phone banks, local rallies, house and church meetings seem to be happening everywhere. Demonstrations calling for full funding for public schools occur weekly. There are sections of the Democratic Party that have gotten the message and are coming to the electorate with a more progressive message and more responsive and attractive candidates. In this high stakes environment the general election campaign has already begun.
Faced with the intense and many pronged right wing attack on so many fronts grass roots progressive and people's movements have swung into action. Among the top priorities is the effort to increase the minimum wage and close the loopholes that prevent some workers from being covered by the law. Around the country and across Pennsylvania increasing the minimum wage has been pushed to the front.
In Philadelphia the minimum wage struggle has already caught on in a big way. The effort led buy trade unionists and by a coalition of the Black clergy (Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild or POWER), generated such widespread and visible support that Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for workers subcontracted by the city to $10.88. The AFL-CIO has had rallies in cities and towns around the state and was instrumental in having a minimum wage law introduced into the State House and Senate. The slogan "Raise the Wage in Pa." is being heard. The movement as well as going nationwide, is going global, involving millions more.
Finally, we should return to the issue of public education. With their massive finding cuts early in Corbett's term, the Governor and the Republican legislators struck a particularly sensitive chord. The level of state funding has long been a contentious issue, and the recent cuts have hit the state's large cities with large populations of color the hardest. For over a decade Philadelphia has not had a local board of public Education, having been put under state control under former Republican governor Tom Ridge. The five member School Reform Commission, appointed by the governor has generally been stacked with members who are wedded to a privatized and bare bones custodial care rather than an educational system. Together with reduced funding the state has heightened their campaign to blame the teachers and reduce the power and effectiveness of their unions. Teachers unions and supporters have become the center of organization to fight for a 21st century education.
While authorities who study public education have repeatedly cited the multitude of negative effects that poverty has on children, the SRC and State Board of Education have apparently been paying no attention and have offered no response. Many states and cities are discussing universal pre-school education for 4 year olds as an educational necessity but Pa. no longer has mandatory full day kindergarten for 5 year olds. The Chester-Upland district and others, notably the school districts around Allentown have had payless days for teachers. Voluntary acts by teachers and other school personnel have startled the political hacks on the right who are so eager to besmirch teachers with sordid stories.
The requirements of a quality, world class public educational system are enormous; the pledge by Democratice candidates to fund education by taxing the extraction industry is getting good grades by potential voters. Still the necessity of creating a top flight educational system goes far beyond this pledge. One can legitimately be pleased with and support the forward motion on issues and still recognize that in this election, the response to issues by candidates is just the beginning of a longer political/electoral haul. The coalitions to defend public education in a number of cities in the state are building ties among education advocates, teachers and other school personnel, parents and students. In Philly the local coalition is working door to door to involve voters in the issue and the election.
In Summary
The number of organizations and people fighting for an increase in the minimum wage, for educational funding, against voter suppression, against right to work for less and other important issues is stirring and hopeful. Genuinely inspiring activism seems to be all around. It appears that more people are responding by buying into the African American spiritual "Cast Down Your Buckets Where You Are". Well, maybe they're not singing but acting and focusing on doing their best in this election to defeat Pa.'s Republicans. While general and long-term dissatisfaction with political parties, candidates and their responses to issues, and an understanding of the sheer enormity of problems is growing, at this moment people are focusing on the immediate task at hand.
About five months remain until November 4.
Photo: Trade union demonstration in Harrisburg January 2014 Ben Sears/PA
