MIDDLE CLASS QUALITY OF LIFE NOT A PRIORITY FOR AMERICA'S GOVERNORS




photo by Ove Overmyer (2009)

























 Rochester, N.Y.--  Simply stated, public workers are not the cause of the global economic crisis that our nation’s governors would like you to believe-- including our very own likable Governor Cuomo.  Under a Cuomo administration, New York's public employee unions expect to find compromise at the negotiating table while anti-labor forces continue to bash us incessantly in the court of public opinion.  Unions and middle class families are being attacked-- undeservedly so.

What is so perverse about this trend is just how vastly it misunderstands what went wrong with the American economy.  And, what makes this go-around extraordinary is that national political leaders from both major parties have been pushing that same agenda.

In contrast, the biggest global corporations and the richest citizens of New York were precisely the culprits and major players in the financial excesses and speculations that caused our financial meltdown in the first place. That's the truth-- no spin.

A genuinely progressive governor would begin work on the state budget by correcting unfairly low levels of taxation of huge global corporations, reducing regressive taxes, and increasing the progressivity of personal income taxes. The new governor instead chooses not to raise taxes on those whose wealth insulated them from the worst effects of the economic crisis-- the same people who got most of the stimulus "recovery" spending since 2007.

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work.  One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street (see sources).  Here is a wake-up call-- this is exactly what union households are going through as anti-labor forces continue to demonize us. 

At the same time, the biggest global corporations seem to be doing just fine with the help of our bailed-out middle class tax dollars recording huge profits in 2010, shipping our jobs overseas (where the profits are) and giving out huge bonuses to a select few.

Here are two basic questions for Governor Cuomo and the rest of America's governors:  Where are the worries about the economic consequences that result when decimated family budgets cut short children's educations, reduce family members' visits to doctors, and shape a thousand other family decisions? And where are the worries about similar consequences from freezing public workers' wages and cutting state payrolls?

Neither economic efficiency nor the people's welfare motivates the current attack on New York's public workers. Rather, the pressure is on state budget policies to serve the biggest businesses and the richest citizens who own or manage those interests. Using the profits their workers make possible, they force our state government to meet their self-serving needs while placing the burden on others, especially the private and public employees who pay the personal income, sales and excise taxes that ultimately benefit the privileged minority.

So, please-- enough already of the spin and insults about how public sector workers are responsible for our budget woes. Government salaries and public employee pensions are not killing state and local government budgets-- lawmakers, corporate lobbyists and the big donors who put these bureaucrats into public office are.

-Ove Overmyer  (This content reflects the opinion of the author exclusively and not CSEA as an organization.)