Anyone for a serious dicussion about tax policy?

Facing facts in Dallas, Texas

By way of reminder, here's a "check list" of facts that I discovered during the past several months working as Chair of Mayor Mike Rawlings' Task Force on Poverty in Dallas.

--Between 2000 and 2012, population in Dallas increased by 5%.  During that same period, poverty grew by 41%.

--Dallas competes with Philadelphia for being the 3rd or 4th poorest city in the U. S.  We go back and forth on this "distinction."

--Dallas is the poorest city in the US among cities reporting a population of 1MM or more.

--In Dallas, 38% of our children live in poverty.

--In Dallas public schools about 90% are eligible for free and reduced lunches.  That percentage is 73% for public school children who live and go to a public school in Dallas County.

--Increasing numbers of us live in area of highly concentrated poverty and the trend is spreading.  In 2000, Dallas reported 18 census tracts of high concentration of poverty (about 10% of all our poor). In 2013, that number had increased to 32 tracts (about 20% of all our poor). 

--Areas of concentrated poverty produce health and social outcomes in a context of "toxic stress," a condition that has been identified and studied in the last decade.  "Toxic stress" results from a pathological, comprehensive "surround" that confronts our very poor neighbors here in Dallas day after day.

--Name the social, community challenge and identify its presenting data, and the poverty maps overlay perfectly:  asthma, health, housing, test scores, wages, employment and access to goods and basic services.  Poverty drives all of our negative, deadly data reports.

What's the answer? 

How do we go forward? 

Any serious plan to cut into poverty must involve serious conversations about wages and tax policy.

We have neglected our human "infrastructure" for far too long.  Our short-sighted policies have caught up with us.  We must act decisively for the sake of our community's future. 

And, the operative value, the back drop for every conversation, debate and action seems clear to me:  COURAGE!

Tracking cost and location of tax deductions

Regressive tax systems crush the poor. . .

Check out a slice of this provocative essay:

Practically the only tax that could rise was the one that hurt the poor the most: the sales tax. And rise it did, throughout the Deep South in the late 19th century, then spreading into the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and the rest of the region in the 1960s and 1970s. Even liberal politicians weren’t able to buck the tide — just ask Bill Clinton, who as governor of Arkansas urgently sought new revenue to improve his state’s ailing schools and found the sales tax was the only politically viable option.

If this were just a history lesson, we could set it aside. It isn’t. In the last 30 years, these trends have only gotten worse. Southern states have steadily increased the tax burden on their poorest citizens by shifting the support of the public sector to sales taxes and fees for public services. After California voters passed Proposition 13, which capped property-tax increases, in 1978, Western states began to move in a similar direction. Sales taxes on clothing and school supplies and fees for bus fare and car registration take up, of course, a far bigger slice of a poor household’s budget than they do from the rich.

To get an important historical perspective on tax policy at the state level, as well as essential understanding as to just how our tax system hurts the weakest among us in Dallas, click here and read the entire report.

People, morals and budgets

As many leaders from the faith community have stated recently, budgets are moral documents.  How we decide to spend and plan to spend resources impacts people in various ways both good and bad. 

It appears we stand at a crossroads moment of decision.  Will we appropriate the resources necessary to promote opportunity, education, progress and fairness?  Or, will we slash, cut and destroy program after program that moves us forward as a nation and a society? 

Budgets reflect choices. 

Budgets affect people .

Budgets spotlight what we value. 

Budget discussions now underway in Washington and in Austin will have clear outcomes in the inner city communities/neighborhoods of Dallas, Texas.  The decisions made over the next year will set the course for entire segments of our population in this city.  For this reason, I'm compelled to talk about the current budget battle. 

Congressman Raul Ryan (R-WI) put forward a budget that, if adopted, will wipe out much needed resources for Texas and for Dallas.  In fact, the Ryan budget proposes cuts to the federal budget three times larger than the automatic cuts already set for January 2013! 

Our poorest neighbors will suffer most. Our children will suffer.  In fact, we will all be affected in a negative way. 

Here's what the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities said about the Ryan plan: 

Reducing Federal Deficits Without a Significant Revenue Increase Would Cost Texas Billions

If significant new revenue isn’t included, efforts to reduce federal deficits would almost certainly damage Texas’ economic recovery and future economic growth by drastically cutting federal investments in schools, roads and bridges, safe communities, and disaster relief.

The House-passed budget from Congressman Paul Ryan is an example of the kind of approach Congress would take if it rejects deficit reduction that includes revenues. Under Ryan’s plan, Texas would lose an estimated 22 percent or $2 billion in federal funding for education, clean water, law enforcement, and other state and local services in 2014 alone.

According to a report released yesterday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan policy research organization based in Washington, D.C., Ryan’s plan also would shift other very large costs to states by reducing sharply federal funding for Medicaid (in addition to repealing the health reform law), and likely by cutting deeply funding for highway construction and other transportation projects.

Deficit-reduction shouldn’t come at the expense of Texas’ economic future. If Congress doesn’t take a balanced approach that includes revenues as well as spending cuts it will damage our ability to educate our children, build roads and bridges, and have clean water and safe communities – all key elements of a strong future economy.

Federal funding for states, counties, and cities very likely would be decimated by an unbalanced approach to deficit reduction in the next decade. That’s because there’s broad bipartisan agreement that significant deficit reduction is needed, but federal policy makers also agree in broad terms that deficit-reduction savings from other major parts of the budget – defense, Medicare and Social Security – should be limited during that period. Federal funding for states and local areas would thus be one of the few remaining sources of large potential savings.

These cuts likely would bring federal aid to state and local governments to historic lows. By 2021, under the Ryan budget, federal grant programs for states, counties, and cities likely would be less than half the average of the last 35 years.

These cuts would add to deep cuts Congress already made to state and local aid last year and deep cuts that Texas made in 2011 to education and other state services vital to economic growth. The $5.3 billion cut in state aid for pre-K-12 public schools has already reduced local school district staffing by more than 25,000 jobs, with more cuts expected for the 2012-13 school year. State budget cuts to Medicaid provider rates have endangered health access for low-income Texans, with only 31 percent of Texas physicians now willing to accept all new Medicaid patients, down from 67 percent in 2000.

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This is important analysis. 

Budgets affect people. 

Severe budget cuts affect the poorest, weakest, most vulnerable people most severely. 

Take the time to read the full report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities here. 

Our challenge today is not only economic, it's moral and extremely human as well.

Who really creates jobs?

Business leader, Nick Hanauer, presented the following speech at the TED conference.  His thesis may surprise you.  Hanauer, a very successful business owner/creator, argues that business owners don't create jobs.   He debunks the popular myth that tax breaks to the rich result in the creation of more jobs. 

But, if not them, then who does create jobs in our nation?  Watch his short address and react. 

[You may want to read Hanauer's essay in Bloomberg's Business Week here.  My thanks to Rev. Gerald Britt for putting me onto Hanauer!  Once I saw Hanauer's presentation, I remembered that TED refused to post it, deeming it "too controversial in the current political climate.]