American Forum

TEXAS LONE STAR FORUM
By F. Scott McCown

When the legislative session began in January, Texas faced a crisis. The state was short roughly one-fourth of the money needed simply to do what it was already doing. The Center for Public Policy Priorities was part of a broad coalition that pushed for a balanced approach to the problem -- one that used the Rainy Day Fund in combination with targeted cuts and new revenue.

Others pushed for a cuts-only approach that slashed things like the number of teachers and payments to nursing homes. Initially, the House proposed a devastating cuts-only budget. In the end, with a slightly improved revenue projection and various one-time measures, the Legislature largely funded the Senate’s modestly better, but still damaging budget.

Texas is growing twice as fast as the nation. In the most recent decade, Texas’ child population growth accounted for over half of the child population growth in the entire country, making our state’s education system critical to our country’s future.

Contrary to any spin you’ve heard, the Legislature actually cut spending on public education. And the money the state is spending won’t go as far because of enrollment growth and higher costs.

How does Texas turn this around? We’ll need more than a stronger economy to solve our revenue problems.

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Riane Eisler

AMERICAN FORUM


By Riane Eisler and Rene Redwood

A financial debt can be paid back. But the debt we’ll owe our children if investments in health, nutrition and education are slashed is irreparable. Investment in human infrastructure – providing the human capacity development for optimal economic productivity and innovation through both government and business investments – is essential for success in the post-industrial economy, and this should be our policymakers’ guiding economic principle.

Rene Redwood

It’s up to us to ask the hard questions: Why are we being told we can’t raise taxes on the rich, but must cut wages for teachers, nurses, child-care workers and others on whom our future depends? There is no evidence that lower taxes on corporations and millionaires “raise all boats,” or that massive cuts in social services have ever helped people in developing nations rise from poverty. The opposite is true. It is countries like Canada, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland that have made commitments to caring for future generations that have risen from poverty to prosperity. And today nations such as Brazil, South Korea, and other “emerging advanced economies” are heavily investing in their people.

Why are we told that cutting social programs is the road to prosperity, when our past prosperity was the result of the very opposite?


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TEXAS LONE STAR FORUM

By Scott Chase

As a small business owner, I am worried our Legislature is going to make unnecessary and deep cuts to public services that local businesses and all Texans need. Yes, our state has a revenue shortfall, but we also have choices about how deal with the shortfall. We can take a balanced approach that uses our Rainy Day Fund.

My fellow business owners in the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce are concerned about unnecessary cuts too. Our chamber includes over 600 small business owners in the Dallas area. We were the first local chamber in Texas to call for the State Legislature to use the Rainy Day Fund to help balance the budget instead of the irresponsible “cuts-only” approach that the Legislature is considering.

The cuts-only approach of the Legislature is wrong for many reasons. All businesses, but particularly small businesses, such as the members of the Oak Cliff Chamber, know that spending on education, health care, roads and bridges, job training and the environment is an investment in the economic future of Texas. This investment will result in a more educated, healthier workforce and a modernized infrastructure. The large cuts in these areas being presented by reckless legislators will lead to a less competitive business climate in Texas, lower wage jobs and economic stagnation.


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TEXAS LONE STAR FORUM

By F. Scott McCown

Maybe you’ve heard that our state is short of money because of the recession. Perhaps you think the state can just cut spending or that the problem doesn’t affect you. Well think again.

Our state isn’t just a little short of money. Merely to maintain critical public services, at their current levels, costs at least $27 billion more than we have. In other words, we only have three-fourths of the money we need.

If you try to fill this big of a hole with only cuts in spending, you cut into the state’s muscle and bone.


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AMERICAN FORUM

By Susan Shaer

Are you clued in to the current slashing and burning going on in Washington, DC? The new Congress is trying to settle on a federal budget that should have been voted on last fall. President Obama unveiled his idea for the next budget on Monday. How do you think they are setting priorities? After all, our federal budget shows what we value, doesn’t it? What we care about as a country? So what does our president’s budget care about?

President Obama’s federal budget for our next fiscal year revealed that almost all of Secretary of Defense Gates’ recommended Pentagon “cuts” (really restructuring and a reduction in the rate of increase) will be consumed by increased war spending. The total Pentagon budget planned for 2012-2016 shows virtually no change between this year and last year's projections.

This year, President Obama does face an incredibly steep challenge –growing deficits and debt. The fall election made it clear that fiscal conservatives, Tea Party candidates, and backers demand deep spending cuts to address this. Despite promises from President Obama that everything would be considered for cuts – this is not true for the Pentagon.


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