Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A Tax Day Message

Posted by American Forum at 11:51 AM

American Forum 

By Sandy Pappas

April 15 is Tax Day. As we race to get our taxes filed, lets consider what we actually get for our tax dollars. In Minnesota, we are putting together our state budget for 2014 which we intend to reflect our values as a state.
While every state faces its own budget challenges, we share a common challenge: crafting state budgets as our nation struggles with economic challenges and federal budgeting uncertainties. The roller coaster ride of fiscal cliffs, indiscriminate automatic cuts, debt ceilings, and other Washington shenanigans has been distinctly unhelpful.
In Minnesota, we cut back on crucial investments in education and infrastructure as tax revenues plummeted during the recession. Now with a slow recovery, we need to re-invest in our priorities around safety, security and productivity. Looming uncertainty makes it more difficult to commit to those investments. Here are a few suggestions for how Congress can reshape the federal budget to help the states continue to pull through the recession and emerge stronger and more economically competitive than ever.
First, Congress must find a way to bring more certainty back to the budget process. No more phony "fiscal cliffs" that get solved at the last moment. No more threats of government shutdowns.
Second, Congress needs to learn to make strategic budget priorities just as we have to do in our states. Each year over half of the discretionary spending Congress appropriates goes to Pentagon and war spending. Meanwhile the Pentagon is the only governmental agency that cannot pass an audit to show how it uses our tax dollars. Congress cannot continue to exempt the Pentagon budget from scrutiny while making deep cuts to other programs. About one-third of non-defense discretionary spending (the spending Congress votes on every year) goes to the states, so overspending at the Pentagon inevitably squeezes funding for programs on which our states rely.
Third, Congress continues to fund out-of-date weapons systems that we may never need or use. The F-35 is a perfect example. It is over budget, behind schedule, and plagued with technical problems. The future of America's security will not be determined by aerial combat between fleets of opposing aircraft, but by things like cyber security, counterterrorism and investing in economic competitiveness.
Fourth, we are scheduled to spend billions of dollars over the next 10 years for nuclear weapons that were designed to fight the wars of the last century. For the cost of just one new nuclear submarine, we could provide body armor and bomb-resistant Humvees to all our troops overseas, house and treat every homeless U.S. veteran, and still have $2.2 billion left over to pay down our debt. Congress should focus on protecting the nation from 21st century threats and rebuilding our nation's economy, not paying for pork barrel nuclear weapons projects.
Finally, many Pentagon contractors have successfully lobbied for generous tax breaks. We all use our nation's roads, count on schools to educate our future workforce, and rely on public safety workers like firefighters, so why should Pentagon contractors get a break on their taxes? Citizens for Tax Justice found that aerospace and defense firms paid an effective tax rate of 17 percent from 2008 to 2010, lower than the average of 18.5 percent paid by all industries. It's especially galling when these same contractors are seeing big profits and executive pay on par with Wall Street executives.
We all do our part by paying our taxes every April. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked, "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society." Now we need Congress to do its part by putting together a civilized budget for our society that invests our tax dollars wisely and reflects our values as a nation. We cannot afford to keep spending on out-of-date, unnecessary Pentagon programs. We must reshape the Pentagon budget to respond to 21st century threats, we must repair our economy, and we must start investing in the future. Let's send this message to our representatives in Congress!
Pappas is the President of the Minnesota Senate and vice president of the Women Legislators' Lobby, a program of Womens Action for New Directions.
 

 

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Women Are Tired of Waiting for Equal Pay

Posted by American Forum at 11:48 AM

 American Forum 
By Lisa Maatz 

As someone who has spent the better part of my life fighting for fair pay for women, I believe it s always a good time to talk about the pay gap. But the topic is especially important now -- and the timing has little to do with Equal Pay Day on April 9.
Equal Pay Day is the symbolic date when women's wages finally catch up to men's from the year before -- this year, it just happens to fall amid sequestration and passage of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) budget in the House. Both disproportionately slash programs that help women and their families. Women already earn less on average than men, and now programs they depend on to help make ends meet are being cut. These seemingly never-ending budget battles are compounding what is already a pernicious problem.
Yet somehow the pay gap went largely overlooked as the dramatic spending cuts known as sequestration went into effect. Sequestration harms women and girls through cuts to K 12 funding, higher-education programs, work-force training, funding for agencies that enforce civil rights protections like equal pay, women's health programs, and programs that promote getting more women into high-wage science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers -- just to name a few.
How is the average woman who loses out on thousands of dollars in wages each year due to the gap supposed to make up for cuts to these programs? Easy answer: She can't. And neither can her family. Make no mistake, equal pay is a family issue.
And then we have the Ryan budget, which slashes nondefense spending by trillions of dollars, mostly by cutting programs that benefit women, students and families. Ryan's budget cuts Pell Grants and other college aid, Head Start, job training, Medicare, Medicaid, and funding for civil-rights enforcement. And it repeals the Affordable Care Act, which provides critical, no-cost preventive benefits for women.
I recognize that Congress is grappling with tough budgetary tradeoffs, but our ability to access basic education and health care cannot be sacrificed. As American Association of University Women research shows, women already have a harder time paying back student loans because of the pay gap. Now the aid they depend on to go to college is in jeopardy.
We mark Equal Pay Day as an opportunity to educate the public and demand action. This year, Congress took action on policies that exacerbate the pay gap's impact and put the economic security of American families at risk. Thankfully, Sen. Patty Murray s (D-Wash.) budget blueprint took the Senate in a more moderate direction, sharing the sacrifice and working to help the most vulnerable among us. Sen. Barbara Mikulski's (D-Md.) budget amendment insists we make equal pay a budgetary priority, but we still need stronger laws to fulfill that promise -- laws like the still un-passed Paycheck Fairness Act.
I can't state it more plainly: The pay gap hasn't budged in 10 years. And when you compare women and men in the same job doing the same work, we still find a gap. This inequality affects women's wages today and their retirements tomorrow, and it weakens our national economy. It's past time for real change.
This Equal Pay Day, ask your politicians one question: Will you finally take action to fix a problem that affects women and their families every day?
Make the answer good. Women are watching, and we're tired of waiting.
Maatz has served as AAUW's director of public policy and government relations since 2003.
 

 

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