As for reparations, I'm all for it in the collective sense promoted by spending on education, health care and jobs. Politically, while recognizing the particular debt owed to African-Americans, it makes more sense in building majorities to target that spending for everyone needing economic help.
-- Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: <rhisiart at earthlink.net>
a sample of what endears new york to the rest of the nation -- humility.
what does newman expect from the shrub group -- honesty, truth, sincerity, caring, loyalty, respect, support? to date, the shrub group has callously used new york and its dead as a cross between a publicity stunt and photo op.
wonder what newman's stand is on reparations for afro-americans?
R
At 04:03 AM 11/21/2001, you wrote:
>[Just in case people forward, this is a corrected version of a small
typo--
>NN]
>
>
>Special to The Progressive Populist www.populist.com
>
>Hey American, You Owe New York!
>
>By Nathan Newman
>
>Well, now that the sympathetic rock benefits have ended, Bush and the GOP
>Congress have begun nickel-and-diming New York on paying for rebuilding in
>the wake of September 11.
>
>Despite estimates of costs as high as $100 billion in direct and indirect
>costs from the disaster, Bush has declared that no new Federal help beyond
>the initial $20 billion is needed - even as the GOP has approved over $100
>billion in tax breaks for big business and the wealthy.
>
>Well, forget arguments about compassion or charity for the victims of
>September 11. New York should demand the rebuilding aid as a debt due by
>the nation, after decades of New York subsidizing the rest of the country.
>
>Every year, New York state's citizens have paid billions more in federal
>taxes than they received in federal spending. In 1999, New Yorkers paid
>an average of $5,834 in federal taxes each, yet received back only $4944
in
>spending. In the last decade, the state de facto transferred over $160
>billion to the citizens of other states.
>
>Now, it's time for payback.
>
>When New York was riding high in the 1990s, it was appropriate for its
>citizens to help out poorer states and pay for rebuilding after their
floods
>and hurricanes.
>
>But with physical devastation and over 285,000 new workers displaced and
>unemployed in the state after September 11, it is rank ungratefulness for
>the Congressmembers from other states to begrudge a dime to New York now.
>
>Since New York citizens regularly transfer $16-20 billion per year to
other
>states, the $20 billion initially allocated so far for New York rebuilding
>barely evens the debt owed for this year alone. So this doesn't even
count
>as "help"-- it's just avoids the Feds further draining the blood of a
>corpse. It literally does not even start to repay the hundreds of
billions
>of dollars the state's citizens have transferred to the rest of the nation
>when they needed the help.
>
>And it's not even clear that Bush and the GOP will actually pay out those
>initial funds. In the first weeks of November, on largely party-line
votes,
>the GOP refused to force the full allocation of the initial funds promised
>to the state.
>
>On the other hand, it's hardly surprising that Bush and Senate Minority
>leader Trent Lott fight to open the budget floodgates for corporate tax
>breaks and new defense spending, even while they leave New York's
unemployed
>out in the cold. Defense spending goes overwhelmingly to states like
Texas
>and Mississippi, the home state of Lott. Mississippi receives $1695 in
>defense spending for each of its citizens each year, while New York's
>citizens receive only $345 each on average in defense spending for jobs in
>their state. Overall in the last decade, Mississippi received $70 billion
>more in federal spending than its citizens paid in taxes. It's amazing
that
>a representative of Mississippi, which has been a prime beneficiary of New
>York's net transfers in that same period, would begrudge New York a dime
in
>the wake of the September 11 tragedy.
>
>But we've been here before. When New York City ran into economic problems
in
>the 1970s, the then-Ford White House famously told the city to "drop
dead"--
>they were on their own. At the time, the new Senator from New York,
Daniel
>Patrick Moynihan, began highlighting the fact that forced cutbacks in
social
>services and mass transit in the state and city were happening even as the
>federal government was taking far more in taxes than it provided in
spending
>for the citizens of New York.
>
>Moynihan launched a yearly survey of which states were getting more in
>federal spending than they paid in taxes and which states, like New York,
>were subsidizing the rest. Eventually co-sponsored with the Taubman
Center
>at the Kennedy School, these studies highlighted the fact that
high-poverty
>states like California and New York were not draining the national
treasury.
>In fact, they were subsidizing the so-called individualistic heartland.
>
>If you look over the more recent studies
>(http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/fisc99/), the remarkable fact is that the
states
>that supported George W. Bush for President are overwhelmingly the
"welfare
>states", receiving far more in federal spending than they pay in taxes.
>
>States who voted against Bush's "compassionate conservatism" are
>overwhelmingly net donors of funds to the Bush states. New York and New
>Jersey, who together share the direct costs of the World Trade Center
attack
>through their co-governance of the Port Authority, have transferred a net
>$500 billion to other states in the last twenty years.
>
>And it is clear that Bush and the GOP want to keep it that way.
>Unemployment insurance to help New York's unemployed is not on the table,
>but subsidies for the oil industry, new defense spending, and other
benefits
>for the heartland welfare states are being handed out with abandon. Given
>that states like New York will eventually end up paying the tab for this
new
>deficit spending, by the time Bush is done with the budget, New York is
not
>being helped at all.
>
>Those left without jobs and health care in the wake of the World Trade
>Center attack better get ready to pay off these deficits in the future to
>pay for Bush's giveaways to the corporations.
>
>For all the fake compassion and breast-beating, Bush and company have just
>temporarily pulled back the fangs in anticipation of continuing to suck
the
>state dry in the future.
>
>But enough is enough. If the Bushies are dead to compassion, then New
>Yorkers and all workers should demand economic relief for the unemployed
as
>a debt owed for decades.
>
>America, you own New York!
>
>Nathan Newman is a longtime union and community activist, a National Vice
>President of the National Lawyers Guild and author of the forthcoming book
>NET LOSS on Internet policy and economic inequality. Email
>nathan at newman.org or see www.nathannewman.org.