It's called the "statute of liberty" play-- when you want to pass new taxes or demand help from a higher level of government, you propose slashing funding for the things the public most strongly supports. That puts pressure on those opposing tax increases to relent and pass the needed revenue.
Davis is more conservative than Burton and no doubt wants less revenue than the legislative Democrats, but ignoring such basic realities of political gamesmanship just makes the analysis silly.
I was over at the local community recreation center yesterday, all 27 of which are slated for closure under Bloomberg's recent budget. The desk clerk there practically laughed at the threat of closure-- he told me it happens all the time and it's done to put pressure on the state. Why all the sophisticated theoretical debate on this list is matched by a simplistic political analysis that even regular folks laugh at is really a puzzle to me.
-- Nathan newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Marta Russell" <ap888 at lafn.org> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 4:49 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] a shred of hope
>
>
>You were arguing that they were choosing to do this in preference to tax
>hikes, which was false.
>
It wasn't false. In the beginning Davis proposed Draconion cuts. He stuck by them for months. He tinkered around with budget cuts for months. The resistance was built up. Now he decided to propose taxes. However, it still isn't clear that the taxes he has proposed are enough to offset the cuts. Poor people are being pitted against poor people here. It is just as nasty a game as any Republican could come up with.
Marta -- ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk