Author: Marc Stier

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The real path to economic prosperity

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Public Policy, Published Op-Eds

Originally published in the Bradford Era, May 27, 2018 In the aftermath of the Trump-GOP tax cut enacted at the end of the last year, some legislators and advocates are calling for Pennsylvania to also cut tax rates for both individuals and corporations in the hopes of spurring economic growth and job creation. It is hard to think of a worse idea for our political community, not only because it is unfair, but because it has been tried and failed again and again. Pennsylvania has one of the most unequal tax systems in the country. Low-income Pennsylvanians pay 12 percent of their income in state and local taxes while middle-income Pennsylvanians pay 10 percent. But those with incomes in the top 5 percent pay only 6.8 percent of their income taxes while the top 1 percent pay only 4.2 percent. With a tax system this unfair, why should we emulate… Continue reading

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“Work Requirements” and the Political Appeal of Cruelty

  By Medicaid, Work Requirements

From Third and State, April 17, 2018 We at PBPC are engaged in a major effort to push back against legislation in the PA General Assembly to create work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP. The new federal Farm Bill put forward by House Republicans, which authorizes the SNAP (Food Stamp) program, has similar provisions. We have been pointing out that the stereotypes used to justify work requirements are simply untrue. We show that stereotypes that justify harsh measures affecting those who are struggling with low incomes are based on falsehoods. The American social safety net almost entirely benefits people who cannot work — the elderly, ill, and disabled — or working Americans. It offers very little to able-bodied men and women who do not work. People who receive Medicaid and food stamps mostly work when they can find employment and are not ill, disabled, in school, or taking care of young children… Continue reading

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Work requirement bills are a cruel election-year ploy

  By Work requirements

Published in the York Dispatch on April 14, 2018 Republicans are rushing legislation to create “work requirements” for recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps through the General Assembly. A bill to create “work requirements” for Medicaid may be voted on as early as Monday. Similar legislation for SNAP will likely be considered shortly thereafter. The Republican rationale for work requirements rests on the old, stereotypical (and false) idea that those who rely on the social safety net are unwilling to work because they are lazy or because the very existence of the safety net creates a “culture of dependency” that discourages work. It assumes that people with low-incomes are different from, and less deserving than, the rest of us. And, between the lines, supporters of this legislation imply that the recipients of Medicaid and SNAP are urban, people of color. None… Continue reading

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Tax cuts for wealthy won’t bring prosperity to PA

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Pennsylvania, Public Policy

Originally published in Public Opinion, March 21, 2018 In the aftermath of the Trump-GOP tax cut enacted at the end of the last year, some legislators and advocates are calling for Pennsylvania to also cut tax rates for both individuals and corporations in the hopes of spurring economic growth and job creation.   It is hard to think of a worse idea for our political community, not only because it is unfair, but because it has been tried and failed again and again.   Pennsylvania has one of the most unequal tax systems in the country. Low-income Pennsylvanians pay 12% of their income in state and local taxes while middle-income Pennsylvanians pay 10%. But those with incomes in the top 5% pay only 6.8% of their income taxes while the top 1% pay only 4.2%. With a tax system this unfair, why should we emulate a federal tax cut that mostly reduces taxes for those at the top?   It wouldn’t be because cutting taxes for the rich… Continue reading

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Why the PA Supreme Court’s Lines Should Stand

  By Redistricting

From Third and State, March 5, 2018 The effort by the General Assembly’s Republican leaders to have the United States Supreme Court block the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to create new, fair congressional districts in our state is based on both a hypocritical attempt to undermine the rights of states and a flawed understanding of the subtle, yet fundamental, ideas of our constitutional system. The vehemence with which they are pursuing their case makes one wonder whether those ideas can survive in a day and age when so many politicians, especially on the Right, appear to have neither the intellect to understand principles that are the least bit complicated nor the integrity to follow them when they cut against the results they seek. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated the 2011 Congressional redistricting plan on the basis of the Pennsylvania Constitution not the United States Constitution. That is why the PA… Continue reading

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On President Trump’s Infrastructure Proposal

  By Infrastructure

From Third and State, February 13, 2018 The president has put forward a “plan” for infrastructure spending that identifies no new source of funding, that makes unbelievable assumptions about how much state and private spending can be leveraged by a limited amount of new federal spending and that proposes an end-around of environmental regulations in the guise of streamlining those regulations.  In response to deep and long ignored needs in Pennsylvania and throughout the country for upgrading our roads, bridges, transit systems, airports and water and sewer works – needs that should be met by new investments that could create tens of thousands good jobs – the president has offered a glittering fantasy with little of the substance necessary to meet those needs.  The basic problem with the president’s approach is that he offers a new means of financing infrastructure projects – public private partnerships – when it is funding,… Continue reading

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Fact Check: Undocumented Immigrants Like the Dreamers Are Not a Drag on State and Local Government

  By Immigration

From Third and State, January 27, 2018 A political movement that is based on demonizing a group of people needs a demon. So the efforts of the Trump administration to generate anger and hatred toward immigrants, both documented and undocumented, has been combined with repeated claims by the administration and its supporters about the terrible burden immigration creates on the United States. Immigrants have been called rapists and murders and terrorists and have been said to be dragging down our economy and burdening citizens with higher taxes. That rhetoric has heated up as Congress struggles to pass legislation to restore the DACA program, which protects the Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children — from deportation. It has reached even higher levels as the Trump administration uses the debate over DACA as a bargaining chip to win Congressional support for a border wall with Mexico and radical changes… Continue reading

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The Unnecessary Federal Budget Impasse

  By Federal Budget

From Third and State, January 20, 2018 Let’s be straight about the politics of the federal budget. The Republicans control the House, Senate and Presidency, but partly because they are not united and partly because they are short of the 60 votes needed under current practices to move most legislation in the Senate, they are unable to pass a budget without Democratic support. So to pass a full-year budget, Republicans and Democrats must compromise. The federal government is shut down today because too many Republicans in Congress won’t compromise and because President Trump doesn’t appear to know what he really wants. Democrats are demanding that their key priorities be included in the budget: restoration of DACA protections for the children of undocumented immigrants who have spent almost all of their lives in the United States; reauthorization of the CHIP program that provides health care for millions of American kids (including… Continue reading

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The House GOP Tax Plan — Redistributing Wealth to the Wealthy

  By Federal Taxes, Taxation

President Trump loves superlatives. Everything he does is record-breaking, the biggest or the best. And that goes for the tax cut plan he will sign if the House Republicans have their way. It won’t be the biggest tax cut in American history. But it will the most one-sided tax cut in our history with most of the benefits flowing to the top 1% of Americans. The House plan is truly an extraordinary piece of legislation. No tax proposal in American history — not even the big tax cut put forward by President Reagan — ever proposed giving 75% of the tax cuts to corporations and other large businesses. Yet that is what this plan does. It proposes a steep drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%. And rather than close the loopholes that allows most corporations to pay an effective tax rate of only 14%, it makes… Continue reading

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The Rhinocerization of America

  By Philosophy, Politics

I’m in a bit of a state right now. I’ve been dwelling all day on how much trouble this country is in. And then the terrorism in Texas may have sent me over the edge. To not say anything seems impossible. To ask, as I did the last time we faced a terror attack, if the shooter is a terrorist, a thug or simply crazy is to make a point most everyone who reads this will already understand. To offer thoughts and prayers seems ridiculous. I’m just profoundly scared about the future of this country, and indeed, of liberal democracy in the world. I believe the moral arc of the universe bends to justice. I believe that morality is deeply rooted in the nature of human beings and in our capacity to reason. But it has always taken struggle to realize our aspirations to the human good and justice. The forces… Continue reading