Category: Politics

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Allyson Schwartz and the Abortion Issue

  By Pennsylvania, Politics, Women and Health Care

I keep hearing from intelligent people who know something about politics that Allyson Schwartz can’t win statewide because she directed a women’s health center—the Elizabeth Blackwell Center—that along with providing a wide range of health services, also provided abortions. (BTW, my wife’s first job was working at the Blackwell Center. Yes, we go back with Allyson a long way.) Now, do I need to add that every one of those intelligent analysts are men? (And that a few of them appear to be working for other potential candidates for Governor who presumably support abortion but are raising questions about Allyson’s support of it?) The DGA poll that showed Allyson beating Corbett in every part of the state really pushed on that issue and it had no effect on the polls. Why not? Why are the (male) analysts wrong? The reason is that both the state and our nation as a… Continue reading

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The Progressive Moment

  By Politics, Progressive Politics, Public Policy

This is a progressive moment, when we have an opportunity to once again reinvent the government to meet our goals. We have to recognize our opportunities, and also recognize that our task is not to mimic the right and talk only to ourselves but capture the imagination of the public as a whole. We have to articulate new innovative public policies that articulate the progressive ideals that Americans broadly share. Continue reading

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Take the Money for Medicaid

  By Health Care, Pennsylvania, Public Policy

Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 11, 2013 By Valerie Arkoosh and Marc Stier Imagine a new federal program guaranteed to provide Pennsylvania with $43.3 billion between 2013 and 2022 for repairs to roads and bridges. Imagine that the program is paid for entirely by the federal government for the first three years. After that, Pennsylvania will have to put in $4 billion. Imagine that despite the expenditure, Pennsylvania saves a greater amount because the new federal funding would replace almost $4 billion in state funding. And imagine that the new funding would create tens of thousands of jobs in the state and generate millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue. Can anyone imagine Gov. Corbett turning down this deal? Of course not. Yet in his budget address Tuesday, Corbett did just that, failing to embrace $43.3 billion from the federal government over 10 years to expand… Continue reading

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Lose Our Newspapers and We Lose Our City

  By Civic virtue, Media Justice, Politics

Originally published by Newsworks, January 31, 2013 It appears that Congressman Bob Brady has followed up on his promise to do “everything we can” to save the 2013 Manayunk Bike Race. I’m glad Brady has come through again. The Bike Race plays an important part in the life of the Northwest where I live. Losing it would hurt businesses here — and our civic spirit. But while a great deal of heated effort has gone into saving the bike race, the city and region may yet face a devastating blow: the loss of our two daily newspapers. The new owners of the Inquirer and Daily News, Interstate General Media (IGM), have threatened to “liquidate” the newspapers if the Newspaper Guild, which represents reporters, and nine other unions, doesn’t agree to substantial concessions. And not only are our leading politicians not raising a stink about that, outside of the City Paper… Continue reading

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Some Democrats Stand in the Way of Filibuster Reform

  By Congress, Politics

It’s many of the Senate Democrats that are standing in the way of filibuster reform. They are worried about not having the filibuster if the Democrats are in the minority again. The argument is not entirely wrong. But it shows a lot less confidence in our party and ideals and most importantly democracy (with a small d) than we Democrats should have. The filibuster we have today is not only undemocratic, it is unconstitutional. Continue reading

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Ask Allyson Schwartz to Run for Governor!

  By Pennsylvania, Progressive Politics

Barack Obama is back in office and moving in a liberal direction. So now it’s time to think ahead about building progressive power. The most important thing we can do in Pennsylvania is to replace Tom Corbett as Governor. So it’s a little surprising to me is that, with all the talk about this candidate or that, the one Pennsylvania politician who is best placed to defeat Governor Corbett, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, is not being asked by everyone to run. The main reason, I suspect, is that most people who pay close attention to politics don’t think she will do so. And some folks, for the usual reasons, have trouble getting their head around the idea of a woman as Governor. I have no inside knowledge about whether Congresswoman Schwartz is considering a race. But I strongly believe that she should run. After explaining why, I’ll come back to the issue of… Continue reading

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What the Pundits Missed About President Obama’s Speech

  By 2012, Philosophy, Politics

It’s not easy to come up with instant analysis of a political speech. But, even if we grade them on a curve, it seems to me that the pundits have utterly missed the point of the President’s speech last night. Most of them seem to have found it uninspiring. Yet there is no question that the audience in Charlotte was moved by the speech. Hell, I was moved by the speech and, frankly, I tend to hold events like this at an analytical distance which makes it hard for me to get caught up in them. The pundits were right to say the speech was about the future not the past and that it proposed a continuation of Obama’s  basic approach to governing. And they were right to say that there were no bold new ideas in it. (Few Presidents do something as big and bold as health care reform and then have an… Continue reading

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What’s the Rush? Save the Cohen Wage Tax Rebate!

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Taxes, Taxation

One of the last accomplishments of long time progressive Councilmember David Cohen—a rebate on the wage tax for those with low incomes—may be repealed tomorrow. It shouldn’t be. There are good policy arguments both for and against the wage tax rebate. I’ll come to some of them in a moment. But, frankly, at the moment those arguments are secondary. The key reason not to repeal the legislation tomorrow is that the decision to put off AVI for a year means that Council is going carry out a broad examination of taxation in the city next year. The Cohen wage tax rebate is not scheduled to go into effect until 2016 anyway. So there is plenty of time to reconsider it as we think through the future of taxation in Philadelphia. Any city like Philadelphia has to balance considerations of progressivity and economic growth. While, progressive taxation has very little negative… Continue reading

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AVI Without Tears

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Budget, Taxation

I have an op-ed in today’s Daily News about AVI. I think the argument there is correct, but it is highly compressed. I’ve tried to set out my argument at a little greater length here. (Note that in the op-ed and in this piece I made a mistake and said that AVI shifts the tax burden from residential to commercial property. It does the opposite. I’ve corrected it here. Councilman Green’s proposals minimize the shift.) So much has gone wrong in the city’s move to the Actual Value Initiative (AVI), that many people are fearful about its consequence. And one of the things that has gone wrong is that people who know better are playing on this fear for their political purposes, I think the fear is over blown. AVI is a good thing if it is implemented properly and I think it can be implemented properly this year. Continue reading

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Homeowners, Don’t Fight the AVI—It’s Good for You

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Taxes, Taxation

 Originally published in the Daily News, May 29, 2012 A great fear seems to have come over the city as the heavy footsteps of a monster called AVI come ever closer to us. It’s time to recognize, however, that that monster is a friendly creature who will benefit most of us. Partly because tax matters are hard to understand and partly because Mayor Nutter wants to raise more revenue for schools from the real-estate tax, public discussion of AVI — Actual Value Initiative — has become confused. No one trusts any government, and some people in office or thinking of running for office can’t resist the temptation to be demagogues about any issue. So, the confusion has created the false belief that AVI is just a tax increase in disguise. We desperately need to get back to some basics: AVI is about tax fairness. And, under it, most Philadelphians will see… Continue reading