Category: Politics

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A blog / anthology of stories by, for, and about political organizers?

  By Philosophy, Politics

This is a proposal for a new blog for political organizers. It doesn’t have a name yet. And I’m not sure it’s going to happen. It depends on how the political organizers among you respond to the idea. The idea is based on a conversation I had with Hannah Miller which lead us to the idea of creating an anthology of stories by, for, and about political organizers. But the notion of starting with a blog and then creating an anthology of stories by and for political organizers is my idea. Don’t blame Hannah for it, or for the way I move to it in this post. But, if she likes the idea, she can have half the credit. Continue reading

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It's time to rotate ballot position

  By Elections and Voting, Philadelphia

After every judicial election someone makes this obvious point: it’s time to rotate ballot position from ward to ward. Picking a number out of a can should not determine who sits on the bench or who is elected to City Council or the General Assembly. The only unendorsed candidates who managed to win yesterday had the first or second ballot position. Some of them were also very well qualifed candidates who had other sources of support, such as Diane Thompson, and they might have won anyway. But some will be on the bench primarily because of ballot position. One endorsed candidate who deserves to be on the bench, Joyce Eubanks, had the worst conceivable ballot position. A few voters came out of the polls yesterday and told me that they “could not find her.” So you would think that now that the party has shown it’s ability to hang together… Continue reading

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Mark Alan Hughes is gone; Does his policy live on?

  By Libraries, Philadelphia, Taxation

Hughes has left the administration. I’ve not heard why although there is a rumor he is being blamed for Nutter’s political misteps, including the proposal to close libraries and the call for massive increases in the property tax. Closing libraries and raising the property tax to such an extent–and ruling out any increases in wage or business taxes or elimination of the tax abatement–certainly looks to be part of the Hughes strategy I criticized here a few months ago, that is, to focus city services and tax cuts on the happy half million middle class people in the city rather than on the miserable million working class and poor. Unfortunately, raising the sales tax instead of the property tax is just another way of doing the same thing as it is even more regressive than a property tax increase, especially one with a homestead exemption or circuit breaker. If Hughes… Continue reading

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A three sided budget fight

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Budget

Progressive forces won an important victory by building support for the preservation of essential services even if this requires a tax increase. This was a incredibly beautiful and wide ranging struggle with many people playing a role. And Mayor Nutter deserves credit for recognizing that the citizens of this city are willing to bear higher taxes temporarily in order to save services that are so important to us. Now, however, we have to recognize that fight continues on three sides. On one side, we want to make the tax increases as progressive as possible. Many of us have concerns about the regressivity of the sales taxes and the danger that the property tax increase will fall too heavily on the poor and working people if it goes into effect without the implementation of a homestead exemption and a broad based and fair revision of property assessments. On a second side,… Continue reading

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Library closings: they've never been mainly about the budget crisis

  By Libraries, Philadelphia

The hard thing in making the case against closing eleven branch libraries is that the fiscal crisis of Philadelphia is not a mirage. That’s why it is important to understand that the branch library closings have never fundamentally been about the budget crisis. The Mayor and Siobhan Reardon are misleading us when they keep insisting that we had to close libraries because of the city’s budget troubles. I’m not sure I fully understand what the library closings are about. But this is what I’ve managed to piece together from talking with librarians here and elsewhere in the country as well as with people familiar with some of the inner workings of the library administration. The proposal to close branches came from the library administration The library administration has wanted to close branch libraries for years. They proposed doing so under Mayor Street, when then Councilman Nutter along with Councilman DiCicco… Continue reading

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The Nutter administration (and us) at the crossroads

  By Philadelphia, Political Organizing, Progressive Politics

Originally posted at YPP The Nutter Administration stands at a crossroads. And so do we activists. It is not because the judicial decision barring the administration from closing libraries is an existential threat to the necessary powers of the Mayor. That claim, as I’ll explain in another post is nonsense. What is really at stake is whether, at this critical moment, the Nutter administration will decide to fix the broken political culture of our city or whether it will continue to work within it. What we do as activists may help determine the result. Continue reading

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Hallwatch faxbank on libraries

  By Libraries, Philadelphia

Ed Goppelt has graciously agreed to set up a faxbank at his hallwatch website, so that you can contact your district council member and all the at-large members in one step asking them to join the lawsuit seeking to block closure of the libraries. http://www.hallwatch.org/faxbank/save_our_libraries I’m going to spare you the hard sell. If YPP readers don’t already know why closing 11 branch libraries is a horrible and unjust step, nothing I add here will convince you. I’m just going to ask all of you who share that opinion to go, NOW, and contact your council members. While having a member of council as a plaintiff on the suit may not be strictly necessary from a legal point of view, it might help overcome any challenge to the standing of the others bringing the suit. Continue reading

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Best practices on city taxation in a recession: a proposed project for YPP

  By Philadelphia, Taxation

Most of us here, and to judge from the poll Ray and Dan sponsored, most of the city, believes that we should not be cutting taxes when our services are being reduced so much. We should be, at least temporarily, delay the wage tax cuts. But what do you do when the strong mayor of our city totally disagrees and when the members of City Council who, in addition to having the usual disinclination of politicians to raise taxes, are also disinclined to pick a fight with the Mayor in his first (of most likely eight) years in office. Where do we get the leverage to move the debate in the city. The poll helped, but what do we do now? For one thing, we can keep pointing out that the rationale for cutting taxes–to influence the location decisions of businesses and residents–is substantially less important when businesses and residents… Continue reading

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FDR, Obama, and the Path to Health Care Reform in 2009

  By Health Care, US

I’ve been giving these remarks at talks around the state in the last few weeks, most recently at the Neighborhood Networks conference last week. My aim is to bring people up to date on the state of health care reform and inspire them to join our movement, In a day or so, Health Care For America Now is going to announce the next stage in our effort to build a powerful movement for reform. So this is a good moment to let you all know where things stand. Continue reading

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You Want to See Broken Politics: Just Look at the Casinos Revisited

  By Casinos, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

I wrote this post on December 5, 2006 when a series of bad decisions on the part of our Mayor and Council had reinforced the even worse decisions of our Governor and General Assembly and created a steamroller bringing casinos to our waterfront. Now, almost two years later, we have a steamroller bringing one of those casinos to the Gallery. I could analyze this shift more thorougly.  But it seems much simpler now to just repost this. For the new day, new way has not brought anything very much new in the casino siting process. Continue reading