Category: Politics

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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

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How much does this have to do with the new central library?

  By Libraries, Philadelphia

My understanding is that the library addition will costs around $130 million of which $100 million has been raised. Some of that came from the city’s capital funds. Some came from the state and some came from foundations. And some has come from major donors. But capital costs for the building are one thing. Paying the operating costs are another. I imagine that this high-tech library will be expensive to operate. Is that why library administration wants to get library operating costs down now? Is that why the library is taking a 20% hit when other agencies are taking no more than a 10% hit? Don’t get me wrong. The central library addition looks like it will be wonderful. It is being designed by Moshe Safdie who is a brilliant civic architect. (His City of Quebec museum is a wonderful public space as well as a wonderful museum.) But I’m… Continue reading

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Mark Alan Hughes, The Decoupling Strategy, and The Nutter Administration

  By Economic Development, Philadelphia, Social Justice

I have had really high hopes for Michael Nutter as Mayor since the primary in May 2007. But along with those hopes, I’ve had a nagging worry since October 2007. That’s when Mark Alan Hughes, who once served as a policy advisor to the Nutter campaign and is now the sustainability director, published two deeply disturbing columns about his vision for the future of the city. You can read them here and here. At the time he published those columns Hughes did not work for Michael Nutter. And I had heard Nutter speak enough during the campaign to feel confident that the then future Mayor did not share the ideas found in those columns. But, in the last few weeks, I’ve started to worry that maybe what Hughes wrote reflects the policy of this administration. I’ll explain why in a moment. First I have to present Hughes’s vision for the… Continue reading

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How To Save The City Part II: An Inclusive, Transparent Budget Process?

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Budget, Politics

Submitted by Marc Reposted from YPP What would an inclusive, transparent budget process look like? I once took part in such a process and maybe that experience can shed some light on what we might do here in Philadelphia. Continue reading