Category: Public Policy

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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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Healthcare at the crossroads

  By Health Care

We are at a crossroads for healthcare President Obama’s budget, which includes $634 billion in the budget as a down payment on health care reform, is before the Congress. This is critical. If Congress does not pass a budget that funds health care reform, it won’t happen this year in any form. Click here to call your Members of Congress to tell them to fund health care reform now! President Obama with your support has said that we can’t fix our economy if we don’t reform health care. But the momentum we have built for winning quality affordable health care for all this year will stop in its tracks if the President’s budget fails. Health Care For America NOW ahs put together some easy-to-use talking points to help you send a strong message to your Members of Congress that you support the President’s budget. Can you give your Members of… Continue reading

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Health Care Cure For the Economy

  By Health Care

Daily News, February 11, 2009 People who suffer from chronic diseases are vulnerable to temporary maladies. Those with heart disease, asthma or diabetes sometimes find a bad accident or the flu creating an acute crisis. People sometimes discover chronic illnesses only when acute problems make them evident. And sometimes, it is impossible to deal with a medical crisis without addressing the underlying chronic problems. What is true for our health is also true for health care. Health care in theUnited Statessuffers from chronic maladies. The current economic crisis is showing us how bad they are. That’s why an economic recovery bill that includes initial steps toward health care reform is before the Congress now. One chronic problem is the rising cost of health care, which increases two to three times faster than inflation. Businesses, governments and individuals face insurance premium increases of up to ten percent per year. The recession… Continue reading

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Tell Senator Specter you support the economic recovery package and health care reform!

  By Health Care

The Economic Recovery Package that passed the House last week is now before the Senate. The Republicans are planning a filibuster. Some Democrats are wobbly. And so we are going to need at least two and possibly more Republican votes. The right-wing is going all out to defeat the bill, thinking that if they beat President Obama now, they can derail his entire domestic program. We can’t allow them to succeed. Continue reading

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Aggressive police patrolling on the drives!

  By Health Care

Stop speeding on the drives! Remember how the city demanded that the state police replace the city police in patrolling the Expressway, just as they patrol interstate highways in the rest of the state? Well it happened with interesting consequences elswhere anyone who live in NW Philly should know about. The police officers who formerly patrolled the Expressway have no been reassigned to East (Kelly) and West (ML King)River and Lincoln Drive. The officers who used to be assigned to the drives have been reassigned to the districts. This is a good thing in a few respects. It in effect gives us more police officers on patrol in the city. And the reassigned Expressway officers are taking their job a lot more seriously than the old timers they have replaced. Wednesday morning, for example, seven people had been stopped and warned or ticketed for speeding by 9:30 in the morning.… Continue reading

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Be There For Health Care: greet Obama supporters in Philly on Saturday

  By Health Care

Submitted by Marc Stier on Mon, 01/12/2009 – 3:34am. Be There for Health Care! Welcome people on Saturday, January 17th as they line up to hear President-Elect Barack Obama at the first stop of his train trip to Washington before his inauguration As a volunteer greeter on Saturday January 17th, you will be part of the largest mobilization of health care for all advocates Philadelphia has ever seen! Volunteers will: ·Work in pairs signing up folks as they wait on line to enter the speech venue. ·Ask everyone to sign a post card to Senators Specter and Casey – Calling for guaranteed, quality, affordable health care for all. – Endorsing the Obama / Health Care For America Now principles of health care reform that call for every American to be able to choose affordable health insurance either from their current insurer, another private insurance plan or a public plan open… 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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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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Is there an innovative plan for new infrastructure spending in our region?

  By Transportation

Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to coming from the federal government to states and cities for infrastructure spending in the next year. Are we prepared in our region to seek it and spend it wisely? Continue reading