Category: Published Op-Eds

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COVID-19 exposed the cracks in our system. We have to fill them, not just paper them over

  By COVID-19, Public Policy, Published Op-Eds

Originally published in the PA Capitol-Star on April 28, 2020 We can learn a great deal from moments of crisis, not just about ourselves and other people but about our political community.  And that’s very much true of the COVID-19 crisis. The first critical lesson the pandemic teaches us is that in a modern political economy our own good depends on the good of all. While our way of life leaves room for us to advance and fail as individuals, whether we can do so often depends on forces beyond ourselves. Far more than we are often willing to admit, we rise and fall together.<u That is clearly true when it comes to becoming infected by the coronavirus, surviving it, and limiting its impact on our lives. Stay at home rules, business closures, and social distancing are necessary because our chance of becoming infected with the virus depends on how… Continue reading

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Yes, the U.S. Constitution could be improved. The process in this Pa. House resolution isn’t a path forward

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Published Op-Eds, US Constitution

Originally published by the PA Capital-Star on December 18, 2019. On Monday, the House State Government Committee passed a resolution asking Congress to call a constitutional convention, pursuant to Article V of the U.S. Constitution. It’s not hard to understand the temptation to support this resolution. We live at a time of political division in Pennsylvania and in our country as a whole. We are all tempted to think about whether some change in our constitution might help us resolve our difficulties. It’s useful to start thinking about these issues. However, as a political scientist who has thought long and hard about our constitution, my own ideas on the matter are not terribly fixed, simply because the question is so difficult and the considerations that should weigh on us in examining changes in a constitution that has served us so well require the time for serious thought and substantial debate. But… Continue reading

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Five myths about raising the minimum wage — debunked

  By Minimum Wage, Published Op-Eds

Originally published by the PA Capital-Star on October 3, 2019. By Marc Stier While raising the minimum wage has been a conversation that continues to reverberate around the capitol, it’s clear that many legislators are apprehensive about raising the wage for the first time in over a decade. Some legislators have told advocates they don’t believe there should even be a minimum wage. But raising the minimum wage isn’t just about a few more dollars a month in the pockets of working people. It’s not a hand-out to low-wage workers. It’s part of an effort to change the rules of our economy so that working people do better, reversing the trends of the last 40 years in which a greater share of our income and wealth has gone to the very rich. Raising the minimum wage will help benefit all working people and help expand the middle class. In our advocacy… Continue reading

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Considering Vulnerability

  By About me, Life Stories, Philosophy, Published Op-Eds

Originally published in the Jewish Exponent, May 31, 2019 I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability since I hurt my back last summer. Since then, aside from three-week periods after I got two spinal injections a few months apart, I’ve stood and walked with pain and have had trouble moving around. And that’s left me feeling vulnerable. Feeling vulnerable in ways I never have before has made me think more about the role the sense of vulnerability and invulnerability plays in our lives. I’ve especially thought about those who are a lot more vulnerable than I was either because of physical limitations or because they face more challenges than I do — women, people of color, those who are disabled, those whose sexual identity and presentation is not traditional. It has occurred to me that my current sense of vulnerability, like the confidence I once had, is a bit of… Continue reading

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How the ‘Fair Share Tax’ will restore fairness to our tax system

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania State Taxes, Published Op-Eds

Originally published by the PA Capital-Star on April 24, 2019 Pennsylvania politics remains divided. One side, composed of mostly conservatives, believes that the key to prosperity is to cut taxes for the rich, cut spending for everyone else and—although they don’t say it too loudly—keep wages low. The other side, composed of mostly liberals, believe that a prosperous Pennsylvania needs to close our public investment deficit. They point out that state spending as a share of gross state product has fallen by 12 percent compared to the years 1997-2011. That has left us with: K-12 schools that remain among the most unequal in the country, leaving too many of our children to receive an inadequate education; state spending on higher education that is half of what it was in 1983-84, leaving us fourth from the bottom among all states in per capita spending and 40th of 50 states in the percentage of adults with more than… Continue reading

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Pizza and the Minimum Wage

  By Minimum Wage, Pennsylvania, Public Policy, Published Op-Eds

Originally posted at Penn-Live on April 09, 2019 Spend a little time talking to Republican (and some Democratic) legislators about raising the minimum wage, and they will eventually tell you about their friend who owns a pizza shop and opposes an increase. This is the story the pizza shop owners appear to tell our legislators: If the minimum wage goes up by 2/3rds from $7.25 to $12.00 an hour, I’d have to raise the price of my 12-inch pizza by 2/3rds from $9.49 to $15.75. No one will buy a pizza for $15.74 and I’ll go out of business.” We decided to test this claim in two ways. Every state surrounding Pennsylvania has raised its minimum wage, and two have raised it substantially. The minimum wage in New York is $11.10, 53% more than in Pennsylvania. In Maryland it is $10.10, 39% more. If the pizza shop owners who talk… Continue reading

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Wolf’s budget plan will move Pa. forward – here’s how

  By Pennsylvania Budget, Published Op-Eds

Originally published by the PA Capital-Star on February 12, 2019 By Marc Stier Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2019-2020 budget proposal reflects the unique political moment in which it is presented. Pennsylvania is a state poised between two visions of government in Pennsylvania.The governor’s budget points to a future in which Pennsylvanians act together to create the inclusive prosperity that allows everyone to live a life of dignity, prosperity, and opportunity. But the budget is constrained by another vision, one that prioritizes cutting taxes for the rich and spending for everyone else, that is not dying as quickly as we would like. In the areas of wages, education, workplace development, and corporate tax reform, the governor’s budget takes important steps for Pennsylvanians and points the way to the future most Pennsylvanians want, one we will be able to fully realize once the General Assembly better reflects the priorities of the vast majority Pennsylvanians,… Continue reading

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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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Extremist anti-government fever breaking

  By Pennsylvania, Published Op-Eds, US

Originally published in the York Dispatch on July 28, 2017 I do reality-based policy analysis as director of the Pennsylvanian Budget and Policy Center. We take a detailed look at the numbers, from several points of view, before we make or endorse tax or spending proposals. We have our moral touchstones — we seek a political community with broadly shared prosperity — but we try very hard not to let our goals determine our analysis. And that’s because we really believe in our moral stance and we know that public policy must be carefully and thoroughly vetted if it is going to be effective in attaining its goals. We don’t seek to pass legislation that sounds good but doesn’t actually help working people and the middle class secure the opportunity to achieve a better quality of life. Still, I would be the first to admit that it is not analysis, but… Continue reading

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Health care must be provided communally

  By Health Care, Published Op-Eds

This piece originally ran in Newsworks on January 26, 2017. You can find the original here.  Every once in a while, when I write something in defense of the Affordable Care Act, or point out, as the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center recent reported, that repealing it will lead 1.1 million Pennsylvanians to lose their insurance and 3,425 to die each year as a result, someone comments, “I pay for my own health insurance. Why should I pay taxes for anyone else’s?” I often ignore those comments for two reasons. First, unless the writer has an individual income over $200,000, or a family income over $250,000, he or she is not paying taxes for the ACA. And, second, if someone doesn’t share the notion that we all have a moral responsibility to guarantee that everyone has access to high-quality, affordable health care, I’m not sure what I can say to change their… Continue reading