{"id":6935,"date":"2013-05-10T14:19:16","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T18:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=6935"},"modified":"2017-11-07T21:01:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T02:01:55","slug":"my-brett-mandel-problem-and-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=6935","title":{"rendered":"My Brett Mandel Problem\u2014and Ours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political life is sometimes difficult, especially when friendship and ideology come into conflict. I made a difficult decision the other day, to sign a statement opposing Brett Mandel\u2019s candidacy for City Controller.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Elections are blunt instruments for expressing one\u2019s preferences because multiple concerns come into play when we decide for whom to vote. And that\u2019s why my decision was so hard. I consider Brett a friend. I like him a great deal. I respect his mind and his commitment to the good of the city. There are a few people in the city whose ideas I always take into account when making up my own mind. Brett is one of them. I agree with Brett on many things. But I’ve decided that I can\u2019t vote for him for Controller. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Good Government<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

If I were to focus all of my attention on good government issues like transparency, honesty, openness, and government effectiveness I might be tempted to pick Brett in this race. All other things being equal, it’s not a bad idea to have someone outside the ward structure holding this position. And Brett really cares about these issues as do I. We campaigned together for the ethics reform charter changes instituted in 2006 and worked on a bunch of other projects as well. His work on making the budget transparent is exemplary. He would do a fine job rooting out inefficiency. He would find clever ways to make government work better. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But Alan Butkovitz is actually good those issues, too. I don\u2019t believe that being a ward leader automatically makes one a corrupt hack. Perhaps Alan has to watch his step politically. But Brett would have to do in office as well. And like all politicians in Philly, Alan helps his friends when he can. We\u2019re not Minnesota or Vermont and part of politics in Philly is helping your friends. Brett will do that, too. The question is whether helping your friends undermines effective government. I\u2019ve seen no evidence of that in Alan\u2019s office. And if you actually read the reports of our Controllers, as I have for many years, you will see that under Alan Butkovitz, the office of the Controller has done some exemplary work. His <\/span>report on emergency medical response<\/span><\/a> and the follow up reports are fabulous (and address an issue I care a great deal about and campaigned on in 2007.) He\u2019s revelations of corruption in the Sherriff\u2019s office has led to <\/span>criminal<\/span><\/a> investigations and <\/span>civil action to recover millions of dollars<\/span><\/a>. He\u2019s issued many other reports pointing to wasteful spending and sources of new revenue in the city.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Role of Government and Justice <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

The impact of the Controller\u2019s office, however, goes beyond making government transparent, honest, and effective. It is also a bully pulpit on policy matters. And that\u2019s where I have problems with Brett.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Brett has, for years and years, focused his attention on eliminating what he calls the \u201cjob killing business tax.\u201d It\u2019s not that we disagree entirely on this. I\u2019ve long pointed to problems in our tax structure. But I\u2019ve looked for ways to restructure our taxes so as to encourage development while also insuring that wealthy corporations and individuals pay their fair share and that we maintain city services that are critical to both economic development and preserving equal opportunity. And I\u2019ve pointed out that there are other strategies for economic development\u2014<\/span>community economic development strategies<\/span><\/a>\u2014that might be far more effective than just cutting taxes. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Brett\u2019s not unconcerned about these other issues. But when the chips are down, his emphasis, time and again, has just been on cutting wage and business taxes. Let me put it this way, if I were given a choice between a business tax cut today that I don’t like and which would result in a reduction of important services, I would oppose it and hold out for a more sensible change in the tax structure later. Brett would take the tax cut and hope to fix it and the service reductions later. This isn’t a fanciful notion. Brett opposed the Cohen wage tax cut for low income residents because it was not a general cut, that is, a cut for those with higher wages. He\u2019s not taken part in any of the extensive discussions about which part of the Business Privilege Tax is truly a problem and which part actually has no impact on creating jobs in the city. He\u2019s not put forward or supported plans for community based economic development. He remains prett much a one trick pony when it comes to talking about economic development. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Or maybe he\u2019s now developed another trick (or is it another pony?) with his focus on \u201cpension reform.\u201d The scare quote are there because pension reform has come to mean, for many in the city, selling assets we probably shouldn\u2019t sell (the Gas Works) and squeezing union members, who are of course our fellow citizens whose consumption now and when they retire help keeps the city economy afloat. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

None of this would matter so much except that, with the financial crisis of Philadelphia Schools\u2014a crisis created in Harrisburg by Governor Corbett\u2014we are hearing more and more from conservatives that Philadelphia is \u201cbankrupt\u201d and needs a big dose of \u201causterity\u201d which, of course, means squeezing unions, cutting services, and right-sizing government (a theme Brett focused on in a book a few years ago). Of course, excluded from these plans\u00a0 to save the fiscal health of the city are a slowdown in wage and business tax reductions. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unless and until we remove Tom Corbett from the Governor\u2019s mansion, the next few years in Philadelphia for progressives will continue to be a fight against the conservative demand for austerity. If Brett is in the Controller\u2019s office, I have little hope that he will be on our side. In the current fight\u2014about school spending, his voice has been practically absent.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That ad and the rest of the campaign<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Except, of course, for the TV ad Brett released the other day, which dishonestly and unfairly blames Alan Butkovitz for the financial crisis in the schools. Alan Butkovitz has been the one voice in Philadelphia who has for over two years, been pointing to an upcoming crisis in school funding. To blame him for the crisis is not only an unfair way to opportunistically jump on a hot issue. It also distracts attention from the real culprit in this crisis, Tom Corbett. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And the ad hasn\u2019t been the only questionable part of the Mandel campaign. He\u2019s talked vaguely about Alan being \u201cunder investigation\u201d by the Ethics Board. His campaign supporters have made wild charges, without a shred of evidence, about what Alan has supposedly done. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not how the transparency and honesty in government candidate should be campaigning. And it\u2019s what finally led me to decide to speak out on this race when, I had previously decided not to do so. Brett\u2019s under a lot of stress in this tough campaign and made a mistake. I\u2019m not going to hold it against him in the future. But I\u2019m also not going to let it go now, especially when it appears that the future of Philadelphia depends upon our fighting against an austerity agenda pushed by business interests that care nothing about poor and working people, a fight I can’t see Brett joining.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, this isn’t personal. I know Brett a lot better than I know Alan. I like and respect him. But we just disagree about some important issues. And I’m sorry I can’t vote for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political life is sometimes difficult, especially when friendship and ideology come into conflict. I made a difficult decision the other day, to sign a statement opposing Brett Mandel\u2019s candidacy for City Controller. Elections are blunt instruments for expressing one\u2019s preferences because multiple concerns come into play when we decide for whom to vote. And that\u2019s why my decision was so hard. I consider Brett a friend. I like him a great deal. I respect his mind and his commitment to the good of the city. There are a few people in the city whose ideas I always take into account when making up my own mind. Brett is one of them. I agree with Brett on many things. But I’ve decided that I can\u2019t vote for him for Controller. Good Government If I were to focus all of my attention on good government issues like transparency, honesty, openness, and government\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[162,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-controller-race","category-philadelphia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-1NR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6935"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8003,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6935\/revisions\/8003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}