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Letter: More hunger, but less help from government
Op-Ed · October 16, 2014
At church this past Sunday, I was reminded of our state’s balanced budget.
Part of the reason that it is “balanced” is due to cutting funding for food pantries. Was that funding cut because need has gone down? Apparently not, since church members were again asked to increase their donations to the local food pantry, because more people need the help. Yet we found room in this balanced budget to lower taxes for the business community. Why? We have 30 years of recent history showing that lowering taxes on business does not create jobs. The increase in need at food pantries is directly tied to a lack of decent jobs. The money from that tax cut would have given us a much better return from investing in jobs and infrastructure.
Fiscal responsibility is not defined by a balanced budget alone. Without the context of needs being met or adequate inclusion of responsible revenue options, “balanced budget”is little more than a feel-good sound bite. While we will always dispute what government should cover under the common welfare, we should do a better job of reckoning future costs and how they are affected by what we choose to invest in today. Better long-term financial outcomes might result from making pragmatic mathematical decisions, rather than putting too much emphasis on emotionally based principles.
Do our communities not have a vested interest in educating people to be self-reliant? Reality is that many parents fail at this, and the rest of us pay the price.
Why don’t we invest aggressively in educating kids to succeed, early, when we can make the most difference? Why, for the sake of being able to remind people that they failed at personal responsibility, do we forsake the mathematically better option of investing in their potential at the earliest chance?
I understand that “small government” people want to believe that government can’t create jobs. But that is not accurate. One can believe in the principle that government shouldn’t create jobs, but we can’t have productive conversations about fixing our economy without acknowledging that government can and does create jobs. Government can spend money to create jobs improving our infrastructure. People working those jobs would pay taxes from those wages, and at the same time need less taxpayer assistance. We are in critical need of the improvements. Win. Win. Win.
Math, morals and recent history all support raising the minimum wage. All of the states that have recently raised the minimum wage have seen better economic growth than those who haven’t. Raising the wage has been proven not to cost jobs.
If we raise the minimum wage, people working those jobs will have more money to spend in their local economies. Less of them will need assistance. Win. Win. Win. Morally, if a business can’t complete its mission without certain tasks being done, the people doing those tasks need to be appropriately valued financially for that.
Math, morals and recent history also support keeping and widening the Affordable Care Act. Math projections not influenced by the “principle” of “Make it on your own, buddy” indicated that the ACA would slow the rise of health care costs, and this is indeed what is happening.
Discussing “tax and spend” issues need to include long term fiscal outcomes also. Businesses do better when we have good infrastructure. Why aren’t they willing to support proper maintenance of it? How can I take seriously any arguments against “entitlement” spending when tax breaks for businesses are off the table? Why are successful corporations “entitled” to my tax dollars? Why are taxes for the military and the long-term costs for veterans not part of the conversation? We spare no expense for wars and equipment, with no return on that investment. Why won’t we spend money on things that will bring a positive return?
Taxes should be as low as possible. They should be as fair as possible.
Low is defined how? Fairness across the board, and meeting needs should be our first concern. Fairness depends upon including everyone, especially financially successful businesses. The more exceptions that are allowed makes the system less fair for all of us.
Our national budget deficit is only half of what it was when Obama took over.
We can reduce this further in the long run by investing wisely in education, infrastructure, health care and clean energy industries.
Laura Twing, Tipton
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