Gov. Patrick Needs to Back Progressive Tax Solutions to State Budget Woes

The news today is that Put Patients First - a new coalition of social service labor, and legal groups spearheaded by Service Employees International Union Local 1199 - is pushing Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to increase money for health programs in Massachusetts using anticipated federal stimulus funds. This sounds like a good idea, though absent much in the way of public details at this juncture, it's difficult to make any firm pronouncements about the move here at Open Media Boston HQ. However, the very fact of an effort to push for increased public spending on core services as the economic crisis worsens is a good sign.

The question is: Will there be a push from progressive forces in the labor and non-profit sectors for Massachusetts to hew away from its current neoliberal course, and cease cutting programs providing basic human needs and instead pursue a more positive course - raising taxes on the rich and corporations and using the resulting funds to create the good public jobs that can get the economy back in motion again?

At the moment that looks unlikely. It seems Massachusetts, like the rest of America, is so deeply inculcated with market fundamentalism that it will take a complete financial collapse to cause even tepid changes in our economic course. Patrick, like other governors around the nation, is already talking about another round of budget cuts - this time directly hitting the local aid that helps cities and towns keep going.

The mantra from Patrick, other local pols, and local press, remains the same. The state just doesn't have the money to keep all our public services going. But until action is taken to bring in money in the form of new taxes (really reinstituting the old postwar tax regime) on those most able to pay, this sentiment is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So we encourage coalitions like Put Patients First, and all progressive organizations, to put more of their not inconsiderable muscle into pushing for core economic reforms - in addition to fighting to hold ground in specific sectors like health. Work to keep community health systems like Cambridge Health Alliance afloat is certainly worthy and needed.

But without spending at least some energy on the larger task at hand and without allying all progressive forces into a grand coalition for new economic priorities, the usual neoliberal game of dividing and conquering the various social sectors against each other will continue unabated. And our society will suffer for it.

Better to act now to ensure a better outcome for our state and our nation, than to wait for things to get worse. As they inevitably will if left to the savage and quite visible hand of the market.