Public Policy and Education Fund of New York » Budget and Taxes

Extending the State Fiscal Relief Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

Charlie Albanetti — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:36:06 +0000

(Released June 8, 2010) The “state fiscal relief” that was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) played a major role in allowing New York and the other states to balance their 2009-10 with fewer budget cuts and fewer tax increases than would have been necessary otherwise. This “state fiscal relief” should be extended so that its phase-out dovetails more closely with the recovery of the 50 states’ economies and finances.

Click here to download the PDF.

Extending the State Fiscal Relief Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

Race Matters in Health Care: Update of “Race Matters: Impact of the 2010-11 Executive Budget Proposal,” including impact of the Assembly and Senate budget proposals

Charlie Albanetti — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:55:24 +0000

(Release March 31, 2010) Just over one week ago, the Public Policy and Education Fund (PPEF) released its 2010 “Race Matters” report that detailed the impact of the 2010-11 Executive Budget on people of color and immigrants. This follow-up report updates the health care section of the Race Matters report by adding a preliminary analysis of the budget proposals made by the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate, and comparing them to the Executive Budget.

Click here to download the PDF.

Race Matters: Impact of the 2010-11 Executive Budget Proposal

Charlie Albanetti — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:05:20 +0000

(Release March 23, 2010) While many New Yorkers of all races enjoy great educational, professional and social success, the majority of people of color in the Empire State remain perilously stranded in the shadows of the American dream. Although both the nation and state are led by accomplished people of color, the overall condition of people of color in New York is distressing, and the current national economic crisis and cuts in government programs only serve to further harm our communities.

Click here to download the PDF.

Why We Need a Strong Estate Tax

Charlie Albanetti — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:01:26 +0000

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on this page about the campaign by the right wing and its corporate allies to weaken the estate tax in America — the only tax on wealth in America, and therefore the only check on extremely rich individuals passing on their wealth to their children and grandchildren without making an appropriate contribution to the society that helped them achieve their wealth.

On December 15, 2009, the Public Policy and Education Fund and its state (New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness; Fiscal Policy Institute; Citizen Action of New York) and national (USAction, United for a Fair Economy) allies joined together to hold a press conference to make the case as to why we need a strong estate tax. The speakers – Bill Gates Sr. (the father of the Microsoft founder); Vanguard mutual fund founder John Bogle; Richard Rockefeller, a great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller and Anna Burger of SEIU made powerful statements as to the case against weakening the estate tax in this country, from the perspective both of the wealthiest Americans and those on the edge.

Bill Gates, Sr. said: “No one accumulates a fortune without the help of our society’s investments. How much wealth would exist without America’s unique property rights protections, public infrastructure, and academic institutions? We should celebrate the estate tax as an “economic opportunity recycling” program, where previous generations made investments for us and now it’s our turn to pass on the gift. Strengthening the estate tax is important to our democracy.”

John C. Bogle said, “To me, passing a stronger estate tax is a matter of ethics, of responsibility, of pride in citizenship, and it’s the right fiscal choice for our country.” He adds, “I don’t ever forget, as do some of my colleagues, that I benefited from a lot of business incentives and tax laws as I was building Vanguard Group to what it is today, and I owe some of that back.”

Anna Burger of the labor union SEIU, which represents many low-wage workers added, “Consider a wealthy family with two children. Under the current law, each child could inherit $3.5 million, tax free. That means each child would receive more, tax free, than the average worker would earn in two lifetimes. And the worker would be paying taxes on their earnings. Each of these children would receive more, tax-free, than 240 minimum wage workers would receive in a year.”

As I write this (the week before Christmas, 2009), it looks like the U.S. Senate will be unable to agree on an extension of the estate tax before the end of the year, which means that the estate tax will at least temporarily go out of existence. We will continue to do public education to make the case for the need for Congress to at least extend the current estate tax at its present levels (the first $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples is exempted from tax), so that the wealthiest Americans don’t get off scot-free from paying a share of our nation’s most urgent needs, including health care and education.

The Next Right-Wing Raid on the US Treasury

J. Zhu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:24:40 +0000

As the nation’s and media’s attention is mostly focused on the health care fight in Congress, the right-wing is quietly gearing up for their next attempt to raid the U.S. Treasury on behalf of the wealthiest people in our country, to the detriment of the rest of us.

This campaign is to weaken the estate tax, a tax that is imposed on the transfer of property by only the wealthiest Americans to their heirs when they die. These are the same folks who just got bailed out during the last year’s economic crisis, and yet still expect to receive huge end of year bonuses while the rest of us are still looking at unemployment notices.

Now, the right-wing is revving up its campaign to eliminate or weaken the tax even further – using the opportunity presented by the expiration of the tax at the end of 2009.

They are trying to pull at our heartstrings, by giving the impression – as they did in the last fight over the estate tax during the Bush years – that average people like farmers are harmed by this tax. But here’s a few key facts:

The tax is imposed on only 3 in a 1000 estates. During the last estate tax fight, farm interests couldn’t cite a single example of heirs being forced to sell the family farm to pay for the estate tax when challenged by the media, despite the stories circulated about this by the right wing.
Repeal of the tax will cost the U.S. Treasury $1.3 trillion over 10 years – more than we need to fund health care reform and money that can be used for other urgent needs like education, roads, medical research and aid to cash-strapped states like New York.

We need to educate as many New Yorkers about the consequences of the policies of the Bush years, when Congress passed an astounding $2.5 trillion in tax cuts, heavily tilted towards the rich. During that period, the top 1% of wealthiest Americans – people now making at least $476,000 a year, received roughly one-third of the cuts – equivalent to getting a check of $52,122 each year from the feds. Enough is enough!

We’re going to be working for the rest of 2009 to educate organizations and average people alike about the consequences to average New Yorkers of eliminating or weakening the estate tax. Watch this page in the common weeks for details. In the meantime, download this information flyer, or email Cleo Oliver at coliver@citizenactionny.org to get involved.

Funding Health Care and Other National Priorities

J. Zhu — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:52:37 +0000

(Released August 15, 2009 ) The following powerpoints (“How to Fund Health Care and Other Human Needs” and “The Real Facts About Health Care Reform and Our Community”) were produced by Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, Fiscal Policy Institute, and New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness for teach-ins held throughout New York State in Fall of 2009.

Click here to download the PPT file for How to Fund Health Care and Other Human Needs.
Click here to download the PPT file for The Real Facts About Health Care Reform and Our Community.

New York City’s Contract for Excellence: Closing the Funding Gap or a Funding Shell Game?

J. Zhu — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:07:45 +0000

(Released October 13, 2009) The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) court decisions found that many students in New York City were not being provided access to the “sound basic education” that is their right under the state constitution. In response, the governor and the state legislature enacted funding reforms to substantially increase state school aid across the state. The law, enacted in 2007, prioritized high need school districts and prioritized high need schools within those districts. New York State created a new funding formula to distribute state operating aid in a more equitable manner to fulfill its constitutional obligations. Under this formula, 70% of new foundation aid, the state’s basic classroom operating funding, is distributed to high need school districts—including New York City.

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Moving Towards Educational Equity?: How is New York State’s School Funding Reform Impacting Educational Equity on Long Island?

J. Zhu — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:09:31 +0000

(Released September 15, 2009) Long Island schools are well known for quality education, but in reality there is a wide range of differences between the educational resources and the student outcomes in school districts on Long Island. Long Island is home to some of the best schools in New York State and the country–particularly in some of the wealthier suburban districts, but Long Island also is home to school districts with the highest concentration of student poverty in New York State. As in small and large cities across New York State, high concentrations of student poverty correlate on Long Island with higher proportions of black and Hispanic students. However, no other region of New York State has the degree of racial segregation seen in Long Island schools. In fact out of the eleven school districts in the state with the greatest proportion of black and Hispanic students, nine are on Long Island. Five Long Island school districts–Wyandanch, Roosevelt, Hempstead, Westbury and Uniondale–have a student population that is over 95% black and Hispanic.

Click here to download the PDF.

Race Matters: Impact of the 2009-10 Executive Budget Proposal

J. Zhu — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:03:12 +0000

(Released March 3, 2009) This report examines the impact of the Executive Budget on people of color in several major policy areas: education, higher education, health care, human services, and criminal and juvenile justice. (It is therefore a snapshot of a few major policy areas; it does not present a full picture of the Executive Budget.) We looked at key policy and spending proposals in the Executive Budget in order to determine whether there will be an unfair impact on communities of color. In each of the policy areas covered, we document that racial inequities will be continued or compounded, although to different degrees depending on the policy area. The results of our analysis are mixed – we found some proposals that address racial and ethnic disparities and others that increase disparities. But on balance the proposed cuts would have a disproportionately negative impact on communities of color. The proposed budget, if enacted, would increase the racial and ethnic disparities in our state by key economic and social measures.

Click here to download the PDF.

Will Education Funding Promises be Broken?: Students in Poverty, Students of Color and English Language Learners Face the Largest Cuts in Basic Classroom Operating Aid under Proposed Budget

J. Zhu — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:12:11 +0000

(Released February 14, 2008) For fourteen years the Campaign for Fiscal Equity school-funding lawsuit faced a series of appeals and delays that stymied fair school funding reform. The New York State Court of Appeals ruled in the CFE case that the state was failing to meet its constitutional obligation to provide students with a “sound basic education” also defined by the courts as a “meaningful high school education.” Since the CFE lawsuit was originally brought by New York City parents, the ruling was restricted to New York City. However, the need for reform was statewide and the demand raised by community organizations, parents, educators and advocacy groups was for a statewide solution.

Click here to download the PDF.