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Sara Flocks
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Labor's Edge Articles by Sara Flocks
10/18/11
California on the Edge
by Sara Flocks
Big business and their Republican allies have repeated the laundry list of why California’s economy is struggling so many times that it is practically written in stone—Taxes, Regulations, Public Employees. These are the unholy trinity that supposedly crashed California’s economy and threatens to smother any business growth in the future.
The facts, however, contradict the well-worn talking points of big business. The Council on State Taxation, a business-friendly group led by CEOs of major corporations, found that California has a moderate tax burden, taking less in taxes from business than many other states, including the sweethearts of the right, Texas and Florida.
9/19/11
Bleeding Cash Through a Hole in the Tax Code
by Sara Flocks
From President Obama to Governor Brown, politicians tout tax breaks as the way to create jobs and stimulate economic activity. Tax breaks supposedly lure businesses to California and give them incentives to create jobs for the 2.3 million currently unemployed Californians. California has over 82 tax breaks on the books and legislators push for new ones every session as part of job creation packages.
Some experts question the effectiveness of giving corporations billions of dollars in tax breaks with no guarantees that the company will create jobs, or that they won’t move jobs out of state. A recent study by the California Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes reported that "One of the biggest criticisms of tax expenditures—and the one most germane to this report—is that they can act like blank checks."
9/16/11
End-of-Session Legislative Round-up
by Sara Flocks
For the first time in nearly eight years, California has a Democratic governor brandishing the pen as the legislative session draws to a close. The Legislature sent nearly 600 bills to Governor Brown who has until October 9 to sign or veto the measures. Without Schwarzenegger in office to veto any and all worker-friendly legislation, armies of corporate lobbyists descended on the Capitol to kill labor legislation before it could get to Governor Brown. Unions fought back hard, pushing through a number of key pieces of legislation to the governor.
The California Labor Federation moved a package of bills, co-sponsored with affiliates, to protect workers, create and retain good jobs and make sure our public dollars are spent effectively. Over the next week, "Labor’s Edge" will highlight several Labor Federation sponsored bills that would make a significant positive impact on the lives of workers with a signature from Governor Brown.
Here’s a round-up of the Labor Federation's sponsored bills on the Governor’s desk.
8/10/11
There’s a Hole in the Budget Bucket
by Sara Flocks
Uh-oh. It looks like there’s a hole in the bucket Governor Brown is using to bail out the state. After Republicans refused to let voters decide on tax extensions, the legislature scrambled to put together a budget that avoided cutting essential services like education and public safety. In the end, Governor Brown signed a budget into law that depended on $4 billion in projected new revenues to close the gap.
That seems almost too good to be true—just promise to find an extra $4 billion in the couch and the state avoids painful cuts. Well, it is turning out to be too good to be true. If the state doesn’t get $4 billion in revenue, then “trigger” cuts go into effect. Depending on how short the state is, those cuts include more reductions to higher education, increased community college fees, slashing child care and deep cuts to public education. The cuts to K-12 could reduce the school year by 7 days and eliminating school bus service.
4/14/11
Death and Taxes
by Sara Flocks
As a graduate of California’s public schools, community colleges and universities, I would gladly vote to extend temporary taxes that I pay. I would even vote to give myself a tax increase if I knew it would save public education in California. I owe it to the state that educated me to at least pay my fair share in taxes.
But not everyone shares that sentiment. For the last several decades, corporations have employed aggressive strategies to dodge their responsibility to pay state and federal taxes. The outcome is that over the years the share of taxes paid by corporations has declined, shifting more of the burden of paying for roads, schools and services to average taxpayers like you and I (even though corporations clearly benefit from those taxpayer-funded services just as much as the rest of us, if not more).
3/14/11
Blue Shield Puts Profits Before People
by Sara Flocks
I have a friend, Patty, who worked as a waitress to pay her way through college. She worked hard and studied hard, so when she got sick and couldn’t get better, she just chalked it up to stress. For two years, Patty was chronically ill with mysterious and debilitating symptoms. She knew she should go to the doctor, but she didn’t have health insurance through work, and she couldn’t afford to buy insurance and pay for rent and tuition at the same time. Eventually, Patty ended up in the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a thyroid problem. Since she had not gotten care for so long she had to immediately have surgery, which left her with $10,000 in medical debt.
Patty is just one of the 8.4 million Californians who lack health insurance. Californians who don’t have job-based insurance are left to purchase coverage on their own in the individual market—a maze of complicated and overwhelming options hawked by giant health insurance corporations that know how to make a profit.
2/24/11
Top Ten Reasons to Shut Down Enterprise Zones
by Sara Flocks
1. A FAILURE: They’re a job creation program---that DOESN’T CREATE JOBS!
2. TOO EXPENSIVE: Taxpayers have spent $3.6 billion on the program since 1986 and the total cost has grown by 35% each year on average.
3. MONEY FOR BIG CORPORATIONS, NOT SMALL BUSINESS: Major corporations with assets over $1 billion, like Wells Fargo and Nordstrom’s, benefit the most from the program. Even big banks get a cut!
4. REWARDS HIGH TURNOVER: The hiring tax credit is for new “hires” not new jobs and the amount of the credit decreases the longer a worker stays on the job.
5. REWARDS LOW-WAGE JOBS: The hiring credit caps at 150% of minimum wage, meaning that employers have an incentive not to pay higher wages—it doesn’t increase how much free money they get.
2/3/11
Court Ruling Escalates Right-Wing Attack on Health Care Reform
by Sara Flocks
The Republicans have tried to sabotage health care reform since it was introduced—disrupting town hall meetings, spreading lies about the legislation (remember death panels?) and now trying to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act. But Republicans have completely failed at defeating a law that extends health coverage to millions of Americans who are uninsured.
Since they can’t win repeal, Republicans have resorted to trying to dismantle the law piece by piece. They’ve held symbolic repeal votes and launched lawsuits in 28 different states with Republican governors or attorney generals. The lawsuits focus on ruling small pieces unconstitutional, like the individual mandate, in order to take down the entire law. The lawsuits won’t reverse the health care reform law all at once, but they do set the stage for a showdown in the Supreme Court, and it keeps Republicans in the spotlight. Just this week, a federal judge in Florida ruled the entire federal health care reform law void on the basis that the individual mandate was unconstitutional.
1/27/11
In-Home Supportive Services Vital in Tough Economic Times
by Sara Flocks
California’s In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program provides low-income seniors and people with disabilities the care they need to live in their own homes, rather than nursing facilities. IHSS providers care for the elderly who want the familiarity of the homes they’ve lived in for decades, the terminally ill and those who cannot take care of themselves.
Governor Brown’s budget proposes deep cuts to the IHSS program that will dramatically change the lives of homecare providers and those they care for. The cuts include a reduction in the hours of care for the elderly and disabled by 8.4 percent, on top of the 3.6 percent reduction in the last budget. The cuts also eliminate services like housework and meal preparation for more than 300,000 IHSS recipients. Those cuts are particularly painful to clients who depend on their IHSS provider for the only hot meal they have all day—meals that will now be fewer and far between.
1/18/11
Big, Bad Blue Shield
by Sara Flocks
Blue Shield really has some nerve. The health insurance giant wants to jack up health insurance rates for Californians for the third time since October—adding up to a rate increase as high as 59 percent for some policyholders. And when Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones asked the corporation to wait 60 days so that he can review their rate increase and to give some breathing room to the 194,000 Blue Shield customers -- many who are already struggling to afford health coverage -- Blue Shield REFUSED to comply. To make matters even worse, Blue Shield is using the whole fiasco as a way to polish their public image which has been marred by a series of outrageous rate hikes.
10/25/10
Vote NO on Proposition 26 - If Polluters Don’t Pay, Taxpayers Will
by Sara Flocks
The corporate donors to Proposition 26 -- including major players in the tobacco, alcohol, soda and oil industries -- have poured millions of dollars into Prop. 26. At first glance, Prop 26 doesn’t read like an initiative that multi-national corporations would care much about. The initiative broadens the definition of a tax to include fees—which would raise the votes required to approve a fee from a majority to two-thirds at the state and local level.
So why do these companies care about Prop 26? It turns out that the fees that Prop 26 targets are the fees that oil, tobacco, alcohol and hazardous waste companies have to pay for the pollution and damage they cause to our air and water. Proposition 26 would make it harder to impose those fees, effectively shifting the burden of paying for the costs created by polluters to taxpayers like you and me.
10/13/10
End Budget Gridlock - Vote Yes on Prop 25
by Sara Flocks
Budgets reflect the priorities and values of a state. Public dollars dedicated to schools, safe communities, healthy kids and well-maintained infrastructure demonstrate that a state is committed to creating a high quality of life for residents. California’s budget tells a whole different story. Because California has a two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget, a small group of partisan legislators can withhold their votes to extract concessions from the majority. As a result, California’s budget process ends up full of corporate loopholes, special favors and worker takeaways—not exactly a reflection of the values of the majority of working people in California.