1/The fiscal implications of COVID are profound. Coming after decades of state-level austerity and tax cuts, the collapse in revenue will have devastating effects on infrastructure, education, and public services.
2/ Many states are hamstrung by balanced budget requirements, which will force deep cuts.
3/ Municipalities and school districts that rely on state funding will take a heavy hit.
4/ Public employment, an essential part of many urban and regional economies, has already been under siege by the right. Public jobs are still solid middle-class jobs for many Americans. More cuts in gov’t jobs and pay will further hollow out America’s vanishing middle.
5/ We need federal bailout of states now. Without it infrastructure—already fragile—will keep deteriorating. We already have too many crumbling bridges, pothole/ridden roads, overgrown parks, outdated school buildings, and limping transit systems. More cuts =worse everything.
6/ Our schools are already in shambles outside of the richest districts. Expected fewer, worse paid teachers, nurses, counselors; more crowded classrooms; aging tech that can’t be replaced. We can’t make schools better with more bake sales and teachers buying their own supplies.
7/ And sorry libertarians and even advocates of public-private partnerships: as we have seen again and again over last 50 years, good schools, transit, affordable housing are seldom profitable and almost never equitable.
8/ And we haven’t even gotten to other programs like unemployment insurance, still administered at the state level, that are necessary in the long economic crisis ahead.
9/ It’s time to turn our attention to the states. As unsexy as state policy is (except to a few geeky social scientists and policy experts), here in the U.S. our fates depend on our states. That means pushing hard on Congress to bring the states back in. Fin.
