Prioritize Equitable Education Policy

There ought to be more societal and legislative investment in education and skills training for all in society, regardless of legal, criminal, immigrant, disability, economic and political status. With dishearteningly few exceptions, the United States has failed to reform education and access to job skills training. There have been many common themes in the readings in the social work program, and one of the most influential seems to be that a lack of investment and protections in education and job skills training establishes and perpetuates degradation and suffering. This trend directly and substantially contributes to the growing divide between impoverished and wealthy individuals, entities and communities.

Evident in places like Mississippi, where the combination of passionate resistance to integrating schools and a lack of investment in job-skills training employment opportunities, failure to prioritize equitable education and training for all is a long-standing tradition in many parts of the country. The communities that suffer the most are those that do not abolish policies that encourage the generational cycle that inevitably comes with a lack of equitable investment in educational and vocational resources. To be thorough, it would not be sufficient to simply abolish such policies. To effectively break such cycles of suffering, robust and well-researched policies that encourage economic and social investment in these resources must be established and appropriately enacted. 

My understanding is that federal funding for career, technical, and adult education is about $3 billion each year, and funding for higher education, when you include tax expenditures and Pell grants and so forth, is about $40 billion. So, for every dollar we spend on the 35% of the population getting a university degree we're spending about 7.5¢ on the 35% of the population that needs vocational and technical training. Does that seem ridiculous to you?  It does to me.  I don't think states make up for it. 

Certain populations are especially susceptible to this type of resource scarcity. Incarcerated people and black, brown and indigenous people are especially underserved in education and job training. This page, on www.equityinhighered.org, features a table that illustrates the educational attainment in the United States with the data organized by heritage, or “ethnicity and race”. Encouragingly, the article indicates that the levels of highest education acquired has increased between 2002 and 2022 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2017).

Let me insert something I saw in the first chapter of that report. Back in 2002, about 26.7% of adults aged 25 or older had bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, professional degrees, or doctorates. Only 17.1% of Black adults had such degrees.  In 2022, 37.6% of American adults 25 and older had bachelor's, master's, professional, and doctorate degrees, and for Black Americans the figure was 27.9%.  Overall, by 2022 attainment of such degrees had increased to 141% of what it had been in 2002 (for all races and ethnicities), whereas for Black Americans the increase had been 163%. 

Similarly, and often with implicating intersections - such as the correlation between heritage and incarceration – incarcerated people are arguably the most underserved population in the country in educational access. Figure 1 of this article on prisonpolicy.org compares data of highest education attainment between the general public, “age 25+”, and incarcerated populations. The disparity does not stop at education attainment, as many incarcerated people are plagued by legal, social and cultural persecution and exclusion and struggle to find gainful employment. Rarer still are the employment opportunities that offer skills training and upward mobility – a common theme among all people who are failed by dysfunctional education systems and job market. 

That is a very interesting question: does the economy today provide more jobs with low chances for significant promotion and no ladder of skill and income growth? In the past, did the economy provide more jobs where a person with low skills and experience could start out with a low income, but expect to quickly get promotions and income increases to attain a dignified standard of living? So often the statistics on jobs and job growth only tell us median and mean earnings, hours worked, and total number of jobs.  If a third of the positions in the job market are for low-wage jobs where a person in the occupation is unlikely to ever see significant promotion or job growth, that means something different compared to a situation where 20% of jobs are like that, or where 40% of jobs are like that. 

Without sound, ethical and equitable policy and consistent and exhaustive economic investment in education and job skills training, the cycles of suffering will continue. There is so much more to learn and much to be done to encourage the health, prosperity and safety of the United States and much of it must be done at the foundation of society; inclusive education and economic equity.  

I think the federal government ought to spend about $60 billion on higher education and perhaps $30 billion on career, technical, and adult education, as opposed to the approximately $40 billion and $3 billion it respectively spends today. I'm in favor of increasing the federal income tax on middle-income persons by about 4 percentage points and increasing the tax on wealthy households by about 8 percentage points, and I think such increases in tax revenue could cover universal health care, more secure old-age pensions, and increases in spending on education, housing, and mental health systems of care (I would reduce defense spending from over $1 trillion down to about $700 billion). In our particular state of Illinois I think expenditure on higher education needs to increase by nearly $2 billion, and we need to invest about $500 million more in vocational and career education. I'd increase taxes on upper income households from about 11% t0 7% (what they are now) to about 15%, keep people in the middle third of incomes taxed at about the rates they are paying now, and reduce taxes on people in the lower third of household incomes from about 14% (what they pay now) to 7%.  I'd accomplish this by eliminating sales taxes (keeping taxes on fossil fuel products, tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana), and increasing the flat income tax from 4.95% to 9%, but increasing standard deductions for individuals and families by several thousands of dollars. 

Sources cited below were read before and during the hour spent writing and editing this.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/education.html

U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2017

https://www.equityinhighered.org/indicators/u-s-population-trends-and-educational-attainment/educational-attainment-by-race-and-ethnicity/

Youth aging out of foster care to get tuition waivers

Most foster kids have had a rough start in life. Most of them have been abused or neglected in some way, which is why they are placed in the foster care system. This means that they usually do not have any family members who are able to take care of them or support them either, since this is the first thing looked for when removing children from homes. The kids are forced to pack their bags and leave everything they know behind in order to go live with strangers. This can be very scary for most children, especially those who already have trust issues with adults because of the abuse they experienced as kids. Also, since they have to go through this process many times, they often develop unstable relationships with adults. This is because they are constantly being placed into homes and then being pulled out and placed into new homes over and over again. This process does not allow for the formation of stable relationships, as the kids never get to have reliable people in their lives to bond with.

 Furthermore, the kids switch schools frequently since they are constantly moving. This not only hurts their ability to make friends, but can also severely interfere with their education. When foster kids age out of the system, they are often left with nothing and no one. This is why I am in favor of foster kids receiving free education up to a bachelor’s degree. This would allow them to get on their feet and be able to support themselves more effectively. In the system we have now, they can get up to three years of schooling through the foster care system. While this provides them with a pretty good start, it would be more efficient in the long run to keep them in the system one more year, so they can at least get a bachelor’s degree. This would give them more options and more financial stability than they would have with only an associate degree or certification. 

Supporting these young adults one more year until they receive their bachelor’s degree would reduce the chance of them becoming homeless since they would be more likely to qualify for higher paying jobs. Also, if they do an internship during their schooling, they would gain experience in that field which would help pave the way to gainful employment. They would also be less likely to end up in jail since their lives would have a more positive outlook and clear direction. Currently, by ages 23-24 years old, foster kids are more likely than non-foster kids to be uneducated, unemployed, homeless, pregnant, and criminal. 

The new bills, Senate Bill 2846 and House Bill 5122, would provide tuition fee waivers to those who DCFS has legal responsibility of, current foster kids, those who have recently aged out of foster care, and those who have been adopted out of foster care. This allows young adults who would otherwise be unable to afford higher education a chance to go to college and have a better chance of succeeding in life. To be able to receive the fee waivers, the young adult must have attained a high school degree or a GED, which is equivalent to a high school degree. The new age limit to receive the fee waivers would be 26 years old and would cover the student’s first five years of school. These tuition and fee waivers would cover the full tuition cost for foster kids to go to any community college, university, or college maintained by the state of Illinois. These bills are seeking to provide foster care children with the same opportunities as children who grew up in families and are more able to afford college. By adding these bills, Illinois could help foster children live more productive, healthy lives. Incorporating these bills would also cut costs in areas such as law enforcement because foster kids would less likely be criminal if they had more support and equal opportunities to education.

SNAP and College Students

I began by reviewing the article entitled “Rethinking College Students and SNAP” by Tom Allison, found on the list of current events for this class.  This title really drew me in because people do not understand how difficult college can be when dealing with your own adult life outside of school.  Most young adults are trying to get away from parents and learn to become their own responsible self, but college can be both a learning experience and, also a stress in lives of students everywhere.  You have no time for a steady routine like in high school.  You are trying to work when not at school, sucking up all your hours of daylight, leaving your homework time to interfere with your sleep schedule.  Depending on the major and the coursework, you may spend more time at school than others, leaving you to only be able to work a part time minimum wage job.  To help pay for groceries, many college students turn to SNAP.

This article focuses on the financial deficits in many college students’ lives and the problems they have affording enough food for themselves.  At Spelman College and Morehouse College, students held a hunger strike to change the school policy banning the sharing of any unused meal swipes with another student.  This lasted two weeks before the schools announced a plan to help students who cannot afford proper nutrition for themselves.  The article discusses that nearly 20% of college students are eligible for SNAP, but only 3% of students actually use it.  Students do not seek help for food often because of embarrassment and humiliation, and so many students go hungry because of this.  The article mentioned that these factors can lead to bad grades and even dropping out of school entirely.   The author goes over the two problems with SNAP and college students, which are the application process and the eligibility standards. In my opinion, I believe the largest barrier of college students gaining SNAP benefits is that they must work at least 20 hours a week.  College students sometimes have coursework that will take up nearly every hour of their free time outside of class; taking 20 hours of that week is a large chuck of time for completing necessary assignments.  

I find a great deal of understanding from this article, because I think I was in this position my first two years of college.  Trying to go to school five days a week, do the assigned coursework, study for quizzes and exams, and work part time, was extremely stressful and hard on me.  I was living on my own and scared to ask my parents for help.  I wanted to be able to prove to them that I was able to do this on my own without any help, which I think a lot of college students can relate to.  There were periods where I was eating ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner almost every day.  I would always hear the typical college stereotype that “college students are broke” and I just thought this was a normal part of the college experience.  

I am glad that UIS Volunteer Services (I think) hands out free food to students in need, but campuses everywhere need to have groups like this.  We need nationwide knowledge of the nutritional deficits that college students face and find a way to fix this gap.  Changing eligibility requirements as mentioned in the article is a major obstacle that would be crossed by waiving the hours worked each week for students and supplement their class hours instead.  

Providing SNAP benefits on more generous terms with more accessible eligibility standards would be an easy way to help pay for college education. One of the many nice things about SNAP (speaking a a food producer—I am sometimes a farmer in the summer when not on my 9-month contract as a professor with the university) is the fact that it stimulates the economy by increasing demand for good food products (I can sell more peaches and apples and berries if poor people and college students get SNAP benefits allowing them to purchase my produce).  SNAP and other food benefits are really just another way to subsidize grocery stores, farmers, and industrial food corporations.  We get all the money eventually.  Since just handing money to food producers violates some people’s sense of fairness (we tend to not be poor, and yet there are many very large subsidies for some very wealthy agribusiness corporations), why not give us the money indirectly by giving it to college students, impoverished families with children, and persons who would otherwise be embarrassing us with their gauche tendency of getting sick with malnutrition or starvation in this rich civilization we have built? 

College students are a special population to consider.  Persons who succeed in college tend, on average, to make tens of thousands of dollars more than they would if thy merely took some college, finished an associate degree only, or completed their education with a GED or high school degree.

The 2017 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us:
Median usual weekly earnings of a college graduate: $1,173
Median usual weekly etc. of a person with an associate degree: $836
Median usual etc. of a person with some college and no degree: $774
Median etc. of a person with a high school degree or GED: $712.

So, if we have a policy that costs us, say, $5,000 per college student, and 10% of those students who receive this $5,000 in SNAP benefits complete college because of the SNAP benefits, because with those benefits, they would have given up and settled for “some college” you can see that we're raising the incomes of 10% of the recipients by about $400 per week, or approximately $20,000 per year after they graduate. The government may only directly recover $5,000 of that $20,000 through income taxes and payroll deductions, but there are multiplier effects as well, as the increased earnings of a higher educated population contribute to overall economic prosperity, and if colleges and universities are doing their work right, we should also have many benefits in terms of happier people, better citizens, more creativity, and wiser voters from the increase in educated persons. 

The next question is, does the increase in tax revenue and economic flourishing from that 10% that made it through college because they received $5000 in SNAP benefits pay for 100% of the cost of providing those SNAP benefits to all the poor college students, including the 90% who would have somehow found a way to graduate without the SNAP support?

It depends upon how long people work, I guess.  Let us do a thought experiment.  Assume the SNAP benefits are given to 100 poor college students, at a cost of $1,250 per year for four years, each student is getting $5000 in benefits over four years.  So, over the course of four years while those 100 students are in college, the program costs $500,000.  We imagine that 90 of those students would have graduated anyway, even without SNAP, so the benefit for society is that those students were able to study on full stomachs and not work so many long hours, and perhaps they learned more as a result, or had less emotional stresses, but let us assume we did not increase their earnings.  Only for 10 of those 100 students did the SNAP benefits make the difference, allowing them to graduate and earn $70,000 per year on average over a 30-year post-college-degree working life rather than the $50,000 per year they would have earned on average over a 30-year post-college-drop-out working life.

Let us say that those students earning an extra $20,000 each year pay 14% of that in payroll taxes and 11% of it in federal income taxes, so that we get back 25% of the $20,000 each year, on average.  That's $5,000 per year.  Let us also say that without a college degree, each of those students would have needed about $10,000 in benefits for four years of poverty or near-poverty in their lives when they would have qualified for Medicaid or SNAP or the EITC or something like that, but by getting them a college education, we prevented that.   So, we saved $400,000 in benefits we didn't have to pay out, and we gained $1,500,000 in increased tax revenue (ignoring entirely the multiplier effect).  So, based on those assumptions, we get back $1.9 million in reduced benefits paid out and increased tax revenues.  But, we gave $5,000 to 100 students, so the program cost us $0.5 million.  So, was it worth it?

Wow, it looks like a SNAP benefit to college students that costs us $1,250 per year in SNAP benefits for the students and induces 10% of beneficiaries to graduate from college when they would otherwise drop out with “some college” as their highest attainment is going to reap big returns, approximately $3 to $4 long-term dollars for ever $1 spent on the program.   I wonder if the 10% figure is accurate as an estimate of the facilitation of college degree completion we might get by just offering about $100 per month in SNAP benefits to all poor college students. Anyway, it looks like a good policy in terms of cost effectiveness if the assumption of producing about a 10% increase in graduation rates among poor students holds true.  

Programs don't have to be cost-effective.  Even if the program lost money in the long run, we could justify it on moral grounds in terms of giving people a chance to finish college even if they are poor, so that we can have a society based on meritocracy where talented and hard working persons from poor families have a chance to complete college and compete against the many middle-class and wealthy college students for whom food at college is not an issue.

Cuts in social welfare spending are harmful

There are opposing views on social welfare.  Not one person is right about the definition or ideology of social welfare. Social welfare programs have grown, shrunk, stabilized, and declined over the years.  Many want to eliminate programs because they think that millions are taking advantage of them.  The sad part is that thousands need these social welfare programs to survive.  

As a social worker there will be obstacles and clients that will make things difficult, but a great social worker will gather those resources to help clients reach their goals.  The majority of government officials and the general public feel that the majority of people on public aid are taking advantage of the programs. What is interesting is that the general public, who once were part of the middle class find themselves in the same situation as the poor and they may now understand that there are some who need those welfare programs   

  If they do get rid of welfare programs, where will these people receive assistance?  This is dehumanizing the life of another human.  This bothers me and I want to get others to understand that not all recipients of welfare programs put themselves there.  Our own country did this by eliminating jobs and outsourcing to foreign countries to save money. Groups of people need to be educated and learn that some people do not want to be on these programs but circumstances play a role.  

I strongly believe that government intervention is necessary in order to control and regulate social welfare while keeping ethics in mind, but at the same time, it is not necessary for everyone. People have the ability to change their lives for the better with hard work and dedication, but I also know that in some cases that people cannot help themselves or get ahead regardless of how hard they work.  They need the assistance to get by.

So far, there have been several topics talked about in class that affect me personally. Poverty and discrimination affect me directly and I can empathize with others in similar situations.  Being a social worker will be a difficult job, struggling to find the necessary resources out there to better help clients that I will come into contact with.  Cuts in funding have affected all the areas of the economy, especially education and social welfare programs that affect the poor, disabled, and others who have lost jobs, homes, and families.  

  Simply getting into college is a challenge for everyone. The difficulties do not end once you have received that much hoped for college acceptance letter. The truth is that many students with skills, qualifications and a desire for a college education are stopped short in their quest for knowledge and better employment opportunities by the high costs of tuition and student living expenses. Unless a tuition-needy student wins the lottery, his or her most realistic options for getting a college education are interest-consuming college loans or scholarships. Most scholarships are difficult to find or they do not apply to certain groups of people.  One of my biggest problems with education is that our government wants to give free education to immigrants, but most are here illegally and I struggle with the fact that they are offered a free education when one of my children has loans and no job to pay them back.  

In response to this financial need, many corporations, government agencies and civil groups have instituted scholarship programs that give students more of a fighting chance in the high competitive race for financial aid. This aid is going to be affected by the education funding cuts. These cuts would decrease the number of professionals that are going to graduate in the future, which at the same time would affect the technological and scientific growth of the country, fields in which the United States holds first place in the world. Also, this reduction in education funds would reduce the options for young people making them even more confused about what life has to offer them and what they can do in the future. In some cases this situation can confuse the student so much, putting them in a situation which can destroy their view of the American Dream.  But, even in today’s society having a college degree does not guarantee a job in these economic times.  I think the schools should look at the careers that are promising and offer degrees that can potentially lead to a job.  There are many degrees that are offered through many colleges that do not pertain to any job that is out there, leaving millions of students with loans that they cannot pay back.  Colleges need to stop giving out degrees that will not land a student a job after they have worked so hard.  This type of scenario leads young adults down a path of destruction, possibly depression or other destructive things in their lives which could potentially put them in a social welfare program that also is being affected by cuts within our local, state, and federal governments.

Cuts in social welfare programs are affecting other people like children, seniors, the disabled, mental patients who cannot do anything to support themselves. This will create bigger problems, because we would have more homeless people and more crime, pushing the economy to fall even more. All this together would decrease the standard of living of the country and would leave a very difficult situation for future generations. There are ways to fix the state of Illinois’s budget issues if everyone would work together to make a better situation for everyone involved.

You make a very important point when you observe that people prefer not to receive assistance.  Surely 96% to 99% of all adults would rather be self-sufficient and independent with their finances while enjoying a decent life compared to the alternative of needing to rely on the charity of others or government programs to provide them with the resources to survive.  The question is what prevents people from being independent and self-sufficient.  Some people have disabilities or health problems or mental health issues or developmental disabilities that would make it difficult for them to be financially independent, but policies can enhance their autonomy.  Also, on one hand, we probably expect too little of many people with these problems, and we fail to create workplaces or economic roles where such persons could thrive and contribute.  Yet, on the other hand, we are also probably guilty of sometimes expecting too much, and demanding things of persons when there is no reasonable way for those persons to meet the expectations we place upon them. 

   Among those who are dependent, some will have developmental disabilities or physical disabilities that would make it difficult for them to find employment, but we are making progress in finding ways to remove barriers and prejudices and human-imposed limitations on many persons with disabilities or developmental issues.  Others in the population of persons who are dependent probably cope with serious health problems or severe mental health problems that make economic productivity difficult or impossible for them.  It is generally a good idea to help these people feel they are contributing, and help them to get routine in their lives, and give them things they can accomplish, or ensure they have opportunities to have meaning in their lives.  Yet, it may be the case that the free market doesn’t provide such things, and we may need to be creative and find ways to include persons with such problems in our economic life without giving them a sense that they are parasitical or worthless simply because they don’t make significant economic contributions. 

Others who are dependent may have personality disorders, or addictions, or other behavioral issues that make it difficult for them to find and hold a job. For these people we ought to have treatments to help them change and become healthier and enhance their functioning, and until we provide such services, many of these people will not be able to thrive in the labor market, and they will be dependent.  Most people who are dependent on welfare are just going through a phase in their lives where they are temporarily down and poor.  They will naturally work their way back into more prosperous circumstances, and their temporary dependence should really be of no concern to us.  Naturally there will also always be a group of unemployed persons who would be employed if we created an economy with full employment, but our free enterprise system depends on their being a threat of poverty and destitution as a spur to make workers accept bad jobs with low pay, so there will always be healthy and capable people who can’t find work, and temporarily need help while they continue looking for some way to get back into the economic life where they can earn their livelihood.  Finally, there must be a group of persons who are sturdy and healthy and quite capable of functioning well, and they could work, but they refuse to do so, and prefer to use the welfare system. But how many of the dependent Americans really fall into this category?  I think if we guessed 2% or even 1% we would be exaggerating their numbers by at least tenfold. 

Once people see things as you and I do, they will hesitate to cut welfare and human services.  As things stand now, there is a narrative of moral deviance and the poor.  People who use welfare programs are dehumanized and described as reprehensible and lazy.  

But one thing I’m not so certain of is your claim that universities must cease offering degrees that lack vocational direction.  Certainly vocational training has its place in higher education, but colleges are not tools of the capitalist system with a function of producing good workers.  Rather, universities produce citizens, scientific research, gains in knowledge, and graduates who have a set of skills and moral frameworks that ought to make them better people.  They ought to have improved their communication and thinking skills in ways that will make them better friends, better family members, better citizens, better neighbors, and also better workers.  Most college students will probably not find employment in a field closely related to their major or academic concentration, and that is fine.  

MAP grants are not getting adequate funding

For my second reaction paper, I will be discussing my feelings on the lack of MAP Grant funding in Illinois for the 2016-2017 school year.  The 2016-2017 school year is supposed to be the year I graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work.  As a MAP Grant recipient, I am absolutely terrified that, because of the budget impasse in Illinois, MAP Grants will not be funded for the next school year. 

The Senate, House, and Governor Rauner have yet to come to an agreement on a state budget as of this writing.  Because of this, many social service agencies have closed, countless people have become unemployed, public universities are in jeopardy of shutting down without funding. It would be easy to construct a vast list of other negative effects of the budget impasse.  It is my understanding that Governor Rauner has proposed a state budget that would ultimately give him the ability to decide to move money around to different services as he deems necessary.  Of course, the House and Senate will not agree to this as giving control to Governor Rauner removes their own control of the state’s money allocation.  

Many attempts have been made to create a budget that is a suitable compromise for the branches of government previously listed.  However, each of these proposals have been rejected, still leaving us without a budget nearly nine months into the fiscal year.  While I had been following the budget crisis, it had not personally affected me until Governor Rauner vetoed a bill to fund MAP Grants.  

I have no idea if I will be able to finish my schooling next year.  I do not feel comfortable taking out even more students loans than I currently have to finish paying for my schooling when loans will most likely be necessary to pay for my master’s degree that I plan to enroll in after graduating from UIS.  I work at a job that I cannot afford to pay my bills without working overtime. I am not complaining about this; I just do not want to have to do this for the rest of my life.  

After Rauner vetoed the bill, a veto override failed by a mere two votes.  Now, instead of working on new proposals for the state budget, lawmakers are on “break”.  How many employers do you know that allow their employees to take an extended break when their primary job duties have not been fulfilled? It is absurd to me!  If MAP Grants are not funded, thousands of students will not be able to attend school next year, leaving universities with fewer students and less revenue.  Community colleges are funded through the MAP Grant and will be at risk of closing as well. 

Yes, I understand MAP Grants cost the state government a large amount of money.  However, MAP Grants are an investment.  MAP Grants allow students, such as myself, who would not otherwise be able to afford it, to attend college and earn a degree.  Degrees are crucial to obtaining a job that a person can live comfortably on.  If there are less college graduates (or even less universities to attend), who will fill the positions that require a college degree?  Would less qualified people be filling these positions?  Having under qualified employees in degree-required positions could lead to problems with companies’ productivity and profits.  The list can go on and on for negative effects caused by MAP Grants not being funded. 

Lawmakers need to get back to work from their vacation and come to an agreement on a budget, and make sure that budget funds higher education.  Higher education is a critical part to America’s economy.  I have already written about this topic to Governor Rauner and my Representative, Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, explaining my personal situation and the great impact that no funding for MAP Grants would cause to not only myself, but the entire state (and eventually even further).

I am glad you have written to Sara, our Representative in the General Assembly.
According to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the funding for MAP grants in FY 2014 was about $372 million, and about 136,000 students received aid.  Another 160,000 eligible applications for MAP funding were turned down for assistance due to lack of funding, so clearly this policy could reach full power if it were funded at about $800 million per year.

Keeping our state spending at levels we had in FY 2014 and 2015 would create a tremendous deficit, because the temporary increase in the flat income tax went away at the beginning of 2015.  I think there is a structural deficit of about $6.5 billion between what the General Assembly wants to spend and the revenue it takes in with taxes.  We could extend income taxes to retirement income over $50,000 per year and take in over a billion.  We could raise the flat income tax to 5% and increase standard deductions to make it a less burdensome tax to low-income persons and raise another $4 billion or so.  We could add a sales tax to many services and raise another $1 billion.  We might even be able to cut a few hundred million by encouraging greater efficiency in some state agencies or in higher education, or by legalizing marijuana and taxing it.  We could also probably survive a cut in spending of a billion or two billion.  At any rate, it would be possible to get rid of the state’s structural deficit by raising some taxes and cutting some spending.

However, as things stand now, the Republicans say they will not support new taxes.  The Democrats say they will not raise taxes unless some Republicans cross over to vote for higher taxes.  The Governor says he will not support any net increase in taxes (increase in revenue) unless his “Turnaround Agenda” is passed, and at least three of the five items on that agenda will never be passed by the General Assembly so long as Democrats hold majorities in it.  This is the nature of the impasse.  If Democrats would raise taxes without insisting on Republicans going along with them, and then would override the Governor’s veto, we could get a state budget.  However, a couple (or at least one) of the Democrats in the General Assembly won’t go along with that.  If some Republicans would cross over and present a mix of tax increases and budget cuts they could support, and then vote along with Democrats to override the Governor’s inevitable veto, that could also get us out of the budget stalemate.  If the Governor gave up on his turn-around agenda and worked with the Democrats in the General Assembly to create a compromise budget with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, and left aside his turn-around agenda for the time being, that would also solve the problem.  The Democrats could also give up and just let the Governor do whatever he wants, and that would get us a budget, but the Democrats won’t do that.

Will the Governor give up and compromise with the Democrats?  If you think that this could happen, you ought to continue putting pressure on the Governor?  Will some Republicans cross over to work with the Democrats to create a budget and a plan for some spending cuts and some revenue increases (new or higher taxes)?  If you think this is plausible, you ought to be talking with Republicans in the General Assembly, so it is a very good thing that you have been communicating with Sara.

Some sorts of public spending works like investments to increase long-term growth.  MAP grants are exactly that sort of spending.  MAP grants really ought to be funded at $800 million per year in Illinois, and it is a travesty that they are not.  

Illinois Dream Act

Here is a paper by a social work student who was interested in the Illinois Dream Act. I think it's an interesting paper, and worth sharing.  My comments are in the red typeface at the end of the editorial.

On May 4^th, SB 2185 was passed with a 45-11 vote. This bill will create a DREAM Fund, which will be a scholarship account entirely funded by private dollars, and it will give out scholarships to students without legal resident status seeking higher education. The fund would open up college savings programs and prepaid tuition programs to all Illinois residents. The eligibility requirements for a student to receive a scholarship include: lived with their parents or guardian while attending a public or private high school in Illinois, graduated from a public or private high school or received the equivalent of a high school diploma in Illinois, has attended an Illinois school for at least three years as of the date the student graduated from high school or received the equivalent of a high school diploma, and to have at least one parent who immigrated to the United States.

I have mixed feelings about this new bill. These students were brought here with their parents, they had no control over whether their parents had legal status or not, and so to deny them an education is cruel and a violation of international treaties such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A while back Illinois passed a law so these residents could benefit from the in-state tuition rate and that was a fair step. And yet I am also worried that somehow American citizens of Illinois will have to pay for their education, for although American citizens who reside in Illinois and benefit from the taxes paid by undocumented workers (e.g., payroll taxes for Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, or Social Security that these workers will probably never collect, sales taxes, and even sometimes property and income taxes), I worry that the children of undocumented workers might receive public education subsidized by taxpayers (many without any children in public schools or universities) who expect their taxes to support only the citizens and legal residents in their communities. I know the bill says the scholarship funds will be from private dollars and donations, but this is Illinois; we’re not known for managing our money or our programs’ money the way we should. I don’t want to be seen as an uncaring person who is against the bill, but if these residents are of college age then shouldn’t they now know their undocumented status and either work on changing it before going to Illinois colleges and universities or else go to universities in the nations where they have legal status? 

Yes I am an European-American but I worked just as hard to get into school and I have taken out loans to help pay for it. But sometimes it bugs me that if you are not European-American and a school has to fit the diversity quota for that year, then come on in and here is a scholarship for you just because of your ethnic background and not your academic achievement. It would just be nice to find a way for people to earn their education by following the law, and by not taking opportunities or funding away from the students who are legal immigrants and those who are American citizens.

One point you want to make is that there is a sort of compact between citizens and their government, and so residents who are not citizens stand in a special situation, and it seems that those residents who obey immigration regulations ought to be rewarded by receiving nearly equal treatment with citizens, while those residents who do not follow immigration laws or regulations ought to be forced to do so.  You have not mentioned anything about a government’s responsibility to establish clear procedures and to process immigration cases at a reasonable speed, but I think you probably are assuming that we expect non-citizen residents to “follow the law and procedure” because we expect laws and procedures to be clear, fair, and administered with reasonable speed (which is not, unfortunately, the case for immigration case processing in our nation). But at any rate, it is clear that some citizens support their government because they conceive of their government as an expression of the common interests of citizens and legal residents. Inasmuch as the government may devote American lives and treasure to the support of undocumented non-citizen residents or foreign citizens living abroad, such citizens may feel the government is diminishing the resources available to support citizens and legal residents.  So, it seems your opposition to public funding to support undocumented resident aliens must rest on this feeling that this is to some degree a breach of the contract and trust between citizens and government.

 There is also the quite natural sentiment that laws established in democracies are the laws we as citizens want, and people who come to our land should follow our laws.  Persons who live here without legal status are not obeying our laws, and are therefore demonstrating that they are willing to live in a way that contradicts the will of the citizens and legal residents.  You are suggesting that the children of such households ought to take care of their status to become legal residents (but you do not examine whether we as a people have pushed our government to make this feasible or a possible option for such children), or you are suggesting (implying, but I have edited the paper to make it explicit) that such children ought to seek an education in the lands where they have citizenship. You are also concerned about ideals of equal opportunity and the principle of individual merit, and you somewhat object to policies that give more opportunities to individuals because of the groups those individuals happen to belong to, regardless of individual merit. Again, the principles, when spelled out, make sense.

The DREAM Fund is to be supported with private donations, rather than public funds, although some public funds will be used to administer it, I suppose. And various programs we have to give incentives to Illinois residents to send their children to schools in Illinois will now be open to persons whose resident status is undocumented or in limbo. 

By the way, it is sometimes claimed that because undocumented foreign residents in the United States don’t have Social Security numbers, they therefore do not pay Medicare or Social Security withholding on the earned income. In fact, undocumented foreign workers who have jobs in the United States tend to use fake Social Security numbers. This is how employers and banks are starting to catch undocumented workers and account holders, by comparing the Social Security numbers reported and the names associated with those Social Security numbers in government databases.  It’s true that some very casual labor jobs or agriculture jobs might pay cash only, without any withholding or taxes paid, but even in those cases where income taxes are evaded, most residents cannot escape paying sales taxes or (sometimes indirectly through their rent payments) property taxes. 

Nice post about the state budget.

I enjoyed this post from PeoriaStory about the Illinois budget. Another article here at the Peoria Journal Star explained the budget problem's implications for higher education.

One thing I don't understand is why the Comptroller's Office says in this fiscal year (which is in its eighth month now) that $1.9 billion has been given to higher education, including, according to the Comptroller's website, $583,369,628 to the University of Illinois (leaving only $184,417,870 unexpended). If the state has given $583 million to the University of Illinois and only has $184 million left to give, then how can it be true, as we're told, that the state is way behind on its funding for the U of I. We're being given (temporary) pay cuts and the reasoning is that since the Illinois State hasn't given the money allocated to the University, therefore we must make these sacrifices to get by. And yet, according to my understanding of what the Comptroller's Office claims, the University has had much of it's allocation expended. So, what happened to the $583 million supposedly given to the University of Illinois for FY 2010?

- Eric