By David May
The Federal government and 48 states are facing their worst budget deficits in decades, with several large states near bankruptcy. California alone, with a population of 34 million, has a deficit covering more than 32% of its total budget! Texas and New York are not very far behind. The Federal government, which only two years ago was actually turning a profit, is once again running at a massive deficit. This is the fruit of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and can only have dire consequences for the millions of the poor and elderly who depend upon welfare and Medicare/Medicaid. Tuition at state colleges is rising quickly, and several states have already warned that entire education programs and grants will be eliminated. Federal and state workers will once again face layoffs. This will destabilize one of the few stable sectors of the economy! Once again the working people and the youth are being forced to foot the bill for the recession, while the wealthiest Americans and the top corporations are paying the least amount of taxes in history.
Every state of the union except New Mexico and Wyoming are currently in fiscal crisis. The Democratic and Republican Governors and Legislatures alike have slated welfare and educational programs for elimination. Many states have also warned of layoffs, while others are either already laying workers off or forcing furloughs on others. California Governor Grey Davis has proposed to cut more than $5 billion over a period of 18 months. $10.2 billion has also been slated for "adjustment" over a longer period, and was announced in December. Public transportation, education, local government and state employees’ pensions will absorb the largest reductions. In addition to cuts, the state is shifting a large part of the debt onto local governments. Between December and June over 60,000 welfare recipients are due to be thrown off assistance under the "Time Out" policy, a number which may very well be swelled if the Democrat Davis decides to slash the state’s welfare programs even further.
Virginia is also undergoing a deep financial crisis, and has laid off 1,800 workers as well as giving out furloughs. Massachusetts is expected to have a $300 million gap, and has slashed 50,000 people off of the welfare rolls. In Oregon and Kentucky, minor felons are being released from the city and county jails to trim costs. Iowa has already furloughed 3,400 state employees. Illinois faces a $4.8 billion deficit, and has frozen hiring as well as all infrastructure projects. However, nearly every state has made the same decision – that police, prisons and the National Guard will come before education, welfare and state employees’ pensions and paychecks when it comes time to make cuts. Despite the fact that tens of thousands of working poor were already eliminated from welfare under the Clinton Administration, and in a country with the highest percentage of its population in prison, this budget crisis can mean nothing other than even wider cuts to the millions who depend on public assistance to survive. And despite the fact that the police in this country are armed and equipped on a level more befitting a paramilitary force, workers pensions, not cop cars, will get the axe.
The elected representatives of both parties, even the most liberal Democrats like Grey Davis, are providing the working class and students with a very important lesson. It gives us an example of how the capitalists and their representatives, "liberal" and conservative alike, will always defend those things which are essential to maintaining their class interests – the army, police, prisons, and courts above all else if they can. In fact, those are the real functions of the state under capitalism, to provide the ruling elite with the physical and legalistic power necessary to keep the working class in line in order to run the system of rent, interest and profit smoothly. If the state did not exist within a society that was still divided into classes, anarchy would reign because the two classes would be engaged in endless conflict.
This crisis also shows the absolute impotency and bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, and Labor’s alliance with it. No real change can be expected from these people other than modifications in the methods they use to help exploit the working class economically and politically. They are even incapable of really defending the welfare and educational programs that they initiated decades ago! And, in individuals such as Clinton we saw the Democrats actually leading the assault against the meager gains that have been won by working people and the trade unions in the US. The present budget crisis is also an extension of Bush’s drive for war in the Middle East which has an estimated cost of $200 billion. A war will only deepen the crisis. The seemingly unending and ever-increasing problems we face today – from the war on Iraq to the recession – are really one and the same problem, the crisis of capitalism. This system cannot offer workers and youth a job for life, guaranteed education, or any real stability. It can only offer us crisis after crisis. The workers and students really only have one option – to fight for change. Join us in the Fight for a Socialist Alternative!