Budgets and Sacrifice

Matt Haney

By Matt Haney

February 14, 2009

There are urgent things taking place in our city and our state that demand our attention and action.

San Francisco faces a $576 million budget deficit. To take out $576 million in cuts, we’re talking about decimating public health, parks, recreation centers, police, fire, services for children, the homeless, needy and mentally ill, and major reductions in city salaries. There isn’t a whole lot of San Francisco’s budget that is discretionary. Services would have to be reduced by 20-30 percent and 1000+ city employees could be laid off. The safety net in this city would be devastated. All of this while the state of California is poised to agree to its own extensive cuts in services to the needy and education to help close its $42 billion budget deficit. School districts will cut teachers, community colleges will cut classes and programs, state health care and disability payments will be reduced.

The economic situation in this country is no joke. It is dead serious and by all indications, it is only going to get worse. I’m not sure if people fully understand this: we are losing jobs and the stock market is falling at a rate that this country has not seen in 80 years. So far, federal interventions have been largely unsuccessful.

The stark reality of these economics translates into a time of great moral crisis. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether, in this economic climate, we are going to backpedal on what we know is right and continue to think within a narrow scope, or are we going to stand firm and expand what conventional wisdom says is possible? An economic recession is a time when people who are suffering, in large part due to no fault of their own, need more support from the community, not less. We need people who can afford it, both in time and money, to help us all make it through. A recession is the most critical time for our safety net to be intact and for us to devise services and programs to lift people back up and get them on their feet again.

This past presidential election was about a lot of things. It was about restoring faith in a political process and fixing a system that was broken. It was about bringing the perspectives and interests of ordinary people back to the forefront.

But above all, in my view, it was about sacrifice. It was about the fact that the United States of America had become a society that was looking out only for the interests of the privileged few. It was about the fact that our country had been attacked and waged two wars, but we were never asked in any fundamental way to change our behavior or our outlook. It was about a country that has been speeding down an endless path of consumption with little thought about where we were headed, with more and more tax cuts for those who needed them the least. We are currently suffering the consequences of these policies and behaviors, policies that have left us with a broken economy, a flailing education system, and misguided priorities. We may have a window here to fundamentally alter our path, but it will likely be brief.

In the same way that Obama is out there speaking on the national stage about the importance of investment in the future and coming to the aid of those who need it, our state and local leaders must also talk about shared sacrifice here. They must drive it home, not just with respect to what we will all lose, but also about the obligation to support people in our community who need it most. The case must be made and it must be made in the strongest terms. There is really no other option.

There aren’t a whole lot of cities in the country that can say that they have core values associated with them. Thankfully, we are lucky enough to live in one of those cities. For that reason, when we live in San Francisco, we are making a statement about what we believe in. And we all should be proud of that. But being able to live in a place that believes in certain values means that there are times when we have to make personal sacrifices to defend those values. And it means that when those values are challenged, even by forces that are beyond our control, we have to join together to protect them.

In 2008, we built a real movement, one that this country had not seen in generations. But it was more than just a movement to elect a President. It was a movement built on community empowerment, shared sacrifice and shared responsibility, and a desire to fundamentally change this country from the bottom up. This movement has a responsibility to continue to grow its influence and stand up where we are most needed.

And there is no doubt, we are needed right now. The amount of money that California will get from the federal stimulus package cannot prevent or provide a substitute for the cuts in state and local funding for education, health care, social services, and transportation. And all of this is happening right now. We could wait a few months and it could be too late. We need to make a statement both to the people who think that sacrifice is not needed and those that think people will be unwilling to bear it . We are being challenged and tested. Politics has been changed fundamentally in this country. But perhaps the powers that be don’t realize that just yet, or they don’t believe its real. But the time is coming when we may need to remind them.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is currently debating having a special election in June to put revenue measures on the ballot—measures which will require 2/3rds vote of the city to pass. These revenue measures would allow San Francisco to partially or fully reverse the proposed cuts on public health and other social services. The Board recently voted to have the June election on the table, and the Mayor vetoed that proposal, stating that June was too soon for an election and that the revenue proposals needed more time to be fleshed out. As a result, the content and extent of the revenue proposals, as well as the timing of a potential special election, is under discussion right now.

There are a lot of different factors that our elected leaders will have to consider when deciding which route to take. There is clearly not one right solution to this crisis. But what we should communicate to them at this stage is not to think small. We want and need big thinking and big action. We cannot continue to think that we can nibble around the edges to fill the gaps in the short term. We need bold, sweeping, out of the box thinking that draws on the best ideas and minds that this city can offer. Let’s throw out the playbook. Let’s be courageous. And when the time comes to fight, all of us will be there to support them.

This past week we celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.” Now is a time for standing firm. There are things that are non-negotiable. And one of those non-negotiables is that when times get hard, we should be sure that the sacrifices are shared, and that the poor and vulnerable do not share a disproportionate part of that burden. That is a principle worth fighting for, and we may have finally built a movement that can truly protect it.

Matt Haney is a Bay Area native and resident of San Francisco.  He has worked for a number of years in youth organizing, public policy, and progressive advocacy.  He is the co-founder of Citizen Hope, a group dedicated to empowering people to bring about change through social networking, community service, and political engagement. He was the Bay Area Student Coordinator and the New Mexico Youth Vote Director for the Obama campaign.  He is also currently a JD/MA Education student at Stanford, but will be a Cal Bear for life.  You can find him organizing events, talking politics over coffee, or cutting it up on the soul train line.  

Matthew Haney

Bio

Matt Haney is a Bay Area native and resident of San Francisco. He has worked for a number of years in youth organizing, public policy, and progressive advocacy. He is the co-founder of Citizen Hope, a group dedicated to empowering people to bring about change through social networking, community service, and political engagement. He was the Bay Area Student Coordinator and the New Mexico Youth Vote Director for the Obama campaign. He is also currently a JD/MA Education student at Stanford, but will be a Cal Bear for life. You can find him organizing events, talking politics over coffee, or cutting it up on the soul train line.

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