The fiscal crisis of the federal government, states, cities and school districts could be solved simply by raising the taxes on the rich and on corporations. We should not be cutting school funding and laying off teachers, on the contrary we should be expanding education to make it free from K to Ph.D., as it was in some state only a few decades ago. We should not be cutting back public services, but rather expanding them by creating a single payer health care system, one that provides free health care to all.
We can stop the attack on public services and workers, but it will take a movement. The current situation represents an enormous challenge but also a tremendous opportunity. If we involve ourselves in the fight for jobs and services—as public employees and as part of the community, as both librarians and the clients of the public library, as teachers, parents and students, as fire fighters and the homeowners and apartment dwellers that they protect, as social workers and those who receive public assistance—we can build a broad, popular movement to save our communities and our jobs.
As socialists we know that when given the choice between either sharp budget cuts or tax increases for the rich, working people will choose to make the rich pay.