The spectacular surge in stock prices that immediately followed President Nixon's announcement of his new economic policy vividly underscores the fact that this policy has yielded and will continue to yield huge financial benefits to those with large stock investments while freezing the wages of teachers and other workers. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer.
There is no more important issue facing teachers - and the union - than the effects of the new Nixon policy. Unfortunately, in the past few days, there have been contradictory and misleading reports on what its impact will be on teachers and the schools. In this column next Sunday, we will have an analysis based on further knowledge, after consultation with the AFL-CIO and with government officials.
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In 1969, when mayoral candidate Norman Mailer advocated statehood for New York City, the suggestion was viewed by most as a product of the candidate's literary, rather than political disposition. Now, only two years later, a committee of considerable size, headed by Congresswoman Bella Azub, is active in the statehood campaign. Leading liberal officials have joined in support. While the press has been, in a number of editorials, critical of statehood, the preponderance of news coverage has apparently been give to supporters of the proposal. In view of this, it is most unfortunate that when a well-documented position paper was released by the Citizens Union opposing statehood, it was given only scant notice by the press.
The report, "New York City Statehood: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed," is not the policy of the Citizens Union but was presented to the group for policy consideration by Dr. Donna E. Shalala, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York. A basic argument for statehood is that the city is being short-changed. The proof usually advanced is that the state collects more in taxes from the city than it returns to the city in the form of state aid. Dr. Shalala asserts: "Such a crude argument raises significant questions of equity. Should, for example, all aid programs distribute funds on the basis of what residents have paid in? Carrying this philosophy to its logical conclusion, the poorest areas of the new city-state could expect to receive aid in proportion to what they contribute. There is little more to be said about this suggested approach of the proponents of city-statehood other than it embraces an absurd, inequitable method of financing public services. It is also inconsistent with liberal, reform ideology which has long insisted on a redistributive role for government - perhaps properly described as a 'Robin Hood' role."
Specious Philosophy and False Assumptions
This critique is convincing in itself, but Dr. Shalala goes on to refute not only the philosophical basis for the city-state, but also the economic assumption - so often repeated that many now accept it as a fact -- that New York City would gain over $1 billion through statehood. Contrary to general belief, the charge that the city has been getting less and less is not true under the present governmental setup.
"As the city's contribution to state coffers declines," Dr. Shalala affirms, "its aid has simultaneously gone up." Moreover, "there are probably enough initial and long-term costs which the city would have to assume as a result of statehood, to guarantee no fiscal gains." Even if there were some slight immediate advantage, these gains would be wiped out within a few years as the current economic and population trends continue.
Clearly, what New York City needs is not isolation as a state, but massive state and federal aid to reverse these trends. "The proponents of statehood," Dr. Shalala warns, "use a faulty and even reactionary concept - that you should get back what you pay in." (This does not mean, to be sure, that there are no serious injustices in the present city-state fiscal relationship.) But it does mean "that the political leaders of the city must frame a strong and clear position that the city should get more funds from the state because by every measure of need - fiscal and social - it deserves more. The purpose of government must be to redistribute revenue on the basis of need. To move away from that position is to suggest a fundamental shift in the liberal philosophy that seems both dangerous and foolhardy."
Once the political and economic bases for statehood are rejected, all that remains is the desire for "community control" for New York as a city -- a desire which, if fulfilled, would leave New York economically worse off and which would inevitably lead to similar demands for community control for each part of the city. The end can only be a complete governmental breakdown.
It is time for liberals to take a stand before the statehood idea is accepted, for the "community control" of cities and parts of cities will lead to the same deterioration as we have seen in the community control of schools.