Enough Budget Slashing, Let's Flip

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/16-1

Our country once had a more widely shared appreciation for both public services and the workers who provide them, including firefighters, teachers, and police officers. Today, however, state legislatures across the country are singing a very different tune. Instead of raising new revenue to protect those services and workers, states are slashing from their budgets the things that make our nation strong.

Cutting to get out of a deficit is like digging to get out of a ditch. It puts everything we value at risk. But it doesn't have to be this way.

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United for a Fair Economy's new report, Flip It to Fix It: An Immediate, Fair Solution to State Budget Shortfalls, demonstrates that one powerful solution is to invert each state's tax structure. We calculated how much revenue state governments would raise if they flipped their current effective tax rates at the 50th income percentile and had the top 20 percent of income-earners in each state pay taxes at the same rate as the poorest 20 percent.

The results of this fiscal flip are quite dramatic. By turning each state's tax system on its head — from regressive to progressive — states would raise an additional $490 billion in revenue, easily wiping away the combined $112 billion state and local government budget shortfalls. The lake of red budget ink that has stained capitals across the nation would disappear overnight.

More at the link --