Budget Deal Gets It Wrong

The economy is healthy and growing, and unemployment is relatively low. Even wages are beginning to rise. Great.

But our infrastructure, from roads and bridges and public transportation to power distribution, air traffic control and communications systems is badly in need of overhaul; an aging population has thrown our retirement and healthcare systems into crisis; the basic and applied scientific research funding needed to maintain our leadership position internationally has been tailing off, and a reliance on private funding has compromised its integrity; the costs of addressing the causes and results of climate change loom ever larger, and are no longer on the horizon but here now.

Rather than increasing deficit spending, we should raise funds for public use, to return to the private sector in the form of contracts and grants to address these issues and to shore up funds for retirement and healthcare by raising taxes, using a more progressive system. This is not that complicated, and many of our office holders know it, but they need our support to push for it, and maybe even run on it in November.

[submitted to the The Boston Globe but not selected for publication]