Journal Inquirer . com

Just words or just words?
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Published: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:03 PM EDT

Shared sacrifice — asking citizens to collectively give so everyone can gain in the future — is a common call when times are tough.Like so many leaders on the national and state stage have done, Gov. Jodi Rell used these words in her January state of the state address and many times since during the struggle to close a $9 billion budget gap.
Are these calls for shared sacrifice just words plugged into a speech to add verbal drama or for poll-boosting appeal? Or are “fair” and “just” words for a moral calling — for everyone to help in meaningful ways?Talk of shared sacrifice can be a tricky thing — especially when it comes from the mouths of politicians. Bush-Cheney, along with congressional Republican leadership, exploited the post-9/11 condition to launch their version of shared sacrifice: tax breaks for the wealthy; military service (including multiple tours of duty) for heroes from poor and middle-class families; and high-priced mercenaries from Halliburton and Blackwater USA.
Contrast that with FDR’s call for unity and sacrifice. Volunteers from all walks of life came together in our darkest hours. Rich, poor, and even corporations shared in a fair way, with everyone chipping in to help, based on physical and economic ability. Food and supplies were rationed. The poor and working class gave what they had. The top tax rate rose to 91 percent for a short time, allowing the wealthy their proportionate sacrifice.In January, President Barack Obama asked for shared sacrifice to solve the myriad problems facing our nation — a bad economy, world conflict, lost revenue from tax breaks, cuts in services, and a deregulated Wall Street trampling on Main Street. The call is evolving while the president and Congress push to get our nation on a better track. History will judge how well the call was answered.Meantime, this state needs to move faster, for people need help now.The current budget is short. In fact, the gap is huge in the next biennium. Sacrifice and cooperation are indeed the keys to get out of the bad spot we’re in.Working families are giving every day — some willingly, some not. Layoffs are up. Foreclosures are up. Incidents of lost health care are increasing too. Take-home pay to cycle back into the economy? That’s down.And still, many of those who have suffered the most stand most ready to help.Corporations, on the other hand, led by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, are buying ads saying, “Don’t tax us — just cut the services the other guy needs.” Cut the services of those who have already sacrificed the most. Cut the services that help the blind, disabled, children, and students. Even cut services that insure businesses comply with the rules.Since many corporations avoid paying their fair share through loopholes, you’d think the governor would at least ask them to chip in.The same goes for our wealthiest citizens. They have not been asked to sacrifice.Sure, some may have lost in their Wall Street bets, but in most cases there’s more than enough left in the bank to buy food, keep the house and the car, and still avoid a “staycation.”But, in fairness, none have actually refused to help. Rell has just refused to ask.FDR rightly said it was not a sacrifice for the industrialist — or the wage earner, the farmer, the shopkeeper, the trainman, or the doctor — to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forgo extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Not if it is for the common good. Rather is it a privilege.Just five months ago, Rell said, “This will be a time of shared sacrifice. That which we would like to do will be set aside for that which we must do.”Rell still can invite corporations and the wealthy to help share in the sacrifices that the less-than privileged already have made for our state.Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.