In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan organization that fights privatization of public assets, reports good news from Louisiana:
ExxonMobil is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas corporation, often cutting deals with authoritarian leaders in countries like Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Its fourth-quarter profit last year nearly quintupled to $8.38 billion after President Trump’s tax cuts.
Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge Parish School Board has a $30 million budget deficit and teacher shortage. Its school buildings and buses are crumbling. Ninety-seven percent of its students, the majority of which are black or brown, qualify for free or reduced lunch. Teachers and school employees haven’t had an across-the-board pay raise since 2008.
Yet, ExxonMobil has received $700 million in local property tax exemptions from the parish over the last 20 years.
Not anymore.
Earlier this month, the school board narrowly voted against giving ExxonMobil two property tax breaks totaling about $2.9 million over a decade, one for a refinery and one for a chemical plant. Both facilities have already been built, which left some school board members scratching their heads.
“I would be a lot more receptive for a new project, something that’s going to bring in new business, new jobs,” one board member said.
But this isn’t just a story of elected officials making a rational decision based on the facts. It’s also one about democracy— and one that rings out even louder after striking teachers in Los Angeles, California, just won more resources and support for their students.
A teacher walkout threat set the stage in Baton Rouge. Last October, teachers and school support staff voted overwhelmingly to hold a one-day school shutdown to demand that the school board reject ExxonMobil’s request. Within hours, the requests were taken off the agenda for a forthcoming board meeting. Then, after last week’s board vote, ExxonMobil dropped the bids for good.
A company representative says that losing the tax breaks could make them hesitate to invest in the local plants because of a “lack of predictability” and “confusion.”
But the teachers know something much bigger than one corporation’s future is on the line. “The survival of public education is at stake,” said the president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators back in October.
She’s right. The idea that taxes should be perpetually cut on corporations and the wealthy — known as “trickle-down economics” — is gutting public education nationwide, falling the hardest on poor, black, and brown communities.
Total state and local K-12 funding per student is still well below what it was before the 2008 recession. Seventeen states actually send more education dollars to wealthier districts than to high-poverty ones. Over 1.5 million students attend a school that has a law enforcement officer, but no school counselor. Spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of public education funding in the last three decades.
Until we get real about how out of whack our tax system is, more and more students are going to go to schools with no heat, aging pipes, few supplies, and few adults other than police officers and underpaid teachers.
And the quickest path to getting real is more democracy, teachers fighting and making their voices heard alongside parents and communities for what’s best for all public school students.
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Thanks for reading,
Jeremy Mohler
In the Public Interest
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Lots of corporate welfare is unnecessary. Do the taxpayers of New York and Virginia need to pay Amazon to come to their city? The states and cities will already be paying more for infrastructure, schools, housing, etc. in order for Amazon to set up. After all the competition to attract Amazon, Bezos decided to set up in cities where he already had residences. We are spending a lot more on corporate welfare than we spend on social safety nets. Today our corporate welfare expenditures are over $100 billion.
“About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent nearly 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.”
https://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-vs-social-welfare/
Good for those teachers, and their school. Hats off to them. (And, it’s been SO cold here in Upstate New York this past week that I don’t take off my hat for much.)
(This comment is written with thoughts of a combination of Exxon and LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia.) We do not have to accept trickle down corporate welfare. We can force politicians, corporations, and billionaires to stop stealing from the public. We can strike. We can walk out. Speak loud and strong at board and council meetings. Make them run for the back door. Protest in front of their homes and their businesses. Give them sustained grief. Damage their brand name. Damage their reputations. Walk. Talk. Make them miserable for the destruction they cause. We are strong together. Honk your horn if you are with us.
Exactly, LCT. We don’t have their money but we can use our voices and actions to expose their dirty tricks.
Has any organization identified the tax cuts communities have provided to corporations and big box stores like Walmart? If so, it would be good to have a link to that information to help your readers inform their local voters about the money THEY are providing to backfill the lost revenues.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Here’s an idea: why not give ExxonMobil half of what it has received annually— roughly 17,500,000 and use the other half to fund the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools. I daresay the school district would bring in some new jobs with that additional money and if they had the money to spend they might generate demand for more small local businesses like grocery stores, hardware stores, and department stores… but probably East Baton Rouge has provided subsidies for Walmart and Lowe’s and are now wondering why there aren’t any decent fukk-time jobs for folks who live in town. Oh well, at least they can buy cheap groceries and building materials.