Latest news with #RaiseUp
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Leandro is a big deal so why won't the mainstream media acknowledge it?
Getty Images If you've been following this year's legislative session, you probably haven't heard anything about the biggest issue in the biggest part of the state budget. The scope of the story is massive, affecting the constitutional rights to educational opportunities for North Carolina's 1.5 million public school students. And the story is juicy, rife with mystery, lawlessness, and government corruption. The lack of coverage is strange. Newspaper readers are more likely to have read about efforts to ban cellphones from classrooms or to name 'Raise Up' as the state's official hip-hop song. If you haven't guessed yet, the big, strangely unmentionable issue is Leandro. Leandro is the 31-year-old lawsuit about the state's unwillingness to provide our public school students with the 'sound basic' education that they're guaranteed under our state constitution. Despite students' multiple victories in state courts, state leaders have yet to provide students with the quality schools and educational opportunities they are owed. From January 1 to May 1, the word 'Leandro' has shown up in just one news story that ran in the state's two largest newspapers serving Raleigh and Charlotte. The term has failed to appear in any news stories from the major newspapers serving Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Wilmington, or Asheville. It's difficult to imagine an issue in state politics that is having a bigger impact on North Carolinians. There are currently 1.5 million children in our public schools who are having their constitutional rights violated. Millions more have had their rights violated since the case was originally filed in 1994. Every court that's weighed in on this question from 1997 to 2022, regardless of ideological makeup, has agreed that students' constitutional rights are being violated by the state. When the nation's leading nonpartisan education researchers completed a years' long study of North Carolina's education system in 2019, they reached the same conclusion, noting also that the state has been moving backwards. The General Assembly's strategy of pairing austerity budgets with unregulated, low-quality privatization schemes has been making things worse. Test scores have fallen, particularly for students of color and students from families with low incomes. Teacher vacancies are at record levels. The courts have tried to fix things. In 2020, they ordered the state to develop a detailed plan for the state to provide students with the types of schools promised under our state constitution. In November 2021, a Superior Court judge ordered the state to fully implement the Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan – a research-based blueprint for achieving constitutional compliance by the 2028 school year. The Leandro Plan makes several important steps to dramatically improve schools, including: Expanding NC Pre-K so more students from families with lower incomes can enter kindergarten ready to succeed, Investing in teacher training programs and improving teacher pay, training, and mentorships to address our record-high teacher vacancies, Staffing nurses, psychologists, counselors, and social workers at recommended levels to manage students' physical and mental health needs, and Dramatically increasing supports for disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English language learners. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the state's responsibility to fully fund the eight-year Plan in November 2022. That is where the story became particularly interesting. First, the mystery. Why did a Roy Cooper appointee try to kill Leandro? Per the Supreme Court's November 2022 court order, State Controller Nels Roseland was supposed to transfer money from state coffers to the schools for the first years of the Plan. He refused, citing 'unresolved' legal issues. The Supreme Court cited Roseland's motion in halting the transfer of funding and for re-hearing the case in February 2024. There's a juicy story in there for an enterprising investigative journalist. Until Roseland's appointment, Governor Cooper had seemingly been a staunch advocate for Leandro. His staff created the Leandro Plan. Each of his budgets recommended full funding of the Plan. Yet his nominee for State Controller fought against the Plan. Roseland's opposition was known prior to his nomination, having publicly indicated that he opposed Leandro and wouldn't transfer the funding owed to students. It remains a mystery why Cooper didn't pull Roseland's nomination or remove him from office for his actions harming students. While the Supreme Court halted the transfer of funds for years 1-3 of the Plan in early 2023, its order still requires the state to fund the Leandro Plan going forward. Rather than following the law and implementing the Leandro Plan, legislative leaders have simply ignored the court order. They don't dispute that students' rights are being violated. Nor have they put together an alternative plan to improve schools. They've simply said, 'you can't make us.' One would think that such wanton lawlessness would be a frequent subject of reporting from the capitol. If that's not juicy enough, there's also blatant corruption. That corruption has taken two forms. First, in early 2023, Senator Phil Berger and former Speaker of the House Tim Moore appealed to get the case back in front of the Supreme Court. Why did they want to do that? Well, that court now has a 5-2 Republican majority. One of those five justices is Senator Phil Berger's son, Phil Berger, Jr. Junior, along with four of his hyper-partisan colleagues agreed to rehear the Leandro case mere months after the November 2022 ruling. In agreeing to rehear the case just months after a decision, the high court ignored foundational legal concepts such as respect for precedent and the rule of law. The facts of the case hadn't changed. Only the partisan makeup of the court had changed, allowing Junior a second chance to rule on whether Daddy can continue to ignore students' constitutional rights. This collusive, nepotistic relationship between the judicial and legislative branches has removed a foundational element of our system of checks and balances The second form of corruption lies in how legislative leaders have spent the money that is supposed to be supporting public school students. They're spending over $920 million this year for vouchers that mostly subsidize wealthy families who have their kids in private schools. They've also passed a series of tax cuts disproportionately benefiting corporations and wealthy North Carolinians. It's no coincidence that these corporate and wealthy beneficiaries happen to be the same people who fund reelection campaigns. School children, alas, do not. Given the above, it remains baffling why the press continues to ignore Leandro. The Leandro Plan would have a far greater impact on student achievement than any of the 'big' issues being discussed this session such as cell phone bans or school calendar flexibility (which, incidentally, is part of the Leandro Plan, and was supposed to have been passed in 2021). The failure to fund the Plan is undoubtedly suppressing student achievement, particularly for historically underserved populations. Meanwhile the lawlessness and corruption mirror what we're seeing at the federal level from the Trump administration. It's a major deal that General Assembly leadership believes they can simply ignore the parts of the state constitution that they don't agree with or find inconvenient. That puts all of our basic rights as North Carolinians at risk. It's also a big deal that the Supreme Court is likely to tarnish its legitimacy and credibility to rubber stamp the legislature's absurd position. The decision from the re-heard case is expected any day now. If you're a journalist, please let me know, why aren't you covering this issue? Is it not a big deal that 1.5 million children are having their basic rights violated? Is it not a major scandal that the General Assembly has been openly violating a court order for the past 1,283 days? Are we not in the midst of a constitutional crisis when legislators argue that they can simply ignore the parts of the constitution they disagree with? If the answer to any of those questions is 'yes' then I implore you to start centering Leandro in your reporting.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts home to more millionaires despite new surtax
BOSTON (SHNS) – Surtax supporters released data Monday that they said pokes holes in the argument that the state's new tax on high earners is causing higher-income residents to move out of Massachusetts. The report from a pair of progressive research groups found that the number of individuals in Massachusetts with at least $50 million in total wealth grew from 1,954 in 2022 — the year voters adopted the 4% surtax on household income above $1 million — to 2,642 in 2024, a 35.2% increase. The Institute for Policy Studies and State Revenue Alliance report analyzed data from Wealth-X, a proprietary database of millions of records on the world's wealthiest individuals, according to Raise Up Massachusetts. The new income surtax, which adds to the existing 5% income tax rate, generated $2.46 billion in its first full year, and Beacon Hill Democrats are spending that money on investments in education and transportation. The report measures accumulated wealth rather than annual income, but surtax supporters say they're certain that some share of the 'ultra-wealthy' captured in the report are paying the income surtax. 'This is further evidence that multi-millionaires are not fleeing the state in response to the new tax – they are staying here, paying more in taxes, and enjoying the stronger transportation and public education systems that Fair Share dollars are funding,' said Shanique Rodriguez, executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table and a member of the Raise Up Massachusetts Steering Committee. There's bipartisan agreement in Massachusetts that high costs of living here, including housing and energy prices, are causing some residents to pick up and move to lower-cost states. While addressing the underlying causes of that outmigration and the state's 'affordability crisis' has become an ongoing public policy challenge, the report looks exclusively at the number of higher-wealth households to draw conclusions about tax impacts. Raise Up says the 2,642 ultra-wealthy individuals delineated in the report represent 0.04% of the Massachusetts population, and collectively hold $500.4 billion in total wealth. The report also modeled a hypothetical 'wealth tax' on this group with at least $50 million in total wealth. The researchers concluded that Massachusetts has the potential to raise $3.7 billion with a 1% tax, $7.4 billion with a 2% tax and $11 billion with a 3% tax. Raise Up spokesman Andrew Farnitano said the group is not pursing a wealth tax 'at the moment' and instead remains focused on its push for the Legislature to approve a new 'corporate fair share' policy targeting global businesses that advocates say evade millions of dollars in state taxes. The number of Massachusetts taxpayers with annual income above $1 million was about 27,000 in 2022, the last year when data is available from the IRS, according to Raise Up. The report found that the number of 'millionaires by net worth' in Massachusetts, a category that includes the value of homes, retirement and other assets, rose by 38.6% between 2022 and 2024, from 441,610 individuals to 612,109. Their collective wealth increased from $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion, or 37.3%. 'Research has demonstrated that million-dollar earners and high net worth individuals tend to exhibit lower rates of migration compared to the general public,' said lead report author Omar Ocampo, researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies. 'This is not a surprise. Their family, business and social network deeply root them to amenity rich locales where they enjoy a high quality of life. A modest increase on their incomes does not compel the overwhelming majority of millionaires to flee to other states.' President Donald Trump stirred debate over tax policy recently when he weighed in on higher taxes on those earning more than $1 million per year, including impacts on other taxpayers and election outcomes. In a recent Boston Globe 'inbox' item, Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Mass, said surtax-funded investments in education and transportation will spark housing production and that policies like free school meals, bus rides and community college 'are making the state more affordable for middle-class families.' 'Massachusetts is experiencing outmigration, but it's not multimillionaires who are fleeing slightly higher taxes. It's young workers fleeing our high cost of living,' Cohn wrote. 'As a millennial, I've become accustomed to seeing friends move out of Boston, then out of the state entirely, due to high cost of living. If you want to buy a home for a decent price or find affordable child care, good luck. We are losing people because affording the high quality of life we tout is getting father and farther out of reach.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts home to more millionaires despite new surtax, report says
Surtax supporters released data Monday that they said pokes holes in the argument that the state's new tax on high earners is causing higher-income residents to move out of Massachusetts. The report from a pair of progressive research groups found that the number of individuals in Massachusetts with at least $50 million in total wealth grew from 1,954 in 2022 -- the year voters adopted the 4% surtax on household income above $1 million -- to 2,642 in 2024, a 35.2% increase. The Institute for Policy Studies and State Revenue Alliance report analyzed data from Wealth-X, a proprietary database of millions of records on the world's wealthiest individuals, according to Raise Up Massachusetts. The new income surtax, which adds to the existing 5% income tax rate, generated $2.46 billion in its first full year, and Beacon Hill Democrats are spending that money on investments in education and transportation. The report measures accumulated wealth rather than annual income, but surtax supporters say they're certain that some share of the 'ultra-wealthy' captured in the report are paying the income surtax. 'This is further evidence that multi-millionaires are not fleeing the state in response to the new tax – they are staying here, paying more in taxes, and enjoying the stronger transportation and public education systems that Fair Share dollars are funding,' said Shanique Rodriguez, executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table and a member of the Raise Up Massachusetts Steering Committee. There's bipartisan agreement in Massachusetts that high costs of living here, including housing and energy prices, are causing some residents to pick up and move to lower-cost states. While addressing the underlying causes of that outmigration and the state's 'affordability crisis' has become an ongoing public policy challenge, the report looks exclusively at the number of higher-wealth households to draw conclusions about tax impacts. Raise Up says the 2,642 ultra-wealthy individuals delineated in the report represent 0.04% of the Massachusetts population, and collectively hold $500.4 billion in total wealth. The report also modeled a hypothetical 'wealth tax' on this group with at least $50 million in total wealth. The researchers concluded that Massachusetts has the potential to raise $3.7 billion with a 1% tax, $7.4 billion with a 2% tax and $11 billion with a 3% tax. Raise Up spokesman Andrew Farnitano said the group is not pursing a wealth tax 'at the moment' and instead remains focused on its push for the Legislature to approve a new 'corporate fair share' policy targeting global businesses that advocates say evade millions of dollars in state taxes. The number of Massachusetts taxpayers with annual income above $1 million was about 27,000 in 2022, the last year when data is available from the IRS, according to Raise Up. The report found that the number of 'millionaires by net worth' in Massachusetts, a category that includes the value of homes, retirement and other assets, rose by 38.6% between 2022 and 2024, from 441,610 individuals to 612,109. Their collective wealth increased from $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion, or 37.3%. 'Research has demonstrated that million-dollar earners and high net worth individuals tend to exhibit lower rates of migration compared to the general public,' said lead report author Omar Ocampo, researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies. 'This is not a surprise. Their family, business and social network deeply root them to amenity rich locales where they enjoy a high quality of life. A modest increase on their incomes does not compel the overwhelming majority of millionaires to flee to other states.' President Donald Trump stirred debate over tax policy recently when he weighed in on higher taxes on those earning more than $1 million per year, including impacts on other taxpayers and election outcomes. In a recent Boston Globe 'inbox' item, Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Mass, said surtax-funded investments in education and transportation will spark housing production and that policies like free school meals, bus rides and community college 'are making the state more affordable for middle-class families.' 'Massachusetts is experiencing outmigration, but it's not multimillionaires who are fleeing slightly higher taxes. It's young workers fleeing our high cost of living,' Cohn wrote. 'As a millennial, I've become accustomed to seeing friends move out of Boston, then out of the state entirely, due to high cost of living. If you want to buy a home for a decent price or find affordable child care, good luck. We are losing people because affording the high quality of life we tout is getting father and farther out of reach.' Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Boston Globe
28-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Amid debate over Mass. ‘millionaires tax,' report finds the number of millionaires here has surged
The new income surtax, which adds to the existing 5 percent income tax rate, generated $2.46 billion in its first full year, and Beacon Hill Democrats are spending that money on investments in education and transportation. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The report measures accumulated wealth rather than annual income, but surtax supporters say they're certain that some share of the 'ultra-wealthy' captured in the report are paying the income surtax. Advertisement 'This is further evidence that multi-millionaires are not fleeing the state in response to the new tax – they are staying here, paying more in taxes, and enjoying the stronger transportation and public education systems that Fair Share dollars are funding,' said Shanique Rodriguez, executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table and a member of the Raise Up Massachusetts Steering Committee. There's bipartisan agreement in Massachusetts that high costs of living here, including housing and energy prices, are causing some residents to pick up and move to lower-cost states. While addressing the underlying causes of that outmigration and the state's 'affordability crisis' has become an ongoing public policy challenge, the report looks exclusively at the number of higher-wealth households to draw conclusions about tax impacts. Advertisement Raise Up says the 2,642 ultra-wealthy individuals delineated in the report represent 0.04% of the Massachusetts population, and collectively hold $500.4 billion in total wealth. The report also modeled a hypothetical 'wealth tax' on this group with at least $50 million in total wealth. The researchers concluded that Massachusetts has the potential to raise $3.7 billion with a 1 percent tax, $7.4 billion with a 2 percent tax and $11 billion with a 3% tax. Raise Up spokesman Andrew Farnitano said the group is not pursing a wealth tax 'at the moment' and instead remains focused on its push for the Legislature to approve a The number of Massachusetts taxpayers with annual income above $1 million was about 27,000 in 2022, the last year when data is available from the IRS, according to Raise Up. Amid concerns that the so-called "millionaire's tax" would prompt wealthy people to leave Massachusetts, supporters Monday released a study showing that the ranks of wealthy and ultra-wealthy people here have grown significantly over the last two years. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff The report found that the number of 'millionaires by net worth' in Massachusetts, a category that includes the value of homes, retirement and other assets, rose by 38.6% between 2022 and 2024, from 441,610 individuals to 612,109. Their collective wealth increased from $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion, or 37.3 percent. 'Research has demonstrated that million-dollar earners and high net worth individuals tend to exhibit lower rates of migration compared to the general public,' said lead report author Omar Ocampo, researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies. 'This is not a surprise. Their family, business and social network deeply root them to amenity rich locales where they enjoy a high quality of life. A modest increase on their incomes does not compel the overwhelming majority of millionaires to flee to other states.' Advertisement President Donald Trump stirred debate over tax policy recently when he In a recent Boston Globe 'inbox' item, Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Mass, said surtax-funded investments in education and transportation will spark housing production and that policies like free school meals, bus rides and community college 'are making the state more affordable for middle-class families.' 'Massachusetts is experiencing outmigration, but it's not multimillionaires who are fleeing slightly higher taxes. It's young workers fleeing our high cost of living,' Cohn wrote. 'As a millennial, I've become accustomed to seeing friends move out of Boston, then out of the state entirely, due to high cost of living. If you want to buy a home for a decent price or find affordable child care, good luck. We are losing people because affording the high quality of life we tout is getting father and farther out of reach.'
CNN
06-04-2025
- Business
- CNN
Small Business Owner Fears Impact of Trump's Trade War on American Dream - First Of All with Victor Blackwell - Podcast on CNN Audio
Small Business Owner Fears Impact of Trump's Trade War on American Dream First Of All with Victor Blackwell 42 mins The rollout of President Trump's tariff plans is generating a lot of anxiety on Wall Street and main streets across the country. Victor speaks with economist Valerie Wilson, who lays out the disproportionate risks people of color could face from Trump's trade war. And Victor gets real-world perspective from Atlanta-based small business owner Felipe Arroyave, who is worried that the tariff whiplash is putting his American dream at risk. Plus, Victor reveals the books that stood out to him from a list of nearly 400 that were pulled from the Naval Academy's library. The pentagon's first chief DEI officer - who is also a Navy Veteran and current member of congress – Gil Cisneros shares his reaction. And later, Victor catches up with hip hop artist Petey Pablo to talk about how his iconic track "Raise Up" could soon be the official hip-hop song of North Carolina.
