April 12, 2010

Matt Ryan, the mayor of Binghamton, New York, is sick and tired of watching people in local communities “squabble over crumbs,” as he puts it, while so much local money pours into the Pentagon’s coffers and into
America’s wars. He’s so sick and tired of it, in fact, that, urged on
by local residents, he’s decided to do something about it. He’s
planning to be the first mayor in the United States to decorate the
façade of City Hall with a large, digital “cost of war” counter, funded
entirely by private contributions.

That counter will offer a constantly changing estimate of the total price Binghamton’s taxpayers have been paying for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. By September 30, 2010, the city’s “war
tax” will reach $138.6 million -- or even more if, as expected, Congress
passes an Obama administration request for supplemental funds to cover
the president’s “surge” in Afghanistan. Mayor Ryan wants, he says, to
put the counter “where everyone can see it, so that my constituents are
urged to have a much-needed conversation.”

In doing so, he’s joining a growing chorus of mayors, including
Chicago's Richard Daley and Boston's Thomas Menino, who are ever more
insistently drawing attention to what Ryan calls the country’s “skewed national priorities,” especially the local impact of military
and war spending. With more than three years left in his current term,
Ryan has decided to pull out all the stops to reach his neighbors and
constituents, all 47,000 of them, especially the near quarter of the
city’s inhabitants who currently live below the poverty line and the 9%
who are officially unemployed.

A Hard Hit Rust-Belt City

Like so many post-industrial rust-belt communities, Binghamton was hard hit by the financial meltdown of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed, though it faired better than a number of similar cities, in
part because Ryan, his administration, and the Binghamton City Council
are a smart and scrappy crew. No doubt that’s why he earned the New York
State Conference of Mayors Public Administration and Management award
two years running.

These days, however, even the smartest and scrappiest of mayors still
has to face grim reality. In July 2009, as the city began developing the 2010 budget, Ryan projected a
$7 million shortfall. Contributing factors included a likely $700,000
decline in sales tax revenue, ever rising healthcare costs, increased
pension contributions to replace funds lost in the market during the
collapse of 2008-09, and a $500,000 drop in the return on the city's
investment portfolio.

With worse times ahead, thanks in part to the projected end of federal stimulus money and a city drained dry of reserves, Ryan has had to face a classically unpalatable choice: raise city sales taxes from 7%
to an unheard of 24% or cut city jobs. He chose jobs, as have the vast
majority of mayors and governors across the country, eliminating 39 of
them. In the process, he sought greater program efficiencies and
wrestled with ways to increase city revenues while cutting ever closer
to Binghamton’s proverbial bone.

It was in the context of this kind of local pain that Ryan was stunned to discover just how much of Binghamton’s taxes were going to the military and to our distant wars, and how little was coming back to
Binghamton in the form of aid and services. “When I first saw the cost
of war numbers and made the connections,” Ryan remarks, “I had to wonder
if we're ever going to get our priorities straight as a nation. It's
like we're facing an attack on government. As a mayor, I can see so
clearly what increased federal spending could do for the people of my
city.”

Ryan's message doesn't resonate with all of his constituents -- some have walked out on his public appearances -- but he's used to controversy and convinced that Americans had better get their heads
straight soon. “People are hurting so bad,” he insists, “that, like it
or not, we're all going to have to look at things seriously if we want
our situation to change.”

Heads should swivel, he thinks, when faced with the $138.6 million Binghamton’s taxpayers are out of pocket since 2001 for the Iraq and Afghan wars. And that’s not even counting the city's share of the
supplemental funds Congress will undoubtedly agree to this spring to
cover the Afghan “surge” or the city's portion of the basic Pentagon
budget for the same period.

For a small city with an annual budget of $81.1 million, $138.6 million would be a hefty sum, even in non-recessionary times. For the same amount of money, Ryan could fund the Binghamton city library for
the next 60 years, or pay for a four-year education for 95% of the
incoming freshman class at the State University of New York at
Binghamton, or offer four years of quality health coverage for everyone
in Binghamton 19 or younger, or secure renewable electricity for every
home in the city for the next 11 years. If he was feeling really flush,
he could fully fund one-third of New York State's Head Start slots for
one year.