Biden's lifeline for red-state cities

Republican states have strangled progressive cities for decades. Now Democrats are offering a way out.

El Paso.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

El Paso is being squeezed.

In 2019, the Texas state legislature passed SB2 which limits property tax increases to 3.5 percent per year. Meanwhile, most of the city's budget is based on largely unfunded state mandates. And where the state in 2008 funded 45 percent of local education costs, that's been reduced to just 39 percent today.

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Nathan Newman

Nathan Newman is a writer and teaches Criminal Justice and Sociology at CUNY. His work has appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, New York Daily News, and Dissent.