Two important nonprofits based in Northampton – one of which tackles the big picture, the other local learning – are poised for continued success with new executive directors. We welcome these two public-spirited people and wish them well on their missions. The board of the National Priorities Project tapped Nora Ranney and the Center for New Americans promoted its interim director, Laurie Millman.
What’s a national priority? We think one should be to make sure that the more than $3.8 trillion federal budget serves the interests of the American people. Since its founding in 1983 by the late Greg Speeter, NPP has pursued the unglamorous work of demystifying the federal budget – to the distress of lawmakers and lobbyists who would rather the big numbers hide big wrongs.
The program’s reports chisel into the budget brick and expose spending allocations that ought to be more widely debated by the American people. Documents coming out of the Northampton office are routinely cited by publications around the country. Here’s one sign of its influence. Google “federal budget” and the top highlighted box is pulled from NPP data. The third search return on Thursday linked to the program’s website, beating out the New York Times and the White House.
Dennis Bidwell, chair of the NPP board, said Ranney was chosen in part because she has experience running advocacy campaigns. Though NPP styles itself as nonpartisan, its work of exposing federal boondoggles cannot help but stand in opposition to the powers that be in Washington, D.C. Given polarization inside the Beltway, and the increasing clout of influence-peddlers, NPP is right to step up its activism, even as it continues to translate budget jargon into plain English and put into context what’s at stake for everyday Americans.
In a recent email blast, NPP sought to mobilize support against Pfizer’s plan to use its merger with a smaller Irish pharmaceutical company to avoid paying corporate taxes in the U.S. The group Americans for Tax Fairness calculates in a new report that the deal, known as inversion, would result in a loss of $35 billion in tax revenues. It urges people to write to President Obama in support of an executive order to stop what it rightly terms a tax dodge.
Another bugle call this month by NPP sought to rally support for what it terms a “People’s Budget,” arguing that “our federal budget has a vast and unlocked potential to invest in a more just and equal future where all Americans are better off.” Instead, according to NPP, a budget resolution before Congress would weaken domestic programs like Medicare, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.
In a presidential campaign year, voters hear a lot – from Democrats at least – about ways government can use tax revenues, and tax policy, to serve people better. Congress hasn’t written substantive tax reform in decades, leaving the ground riddled with loopholes exploited by companies like Pfizer and candidates like Donald Trump. In the Clinton-Sanders contest, the candidates have sparred over whose domestic policy plans make more sense, and how they’d pay for them. This is NPP territory – making its research more valuable than ever.
Over at the Center for New Americans, the focus lies closer to home, though these folks are no less concerned with things being right with the world. The program helps recent immigrants transition to life in the Valley, and in the United States, by providing instruction in English, job coaching and help with computer skills. It also shepherds their progress toward legal citizenship. The center’s July 4 naturalization ceremony, performed amid fanfare at the Hampshire County Superior Court, has since 2009 been a durable reminder on our nation’s birthday of the role new Americans play in everyone’s success.
Kit Carpenter, CNA’s board chair, says it was a pleasure to be able to elevate a staff member to the leadership post, calling Millman someone with “the expertise, the creativity and the vision CNA needs.”
On Monday, Millman and Ranney go back to work, each in her own way, on behalf of us all.