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Post Office Box 1147
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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
47 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, October 11, 2021
State's
"Embarrassment of Riches" Continues To Pile Up
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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Massachusetts
Department of Revenue (DOR) Commissioner Geoffrey
Snyder today announced that preliminary revenue
collections for September totaled $3.992 billion,
which is $848 million or 27.0% more than actual
collections in September 2020, and $501 million or
14.3% more than benchmark.
FY2022 year-to-date
collections totaled approximately $8.751 billion,
which is $1.501 billion or 20.7% more than
collections in the same period of FY2021, and $525
million or 6.4% more than year-to-date benchmark.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Department of Revenue
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Press Release: September
Revenue Collections Total $3.992 Billion
Monthly collections up $848 million or 27.0% vs.
September 2020 actual
State tax collectors
brought in $3.992 billion of revenue in September,
way up from September 2020 and half a billion
dollars more than what the Baker administration was
expecting to collect.
The Department of
Revenue announced Tuesday afternoon that the
September haul was $848 million or 27 percent
greater than actual collections in September 2020
and $501 million or 14.3 percent greater than the
month's benchmark. September typically brings in
about 10 percent of the state's annual tax revenue,
DOR said.
"September collections
increased in all major tax types relative to
September 2020 collections, including withholding,
non-withholding, sales and use tax, corporate and
business tax, and 'all other tax'," Revenue
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder said. "The increase in
withholding is likely related to improvements in
labor market conditions while the increase in
non-withholding tax collections is due to an
increase in income estimated payments. The sales and
use tax increase reflects continued strength in
retail sales and the easing of COVID-19
restrictions."
Since fiscal year 2022
began on July 1, DOR has collected $8.751 billion
from residents and businesses. The year-to-date
total is $1.501 billion or 20.7 percent greater than
actual collections during the same time period of
fiscal 2021 and $525 million or 6.4 percent above
the administration's year-to-date benchmark.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
State Tax Receipts Running
Half A Billion Over Benchmarks
With tax collections
continuing to exceed expectations, Gov. Charlie
Baker on Wednesday pushed lawmakers to act on his
plan to use part of the surplus from last year to
deliver unemployment insurance relief to small
businesses.
Baker in August filed a
nearly $1.6 billion spending bill that would direct
$1 billion of a roughly $5 billion surplus toward
the trust fund used to pay unemployment claims.
Other surplus money would be used to bolster the
state's reserves, fund union contracts and support
rate increases for human services providers.
Due to the effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, the
Legislature authorized up to $7 billion in borrowing
to help small businesses avoid steep increase in the
unemployment insurances taxes they pay to cover
benefits, but that would still need to be repaid
over time....
The surplus Baker has
proposed to spend on small business relief was from
fiscal year 2021, which ended on June 30, but tax
revenues have continued to come in strong in fiscal
year 2022 and beat projections by $500 million in
September.
Beacon Hill Democrats
have not said whether they intend to use some of the
surplus to reduce the unemployment insurance
liability for small businesses, or if they might tap
into the nearly $5 billion in American Rescue Plan
Act funds to reduce the size of the tab facing
employers over the next 20 years.
Some business groups,
including Associated Industries of Massachusetts,
have urged the Legislature to use both sources of
funding for UI, while the Massachusetts Budget and
Policy Center said targeted grants and loans would
be a better way to support employers.
On the day of the
Legislature's final ARPA hearing Tuesday, the state
chapter of the National Federation of Independent
Business said it was "unfair" to demand that
employers pay back the full $7 billion deficit that
resulted from pandemic layoffs, urging the
Legislature to follow the lead of more than 30 other
states that have used some ARPA funds to replenish
their UI systems.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Baker Plugs UI Rate Relief
For Small Biz
Numbers-crunching
aside, let’s just say that fiscal 2022 so far has
been a banner year for the state treasury.
But numbers do tell the
story of this embarrassment of riches, and the
implications this surfeit might have on the
millionaires tax referendum’s prospects.
The state collected
$3.992 billion in tax revenue in September, far
exceeding September 2020 and half a billion dollars
more than the Baker administration was expecting to
collect.
The Department of
Revenue announced Tuesday that September’s haul was
$848 million, 27%, more than actual collections in
September 2020, and $501 million, 14.3%, above the
month’s estimates....
Since the July 1 start
of fiscal 2022, the DOR has collected $8.751 billion
from residents and businesses. The year-to-date
total is $1.501 billion, 20.7%, greater than actual
collections during the same time period of fiscal
2021, and $525 million, 6.4%, above the
administration’s year-to-date goal.
During fiscal 2021,
Massachusetts state government collected $5 billion
more from residents, workers and businesses than it
was expecting, leading to a sizable surplus.
The $34.137 billion
total for fiscal 2021 was $5.047 billion, 17.3%,
above the state’s benchmark and $4.528
billion,15.3%, more than the actual amount collected
in fiscal year 2020.
That $5 billion-plus
fiscal 2021 total also matches the $5 billion in
federal American Rescue Plan funds the state has yet
to allocate....
Given what’s already
transpired, that fiscal 2022 revenue estimate might
need to be revised higher.
The only people on
Beacon Hill not excited by these gaudy tax receipts
are the lawmakers and special-interest groups behind
that so-called millionaires tax. A joint session of
state lawmakers in June took a final procedural
step, voting 159-41 to clear the way for the
proposal to be placed on the ballot after years of
prior attempts stymied by political and court
battles.
At the time, the surtax
appeared to have the backing of the state’s voters;
a poll by Boston-based MassINC Polling Group showed
that 72% supported the wealth tax.
Lawmakers have promised
the estimated $2 billion in added revenue will
target transportation infrastructure and
public-school needs, but opponents argue the gains
won’t outweigh the potential loss of job-creating
entrepreneurs and relocated businesses.
That 4% surcharge on
yearly income exceeding $1 million becomes less
necessary — and more punitive — after each
successive revenue-beating month. And if that’s the
case, why should voters in the 2022 statewide
elections approve that ballot question —
overwhelming backed by Democrats — when the state’s
awash in cash?
That’s a valid ballot
question.
A Boston
Herald editorial
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Cash-flush state dilutes case for
millionaires tax
The Senate on Wednesday
went on record supporting the permanent adoption of
COVID-era voting allowances like expanded early
voting and voting-by-mail, and also adopted policies
like same-day registration that go beyond the
changes made to accommodate elections during a
pandemic.
The bill passed 36-3
along party lines after Democrats rejected an
alternative the Republican senators offered to
address many of the same issues. Democrats pitched
the bill (S 2545), which would also build into the
system additional supports for people with
disabilities, as a way to remove obstacles to the
ballot box and to maintain options that proved
popular when available to voters in 2020....
"We're living in a
dangerous moment. Dozens of states are restricting
access to the ballot box and citing baseless
politically-motivated claims of election fraud as a
justification for doing so," Sen. Cynthia Creem
said.
Just as Democrats in
states like Texas were unable to stop legislative
efforts to change state laws around voting and
elections, the Republican minority in the
Massachusetts Senate was unsuccessful Wednesday in
generating support for a proposed rewrite of the
voting reforms bill.
The alternative from
the chamber's three Republicans, which failed on a
3-35 party-line vote, would have required annual
notification of each voter's own registration status
from the secretary of state, moved the voter
registration deadline from 20 days before an
election to five days before, and provided for at
least one weekday evening of early voting beyond
what the underlying bill proposed. It also would
have allowed any registered voter to request a
ballot to vote early by mail for any election but
would have required the request to be made under the
penalties of perjury.
Minority Leader Bruce
Tarr called it "a prescription for how to go further
and make sure that we have two things. Number one,
increased voter participation. And number two,
increased security and integrity around elections."
He said he thought it was "important that everyone
understand what we are proposing and the many areas
of commonality that we share." ...
The bill put forward by
Senate leadership already included reforms that
would direct sheriffs and other corrections
officials to help eligible incarcerated voters learn
their rights and apply for and cast ballots by mail,
but senators went beyond that with the adoption
Wednesday of a Sen. Adam Hinds amendment that more
explicitly spells out what steps correction
facilities must take to educate and facilitate
voting among the eligible incarcerated
population....
The bill now heads to
the House of Representatives, which has already
considered some parts of the Senate bill in other
forms. But House Speaker Ronald Mariano said this
week that representatives will "need another vote"
on election reforms this session....
Baker has supported
mail-in voting, and signed the laws implementing and
extending pandemic-era voting options, but he is
opposed to same-day voter registration....
At the outset of
debate, Tarr questioned the Legislature's ability to
enact a permanent mail-in voting option without
changing the state Constitution -- and raised the
specter of consulting the state's highest court on
the matter.
Tarr recounted that
when Finegold and then-Senate President Therese
Murray had sought to permanently expand early and
absentee voting in 2013, they had done so by
proposing an amendment to the Constitution. He also
referenced a constitutional amendment filed this
spring by Reps. Michael Moran and Kevin Honan to
allow for no-excuse absentee voting.
Finegold responded: "We
will say that we in the Legislature do find that
mail-in voting is important for the people of the
commonwealth. And we do believe the Constitution
allows it."
Tarr replied that he
hoped the Legislature would "not play dice with the
Constitution, and that we will do what it takes to
make sure that we are either compliant, or effect
changes that would allow the statutes that we enact
to be compliant."
"I become a little bit
nervous when I hear that the Legislature has deemed
something constitutional, when in fact there exists
a significant constitutional question," said Tarr,
adding that perhaps he and Finegold could join
together in the future to seek an advisory opinion
from the Supreme Judicial Court.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Senate Approves Bill to Make
Voting Reforms Permanent
Rejects Republican Alternative, Registration
Amendments
The timing may have
been curious, but even Gov. Charlie Baker said he
didn't find the announcement all that surprising.
About 30 minutes before
Nathan Eovaldi threw the first pitch in a
winner-take-all playoff game against the Yankees at
Fenway Park, former President Donald Trump sent out
an email announcing his "Complete and Total
Endorsement!" of Geoff Diehl for governor, knocking
the incumbent as a RINO in the process.
So how did Baker
respond? "Let's go @redsox!" the governor tweeted
just after 8 p.m.
Diehl started his
campaign for governor over the summer trying not to
be the Trump guy. Though everyone knew the former
president had his support, Diehl wanted to stand on
his own two feet. He said he couldn't say for sure
whether the 2020 election had been stolen, and that
both parties had a problem with respecting the
results of elections.
Fast forward a couple
of months and Diehl this week claimed the 2020
election was rigged, as he called on Gov. Baker to
reject permanent voting by mail and embrace a
GOP-backed voter ID ballot initiative - both
unlikely scenarios.
Less than a day after
making that statement, Diehl was on the phone with
Trump himself, accepting the former president's
endorsement. What followed was a deluge of armchair
analysis over whether Trump's support for Diehl
would help or hurt Baker, while Baker himself seemed
to shrug it off....
Speaking of the
November recess, House and Senate leaders have about
five weeks to draft and vote on a plan to spend at
least some of the state's $4.8 billion in American
Rescue Plan Act funds, and they passed a major
milestone in that process this week.
The House and Senate
Ways and Means committees held their final public
hearing on ARPA on Tuesday, taking testimony from
people like Auditor Suzanne Bump, who called for a
"rural rescue plan" for communities in western
Massachusetts where she said population decline and
business retreat have made it hard for them to
maintain basic infrastructure, like roads and fire
stations.
The Senate's Committee
on Reimagining Massachusetts: Post Pandemic
Resiliency also published its first report this week
outlining billions of dollars in ideas for how to
spend the money, and Bump and Inspector General
Glenn Cunha argued for some funding to be set aside
to audit how the money gets spent....
State
House News Service
Friday, October 8, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Voting,
Scrambled
Will Joe Biden now
endorse Charlie Baker?
Unlikely. It is a
Republican primary for governor we are talking
about, and an endorsement by the Democrat president
of a GOP governor — even if he is a RINO — would do
more harm than good.
Biden is a train wreck
of a president who has plummeted so far down in the
polls that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker may have to
endorse him.
Besides, there are
already three Democrats running for governor, with
the possibility of Attorney General Maura Healey
becoming the fourth. And right now, it is not known
whether Baker will even seek a third term.
If he does,
conservative Republican Geoff Diehl, 52, who was
endorsed Monday by Donald Trump, will be waiting to
knock him off in the GOP primary. If Baker doesn’t
run, then Diehl has a path to the Republican
nomination for governor.
Diehl was co-chair of
the Trump re-election campaign in Massachusetts.
The former president’s
endorsement is no small thing. That is because it is
a Republican primary we are talking about and not a
general November election. It will help Diehl raise
funds.
There are only 469,000
registered Republicans in Massachusetts, most of
whom probably voted for Trump in the last
election....
Diehl said, “I am
inspired by the president’s (Trump) America First
agenda, which he backed up by delivering on his
promises during his time in the White House.”
“Like President Trump,
I want to ensure a strong economy … I want families
to feel safe,” Diehl said. Like Trump, he added, “I
want people to feel like government isn’t working
against them and that they can enjoy the individual
freedoms our state and country were founded on.”
We are in a
fascist-like, authoritarian Biden era of mandates.
Now the FBI is tasked with monitoring the behavior
of parents at local school committee meetings as in
the old Soviet Union. Watch what you say, comrade.
A Diehl “Massachusetts
First” campaign will appeal to a lot of people.
The
Boston Herald
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Baker, Biden, Trump and Diehl all
on political dance card
By Peter Lucas
Thousands of state
employees next week face vaccination deadlines while
legislative leaders slow-walk their fall agenda with
just over five weeks remaining before the holiday
recess.
Legislators appear
poised to release redrawn House and Senate district
lines, and top Democrats are drafting major spending
bills to allocate American Rescue Plan Act funds and
the fiscal 2021 state budget surplus.
The Senate this week
approved and shipped to the House a major voting
reform bill, after earlier this fall sending over a
sex education bill with hopes that the House will
finally tackle that perennial policy proposal.
House leaders meantime
are eager to see the Senate take up one of its
priorities, legalizing sports betting. Gov. Charlie
Baker has a student nutrition bill on his desk and
his appointees to a new MBTA Board are likely making
plans for their first public get-together....
The Senate has only a
pair of informal sessions on its schedule for next
week, indicating major legislative activity appears
unlikely in that branch....
The Legislature for
years has resisted attempts to beef up seatbelt law
enforcement by giving police more power, but the
push for a primary enforcement bill continues,
picking up again on Wednesday before the Public
Safety Committee.
State
House News Service
Friday, October 8, 2021
Advances - Week of Oct. 10, 2021
Last week, Dollar Tree,
one of the few dollar stores that lived up to the
promise of its name, announced a shocking
development. Its costs had risen so high in recent
weeks that it could no longer hold the line at a
single buck. Instead, it regretted to announce, many
items would now cost either $1.25 or $1.50.
Wall Street was delighted. Dollar Tree shares shot
up. But the news was an especially vivid reminder of
the clear and present danger of inflation, coming
for the very customer base that could afford it the
least.
The signs of higher costs passed on to consumers are
everywhere: menu items at restaurants, grocery
totals at the checkout, pain at the fuel pump,
shipping prices for containers, lumber costs, real
estate prices, rising labor expenses for small
businesses, on and on. There have been disagreements
about whether this is a temporary phenomenon of
COVID-19 recovery and associated federal spending
(which tends to be the liberal position and is the
official prediction of the Federal Reserve), or a
serious threat, especially given the stubborn
supply-chain problems that don’t seem to be
improving. That’s a theory gaining traction among
many business executives (and even some of the
voices at the Fed).
But all this overlooks a crucial and
much-underestimated factor. Many Americans,
especially those under 40 and including many
reporters and a hefty chunk of the Twitterati, have
no personal experience of what inflation can do to
an economy, or to a citizen saving for retirement.
They fear not the growling wolf. Thus those who see
its dangers have some educating to do....
The problem with inflation is that it slashes the
actual value of people’s savings accounts, making a
retirement that once seemed secure far more
tentative.
Younger people have no idea what it was like in the
high-inflation years of the 1970s, of course. They
don’t have a sense of costly mortgages hammering
their chances of getting a loan or of watching their
hard-won savings get eaten away by ballooning
prices. They may well get a crash course in that
understanding in coming weeks and months, but part
of the current progressive orthodoxy is still that
the danger of inflation is overstated. Too many
people have bought that hook, line and sinker.
Yet that Dollar Tree price increase suggests
otherwise. Imagine how hard that must have been for
the company’s executives, given that their entire
identity was wrapped up in that very barrier.
Those with some worn tread on their tires who
understand the dangers of inflation have some
teaching to do. The wolf is at the door.
A Boston
Herald editorial
Monday, October 4, 2021
Inflation a growling wolf at
the door
AG Garland has told the
FBI and US Attorneys’ Offices to meet and
“strategize” on ways to deal with parents who have
the nerve to protest critical race theory. Actually,
they want to figure out how to deal with parents who
have the nerve to be involved in their child’s
education.
How dare they!
The DOJ said: “Citing
an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats
of violence against school board members, teachers
and workers in our nation’s public schools, today
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the FBI
and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to meet in the next 30
days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and
local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies
for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions
will open dedicated lines of communication for
threat reporting, assessment and response by law
enforcement.”
The “task force”
includes everything except the kitchen sink:
• Criminal Division
• National Security Division
• Civil Rights Division
• Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys
• FBI
• Community Relations service
• Office of Justice Programs
The federal government
is involving the Criminal Division and National
Security Division to handle those pesky parents.
Legal
Insurrection
Monday, October 4, 2021
AG Garland Weaponizes FBI Against Parents Protesting
Critical Race Theory, Mask Mandates |
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Last Monday the
Massachusetts Department of Revenue issued a press release ("September
Revenue Collections Total $3.992 Billion —
Monthly collections up $848 million or 27.0% vs. September
2020 actual") which opened with:
Massachusetts Department of
Revenue (DOR) Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder today
announced that preliminary revenue collections
for September totaled $3.992 billion, which is
$848 million or 27.0% more than actual
collections in September 2020, and $501 million
or 14.3% more than benchmark.
FY2022 year-to-date
collections totaled approximately $8.751
billion, which is $1.501 billion or 20.7% more
than collections in the same period of FY2021,
and $525 million or 6.4% more than year-to-date
benchmark.
The next day the State
House News Service reported ("State
Tax Receipts Running Half A Billion Over Benchmarks"):
State tax collectors
brought in $3.992 billion of revenue in
September, way up from September 2020 and half a
billion dollars more than what the Baker
administration was expecting to collect....
Since fiscal year 2022
began on July 1, DOR has collected $8.751
billion from residents and businesses. The
year-to-date total is $1.501 billion or 20.7
percent greater than actual collections during
the same time period of fiscal 2021 and $525
million or 6.4 percent above the
administration's year-to-date benchmark.
Last fiscal year (July
1, 2020-June 30, 2021) in the midst of the Wuhan
Chinese Pandemic the state raked in over $5 Billion
in excess revenue above the prior fiscal year
— far above its "benchmark"
predictive expectations — which the
Legislature and governor are still struggling to
agree on how to spend or squander. That came
on top of close to $5 Billion in "free" federal
Covid-19 "relief" money that is still being held
back from being allocated. In the first three
months of the current fiscal year the state has
collected
"$1.501 billion or 20.7% more than collections in
the same period of FY2021."
On Wednesday the State House News
Service noted ("Baker Plugs UI Rate Relief
For Small Biz"):
With tax collections
continuing to exceed expectations, Gov. Charlie
Baker on Wednesday pushed lawmakers to act on
his plan to use part of the surplus from last
year to deliver unemployment insurance relief to
small businesses.
Baker in August filed a
nearly $1.6 billion spending bill that would
direct $1 billion of a roughly $5 billion
surplus toward the trust fund used to pay
unemployment claims. Other surplus money would
be used to bolster the state's reserves, fund
union contracts and support rate increases for
human services providers.
Due to the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, the
Legislature authorized up to $7 billion in
borrowing to help small businesses avoid steep
increase in the unemployment insurances taxes
they pay to cover benefits, but that would still
need to be repaid over time....
The surplus Baker has
proposed to spend on small business relief was
from fiscal year 2021, which ended on June 30,
but tax revenues have continued to come in
strong in fiscal year 2022 and beat projections
by $500 million in September.
Beacon Hill Democrats have
not said whether they intend to use some of the
surplus to reduce the unemployment insurance
liability for small businesses, or if they might
tap into the nearly $5 billion in American
Rescue Plan Act funds to reduce the size of the
tab facing employers over the next 20 years.
Some business groups,
including Associated Industries of
Massachusetts, have urged the Legislature to use
both sources of funding for UI, while the
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center said
targeted grants and loans would be a better way
to support employers.
On the day of the
Legislature's final ARPA hearing Tuesday, the
state chapter of the National Federation of
Independent Business said it was "unfair" to
demand that employers pay back the full $7
billion deficit that resulted from pandemic
layoffs, urging the Legislature to follow the
lead of more than 30 other states that have used
some ARPA funds to replenish their UI systems.
When the Wuhan CCP
Pandemic arrived in Massachusetts Gov. Baker
commanded that all businesses (except large box
stores, liquor stores, and a very few other rare
exceptions) with the acquiescence of a silent
Legislature only too happy to avoid the headlights.
Suddenly it somehow became the responsibility and
burden of those victimized small businesses to fund
the extraordinary and long-extended unemployment
benefits caused by the state's draconian lockdown
orders — a sudden and
additional $7 Billion business expense has been
added to their struggle to survive. The state
caused the unemployment crisis. With the
"embarrassment of riches" over-flowing the state's
coffers, making small businesses as whole as
possible must be a strong priority.
Regarding that "embarrassment of
riches," The Boston Herald's Saturday editorial ("Cash-flush
state dilutes case for millionaires tax") raises another
important issue:
Numbers-crunching aside,
let’s just say that fiscal 2022 so far has been
a banner year for the state treasury.
But numbers do tell the
story of this embarrassment of riches, and the
implications this surfeit might have on the
millionaires tax referendum’s prospects.
The state collected $3.992
billion in tax revenue in September, far
exceeding September 2020 and half a billion
dollars more than the Baker administration was
expecting to collect.
The Department of Revenue
announced Tuesday that September’s haul was $848
million, 27%, more than actual collections in
September 2020, and $501 million, 14.3%, above
the month’s estimates....
Since the July 1 start of
fiscal 2022, the DOR has collected $8.751
billion from residents and businesses. The
year-to-date total is $1.501 billion, 20.7%,
greater than actual collections during the same
time period of fiscal 2021, and $525 million,
6.4%, above the administration’s year-to-date
goal.
During fiscal 2021,
Massachusetts state government collected $5
billion more from residents, workers and
businesses than it was expecting, leading to a
sizable surplus.
The $34.137 billion total
for fiscal 2021 was $5.047 billion, 17.3%, above
the state’s benchmark and $4.528 billion,15.3%,
more than the actual amount collected in fiscal
year 2020.
That $5 billion-plus fiscal
2021 total also matches the $5 billion in
federal American Rescue Plan funds the state has
yet to allocate....
Given what’s already
transpired, that fiscal 2022 revenue estimate
might need to be revised higher.
The only people on Beacon
Hill not excited by these gaudy tax receipts are
the lawmakers and special-interest groups behind
that so-called millionaires tax. A joint session
of state lawmakers in June took a final
procedural step, voting 159-41 to clear the way
for the proposal to be placed on the ballot
after years of prior attempts stymied by
political and court battles.
At the time, the surtax
appeared to have the backing of the state’s
voters; a poll by Boston-based MassINC Polling
Group showed that 72% supported the wealth tax.
Lawmakers have promised the
estimated $2 billion in added revenue will
target transportation infrastructure and
public-school needs, but opponents argue the
gains won’t outweigh the potential loss of
job-creating entrepreneurs and relocated
businesses.
That 4% surcharge on yearly
income exceeding $1 million becomes less
necessary — and more punitive — after each
successive revenue-beating month. And if that’s
the case, why should voters in the 2022
statewide elections approve that ballot question
— overwhelming backed by Democrats — when the
state’s awash in cash?
That’s a valid ballot
question.
The "Millionaires Tax"
is classic Massachusetts socialist government and
special interests greed in action. More Is
Never Enough (MINE) and never will be. I don't care
how much the revenue surplus is and then some, they
will find ways to spend it faster that it comes in
— especially when it's OPM
(Other People's Money). "Don't tax you,
don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree" is
why a graduated income tax scheme, if ever imposed,
will be the death of productive Massachusetts
residents and taxpayers — and
why this foot-in-the-door constitutional amendment
ballot question must be defeated.
Speaking of the state constitution, on
Wednesday the state Senate expanded the voting process. The
State House News Service reported ("Senate
Approves Bill to Make Voting Reforms Permanent—Rejects
Republican Alternative, Registration Amendments"):
The Senate on Wednesday
went on record supporting the permanent adoption
of COVID-era voting allowances like expanded
early voting and voting-by-mail, and also
adopted policies like same-day registration that
go beyond the changes made to accommodate
elections during a pandemic.
The bill passed 36-3 along
party lines after Democrats rejected an
alternative the Republican senators offered to
address many of the same issues. Democrats
pitched the bill (S 2545), which would also
build into the system additional supports for
people with disabilities, as a way to remove
obstacles to the ballot box and to maintain
options that proved popular when available to
voters in 2020....
The bill now heads to the
House of Representatives, which has already
considered some parts of the Senate bill in
other forms. But House Speaker Ronald Mariano
said this week that representatives will "need
another vote" on election reforms this
session....
At the outset of debate,
Tarr questioned the Legislature's ability to
enact a permanent mail-in voting option without
changing the state Constitution -- and raised
the specter of consulting the state's highest
court on the matter.
Tarr recounted that when
Finegold and then-Senate President Therese
Murray had sought to permanently expand early
and absentee voting in 2013, they had done so by
proposing an amendment to the Constitution. He
also referenced a constitutional amendment filed
this spring by Reps. Michael Moran and Kevin
Honan to allow for no-excuse absentee voting.
Finegold responded: "We
will say that we in the Legislature do find that
mail-in voting is important for the people of
the commonwealth. And we do believe the
Constitution allows it."
Tarr replied that he hoped
the Legislature would "not play dice with the
Constitution, and that we will do what it takes
to make sure that we are either compliant, or
effect changes that would allow the statutes
that we enact to be compliant."
"I become a little bit
nervous when I hear that the Legislature has
deemed something constitutional, when in fact
there exists a significant constitutional
question," said Tarr, adding that perhaps he and
Finegold could join together in the future to
seek an advisory opinion from the Supreme
Judicial Court.
It would appear that
before this vast expansion of the historic process
for voting quite possibly could violate the state
constitution. Sen. Tarr seems to be saying
"pass it over our objections and we'll see you in
court." We'll see what happens.
Geoff Diehl's campaign to become the
next governor or Massachusetts got a boost at least among Republicans this
week when he was
endorsed by former-president Donald Trump, which
led to more speculation considering that Charlie Baker still hasn't
decided whether or not he'll run for a third term. The News
Service on Friday reported in its Weekly Roundup:
The timing may have been
curious, but even Gov. Charlie Baker said he
didn't find the announcement all that
surprising.
About 30 minutes before
Nathan Eovaldi threw the first pitch in a
winner-take-all playoff game against the Yankees
at Fenway Park, former President Donald Trump
sent out an email announcing his "Complete and
Total Endorsement!" of Geoff Diehl for governor,
knocking the incumbent as a RINO in the process.
So how did Baker respond?
"Let's go @redsox!" the governor tweeted just
after 8 p.m.
Diehl started his campaign
for governor over the summer trying not to be
the Trump guy. Though everyone knew the former
president had his support, Diehl wanted to stand
on his own two feet. He said he couldn't say for
sure whether the 2020 election had been stolen,
and that both parties had a problem with
respecting the results of elections.
Fast forward a couple of
months and Diehl this week claimed the 2020
election was rigged, as he called on Gov. Baker
to reject permanent voting by mail and embrace a
GOP-backed voter ID ballot initiative - both
unlikely scenarios.
Less than a day after
making that statement, Diehl was on the phone
with Trump himself, accepting the former
president's endorsement. What followed was a
deluge of armchair analysis over whether Trump's
support for Diehl would help or hurt Baker,
while Baker himself seemed to shrug it off.
Veteran Massachusetts
political reporter and columnist Peter Lucas wrote
in his Saturday Boston Herald column ("Baker,
Biden, Trump and Diehl all on political dance card"):
Will Joe Biden now endorse
Charlie Baker?
Unlikely. It is a
Republican primary for governor we are talking
about, and an endorsement by the Democrat
president of a GOP governor — even if he is a
RINO — would do more harm than good.
Biden is a train wreck of a
president who has plummeted so far down in the
polls that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker may
have to endorse him.
Besides, there are already
three Democrats running for governor, with the
possibility of Attorney General Maura Healey
becoming the fourth. And right now, it is not
known whether Baker will even seek a third term.
If he does, conservative
Republican Geoff Diehl, 52, who was endorsed
Monday by Donald Trump, will be waiting to knock
him off in the GOP primary. If Baker doesn’t
run, then Diehl has a path to the Republican
nomination for governor.
Diehl was co-chair of the
Trump re-election campaign in Massachusetts.
The former president’s
endorsement is no small thing. That is because
it is a Republican primary we are talking about
and not a general November election. It will
help Diehl raise funds.
There are only 469,000
registered Republicans in Massachusetts, most of
whom probably voted for Trump in the last
election....
Diehl said, “I am inspired
by the president’s (Trump) America First agenda,
which he backed up by delivering on his promises
during his time in the White House.”
“Like President Trump, I
want to ensure a strong economy … I want
families to feel safe,” Diehl said. Like Trump,
he added, “I want people to feel like government
isn’t working against them and that they can
enjoy the individual freedoms our state and
country were founded on.”
We are in a fascist-like,
authoritarian Biden era of mandates. Now the FBI
is tasked with monitoring the behavior of
parents at local school committee meetings as in
the old Soviet Union. Watch what you say,
comrade.
A Diehl “Massachusetts
First” campaign will appeal to a lot of people.
The Federal Reserve and
the disastrous Biden administration continue to
whistle past the graveyard insisting that the steady
rise of inflation is only "temporary" but they've
been asserting this for months now and it's still
climbing.
CNN Business on October 1
reported:
Stripping out food
and energy prices, which tend to be volatile, the inflation
measure stood at 3.6%, where it has been since June. It remains
the fastest rate of so-called core inflation since March 1991
and well above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%.
What's with "stripping
out food and energy prices"? That's precisely
where the most extreme inflationary price hikes are
hitting consumers the hardest!
A Boston Herald editorial last Monday
("Inflation a growling wolf at the door")
noted:
Last week, Dollar Tree,
one of the few dollar stores that lived up to the
promise of its name, announced a shocking
development. Its costs had risen so high in recent
weeks that it could no longer hold the line at a
single buck. Instead, it regretted to announce, many
items would now cost either $1.25 or $1.50.
Wall Street was delighted. Dollar Tree shares shot
up. But the news was an especially vivid reminder of
the clear and present danger of inflation, coming
for the very customer base that could afford it the
least....
The problem with inflation is that it slashes the
actual value of people’s savings accounts, making a
retirement that once seemed secure far more
tentative.
Younger people have no idea what it was like in the
high-inflation years of the 1970s, of course. They
don’t have a sense of costly mortgages hammering
their chances of getting a loan or of watching their
hard-won savings get eaten away by ballooning
prices. They may well get a crash course in that
understanding in coming weeks and months, but part
of the current progressive orthodoxy is still that
the danger of inflation is overstated. Too many
people have bought that hook, line and sinker.
Yet that Dollar Tree price increase suggests
otherwise. Imagine how hard that must have been for
the company’s executives, given that their entire
identity was wrapped up in that very barrier.
Those with some worn tread on their tires who
understand the dangers of inflation have some
teaching to do. The wolf is at the door.
While the Fed has cut
then held bank interest rates (on your savings) at
near zero percent, inflation has reduced your
savings by about 5 percent year-over-year by
devaluing the dollar's value through inflation.
With prices on a steady increase each of your
dollars buys less and less.
The only positive ray of light comes
from a prediction on Social Security benefits. According to
the October 6 report by TIPSwatch ("Coming
October 13: The most significant inflation report in a decade"):
I have been projecting that the
2022 COLA looks likely to fall into a range of 5.8% to 6.2%. The
July and August inflation reports have been in line with that
projection. At this point, the data seem to point to a 5.8%
increase in the Social Security COLA, but that will rise if
inflation continues to surge in September’s inflation report.
That is, unless the
Biden administration and Social Security
administrators can find (if they even bother) some
excuse for denying an honest
cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) relative to actual
inflation.
Back to the "fascist-like, authoritarian
Biden era of mandates" and tasking the FBI to intimidate parents at
local school committee meetings, o n the national front the
United States of America continues to circle the drain under the
Dementia Joe Biden administration's cabal.
On Monday, Biden's
alleged "moderate" Attorney General Merrick Garland responded to a
September 28 letter
from the National School Boards Association calling on the Justice
Department to shut down parents' opposition to critical race theory,
mask mandates for children, and other objectionable curricula being
imposed on their children. The NSBA requested that the
Patriot Act be implemented to confront "these heinous actions .
. . the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism."
The Justice Department
suspiciously
responded almost immediately, leading many to suspect
pre-arranged collusion. The Attorney General issued his response a mere five days later.
In his
memo Garland
instructed the Justice Department, FBI, National Security
Division, Civil Rights Division, Counterterrorism Division and other
Justice Department agencies to move in and suppress this uprising of
citizen audacity. Scary stuff indeed.
Townhall on Saturday
published a column ("Garland
Chills Parental Speech") by Jonathan Emord in which he noted:
Garland acted with reckless haste
to implement the anti-parent agenda demanded by the National
School Board Association (NSBA). Without any investigation to
establish the validity of NSBA’s claims, he accepted them as
valid and issued an immediate order. Garland did so on October 4
just five days after the NSBA insisted that Biden have DOJ and
the FBI act against parents protesting Critical Race Theory and
mask mandates.
The NSBA
letter to Biden asks for parents to be treated like domestic
terrorists and be investigated by DOJ and the FBI. In his
October 4 memorandum, Garland responded by ordering the DOJ and
FBI to coordinate with local law enforcement in all 14,000
public school districts. He ordered DOJ to employ “authority and
resources” to identify parents who make “threats” against
“school administrators, board members, teachers and staff” and
prosecute them “when appropriate.” He thereby marched in near
perfect lock step with the substantive demands of the NSBA.
How far this nation has
fallen, and so quickly.
The Norman Rockwell
painting below, one among the series of his "Four Freedoms," "provided
crucial aid to the [WWII] war effort and took their place among the most
indelible images in the history of American art."
I suppose AG Garland, the
FBI, and the totalitarian Marxist militias can soon be expected to march on Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, Rockwell's home and museum, to desecrate this American
icon as well, black-holing this depiction of one of the "Four Freedoms"
highlighted by Democrat president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
No, this certainly is
not your grandfather's Democrat Party, nor even "progressive"
president FDR's.
Norman Rockwell,
Freedom of Speech, 1943, oil on canvas,
illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1943
Norman Rockwell:
American Freedom is the first comprehensive exhibition
devoted to Norman Rockwell’s iconic depictions of the Four
Freedoms outlined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Freedom of
Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom
from Want. The presentation explores how Rockwell’s 1943
paintings came to be embraced by millions of Americans.
These works of art provided crucial aid to the war effort
and took their place among the most indelible images in the
history of American art.
|
 |
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|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
Commonwealth of
Massachusetts
Department of Revenue
Monday, October 5, 2021
Press Release:
September Revenue Collections Total $3.992 Billion
Monthly collections up $848 million or 27.0% vs. September
2020 actual; $501 million above benchmark
BOSTON, MA — Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR)
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder today announced that
preliminary revenue collections for September totaled $3.992
billion, which is $848 million or 27.0% more than actual
collections in September 2020, and $501 million or 14.3%
more than benchmark. [1]
FY2022 year-to-date collections totaled approximately $8.751
billion, which is $1.501 billion or 20.7% more than
collections in the same period of FY2021, and $525 million
or 6.4% more than year-to-date benchmark.
“September collections increased in all major tax types
relative to September 2020 collections, including
withholding, non-withholding, sales and use tax, corporate
and business tax, and ‘all other tax’,” said Commissioner
Snyder. “The increase in withholding is likely related to
improvements in labor market conditions while the increase
in non-withholding tax collections is due to an increase in
income estimated payments. The sales and use tax increase
reflects continued strength in retail sales and the easing
of COVID-19 restrictions.”
In general, September is a significant month for revenues
because many individuals and corporations are required to
make estimated payments. Historically, roughly 10% of annual
revenue, on average, has been received during September.
Given the brief period covered in the report, September and
year-to-date results should not be used as a predictor for
the rest of the fiscal year.
Details:
• Income tax collections for September were $2.040 billion,
$216 million or 11.8% above benchmark, and $325 million or
19.0% more than September 2020.
• Withholding tax collections for September totaled $1.190
billion, $78 million or 7.0% above benchmark, and $115
million or 10.7% more than September 2020.
• Income tax estimated payments totaled $806 million for
September, $114 million or 16.6% more than benchmark, and
$208 million or 34.8% more than September 2020.
• Income tax returns and bills totaled $84 million for
September, $32 million or 61.7% more than benchmark, and $4
million or 5.1% more than September 2020.
• Income tax cash refunds in September totaled $41 million
in outflows, $8 million or 25.6% above benchmark, and $2.5
million or 6.4% more than September 2020.
• Sales and use tax collections for September totaled $695
million, $6 million or 0.9% above benchmark, and $94 million
or 15.6% more than September 2020.
• Meals tax collections, a sub-set of sales and use tax,
totaled $118 million, $15 million or 14.1% above benchmark,
and $28 million or 31.1% more than September 2020.
• Corporate and business tax collections for the month
totaled $1.001 billion, $249 million or 33.0% above
benchmark, and $379 million or 61.1% more than September
2020.
• “All other” tax collections for September totaled $256
million, $30 million or 13.4% above benchmark, and $49
million or 23.7% more than September 2020.
[1] With the recent enactment of the FY2022 budget, monthly
revenue benchmarks were developed for the August 2021
through June 2022 period only.
###
State House News
Service
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
State Tax Receipts Running Half A Billion Over Benchmarks
By Colin A. Young
State tax collectors brought in $3.992 billion of revenue in
September, way up from September 2020 and half a billion
dollars more than what the Baker administration was
expecting to collect.
The Department of Revenue announced Tuesday afternoon that
the September haul was $848 million or 27 percent greater
than actual collections in September 2020 and $501 million
or 14.3 percent greater than the month's benchmark.
September typically brings in about 10 percent of the
state's annual tax revenue, DOR said.
"September collections increased in all major tax types
relative to September 2020 collections, including
withholding, non-withholding, sales and use tax, corporate
and business tax, and 'all other tax'," Revenue Commissioner
Geoffrey Snyder said. "The increase in withholding is likely
related to improvements in labor market conditions while the
increase in non-withholding tax collections is due to an
increase in income estimated payments. The sales and use tax
increase reflects continued strength in retail sales and the
easing of COVID-19 restrictions."
Since fiscal year 2022 began on July 1, DOR has collected
$8.751 billion from residents and businesses. The
year-to-date total is $1.501 billion or 20.7 percent greater
than actual collections during the same time period of
fiscal 2021 and $525 million or 6.4 percent above the
administration's year-to-date benchmark.
During fiscal year 2021, Massachusetts state government
collected more than $5 billion more from residents, workers
and businesses than it was expecting, leading to a sizeable
surplus. The $34.137 billion total for fiscal 2021 was
$5.047 billion or 17.3 percent above the state's benchmark
and $4.528 billion or 15.3 percent more than the actual
amount collected in fiscal year 2020.
By the time fiscal 2022 ends after June 30, 2022, DOR
expects that it will have collected $34.401 billion in tax
revenue. Revenues for the month of October, which DOR said
is "among the lower months for revenue collection," are due
to be announced Nov. 3. DOR has set the monthly collection
benchmark at $2.248 billion.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Baker Plugs UI Rate Relief For Small Biz
By Matt Murphy
With tax collections continuing to exceed expectations, Gov.
Charlie Baker on Wednesday pushed lawmakers to act on his
plan to use part of the surplus from last year to deliver
unemployment insurance relief to small businesses.
Baker in August filed a nearly $1.6 billion spending bill
that would direct $1 billion of a roughly $5 billion surplus
toward the trust fund used to pay unemployment claims. Other
surplus money would be used to bolster the state's reserves,
fund union contracts and support rate increases for human
services providers.
Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy,
the Legislature authorized up to $7 billion in borrowing to
help small businesses avoid steep increase in the
unemployment insurances taxes they pay to cover benefits,
but that would still need to be repaid over time.
"Thanks to a strong recovery and smart budgeting, MA has a
surplus - it's time for lawmakers to return those surplus
tax dollars and pass our plan to deliver small business
relief," Baker tweeted, sharing a CommonWealth Magazine
article about September tax collections.
The surplus Baker has proposed to spend on small business
relief was from fiscal year 2021, which ended on June 30,
but tax revenues have continued to come in strong in fiscal
year 2022 and beat projections by $500 million in September.
Beacon Hill Democrats have not said whether they intend to
use some of the surplus to reduce the unemployment insurance
liability for small businesses, or if they might tap into
the nearly $5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds to
reduce the size of the tab facing employers over the next 20
years.
Some business groups, including Associated Industries of
Massachusetts, have urged the Legislature to use both
sources of funding for UI, while the Massachusetts Budget
and Policy Center said targeted grants and loans would be a
better way to support employers.
On the day of the Legislature's final ARPA hearing Tuesday,
the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent
Business said it was "unfair" to demand that employers pay
back the full $7 billion deficit that resulted from pandemic
layoffs, urging the Legislature to follow the lead of more
than 30 other states that have used some ARPA funds to
replenish their UI systems.
Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst
also retweeted the governor Wednesday.
The budget bill to close out fiscal year 2021 is due this
month, with Comptroller William McNamara needing the plan to
be enacted and signed by Baker before he can close the
state's books. The deadline for that to happen is Oct. 31.
The Boston
Herald
Saturday, October 9, 2021
A Boston Herald editorial
Cash-flush state dilutes case for millionaires tax
Numbers-crunching aside, let’s just say that fiscal 2022 so
far has been a banner year for the state treasury.
But numbers do tell the story of this embarrassment of
riches, and the implications this surfeit might have on the
millionaires tax referendum’s prospects.
The state collected $3.992 billion in tax revenue in
September, far exceeding September 2020 and half a billion
dollars more than the Baker administration was expecting to
collect.
The Department of Revenue announced Tuesday that September’s
haul was $848 million, 27%, more than actual collections in
September 2020, and $501 million, 14.3%, above the month’s
estimates.
September typically brings in about 10% of the state’s
annual tax revenue, DOR said.
“September collections increased in all major tax types
relative to September 2020 collections, including
withholding, non-withholding, sales and use tax, corporate
and business tax, and ‘all other tax,’ ” Revenue
Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder told the State House News
Service.
“The increase in withholding is likely related to
improvements in labor market conditions while the increase
in non-withholding tax collections is due to an increase in
income estimated payments. The sales and use tax increase
reflects continued strength in retail sales and the easing
of COVID-19 restrictions.”
Since the July 1 start of fiscal 2022, the DOR has collected
$8.751 billion from residents and businesses. The
year-to-date total is $1.501 billion, 20.7%, greater than
actual collections during the same time period of fiscal
2021, and $525 million, 6.4%, above the administration’s
year-to-date goal.
During fiscal 2021, Massachusetts state government collected
$5 billion more from residents, workers and businesses than
it was expecting, leading to a sizable surplus.
The $34.137 billion total for fiscal 2021 was $5.047
billion, 17.3%, above the state’s benchmark and $4.528
billion,15.3%, more than the actual amount collected in
fiscal year 2020.
That $5 billion-plus fiscal 2021 total also matches the $5
billion in federal American Rescue Plan funds the state has
yet to allocate.
By the time fiscal 2022 ends on June 30, DOR expects to
collect $34.401 billion in tax revenue. Revenues for the
month of October, which DOR said is “among the lower months
for revenue collection,” are due to be announced Nov. 3.
DOR has set the monthly collection benchmark at $2.248
billion.
Given what’s already transpired, that fiscal 2022 revenue
estimate might need to be revised higher.
The only people on Beacon Hill not excited by these gaudy
tax receipts are the lawmakers and special-interest groups
behind that so-called millionaires tax. A joint session of
state lawmakers in June took a final procedural step, voting
159-41 to clear the way for the proposal to be placed on the
ballot after years of prior attempts stymied by political
and court battles.
At the time, the surtax appeared to have the backing of the
state’s voters; a poll by Boston-based MassINC Polling Group
showed that 72% supported the wealth tax.
Lawmakers have promised the estimated $2 billion in added
revenue will target transportation infrastructure and
public-school needs, but opponents argue the gains won’t
outweigh the potential loss of job-creating entrepreneurs
and relocated businesses.
That 4% surcharge on yearly income exceeding $1 million
becomes less necessary — and more punitive — after each
successive revenue-beating month. And if that’s the case,
why should voters in the 2022 statewide elections approve
that ballot question — overwhelming backed by Democrats —
when the state’s awash in cash?
That’s a valid ballot question.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Senate Approves Bill to Make Voting Reforms Permanent
Rejects Republican Alternative, Registration Amendments
By Colin A. Young
The Senate on Wednesday went on record supporting the
permanent adoption of COVID-era voting allowances like
expanded early voting and voting-by-mail, and also adopted
policies like same-day registration that go beyond the
changes made to accommodate elections during a pandemic.
The bill passed 36-3 along party lines after Democrats
rejected an alternative the Republican senators offered to
address many of the same issues. Democrats pitched the bill
(S 2545), which would also build into the system additional
supports for people with disabilities, as a way to remove
obstacles to the ballot box and to maintain options that
proved popular when available to voters in 2020.
"In 2020, for the first time in Massachusetts history,
residents had the choice to vote by mail, to vote during
[an] extended early voting window, or to vote in person on
Election Day. These reforms, which received overwhelming
bipartisan support, helped increase civic engagement and
enabled residents to vote safely, securely and easily," Sen.
Barry Finegold, who chairs the Committee on Election Laws
for the Senate, said.
With early and mail-in voting options in place last year,
3,657,972 votes were cast in the Nov. 3 election, topping
the state's previous record by nearly 300,000 votes and
representing roughly 76 percent turnout, Secretary of State
William Galvin's office said. Finegold said 42 percent of
people voted by mail last year and another 23 percent cast
their ballots during early voting.
"In the face of an ongoing pandemic, Massachusetts did not
simply protect voting rights. We reinvigorated our
democracy," he said.
Echoing what Senate President Karen Spilka last week
referred to as "an anti-democratic, fundamentally
un-American darkness" that she said "is spreading across the
United States," a number of Senate Democrats on Wednesday
referenced debates around voting rights in more conservative
states.
"We're living in a dangerous moment. Dozens of states are
restricting access to the ballot box and citing baseless
politically-motivated claims of election fraud as a
justification for doing so," Sen. Cynthia Creem said.
Just as Democrats in states like Texas were unable to stop
legislative efforts to change state laws around voting and
elections, the Republican minority in the Massachusetts
Senate was unsuccessful Wednesday in generating support for
a proposed rewrite of the voting reforms bill.
The alternative from the chamber's three Republicans, which
failed on a 3-35 party-line vote, would have required annual
notification of each voter's own registration status from
the secretary of state, moved the voter registration
deadline from 20 days before an election to five days
before, and provided for at least one weekday evening of
early voting beyond what the underlying bill proposed. It
also would have allowed any registered voter to request a
ballot to vote early by mail for any election but would have
required the request to be made under the penalties of
perjury.
Minority Leader Bruce Tarr called it "a prescription for how
to go further and make sure that we have two things. Number
one, increased voter participation. And number two,
increased security and integrity around elections." He said
he thought it was "important that everyone understand what
we are proposing and the many areas of commonality that we
share."
"I would hope that we would adopt this particular
substitution and begin the process of a bipartisan agreement
to be able to move forward to be proactive, to not be
content with creating a situation where we receive voter
participation, but one in which we go out and proactively
create voter participation," Tarr said.
Sen. Ryan Fattman said the GOP rewrite also would have
enhanced election accuracy by increasing random auditing,
bolstered election security by doubling penalties for
illegal voting and unlawful distribution of absentee
ballots, and required that the state reimburse cities and
towns for early voting costs.
The bill put forward by Senate leadership already included
reforms that would direct sheriffs and other corrections
officials to help eligible incarcerated voters learn their
rights and apply for and cast ballots by mail, but senators
went beyond that with the adoption Wednesday of a Sen. Adam
Hinds amendment that more explicitly spells out what steps
correction facilities must take to educate and facilitate
voting among the eligible incarcerated population.
A few hours before the Senate gaveled in to debate its
election reform bill, advocates pitched the Joint Committee
on Election Laws on legislation (H 836/S 474) that mirrors
the Hinds amendment.
"People who are incarcerated on misdemeanor convictions, who
are civilly committed and who are incarcerated pretrial are
all eligible to vote in the commonwealth. But we've created
a system of de facto disenfranchisement of this population,
disproportionately impacting Black and brown communities and
undermining their voting power," Jesse White, policy counsel
at Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, told the
committee Wednesday morning.
People serving sentences for felony convictions in
Massachusetts are ineligible to vote in state and
Congressional elections while incarcerated, the result of a
constitutional amendment approved by 64 percent of statewide
voters on the 2000 ballot. But between 7,000 and 9,000 other
people each year are held on misdemeanor convictions or as
they await trial and remain eligible to vote, Creem said.
"We all feel a sense of pride and connection in our
community when we vote ... Enabling eligible incarcerated
individuals to feel that connection should be viewed as an
important component of successful rehabilitation and
reintegration and, due to the disproportionate percentage of
minorities in our prisons, it should be viewed as an issue
of racial justice," Creem said as the Senate began its
debate Wednesday afternoon.
Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian said Tuesday that
making sure "any incarcerated individual who is eligible to
vote has the ability to do so" is a top priority for him and
his office, which has "fully incorporated voter registration
into our reentry programming."
In 2016 and 2018, Koutoujian partnered with the League of
Women Voters to conduct voter education drives, register new
voters and help eligible voters get absentee ballots. In
2020, the sheriff's office worked directly with eligible
voters since LWV volunteers were limited by pandemic health
and safety restrictions.
"Our staff works diligently to ensure that returning
citizens understand their voting rights and the value of
civic engagement to a full and successful reentry into
society. Since November 2019, we have helped 192 individuals
register to vote as part of the reentry process," Koutoujian
said. "Many of those who registered did not know they would
be eligible to vote upon their release and several were
registering for the first time in their lives."
Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz offered two amendments -- both of
which were rejected on voice votes -- related to the
registration of incarcerated voters. One (#8) would have
directed jails, prisons and facilities run by the Department
of Youth Services to enter into agreements with the state to
become automatic voter registration sites. A second
amendment (#9) would have made pre-registration to vote part
of the re-entry process for anyone preparing to be released
at the end of their sentence for a felony conviction.
Geoff Foster, executive director of the Common Cause
Massachusetts voting rights advocacy group, said he's
noticed "a strong focus to prioritize voting rights and
election reforms in Massachusetts" during this legislative
session and told lawmakers that Hinds' jail-based voting
proposal is critical "because it highlights and centers
equity in the debate about our democracy."
Referring to the VOTES Act that the Senate would dive into
later Wednesday, Foster added, "We also hope and ask that if
that bill moves to the House, that this particular provision
of jail-based voting be a top priority for all of you."
At the outset of debate, Tarr questioned the Legislature's
ability to enact a permanent mail-in voting option without
changing the state Constitution -- and raised the specter of
consulting the state's highest court on the matter.
Tarr recounted that when Finegold and then-Senate President
Therese Murray had sought to permanently expand early and
absentee voting in 2013, they had done so by proposing an
amendment to the Constitution. He also referenced a
constitutional amendment filed this spring by Reps. Michael
Moran and Kevin Honan to allow for no-excuse absentee
voting.
Finegold responded: "We will say that we in the Legislature
do find that mail-in voting is important for the people of
the commonwealth. And we do believe the Constitution allows
it."
Tarr replied that he hoped the Legislature would "not play
dice with the Constitution, and that we will do what it
takes to make sure that we are either compliant, or effect
changes that would allow the statutes that we enact to be
compliant."
"I become a little bit nervous when I hear that the
Legislature has deemed something constitutional, when in
fact there exists a significant constitutional question,"
said Tarr, adding that perhaps he and Finegold could join
together in the future to seek an advisory opinion from the
Supreme Judicial Court.
The bill now heads to the House of Representatives, which
has already considered some parts of the Senate bill in
other forms. But House Speaker Ronald Mariano said this week
that representatives will "need another vote" on election
reforms this session.
"Obviously, we'll wait and see what comes over in the form
of the bill that we'll get from the Senate," Mariano said
earlier this week. "We have taken a vote on the same-day
amendment. We'll see what happens when we begin the debate."
The House rejected a same-day voter registration proposal
last year and this June approved a supplemental budget
amendment that would have permanently authorized mail-in
voting and early voting before biennial elections.
Baker has supported mail-in voting, and signed the laws
implementing and extending pandemic-era voting options, but
he is opposed to same-day voter registration.
"We have lots and lots of opportunities for people to
register right up until Election Day and a lot of processes
that are pretty easy to use to get there," Baker said in a
radio interview last month. "But I want municipalities and
the commonwealth on Election Day to focus on one thing and
one thing only, which is counting the votes."
Existing mail-in voting and expanded early voting provisions
expire Dec. 15 without action to extend or replace them.
— Sam Doran contributed
reporting.
State House News
Service
Friday, October 8, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Voting, Scrambled
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
The timing may have been curious, but even Gov. Charlie
Baker said he didn't find the announcement all that
surprising.
About 30 minutes before Nathan Eovaldi threw the first pitch
in a winner-take-all playoff game against the Yankees at
Fenway Park, former President Donald Trump sent out an email
announcing his "Complete and Total Endorsement!" of Geoff
Diehl for governor, knocking the incumbent as a RINO in the
process.
So how did Baker respond? "Let's go @redsox!" the governor
tweeted just after 8 p.m.
Diehl started his campaign for governor over the summer
trying not to be the Trump guy. Though everyone knew the
former president had his support, Diehl wanted to stand on
his own two feet. He said he couldn't say for sure whether
the 2020 election had been stolen, and that both parties had
a problem with respecting the results of elections.
Fast forward a couple of months and Diehl this week claimed
the 2020 election was rigged, as he called on Gov. Baker to
reject permanent voting by mail and embrace a GOP-backed
voter ID ballot initiative - both unlikely scenarios.
Less than a day after making that statement, Diehl was on
the phone with Trump himself, accepting the former
president's endorsement. What followed was a deluge of
armchair analysis over whether Trump's support for Diehl
would help or hurt Baker, while Baker himself seemed to
shrug it off.
"In some respects, I'm not surprised for a whole bunch of
reasons," Baker said. "But the bottom line is I'm really
focused on Covid, focused on getting people back to work and
focused on making sure that kids have the opportunity to go
to school in person this year and trying to get us back to
what I would describe as normal as fast as possible.”
This week, that included expanding the mission of the
National Guard to drive buses in four more school districts:
Haverhill, Revere, Worcester and Wachusett Regional.
Baker's biggest challenge in a Republican primary, should he
decide to run, will arguably be making sure the independents
who are his bread-and-butter constituency vote in the GOP
primary, rather than in the Democratic contest. Trump's
endorsement, however, could prove useful for Diehl with
fundraising outside of Massachusetts. And Diehl could use
the help.
The former state lawmaker pulled in just $11,511 in
September, while Baker posted his best month of the year
with $173,348 in donations.
But let's also assume for a moment that Trump's support does
translate to votes for Diehl. Will either of them trust the
count if the ballots came by mail, or from jail?
The Senate this week voted to make sure Massachusetts
residents have as many options as possible to cast their
ballots in 2022 and beyond, passing a version of the VOTES
Act that would expand early voting, make voting by mail
permanent and allow for same-day voter registration.
Not one of the Senate's three Republicans backed the bill,
and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr questioned its
constitutionality.
The overwhelmingly Democrat-controlled branch also voted for
a Sen. Adam Hinds amendment that would require sheriffs and
other public safety officials to make concerted efforts to
help eligible, incarcerated individuals cast their ballots.
"We'll see ...," said House Speaker Ron Mariano at the start
of the week, assessing the chances of the comprehensive
elections package. The speaker was particularly apprehensive
about same-day registration, which the House has voted
against in the past.
But before they get to that, the House took up a bill to
amend the 2016 animal cruelty prevention law to avert what
egg and pork producers have warned could be a food supply
crisis come January.
The ballot law backed by voters five years ago set standards
for how much space egg-laying hens, pigs and veal calves
must have when kept in captivity. But as industry practices
changed and other states adopted their own standards,
Massachusetts has become an outlier, threatening to prevent
egg producers, in particular, from selling into
Massachusetts.
The good news for breakfast lovers is that the House and
Senate, along with egg producers and animal rights
activists, seem to agree on the need to amend the law. The
two branches must now just square their differences before
the mid-session recess in November.
The bill passed by the House, like its Senate counterpart,
would allow hens to be kept in smaller cages with 1 square
foot of floor space, as opposed to 1.5 square feet, as long
as they have "unfettered access" to vertical space. The
House, however, also voted to delay new standards for
raising pigs by a year.
Speaking of the November recess, House and Senate leaders
have about five weeks to draft and vote on a plan to spend
at least some of the state's $4.8 billion in American Rescue
Plan Act funds, and they passed a major milestone in that
process this week.
The House and Senate Ways and Means committees held their
final public hearing on ARPA on Tuesday, taking testimony
from people like Auditor Suzanne Bump, who called for a
"rural rescue plan" for communities in western Massachusetts
where she said population decline and business retreat have
made it hard for them to maintain basic infrastructure, like
roads and fire stations.
The Senate's Committee on Reimagining Massachusetts: Post
Pandemic Resiliency also published its first report this
week outlining billions of dollars in ideas for how to spend
the money, and Bump and Inspector General Glenn Cunha argued
for some funding to be set aside to audit how the money gets
spent.
Democratic leaders have not yet said how much money they
plan to allocate immediately, and how much they're willing
to hold back, but Spilka said Monday that legislators are
watching talks in Washington over infrastructure and social
programs closely to make sure they avoid overlap.
MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak said this week that
federal money already received by the transit agency will
help cushion the system's long-term financial challenges
until at least 2024 when some decisions will have to be
made.
But Baker this week finally filled in the blanks on who will
be helping to make some of those decisions. More than three
months after the MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board
dissolved, Baker named his five appointees to the new T
oversight board that will be chaired by Betsy Taylor,
six-year veteran of the state Department of Transportation
board of directors.
The board will be rounded out by Robert Butler, vice
president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO; Thomas "Scott"
Darling, a safety consultant; Travis McCready, executive
director of the U.S. Life Sciences Market for JLL; and Mary
Beth Mello, the principal at Mello Transportation
Consulting.
Transportation Secretary Jamey Tesler also sits on the
panel, as does Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, appointed by the
independent MBTA Advisory Board representing municipalities
that help fund the T.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Voting reforms put in place to make sure
elections could happen safely under quarantine are one step
closer to being just a regular part of the new normal.
The Boston
Herald
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Baker, Biden, Trump and Diehl all on political dance card
By Peter Lucas
Will Joe Biden now endorse Charlie Baker?
Unlikely. It is a Republican primary for governor we are
talking about, and an endorsement by the Democrat president
of a GOP governor — even if he is a RINO — would do more
harm than good.
Biden is a train wreck of a president who has plummeted so
far down in the polls that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker may
have to endorse him.
Besides, there are already three Democrats running for
governor, with the possibility of Attorney General Maura
Healey becoming the fourth. And right now, it is not known
whether Baker will even seek a third term.
If he does, conservative Republican Geoff Diehl, 52, who was
endorsed Monday by Donald Trump, will be waiting to knock
him off in the GOP primary. If Baker doesn’t run, then Diehl
has a path to the Republican nomination for governor.
Diehl was co-chair of the Trump re-election campaign in
Massachusetts.
The former president’s endorsement is no small thing. That
is because it is a Republican primary we are talking about
and not a general November election. It will help Diehl
raise funds.
There are only 469,000 registered Republicans in
Massachusetts, most of whom probably voted for Trump in the
last election.
While Biden easily defeated Trump in the state, 60.6% to
Trump’s 32.1%, Trump did amass 1,167,202 votes. Biden got
2,382,202.
Diehl will not get most of those Trump votes in a GOP
primary. But if he can get enough support from voters
disaffected with Biden’s swing toward socialism, along with
a hefty chunk of Republicans, he has a shot.
Diehl has shown that he can get statewide votes on his own.
While he was soundly defeated by Democrat U.S. Sen.
Elizabeth Warren in 2018, he did get 979,507 people to vote
for him in the general election. Warren got 1.634,213 votes,
however.
Baker, going on eight years as governor, is still a popular
figure. The moderate/liberal chief executive scores well
with Independents and Democrats. It is among conservative
Republicans where Baker has problems.
This is partly due to the takeover of the Republican Party
apparatus — namely the Republican State Committee — by
Chairman Jim Lyons, a Trump enthusiast, along with a team of
Trump supporters.
Lyons and the committee will control the Republican Party
convention, which could be a major embarrassment to Baker
should the convention endorse Diehl.
Baker is a longtime critic of fellow Republican Trump. He
did not support Trump for president in 2016, or when he was
president, or when he sought re-election. He let people know
that he did not vote for Trump either. So now it is payback
time.
In a typical Trump disjointed statement, Trump called Baker
a RINO “who has done nothing for the Republican Party.”
“He has totally abandoned the principles of the Republican
Party, never cutting taxes and undermining our agenda,”
Trump said.
“Baker is bad on crime, disrespects our police, does nothing
for our veterans, has totally botched the vaccination
rollout, presided over the collapse of the MBTA, and has
seen crime go to record levels,” the former president said.
Trump’s endorsement, along with Diehl’s reaction, indicates
that Trump and his policies will be a major part of Diehl’s
campaign. It is a given that he will go after Baker on the
vaccine rollout, the scandalous death of 77 veterans at the
Holyoke Soldiers Home, the MBTA and a host of other issues.
But Diehl will openly campaign on Trump’s “America First”
agenda, which has a lot of appeal among Republicans and
conservatives who want to halt the illegal immigrant
invasion of the country.
Diehl said, “I am inspired by the president’s (Trump)
America First agenda, which he backed up by delivering on
his promises during his time in the White House.”
“Like President Trump, I want to ensure a strong economy … I
want families to feel safe,” Diehl said. Like Trump, he
added, “I want people to feel like government isn’t working
against them and that they can enjoy the individual freedoms
our state and country were founded on.”
We are in a fascist-like, authoritarian Biden era of
mandates. Now the FBI is tasked with monitoring the behavior
of parents at local school committee meetings as in the old
Soviet Union. Watch what you say, comrade.
A Diehl “Massachusetts First” campaign will appeal to a lot
of people.
— Peter Lucas is a veteran
Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
State House News
Service
Friday, October 8, 2021
Advances - Week of Oct. 10, 2021
Thousands of state employees next week face vaccination
deadlines while legislative leaders slow-walk their fall
agenda with just over five weeks remaining before the
holiday recess.
Legislators appear poised to release redrawn House and
Senate district lines, and top Democrats are drafting major
spending bills to allocate American Rescue Plan Act funds
and the fiscal 2021 state budget surplus.
The Senate this week approved and shipped to the House a
major voting reform bill, after earlier this fall sending
over a sex education bill with hopes that the House will
finally tackle that perennial policy proposal.
House leaders meantime are eager to see the Senate take up
one of its priorities, legalizing sports betting. Gov.
Charlie Baker has a student nutrition bill on his desk and
his appointees to a new MBTA Board are likely making plans
for their first public get-together.
The vaccination mandates are designed in part to facilitate
the broader return to in-person work settings, as entities
move ahead on widely varying schedules in that regard. With
COVID-19 still spreading, crowded bars, restaurants and
sporting venues are now common, and public schools next week
become eligible to lift their mask mandates if they can
prove they meet vaccination thresholds. However, many
employers remain in remote mode, including the Legislature,
where plans to reopen the State House to the public are
still unclear and mask-wearing requirements remain in place
even with very few people in the building on a regular
basis.
Another major milestone comes Monday, when Massachusetts
will be in the international spotlight for the return of the
Boston Marathon. Crowds are expected to fill the race route
from Hopkinton to Boston, and there's a possibility that the
Boston Red Sox will also host a playoff game on the city's
first-ever Marathon Monday in October.
The Senate has only a pair of informal sessions on its
schedule for next week, indicating major legislative
activity appears unlikely in that branch.
Vaccine Mandate Deadlines Near
All executive department employees must provide proof of
COVID-19 vaccination by Sunday, Oct. 17, under an executive
order Gov. Baker issued in August. Employees for whom
vaccination is "medically contraindicated or who object to
vaccination on the grounds of sincerely-held religious
reasons" may be entitled to an exemption from the
requirement, and those who feel they qualify must have
submitted an exemption by Friday, Oct. 8, according to an
online FAQ the executive branch's human resources department
published.
The policy applies to about 45,000 employees, and according
to the FAQ, the requirement extends across full- and
part-time workers, contract employees, interns, seasonal,
intermittent and temporary workers, and those who telework
full-time. Those affected by the policy must provide proof
that they have received the required two doses of the
Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or the single dose of the Johnson
& Johnson vaccine, and options are available both online and
in paper form.
Executive branch employees who choose not to get vaccinated
and do not qualify for an exemption will face an increasing
scale of discipline. The FAQ says managers will first be
suspended for five days without pay, with "continued
non-compliance" later resulting in termination. Bargaining
unit members who do not comply will at first face a five-day
suspension without pay, then an additional 10-day suspension
without pay, and then termination if they continue to
disobey the mandate.
Most workers who resign or are fired for failing to comply
with a COVID-19 vaccine "will not be eligible to collect
unemployment benefits," the FAQ said, noting that decisions
will ultimately take place "on a case-by-case basis."
According to the Baker administration, the documentation
related to an employee's COVID-19 vaccinations will be
maintained confidentially. The administration is also
calling on executive branch employees to provide proof that
they have received booster vaccine doses as they become
available and as groups become eligible.
A Baker spokesperson, who did not share official guidance or
documents, said the administration is "encouraged by the
response to date" and is seeing "significant progress toward
the vaccination goal." When the policy was announced, Baker
administration officials said they would work with unions
representing affected workers, and that "specific
ramifications of non-compliance for staff represented by
unions will be discussed well in advance of October 17."
The union representing Massachusetts corrections officers,
which is suing to challenge the mandate's constitutionality,
last week sent its members what it said was guidance from
the state's Office of Employee Relations outlining how to
comply with the vaccine policy.
Senate President Karen Spilka in August declared an Oct. 15
vaccine mandate deadline for senators and staff and the
House, under an order adopted by that branch on Sept. 23, is
exploring a Nov. 1 vaccine mandate deadline.
On Thursday, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont published
agency-by-agency data showing rates of compliance and
vaccinations, including a 78.5 percent fully vaccinated rate
and a 2.2 percent non-compliance rate in the executive
branch. Lamont's executive order required all Connecticut
state employees, child care facility staff, and preK-12
school employees to receive at least one COVID-19 vaccine
dose by Sept. 27.
Storylines In Progress
... Offshore wind interests, including top federal
government regulators, are due to participate either
in-person or remotely at a major conference in Boston
... State education officials are set Tuesday to weigh in on
what is described as a "pioneering high school model"
... Cannabis regulators on Thursday revisit their discussion
of whether Lawrence, and perhaps other communities, should
be designated as areas of disproportionate impact
... The Legislature for years has resisted attempts to beef
up seatbelt law enforcement by giving police more power, but
the push for a primary enforcement bill continues, picking
up again on Wednesday before the Public Safety Committee
... Supporters of President Biden's nomination of Suffolk DA
Rachael Rollins to serve as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts
continue their push to put the issue before the full Senate,
after the Judiciary Committee deadlocked 11-11 on her
nomination ...
Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021
PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE: Joint Committee on Public Safety
and Homeland Security holds a hearing on legislation related
to transportation, including a trio of bills to establish
primary seatbelt enforcement (H 2515/H 2543/S 1591).
Massachusetts law currently requires seatbelt use, but it is
a secondary enforcement law, so police can only cite
motorists for not wearing a seatbelt when they have already
stopped the vehicle for another traffic violation. Gov.
Baker earlier this year proposed allowing police to pull
over and cite people for not wearing their seatbelts as part
of a larger bill, but the idea was knocked by civil rights
and transportation advocates. The committee will also hear
testimony on bills dealing with seatbelts on school buses
(H.2425/S.1569/S.1572/S.1632) and police pursuits
(H.2541/H.2514/S.1631). (Wednesday, 11 a.m., More Info)
Event Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Start Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Virtual Hearing
Written testimony can be emailed to Dave McNeill at
david.mcneill@mahouse.gov
and Cara
Libman at
cara.libman@masenate.gov
The Boston
Herald
Monday, October 4, 2021
A Boston Herald editorial
Inflation a growling wolf at the door
Last week, Dollar Tree, one of the few dollar stores that
lived up to the promise of its name, announced a shocking
development. Its costs had risen so high in recent weeks
that it could no longer hold the line at a single buck.
Instead, it regretted to announce, many items would now cost
either $1.25 or $1.50.
Wall Street was delighted. Dollar Tree shares shot up. But
the news was an especially vivid reminder of the clear and
present danger of inflation, coming for the very customer
base that could afford it the least.
The signs of higher costs passed on to consumers are
everywhere: menu items at restaurants, grocery totals at the
checkout, pain at the fuel pump, shipping prices for
containers, lumber costs, real estate prices, rising labor
expenses for small businesses, on and on. There have been
disagreements about whether this is a temporary phenomenon
of COVID-19 recovery and associated federal spending (which
tends to be the liberal position and is the official
prediction of the Federal Reserve), or a serious threat,
especially given the stubborn supply-chain problems that
don’t seem to be improving. That’s a theory gaining traction
among many business executives (and even some of the voices
at the Fed).
But all this overlooks a crucial and much-underestimated
factor. Many Americans, especially those under 40 and
including many reporters and a hefty chunk of the Twitterati,
have no personal experience of what inflation can do to an
economy, or to a citizen saving for retirement. They fear
not the growling wolf. Thus those who see its dangers have
some educating to do.
Take, for example, the decades-long progressive fight for a
$15 minimum wage.
Progressive organizers campaigning for minimum wage
increases across the country barely breathed the word
“inflation” and rarely index-linked their demands. Whole
numbers were more politically effective and far more easily
understood. This has contributed to the inflation-ignorance
problem.
On the other side of the political spectrum, take the 3%
compounding cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. Those
increases have been attacked for years, but now we’re seeing
prices rising apace.
The notion that the COLA alone is massively out of whack
with inflation is looking shakier, given that the consumer
price index in June was up 5.4% from a year earlier.
Businesses are girding their loins to have to pay more for
workers of all stripes. And they’ll be building that into
their prices. They’ll have no choice.
The problem with inflation is that it slashes the actual
value of people’s savings accounts, making a retirement that
once seemed secure far more tentative.
Younger people have no idea what it was like in the
high-inflation years of the 1970s, of course. They don’t
have a sense of costly mortgages hammering their chances of
getting a loan or of watching their hard-won savings get
eaten away by ballooning prices. They may well get a crash
course in that understanding in coming weeks and months, but
part of the current progressive orthodoxy is still that the
danger of inflation is overstated. Too many people have
bought that hook, line and sinker.
Yet that Dollar Tree price increase suggests otherwise.
Imagine how hard that must have been for the company’s
executives, given that their entire identity was wrapped up
in that very barrier.
Those with some worn tread on their tires who understand the
dangers of inflation have some teaching to do. The wolf is
at the door.
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