State Rep. John Rogers, chairman of the House Ways and Means
Committee, is off and running again. He's using the same strategy as he did last year to get his huge tax increase.
First, deny there's any tax hike in the works; next, wind up all the powerful Gimme Lobby
special interests with threats of massive funding cuts; and finally, just set them loose.
Last year's "Biggest Tax Increase in State History" took
another $1.2 billion from our pockets. Gov. Romney's budget includes $1.4 billion in additional "revenue enhancements,"
fees, whatever he wants to call the huge pile of money coming from us and going into the
state's coffers, instead of calling them taxes.
Boston Herald columnist Tom Keane picked up on the theme
that if these are fees then we can just do away with taxes entirely and just keep creating and raising "fees."
Many of Gov. Romney's proposed and increased fees are truly
fees and arguably should or could be legitimately increased ... but too many are questionable or outright taxes
disguised as "fees." This remains a concern for us ... and apparently for others as well.
If this disingenuous ploy stands, there will be no end to
the use of "divide-and-conquer" targeted "fee" increases and creations. They'll soon nickel and dime us to the death of a
thousand cuts ... or should I say increases.
There's been a lot written lately about Gov. Romney taking a
pass on the Quinn Bill and paid police details ... but there's a long history of fear and intimidation surrounding any
tinkering even around the edges of law enforcement perks and privileges. Margery Eagan,
Boston Herald columnist and talk show host, captured the climate of fear and intimidation
best.
Don't look for anything to change with that $100 million
"core service" or Massachusetts being the only state in the nation with paid police details - there are no profiles in
courage on Beacon Hill.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
Gov disputes lawmakers' doomsday budget warnings
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Legislative leaders are warning cities and towns to brace
for local aid cuts as high as 20 percent - a move that sent mayors scrambling and drew sharp
protest from Gov. Mitt Romney, who had proposed trimming one-fourth that
amount.
Sen. Therese Murray, the Senate's budget chief, said she was
"surprised" that Romney's budget proposal only nicked $232 million out of the $5.2 billion local
aid account - a 5 percent reduction.
But facing a $3 billion deficit, Murray (D-Plymouth) said
lawmakers have been warning local leaders "for the last four months" that local aid would be slashed
between 10 percent and 20 percent.
"I think unfortunately that's true," Murray said.
The deepest local aid cuts seen in a decade will be outlined
first in the House budget proposal, slated for release next month.
Where Romney's lesser cut had offered hope to cash-strapped
mayors, House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers warned "prudent" local planners of a
20 percent raid - and said he's looking to slash into previously protected
education money.
"Things are that bad," Rogers said. "Clearly, we can no
longer hold local aid harmless. We're talking about Chapter 70 as well."
Romney, who had tried to minimize his own local aid cuts
after mayors protested, immediately recoiled from the legislative salvo.
"I do not want to see local aid cuts go deeper than those we
proposed," Romney said. "Cities and towns just can't afford a bigger reduction."
Mayors statewide, who will meet with Romney at the State
House today, were appalled at cuts that could force teacher and police layoffs.
Springfield Mayor Michael Albano said recent cuts have
already forced him to lay off 330 city workers - including 76 police officers and 54 firefighters.
"This situation is getting dangerous," Albano said. "We'd be
cutting into the bone marrow ... It really would be fatal in a lot of ways."
Rogers' mention of cutting education money sent shockwaves
through the school community - with the Massachusetts Teachers Association pledging to
push tax hikes as an alternative.
"This is not protecting education," said MTA President Cathy
Boudreau. "This is going backwards."
Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who has pledged to
protect human service programs, yesterday raised anew the possibility that the Senate would
back tax hikes to ward off worst case cuts.
"That is not right now a preferred route of travel, but
everything is still on the table," Travaglini said.
While the Senate has traditionally leaned toward taxes,
House leaders said rank-and-file lawmakers aren't interested in a repeat of last year's $1.2 billion
package. "You need 81 votes," Rogers said. "I don't think they're there."
Legislative leaders tried to cast doubt on Romney's claim
that he saved $2 billion through restructuring - arguing that the numbers only add up to $233
million. "It's not truthful," Rogers said.
Romney dismissed the criticism. "I have no question about
the fact that the numbers do add up," he said. "This is not an issue that will be solved by
semantics."
Meanwhile, February tax collections came in $38 million, or
4.7 percent higher than last year, and $4 million higher than officials had expected - meaning the
budget woes didn't worsen last month.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
Semantics aside, you still pay for it
by Thomas Keane Jr.
Imagine this news story:
In a bold move, the city of Boston announced it plans to
abolish all taxes.
All major thoroughfares into the city will now bear signs,
"Welcome to tax-free Boston," declared the city's mayor, Thomas Menino.
Beside each sign will be a city official collecting a new
$25 entrance fee into Boston.
The city's move came after a declaration by Gov. Mitt
Romney's administration that while it is not acceptable to raise taxes, increased fees for various services
are fine.
"Taxes are very distinguishable from fees," said Eric Kriss,
Romney's chief of administration and finance. Fees are for items that are "generally considered
voluntary."
As an example, the Romney administration cited its plan to
expand the state's bottle bill from just carbonated beverages to include all drinks. Choosing to
drink water or juice, of course, is entirely voluntary.
In response, Menino made his historic announcement.
"The property tax is no more," proclaimed the mayor,
standing in front of historic Faneuil Hall. With a giant pair of scissors, Menino symbolically cut in
half a large piece of paper bearing the words "Tax Bill."
In a later announcement, the city unveiled plans for what it
described as a "property fee." The new charge, which officials say will not fall under the state's
Proposition 2½ restrictions because it is not a tax, will be assessed as a
percentage of a property's value.
"We expect that Boston will raise more through these new
property fees than it ever did with the property tax," Menino said.
The mayor stressed that the new charge on property fit
carefully within the Romney administration's definition of a fee. "No one is required to own
property in the city of Boston," Menino said. "It is entirely voluntary."
Menino, once emblematic of the tax-and-spend wing of the
Democratic Party, said he had turned over a new leaf. "No more taxing for me," he said. "It's all
fees from now on."
The tax/fee distinction has given new life to long-standing
city proposals to raise revenues by increasing the charge for towing vehicles, imposing a
surcharge on entertainment (such as movie and theater tickets), and collecting
an additional 1 percent on meals at city restaurants.
"We were such fools," said one Boston official. "We
presented all of these as if they were new taxes. Now we're going to have to submit a whole new package
to Beacon Hill, labeling everything a fee. That's the problem with being a city
worker. You just don't have the sophisticated understanding of the language
that guys like Mitt Romney have."
Under Romney's proposed budget, $1.4 billion will be raised
from various revenue measures, according to an analysis prepared by the Massachusetts
Taxpayer's Foundation.
"I don't think Shannon O'Brien would have understood the
tax/fee difference either," admitted a spokesman for the state's Democratic Party. "Maybe it's
that we're Democrats and we think everything should be taxed. Thank God a
Republican won. Otherwise, we'd have been raising taxes instead of fees to
cover the state's budget deficit."
I trust the point is clear: The wisdom of various revenue-raising measures
should not rest upon semantics.
While the above is fiction (although all quotes from the
Romney administration are real), the underlying notion is quite serious. The Romney budget really
does contain $1.4 billion of what Kriss calls "revenue enhancements." And each
of those enhancements will end up coming out of someone's pocket.
Government fees, taxes or whatever you wish to call them
amount to unwanted impositions on citizens. Some of those charges - say, for space at a
state parking garage - are so narrowly drawn and so directly related to what's
provided that we might view them in the same way we view charges for goods
and services from the private sector.
But others are broadly based and touch virtually everyone.
That's certainly true of an expansion of the bottle bill. It is also true of a host of other items in
the administration's budget: increases in college tuitions (projected to fetch $50
million annually), new charges on the sale of used cars ($10 million) and higher
fees at registries of deeds ($230 million). Education, automobiles, real estate.
All three touch the lives of most everybody.
And localities such as Boston also have to be puzzled by the
administration's word games.
The Romney administration has looked askance at Menino's
proposals to boost local revenues, decrying them as taxes. Boston's individual revenue-raising
measures may or may not be smart public policy, but surely measures such as
higher towing fees or surcharges on entertainment are no broader or more
intrusive than the so-called fees the administration itself is planning.
If the state can do it, cities and towns must be wondering,
why can't we?
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
A wall of blue blocks attempts to gut Quinn bill
by Margery Eagan
We can fume and fuss forever.
Neither Mitt Romney nor our esteemed legislators will ever
rein in the out-of-control Quinn bill, now awarding $100 million and counting in pay hikes
to police officers with degrees. They won't curb paid police detail deals, either.
Here's why.
"You should see the State House whenever a bill's pending
that the (police) unions consider threatening," said anti-tax czarina Barbara
Anderson. "The place fills up with policemen in uniform ... very big policemen."
"A sea of blue," says Michael Widmer, president of the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "In full regalia. And, by the way, they're armed."
"Are they all that big?" wonders Anderson. "Or do they just
pick big ones for that day?"
"All teddy bears," says Thomas Nee of the Boston Police
Patrolmen's Association. "Really."
Here's how news stories typically read after the commonwealth's finest shows
Beacon Hill its "considerable muscle," as the cops' tour de force is generally
called:
"After intense lobbying by police interests, legislators
quietly shelved plans for their ambitious overhaul of the Quinn bill, long criticized as a 'cash cow' and
'boondoggle' riddled with abuse and skyward spiraling costs ..."
Whereupon Nee deftly understates, "We lobbied heavily ... We
vocalized our concerns."
Yet here's the rub: Clearly, one man's "vocalizing" is
another man's meltdown.
"Many years later, I still remember (the scene)," said
Widmer. "I found it ... breathtaking."
Widmer was speaking of the last time legislators quietly
shelved ambitious plans to overhaul a sacrosanct police bonanza. That time, Bill Weld tried to
eliminate paid police details, also long criticized as a "cash cow" and
"boondoggle" riddled with abuse and skyward spiraling costs.
"The legislative committee?" said Widmer. "If they had any
intention to look at (details) seriously, within about five seconds, it evaporated. (Legislators)
became obsequious. They were grateful the police were coming to express their
point of view. They were grateful for all the good work police do. It quickly
became a major love-in."
Where was Weld? "I think it was a good one to delegate,"
quipped Widmer.
"I send my staff, too," said Geoffrey Beckwith of Massachusetts Municipal
Association about his own group's efforts to thwart police cash cows and
boondoggles riddled with abuse and skyward spiraling costs. But he was joking
as well. Or so he said. And it must be so. He called the Quinn bill a "low hanging
fruit ... ripe for the picking."
Not that anyone should expect a pluck.
While Romney diced through about everything else in the
budget last week, police details, amazingly, emerged unscathed. And after Romney supported the
Quinn bill throughout the campaign, the State Police Association of Massachusetts and the
Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, in turn, supported him.
Remember Romney's all-American photo with police, his
magnificent mane barely visible in a blue and black tapestry of stripes and holsters and
shimmering boots and great big guns, all spit 'n' polish? Wouldn't you want
those great big guns on your side, too?
Now don't get me wrong. I love police officers. Most
everybody loves police officers in this post-9/11 world. Can't get enough of them. On the street, at the
airport, hanging around the bus station. In this post-9/11 world, George W.
Bush should give them and firefighters the $3.5 billion he promised, but hasn't
delivered.
It's just, you know, the cash cows and boondoggles riddled
with abuse and skyward spiraling costs - they're the problem.
As for the Legislature, well, as the patrolmen's Nee points
out, any effort to cut back on Quinn will be hard fought where it always is, at the State House.
"We're very sensitive," he said. And then, as always, our fearless leaders will
dive under their desks.
"It's really something to see," said Anderson. "I'm talking
about so many (police) up there you can't elbow your way through the State House ... They're
everywhere. Very big. In uniforms."
And where oh where do these hundreds park? Said Anderson,
"Wherever they want."
Margery Eagan's radio show airs noon to 1 p.m. weekdays and 9
a.m. to noon Saturdays on 96.9 FM-Talk.
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