CLT
UPDATE
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Mass. next-to-last in wait for Tax
Freedom Day
State Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, says his bill to "reform" the initiative petition process is not an attempt to kill it. He says if he wanted to destroy the ability of average voters to pass laws, he would have filed a bill to do exactly that.
Don't believe it. Legislators rarely do things directly. It is much safer, and usually more successful, to do it indirectly.
Rosenberg is indeed trying to kill the only avenue to direct democracy in Massachusetts. He is just trying to kill it softly. He is hoping that, just like the frog in the cook pot, voters won't notice the heat gradually increasing on their already limited powers until it is too late and those powers are boiled out of existence....
He and other legislators can't stand the thought of their constituents actually ordering them to do something that they would rather ignore. Their flagrant disregard of the express will of the voters in the Clean Elections referendum is evidence enough of that.
Citizens, don't let it happen. Call your legislators and tell them to kill this bill before it silences one of the last voices you have remaining.
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Sunday, April 13, 2003
A wolf in sheep's clothing
House leaders yesterday rebuffed most of Gov. Mitt Romney's court reform proposals, rejecting a plan to rein in Boston Municipal Court and instead dramatically expanding the reach of the court decried by Romney as a "haven for patronage."
Proposing to hand the politically wired BMC control of all Boston's district courts, House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers said there is no "credible evidence" of a patronage problem....
The House's BMC plan is almost exactly opposite Romney's proposal, which would yank the court's independent status and fold it into the district court system.
With $4 million in savings - and anti-patronage principles - at stake, Romney aides frowned on the House move.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
House aims to beef up BMC, snub Mitt plan
At least 15 states, including Massachusetts, have already turned to tax increases to balance their budgets. And Massachusetts is on the top 10 list, along with neighboring Connecticut, of states having the largest budget shortfalls.
Massachusetts shares another distinction with our New England neighbor - we bear the highest tax burdens in the country. According to the Taxpayer Foundation, the Bay State has the nation's second heaviest total tax burden at $13,887 per capita. Connecticut is first at $15,782 per capita. Alaska had the nation's lowest burden at $8,109.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
States fare poorly in fiscal rankings
According to Tax Foundation calculations using the latest government data on income and taxes, Tax Freedom Day in 2003 will be celebrated on April 19th. That is the same date that Tax Freedom Day fell on during 2002, but 8 days earlier than in 2001, and 11 days earlier than in 2000.
[In Massachusetts, Tax Freedom Day doesn't arrive this year until May 2
... Massachusetts had the second-heaviest total tax burden of any state in the
nation.]
Tax Foundation
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Nationally "Tax Freedom Day" in 2003 was celebrated on April
19th. That's the day when taxpayers start working for themselves after
paying off the year's tax burden. Unfortunately, in Massachusetts it doesn't arrive until May
2, two weeks later than the national average, and that's after the
Tax Foundation factored in last year's income tax rollback, from 5.6 to
5.3 percent. According to the Tax Foundation's annual report,
Massachusetts had the second-heaviest total tax burden of any state in
the nation, led only by Connecticut.
Without our rollback last year, we could have been
Number One!
We might make it there this year, if the
Democrat-controlled Legislature has its way.
And it's working hard to make us Number One.
"House budget-writers don't want to close any courts and favor maintaining a separate Boston Municipal Court; they also want to preserve the Legislature's ability to set individual courthouse budgets. Critics say they've used that power to find jobs for political
allies," Boston Globe State House reporter Rick Klein reported
today ["House plan seeks court flexibility"]. This is
Finneran's private employment center, where he's provided millions more
of our bucks than even the court requested.
"Proposing to hand the politically wired BMC control of all Boston's district courts,"
Boston Herald State House reporter Elisabeth Beardsley reported today,
"House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers said there is no
'credible evidence' of a patronage problem." It'd take more than
Finneran's sticky fingerprints and DNA for Rogers to admit the obvious;
he leaves Baghdad Bob in his dust.
*
* *
"The more things change, the more they
remain the same."
Yesterday I wrote about MTF's scheme encouraging
legislators to borrow the state out of debt, and I asked rhetorically,
"How'd you like to be raking in 5 percent interest on a one
billion dollar loan for the next seven years -- or 5 percent on even
your savings account?"
Soon after, I had another of my "brilliant
idea" flashes (like the voluntary tax check-off) and again pitched
it to Barbara: If the Legislature is bound and determined to make MTF's
Fat Cats even fatter -- and if it looks like it will actually happen
-- then let's propose a way for average citizens to buy into and profit
from any bond bailout program. Let's take it away from MTF membership's
profiteering banking, insurance and investment institutions; eliminate
their incentive to encourage legislators to spend us into debt so their
institutions can profit from loaning the money to dig the state out
decade after decade.
What a shock. There's nothing like institutional
memory, and for taxpayers Barbara and her decades in the trenches is it!
CLT proposed exactly that in the heat of the
last fiscal crisis of 1990; the proposal still exists in the deep
drawers of our paper files from over the decades. The Citizens
Liquidity Trust (CLT) Program was proposed on April 6, 1990 -- in
response to the very same, redundant, recurring, cyclical "fiscal
crisis" situation and Fat Cat bailout. And -- it turns out -- it
was the first proposal of a voluntary tax as well! Yikes.
there's nothing new under the sun.
If borrowing the state out of debt ever
becomes a serious alternative to reforming government and revisiting
overspending -- if that absurdity rises as an option to Beacon Hill pols
instead finally learning to live within the state's means -- then watch
for the resurrection and relaunch of our counter-proposal to MTF's greed
scheme.
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Chip
Ford |
The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Editorial
A wolf in sheep's clothing
OUR VIEW
Don't believe it.
State Sen. Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, says his bill to "reform" the initiative petition process is not an attempt to kill it. He says if he wanted to destroy the ability of average voters to pass laws, he would have filed a bill to do exactly that.
Don't believe it. Legislators rarely do things directly. It is much safer, and usually more successful, to do it indirectly.
Rosenberg is indeed trying to kill the only avenue to direct democracy in Massachusetts. He is just trying to kill it softly. He is hoping that, just like the frog in the cook pot, voters won't notice the heat gradually increasing on their already limited powers until it is too late and those powers are boiled out of existence.
Rosenberg's bill, Senate 362, which came before the Legislature's Committee on Election Laws this past week, would increase the number of signatures necessary to put a question on the ballot by at least 50 percent -- almost 100 percent in the case of a constitutional amendment. It would also give local elected officials a much greater voice on ballot question summaries, again giving more power to government to control information about those questions.
This, Rosenberg says, is necessary because the initiative process is out of control.
Not really. It's more that it is out of *his* control. He and other legislators can't stand the thought of their constituents actually ordering them to do something that they would rather ignore. Their flagrant disregard of the express will of the voters in the Clean Elections referendum is evidence enough of that.
This bill, the senator says, is necessary because the process is being increasingly controlled by powerful special-interest groups who have learned how to "game the system."
If that is true, this bill will make that problem even worse. The reality is that the initiative petition is about the only thing that can trump special interests. If the barriers to petitions are raised even higher, only powerful and wealthy special interests will be able to marshal the forces to collect enough signatures to put something on the ballot. Smaller, grass-roots groups will be disenfranchised.
And if, as Rosenberg says, voters are being manipulated by those powerful special interests, his next move should be to shut down town meetings, elections, legislative hearings and any other elements of participatory democracy. As the senator should know, they are all subject to interest groups, large and small, who have learned how to game the system.
Every political campaign is an effort to control information, to reduce complicated issues to simple slogans -- in short, to manipulate public opinion.
It is not that Rosenberg has a problem with manipulating public opinion. He just wants himself and his colleagues to be the ones doing it.
Citizens, don't let it happen. Call your legislators and tell them to kill this bill before it silences one of the last voices you have remaining.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
House aims to beef up BMC, snub Mitt plan
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
House leaders yesterday rebuffed most of Gov. Mitt Romney's court reform proposals, rejecting a plan to rein in Boston Municipal Court and instead dramatically expanding the reach of the court decried by Romney as a "haven for patronage."
Proposing to hand the politically wired BMC control of all Boston's district courts, House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers said there is no "credible evidence" of a patronage problem.
"The governor seems to be playing on a myth," Rogers (D-Norwood) said.
Romney had highlighted the BMC as an example of excess - pointing to its 11 judges and one courthouse, which consume nearly as much money as the entire district court system's 170 judges and 60 courthouses.
Under the House budget plan, to be formally unveiled tomorrow with the House budget, the BMC would become a Boston-only court - losing jurisdiction over the other Suffolk cities: Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop.
But the BMC would gain vast new control over a Boston-based fiefdom of district courts, including those in Brighton, Dorchester, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, Roxbury and West Roxbury.
"Because they're all within one system, it's a more efficient system," Rogers said.
The House's BMC plan is almost exactly opposite Romney's proposal, which would yank the court's independent status and fold it into the district court system.
With $4 million in savings - and anti-patronage principles - at stake, Romney aides frowned on the House move.
"It would be a shame if the Legislature misses the opportunity to root out waste and patronage and duplication in our court system," said Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman.
Judicial observers said they were dismayed that House leaders appeared to be playing politics with the
BMC, rather than seriously considering Romney's reform proposals.
"It almost sounds like legislators are thumbing their noses at the governor," said Lawyers Weekly USA Editor Paul
Martinek. "This is the same kind of petty squabbling we see between the Legislature and the governor every time there's a court reform proposal. It's why nothing ever gets done."
As part of the reform plan, House leaders also clipped $1 million out of BMC's $7.8 million budget - redistributing that money to busy district courts in New Bedford, Lowell, Springfield and Worcester.
The Boston court could also lose out under a changed fee structure in the plan in which fees collected would be distributed to the districts courts by the chief justice for administration and management based on their efficiency, Rogers said.
Cutting out the fees, currently kept by the individual courts, BMC's budget actually drops to $3.4 million. But Rogers said BMC will have a chance to get the money back under the new competitive system, which he called a "very powerful management tool"
In another major blow to the governor's court reform package, House leaders junked Romney's plan to save $3.5 million by closing eight lightly trafficked district courthouses.
Instead, the House proposes to even out disparate caseloads by rewriting jurisdictions - spinning off some communities from busier courts and piling more work onto courts with smaller caseloads.
The House plan would reduce Worcester District Court's caseload by 11 percent by farming out cases from seven communities to courts in Clinton, Uxbridge and East Brookfield.
Similar redistricting plans were instituted for district courts in Greenfield and Springfield, Rogers said.
"We keep the halls of justice open but busy," he said.
The House budget plan also includes $40 million in increased revenue from court fee hikes and stepped up enforcement.
House lawmakers also opted to keep their power to micromanage individual court budgets - junking Romney's proposal to collapse 161 budgetary line items for the courts into just 14.
But House leaders went along with Romney's proposal to give court leaders the power of "transferability," or the ability to shift money and personnel to where they're most needed.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
A Boston Herald editorial
States fare poorly in fiscal rankings
They say misery loves company, so a gathering of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston this week should provide Beacon Hill leaders with a sort of perverse mood changer. And according to yesterday's New York Times, elected representatives from Hawaii to Nebraska to Ohio will have plenty of tales to share from the states' fiscal battlefields.
To save money, the governor of Missouri has ordered that every third lightbulb be unscrewed in government buildings. Police in a Michigan town are considering putting ads on police cars to get cheaper lease rates. In Nebraska, two out of three state diagnostic veterinarians have been laid off. A new library in Hawaii will have empty shelves for awhile. The arts commission in Arizona is getting the ax. And a beekeeper inspection program has been closed in Indiana.
Of course, there are more serious ramifications to the states' budget crises too. Across the country public higher education tuitions are rising, teachers are being laid off and Medicaid benefits are being cut.
The nation's legislators can also swap stories about the good old days. A Cato Institute analysis shows collectively the states increased spending by an average of 5.7 percent per year from 1990 to 2001, almost double the inflation rate. And the New York Times reports that tax rates dropped in 43 states in the 1990s and 42 states put money into rainy-day funds.
At least 15 states, including Massachusetts, have already turned to tax increases to balance their budgets. And Massachusetts is on the top 10 list, along with neighboring Connecticut, of states having the largest budget shortfalls.
Massachusetts shares another distinction with our New England neighbor - we bear the highest tax burdens in the country. According to the Taxpayer Foundation, the Bay State has the nation's second heaviest total tax burden at $13,887 per capita. Connecticut is first at $15,782 per capita. Alaska had the nation's lowest burden at $8,109.
Maybe during the conference Connecticut and Massachusetts legislators can take Alaska's delegation out for a few beers and ask them for some pointers - before it comes to unscrewing lightbulbs at the State House.
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Tax Foundation
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day
"America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day," the Tax Foundation's annual report, was presented on Wednesday, April 9. Foundation economist Scott Moody traced the course of America’s tax burden since 1900 and explained why the overall tax burden has dipped sharply in the last three years, pushing Tax Freedom Day back into mid-April, after a string of later Tax Freedom Days.
According to Tax Foundation calculations using the latest government data on income and taxes, Tax Freedom Day® in 2003 will be celebrated on April 19th. That is the same date that Tax Freedom Day fell on during 2002, but 8 days earlier than in 2001, and 11 days earlier than in 2000.
[In Massachusetts, Tax Freedom Day doesn't arrive this year until May 2.]
Tax burdens vary considerably from state to state, not only because of different state and local taxes, but because of divergent federal tax payments. Therefore, the report includes a separate calculation of Tax Freedom Day for each state. Connecticut has the heaviest total tax burden and so celebrates Tax Freedom Day the latest -- on May 14. Alaskans pay the least and are finished working to pay taxes on March 30.
[Massachusetts had the second-heaviest total tax burden.]
The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937.
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