CLT
UPDATE
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Reform and respect: If not now,
when?
An Acton Democrat has joined a group of progressive lawmakers in proposing a tax hike to help deal with the state's fiscal crisis.
Rep. James Eldridge, who was elected to his first term in the House in November, yesterday filed a budget amendment asking lawmakers to raise the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, which he estimated could bring in $700 million to $750 million in new revenue next year....
But anti-tax activists say an increase in the sales tax will drive more people over the border to New Hampshire, which has no sales tax.
"If we don't stop these tax increases this year, they're forever," said Chip
Ford, of the anti-tax group Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Every year they will have to come back for more. Our state economy is recovering slower than anyone else. We've got the highest job loss of any other state. And what do they want to do? They want to drive more people out of business, and out of state."
The Lowell Sun
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Acton rep. joins push for tax increase
House lawmakers will debate a pile of controversial tax hikes this week, as thousands of activists descend on the State House to protest steep budget cuts and Gov. Mitt Romney seizes the bully pulpit for a last blast of anti-tax rhetoric....
"I think that as the public begins to look at the prospect of increasing the number of kids in public classrooms, taking our parents off of prescription drug programs ... they'll begin to understand the price of the cuts in services may be higher than the price of a relatively modest tax increase," said Rep. James Marzilli Jr. (D-Arlington).
Marzilli has filed budget amendments to ratchet up the 5.3 percent income tax to either 5.75 percent or 5.95 percent - raising between $700 million and $1 billion by reneging on the voter-approved income tax rollback of 2000.
Other tax-hiking amendments would raise $750 million by adding a penny to the sales tax, eliminate the sales tax exemption for alcohol, impose local option taxes such as increases in the meals excise tax and repeal corporate tax breaks.
Even the fiscally conservative Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has said it's not reflexively opposed to tax hikes or other revenue-generators such as short-term borrowing - if they're part of a multiyear plan that also includes program cuts and government reforms....
House Republicans say the percolating pro-tax sentiment may not have much traction now, but they warn it could grow - much like last year, when Finneran rolled out an "Armageddon budget" that led to an outcry for new taxes.
On the public pressure front, as many as 5,000 labor leaders, program advocates and clergy are expected to turn out Wednesday for a State House rally to "stop the cuts" by raising revenues.
"We don't expect to save everything," said rally organizer Horace Small of the Boston-based Union of Minority Neighborhoods. "But we certainly expect them to understand that if the seniors don't have medicine, they're going to die."
The Boston Herald
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Specter of tax hikes descends on state: Meet the players
The tax cut initiative went on the ballot after the Legislature rejected a similar tax cut, but one that contained a set of "triggers" that would have halted the reductions temporarily if the economy slowed. The proposal, which this page supported, passed in the House but failed because of Senate opposition.
In retrospect, it looks like a good opportunity lost. Prospectively, the idea of tying tax policies to economic realities makes sense and should be considered in the future....
As first proposed by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and adopted by the House, the linked package provided that the income tax rate would drop from 5.85 percent to 5.75 percent in 2000 and thereafter would decline another 0.1 percent for each 2.5 percent growth in the state's economy as measured by personal income figures. This would have produced a drop to 5.55 percent in 2002 but no further reduction until the economy improved again. The eventual goal was to reach a rate of 5.0 percent....
The might-have-beens of a failed tax proposal may appear to be little more than a historical footnote. But the pertinent lesson is that Massachusetts tax rates have been declining for more than a decade. Whether at the current 5.3 percent or at the 5.6 percent this page supports, the state income tax is well below the 5.85 rate of the prosperous 1990s. This is worth remembering when people are losing health insurance, prescription drugs, and education reforms.
A Boston Globe editorial
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Triggers for taxes
Here we go with just a few questions for our leaders and holier-than-thou special interests groups fighting over my money -- yes, my money -- in this ridiculous budget battle on Beacon Hill.
Question 1 is for the people who run the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
How can you live with yourselves?
Are you really trying to make me feel some empathy for your cause? If so, it's time to start over.
And as a follow-up, what were you thinking when you spent $2 million on advertising to complain about not getting enough money?
Of course, you don't want the money, right? You want what's best for the children.
The MetroWest Daily News
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Show me the money management
By Tom Moroney
The University of Massachusetts may muster out its Minutemen in favor of another school athletic symbol, such as the UMass Wolves.
The school has hired Phoenix Design, a company that has designed logos for professional teams and top level colleges, to evaluate if another symbol and nickname other than the Bay State's famed militia would generate more merchandise sales and recognition.
A Minuteman redesign remains a possibility, but Phoenix has also explored other possibilities, such as the Wolves, said Athletic Director Ian
McCaw....
UMass has had three university-wide athletic nicknames in its history. The school's sports teams were originally called the Aggies when the school was the Massachusetts Agricultural College in the first half of the 20th century.
In 1948, the nickname changed to the Redmen, a year after M.A.C. became the University of Massachusetts. In the spring of 1972, citing the racially charged nature of the Redman nickname, the school's athletic teams became the Minutemen.
Associated Press
Saturday, April 26, 2003
UMass weighing whether to drop the Minutemen
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Fear not, CLT is not about to follow the lead of
UMass; changing our Minuteman logo is not up for consideration here.
We're proud of what it represents, the citizen setting aside his normal
routine to take up the fight against government abuse.
Besides, we can't afford to retain a profession
design firm for something so silly and trivial, as apparently the
University of Massachusetts can.
Another ridiculous quote is added today to the
growing list of over-the-edge doomsday exaggerations: "if the seniors don't have medicine, they're going to die."
Horace Small of the Boston-based Union of Minority
Neighborhoods chose not to mention that the Prescription Advantage
program is a mere two years old, and that Massachusetts is the only
state in the nation to provide it. Has the senior citizen death rate
skyrocketed in the other 49 states in comparison to ours, has ours
plummeted by comparison; is there any difference? Another First
in the Nation for Massachusetts free-spenders of Other People's
Money, another unsustainable result of the economic boom years and
revenue surpluses that the Legislature couldn't spend fast enough.
Another vocal interest group was created with a
now-perceived "entitlement." Just two years ago this whining
lobby didn't exist, because just two years ago this unique-in-the-nation
benefit didn't exist. The Gimme Lobby mob outside the State House on
Wednesday will be just that much larger ... and demanding.
Even that massive $1.2 billion tax hike last year -- the
biggest tax increase in state history -- isn't enough for some --
for too many actually -- but then, More Is Never Enough (MINE)
for them. "Just" $1.2 billion more, we were told just twelve
months ago, would solve everything, yet here we are again, nothing
solved, a bigger "fiscal crisis," growing "unmet
needs," even more of "the most vulnerable among us."
So what makes them think we should believe that
another couple billion more of our dollars will do the trick this
time? The tax-and-spenders on Beacon Hill desperately need to try
something -- anything! -- else this time. Our
second-heaviest-in-the nation tax burden has only created expanding
dependency and increasing demands.
Nothing will if they impose tax increases again --
we'll be right back here next spring, and the year after that, and the
year after that, ad nauseum. If in this cyclical economic downturn the
Beacon Hill pols can't find the wherewithal to reform their habits, when
will they ever?
They simply can't continue resorting to tax hikes
upon tax hikes every year. They cannot and should not show this cavalier
disregard for taxpayers, such disrespect of voters' mandates. But if
they don't hold the line this time -- recognize this congenital formula
-- that's exactly what they'll need to do, forever.
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Chip
Ford |
The Lowell Sun
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Acton rep. joins push for tax increase
By Julie Mehegan
Sun Statehouse Bureau
An Acton Democrat has joined a group of progressive lawmakers in proposing a tax hike to help deal with the state's fiscal crisis.
Rep. James Eldridge, who was elected to his first term in the House in November, yesterday filed a budget amendment asking lawmakers to raise the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, which he estimated could bring in $700 million to $750 million in new revenue next year.
Eldridge said he does not support an increase in the income tax, as some lawmakers have proposed, because there is overwhelming opposition in his district to such a plan.
While he praised the House Ways & Means Committee for its efforts to protect core services in the budget proposal released this week, he suggested the most responsible approach to balancing the state budget is to combine cuts and new revenues.
"(The committee) did a great job of trying to fund critical programs, but there are just too many programs important to the constituents in my district that get cut, that I feel we need to face reality and raise revenues," Eldridge said.
He acknowledged a tax hike proposal is politically unpopular, and unlikely to win enough support in the House to pass.
"I don't think that I have the votes, but I think at the very least, if it creates a discussion in the House about accepting that raising revenue has to be part of solving this fiscal crisis, then I think we're the better for it," Eldridge said. "I'm just so concerned about how deep the cuts are. I want to be fiscally responsible, and in my mind, that has to include both cuts and raising revenues."
Eldridge said he is particularly concerned about local aid cuts and the elimination of funding for a senior pharmacy program.
But anti-tax activists say an increase in the sales tax will drive more people over the border to New Hampshire, which has no sales tax.
"If we don't stop these tax increases this year, they're forever," said Chip
Ford, of the anti-tax group Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Every year they will have to come back for more. Our state economy is recovering slower than anyone else. We've got the highest job loss of any other state. And what do they want to do? They want to drive more people out of business, and out of state."
The state collects more than 20 percent of its tax revenue from the sales tax, which is applied to sales of most goods, with the exception of food and clothing.
The lone amendment Eldridge filed was one of more than 1,000 submitted by House members yesterday, including an amendment seeking an increase in the income tax, among other revenue-related bills. The House will take up those amendments first, in a formal session scheduled for Wednesday.
Among other amendments, members of the Lowell delegation filed two separate measures seeking to restore funding for the Jackson/Appleton/Middlesex and Acre neighborhood revitalization programs. The House budget did not include the state funding, which is critical to keeping the project moving forward, said Rep. Kevin Murphy, a Lowell Democrat. The amendment is co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Golden Jr. and David
Nangle.
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Specter of tax hikes descends on state: Meet the players
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
Despite a near-universal no-new-taxes sentiment on Beacon Hill, the pro-tax clamor has been on the rise in the wake of the release of the House budget, which closes most of the $3 billion deficit with deep cuts to education, health care and services for seniors.
House lawmakers will debate a pile of controversial tax hikes this week, as thousands of activists descend on the State House to protest steep budget cuts and Gov. Mitt Romney seizes the bully pulpit for a last blast of anti-tax rhetoric.
Romney's veto pen is poised in the event that lawmakers overcome their fear of a taxed-out electorate - and he'll broadcast that message at public events leading up to Wednesday's House debate, spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said.
"We're just going to be beating the drum until they start," Feddeman said. "Gov. Romney believes raising taxes kills jobs and hurts working families."
Romney doesn't have enough Republicans in either the House or Senate to automatically make his veto stick - but the mere issuance of a veto dramatically raises the bar by forcing lawmakers to muster a two-thirds supermajority to overturn the veto.
Last year, lawmakers easily patched together the two-thirds vote to pass a $1.2 billion tax hike - the biggest in state history - over former acting Gov. Jane M. Swift's veto.
But in the wake of voter messages that shook Democratic lawmakers to the core - Romney's election on an anti-tax platform and the 45 percent vote in favor of abolishing the income tax - even tax-hike proponents concede they don't have the votes this year.
That's not stopping liberal lawmakers from trying, as they bank on the notion that taxpayers will open their wallets once they understand the impact of the proposed cuts.
"I think that as the public begins to look at the prospect of increasing the number of kids in public classrooms, taking our parents off of prescription drug programs ... they'll begin to understand the price of the cuts in services may be higher than the price of a relatively modest tax increase," said Rep. James Marzilli Jr. (D-Arlington).
Marzilli has filed budget amendments to ratchet up the 5.3 percent income tax to either 5.75 percent or 5.95 percent - raising between $700 million and $1 billion by reneging on the voter-approved income tax rollback of 2000.
Other tax-hiking amendments would raise $750 million by adding a penny to the sales tax, eliminate the sales tax exemption for alcohol, impose local option taxes such as increases in the meals excise tax and repeal corporate tax breaks.
Even the fiscally conservative Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation has said it's not reflexively opposed to tax hikes or other revenue-generators such as short-term borrowing - if they're part of a multiyear plan that also includes program cuts and government reforms.
House leaders continue to insist they're against tax increases, with House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran telling Herald reporters and editors last week that taxes remain off the table.
"I don't detect any groundswell or any appetite, and I don't think there'll be any groundswell or appetite that develops after the budget is published," Finneran said.
But the leadership messages are mixed - with House Ways and Means Chairman John H. Rogers publicly stating that he personally supports tax hikes even as he toes Finneran's party line.
The anti-tax sentiment is a bit squishier in the Senate, where President Robert E. Travaglini has raised the specter of tax hikes even as Senate Ways and Means Chairman Therese Murray builds a budget without any levy increases.
Murray signaled last week that while leadership won't be pushing taxes hikes, such proposals aren't out of the realm of possibility among rank-and-file lawmakers.
"What happens on the floor down there (in the House) and the floor up here is a whole different story," Murray (D-Plymouth) said.
House Republicans say the percolating pro-tax sentiment may not have much traction now, but they warn it could grow - much like last year, when Finneran rolled out an "Armageddon budget" that led to an outcry for new taxes.
On the public pressure front, as many as 5,000 labor leaders, program advocates and clergy are expected to turn out Wednesday for a State House rally to "stop the cuts" by raising revenues.
"We don't expect to save everything," said rally organizer Horace Small of the Boston-based Union of Minority Neighborhoods. "But we certainly expect them to understand that if the seniors don't have medicine, they're going to die."
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, April 27, 2003
A Boston Globe editorial
Triggers for taxes
State legislators struggling with a cavernous budget deficit are wisely planning how to avoid another. A look backward would help them prepare for the future -- and overcome the state's immediate crisis as well. In 2000, the voters approved a phased income tax reduction that is costing the state about $825 million a year -- roughly a third of the deficits for this year and next.
The tax cut initiative went on the ballot after the Legislature rejected a similar tax cut, but one that contained a set of "triggers" that would have halted the reductions temporarily if the economy slowed. The proposal, which this page supported, passed in the House but failed because of Senate opposition.
In retrospect, it looks like a good opportunity lost. Prospectively, the idea of tying tax policies to economic realities makes sense and should be considered in the future.
For the present budget crisis, the lesson is also clear. Had the state in 2000 adopted the tax cut with triggers linked to the economy, the income tax rate would have dropped twice but halted beginning in January 2002 at 5.55 percent. This would have provided budget makers with $375 million annually more than the 5.3 percent tax produces.
As first proposed by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and adopted by the House, the linked package provided that the income tax rate would drop from 5.85 percent to 5.75 percent in 2000 and thereafter would decline another 0.1 percent for each 2.5 percent growth in the state's economy as measured by personal income figures. This would have produced a drop to 5.55 percent in 2002 but no further reduction until the economy improved again. The eventual goal was to reach a rate of 5.0 percent.
One flaw with the plan was that it relied on two-year-old data for personal income. This is why the rate would have dropped in 2001 even though the economy was already sliding. But this could easily be fixed in future tax legislation.
The might-have-beens of a failed tax proposal may appear to be little more than a historical footnote. But the pertinent lesson is that Massachusetts tax rates have been declining for more than a decade. Whether at the current 5.3 percent or at the 5.6 percent this page supports, the state income tax is well below the 5.85 rate of the prosperous 1990s. This is worth remembering when people are losing health insurance, prescription drugs, and education reforms.
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The MetroWest Daily News
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Show me the money management
By Tom Moroney
Here we go with just a few questions for our leaders and holier-than-thou special interests groups fighting over my money -- yes, my money -- in this ridiculous budget battle on Beacon Hill.
Question 1 is for the people who run the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
How can you live with yourselves?
Are you really trying to make me feel some empathy for your cause? If so, it's time to start over.
And as a follow-up, what were you thinking when you spent $2 million on advertising to complain about not getting enough money?
Of course, you don't want the money, right? You want what's best for the children.
But how does that come through in those ridiculous ads that show children mopping the floors of the schools or driving the school bus? The point, I suppose, is that budget cuts will force these ludicrous scenarios.
But who is buying this drivel?
All budgets are about choices, and this one is no different. Why not make an ad like that? Tell your audience the truth. You will muddle through whatever budget you are handed because your rank and file is, by and large, a dedicated and tireless crew.
Show us the difference between a bare-bones education and a well-funded one. Show us.
How about some intelligence from the union charged with developing the intelligence of our youngsters?
Question 2 is for AIDS Action Committee Executive Director Rebecca Haig. Her question, now that I compare them, is strangely identical to the one for the teachers.
How can you live with yourself?
Just the other day, you were quoted as saying the budget, with deep cuts in health care, would kill people.
"We will lose life" were your exact words.
How many people will lose life and when? It may sound facetious or glib to ask. But if you are going to make statements like this, then you owe it to everyone, especially those people who depend on you for help, to state the case with as much specificity as possible.
Otherwise, you are a whiner and bomb-thrower, someone who has abdicated her responsibility to constructive public discourse.
I don't know you, but you should be ashamed.
Question 3 is for all those politicians who feel it necessary to stick up the lobbyists for money right around this time of year.
Is this really any way to run a democracy?
For those not paying attention, a handful of our elected officials throw fundraisers for themselves just as these budget deliberations begin in earnest.
They invite every lobbyist they knew, and they put the arm on them.
The unstated quid pro quo is as follows: You come to my fund-raiser and write me a check, and we'll see what we can do about your bill.
A case in point: The House chairman of Ways and Means, John Rogers. He's having a "time" for himself at Pier 4 on Tuesday, just one day before the budget debate opens.
One of his aides is quoted in the papers as saying it was a big mistake, the aide's not the politician's. He said Rogers blasted him for scheduling the party so close to the debate. But, hey, what could he do? The invitations were already printed up.
It's things like this that make me think a dictatorship would not be such a bad idea.
Question 4 is for Gov. Romney, with whom I am generally pleased. He is chipping away at some of the sacred cows, including the so-called Quinn Bill, which gives public safety people handsome raises for going to school.
But, Gov. Romney, why can't you be more honest with us?
You have said time and again that you will not raises taxes, following the tradition of your predecessors. Yet you have no qualms about doubling and tripling fees for certain services.
These are taxes, and only a fool does not understand that.
Holding fast to this semantic word game will only hurt. You are scoring points with the public with your actions. You do not need to tiptoe around the language.
For you, Gov. Romney, and for all the rest of you, repeat after me: "It's not my money. This money belongs to the taxpayer."
Remember us?
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Associated Press
Saturday, April 26, 2003
UMass weighing whether to drop the Minutemen
AMHERST, Mass. (AP) The University of Massachusetts may muster out its Minutemen in favor of another school athletic symbol, such as the UMass Wolves.
The school has hired Phoenix Design, a company that has designed logos for professional teams and top level colleges, to evaluate if another symbol and nickname other than the Bay State's famed militia would generate more merchandise sales and recognition.
A Minuteman redesign remains a possibility, but Phoenix has also explored other possibilities, such as the Wolves, said Athletic Director Ian
McCaw.
"They evaluate the current logo, do some research and make recommendations," McCaw told the Daily Hampshire Gazette. "They developed several Minuteman variations and made some other recommendations beyond that."
The designs have been presented to students, athletes, coaches, staff, alumni, athletic fund representatives and the school's sports luncheon committee. The focus groups have been asked to keep the meetings confidential.
"In the final analysis, once they go through the focus groups, they'll present some recommendations to me," McCaw said. "I'll run it by the Chancellor (John) Lombardi."
McCaw emphasized nothing has been decided yet, but said the school hopes to have a decision made by the end of May.
"Nothing is cast in stone right now," he said. "They're scheduled to wrap up about a month from now. Right now we're just testing the waters. Whatever you come up with, if people don't embrace it, you have to change some things."
UMass has had three university-wide athletic nicknames in its history. The school's sports teams were originally called the Aggies when the school was the Massachusetts Agricultural College in the first half of the 20th century.
In 1948, the nickname changed to the Redmen, a year after M.A.C. became the University of Massachusetts. In the spring of 1972, citing the racially charged nature of the Redman nickname, the school's athletic teams became the Minutemen.
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