CLT
UPDATE
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
MTF, Boston Globe team up for
higher taxes, again
When compared to other states, the income-adjusted tax-and-fee burden borne by Massachusetts residents has declined sharply since the mid-1990s, according to an analysis released Wednesday morning....
The analysis does not take into account the $1.2 billion tax hike approved by the Legislature in 2002, or fee increases that year that raised as much as $500 million....
State and local taxes and fees as a share of personal income in Massachusetts were 13.4 percent below the national average in 2002, down from 4.7 percent below the national average in 1996 and 3.5 percent above the national average in 1981, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed group that researches government spending, taxes and economic issues....
And on a per capita basis, Massachusetts taxes and fees remain high - 11 percent above the national average, and eighth highest in the U.S. Similarly, taxes in Massachusetts, based on population alone, are the fourth highest in the nation, largely due to the state's heavy reliance on the 5.3 percent income
tax. Taxes and fees in Massachusetts, on a per capita basis, are nearly the same as in 1981, the report says.
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Report: Income increases, tax cuts
lower Bay State tax-and-fee burden
Governor Mitt Romney cannot have it both ways. If he wants to administer a state government that meets its responsibilities, he needs to assure the government adequate sources of revenue. He cannot give up the $500 million that will be forgone each year if the income tax rate is cut to 5 percent, as he proposes....
Despite the lingering perception of high taxes in Massachusetts, a survey by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation released yesterday concludes that the burden of taxes and fees is down significantly, compared with the burden in other states, since the mid-1990s. "State and local taxes per $1,000 of personal income ...
were 7.8 percent below the national average in 2002, placing the state 40th in the nation," the foundation reports. State government is not overtaxing the people of Massachusetts.
Romney, like many other Republicans, seems to think that tax cuts are an essential element of governance. But good government requires a significant amount of money. Romney, a successful businessman, ought to know that you get what you pay for.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Romney's fiscal fantasies
State Senator Dianne Wilkerson last spring steered a $500,000 state contract to a nonprofit organization run by Bruce C.
Bolling, a political ally who was fighting state auditors' accusations that he misspent a similar amount of money as a consultant to highway agencies.
Wilkerson attached, with no debate or a roll call, an amendment in May to a sweeping construction systems bill directing that the Massachusetts Economic Development Authority make "not less than $500,000" available to Bolling's group ...
Wilkerson and Bolling, a former City Council president, are longtime political allies. He donated $350 to her campaign within three weeks after Wilkerson slipped the $500,000 amendment into the construction reform bill. His wife also serves as a political adviser to Wilkerson.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Wilkerson boosts an ally already facing audit problem
Bolling group got contract
About 400 Massachusetts schools, twice as many as last year, are expected to make the federal government's list of low-performing schools this year, state education officials said yesterday....
Last year, 208 schools were labeled as "needing improvement," accounting for 14 percent of the state's 1,860 schools.
This year, the number would grow to nearly a fourth of the state's schools.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Twice as many schools labeled low-performing
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
There they go again. The Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation -- at least no longer described as
"highly-respected" but rather simply "a business-backed group"
-- is out shilling for the tax-and-spenders again, as usual opposing a
tax rollback for average taxpayers and providing its dependable cover of
quasi-legitimacy for those who want to spend us into oblivion. Aiding
and abetting the next "fiscal crisis," MTF is using
one interpretation of tax data to assert that Massachusetts
taxpayers are not overtaxed.
Its report issued yesterday is an example of just
saying something over and over again often and loud enough, until the
masses believe it true. "We are not Taxachusetts!" And of
course the Boston Globe jumped right onto its convenient bandwagon, even
carrying the State House News Service report this morning:
"The pure per capita measures simply don't reflect the differences among the states in individual wealth and individual income," said MTF senior research associate Cameron Huff. "You'd expect states that are relatively wealthier to not only be able to afford more government services but actually to demand more as well. We do think that the tax-and-fee burden relative to income is the one that provides a better sense of what the different states can afford to do and what they want to do."
Barbara follows up below, explaining once again the
difference between the per-capita measurement and the fashionable
measurement of relative-to-income, and why today the latter is
preferable to the tax-and-spend crowd like the Boston Globe and
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Next year or a few years down the
road, if per-capita better advances their agenda, you can bet they'll be
back to re-justify
per-capita, "in changing economic climates" of course or some
other such pretense.
You'll never find a better example of how MTF works
hand-in-glove with the Boston Globe and its ilk, enables and legitimizes
them and fertilizes the ground for cultivating the next fiscal crisis.
This brazen attempt illustrates just how much we've gotten under MTF's
thin skin and have now forced them to react, even if erratically.
Remember who the MTF represents, who its membership is which benefits in a fiscal crisis when the state must borrow and put taxpayers into debt.
Its agenda has never been more clear -- and Michael Widmer, still its
president, seems desperate to justify MTF's opposition to tax cuts
to his lobbying group's more moderate contributors.
And you'll never find a better example of the
disconnect, the schizophrenia between the Boston Globe's legitimate news
reporting and the ivy tower elitist editorializing. Don't the
"Morrissey Boulevard bow-tied bumkissers," as Howie Carr
labels them, read their own newspaper before writing their predictable
editorial rants?
Today's Boston Globe tax-and-spend editorial closes
with: "Romney, a successful businessman, ought to know that you get what you pay for."
But within the folds of just today's Boston Globe the
exposés of political corruption, waste, fraud and taxpayer abuse
abound. "Wilkerson boosts an ally already facing audit problem."
"Twice as many schools labeled low-performing." And what is
sure to be an award-winning exposé, "Police expand probe of doubled detail
pay" by its Spotlight Team, a series which has run for two days
now highlighting how Boston Police scammed the system and worked details
on both the Big Dig and elsewhere at the same time.
"You get what you pay for"?
We taxpayers have pumped an additional $6 billion
into "education reform" (e.g., the teachers unions) over the
past decade and we've got "Twice as many schools labeled low-performing."
A convicted tax-evader in the state Senate, Sen. Dianne Wilkerson,
funneled half a million taxpayer bucks to one of her supporters now
under investigation, attempted to slip him an additional
million-and-a-half (which the governor vetoed) ... and we get what we
pay for?
After today the Boston Globe -- and the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation -- don't have even an iota of credibility left to
salvage.
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Chip
Ford |
Barbara Anderson's Commentary
Taxes per personal income vs. per-capita
There are many ways to measure a state’s tax burden, to compare it with other states.
For our purposes, we want to show how much taxpayers in Massachusetts are burdened relative to taxpayers like us in other states.
You can compare all revenues, state and local -– taxes, fees, federal money, etc. But that tells us more than we need to know or can have control over as a state taxpayer group. So we look only at state and local taxes and fees, and ignore federal money. Usually when you see a comparison referring to "revenues" instead of "taxes," it includes fees.
Since we are a taxpayer group, we usually focus on taxes, not fees, for comparisons. In a perfect world, taxes would be much lower and people would have more money to directly pay fees for services they use of which they can control, or that primarily benefit them, not society as a whole.
E.g., lower property taxes for all, bus fees for people with children who want them to take a bus to
school, or play athletics. Fees are presently annoying or painful because they are piled on top of high taxes.
Since states vary so much in how they fund local services, it isn’t useful to compare just state taxes or just local taxes. Some states have local income and sales taxes as well as property taxes. Some states share more of their state revenues with local government than other states do. Some states fund some services with county taxes.
So when we compare total state and local taxes (total tax burden) there are two ways to do this.
1. Tax burden relative to personal income
2. Tax burden per-capita
Tax burden relative to personal income is utilized -- usually by groups that want higher taxes -- to determine "affordability." If a state’s personal income is high, the argument is that its taxpayers can afford to pay more. So they compare Massachusetts, with its many wealthy citizens, to the rest of the country, including states with fewer wealthy citizens and more poor people.
To simplify the reason why CLT does not prefer this comparison consider:
Because many wealthy people live on Marblehead Neck doesn’t make me, living across the harbor and town, able to afford a higher income tax rate or higher property taxes. Also, the wealthy people don’t need as many state services, so one can assume that their state can spend less than a state with more people in need of assistance.
Tax burden per-capita is used to show how much each man, woman and child in a state pays in total taxes. It also indicates how many people the tax money will be spent on. So you can compare a high population state to a low population state, and all taxpayers are seen as individuals who may or may not be able to afford the taxes. For whatever a state has to provide –- infrastructure, public safely, education, charity, etc. -- I pay so much in Massachusetts, and John Smith pays much less in New Hampshire. Since I pay a lot more, then the services available to me -– roads, schools, etc. -- should be a lot better than what he gets. Anyone been to New Hampshire lately?
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Report: Income increases, tax cuts
lower Bay State tax-and-fee burden
By Michael P. Norton
When compared to other states, the income-adjusted tax-and-fee burden borne by Massachusetts residents has declined sharply since the mid-1990s, according to an analysis released Wednesday morning.
State and local taxes and fees as a share of personal income in Massachusetts were 13.4 percent below the national average in 2002, down from 4.7 percent below the national average in 1996 and 3.5 percent above the national average in 1981, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed group that researches government spending, taxes and economic issues.
And between 1996 and 2002, the state's tax-and-fee burden ranking fell to 47th among the states, down from 37th in 1996. The analysis does not take into account the $1.2 billion tax hike approved by the Legislature in 2002, or fee increases that year that raised as much as $500 million.
And on a per capita basis, Massachusetts taxes and fees remain high - 11 percent above the national average, and eighth highest in the U.S. Similarly, taxes in Massachusetts, based on population alone, are the fourth highest in the nation, largely due to the state's heavy reliance on the 5.3 percent income
tax. Taxes and fees in Massachusetts, on a per capita basis, are nearly the same as in 1981, the report says.
But the MTF analysis emphasizes the income-adjusted burden as a more complete measure.
"The pure per capita measures simply don't reflect the differences among the states in individual wealth and individual income," said MTF senior research associate Cameron Huff. "You'd expect states that are relatively wealthier to not only be able to afford more government services but actually to demand more as well. We do think that the tax-and-fee burden relative to income is the one that provides a better sense of what the different states can afford to do and what they want to do."
When income is considered, the trend for taxes alone places Massachusetts 40th in the nation, down from the sixth highest in the country in 1981. That's largely due to above-average increases in income and rounds of tax cuts during the mid-1990s, solid economic years sandwiched between two recessions.
The analysis shows Massachusetts continues to have one of the lowest sales and excise tax burdens in the United States, ranking 45 and 42 percent below the national average, respectively, in 2002. Property taxes were 9.1 percent above the national average in 2002, moving Massachusetts from 16th in the nation in 1996 to 17th in 2002. The state property tax burden ranking was 22nd in 1992, according to the analysis.
Massachusetts voters in 2000 approved a ballot question requiring the state to reduce its income tax rate to 5 percent. The rollback was delayed in 2002, when the recession plunged the state budget into a deficit, with the rate at 5.3 percent. Republicans are presently pushing to cut the rate down to 5 percent, but Democrats are resisting, claiming its premature to cut taxes again because the budget is still unstable.
Tables detailing relative state tax burdens for each state will be available at
www.masstaxpayers.org.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 9, 2004
A Boston Globe editorial
Romney's fiscal fantasies
Governor Mitt Romney cannot have it both ways. If he wants to administer a state government that meets its responsibilities, he needs to assure the government adequate sources of revenue. He cannot give up the $500 million that will be forgone each year if the income tax rate is cut to 5 percent, as he proposes.
This week Romney outlined an ambitious agenda that he will flesh out late this year or early next. He suggested revamping the health care delivery system and the formula by which state education aid is distributed. Both proposals will cost money, especially if Romney seeks to expand the number of people who are guaranteed health insurance by the state or if he wants to increase school aid to underfunded cities and towns without penalizing other communities.
In a supplemental budget to be unveiled today, the House Ways and Means Committee will propose $725 million worth of new spending, much of it reserved for the state's rainy day fund. A detailed assessment will have to await the release of the bill, but early indications are that it will include new money for HIV and substance abuse treatment, higher-education pay raises. community policing, local aid, and other urgent matters that have been shortchanged in recent budgets. This list makes it clear that legislative leaders have a better grasp of fiscal realities than does the governor. The state needs every dollar raised under the current tax system to finance programs that almost everyone in Massachusetts thinks are necessary and to replenish the rainy day fund in preparation for the next recession.
Romney bases his case for an income tax cut on the voters' endorsement of the 5 percent rate, down from 5.85 percent, in a 2000 ballot question. That cut was sold to the voters under false pretenses. Its supporters, dazzled by the technology-generated surge in tax revenues, contended that the cut would go through "without cutting a single program," as one of their television ads stated. The devastating cutbacks prompted by the recession and partial implementation of the cut -- the rate is now 5.3 percent -- exposed the fallacy of that argument.
Despite the lingering perception of high taxes in Massachusetts, a survey by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation released yesterday concludes that the burden of taxes and fees is down significantly, compared with the burden in other states, since the mid-1990s. "State and local taxes per $1,000 of personal income ... were 7.8 percent below the national average in 2002, placing the state 40th in the nation," the foundation reports. State government is not overtaxing the people of Massachusetts.
Romney, like many other Republicans, seems to think that tax cuts are an essential element of governance. But good government requires a significant amount of money. Romney, a successful businessman, ought to know that you get what you pay for.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Wilkerson boosts an ally already facing audit problem
Bolling group got contract
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff
State Senator Dianne Wilkerson last spring steered a $500,000 state contract to a nonprofit organization run by Bruce C.
Bolling, a political ally who was fighting state auditors' accusations that he misspent a similar amount of money as a consultant to highway agencies.
Wilkerson attached, with no debate or a roll call, an amendment in May to a sweeping construction systems bill directing that the Massachusetts Economic Development Authority make "not less than $500,000" available to Bolling's group, the Massachusetts Alliance for Small Contractors. MassAlliance helps minority businesses obtain contracts with public agencies and private companies.
Two months later, Wilkerson tried to direct an additional $1.5 million directly from the state treasury to Bolling's organization with an amendment she added to a transportation bond bill. The Legislature included the money, but Governor Mitt Romney vetoed it. The governor also opposed the $500,000 contract that Wilkerson directed to
MassAlliance, but was not legally able to block it without vetoing the whole legislation. He can veto only sections of appropriation or bonding bills.
Wilkerson and Bolling, a former City Council president, are longtime political allies. He donated $350 to her campaign within three weeks after Wilkerson slipped the $500,000 amendment into the construction reform bill. His wife also serves as a political adviser to Wilkerson.
Wilkerson was out of town yesterday and not available for comment, her staff said. Her aides denied any connection between the contract and the auditor's findings, and her spokesman, Barry Lawton, defended her attempts to send money to Bolling's organization as it faces allegations of misspending public funds.
"If she were to work on that assumption, that something was wrong or not wrong, that would have been a great opportunity missed for many of the small businesses. . . . to have technical assistance and subsequent access to large contracts," Lawton said.
"MassAlliance provides a vital service allowing minority-, women-owned, and small contractors access to the Massachusetts construction boom. Over the past decade, it has been more difficult for state government to provide the access directly."
The Globe reported two weeks before Wilkerson added the $500,000 contract that preliminary findings of a state Highway Department audit alleged that Bolling had misspent more than $430,000 in taxpayer funds, including nearly $600 a month on a luxury car for Bolling's personal use.
Bolling has challenged the audit's findings, which are still under consideration by state highway officials. In a brief interview yesterday, he said that amount has been reduced by about $100,000 and that additional issues are being negotiated. State highways officials confirmed yesterday that auditors, after reviewing the appeal, have lowered the reimbursement demands to about $300,000.
"There has been an appeal, we have responded, that appeal is going through the process," Bolling said.
Bolling also defended his political alliance with Wilkerson, including the role of his wife, Joyce
Ferriabough, as a political adviser to the senator, in light of Wilkerson's efforts to direct contracts to his organization. "It has no bearing on this," said
Bolling. "The reason MassAlliance is in the mix is because of what we do. No other entity in the Commonwealth, public or private, does what we do."
Bolling created MassAlliance in 1994, following his retirement from politics after an ill-fated run for mayor in 1993. As CEO of
MassAlliance, he receives a pay package of about $150,000. His firm has spent more than $10 million in state and federal funds since it began operating. His corporation's $1.2 million annual budget is derived almost entirely from state and federal funds.
Janet Hookailo, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Economic Development Authority, said the agency was not consulted by Wilkerson on her amendment mandating that it contract with
MassAlliance, though she said the contract fits with the authority's mission to create jobs. She said preliminary negotiations for a contract are underway.
The preliminary audit by the state Highway Department accused MassAlliance of overcharging about $50,000 for executive perquisites disallowed by federal regulations -- primarily for Bolling's leased Audi all-wheel-drive station wagon. The organization also was accused of overcharging about $380,000 for overhead expenses related to minority-business consulting services provided on behalf of the state's highway agencies.
Bolling also was hired to recruit minority-owned firms to work at the Democratic National Convention in July. Almost 50 percent of the work went to minority- and women-owned contractors.
Shawn Feddeman, Romney's press secretary, said the governor did not want to veto the entire construction systems bill just because of one amendment.
"The good outweighed the bad," she said.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Twice as many schools labeled low-performing
By Megan Tench, Globe Staff
About 400 Massachusetts schools, twice as many as last year, are expected to make the federal government's list of low-performing schools this year, state education officials said yesterday.
Dozens of the schools on the list, created under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, have been underperforming for five years in a row, opening them up for state takeover, officials said. State officials would not say whether they would exercise the power to overhaul schools or systems.
"We're just starting down that road," said state education commissioner David P. Driscoll.
Last year, 208 schools were labeled as "needing improvement," accounting for 14 percent of the state's 1,860 schools.
This year, the number would grow to nearly a fourth of the state's schools.
Schools and school systems end up on the list based on the state test scores of the overall student population and of 16 subgroups, including bilingual students, special needs students, and different ethnic group categories. Depending on how long a school stays on a list, parents could get the right to transfer their children to another school or get free tutoring.
But first, parents have to know their school is on the list, and with the school year underway, many Bay State families still don't know the status of their children's schools.
Under No Child Left Behind, school systems must notify families about their school's status before the start of school so that families can decide whether to enroll their children elsewhere.
State education officials last week notified schools that may be on the list based on preliminary MCAS exam results, but Massachusetts won't release the federal list publicly until Tuesday, said Heidi Perlman, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.
"That gave them time to notify parents either right before school starts, or as school starts. They may not have done it yet, but they need to notify parents," Perlman said.
Many school systems, such as Boston, for example, are still doublechecking results, making sure that the schools that are on the list actually belong there. So Boston parents have not been notified yet, said Jonathan Palumbo, district spokesman.
He noted that last year families were not notified until October and November.
The ballooning number of Massachusetts schools on the federal list outrages some education leaders, particularly considering the state annually ranks highly on other measures.
In the past few weeks, state officials praised top SAT and MCAS scores, said Paul Schlichtman, president of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.
"It's pure insanity is what it is," Schlichtman said. "If what they said is true, we are going to have 30 percent of schools on this list of needing improvement."
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires educators to help all students meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014.
If one subgroup doesn't make adequate yearly progress, the school is placed on the list, making it difficult for systems with diverse populations of poor and bilingual students, said Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, a research group based in Washington D.C.
"It's going to be harder for these schools to hit state targets for all of those kids every year than a school that is white and affluent," Jennings said, adding that the number of schools on the needing improvement list will increase nationally.
Even as a state considers taking over some schools and replacing faculty and staff, it does not mean that a system will turn around overnight, Driscoll said.
"Whether or not we can be effective across the board remains to be seen," he said.
The department is already working with school systems in Holyoke, in Western Massachusetts, and Winchendon, which is in the north-central part of the state.
Both were labeled underperforming by the state last year, setting the stage for a possible takeover if test scores don't improve.
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