CLT
UPDATE
Monday, January 31, 2005
Want
to work another day for government?
The drop from 39 committees to 37 is a move in the right direction, though we're sure if the delicate matter of leadership pay weren't an issue, that number could have been squeezed substantially more.
And that's a rap that Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi were surely prepared for. Some $120,000 to fund the new positions won't break the bank on Beacon Hill, but these two reformers should have trimmed back, not expanded, such perks.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, January 28, 2005
New mission, new perks
The vote in the House to jack up the salaries of some local legislative enforcers was 149-0, and it wasn't even as close as the final score indicates.
The House buried its collective snout in the public trough Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of a snowstorm on the same day that the governor released his 2006 budget. And as if that wasn't distraction enough, the electronic roll-call machine in the House suddenly became "inoperable," so no video exists of your local solon giving a pay raise to himself, or the thug who orders him which way to vote.
Oh, and in addition to approving a bunch of pay raises, the Legislature did one other thing Wednesday. They basically told the governor to forget his proposal to reduce the state income tax, the one the solons themselves promised to cut way back in 1989, and which the voters themselves decided to scale back in a referendum five years ago....
I called Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation and asked her if the 149-0 vote for bad government and unlimited taxation depresses her. She tried to put a shine on the sneaker.
"You have to hit rock bottom before you can bounce back," she said, "and we've got to be getting awfully close."
The Boston Herald
Friday, January 28, 2005
'Good government' equals fat wallets for solons
By Howie Carr
"It was only six months ago when a lot of people were saying we had a $900 billion budget deficit," Romney said. "What we are saying is, no we don't have a budget deficit, we have a balanced budget." ...
"Very few times in the last 25 years have we held spending growth to that level," notes Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Doing so this year would actually shrink the size of state government vis-a-vis the private sector, at a time when the state has any number of pressing challenges to address.
Here's one reason Romney's budget is so tight: It includes an income tax cut....
Back in 2001, our total reserves stood at $2.8 billion, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. We now have only $1.15 billion socked away.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 28, 2005
Romney should hold tax cut in reserve
The $23.2 billion proposal reflects an easing of the fiscal constraints of recent years. As the economy continues to recover, tax revenue is expected to rise 6.8 percent, bringing a net increase of 2.9 percent in revenue overall....
Because revenue growth is expected to exceed the 2.4 percent rise in spending, the state also has the wherewithal to make good on its commitment to roll back the income tax rate to 5 percent.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Friday, January 28, 2005
Budget blueprint
Romney submits template for spending restraint
Proposition 2˝ limits tax increases on your property to
2˝ percent, right?
Wrong.
In fact, the average tax bill in every Attleboro area community will increase by more than
2˝ percent this year, topped by Attleboro's 9.4 percent. Across the state, the average tax bill has risen 9 percent this year to $3,166, and is up 38 percent since 2000.
What happened? Has the tax-limiting law, which marks the 25th anniversary of its approval by voters this year, been weakened, or have local officials found loopholes?
Not really....
For a quarter of a century, Proposition 2˝ has forced state and local officials to make tough decisions to hold down spending while still allowing reasonable tax increases.
There's no reason this can't continue for another 25 years, provided state and local officials adjust to the changing times.
A Sun-Chronicle editorial
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Proposition 2˝, 25 years later
Three hundred and thirty days. That's what is left in the year after Massachusetts residents have earned enough to pay all state and local taxes. In Massachusetts, state and local taxes account for only about 9.6 of total personal income, the amount we earn in 35 days out of 365. Friday is the 35th day of the year, making it a useful time to pause and think about the value that we receive, individually and as a community, for the state and local taxes we all pay....
Are the services government provides important to us? Do we believe that having these services provided effectively will lead to a better future for our community? Are we paying too much or is it a pretty good deal?
The Boston Globe
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Thinking Big: Bang for our buck?
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"You have to hit rock bottom before you can bounce
back, and we've got to be getting awfully close."
Those words were how Barbara summed up the present
state of affairs in the Commonwealth.
No money for keeping the promise and finally rolling
back the fifteen-year old "temporary" income tax hike to 5
percent -- but always enough to fatten the wallets of legislators.
Michael Widmer, president of the so-called Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, again leads the charge against the voters'
rollback mandate, using any excuse that comes to mind: "structural
imbalance," replenishing the "rainy day fund," more
spending that he favors. Not a word from him, though, on this latest
boondoggle.
Worcester's Telegram & Gazette editorial got it:
The money will be there to finally complete our tax rollback, and that's
the only way to keep government within a semblance of fiscal restraint,
prevent it from expanding even faster.
The Boston Globe's "Thinking Big" column
yesterday -- a full page in the print edition complete with charts and
graphs, attempts to make the case that our tax burden isn't very heavy
at all compared to other states. It uses data and analysis by the
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (formerly TEAM, "Tax
Everything And More") "relative to personal income" as
usual, as opposed to "per capita."
The full-page spread also solicits readers'
responses, so Barbara replied:
To: oped@globe.com
The full page advertisement for higher taxes in today's Globe needs balance. Though the Massachusetts tax burden relative to personal income seems reasonable, that determinant merely reflects the fact that there are many wealthy taxpayers here, of which I am not one. Per capita, the Massachusetts state and local tax burden is 4th highest in the country, 19.7 percent above the national average. Its per pupil expenditures are also 4th highest. And we work until sometime in April to pay our total federal, state and local taxes.
Barbara Anderson
Executive Director
Citizens for Limited Taxation
Marblehead
The Boston Globe invites the reader's response, under
the title "Put in your 2 cents worth":
l
Would you be willing to contribute one additional day of your salary
to taxes, or are we spending too much already?
l
One more day from everyone would raise $684 million. How would
you use it?
Send replies to oped@globe.com
Be sure to check out CLT's new project, "Where
would you cut?" Launched over the weekend, it's an
ongoing response to that ridiculous question which is always tossed at
us taxpayers every time the Legislature and the tax-and-spend special
interests try to block a tax cut or reach deeper into our pockets. As
its title states, this new site is "A CLT Work-In-Progress"
which we'll continue to update as more WIMPAC is uncovered.
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Chip Ford |
The Boston Herald
Friday, January 28, 2005
A Boston Herald editorial
New mission, new perks
The reorganization of the Legislature's committee structure was long overdue. And many of the changes adopted by the House and Senate correctly adjust the mission (and the names) of committees in keeping with changes in the economy, social services and security.
No, committee "modernization" isn't the burning issue of our time. If citizens even notice the merger of the insurance and banking committees into a new entity called the Joint Committee on Financial Services, we'd be surprised. But it's an important recognition of a fundamental industry shift which should bring a sharper focus to its needs.
Similarly, homeland security committees formed in the wake of 9/11 needn't operate alongside committees on public safety, because, plainly, the two focus on the same thing. Moving criminal justice matters to the Judiciary Committee also makes enormous sense. Dividing the responsibility for elementary and secondary education from higher education seems unnecessary but is probably harmless so long as the committees cooperate on agendas which tie standards and progress in lower grades to needs which can be filled by the public higher education system (such as the desperate need for math and science teachers.)
The drop from 39 committees to 37 is a move in the right direction, though we're sure if the delicate matter of leadership pay weren't an issue, that number could have been squeezed substantially more.
And that's a rap that Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi were surely prepared for. Some $120,000 to fund the new positions won't break the bank on Beacon Hill, but these two reformers should have trimmed back, not expanded, such perks.
At least the two leaders had the good sense to present the pay increases to Gov. Mitt Romney for approval. If only other legislative matters like the income tax rollback, or lifting the cap on charter schools could receive such prompt attention, a point we're confident Romney will bring up early and often.
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The Boston Herald
Friday, January 28, 2005
'Good government' equals fat wallets for solons
By Howie Carr
The vote in the House to jack up the salaries of some local legislative enforcers was 149-0, and it wasn't even as close as the final score indicates.
The House buried its collective snout in the public trough Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of a snowstorm on the same day that the governor released his 2006 budget. And as if that wasn't distraction enough, the electronic roll-call machine in the House suddenly became "inoperable," so no video exists of your local solon giving a pay raise to himself, or the thug who orders him which way to vote.
Oh, and in addition to approving a bunch of pay raises, the Legislature did one other thing Wednesday. They basically told the governor to forget his proposal to reduce the state income tax, the one the solons themselves promised to cut way back in 1989, and which the voters themselves decided to scale back in a referendum five years ago.
Considering that a tax cut is, in fact, a pay raise, here's what the Legislature has just told everyone in the state.
A pay raise for you is bad.
A pay raise for us is good.
It's so wonderful, in fact, that they attached an "emergency preamble" to the 149-0 bill, so that it can go into effect immediately. Any moment now, Rep. Tom Petrolati will be named to the august position of "speaker pro tempore," on account of his fine service to the commonwealth.
The House bosses like Petro because he doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. Of course, he doesn't know the meaning of a lot of other words either.
Petro's $15,000 raise will be granted by the new Speaker of the House, Sal
DiMasi. Have I mentioned lately that Sal's name and telephone number were once found in the address book of a Mafia gangster named Vinny the Animal Ferrara, who is currently a resident of Allenwood Pa., although 17590-038 expects to be released from federal custody by Jan. 12, 2009?
At least Speaker Sal permitted a roll-call vote, even though the machine was "broken." In the Senate, it was a "voice vote." But it's sad, isn't it, that even the Republicans rolled over on this unarmed robbery.
The GOP said they wanted to be "collegial," which is a word a lot like "college," which means Animal House.
Toga! To-ga! To-GA!
The other reason the Republicans didn't put up a fight was because the leadership agreed to change the rules on roll-call votes. The GOP is down to 21 members (out of 160) so under the old rules, the GOP didn't have enough reps to force a recorded vote. So the Democrat bosses obligingly cut the number needed to require a roll-call to 16.
The legislative leaders huff and puff and say, well, our pay raises only go to a few of our loyal thugs like
Petro. Our pay hikes only cost $120,000, and yours - the taxpayers' - would cost $220 million.
So what? Don't they always lecture us about how it's the "principle" of the thing? So how come their pay raise is good government, and ours is "irresponsible." Besides, we were promised our pay raises 16 years ago.
I called Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation and asked her if the 149-0 vote for bad government and unlimited taxation depresses her. She tried to put a shine on the sneaker.
"You have to hit rock bottom before you can bounce back," she said, "and we've got to be getting awfully close."
Besides, it could have been worse. The vote could have been 160-0.
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The Boston Globe
Friday, January 28, 2005
Romney should hold tax cut in reserve
By Scot Lehigh
Governor Romney unveiled his budget on snowy Beacon Hill Wednesday with a sunny message: Under his leadership, the state is out of the woods, if not quite back in the clover.
"It was only six months ago when a lot of people were saying we had a $900 billion budget deficit," Romney said. "What we are saying is, no we don't have a budget deficit, we have a balanced budget."
Now, the governor is no slouch as a political marketeer. But this is a case of premature celebration -- a celebration Romney hopes to mark by popping the cork on a vintage bottle of Old Tax Cut.
Although the budget is balanced, the belt is tight: Romney's fiscal year 2006 spending plan would limit the overall increase in state spending to 2.4 percent.
"Very few times in the last 25 years have we held spending growth to that level," notes Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Doing so this year would actually shrink the size of state government vis-a-vis the private sector, at a time when the state has any number of pressing challenges to address.
Here's one reason Romney's budget is so tight: It includes an income tax cut.
For a Republican governor, that usually amounts to a political two-fer. He gets to keep his image as a tax-cutter without sacrificing the revenues to pay for the tax cut, since the Legislature won't go along.
Still, if one takes the governor at his professed desire, reducing the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent would cost state coffers $225 million in fiscal '06 and $450 million a year thereafter.
Certainly if the state moves solidly back into boom time, lawmakers should complete the tax cut that voters passed at the ballot back in 2000.
But we aren't there yet.
So, in the spirit of the new era of collegiality he's trying to inaugurate, Romney would be better off shelving the tax-cutting charade and earmarking the extra dollars for a bipartisan purpose: replenishing the state's reserves, the funds that allowed us to weather the fiscal crisis without devastating budget cuts.
Back in 2001, our total reserves stood at $2.8 billion, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. We now have only $1.15 billion socked away.
Asked if his new budget would rebuild the reserves, Romney replied: "If at the end of the year, we end up with a surplus, that may be an opportunity to put some more back in the rainy day fund, just as we did in the last fiscal year."
The state did do that last year, to the tune of almost $500 million. But under current plans, there's no guarantee of an encore this year. Given that reality, the governor should ask himself a pointed question: Where, exactly, would the state have been if previous policy makers had put an income tax cut ahead of bolstering the reserves?
On the issue of education, however, Romney struck a note the state needs to hear.
"Any time any enterprise is faced with a challenge, the immediate response is that if we just had more money we could get better," he said. But "instead of immediately responding, 'Oh just give us more money and everything will get better,' we need to say, 'How can we spend what we are spending more effectively?' "
He's exactly right there.
"If you are going to spend more money, I think it is very hard to argue that sending out more unprescribed state money is the most effective way to do it," said Mark Roosevelt, coauthor of the state's landmark education-reform law and now managing director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.
Yearly state education aid is now 150 percent higher than it was in 1993. Massachusetts now ranks fourth among states on per-pupil expenditures. Even in an uncertain economy, one could find cities giving teachers very healthy raises -- 6.5 percent over two years in Lowell, 10.5 percent over three in Brockton, for example. And without winning any real education-improving changes.
Yet supposedly inadequate funding, a lack of textbooks, and even a shortage of supplies are still sometimes cited as reasons the state shouldn't require higher standards.
All the more reason that, as Massachusetts moves into the next stage of education reform, policy makers need to focus not just on how much the state is spending, but on how those dollars are being spent.
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The Telegram & Gazette
Friday, January 28, 2005
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Budget blueprint
Romney submits template for spending restraint
The fiscal 2006 state budget lawmakers will nail down a few months from now is apt to look drastically different from the blueprint submitted by Gov. Mitt Romney this week. Altering the proposal is the Legislature’s prerogative, but lawmakers should take care to preserve the basic template for spending restraint.
The $23.2 billion proposal reflects an easing of the fiscal constraints of recent years. As the economy continues to recover, tax revenue is expected to rise 6.8 percent, bringing a net increase of 2.9 percent in revenue overall.
At the same time, health care changes at the federal level and favorable demographic trends are expected to hold growth in the state-federal Medicaid program — a perennial double-digit budget buster — to about 5 percent.
That means there is room for a significant increase, about $100 million, for education. Mindful of the pending school-funding case, Mr. Romney properly focuses the new aid on underperforming schools. Money for two other priorities, public safety and job creation, also would increase.
Because revenue growth is expected to exceed the 2.4 percent rise in spending, the state also has the wherewithal to make good on its commitment to roll back the income tax rate to 5 percent.
Some aspects of the governor’s budget are apt to encounter resistance, including proposals to merge the Turnpike Authority with the Highway Department, bring the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission under his control and eliminate the state Inspector General’s Office.
Also apt to be sources of resistance are the dozens of spending items the governor would eliminate to keep the budget in check. Some of the choices seem precipitous — the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives and the Martin Luther King Jr. Business
Empowerment Center in Worcester, for example. Still, requiring recipients of special subsidies to make a case periodically for continued support is sound fiscal policy.
The Legislature no doubt will choose to jettison many of the governor’s lean-government recommendations, as it has a right to do. But in spite of the improving revenue outlook, lawmakers should not jettison the precepts of fiscal restraint they have had to adopt in the recent lean-budget years.
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The Attleboro Sun-Chronicle
Sunday, January 30, 2005
A Sun-Chronicle editorial
Proposition 2˝, 25 years later
Proposition 2˝ limits tax increases on your property to 2˝ percent, right?
Wrong.
In fact, the average tax bill in every Attleboro area community will increase by more than
2˝ percent this year, topped by Attleboro's 9.4 percent. Across the state, the average tax bill has risen 9 percent this year to $3,166, and is up 38 percent since 2000.
What happened? Has the tax-limiting law, which marks the 25th anniversary of its approval by voters this year, been weakened, or have local officials found loopholes?
Not really.
In reality, a combination of factors has forced homeowners to dig deeper to pay for such local services as public education, road maintenance and police and fire protection.
The biggest factor -- and one which can be somewhat controlled through tax policy exercised by local officials -- is the rapid increase in residential property values across Massachusetts.
In the last fiscal year alone, Bay State residential property values increased by 17.2 percent compared with a 4.2 percent increase in commercial and industrial real estate, according to a recent report by the state Department of Revenue. That has forced homeowners to pay a greater share of a community's taxes while, at times, decreasing the bill of the average business.
This is simply unfair. Local officials -- the board of selectmen in towns and the city council in cities -- can prevent a major shift in tax bills by adopting classification, which sets different tax rates for homes and businesses.
The best policy is to set rates so that both residential and business property are paying the same percentage of taxes from year to year. That avoids the problem of having one class of property enjoy a tax cut at the expense of another.
Attleboro and several other cities have experienced big increases because they have kept the maximum split allowed by law between residential and business property. This kept residential tax bills artificially low, at the expense of business.
In good economic times, cities should try to decrease the difference between the home and business tax rates, to avoid problems when residential values skyrocket, as they did in the 1980s as well as in recent years.
Some of the increase is self-inflicted. Voters have increasingly resorted to limited overrides of the Proposition
2˝ cap to build schools (such as in the King Philip School District towns) and police and fire stations (such as in North Attleboro and Seekonk).
Another factor pushing up tax bills has been the state budget crisis. Communities have been taxing real estate at the Proposition
2˝ limit because state aid has been cut or seen minimal increases in recent years.
"There is a greater reliance on the property tax today to pay for local services than there was before the fiscal crisis," Geoff Beckwith of the Massachusetts Municipal Association was quoted as saying last week.
There's good news on the horizon, however. The budget crisis is slowly easing, and Gov. Mitt Romney last week unveiled a state budget that included an additional $183 million in state aid. That 4.6 percent increase is the biggest since the fiscal crisis began four years ago.
Other solutions are also possible. In the state's larger cities, telecommunications companies are using loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying taxes on their equipment, forcing homeowners and other businesses to pick up the slack. These loopholes should be closed by Romney and the Legislature.
Both state and local officials should explore providing tax relief for senior citizens, who often have to juggle tax bill increases with incomes that [are] either capped or decreasing.
The Legislature, however, should be careful in another much-discussed solution to increasing tax bills: Giving cities and towns more authority to raise taxes. Often, these solutions are nothing more than an unnecessary tax increase.
For a quarter of a century, Proposition 2˝ has forced state and local officials to make tough decisions to hold down spending while still allowing reasonable tax increases.
There's no reason this can't continue for another 25 years, provided state and local officials adjust to the changing times.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Thinking Big
Bang for our buck?
35 days of total personal income earned in Massachusetts pay all state and local taxes. Here's what you get.
Three hundred and thirty days. That's what is left in the year after Massachusetts residents have earned enough to pay all state and local taxes. In Massachusetts, state and local taxes account for only about 9.6 of total personal income, the amount we earn in 35 days out of 365. Friday is the 35th day of the year, making it a useful time to pause and think about the value that we receive, individually and as a community, for the state and local taxes we all pay.
When we think about taxes, we often forget what those taxes help to pay for: our public schools; healthcare for a million people (including nursing homes and prescription drugs for senior citizens); police and fire protection for all of us; roads and bridges; playgrounds, pools, and skating rinks; services for people with mental illness or mental retardation; courts, prosecutors, and prisons to punish criminals; child care, job training, and subsistence income for poor families; affordable housing; higher education, workforce training programs and other economic development efforts; child protection services; environmental protection; and all of the other services that government provides.
For most people in Massachusetts, even those earning solidly middle class incomes, just paying the bills week to week is a challenge. Almost nobody can pay taxes effortlessly. That's why it is important to think about the value created with our tax dollars. Are the services government provides important to us? Do we believe that having these services provided effectively will lead to a better future for our community? Are we paying too much or is it a pretty good deal?
Send your comments to: oped@globe.com
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U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or
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