CLT
UPDATE
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Lt. Gov. Healey calls for immediate
tax rollback to 5%
Joined at her headquarters for an afternoon press
conference by anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson and running mate
Reed Hillman, Healey said, "My opponents in this campaign cannot be
trusted on the tax issue."
State coffers hold "more than enough," but the "tax-and-spend
Legislature" needs prodding to curb spending, Healey said. Her support
for an immediate rollback contrasts with Romney's budget proposal, which
would phase the 0.3 percent reduction across two years.
Healey broadened the scope of her criticism to include the other
Democratic candidates, Deval Patrick and Christopher Gabrieli, both of
whom have emerged as viable alternatives to Reilly, once considered the
clear frontrunner.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
With tax man at the door,
three candidates pitch lower rate
Today, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey called on the House
of Representatives to honor the will of the voters and immediately roll back the
state income tax to 5 percent. In 2000, Massachusetts voters went to the ballot
and by a 2-1 margin demanded an end to the "temporary" income tax that has been
in place since 1989....
Since 2002, Massachusetts taxpayers have sent $2 billion more to Beacon Hill
than they would have had they paid at the 5 percent rate....
The state is projecting a budget surplus of more than $1 billion for this year.
The state's stabilization fund has a current balance of more than $1.7 billion
and the year end total is projected to exceed $2.5 billion.
"We can afford to roll back taxes for our working families, it's the right thing
to do," said Barbara Anderson. "The voters of Massachusetts can trust the
Healey - Hillman team to stand up to the tax and spend crowd on Beacon Hill."
Healey is the only candidate for governor that has consistently supported the
income tax rollback.
Kerry Healey for Governor Campaign
News Release - April 18, 2006
Healey and Hillman call for tax rollback
Amendments Proposed for House Budget
Healey, seizing on yesterday's tax-filing deadline to renew
the Republicans' call for rolling back the state income tax rate from 5.3
percent to 5 percent, told reporters at her campaign headquarters that returning
money to taxpayers was more important than funding pay increases.
"Let's get our priorities straight," Healey said....
Healey wasn't the only gubernatorial candidate talking about income taxes
yesterday. Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, a Democrat who opposed the income
tax rate reduction in the past, talked to commuters outside South Station and
issued a similar call.
"Taxes are too high in Massachusetts," Reilly said. "It's time to get it done.
This is real money in people's pockets." ...
Voters approved a ballot measure in 2000 lowering the income tax rate to 5
percent, but the Legislature has resisted calls by Republicans and some
Democrats to honor that vote, saying it would be a big hit on the state budget.
Taxpayers, though, have gotten some tax money back under a bill the Legislature
passed in 2002 that tied tax relief to the health of the state economy.
Reducing the income tax rate to 5 percent would cost the state about $700
million annually, said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group that is to release its annual evaluation of
the state budget today.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Healey raps pay raises for judges
Renews call to cut income tax rate
Reps have filed an astonishing 1,600 amendments to the $25.3
billion House budget filed last week - that’s up 300 over last year, and a
whopping 600 more than 2003.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Budget burdened by add-ons galore
For photos of Barbara
speaking at the Healey-Hillman
Campaign headquarters
click here
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Yesterday Barbara and I attended a Healey for
Governor/Hillman for Lt. Governor news conference at their Boston
campaign headquarters on the deadline day for filing income tax returns.
The Lieutenant Governor called on the House during its budget debate
next week to immediately reduce the income tax rate to 5 percent.
After 17 years of broken promises and doggedly unscrupulous dodges by
the Legislature since it termed that tax hike "temporary,"
even six years after the voters overwhelmingly demanded the 5 percent
rate be restored, it's now time that it finally be rolled back.
Barbara noted that both candidates have been longtime
friends of taxpayers -- in actions as well as words -- and have a
lengthy record of fighting to roll back that "temporary" tax increase,
while the Democrat candidates for governor seem to have had a "campaign
conversion" suddenly on the tax rollback bandwagon, despite past
statements to the contrary and opposition to it, and cannot be trusted.
The governor's budget includes a two-year
phase-down of the income tax rate, but of course his budget has been
discarded in favor of the House Ways & Means budget, which spends the
rollback instead. The House will debate the FY'07 budget next week.
House Republicans are filing amendments for phase-downs of the
rollback. It's time for us citizens for limited taxation to act.
However, House members are on vacation this week so you probably won't
reach your representative. You can leave a message with the staff this
week, or call your state rep on Monday.
As Barbara wrote last night for a forthcoming column: "The money
itself, from the tax cut, isn’t a significant amount. The message is
huge. When we give up the 5% income tax rate, we give up the
initiative petition process and any hope of ever being respected by
our elected representatives."
Below is a list of Republican House members, all of whom we expect
will be voting for the rollback. If one of them is yours, or you know
them personally, thank them for their support and ask that they make a
major fight for the 5% rate for this tax year, 2006. Win or lose, we
will get roll call votes for the fall reelection campaigns.
To the Democrats, the message is simple: "The voters instructed
you to roll it back. Do you respect the voters, your constituents, or
do you not?"
We agree with the Healey/Hillman campaign that more
than enough time has passed since the false promise of a "temporary
18-month" income tax rate increase was made in 1989 (17 years ago --
soon an actual year for each "promised" month!); that it is time to
"keep the promise" as the voters mandated in 2000 without further ado.
Our mistake back then with our ballot question was in being
"reasonable," allowing the Legislature three years in which to adjust to
the decrease in revenue surplus. We learned the hard way that
those three years only provided the pols with time to come up with a
means, an excuse, to "freeze" the voters' mandate.
The Legislature's substitute, its own "gradual
rollback," won't occur -- even under the ideal conditions it requires --
until at best 2014, twenty-five years, a quarter of a century --
a generation -- after the false promise was made!
The state is choking on revenue surpluses again.
"The state is projecting a budget surplus of more than $1 billion for
this year. The state's stabilization ["rainy day"] fund has a current
balance of more than $1.7 billion and the year end total is projected to
exceed $2.5 billion," according to the administration. That's on
top of last year's billion dollar revenue surplus.
The House budget proposes to increase state spending
by $1.37 billion (5.7%) over last year's budget, and there are 1,600
amendments to it already filed.
This is exactly what occurred during the
"Roaring '90s," when still the rollback wasn't "affordable" according to
the Democrat-dominated Legislature -- and the toady
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation as usual. Instead, the
Legislature spent the billion-dollar annual surpluses year after year,
doubling the state budget since the "temporary" tax increase of 1989.
Now is the time to strike, now is the time to keep
the promise the voters' attempted to keep for the ethically-challenged, disingenuous and
obdurate Legislature. Voters in 2000 still believed we lived in a
democracy and that votes and elections mattered. The
Democrat-controlled Legislature deemed otherwise; election results don't
matter to most legislators except for their own, and those think they can get away with that manifesto.
Now is the time to find out if we can prevent the Legislature
from spending us into the next fiscal crisis and another tax increase
down the road.
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Chip Ford |
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
With tax man at the door,
three candidates pitch lower rate
By Jim O'Sullivan
Capitalizing on the state's deadline for tax filing, the three
gubernatorial candidates in favor of immediately trimming the income tax
rate to 5 percent reiterated their positions Tuesday, saying the
Legislature was past due in responding to a voter mandate.
Attorney General Thomas Reilly, who along with Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and
unenrolled businessman candidate Christy Mihos supports the rollback,
also used the day to hype his everyman credentials, linking his rivals'
refusals to disclose their personal finances to questions circling Vice
President Dick Cheney's ethics.
Healey picked up a theme Republicans have used to preserve their 16-year
lock on the governor's seat, painting the "Beacon Hill crowd" as
spending-happy, inept stewards of the economy.
The tax debate promises to be a frequent one during campaign season, as
state revenues continue to outperform budget estimates, even while the
Massachusetts economy lags the national recovery.
Reilly led off the day by talking with the pre-work crowd at the South
Station Postal Annex, then explaining to voters outside the station that
he'd supported the rate change since Massachusetts had "turned the
corner," and said it should happen "right now."
He said, "Taxes are too high in Massachusetts. Working families are
struggling, trying to make ends meet. It's not just taxes. It's high
cost of living and housing, college tuition, energy prices, insurance
prices. They've made very clear what their intentions are: They want the
income tax rolled back to 5.0. It's time to get it done. This is real
money in people's pockets."
Joined at her headquarters for an afternoon press conference by anti-tax
activist Barbara Anderson and running mate Reed Hillman, Healey
said, "My opponents in this campaign cannot be trusted on the tax
issue."
State coffers hold "more than enough," but the "tax-and-spend
Legislature" needs prodding to curb spending, Healey said. Her support
for an immediate rollback contrasts with Romney's budget proposal, which
would phase the 0.3 percent reduction across two years.
Healey broadened the scope of her criticism to include the other
Democratic candidates, Deval Patrick and Christopher Gabrieli, both of
whom have emerged as viable alternatives to Reilly, once considered the
clear frontrunner.
Gabrieli played "wait-and-see" on the tax rollback during their 2002
lieutenant governor's debate and in the past has joined Reilly in
"actively supporting the status quo in the Legislature," and Patrick
"wears his pro-tax agenda as a badge of honor," Healey said.
Mihos, who helped build the Christy's convenience store chain and earned
publicity on the Big Dig board, has staked his campaign on numerous
proposals for paring taxes and fees. He said the state erred in not
immediately complying with the electorate's mandate, calling it
"anathema to the way I think," and said sliding back taxes would have
been prudent at any point in the fiscal crisis.
"The voters voted for it, so that makes it a good idea. And any time
Beacon Hill loosens the purse-strings and gives the people back their
money, that's a good idea, too, and it certainly would have softened the
blow of the recession if people had had their own money to spend," Mihos
said in a phone interview.
Reilly did not pinpoint a benchmark the state ignored, but said the
decision should have been made "once the fiscal crisis was over. There's
no fiscal crisis now, there's a budget surplus."
Healey did not directly answer a reporter's question about the wisdom of
a mid-recession tax cut, instead saying the move to 5 percent should
have been made in 2000, and blaming part of the crisis's depth on the
spending that "had gone up so precipitously between 2000 and 2002." The
2002 freeze, Healey said, has cost taxpayers $2 billion.
Because April 15 fell on a Saturday, and Monday was the Patriots Day
holiday, residents were granted until Tuesday to submit their tax forms.
Voters in 2000 instructed the Legislature to whittle the residential
income tax rate from 5.75 percent to 5.0, its pre-1989 rate. In 2002,
during the state's bleak fiscal period, lawmakers froze the rate at 5.3.
Since, where to affix the percentage of their incomes residents send to
the state has divided politicians, with the GOP frequently using it as a
cudgel against the largely Democratic legislative branches.
Supporters of the lower rate say a family of four would see an
additional $200 per year, and a single person earning $50,000 would net
about $130. Healey's afternoon press conference featured a poster saying
the 5 percent rate would have meant $496 million in taxpayer retention
for Fiscal Year 2005, and $528 million for this fiscal year.
Gabrieli, an education think-tank founder, has said he supports the
rollback but has not detailed when it should be implemented, and
Patrick, a former corporate and Justice Department attorney, has in the
past refused to rule out a tax increase.
Asked if Patrick thought rolling the rate back represented good policy,
spokeswoman Libby DeVecchi said, "Not right now" and that "the tax to
cut is the property tax." Property tax rates are set locally.
"We need to do it with practical implementation and we need to tie it to
economic growth. It can't be one-time spending and it can't just be
governing by press release," Gabrieli spokesman Daniel Cence said,
promising a comprehensive plan to be released later this year.
Beyond policy pronouncements, Reilly's morning event also served to
underscore his unique standing in the race: He's the only
non-millionaire candidate, the only one to provide full disclosure of
his personal finances, and the only one whose children attended public
schools. Shaking hands with commuters in Dewey Square while campaign
aides distributed an in-house produced flier, the attorney general
worked to offer class-based appeal.
The attorney general compared the other candidates' privacy claims
unfavorably to Cheney, who has faced criticism for his ties to
Halliburton, a contracting firm where he served as chief executive and
has benefited from wartime contracts. Both Cheney and President Bush,
Reilly pointed out, voluntarily release their tax returns, as did Bay
State gubernatorial candidates traditionally until Romney in 2002
declined.
Reilly said, "For both Republican and Democrat candidates for governor
not even to be able to meet the ethical standards of Vice President
Cheney with the conflicts that certainly have come into light over the
course of his career … What do they have to hide?"
Marisa Cohen, a 48-year-old administrative manager from Holbrook, said
she's an unenrolled voter who leans toward Republicans, and doesn't know
much about any of the candidates. But learning of Reilly's financial
status intrigued her.
"I would think that's a great thing," Cohen said, scanning a Reilly
flier on her way out of the station.
Mihos brushed aside Reilly's demand for the personal disclosures,
calling it "nothing but another distraction."
"We meet the letter of the law, relative to any and all disclosures,"
Mihos said, questioning Reilly's actions in investigations of Big Dig
cost overruns: "Why would he sign a secret, confidential pact with the
Big Dig contractor and put the state in the position that they can't
release documents relative to the leaks in the tunnels?
Healey echoed Mihos's insistence that the ethics disclosures required by
the state "are more than adequate to give the public the information
they need."
Return to top
Kerry Healey for Governor Campaign
News Release - April 18, 2006
Healey and Hillman call for tax rollback
Amendments Proposed for House Budget
Would Reduce State Income Tax Rate to 5%
Today, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey called on the House of
Representatives to honor the will of the voters and immediately roll
back the state income tax to 5 percent. In 2000, Massachusetts voters
went to the ballot and by a 2-1 margin demanded an end to the
"temporary" income tax that has been in place since 1989.
Since 2002, Massachusetts taxpayers have sent $2 billion more to Beacon
Hill than they would have had they paid at the 5 percent rate. Tom
Reilly and Chris Gabrieli supported the higher tax rate but are now
claiming to support the rollback because they are candidates for
governor. Deval Patrick is the only Democrat in the race not to change
his position on the rollback; he opposes tax relief and wants to
increase taxes and state spending.
Healey said, "Taxpayers are paying too much and as state revenue
collections continue to exceed estimates we can stop penalizing our hard
working citizens for being so productive. If the tax rate was 5 percent
in 2005 working families would have kept $496 million of their own money
rather than padding the bottom line on Beacon Hill. In 2006, it's
expected that a 5 percent tax rate would return more than $528 million
to taxpayers."
Healey was joined by Lieutenant Governor Candidate Reed Hillman and
Barbara Anderson from Citizens for Limited Taxation, a key
leader in the victorious rollback vote in 2000.
"Taxpayers spoke loud and clear," said Healey. "They voted to return the
state income tax to 5 percent and we should take the necessary steps to
reward our citizens by letting them keep more of what they earn. I'm
challenging Tom Reilly and Chris Gabrieli to demonstrate their
commitment to lower taxes by putting public pressure on the House
leadership to roll back the state income tax to 5 percent."
The state is projecting a budget surplus of more than $1 billion for
this year. The state's stabilization fund has a current balance of more
than $1.7 billion and the year end total is projected to exceed $2.5
billion.
"We can afford to roll back taxes for our working families, it's the
right thing to do," said Barbara Anderson. "The voters of
Massachusetts can trust the Healey - Hillman team to stand up to the tax
and spend crowd on Beacon Hill."
Healey is the only candidate for governor that has consistently
supported the income tax rollback.
Reed Hillman said, "Kerry Healey has been leading the charge for tax
relief since her first day in office. She knows that rolling the state
income tax back to 5 percent will provide a shot in the arm for our
economy and send a strong message to our citizens and the business
community that we are serious about making Massachusetts a competitive
place to live, work and grow a business."
###
The Democratic Candidates on the Tax Rollback:
-
As the democratic candidate for lieutenant governor
back in 2002 Chris Gabrieli complimented a Democratic opponent for
voting to raise taxes and said during the same debate, "I do think we
are going to have to add revenues." (Boston Globe, 10/22/02)
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Healey raps pay raises for judges
Renews call to cut income tax rate
By Scott Helman and Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, who's made criminal justice a
centerpiece of her campaign for governor, attacked a proposed pay raise
for judges and court clerks yesterday as a prime example of "reckless"
spending by the Democratic Legislature.
Healey, seizing on yesterday's tax-filing deadline to renew the
Republicans' call for rolling back the state income tax rate from 5.3
percent to 5 percent, told reporters at her campaign headquarters that
returning money to taxpayers was more important than funding pay
increases.
"Let's get our priorities straight," Healey said.
House and Senate leaders reached a tentative agreement last fall to
raise trial judges' salaries to about $130,000 a year, up from the
current $112,777, but the two chambers have yet to reach a final
agreement on the spending bill that includes the money. Together with an
already negotiated salary boost for other court employees, the raises
for judges and clerks would cost $42 million a year.
Healey said the spending bill represented "the kind of reckless behavior
with the taxpayers' money that we cannot afford."
The judges lobbied legislators successfully last year for the pay raise,
arguing that they haven't received one since 2000 and that Massachusetts
lags behind almost every other state in judicial salaries.
Juvenile Court Judge Jim Collins, a vice president of the Massachusetts
Judges Conference, which represents the state's roughly 390 judges, said
yesterday that a raise was merited, but he did not criticize Healey. "I
don't think it would be appropriate for a judge or the conference to be
at all second-guessing the other two independent branches of
government," Collins said.
David L. Yas, publisher and editor in chief of Massachusetts Lawyers
Weekly, said Healey's comments reflect a hostility toward the judiciary,
which he contends has been "befuddling" to the legal community.
"Unfortunately it makes for easy politics to suggest that judges are
money-grubbing," Yas said. "They're really not asking for much more than
the cost-of-living expenses when you look at it over the long haul."
Healey wasn't the only gubernatorial candidate talking about income
taxes yesterday. Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, a Democrat who
opposed the income tax rate reduction in the past, talked to commuters
outside South Station and issued a similar call.
"Taxes are too high in Massachusetts," Reilly said. "It's time to get it
done. This is real money in people's pockets."
Voters approved a ballot measure in 2000 lowering the income tax rate to
5 percent, but the Legislature has resisted calls by Republicans and
some Democrats to honor that vote, saying it would be a big hit on the
state budget. Taxpayers, though, have gotten some tax money back under a
bill the Legislature passed in 2002 that tied tax relief to the health
of the state economy.
Reducing the income tax rate to 5 percent would cost the state about
$700 million annually, said Michael Widmer, president of the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group that is to
release its annual evaluation of the state budget today.
Among other candidates, Democrat Chris Gabrieli favors a rollback to 5
percent, but Deval L. Patrick does not, arguing that a lower rate will
only put more pressure on property taxes. Independent Christy Mihos also
favors a rollback to 5 percent.
Gabrieli, meanwhile, is launching the first television advertisements of
the 2006 campaign season today, as he scrambles to get his last-minute
candidacy for governor off the ground.
The ads, which portray Gabrieli as a man with "a lot of ideas" and a
passion for education, will run on cable and network television stations
for at least a few weeks, said Dan Cence, Gabrieli's press secretary.
Though the ads could reach millions of people, Gabrieli's candidacy
depends on only a few hundred people at this point. To get on the
ballot, he needs 15 percent of the delegates to the party's June
convention to support him -- a challenge for a candidate who entered the
race two months after the February caucuses.
The other candidates have not aired television ads. Patrick launched a
$50,000 to $100,000 Internet ad campaign last week.
Gabrieli's opening salvo on television raises the prospect of another
expensive primary campaign for the Democrats -- something the party
wants to avoid as it attempts to win a governor's race for the first
time in 20 years.
To that end, party officials will appear with all three candidates at a
press conference this morning to announce the leaders of its
Massachusetts Victory '06 Coordinated Campaign. The party hopes to raise
$1 million so that the primary winner will enter the general election
season with money to spend.
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
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The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
A Boston Herald editorial
Budget burdened by add-ons galore
It’s a darn good thing House lawmakers are required to submit budget
amendments by e-mail. The state might go broke if everyone had to print
them out.
Reps have filed an astonishing 1,600 amendments to the $25.3 billion
House budget filed last week - that’s up 300 over last year, and a
whopping 600 more than 2003.
Sure, amendments are an annual tradition - as much for their substance
as for their starring role in many a hometown press release. But the
sheer volume this year tells us a little something about discipline and
the pace of things at the State House - and should signal the same thing
to House Speaker Sal DiMasi.
The House has raised the Beacon Hill bottleneck to an art form during
this session, which ends July 31. It’s no wonder members are slapping
amendment after amendment onto the budget in hopes of gaining traction
before the session ends.
Welfare reform? Stalled in conference committee, so yep, there’s an
amendment for that. Nurse staffing bill? Much as it deserves a swift
burial, since it can’t get a floor vote, it’s now an amendment.
And we were more than a little disappointed to find the House had
abandoned a rule that demands an offset when an amendment seeks added
spending. With no such discipline required, why wouldn’t Rep. Ted
Speliotis (D-Danvers) ask for $640,000 for a legislative intern program?
We’ve praised DiMasi for his reluctance to legislate by "outside
section." But this is no way to run a railroad, either. Amendments get
bundled together and dispensed with in a back room - literally - often
under cover of darkness.
DiMasi & Co. scored big on health care, and producing a balanced budget
is no small feat. But the volume of amendments this year betrays a lack
of discipline - both in the reps who fell over themselves filing them,
and in the leaders who forced their hand.
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