CLT
UPDATE
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Tax
Freedom Day news conference:
the media massages the message
A day after the state set a new record for monthly
tax collections, Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry
Healey used the occasion of Tax Freedom Day in Massachusetts to call on
the Legislature to roll the income tax rate back to 5 percent.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which computes
Tax Freedom Day each year, Massachusetts residents must work a week
longer than the average American to meet their overall tax burden. The
National Tax Freedom Day was April 26, but Massachusetts residents’
total tax burden was not fulfilled until today....
"It may be Tax Freedom Day, but there’s no reason for celebration in
Massachusetts," Romney said. "Next year, I’d like to see Tax Freedom Day
in Massachusetts arrive a little bit earlier and the way to make that
happen is by reducing the income tax rate to 5 percent."
Said Healey: "With state tax receipts continuing to exceed projections,
now is the perfect time to honor the will of the voters and roll the
state income tax back to 5 percent. We can afford to return more money
to the people who have earned it. Let’s give a boost to family budgets
across Massachusetts."
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, which placed the rollback on the 2000 ballot, highlighted
the fact that it has been 17 years since the "temporary" income tax
increase was passed to address an earlier fiscal crisis. "With record
state revenues, Tax Freedom Day 2006 is a great day to demand the
restoration of our traditional five percent income tax rate," she said.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department
May 2, 2006
News Release: Amid record revenues,
Romney and Healey renew call for tax cut
The Legislature's tax revenue estimates for the current
fiscal year could wind up falling $1.5 billion short of reality, Gov. Mitt
Romney said Tuesday as he renewed demands for legislators to comply with the
voter-approved income tax rollback to 5 percent.
Echoing remarks made earlier in the day by his administration's top budget
official, Romney said tax revenues are on pace to exceed the fiscal 2006
forecasts of $17.1 billion, which shaped last year's budget deliberations, and
to outdistance his own, more optimistic predictions by up to $1.1 billion.
"How can one continue to argue that we're in fiscal crisis and that we can't
afford to do what the citizens voted for us to do? I think that argument is
hollow and it is time for our Legislature to take action to do what the citizens
voted for ... and what leaders in both parties have called for," Romney said.
Earlier, the rollback supporters found
an ally in a member of the Democratic Senate leadership.
Sen. Mark Montigny, co-chair of the Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures
and State Assets, and the former chair of the Ways and Means committee, said
he'd grown frustrated explaining how Beacon Hill manages its finances.
"We can't even have a straight-faced conversation with constituents about
spending because they think it all goes into that corrupt hole," the New Bedford
Democrat said....
Romney's press conference at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street was timed to
the state's "tax freedom day," the date in the calendar when average taxpayers
have earned enough to fulfill their tax burdens. Romney cited statistics
reporting that Bay State residents must work nearly a week longer than the
national average to rake in the equivalent of their tax payout, which includes
federal, state, and local taxes.
Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees (R-E. Longmeadow) promised to "fight" in the
Senate for the tax cut's inclusion in the budget. Lees said support for the
income tax rollback had gathered steam, pointing to former Senate President
Thomas Birmingham's
comments last October that the Legislature should cede its opposition to
lower taxes in light of the electorate's 2000 referendum vote.
State House News Service
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Romney: Tax revenues may beat estimates
by $1.5 billion
Asked about the gas tax by a reporter at a press conference
arraigned by Romney to renew his call for a state income tax cut, Healey, a
Republican candidate for governor, said she disagreed with Romney's opposition
to a temporary waiver of the gas tax....
The two found common ground on the familiar issue of rolling the state income
tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent. Voters approved the cut in 2000, but the
lawmakers froze it at 5.3 percent as the state's finances collapsed.
Romney said lawmakers can no longer make that argument. In April, the state saw
its largest collection of taxes in a single month ever.
"I don't know how anyone can argue that Massachusetts continues to endure a
fiscal crisis," he said....
Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center,
disagrees with the tax cut, saying the state should put money back into services
first.
"As the economy begins to recover, perhaps the state should reverse the damage
done by the last round of tax cuts before enacting another very expensive tax
cut," he said.
Associated Press
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Romney, Healey part ways
on rollback of state gas tax
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
The Library Room of the Hampshire House was packed
with members of the media yesterday afternoon at 3:oo pm as the
governor's news conference began; reporters and cameras surrounded us.
Governor Romney spoke first, followed by Lt. Governor Healey, Barbara
Anderson, House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading) and Senate
Minority Leader Brian Lees (R-East Longmeadow). All called for an
income tax rollback now, specifically in light of the surplus state
revenue (our tax overpayments) pouring in and piling up again (See
yesterday's CLT Update, "Record
revenue reported for Tax Freedom Day in Mass.").
The Boston Herald had no report of the news
conference; the Boston Globe carried a limited version of the Associated
Press report, "Healey, Romney at odds on gas tax rollback." The
full AP report was titled "Romney, Healey part ways on rollback of state
gas tax," but at least it mentioned the purpose for which the news
conference was called.
Only the State House News Service published a
report that accurately reported our news conference, which is why it's
so worthwhile that CLT -- and anyone who needs to know what's happening
on Beacon Hill -- subscribes to
its service.
And why it's important that we be there, where and
when it happens, so that we can report to you.
Both state Representative Brad Jones and state Senator
Brian Lees stressed that it's very important that your state rep and
senator hear from you, personally. They agreed that -- though they
don't believe it -- they've heard over and over again from their
"colleagues" in the Legislature that it's not a hot issue, that none
have heard from their constituents that this is an important issue.
To succeed, our allies need a groundswell of pubic opinion, now.
The next move to finally roll back the income tax
rate all the way, to keep the 17-year old promise to return to 5 percent
and to respect disgusted voters' 2000 mandate, comes in the state
Senate, very soon. If you're going to act -- if you want to see
this happen -- now is the time to
find and call your
state
senator.
Act now, or forever hold your peace.
They need a "groundswell"? Well then let's give it to them -- or
live with a permanent tax hike forever.
 |
For more photos or
enlargements of the news conference
CLICK HERE |
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department
May 2, 2006
News Release
Amid record revenues, Romney and Healey renew call for tax cut
A day after the state set a new record for monthly tax collections,
Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey used the
occasion of Tax Freedom Day in Massachusetts to call on the Legislature
to roll the income tax rate back to 5 percent.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which computes
Tax Freedom Day each year, Massachusetts residents must work a week
longer than the average American to meet their overall tax burden. The
National Tax Freedom Day was April 26, but Massachusetts residents’
total tax burden was not fulfilled until today.
The Tax Foundation estimates the average Massachusetts taxpayer must
work four months and a day to pay their full tax burden of $16,427. So,
on May 2, Massachusetts taxpayers stop working to pay their taxes and
start working for themselves. The Foundation’s annual study includes all
federal, state and local taxes.
"It may be Tax Freedom Day, but there’s no reason for celebration in
Massachusetts," Romney said. "Next year, I’d like to see Tax Freedom Day
in Massachusetts arrive a little bit earlier and the way to make that
happen is by reducing the income tax rate to 5 percent."
Said Healey: "With state tax receipts continuing to exceed projections,
now is the perfect time to honor the will of the voters and roll the
state income tax back to 5 percent. We can afford to return more money
to the people who have earned it. Let’s give a boost to family budgets
across Massachusetts."
"It’s been almost six years since voters across the state overwhelmingly
told us to roll the income tax back to 5 percent," said House Minority
Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. "With state tax revenues continuing to
exceed expectations, there is no excuse for the Legislature to continue
delaying action. The time has come for us to carry out the people’s
wishes and put a plan in place to get us back to 5 percent."
Yesterday, the Department of Revenue reported that tax collections in
April totaled $2.215 billion, a new monthly record. Year-to-date
revenues are now exceeding the original benchmark set last spring by
$837 million.
"That money does not belong to the government," Romney said. "That’s the
taxpayers’ money and we can clearly afford to let them keep it."
In 2000, voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum to reduce the income
tax rate to 5 percent, but the Legislature froze the rate at 5.3 percent
in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Now that the crisis is over, the
Legislature should honor the will of the voters.
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
which placed the rollback on the 2000 ballot, highlighted the fact that
it has been 17 years since the "temporary" income tax increase was
passed to address an earlier fiscal crisis. "With record state revenues,
Tax Freedom Day 2006 is a great day to demand the restoration of our
traditional five percent income tax rate," she said.
###
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State House News Service
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Romney: Tax revenues may beat estimates by $1.5 billion
By Jim O'Sullivan
The Legislature's tax revenue estimates for the current fiscal year
could wind up falling $1.5 billion short of reality, Gov. Mitt Romney
said Tuesday as he renewed demands for legislators to comply with the
voter-approved income tax rollback to 5 percent.
Echoing remarks made earlier in the day by his administration's top
budget official, Romney said tax revenues are on pace to exceed the
fiscal 2006 forecasts of $17.1 billion, which shaped last year's budget
deliberations, and to outdistance his own, more optimistic predictions
by up to $1.1 billion.
"How can one continue to argue that we're in fiscal crisis and that we
can't afford to do what the citizens voted for us to do? I think that
argument is hollow and it is time for our Legislature to take action to
do what the citizens voted for ... and what leaders in both parties have
called for," Romney said.
Earlier, the rollback supporters found
an ally in a member of the Democratic Senate leadership.
Sen. Mark Montigny, co-chair of the Committee on Bonding, Capital
Expenditures and State Assets, and the former chair of the Ways and
Means committee, said he'd grown frustrated explaining how Beacon Hill
manages its finances.
"We can't even have a straight-faced conversation with constituents
about spending because they think it all goes into that corrupt hole,"
the New Bedford Democrat said.
Much of the excess revenues, propelled by April's new monthly record for
tax collections, "are already spoken for" in pending spending
initiatives like a capital supplemental spending bill and dueling
economic stimulus packages, Secretary of Administration and Finance
Thomas Trimarco cautioned after a hearing on capital expenditures
earlier in the day.
Romney's press conference at the Hampshire House on Beacon Street was
timed to the state's "tax freedom day," the date in the calendar when
average taxpayers have earned enough to fulfill their tax burdens.
Romney cited statistics reporting that Bay State residents must work
nearly a week longer than the national average to rake in the equivalent
of their tax payout, which includes federal, state, and local taxes.
Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees (R-E. Longmeadow) promised to "fight"
in the Senate for the tax cut's inclusion in the budget. Lees said
support for the income tax rollback had gathered steam, pointing to
former Senate President Thomas Birmingham's
comments last October that the Legislature should cede its
opposition to lower taxes in light of the electorate's 2000 referendum
vote.
At the State House hearing, Trimarco said the administration planned to
release later this month a 20-year transportation plan, and in June to
roll out its five-year capital spending plan.
Several times during the hearing, Montigny decried the state's resource
management, and worried that a program geared to control the costs of
building and repairing schools could become the next Big Dig in terms of
cost overruns and waste.
Trimarco acknowledged "a concern about the" Massachusetts School
Building Authority, the quasi-public agency created to vet local
requests for state renovation and construction funds, and suggested some
school districts are overly ambitious in their funding goals.
"There are several communities that really do believe that they're going
to build a Taj Mahal on our nickel and dime," the secretary said.
Montigny went further, saying, "That is the next problem that's sitting
there waiting to explode, is the school building assistance thing."
The executive director of the MSBA, Katherine Craven, told the News
Service that the school construction spending problems were being
processed into the past by her agency.
"I think it already exploded, and we're here to sort of clean that up,"
Craven said.
A moratorium on all new projects, set in June 2003, will run through
June 2007, said Craven, at which point the state is scheduled to reopen
for bids with a new, fixed budget of $500 million per year.
Montigny's barbs were not limited to decisions made outside the
Legislature. In discussing where some of the excess revenues are marked
to be spent, he called a Senate-backed plan to upgrade Longwood and
Fenway infrastructure "a $55 million boondoggle for the Red Sox."
And the New Bedford Democrat blistered what he portrayed as a culture
that grants lobbyists unseemly influence over efforts to trim from the
budget fat that benefits well-heeled interests.
"We somehow never quite get there when the right people are hired to
walk into this building and spread the magic," Montigny said, later
saying that the State House offered "a full employment program" for
lobbyists and lawyers.
"It's a great place to make money," Montigny said.
Trimarco said, and an Executive Office of Transportation spokesman
confirmed, that the state plans to release the final version of the
long-term transportation plan later this month. The blueprint, which the
administration initially announced in March 2005, has undergone nearly a
year of oft-contentious public review.
"We are looking at including rail to Worcester, also to New Bedford and
Fall River, and there's no question that this is the time, with gasoline
prices being what they are … and we are looking very closely about
expanding commuter rail in the Commonwealth," Trimarco told the
committee.
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey and Minority Leader Bradley Jones (R-N. Reading),
both longtime advocates of whittling the income tax rate, joined Romney
at the Hampshire House, with Healey, a Republican candidate for
governor, splitting from her boss over the question of a temporary
suspension of the state gasoline tax.
Romney has pushed for long-range solutions to fuel prices like more
energy efficient vehicles.
Healey is concerned about the impact on low-income residents of climbing
gasoline prices, she said Tuesday. "I think this is a place where the
governor and I may part company," Healey said.
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Associated Press
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Romney, Healey part ways on rollback of state gas tax
By Steve LeBlanc
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said Tuesday she would consider suspending the
state's gasoline tax to give drivers a break -- a position that again
puts her at odds with Gov. Mitt Romney as she appeals to voters ahead of
the fall elections.
Asked about the gas tax by a reporter at a press conference arraigned by
Romney to renew his call for a state income tax cut, Healey, a
Republican candidate for governor, said she disagreed with Romney's
opposition to a temporary waiver of the gas tax.
"I think this is a place where the governor and I may part company. I am
very concerned about the impact of higher fuel costs on people's ability
to get to work, on their individual budgets," she said. "I would
consider the temporary suspension of the gas tax especially if we can't
get other tax progress."
Moments earlier, Romney -- who is not seeking re-election, but weighing
a campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 -- said
suspending the state's 21-cents-per-gallon state gas tax would only
encourage more gas consumption. The state brings in close to $600
million a year from the gas tax.
Romney said drivers have to get used to the fact that prices likely
aren't coming down dramatically. He said drivers should pressure auto
manufacturers to come up with more fuel- efficient vehicles.
"I am very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline
prices are probably here to stay and that the appropriate action for us
to take is to find ways to find fuel conservation," he said.
Christy Mihos, an independent candidate for governor, said he also
favored waiving the tax.
"People are looking for any relief whatsoever," he said.
Democratic candidate Chris Gabrieli sided with Romney, saying he
supports "a long term solution that focuses on renewable energy and
reducing our dependence on foreign oil."
Calls to the two other Democratic candidates for governor -- Deval
Patrick and Attorney General Thomas Reilly -- were not immediately
returned Tuesday.
Asked in a recent debate about whether they would ever cut the gas tax,
Patrick said, "I'm in favor of cutting that and any other tax that makes
sense." In response to the same question, Reilly said, "I'm in favor of
getting any relief I can for average families."
House Republican leader Brad Jones, R-North Reading, plans to file a
bill to give drivers a three-month break from the tax this summer.
Healey spokeswoman Amy Lambiaso said there are enough new revenues
flowing into the state to plug the hole if the state suspended the
gasoline tax.
It's not the first time Healey and Romney have publicly parted ways as
she tries to garner support among independent voters and moderate
Democrats.
Romney opposes civil unions for gay couples. Healey supports them. He
vetoed a bill designed to encourage stem cell research in Massachusetts.
She supports stem cell research. Romney tried to exempt Catholic and
private hospitals from a new state law requiring that they offer
emergency contraception to rape victims. Healey supported the law.
The two found common ground on the familiar issue of rolling the state
income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent. Voters approved the cut
in 2000, but the lawmakers froze it at 5.3 percent as the state's
finances collapsed.
Romney said lawmakers can no longer make that argument. In April, the
state saw its largest collection of taxes in a single month ever.
"I don't know how anyone can argue that Massachusetts continues to
endure a fiscal crisis," he said.
Reilly and Mihos have both called for an immediate rollback to 5
percent. Gabrieli has called for a gradual rollback while Patrick has
said the state can't afford to cut now.
Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy
Center, disagrees with the tax cut, saying the state should put money
back into services first.
"As the economy begins to recover, perhaps the state should reverse the
damage done by the last round of tax cuts before enacting another very
expensive tax cut," he said.
Return to top
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Healey, Romney at odds on gas tax rollback
By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey said yesterday that she would consider
suspending the state's gasoline tax to give drivers a break, a position
that again put her at odds with Governor Mitt Romney as she appeals to
voters ahead of fall elections.
Asked about the gas tax by a reporter at a press conference arranged by
Romney to renew his call for a state income tax cut, Healey, a
Republican candidate for governor, said she disagreed with Romney's
opposition to a temporary waiver of the gas tax.
"This is a place where the governor and I may part company. I am very
concerned about the impact of higher fuel costs on people's ability to
get to work, on their individual budgets," she said. "I would consider
the temporary suspension of the gas tax especially if we can't get other
tax progress."
Moments earlier, Romney -- who is weighing a campaign for the GOP
presidential nomination -- said suspending the 21-cents-per-gallon state
gas tax would only encourage more gas consumption.
"I am very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline
prices are probably here to stay and that the appropriate action for us
to take is to find ways to find fuel conservation," he said.
Christy Mihos, an independent candidate for governor, said he favored
waiving the tax. "People are looking for any relief whatsoever," he
said.
Calls to the three Democratic candidates for governor -- Chris Gabrieli,
Deval Patrick, and Attorney General Thomas Reilly -- were not
immediately returned.
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