CLT UPDATE
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Update on attempted end run around
Proposition 2½
On the surface, the legislation passed by the state
House last week sounds like a reasonable proposition: Since everyone
knows property tax hikes place a special burden on needy senior citizens
living on a fixed income, why not allow communities to exempt them from
tax hikes stemming from Proposition 2½ overrides? ...
The Senate should reject this attempt to duck the real issue. We don't
need the Legislature to make tax overrides easier to pass. We need to
make overrides less necessary.
A Needham Times editorial
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The wrong solution for tax overrides
Problem: The ever-increasing cost of government — driven by
fuel prices, insurance costs, union contracts, steel bids and ambitious new
social programs — is squeezing low-income elderly residents more than ever.
Solution: Raise taxes even more on homeowners under age 65, including the
working poor and the middle class whose discretionary spending fuels our
economy. Increase the burden of a regressive tax. Rob Peter to pay Paul.
Congratulate yourself on having “solved” a truly fatal flaw developing in
Massachusetts town government — senior citizens might stop voting for
Proposition 2½ overrides.
What a horror that would be....
Our senators should reject this attempt to duck the real issue. We don’t need
the Legislature to make tax overrides easier to pass. We need it to make
overrides less necessary.
A Lancaster Times-Courier editorial
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Tax relief for some, burden for others
The bill, sponsored by Representative Ruth Balser of Newton,
would let communities decide whether to exempt homeowners over age 65 from the
effect of individual tax-limit overrides, provided their annual incomes are
below $60,000 and their property tax bills are more than 10 percent of that
income. It is a local-option extension of the statewide circuit-breaker that
already allows lower-income seniors to get rebates if their property tax bills
trip the income trigger of 10 percent.
Balser's proposal has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate. It is
being attacked lustily by Citizens for Limited Taxation and other 2½
supporters as a sneaky way to make overrides easier to pass, by protecting a
high-voting segment of the population from the pain of property tax increases.
Even if it has that effect, it would still offer property tax breaks to many
seniors on limited incomes whose home values have inflated - property tax relief
that CLT usually supports.
A Boston Globe editorial
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A way around a tax rivalry
Do we stick it to the fixed-income octogenarian eating cereal
for supper or do we pass the buck to the family of four with the wolf already at
their door?
That’s the choice that Massachusetts towns would be given if a bill excluding
many seniors from paying Proposition 2½ property tax overrides becomes law....
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
the organization responsible for Proposition 2½ becoming law 26 [sic - 28] years
ago, took tax override advocates to task in a Boston Globe article accusing the
advocates of not having enough empathy for “old people, sick people, and people
who can't afford an override."
But Anderson shows her own lack of empathy for these same seniors in her
opposition to the bill. Believing that the tax break would mean that many
seniors who voted against increases in the past would stay away from the polls,
Anderson opposes giving any senior an override exemption.
“Seniors are our first line of defense,” she said in a recent radio interview on
WTKK, unapologetically holding them hostage in order to meet her own goals.
Anderson is right, however, when she says that should some residents be excluded
from paying for overrides, a greater financial burden would be placed on others.
But the assumption that if that “line of defense” is eliminated that passing
overrides would become easier, fails to consider the variables.
The Barnstable Register
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Senior discount
By Joe Burns
A proposal allowing cities and towns to exempt some senior
citizens from Proposition 2½ override costs is meeting a variety of objections
in the Senate, a key senator said Wednesday.
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Wednesday, March 5, 2008
[Excerpt]
Senator:
Prop 2½ exemption bill meeting opposition in the Senate
Proponents of a bill allowing cities and towns to exempt
certain senior citizens from Proposition 2½ override costs not only have to
worry about concerns from senators, but potentially the governor now, too.
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Thursday, March 6, 2008
[Excerpt]
Patrick:
Prop 2½ exemption bill needs more analysis
The Senate’s Elder Affairs Committee chair Patricia Jehlen
said Tuesday she would not advocate that the Senate pass a House-approved
measure to exempt certain seniors from Proposition 2½ overrides costs.
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Tuesday, March 11, 2008
[Excerpt]
Senate Elder Affairs leader doubtful
about Prop 2½ exemptions
State Sen. Brian A. Joyce (D-Milton) wants to place a
levy on plastic shopping bags, calling the ubiquitous carryalls an
environmental hazard. Each bag would be taxed 2 cents at the checkout at
first. In seven years, that tax would climb to 15 cents....
But Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation says
the government can’t be trusted to figure its way out of this plastic
bag.
Whole Foods supermarkets recently announced plans to stop offering
plastic bags altogether, and Anderson said the private sector should be
left alone to deal with the issue. Anderson said she uses reusable bags
herself, but she’s considering going back to plastic in protest.
“Go away!” she said about the threat of government intervention. “It’s
enough to make you want to dress in plastic bags, or paint your house in
plastic bags.”
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Pol: Bag the plastic, or pay up
Paper or taxes?
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Currently the so-called senior exemption to the
consequences of a Proposition 2½ override is stalled in the state
Senate. H. 4534 was overwhelmingly
passed by the House by a vote of 111-34 last month and sent on to
the Senate.
As you can see from the comments of two leading
Democrat senators, we have a good chance of having it defeated or
ignored by the Senate. Just in case, Barbara has contacted the Patrick
administration, and has received assurances from one of his top
administrators that our arguments for a veto will be seriously
considered.
Despite the universal editorial condemnation for this
end-run around Prop 2½ there's the belated Boston Globe editorial today. We
are not sure why the Globe waited so long to weigh in; we take it as a
sign that someone is looking for back-up for a Yes vote – which to us
means that the bill wasn’t moving along as pro-override advocates had
hoped.
Fortunately, the Boston Globe came out in favor of
the divide-and-conquer exclusion -- else we'd have had to reconsider our
position, if we agreed. Interesting, it's the only editorial we've
found anywhere in favor of it, but this is not all that surprising, is
it?
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Chip Ford |
The Needham Times
Thursday, March 6, 2008
A Needham Times editorial
The wrong solution for tax overrides
On the surface, the legislation passed by the state House last week
sounds like a reasonable proposition: Since everyone knows property tax
hikes place a special burden on needy senior citizens living on a fixed
income, why not allow communities to exempt them from tax hikes stemming
from Proposition 2½ overrides?
That's the argument made by Rep. Ruth Balser, D-Newton, the lead sponsor
of the bill. Under the proposal, which the House approved on a lopsided
111-34 vote, communities could offer the override exemption to
homeowners over the age of 65 who earn less than $60,000 in annual
income.
But below the surface lurk problems. First, for every dollar of an
override's cost kept off the tax bill of an eligible senior, a dollar
will be added to the bills of those under 65. Since there's no
means-tested property tax breaks for them, the tax hikes will hit harder
on some who are equally deserving of our sympathy: Young families barely
getting by, people who have lost jobs or wage-earners, who are having a
hard enough time coping with rising energy, mortgage and health care
costs. Is that fair?
There's also the impact the exemption would have on override ballot
politics. Exempting seniors would blunt the opposition to overrides,
especially those benefiting schools. Cynics argue that's the whole point
of Balser's bill. Realists note that whatever the motivation, its effect
would be to make it easier to get overrides approved.
That is going in the wrong direction. An override to build a new school
or purchase a strategic property is an appropriate community investment
decision. But more and more cities and towns have to turn to operating
overrides because they are desperate for revenue to sustain essential
services.
That desperation should be laid at the doorstep of the Massachusetts
Legislature, which has refused to return local aid to 2002 levels, let
alone provide the amount of state aid that is required in 2008. The
Legislature has also refused to act on proposals from Gov. Deval Patrick
that would open up new revenue options for municipalities and close a
loophole that allows telecommunications providers to avoid paying
million in property taxes.
Property taxes are regressive, unfair and already far too high. Patrick
won an electoral mandate to control property tax hikes, pointedly saying
that reducing local taxes, not state taxes, was his priority. The
Legislature, however, has played an old game, taking credit for keeping
the sales and income tax rates low while taking no responsibility for
the property taxes that must grow to make up the shortfall in local aid.
The Senate should reject this attempt to duck the real issue. We don't
need the Legislature to make tax overrides easier to pass. We need to
make overrides less necessary.
The Lancaster Times-Courier
Thursday, March 6, 2008
A Lancaster Times-Courier editorial
Tax relief for some, burden for others
Problem: The ever-increasing cost of government — driven by fuel prices,
insurance costs, union contracts, steel bids and ambitious new social
programs — is squeezing low-income elderly residents more than ever.
Solution: Raise taxes even more on homeowners under age 65, including
the working poor and the middle class whose discretionary spending fuels
our economy. Increase the burden of a regressive tax. Rob Peter to pay
Paul. Congratulate yourself on having “solved” a truly fatal flaw
developing in Massachusetts town government — senior citizens might stop
voting for Proposition 2½ overrides.
What a horror that would be. You, one of the 111 state representatives
who voted in favor of this bill Feb. 28, might have to address the
structural problems that cause some towns to come running to voters
every couple of years for a “necessary” tax hike — the bloated overhead
costs of government in Massachusetts and, more importantly, the
Legislature’s outrageous failure to make increased and steady local aid
its first and foremost concern.
Exempting seniors with less than $60,000 in income from a Proposition 2½
override or debt exclusion would blunt the opposition to tax hikes,
especially those benefiting operating budgets. It would become harder
for low-income and middle class voters to convince their less exposed
neighbors — transient families, the upper class, and now seniors — to
make town government live within its means. Annual override attempts
haven’t become a way of life in Clinton and Lancaster, as they have in
some other communities, but they could.
That’s a step in the wrong direction. Clinton last year passed two debt
exclusions for the right reasons, one-time tangible improvements — the
Rauscher Farm and a new Senior Center. Town Hall shouldn’t have to crawl
desperate, cup in hand, every couple years to ask working-class voters
for a few more hundred thousands to make payroll.
That desperation should be laid at the doorstep of the Massachusetts
Legislature, which has refused to return local aid to 2002 levels, let
alone provide the amount of state aid that is required in 2008. The
Legislature has also refused to act on several proposals to raise new
revenues, including an attempt to send to cities and towns lottery funds
that are due to them.
Property taxes are regressive and therefore less fair than the flat
income tax that funds the state budget. Gov. Deval Patrick won an
electoral mandate to control property tax hikes, pointedly saying that
reducing local taxes, not state taxes, was his priority. The
Legislature, however, has played an old game, taking credit for keeping
the sales and income tax rates low while taking no responsibility for
the property taxes that must grow to make up the shortfall in local aid.
Our senators should reject this attempt to duck the real issue. We don’t
need the Legislature to make tax overrides easier to pass. We need it to
make overrides less necessary.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A Boston Globe editorial
A way around a tax rivalry
Proposition 2½ was expressly written in 1980 with an override provision
to give voters the power to determine whether to raise their own taxes.
Back then, the tax revolt was all about giving local governments more
control, since they are smaller and closer to the people. But when
voters in local communities actually decide to use the override to pay
for more services, the protectors of 2½ tend to cry foul. A proposal to
allow communities to abate the cost of 2½ overrides to lower-income
seniors isn't perfect, but neither is it the frontal attack on the
revered property-tax limit that its guardians suggest.
The bill, sponsored by Representative Ruth Balser of Newton, would let
communities decide whether to exempt homeowners over age 65 from the
effect of individual tax-limit overrides, provided their annual incomes
are below $60,000 and their property tax bills are more than 10 percent
of that income. It is a local-option extension of the statewide
circuit-breaker that already allows lower-income seniors to get rebates
if their property tax bills trip the income trigger of 10 percent.
Balser's proposal has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate.
It is being attacked lustily by Citizens for Limited Taxation and
other 2½ supporters as a sneaky way to make overrides easier to pass, by
protecting a high-voting segment of the population from the pain of
property tax increases. Even if it has that effect, it would still offer
property tax breaks to many seniors on limited incomes whose home values
have inflated - property tax relief that CLT usually supports.
The decision whether to exempt the seniors would be made by town meeting
or other local legislative body - a democratic choice each community can
make. Some will decide it is worth trying to keep longtime residents in
their homes. It won't help everyone, but it is preferable to former
lieutenant governor Kerry Healey's solution: "overhoused" older people
should just cash out and move.
Too often override votes set up an unproductive rivalry between young
families who want well-resourced schools and seniors who may feel they
no longer have a direct stake in public education. The truth is that
everyone benefits from a town with good schools - or libraries, parks,
low crime, and thriving downtowns. Government isn't just another
consumer product, where citizens pay only for what they use. It's a
multigenerational compact where everyone pools the costs and shares the
benefits.
For that reason, we'd like the circuit-breaker better if it were not
limited to the elderly; plenty of struggling families who are paying
more than 10 percent of their income in property taxes deserve a break,
too. Still, Balser's proposed abatements would insert a tiny bit of
income equity into one of the most regressive taxes in the state. That's
the overriding value of the idea.
The Barnstable Register
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Senior discount
By Joe Burns
Do we stick it to the fixed-income octogenarian eating cereal for supper
or do we pass the buck to the family of four with the wolf already at
their door?
That’s the choice that Massachusetts towns would be given if a bill
excluding many seniors from paying Proposition 2½ property tax overrides
becomes law.
Most folks don’t seem to mind giving seniors a few bucks off at a
restaurant or a movie theater. But when it comes to giving them a bye on
overrides, there’s a deep divide.
On the Cape that division is reflected in the votes cast last month by
the Cape’s state legislators on a bill that would allow towns to grant
homeowners age 65 or older exemption from property tax overrides
providing they earned less than $60,000 and their real estate taxes
exceeded 10 percent of their income. Although the bill passed 110-35,
Cape representatives were divided on the issue with Democratic Reps.
Demetrius Atsalis and Cleon Turner joining Republican Jeff Perry in
opposing the measure and Democratic Reps. Matt Patrick, Sarah Peake and
Eric Turkington voting in its favor.
The bill comes at a time when override proponents have been making
themselves visible in several off-Cape towns where cuts to schools and
town services are looming. Some see seniors as a voting bloc that
impedes town needs; others see them as a formidable front line in the
fight to hold down taxes.
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, the organization responsible for Proposition 2½ becoming
law 26 years ago, took tax override advocates to task in a Boston Globe
article accusing the advocates of not having enough empathy for “old
people, sick people, and people who can't afford an override."
But Anderson shows her own lack of empathy for these same seniors in her
opposition to the bill. Believing that the tax break would mean that
many seniors who voted against increases in the past would stay away
from the polls, Anderson opposes giving any senior an override
exemption.
“Seniors are our first line of defense,” she said in a recent radio
interview on WTKK, unapologetically holding them hostage in order to
meet her own goals.
Anderson is right, however, when she says that should some residents be
excluded from paying for overrides, a greater financial burden would be
placed on others. But the assumption that if that “line of defense” is
eliminated that passing overrides would become easier, fails to consider
the variables.
Barnstable County has the oldest population in the state but seniors are
not the majority. According to 2005 U.S. census estimates, those 65 and
over make up 28 percent of the voting age population on Cape Cod.
Eliminate from that figure those who don’t own their own homes or would
be ineligible for an override exclusion and the number likely shrinks
significantly. It’s not certain whether, in any given town, eliminating
that group from override increases would cause a significant shift in
override votes or result in significant tax increases for other
homeowners. But if it would, wouldn’t voters act accordingly? And, if a
tax exemption were granted, wouldn’t having to bear more of the tax
burden make an override less appealing to many voters?
On Cape Cod, where the median household income is around $46,000, a
fixed income of $60,000 would suit many families just fine. So asking
them to give a tax break to someone with that kind of income seems a bit
unfair. Lowering the figure would help, but you still run the risk of
hurting some have-nots in order to help others. The problem, of course,
is the property tax itself, which is based on assets instead of income.
Incomes haven’t kept pace with housing costs and the longer someone has
owned their home, the greater the disparity between their income and
their property is likely to be. And unless someone is using it as rental
income, taken out a home equity loan, second mortgage or reverse
mortgage, their property doesn’t provide them a penny.
The inequities of using property values as a measure have been a
contentious issue on the Cape. Its use by the state in allocating school
funds has led to a vicious cycle on Cape Cod with towns having to pick
up more of the school costs through property taxes. But some towns have
little other options other than cutting services and jobs or
implementing inequitable user fees for specific school services. No town
should have to worry about cutbacks in basic services such as education
and public safety. The state income tax should provide for that.
Taxes that don’t equate with an ability to pay drive people away, and
that often means working families and fixed-income seniors. Cape Cod
needs to do what it has been urging the state to do – consider income as
well as assets.
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Wednesday, March 5, 2008
[Excerpt]
Senator: Prop 2½ exemption bill meeting opposition in the Senate
A proposal allowing cities and towns to exempt some senior citizens from
Proposition 2½ override costs is meeting a variety of objections in the
Senate, a key senator said Wednesday.
“I am not clear that it is going to come out of the Senate,” said Sen.
Cynthia Creem (D-Newton), co-chair of the Committee on Revenue, which
reviews tax bills, noting that some of the opposition arose from the
bill’s perceived intention to “circumvent” Proposition 2½.
Opponents contend that removing the threat of a tax increase for elderly
residents would suppress turnout during major override votes and shift
the increase onto other potentially vulnerable residents.
The bill (H 4534), filed by Rep. Ruth Balser (D-Newton) and supported by
Creem, would enable cities and towns to exempt from override tax
increases senior citizens earning less than $60,000 and paying more than
a tenth of their income in property taxes. Proponents argue that the
proposal would enable seniors to remain in their communities even as
their property values appreciate to unaffordable levels.
“Past administrations have made reference to, ‘well the seniors can move
out,’ but I think an intergenerational community is very beneficial to
the community,” Creem said. “I would do anything to keep those seniors,
particularly those low-income seniors, still in their communities.”
Creem’s warning of about the bill’s future in the Senate comes on the
heels of a Citizens for Limited Taxation memo to senators reminding them
of their branch’s history of protecting Proposition 2½. “Many bills were
filed during the ‘80s to amend [Proposition 2½] . . . Few of the
damaging amendments passed; some that did pass the House were stopped in
the Senate,” the memo read. “Later, a bill exempting seniors from
overrides passed the House but not the Senate. We hope this will happen
again with H 4534, which is intended to get more overrides passed,
raising property taxes on working families, homeowners with giant
mortgages, and under-65s on fixed incomes.”
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Thursday, March 6, 2008
[Excerpt]
Patrick: Prop 2½ exemption bill needs more analysis
Proponents of a bill allowing cities and towns to exempt certain senior
citizens from Proposition 2½ override costs not only have to worry about
concerns from senators, but potentially the governor now, too.
Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday he wants to look at the proposal, which
the House has endorsed. “One of the parts of the analyses we have to do
is to see what the impact is on local communities, if seniors are
categorically exempt from 2½ overrides, because that may only exacerbate
the fiscal issues that towns are facing, which means it comes back to my
desk,” Patrick said on his monthly radio appearance on WTKK 96.9FM.
But he added that he was “very sympathetic” on the impact of the
overrides on seniors and others on limited incomes. Patrick noted that
he has proposed “more across-the-board measures that get some relief for
everybody,” including eliminating the telecommunications property tax
exemption on telephone poles and giving cities and towns the options of
a meals tax.
“We have to focus on this,” he said. “Frankly, it worries me some that
the Legislature, having said no so far to every one of those proposals,
are all about to go off and campaign in the summer without having very
much to say about what we have delivered for local communities.”
Some argue that the bill (H 4534), sponsored by Rep. Ruth Balser
(D-Newton), could dampen turnout during override votes. The bill allows
seniors earning less than $60,000 and paying more than a tenth of their
income in property taxes to be exempted by cities and towns.
State House News Service
State Capitol Briefs -- Tuesday, March 11, 2008
[Excerpt]
Senate Elder Affairs leader doubtful about Prop 2½ exemptions
The Senate’s Elder Affairs Committee chair Patricia Jehlen said Tuesday
she would not advocate that the Senate pass a House-approved measure to
exempt certain seniors from Proposition 2½ overrides costs.
Jehlen said seniors in Winchester, which she represents, called the
measure “very divisive” and that many other worthy exemptions already
existed for elderly residents. Jehlen noted that tax deferral, a
little-used option for elders, already enables low-income senior
citizens to delay tax payments until they sell their houses.
The bill, which has a local option mechanism, “wouldn’t end up being
passed” by municipalities, Jehlen said.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Ruth Balser, would enable cities and
towns to exempt from Proposition 2½ overrides seniors making less than
$60,000 a year and paying more than 10 percent of their income toward
property taxes. Supporters contend the bill would provide much-needed
relief to enable seniors to live in their communities through the end of
their lives.
Opponents argue that the bill is an “end-run” around Proposition 2 ½
that would keep seniors – traditionally skeptical of override costs – at
home during votes and would shift extra costs onto younger, equally
vulnerable taxpayers.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Pol: Bag the plastic, or pay up
Paper or taxes?
That might be what the grocery bagger asks you if one Bay State pol has
his way.
State Sen. Brian A. Joyce (D-Milton) wants to place a levy on plastic
shopping bags, calling the ubiquitous carryalls an environmental hazard.
Each bag would be taxed 2 cents at the checkout at first. In seven
years, that tax would climb to 15 cents.
The idea is to get you, the shopper, to stop using them.
“I think we’ve come up with a fairly modest stipend,” Joyce said.
Shoppers who use paper, biodegradable or reusable bags would be exempt
from the tax. His proposal will be aired in a hearing at the State House
tomorrow.
“We’re not trying to make money off this,” he insisted. “We’re trying to
gently prod the consumer.”
Joyce cited a litany of bag evils: They’re made from petroleum, in a
process that produces pollutants. A single bag takes 1,000 years to
biodegrade, and if they are buried, they block groundwater. Americans
use a staggering 380 billion plastic bags a year, most of which wind up
as trash or litter.
But Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation says
the government can’t be trusted to figure its way out of this plastic
bag.
Whole Foods supermarkets recently announced plans to stop offering
plastic bags altogether, and Anderson said the private sector should be
left alone to deal with the issue. Anderson said she uses reusable bags
herself, but she’s considering going back to plastic in protest.
“Go away!” she said about the threat of government intervention. “It’s
enough to make you want to dress in plastic bags, or paint your house in
plastic bags.”
Meanwhile, in a Stop & Shop parking lot, South Boston’s Danny DeMiller
lobbed an expletive at the bill, which he also termed “stupid” and
“ridiculous.”
“It’s just more pork,” he said, though he added that a tax would
probably convince him to invest in a reusable canvas bag. That,
according to Joyce and his supporters, is the point.
“I don’t understand what the love affair with plastic bags is,” said
Boston City Councilor Rob Consalvo, who is drafting his own legislation
to ban the bags in Boston. “I spent $90 on groceries yesterday, and I
got them all home in two reusable bags.”
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