CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
"The second-largest tax increase in state history"?
Business groups yesterday were fuming
at $1 billion in new proposed state taxes they said will hurt retailers,
liquor store owners, hoteliers and telecommunications firms across
Massachusetts....
“It’s going to divert billions of dollars in (retail sales) to both the
Internet and to New Hampshire,” Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers
Association of Massachusetts, said of the move to raise the state sales
tax to 6.25 percent from 5 percent. Lawmakers say the increase, which
also applies to the state meals tax, would raise about $900 million.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Business balks at new taxes
Groups fear budget’s $1B in levies will hurt state
Union organizers issued an ugly warning to lawmakers last
week: Vote for the transportation reform bill, and you will pay. It was, in
Beacon Hill terms, a “labor vote.”
Well, it seems beyond time for taxpayers to start using the same bare-knuckled
approach.
“Vote for a state budget that raises taxes by $1 billion amid the worst economic
crisis in decades and you will pay, big-time.” It’s a taxpayer vote....
But when it comes to the revenue side of the ledger, well, lawmakers have opted
to settle for the low-hanging fruit.
The sales tax (also applied to restaurant meals) will go up by 25 percent, to
6.25 percent. New Hampshire, here we come!
We will now pay a tax on the tax already applied to a six-pack or bottle of wine
purchased at a package store....
Yes, this was a taxpayer vote. And the taxpayers lost.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, June 22, 2009
Load gets heavier
This year the hacks had $28.1 billion to squander. In the new
fiscal year they’ll have $27.4 billion. In other words, for every $39 they
wasted in FY 2009, they’ll have to get by on $38 in FY 2010.
If the commonwealth were a person with an income of $50,000, he would be looking
at a pay cut of $1,282. A lot of people right now in the Dreaded Private Sector
would call a 2.5 percent pay cut a reprieve, a godsend.
The real crisis is the tax bender they’re on at the State House. To deal with
this infinitesimal cut, the taxaholics are going to jack up the sales tax 25
percent. They’re allowing local hacks to impose a new meals tax. They’ve
invented a new tax for satellite TV. They’re increasing the hotel-motel tax.
Registry fees are going up.
The tax-fattened hyenas are hitting us with a new 6.25 percent tax on alcohol,
though they and their brain-dead enablers in what’s left of the mainstream media
refuse to call it a tax. They describe it as eliminating the exemption.
There’s an exemption on booze taxes because there’s already an excise tax on
alcohol. The tax is included in the cost of the bottle. By imposing the new,
jacked-up sales tax, the solons are taxing a tax, just as they did with
cigarettes a few years back. That’s been great for sales - in New Hampshire.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Taxation without representation was a better deal
By Howie Carr
Consumers will be hit with an array of new taxes to help fund
a state budget for the next fiscal year, under a plan the Legislature approved
yesterday....
Boosting the sales tax from 5 to 6.25 percent would affect just about all
shopping: It would add $12.50 to the cost of a $1,000 laptop computer or 50
cents to a $40 bag of fertilizer.
“We’re already in a recession,’’ said Kevin Wayne, a 39-year-old antique
restorer and costume designer from Boston. “How much more can they take from the
taxpayers?’’
Jim Bragg, a 55-year-old from Roxbury who works at Target, said, “They just want
to get more money out of everybody.’’ ...
For small business owners such as Harrington, whose Chelmsford store is about 8
miles from the state line, the lure of sales-tax-free New Hampshire and its
state-run liquor monopoly is ominous. “This is going to be devastating’’ for
businesses on the Massachusetts side of the border, he said.
“The more taxes you throw on something, the more it makes it worthwhile to drive
up to New Hampshire,’’ Harrington continued. “Cigarettes? That business is gone.
Now, you’re doing liquor. What’s next, gasoline?’’
The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 20, 2009
New taxes panned by the critics
Their proposed double taxation of alcohol is a good example.
All beer, wine and hard liquor are subject to both federal and state excise
taxes at the wholesale level, where consumers tend not to notice so much.
(That’s why those airport “duty free” shops are so busy.)
But the state budget now on the governor’s desk would add another 6.25 percent
sales tax.
The Massachusetts Package Store Association, which sees huge trouble ahead as
its customers head over the borders, says the combined taxes on a case of beer
already amount to about $8.88 - 37 percent of the cost. The new sales tax will
bring that well over $10 a case. As for wine lovers, well, even a modest $10
bottle includes $2.90 in taxes, which will rise to $3.55.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Budget stupidity
Beacon Hill lawmakers again undercut their brave talk about
transparency yesterday when they passed millions of dollars in taxes and fees
without specific roll-call votes - a bald attempt to cloak themselves in secrecy
and escape taxpayer wrath at the ballot box next year.
“We are at a point where the public has totally lost confidence in this
building,” said Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Plymouth). “It needs to change and it
needs to stop now.” ...
In a bruising campaign, House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) won a narrow
two-thirds support for the unpopular $27.4-billion budget. It contained nearly
$1 billion in tax hikes, including a 25-percent increase in the sales tax, a $79
million alcohol tax increase, a $26 million satellite television tax and a $20
million film tax credit reduction.
The budget ultimately passed, but a stunning 55 lawmakers from both the House
and Senate voted no in protest of the back-door process.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Secret voting taxes trust again
$27.4B budget approved behind closed doors
As Governor Deval Patrick began reviewing the budget package
yesterday, healthcare advocates, and immigrant rights activists urged him to
veto a provision that would eliminate coverage under Commonwealth Care, the
state-sponsored healthcare program, for 28,000 legal immigrants....
Budget analysts also warned yesterday that the accounts used to maintain the
state’s landmark healthcare reform laws are dangerously underfunded.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Budget cuts draw bleak predictions, calls for veto
Local aid, healthcare, social programs hit hard
Providers of services to the disabled, already smarting from
deep cuts in the fiscal 2010 budget, now say they may be forced to shut down
after a decision by the state Medicaid office this week to temporarily suspend
reimbursements for the care they provide.
The decision, announced in a pair of memos sent to providers, cites “cash flow”
problems at MassHealth, the name of the state’s Medicaid office, and adds that
the agency will consider “hardship payments” to providers “based on the severity
of the need and in light of available MassHealth resources.” ...
“We apologize for the inconvenience and are mindful of the financial strains
that payment delays cause for providers,” the memo reads. “Thank you for your
cooperation during this difficult period.”
State House News Service
Friday, June 19, 2009
Medicaid reimbursement stoppage
has providers fearful of shutdown
But it's hard for the typical blue- or white-collar worker to
contemplate serving in the House or Senate without giving up their present job.
We know of potential legislative candidates —good ones — in Beverly, Danvers and
Peabody who are currently struggling with the dilemma this poses.
It's a huge sacrifice to ask of one's family without any guarantee of success.
If voters really want reform they ought to look at changing the current system
that has the Legislature meeting virtually year 'round and shuts out anyone
unwilling to give up their current career to become a full-time representative
of the people.
The Salem News
Friday, June 19, 2009
'Full-time' representation not necessarily a good thing
By Nelson Benton
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
On July 23, 2002 the Boston Globe called that
budget's $1.14 billion tax package "the largest tax increase in state
history." ("Despite
boast, budget has a bulge - Analysis sees rise in state spending,"
by Rick Klein):
As legislative leaders passed the largest tax
increase in state history recently, they tried to reassure voters
that Beacon Hill was doing its own belt-tightening: At press
conferences, they declared that state spending this year would
actually decline from last year's spending, the first time in more
than a decade that the budget would contract.
"It's shrinking," Representative John H. Rogers, Democrat of Norwood
and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said last week.
"We've transcended from the age of tax and spending to an age of tax
and cutting." ...
The real bottom line of the fiscal 2003 spending plan approved by
the Legislature on Friday is about $23.4 billion, not the $22.9
billion quoted by House and Senate leaders ...
"I never thought for a minute that they were cutting spending," said
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation and Government. "If you can't be fiscally
responsible, you have two routes you can take: You can fudge the
numbers, or you can raise taxes. ... The Legislature is doing both
of them."
At a projected additional billion dollars, this latest
tax hike package is only 14 percent smaller than "the largest tax
increase in state history." What will the Boston Globe term
this one -- the second-largest? Don't hold your breath.
And how about that "shrinking" budget Rep. John H.
Rogers (D-Norwood) declared back then, when it was $23.4 billion?
The FY2010 budget just adopted by the Legislature will spend $27.4
billion -- an increase of four billion of our hard-earned
dollars.
And let's not forget the "temporary" income tax hike
of 1989 that we're still paying. You no doubt have noticed by now
that taxes just keep increasing, taking a bigger and ever bigger bite
out or your family income, a larger chunk of it year after year.
This latest tax package also comes on top of the tax
hikes of 2008: An additional $174 million from smokers and $482
million allegedly to close "loopholes" in the state's tax code -- $656
million more pouring in to the state's coffers.
Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr wrote back then
(Jul. 2, 2008, "Cigarette
tax is nothing but smoke and mirrors"):
But there was one thing that all the solons could
agree on:
Smokers must pay more. After all, smokers don’t have any amen chorus
at the State House.
And by the way, you know that extra buck per pack all you smokers
are going to have to pay? It’s really $1.05, because on top of the
state excise tax on cigarettes, you’re going to have to add the 5
percent state sales tax.
A sales tax on an excise tax - how Massachusetts is that? ...
Indeed, how Massachusetts is that? It worked so
well then that the pols are back doing it again, this time on beer and
liquor -- another sales tax on an excise tax! This is clearly a sign that in
Taxachusetts desperate Bacon Hill pols are running out of new things to
tax, so
they're reduced to taxing taxes.
Massachusetts currently imposes an excise tax on
liquor sales of $4.05/gallon for spirits between 15% and 50%
alcohol. Every 750ml bottle of 80 proof liquor (vodka, gin, whiskey,
rum, etc.) sold in Massachusetts already has a 81-cent tax built
into the sale price.
If Governor Patrick signs the sales tax bill into law, liquor sales
in stores would no longer be exempt from the state sales tax,
meaning that the state would be collecting a nickel ($0.81 x 6.25%)
for the sales tax on the excise tax on every bottle of liquor sold.
From:
Massachusetts: Let's Tax the Liquor Tax
One of those proposed categories is Beverage
Alcohol which is already heavily taxed on the state and federal
levels in the form of an excise tax that is approximately 39% of the
wholesale cost on a bottle of vodka. This tax is paid for by the
wholesaler and passed on to us the retailer along with the
wholesaler’s mark-up, which we then mark-up to reach our retail
price level.
A sales tax at the point of purchase would then tax you the consumer
for an item that has already been taxed and marked-up. It is a tax
on a tax that we are all too familiar with these days. . . .
From:
The 6.25% Sales Tax on Beverage Alcohol (message from a local
retailer)
In his July 2, 2008 column, Howie Carr also wrote:
The story they’re all sticking to is that this
cigarette tax increase will go to pay for the state’s new health
program. You know, the one that was supposed to be so wonderful
because everyone would at last have to pay for their own health care
(wink wink, nudge nudge). So now it turns out the hacks need the
extra smokers’ dough - $680,000 a day - because the usual layabouts
have no intention of paying for their own health care, or anything
else for that matter....
I'd say Howie "prophetically wrote," but we don't
need Nostradamus to see the all too common writing on the State House
walls. This is just the way things are done -- lots of promises
and feel-good sound bites that are never kept or ever materialize.
We're not the only cynical realists:
Monies collected will not really go to health
care and support programs. Massachusetts said that about the
cigarette tax and they have continually raided the fund to go to
general overhead and other projects. In fact the American Lung
Association gave Massachusetts an A for cigarette taxation in 2008,
but only a C for having adequate cessation programs, and an F for
tobacco prevention and control spending. Still think the money will
go where they say it will?
From:
More Beer Tax in Mass.?
And how's that "national model" for healthcare reform
we initiated in Massachusetts going, anyway?
“Budget analysts also warned yesterday that the
accounts used to maintain the state’s landmark healthcare reform laws
are dangerously underfunded.”
“Providers of services to the disabled, already
smarting from deep cuts in the fiscal 2010 budget, now say they may be
forced to shut down after a decision by the state Medicaid office this
week to temporarily suspend reimbursements for the care they provide....
The decision, announced in a pair of memos sent to providers, cites
'cash flow' problems at MassHealth ... 'We apologize for the
inconvenience and are mindful of the financial strains that payment
delays cause for providers,' the memo reads. 'Thank you for your
cooperation during this difficult period.'”
With results like that, I'll bet you're anxious for
ObamaCare socialized medicine on the national level. As P.J.
O'Rourke
quipped in 1993: "If you think health care is expensive now, wait
until you see what it costs when it's free."
Tax hikes are forever. They're raised during
self-inflicted fiscal crises. When the latest crisis passes the
additional new revenue becomes the new spending base and is squandered
expanding government while the good times roll. When the next
cyclical economic downturn arrives that increased spending on bigger
government is again unsustainable -- without new tax hikes. And on
it goes.
It took 207 years of Massachusetts history for the
commonwealth to reach its first $10 billion budget.
The 1989 "temporary" Dukakis income tax hike
package funded a
$12.3 billion budget, just twenty years ago. Today's tax hikes are
to fund a budget that'll spend significantly more than twice that much.
Through numerous tax hikes in the interim, Beacon Hill has more than doubled
state
spending in just two decades. Yet the pols think they're still not
taking enough money from us.
There's only one hope here in The People's Republic
of Taxachusetts: A major turnover in the Legislature must
come November 2010.
Our time is running out, all other options have been
expended.
As the Boston Herald's June 22 editorial, "Load gets
heavier," notes:
Well, it seems beyond time for taxpayers to start
using the same bare-knuckled approach.
“Vote for a state budget that raises taxes by $1 billion amid the
worst economic crisis in decades and you will pay, big-time.” It’s a
taxpayer vote....
This reign of unlimited taxation without political
consequence must be terminated, while we've still got something
however little left in our pockets. Another inevitable round
of tax-hikes-as-usual next year -- even later this year -- will leave us
with less if anything.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
|
The Boston Herald
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Business balks at new taxes
Groups fear budget’s $1B in levies will hurt state
By Jay Fitzgerald
Business groups yesterday were fuming at $1 billion in new proposed
state taxes they said will hurt retailers, liquor store owners,
hoteliers and telecommunications firms across Massachusetts.
Lawmakers put the finishing touches on a $27.4 billion budget that
slashed funds for programs and sharply cut aid to cities and towns - in
addition to raising taxes - to balance a budget badly beaten up by the
recession.
Legislative leaders said they were making difficult across-the-board
decisions during tough financial times.
But business groups yesterday said the tax increases may end up hurting
the state more than they help.
“It’s going to divert billions of dollars in (retail sales) to both the
Internet and to New Hampshire,” Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers
Association of Massachusetts, said of the move to raise the state sales
tax to 6.25 percent from 5 percent. Lawmakers say the increase, which
also applies to the state meals tax, would raise about $900 million.
Thousands of local retail jobs could be lost as a result of the 25
percent boost in the sales tax, said Hurst.
The budget also eliminates a sales-tax exemption on the sale of alcohol
at retail stores, raising another $78 million for the state.
Peter Christie, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association,
said his group is concerned about a separate measure that would allow
cities and towns to boost the meals tax by another .75 percent.
That move opens the door for future increases in the meals tax at the
local level, he said.
Communities were also given authority to raise local hotel taxes by an
additional 2 percent, to as high as 6 percent.
Andrew Reinsdorf, vice president of government affairs for DirecTV, said
his firm is disappointed that the budget includes a new 5 percent tax on
satellite TV services. Reinsdorf said it’s the equivalent of “taxing the
air,” though cable companies said it was a matter of fairness because
local communities charge them 5 percent franchise fees.
Business groups were also upset that lawmakers dipped into the Workforce
Training Fund, taking out $11 million for general budget purposes.
Employers pay about $7 a year per worker into the fund designed for job
training programs.
“They’re turning it into a broad-based tax,” said Andre Mayer, economic
director at the Associated Industries of Massachusetts.
The Boston Herald
Monday, June 22, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
Load gets heavier
Union organizers issued an ugly warning to lawmakers last week: Vote for
the transportation reform bill, and you will pay. It was, in Beacon Hill
terms, a “labor vote.”
Well, it seems beyond time for taxpayers to start using the same
bare-knuckled approach.
“Vote for a state budget that raises taxes by $1 billion amid the worst
economic crisis in decades and you will pay, big-time.” It’s a taxpayer
vote.
It’s true, the Legislature’s budget-writers had a miserable task: To
balance the state budget at a time when revenues have gone “poof!” And
there are some concessions to sanity in the final budget approved Friday
- no income tax hike, the eventual elimination of the bloated Quinn
Bill, a requirement that state workers contribute more for their health
insurance.
A related transportation reform bill (we’re told) will deliver savings.
Even with the new revenue, spending will be reduced and there will be
layoffs, especially at the municipal level.
But when it comes to the revenue side of the ledger, well, lawmakers
have opted to settle for the low-hanging fruit.
The sales tax (also applied to restaurant meals) will go up by 25
percent, to 6.25 percent. New Hampshire, here we come!
We will now pay a tax on the tax already applied to a six-pack or bottle
of wine purchased at a package store.
Cities and towns will have the option of raising the local hotel tax up
to 6 percent and the meals tax to as much as 7 percent. Gee, wonder if
any of them will accept that offer?
And if you’re a satellite TV subscriber you’ll now be taxed to ensure
“equity.” Nantasket beach-goers will even pay $4 extra on parking fees
to help Hull pay for public safety calls.
These are dark days. But revenues will rebound. Experience tells us,
though, that these new taxes will be with us forever.
Finally it’s worth noting that a Senate effort to make it easier to
privatize state contracts - lifting the cap on an eligible project’s
value from $200,000 to $2 million - was reduced to $500,000. Serious
about reform? It wouldn’t seem so.
Yes, this was a taxpayer vote. And the taxpayers lost.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Taxation without representation was a better deal
By Howie Carr
What state budget crisis?
This year the hacks had $28.1 billion to squander. In the new fiscal
year they’ll have $27.4 billion. In other words, for every $39 they
wasted in FY 2009, they’ll have to get by on $38 in FY 2010.
If the commonwealth were a person with an income of $50,000, he would be
looking at a pay cut of $1,282. A lot of people right now in the Dreaded
Private Sector would call a 2.5 percent pay cut a reprieve, a godsend.
The real crisis is the tax bender they’re on at the State House. To deal
with this infinitesimal cut, the taxaholics are going to jack up the
sales tax 25 percent. They’re allowing local hacks to impose a new meals
tax. They’ve invented a new tax for satellite TV. They’re increasing the
hotel-motel tax. Registry fees are going up.
The tax-fattened hyenas are hitting us with a new 6.25 percent tax on
alcohol, though they and their brain-dead enablers in what’s left of the
mainstream media refuse to call it a tax. They describe it as
eliminating the exemption.
There’s an exemption on booze taxes because there’s already an excise
tax on alcohol. The tax is included in the cost of the bottle. By
imposing the new, jacked-up sales tax, the solons are taxing a tax, just
as they did with cigarettes a few years back. That’s been great for
sales - in New Hampshire.
From the news accounts, you’d think this new budget was the end times.
Words like “slash” and “lean” and “deep cuts“ and “steep” and
“belt-tightening.”
Why, the state hasn’t had a budget this low since October 2007.
Look on the bright side though: They saved Bunker Hill Day. The
hackerama was shocked - shocked! - that Republicans would suggest
rescinding a day off for hacks only - and without public hearings.
Odd, though, how these same layabouts couldn’t be bothered with any
public hearings when they decided to raise the sales tax 25 percent to
grab another $900 million. They had no hearings or roll calls on the new
6.25 percent alcohol tax-on-a-tax - wouldn’t want to put any of the
Democrat sheeple on the hook, would we?
Simultaneously, they’re using an updated version of the Prop 2½ override
playbook. Whenever a town wants to scare the voters into increasing
their own property taxes, they begin to cut services, in the order in
which taxpayers care: fire, police, high school football, garbage,
libraries.
Now it’s the state’s turn to play Chicken Little. They’re going to close
a dozen Registry of Motor Vehicles branches - places everyone has to
visit at least occasionally. That’ll teach a good lesson to those
taxpaying bastards who actually have to work for a living!
Whatever the state is saving by closing the RMV branches, they could
have saved five times as much by closing the sleepier district courts,
and no citizen would have noticed. But they’d never shut down those
plush payroll patriot palaces, because that’s where the solons have
stashed all their unemployable friends and kinfolk.
So the sales tax goes up Aug. 1. Which means that this year the annual
August sales-tax holiday comes early, and it lasts the entire month of
July. Stock up on everything, folks, especially booze. You can store
distilled spirits forever.
Meanwhile, Gov. Deval Patrick, who by the way has nothing on his public
schedule today, is threatening to veto the tax increases unless he gets
a so-called ethics bill. Yawn. Say goodnight Deval.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 20, 2009
New taxes panned by the critics
By Brian C. Mooney
John Harrington knows off the top of his head how much a proposed tax
increase will raise prices on some of his best-selling products.
“Kendall-Jackson, a popular Chardonnay, is $11.95 now, so it’ll be about
another 75 cents,’’ said Harrington, for more than 40 years the
proprietor of Harrington Wine and Liquors in Chelmsford. “Ketel One
vodka costs $38 for 1.75 liters, so it’ll cost more than a couple of
bucks more for a bottle.’’
Consumers will be hit with an array of new taxes to help fund a state
budget for the next fiscal year, under a plan the Legislature approved
yesterday.
With the state desperate for money amid shrinking revenues, drinkers
would pay a 6.25 percent tax - currently they pay nothing - on beer and
wine from liquor stores. A $75 dinner tab at your favorite restaurant
will cost another 94 cents, plus an additional 56 cents if your city or
town elects to impose an optional local meals tax.
Boosting the sales tax from 5 to 6.25 percent would affect just about
all shopping: It would add $12.50 to the cost of a $1,000 laptop
computer or 50 cents to a $40 bag of fertilizer.
“We’re already in a recession,’’ said Kevin Wayne, a 39-year-old antique
restorer and costume designer from Boston. “How much more can they take
from the taxpayers?’’
Jim Bragg, a 55-year-old from Roxbury who works at Target, said, “They
just want to get more money out of everybody.’’
But Jodi Hopkins, a 44-year-old writer from Jamaica Plain, said it was
important to keep the proposed tax increases in perspective.
“Moving here from California four years ago, Massachusetts has been a
bargain,’’ she said.
It is becoming less of one, though.
Planning a hotel or motel stay this summer on the Cape? A $150-a-night
room would cost an additional $3 in local hotel taxes. The budget passed
by the Legislature also includes a 50 percent increase in the maximum
local hotel tax, from 4 percent to 6 percent, on top of the existing 5.7
percent room tax that goes to the state treasury.
The Legislature’s budget would impose, for the first time, a 5 percent
tax on satellite television service to about 275,000 households in the
Bay State. That would equate to $30 a year in taxes on a $50 monthly
programming package.
If Governor Deval Patrick supports the legislative budget package, it
would be the first increase in sales and meals taxes since 1975.
The budget would also end the sales tax exemption for alcoholic
beverages sold in the state’s 2,300 package stores.
The Legislature approved the tax increases despite a vigorous lobbying
campaign by the various trade associations that are affected. The focus
now shifts to Patrick.
“We will ask the governor to veto this unfair tax,’’ said Andrew
Reinsdorf, vice president for government relations of DirecTV, the
largest satellite TV service provider.
Reinsdorf said 44 other states tax satellite and cable providers equally
or not at all. Cable companies, which dominate the pay television market
in Massachusetts, pay local franchise fees, but their services are not
subject to a state tax.
Owners of the 14,000 restaurants in the state opposed not only the
general increase in the meals tax, from 5 percent to 6.25 percent, but
also the introduction of an optional 0.75 percent local meals tax on top
of the state’s share. In effect, they lost a fight that began on Beacon
Hill about seven years ago.
“The meals tax is a real emotional issue for restaurateurs, and they are
very opposed to local option taxes, period,’’ said Peter Christie, chief
executive of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. “It’s not just
the three-quarters of a percent tax; it’s that once they cut you loose
from the pack, the municipalities will be back next year and the year
after that, looking for more.’’
Christie cites as an example the local-option hotel tax, now being
increased for the first time since it was introduced in 1985. Last year,
91 of the state’s 351 communities collected $97 million by assessing the
maximum rate allowed. Boston took in almost $10.1 million of the total,
followed by Cambridge at $1.8 million.
The restaurant business is already struggling mightily in this
recession, Christie said, and the tax will impose another burden. Sales
in May were down 4 percent from the prior year, he said.
For small business owners such as Harrington, whose Chelmsford store is
about 8 miles from the state line, the lure of sales-tax-free New
Hampshire and its state-run liquor monopoly is ominous. “This is going
to be devastating’’ for businesses on the Massachusetts side of the
border, he said.
“The more taxes you throw on something, the more it makes it worthwhile
to drive up to New Hampshire,’’ Harrington continued. “Cigarettes? That
business is gone. Now, you’re doing liquor. What’s next, gasoline?’’
Globe correspondent Jenna Nierstedt contributed to this report.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
A Boston Herald editorial
Budget stupidity
Sometimes lawmakers are just too “smart” for their own good.
Their proposed double taxation of alcohol is a good example. All beer,
wine and hard liquor are subject to both federal and state excise taxes
at the wholesale level, where consumers tend not to notice so much.
(That’s why those airport “duty free” shops are so busy.)
But the state budget now on the governor’s desk would add another 6.25
percent sales tax.
The Massachusetts Package Store Association, which sees huge trouble
ahead as its customers head over the borders, says the combined taxes on
a case of beer already amount to about $8.88 - 37 percent of the cost.
The new sales tax will bring that well over $10 a case. As for wine
lovers, well, even a modest $10 bottle includes $2.90 in taxes, which
will rise to $3.55.
The association estimates that locals already do a substantial amount of
their alcohol-buying in neighboring states - costing Massachusetts about
$12 million a year in lost excise taxes. That figure, they say, will
increase by about $5 million if the sales tax on alcohol is implemented.
At best the sales tax on alcohol was supposed to bring in less than $80
million. It won’t net anywhere near that. And it runs the risk of making
package stores in border communities an endangered species.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Secret voting taxes trust again
$27.4B budget approved behind closed doors
By Hillary Chabot
Beacon Hill lawmakers again undercut their brave talk about transparency
yesterday when they passed millions of dollars in taxes and fees without
specific roll-call votes - a bald attempt to cloak themselves in secrecy
and escape taxpayer wrath at the ballot box next year.
“We are at a point where the public has totally lost confidence in this
building,” said Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Plymouth). “It needs to change
and it needs to stop now.”
In a bruising campaign, House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) won a
narrow two-thirds support for the unpopular $27.4-billion budget. It
contained nearly $1 billion in tax hikes, including a 25-percent
increase in the sales tax, a $79 million alcohol tax increase, a $26
million satellite television tax and a $20 million film tax credit
reduction.
The budget ultimately passed, but a stunning 55 lawmakers from both the
House and Senate voted no in protest of the back-door process.
Lawmakers tucked many of the taxes into the budget during a conference
committee - a group of three legislators each from the House and Senate
that meets behind closed doors to hash out the final terms of the
budget. No amendments can be made once they release the compromise. The
Legislature must either approve it or not.
Recent State House scandals, including federal corruption charges lodged
against former Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, have prompted several ethics
reform bills along with calls for greater transparency.
“We’re up against the ropes,” said Rep. Jen Callahan (D-Sutton). “I
think transparency and the process . . . keeps getting a jab, keeps
getting a hit.”
The $79 million alcohol tax increase, for example, was approved by the
Senate without a roll call and never came before House lawmakers.
“We never had a chance to debate that or vote on that,” said Rep.
Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), whose district runs along the New Hampshire
border. “Why not close down every business and send them to Nashua?”
House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Murphy (D-Burlington) said the
budget, which included $2.4 million in cuts, was “transparent” and
“honest.”
Also at issue was $5 million slashed from local aid, hitting some
communities by up to 15 percent. The budget also dealt steep cuts to
many state services helping the state’s most vulnerable. It would close
12 branches of the Registry of Motor Vehicles while hiking RMV fees to
generate $75 million.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Budget cuts draw bleak predictions, calls for veto
Local aid, healthcare, social programs hit hard
By Matt Viser
Schools will close, municipal employees will be laid off, and waits for
a new driver’s license will grow under a $27.4 billion state budget
approved yesterday by House and Senate lawmakers.
The vote - 110 to 46 in the House and 31 to 8 in the Senate - came as
mayors, town managers, social service agencies, and local activists
across Massachusetts began to digest the massive cuts the budget
proposal calls for, including up to a 15 percent cut in noneducation
local aid for municipalities.
For many across the state, the proposed cuts were little surprise
because lawmakers have warned for months that the next fiscal year
looked dire. But the cold, hard reality of the reductions hit home
yesterday from Cape Cod to the Berkshires.
“It’s depressing; it really is depressing,’’ said Mayor John Barrett of
North Adams, which closed a middle school yesterday because of budget
woes. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel, not even a flicker of
hope. It looks like it’s going to be worse next year. There’s no real
revenue stream that’s going to be improving.’’
Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette of Chicopee said, “It is a patchwork quilt
of knitting together new revenue, spending cuts, and job elimination,
and that is how we’re all going to try to survive this.’’
As Governor Deval Patrick began reviewing the budget package yesterday,
healthcare advocates, and immigrant rights activists urged him to veto a
provision that would eliminate coverage under Commonwealth Care, the
state-sponsored healthcare program, for 28,000 legal immigrants.
“We understand there are horrific cuts, particularly in public health,
but this is unacceptable,’’ said Lindsey Tucker, health reform policy
manager at Health Care for All, a nonprofit advocacy group. “We have
worked so hard for three years to cover all of our eligible residents.
We can’t turn our backs on these folks now.’’
Budget analysts also warned yesterday that the accounts used to maintain
the state’s landmark healthcare reform laws are dangerously underfunded.
Antigang, youth violence prevention, and elderly affairs programs would
also see deep cuts in a budget that is to take effect July 1 and as many
as 12 Registry of Motor Vehicles locations could close.
State programs aside, the budget would deeply affect cities and towns,
which operate in large part on huge annual infusions of state aid. Many
municipalities next year will see smaller checks, and will be forced to
trim local services, staff, and education budgets.
A host of new taxes, including a 1.25 percentage point increase in the
state sales tax, were included to prevent even deeper reductions.
The budget includes enough money, $100 million, to avoid a toll increase
on the Massachusetts Turnpike that had been scheduled to take effect
July 1. The budget would require the Turnpike Authority to forgo
increases for one year, but does not prohibit increases after that.
MBTA riders, thanks to an additional $160 million in the budget for the
T, would also get some relief, though not enough to prevent an expected
fare increase in the next few months. Transportation Secretary James A.
Aloisi Jr. has said the T will need to raise fares 15 to 20 percent and
possibly cut some service because of increasing debt payments.
All eyes are now on Patrick, who has 10 days to sign, veto, or offer
modifications to the proposal. He has vowed to veto the sales tax
provision of the budget unless the Legislature first approves overhauls
of state ethics, pension, and transportation laws.
Yesterday, Patrick offered measured praise for the transportation bill,
which was approved overwhelmingly by the Legislature on Thursday, saying
in a statement: “At first review, [it] seems to be a good-faith effort
at reforming our transportation system.’’
But he also chided lawmakers for passing a sales tax increase before
finalizing an ethics package. House and Senate lawmakers have been
wrangling over the ethics legislation, with one of the major holdups a
provision that would ban all gifts to public officials.
“Legislative leaders should quickly agree to final ethics legislation
that includes the strongest provisions from the House, Senate, and my
original bill, including a gift ban and campaign finance reform,’’
Patrick said. “Without that, I will veto the sales tax.’’
State revenues have plummeted in recent months, and revenue estimates
that the governor and House lawmakers had initially relied on had fallen
by $1.5 billion by the time the Senate began crafting its proposal last
month.
The $27.4 billion budget approved yesterday is about $700 million less
than the budget lawmakers initially agreed to for the current fiscal
year, the first time in recent memory that there has been a
year-over-year drop in such a figure. The state budget almost always
increases to account for things such as rising healthcare costs and
inflation.
The lawmakers’ budget counts on $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money.
It would draw $199 million from the state’s reserve account, leaving the
balance at less than $600 million. The budget would also increase state
employee insurance contributions by 5 percentage points.
“I don’t have to tell anybody that we are living in difficult economic
times,’’ said state Representative Charles A. Murphy, chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee. “The reality that we are faced with
forces us to take a vote on a document that is not perfect.’’
Republicans hammered the Democratic leadership for filing a 263-page
budget proposal late Thursday night and asking lawmakers to vote on
complicated issues with only several hours to review it.
“The way we do business is deplorable, and it needs to change,’’ said
state Representative Daniel K. Webster, a Hanson Republican.
Thirty Democrats joined all 16 Republicans in voting against the budget
in the House. In the Senate, three Democrats joined five Republicans in
voting against the plan.
Complicating the politics, labor unions, which came out strongly against
the transportation legislation a day earlier, were furious yesterday
over a budget that includes deep cuts to - and the eventual elimination
of - the Quinn Bill, a controversial program that awards bonuses for
police officers who hold college degrees.
“This budget squeezes as much as you possibly can out of workers, on our
backs, and out of our pockets,’’ said Tim Sullivan, legislative and
communications director for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “It’s legislative
water-boarding of unions and working people. That’s how it feels.’’
Noah Bierman and Kay Lazar of the Globe staff contributed to this
report.
State House News Service
Friday, June 19, 2009
Medicaid reimbursement stoppage\
has providers fearful of shutdown
By Kyle Cheney
Providers of services to the disabled, already smarting from deep cuts
in the fiscal 2010 budget, now say they may be forced to shut down after
a decision by the state Medicaid office this week to temporarily suspend
reimbursements for the care they provide.
The decision, announced in a pair of memos sent to providers, cites
“cash flow” problems at MassHealth, the name of the state’s Medicaid
office, and adds that the agency will consider “hardship payments” to
providers “based on the severity of the need and in light of available
MassHealth resources.” Payments are set to resume, according to one
memo, “with approval of the FY 2010 budget.”
“We apologize for the inconvenience and are mindful of the financial
strains that payment delays cause for providers,” the memo reads. “Thank
you for your cooperation during this difficult period.”
Fiscal 2010 begins July 1 and the Legislature on Friday sent Patrick a
$27.4 billion budget.
Providers say even a temporary suspension of reimbursements could push
them to the brink, delaying the payment of millions of dollars for
services. Providers rely on lines of credit, they said, to pay for
services until they receive reimbursement. Without reimbursement, those
lines of credit will dry up, forcing a stoppage of service, staff
layoffs or temporary shutdowns, providers said.
“This has a catastrophic effect on nonprofit agencies that live off of
their line of credit,” said Donna Sabecky, president of Community
Connections, a South Yarmouth-based provider of day services for people
with mental disabilities. “Those payments are a lifeblood.”
Officials at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services
downplayed the suspension of reimbursements as a sometimes-necessary
move to manage agency finances.
“This has happened in previous budget cycles, both last year and in
previous Administrations,” EOHHS spokesman Juan Martinez said in an
email. “We do expect to make some provider claim payments between now
and the end of June. Providers will have all their claims paid, if not
this month, then early in July. We have been working with providers on
this, including considering hardship payment requests from individual
providers who are facing significant financial issues.”
“As I said, everyone will have their claims paid,” he continued, “it's
just a matter of timing -- either this month or in early July.”
Hospitals, which also rely on Medicaid payments, are feeling the sting
as well, Sen. Michael Knapik said during Senate debate on the budget.
“We’ve got 11 more days of June and we are limping to the end,” he said.
“I got a letter from a hospital in my district that said the state has
ceased paying us for the month of June. I didn’t get that memo from the
administration ... I am shocked.”
A spokeswoman from the Massachusetts Hospital Association did not
respond to a request for comment.
Gary Blumenthal, executive director of the Association of Developmental
Disabilities Providers, said not all providers could afford to wait for
payments.
“For community providers who deliver services, they operate so much on
the margin that if they aren’t paid on time, it creates a tremendous
cash flow problem,” he said. “For people that are doing the work of the
state for medically fragile people, this is just the most difficult shoe
to drop.”
The Salem News
Friday, June 19, 2009
'Full-time' representation not necessarily a good thing
The Weekly Column by Nelson Benton
People often complain about "career politicians," but the effort
required to campaign for public office — and the time one is expected to
spend up at the Statehouse and responding to constituent requests —
makes it almost impossible for legislators to be anything else.
That's the reason you have so many lawyers on Beacon Hill. They's got
plenty of flexibility in their schedules, and, if we're going to be
honest about it, the influence they wield is good for business.
But it's hard for the typical blue- or white-collar worker to
contemplate serving in the House or Senate without giving up their
present job. We know of potential legislative candidates —good ones — in
Beverly, Danvers and Peabody who are currently struggling with the
dilemma this poses.
It's a huge sacrifice to ask of one's family without any guarantee of
success. If voters really want reform they ought to look at changing the
current system that has the Legislature meeting virtually year 'round
and shuts out anyone unwilling to give up their current career to become
a full-time representative of the people.
Nelson Benton writes a weekly column on North Shore politics. Read
him daily at
blogs.salemnews.com/fullnelson
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
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