The Provider
The Newspaper of the Providers’ Council
Vol. 33, No. 2 — February 2012
VIEWPOINTS FROM ACROSS THE STATE
Point / Counterpoint
POINT: Raising revenue to invest in
the Commonwealth’s communities
By Andi Mullin
Over the next five months, the state Legislature will focus on
crafting the Fiscal 2013 budget, and we already have been warned by
both the Patrick Administration and legislative leaders that,
despite some modest growth in the economy, we can expect another
year of budget cuts. This has become a familiar refrain – we hear it
every single year.
Why? Because during the 1990s Massachusetts enacted
some 40 tax cuts, eventually costing the Commonwealth about $3 billion
annually.
This has left Massachusetts with a persistent
“revenue deficit” – a deficit that predates the current recession. This
gap between the revenues we collect and the cost of the services we all
want haunts us year after year, whether the economy is good or in a
slump.
We have muddled through the past few years largely by
relying on assistance from the federal government. The federal stimulus
provided the Commonwealth with funding that helped to preserve critical
services,. But that money is gone now, and indeed Washington is focused
on forcing us to cut our way out of deficits instead of growing our way
out of the recession.
In FY '13, Massachusetts’ deficit is estimated to be
between $1 billion and $1.5 billion. If the federal government continues
to cut spending, that gap will only grow in coming years.
For those who receive and provide human services, a
sector which is perennially on the chopping block, this is distressing
news.
The human services sector is vital to a healthy
economy in our state. That portion of the sector represented just by the
Providers’ Council serves one in ten Massachusetts residents and employs
nearly 200,000 people.
Furthermore, taking care of our must vulnerable
citizens is part of what makes our Commonwealth a good place to live for
all of us.
Forcing this sector of our economy – along with
education, public safety, environmental protections and a host of other
public services – to continue to absorb funding cuts year after year is
not the way to grow our economy.
There is another approach we could take.
Massachusetts didn’t become a leader nationally in public education,
health care coverage and job growth by relentlessly cutting public
services.
We got there by investing in our communities,
strengthening our economy and improving the quality of life of
Massachusetts families.
The Campaign for our Communities believes that we
must continue that investment by passing legislation that raises
substantial new revenue while holding down increases for low and middle
income families.
“An Act to Invest in Our Communities” (HB2553/SB1416)
is an example of legislation that would accomplish these goals. This
bill, sponsored by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Rep. James O’Day, would
raise more than $1.3 billion in revenue by increasing the tax rate on
ordinary wage and investment income, while simultaneously increasing the
personal exemption to hold down tax increases for middle class families
and seniors. The bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Revenue
last spring, and is still in the committee awaiting action.
The solution it presents is a far better solution to
our revenue deficit than continuing to cut the services that make our
communities strong.
We all want the same things: good schools, thriving
neighborhoods, a strong economy and services for those who need them.
But we can’t get there by continuing to cut away at
the programs and services that accomplish those goals. We must invest in
our communities.
We all have a stake in the future of Massachusetts.
We need to decide what we want it to look like.
Andi Mullin is the campaign director for Campaign
for Our Communities,
ourcommunities.org.
The Provider
The Newspaper of the Providers’ Council
Vol. 33, No. 2 — February 2012
VIEWPOINTS FROM ACROSS THE STATE
Point / Counterpoint
COUNTERPOINT:
Taxpayers against waste, not services for the most vulnerable
By Barbara Anderson
“Perhaps an orientation to unlimited growth, an
awareness of complexities and a fascination with a vast array of
dazzling statistics, charts and graphs have calloused and conditioned
our minds, causing us to forget such basic values as simplicity,
smallness, respect, freedom, and order. Prop 2½ responds to such
values”.
— Martha D. Dunn, New England Journal of Human Services, 1981.
It’s been over thirty years since Martha Dunn visited
my office to do an interview about Proposition 2½, the property tax
limit which voters had just passed. We featured this quote from her
article in our Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT) flyer, as she became
one of the few people outside our own circle of activists who “gets” it.
CLT’s mission: The Commonwealth should raise enough
taxes to provide essential services, avoid high levels of state debt,
and set aside money for reasonable pension and healthcare benefits,
while not indulging in what we call WIMPAC – waste , inefficiency,
mismanagement, patronage, abuse (of power), and corruption.
Instead, the Commonwealth carries the fourth highest
per capita tax burden and one of the highest levels of debt and unfunded
liabilities in the country, while insisting it can’t afford to maintain
the transportation infrastructure or provide basic services.
I’ve never heard a taxpayer complain about paying to
care for individuals with mental illness or developmental disabilities.
Yet these areas are usually the first cut when the state spends itself
into another fiscal crisis.
The political establishment would rather argue for a
tax increase to deal with non-controversial, even favored expenditures,
than admit it needs hike taxes for its usual priorities. Few
hard-working taxpayers are willing to pay more for extraordinary
salaries and benefits for university administrators, for incompetent
public housing and special education “managers” in Chelsea and Lawrence,
for Probation Department patronage, for fat-cat pension ripoffs, for
free health care for non-Massachusetts residents, just to mention the
most recent scandals.
After we limited property taxes, CLT supported more
state aid for local communities, until we noticed that the new state
money was being given by local officials to local public employee unions
in high, unsustainable levels of benefits.
The money earned by Massachusetts citizens is divided
three ways: one part for them to spend on their own needs and charitable
giving; one part to pay for essential government services; and one
section for WIMPAC.
Human service providers should join with taxpayers to
attack that third, inexcusable expenditure. The difference between our
two groups may be that providers are willing to tolerate a larger amount
of waste than we are. Starting in 1980, the taxpayers have been in
revolt against being robbed and used.
Of course there will be some different definitions of
“waste.” Taxpayers have little tolerance for many areas of welfare,
either human service or corporate; we discourage bad incentives or moral
hazard. We dislike anyone feeling “entitled” to what we earn. But we
like to help those who really need assistance, we want to create
incentives to become productive, and we are happy to pay our share of
services that benefit the Commonwealth as a whole.
As for the recent income tax rate cut from 5.3 to
5.25%: This is the result of a 2000 ballot question that voters passed
in order to make the state keep its promise that the “emergency” tax
hike of 1989 would be “temporary.” We voters told our elected officials
to cut that rate back to 5% as promised: We are the employers, and
legislators are the employees; we expect them to do what we say.
So the tiny tax cut that began on January 1 has
little to do with the amount of money we get to keep, and everything to
do with what Martha Dunn might call “respect.” If we can get the state
to respect those who fund it, perhaps someday it might actually do its
job and provide good services at a price we’re willing to pay.
Barbara Anderson is the executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT).
