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CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

House Budget Debate:
Tax cut amendments "inoculated" to avoid vote fingerprints


The Massachusetts House of Representatives killed a Republican measure Monday to lower the state sales tax to 5 percent, instead voting 119 to 37, largely along party lines, to send the proposal to a study commission.

The measure would have reduced the rate, phased in over three years, beginning in July 2013. Three years ago, lawmakers increased the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent.

The latest sales-tax question was the first measure debated among 870 amendments filed to the House budget that lawmakers began considering Monday. House members expect to vote on the full $32.3 billion budget later this week.

The Boston Globe
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Mass. House rejects sales tax cut
GOP bill to lower sales levy set aside
First action on $32.3b budget


Speaker Robert DeLeo’s point-man on tax legislation said Monday that DeLeo’s 2009 drive to raise the state sales tax was done without a full “economic analysis.”

“I think that was a perfect example of the kind of debate and kind of vote that I do not want to recreate,” said Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), House chairman of the Committee on Revenue, during debate on the House’s annual budget proposal. “To simply go back and cast another vote without that context would be to make the mistakes of the past.”

For that reason, Kaufman argued that a proposal by House Republicans to reduce the sales tax to its pre-2009 level should be scuttled in favor of additional analysis and review. House members agreed, voting 119-37 to study the issue further.

The study effectively killed an effort by House Minority Leader Bradley Jones to phase in a sales tax break over the next three years, returning it to 5 percent, its level before lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick successfully ushered through a 25 percent hike. The current sales tax rate is 6.25 percent....

After the vote, Jones released a statement, saying: “While Democrats felt no need to study a proposed increase to the state sales tax just three years ago, my colleagues across the aisle seem strangely insistent on studying the effects of a tax rollback.” ...

House leaders busied themselves Monday – the first of what is expected to be about four days of budget debate – by reviving a strategy to kill Republican efforts to cut taxes without actually asking members to take up-or-down votes on them, votes that might become factors in the upcoming election season.

To avoid those recorded votes, House leaders – with the support of rank-and-file Democrats – have taken to attaching riders to amendments they oppose calling for additional study. Republicans have dubbed those riders “inoculators” because they preclude clean up-or-down votes. On Monday, the first three Republican efforts to reduce taxes were inoculated.

“What will you do when that inoculator shows its ugly head on your amendment that you care about?” wondered Rep. George Peterson (R-Grafton). “It does not bode well for any of us as we start on this budget debate. I hope that this is an anomaly and not going to continue. But somehow I doubt that.”

Rep. Donald Humason (R-Westfield) also ripped the use of inoculators.

“Constituents are often cynical about what we do in government,” he said. “It'd be one thing if you further amend something and a study is actually done. We all know about inoculation. We all know it's a tactic used in this House.”

State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
Kaufman: 2009 sales tax hike lacked 'economic analysis'


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
State Capitol Briefs – Afternoon Edition
Members withdrawing budget amendments at speedy clip


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
House Budget Notebook
House breezes through 225 budget amendments on first day of debate


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
House Budget Notebook
House rejects call for audit of state issued credit cards


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
House Budget Notebook
DeLeo team again turns to "innoculators" on tax proposals


State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
State Capitol Briefs – Lunch Edition
Veteran Rep: House processing budget with uncommon speed


The House on Monday night approved a significant overhaul of the state’s Community Preservation Act, voting unanimously for an amendment to the state budget that could double the funding available to cities and towns in what supporters hailed as a vote for local aid and jobs....

Kulik said the reform would make the CPA, first passed and signed into law in 2000 under Gov. Paul Cellucci, more attractive to densely populated communities by expanding the acceptable uses for CPA funds, and giving cities more flexibility in how they raise funds.

The Community Preservation Act allows municipalities to assess a surcharge of up to 3 percent on property tax bills to fund open space preservation, housing or historic rehabilitation projects. Though the state matched community generated funds at 100 percent at the program’s inception, that percentage has dwindled to about 22 percent.

The amendment adopted Monday would potentially double the amount of state funding available to provide matches to cities and towns by allocating up to $25 million in surplus revenue from the fiscal 2012 budget to the community preservation trust fund. Currently, funding comes from fees collected on deeds and totals close to $26 million a year.

The proposal would also allow cities and towns to use CPA funding to rehabilitate existing parks, playgrounds and athletic fields, rather than only build new ones, and gives communities flexibility to use revenue sources aside from a property tax surcharge to fund their community preservation accounts.

State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
House adopts reforms to CPA to expand use and funding for preservation


The House has approved an expansion of the Community Preservation Act as part of its budget deliberations, and while we hate to interrupt the celebration the move does raise questions that really ought to be on every taxpayer’s mind....

The measure would also allow cities and towns to expand the use of CPA funds, which are derived from a surtax on property tax bills. Some communities have felt hamstrung by restrictions, and this would allow them to use CPA funds not just to build new parks and athletic fields but to rehabilitate existing ones. Altogether that seems sensible, but raises the question of why cities and towns have to rely on a separate property tax to fund what should be part of their regular operating budgets.

A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Community questions


Nothing to see here folks, move along.

That’s the new mantra of the state’s Democratic leadership.

And you’ll be hearing a lot more of it today, if the House of Representatives takes up the proposed reforms in the EBT card program. EBT, of course, stands for Everybody But Taxpayers. Anyone opposed to putting a halt to the fraud will be dismissed as mean-spirited, racist, xenophobic, or all of the above....

Today, those mean-spirited solons will likely mention how 20,000 of the EBT cards go missing each month. But if we take them away from Deval’s constituents, what will they have to use as collateral in their heroin deals with illegal aliens? I know, nothing to see here ...

The Democrats have so many scandals to avert their eyes from, they must be getting sore necks from turning their heads so often.

The Boston Herald
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
‘Nothing to see’ mantra costly
By Howie Carr


The Telegram & Gazette
Sunday, April 22, 2011

Editorial cartoon by David Hitch


A Lowell man arrested Friday with nearly a half-pound of heroin was also carrying an EBT card belonging to a known drug user — a card that may have been collateral for a drug debt, police and prosecutors believe.

Campeo A. Diaz-Carela, 43, is facing a minimum mandatory 15 years in prison if found guilty of trafficking heroin over 200 grams, the charge he was arraigned on yesterday in Salem District Court.

Diaz-Carela was also arraigned on charges of giving police a false name, after initially producing identification that showed him as Abisay Montanez, 36. Among the documents Diaz-Carela was carrying were a MassHealth card, a Pennsylvania identification card and a learner's permit, all bearing the name Montanez.

But police also found an electronic benefits transfer card that belongs to a Beverly resident known to police as a regular heroin user, prosecutor Patrick Collins told a Salem District Court judge....

It wasn't until Diaz-Carela's fingerprints were submitted to an FBI database that he was identified — and discovered to be wanted by immigration officials, as well, having entered the country illegally through Arizona in 2010, Collins said.

The Salem News
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Police: Drug suspect had man's EBT card


After two days of debate, the House had dispensed with more than half of the 870 amendments filed to the $32.3 billion Ways and Means budget for fiscal 2013 blasting through 474 amendments on Monday and Tuesday with some of the issues expected to generate the fiercest debate over immigration and welfare benefits still to come.

On Tuesday, the House adopted five omnibus or “consolidated amendments” crafted largely out of the public eye dealing with the topics of housing and social services, transportation, energy and environmental affairs, veterans and soldiers homes, and mental health.

The debate in the House ground to a halt after a dinner break on Tuesday with members spending much of the evening talking with each other in the chamber as they waited to see what type of compromise House leadership would reach with representatives ...

The House is due to resume its debate at 10 a.m., with the first roll calls coming at 11 a.m.

State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
House Budget Notebook – Evening Edition
House more than half-way through amendments after Day Two


Chip Ford's CLT Commentary

There's a lot of news to digest, so I'll keep my comments brief.

House Democrats quickly dispatched Republican budget amendments to roll back the sales tax and other savings for taxpayers, making them disappear into oblivion. There is a new term now in the lexicon of legislators for when they don't want to be caught taking a vote that could be used against them: they call it "inoculation."

It inoculates them from being held accountable by their constituents.

The Dems couldn't possibly consider rolling back the sales tax not without careful analysis of the effect, something that wasn't bothered with when it was hiked. Somehow, jacking up taxes never require analysis in Massachusetts only tax cuts do, what they now prefer to call "tax expenditures."

Things are happening fast on Bacon Hill this week during the House $32.3 billion budget debate. “In all the years I’ve been here, that is the fastest,” Rep. James Miceli (D-Wilmington) told the State House News Service yesterday.

One of the amendments adopted changes the Community Preservation Act, allowing municipalities to spend CPA override money more freely, on things that rightly should be funded by a city's or town's general revenue a slip down the slippery slope.

Rep. Shaunna O'Connell's and others amendment (#804) to take a shot real reform of the EBT card fiasco is expected to be voted on today.

That is — unless it too is "inoculated" into obscurity.

Chip Ford


 

The Boston Globe
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Mass. House rejects sales tax cut
GOP bill to lower sales levy set aside
First action on $32.3b budget
By Noah Bierman


The Massachusetts House of Representatives killed a Republican measure Monday to lower the state sales tax to 5 percent, instead voting 119 to 37, largely along party lines, to send the proposal to a study commission.

The measure would have reduced the rate, phased in over three years, beginning in July 2013. Three years ago, lawmakers increased the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent.

The latest sales-tax question was the first measure debated among 870 amendments filed to the House budget that lawmakers began considering Monday. House members expect to vote on the full $32.3 billion budget later this week. The Senate will take up its own budget proposal in June. The chambers will negotiate any differences before sending a compromise to Governor Deval Patrick in time for the next budget year to begin in July.

On Monday, many House amendments were dismissed with a voice vote, including a measure from Quincy Democrat Tackey Chan to eliminate the sales tax on plug-in hybrid vehicles, which Chan said he proposed to stimulate interest in the new technology.

House leaders spent much of their time Monday in private conversations, hashing out which amendments would get a public debate and which would not. A number of measures were rolled into two packages hours before they were to be voted on.

When the House budget was approved by the Ways and Means Committee earlier this month, that vote was closed to the public.

Republicans Monday were eager to force a vote on several measures to reduce taxes in an election year. But Democrats, who have overwhelming control of the House, used a procedural tactic to kill several tax-cut measures without a recorded vote, voting instead to set them aside for study.

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo was determined to avoid including any new fees or taxes in the House budget proposal this year, even as Governor Deval Patrick had written some into his budget plan.

Representative Bradley H. Jones Jr., the House Republican leader from North Reading, urged fellow representatives to consider lowering the sales tax to 5 percent because “the idea of reform and efficiency goes out the window’’ when lawmakers have more money to spend.

“The beginning of the debate should always be: It’s not our money to begin with,’’ he said. “It’s somebody else’s.’’

But Representative Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat who leads the House revenue committee, said tax cuts would mean fewer teachers, firefighters, and other state services. He said he agreed the sales tax is a regressive one, but he nonetheless refused to support a rollback.

“We are talking about draconian cuts to public services,’’ Kaufman said, adding that previous tax changes, including the 2009 sales tax increase favored by Democrats, were approved without enough study on their broad impacts to businesses and government services.

Kaufman and other Democrats also opposed a measure that would have raised the cigarette tax by $.50 a pack. The money from that tax would have been used to support the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which recently raised fares. To keep the price of cigarettes from increasing, the measure would also have reduced the state’s mandated minimum price for cigarettes.

That measure, sponsored by Norfolk Republican Daniel B. Winslow, was also sent for study.

Winslow said he believes Democrats from Boston missed an opportunity to help MBTA riders avoid some of the coming fare hike, but were pressured to oppose his measure because it was not backed by the Democrats who lead the House.

“It’s not in the script,’’ he said. “This is a highly orchestrated process.’’


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012

Kaufman: 2009 sales tax hike lacked 'economic analysis'
By Kyle Cheney


Speaker Robert DeLeo’s point-man on tax legislation said Monday that DeLeo’s 2009 drive to raise the state sales tax was done without a full “economic analysis.”

“I think that was a perfect example of the kind of debate and kind of vote that I do not want to recreate,” said Rep. Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), House chairman of the Committee on Revenue, during debate on the House’s annual budget proposal. “To simply go back and cast another vote without that context would be to make the mistakes of the past.”

For that reason, Kaufman argued that a proposal by House Republicans to reduce the sales tax to its pre-2009 level should be scuttled in favor of additional analysis and review. House members agreed, voting 119-37 to study the issue further.

The study effectively killed an effort by House Minority Leader Bradley Jones to phase in a sales tax break over the next three years, returning it to 5 percent, its level before lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick successfully ushered through a 25 percent hike. The current sales tax rate is 6.25 percent.

The debate took place before a largely empty House chamber, with most Democrats opting to exit the room while about half of the Republican caucus remained on hand.

“It's not our money to begin with. It might be a corporation, it might be an individual. But it's not our money to begin with,” Jones said. “Every time we take that money, we have to justify using the power of the state to reach into someone's pocket to take that money.”

Jones argued persistent examples of government waste warrant immediate consideration of tax reductions and a further focus on cost-saving measures, rather than efforts to wring additional revenue out of taxpayers.

“One need look no further than the headlines in the newspaper the last week to know that there are any number of examples of places we could have efficiencies, economies and tighten the state's belt fiscally,” he said.

But Kaufman retorted that Jones’s argument was a ruse.

“Forget that. It is not where we need to go,” he said. “It is an excuse to avoid a more fundamental debate about our values.”

Kaufman contended that the issues amounted to a dichotomy rooted in American history: the westward-traveling pioneers hoping to keep government from impeding their progress, and the pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact, vowing that “we’re all in this together.”

“Those two narratives are what make up the American character,” he said. “There will always be debates about whether taxes are too high or too low.”

After the vote, Jones released a statement, saying: “While Democrats felt no need to study a proposed increase to the state sales tax just three years ago, my colleagues across the aisle seem strangely insistent on studying the effects of a tax rollback.”

House leaders busied themselves Monday – the first of what is expected to be about four days of budget debate – by reviving a strategy to kill Republican efforts to cut taxes without actually asking members to take up-or-down votes on them, votes that might become factors in the upcoming election season.

To avoid those recorded votes, House leaders – with the support of rank-and-file Democrats – have taken to attaching riders to amendments they oppose calling for additional study. Republicans have dubbed those riders “inoculators” because they preclude clean up-or-down votes. On Monday, the first three Republican efforts to reduce taxes were inoculated.

“What will you do when that inoculator shows its ugly head on your amendment that you care about?” wondered Rep. George Peterson (R-Grafton). “It does not bode well for any of us as we start on this budget debate. I hope that this is an anomaly and not going to continue. But somehow I doubt that.”

Rep. Donald Humason (R-Westfield) also ripped the use of inoculators.

“Constituents are often cynical about what we do in government,” he said. “It'd be one thing if you further amend something and a study is actually done. We all know about inoculation. We all know it's a tactic used in this House.”

House members voted 113-38 to seek further study on a proposal to exempt cities and towns from the state’s 23.5-cent gas tax, a proposal Republicans said would cost between $6 million and $12 million a year for state government. Critics said the proposal lacked the kind of analysis called for in a newly released commission’s report recommending greater review of tax deductions and exemptions.

The House also voted 93-63 to further study an amendment offered by Rep. Jay Barrows (R-Mansfield) that would reduce the state sales tax on cell phones purchased at discount rates. Currently, Barrows argued, cell phones are taxed at their retail value, even if consumers purchase them at sharply reduced rates. That means that a phone company offering a $500 phone for $50 is required to collect sales tax based on the original price of the phone.

One amendment, offered by Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) to establish a meals tax holiday from Oct. 7 to Oct. 12, received a direct vote: Democrats defeated it on a largely party line 36-116 vote. O’Connell said the holiday would coincide with a down season for the hospitality industry.

While O’Connell argued the holiday from the state meals tax would encourage spending in local restaurants, helping small business owners and generating more tax revenue through increased tourism, Kaufman said studies suggest such holidays simply shift spending, and do not create any additional economic activity.

Rep. Marty Walz (D-Boston) also said a meals tax holiday would siphon tax revenue away from local aid that gets sent back to cities and towns, and Rep. Sarah Peake, who owns a bed-and-breakfast on Cape Cod, urged her colleagues to reject the amendment in favor of other proposals to be debated later increasing funding for regional tourism councils and highway tourist information centers.

Rep. Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica) took exception to Kaufman calling the amendment a “gimmick,” calling the proposal a matter of fairness because restaurants cannot take advantage of what has become an annual tradition of giving retailers a sales tax holiday in August for the back-to-school shopping season. Opponents of the August sales tax holiday have long argued that it merely shifts economic activity.

Matt Murphy contributed reporting


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012

State Capitol Briefs – Afternoon Edition
Members withdrawing budget amendments at speedy clip


If any House members were girding for debate on the 36 revenue amendments filed to the fiscal 2013 budget, they were out of luck. More than 21 of the 36 proposals were withdrawn before they were considered, another two were re-categorized to different areas of the budget. Of the remaining 13, most were passed or rejected rapidly without explanation or discussion, a handful were debated but ultimately referred for further study without up-or-down votes, and just one -- a proposed meals tax holiday -- received a direct roll call vote. That amendment was defeated 36-116. Overall, 43 of the 870 amendments to the budget were withdrawn on the first day of debate, according to the House's budget web site.


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012
House Budget Notebook
House breezes through 225 budget amendments on first day of debate


With only a handful of pauses for debate, House members sped through consideration of 225 amendments to the proposed state budget, continuing a years-old trend in which the bulk of deliberation is done behind closed doors.
Members backed without debate two leadership-supported "consolidated amendments" that melded together batches of amendments on the same topics: education and local aid, as well as constitutional officers and state administration. Those consolidated amendments added about $17 million to the proposed budget's $32.3 billion bottom line.

Members also dispensed with 35 amendments affecting the state's projected revenue take next fiscal year, with 21 being withdrawn before they were considered by the House and most of the others -- including Republican-backed tax cuts -- rejected.

Members also withdrew about two dozen additional amendments on other topics yet to be debated. Overall, members filed 870 amendments to the state budget. House members anticipate consideration of another 63-amendment batch early Tuesday, when they'll receive copies of a consolidated amendment on housing and social services.

However, amendments dealing with welfare cash benefits -- anticipated to be among the most hotly debated topics during this week's budget debate -- were stripped from that category and will be considered separately, House leaders told colleagues as Monday's session neared conclusion. Twenty-nine transportation amendments will be merged into a consolidated amendment later Monday morning, House officials said. The House is set to resume debate Tuesday at 10 a.m., with roll call votes slated for 11 a.m....


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012

House Budget Notebook
House rejects call for audit of state issued credit cards


The House made its first foray into concerns over the abuse of welfare cash benefits Monday evening, rejecting a proposal to require the State Auditor to account for state-funded credit cards distributed by any agency or quasi-public authority.

The amendment's sponsor, Rep. Shaunna O'Connell (R-Taunton), said the measure was intended to show that the state Legislature is "serious about being watchdogs" of taxpayer dollars and preventing abuse that deprives legitimate benefit recipients of state support.

Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington) urged colleagues to reject the measure, calling it "not necessary" because of efforts that State Auditor Suzanne Bump had made to catalogue issues with welfare cash benefits since she took office last year.

The House rejected the amendment 40-114, with a handful of Democrats joining the 33-member Republican caucus in support.


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012

House Budget Notebook
DeLeo team again turns to "innoculators" on tax proposals


House leaders showed no appetite Monday afternoon for roll call votes on a slew of Republican tax-cutting amendments. Returning to an oft-used tactic to avoid up-or-down votes on those amendments, House Democrats “further amendments” onto the GOP-backed proposals.

Those further amendments call for additional study of the underlying amendment. Republican lawmakers have referred to those further amendments as “inoculators” because they prevent roll call votes on the Republicans’ amendments.

The first three debated amendments of the fiscal 2013 budget cycle – to cut the sales tax, to exempt municipalities from the gas tax and to reduce the sales tax on cell phones – were all inoculated by House leaders.


State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

State Capitol Briefs – Lunch Edition
Veteran Rep: House processing budget with uncommon speed


In the 35 years since he joined the House, veteran Rep. James Miceli of Wilmington says he’s never seen the House whisk through amendments as quickly as it has over the past 24 hours.

The House dispensed with 225 of its 870 amendments on Monday, the opening day of deliberations on a $32.3 billion spending plan, and was working largely behind the scenes Tuesday on amendments dealing with housing, social services, energy, the environment and transportation.

“In all the years I’ve been here, that is the fastest,” Miceli told the News Service Tuesday morning.

Miceli said the budget assembled by the House Ways and Means Committee was “well put-together” and that committee co-chair Rep. Brian Dempsey had done a “good job.” The budget features investments in education and local aid spending as well as additional funding for elder services and restrictions on inappropriate spending by public assistance recipients.

“Most of the people that are sitting in that chamber feel that it’s something they can run on,” Miceli said.


State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2012

House adopts reforms to CPA to expand use and funding for preservation
By Matt Murphy


The House on Monday night approved a significant overhaul of the state’s Community Preservation Act, voting unanimously for an amendment to the state budget that could double the funding available to cities and towns in what supporters hailed as a vote for local aid and jobs.

The vote for the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington), was unanimous, with Rep. Timothy Madden, a Nantucket Democrat, calling it the most important vote the House took all night.

“This is, by all means, in my opinion, the most important bill we are doing tonight. It's a jobs bill. It creates affordable housing,” Madden said.

Kulik said the reform would make the CPA, first passed and signed into law in 2000 under Gov. Paul Cellucci, more attractive to densely populated communities by expanding the acceptable uses for CPA funds, and giving cities more flexibility in how they raise funds.

The Community Preservation Act allows municipalities to assess a surcharge of up to 3 percent on property tax bills to fund open space preservation, housing or historic rehabilitation projects. Though the state matched community generated funds at 100 percent at the program’s inception, that percentage has dwindled to about 22 percent.

The amendment adopted Monday would potentially double the amount of state funding available to provide matches to cities and towns by allocating up to $25 million in surplus revenue from the fiscal 2012 budget to the community preservation trust fund. Currently, funding comes from fees collected on deeds and totals close to $26 million a year.

The proposal would also allow cities and towns to use CPA funding to rehabilitate existing parks, playgrounds and athletic fields, rather than only build new ones, and gives communities flexibility to use revenue sources aside from a property tax surcharge to fund their community preservation accounts.

The proposal’s odds of reaching Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk appear strong: a pending bill that closely mirrors the House amendment has 26 Senate cosponsors, enough to assure passage if it reaches the Senate floor.

Rep. Sarah Peake, a Provincetown Democrat, invited her colleagues to the Cape this summer to take in a Cape Cod League baseball game at fields that she said communities would be able to be renovate and maintain thanks to the vote taken by the House Monday.

“This is truly a win, win, win,” Peake said. The amendment had bipartisan backing with House Minority Leader Brad Jones and Republican Rep. Angelo D'Emilia, of Bridgewater, speaking in support during the debate, and Rep. Paul Schmid, a Westport Democrat, gave his maiden speech on the issue.

Though state tax collections are running about $87 million below projections through March, advocates said they believed the increase funding would be available for fiscal 2013.

“In an improving economy, we’re very hopeful there will be a significant amount of funding to do these projects,” said Stuart Saginor, executive director of the Community Preservation Coalition.

The amendment also created an exemption for small businesses similar to the ones available for seniors and low-income residents that would allow communities to exempt business owners from the CPA property tax surcharge on the first $100,000 of property value.

“This is monumental what happened tonight. It’s really a job creation bill and another form of local aid,” said Robert Durand, a former House and Senate member and the author of the state’s original Community Preservation Act.

Saginor said after trying to get a bill through the House and Senate over the past three sessions, there is “tremendous excitement” among communities for the increased flexibility to raise and use CPA funds, and he said the changes will also make the program more attractive to the 203 municipalities that have not yet adopted the Community Preservation Act.


The Boston Herald
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A Boston Herald editorial
Community questions


The House has approved an expansion of the Community Preservation Act as part of its budget deliberations, and while we hate to interrupt the celebration the move does raise questions that really ought to be on every taxpayer’s mind.

For starters there’s the issue of approving the policy changes not just via the state budget — but via an amendment to the state budget. Unless you have a pet interest in open space and housing issues you likely have no idea what transpired in the House chamber on Monday.

The proposal would first boost the amount of state funding available to those cities and towns that adopt the provisions of the Community Preservation Act. While state-matching funds flowed in the early days after the law passed, they have ebbed with the economic tide. This measure would divert up to $25 million in any potential surplus from the current fiscal year to help cities and towns meet their preservation goals.

And those goals may well be laudable, but isn’t this the very same budget proposal that drains $400 million out of the rainy-day fund? If there’s a surplus, every last drop of it should go to offset any previous draw on reserves.

The measure would also allow cities and towns to expand the use of CPA funds, which are derived from a surtax on property tax bills. Some communities have felt hamstrung by restrictions, and this would allow them to use CPA funds not just to build new parks and athletic fields but to rehabilitate existing ones. Altogether that seems sensible, but raises the question of why cities and towns have to rely on a separate property tax to fund what should be part of their regular operating budgets.

Supporters of the measure called it a “jobs bill” because it will create new affordable housing. But the truth is over the decade-plus life of the CPA cities and towns have raised more than $1 billion in local and state community preservation funds — while creating (or “supporting”) all of 5,100 housing units. Many communities have chosen instead to snatch up open space and prevent new housing development. Something tells us this “jobs bill” won’t lead to full employment for the building trades.


The Boston Herald
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

‘Nothing to see’ mantra costly
By Howie Carr


Nothing to see here folks, move along.

That’s the new mantra of the state’s Democratic leadership.

And you’ll be hearing a lot more of it today, if the House of Representatives takes up the proposed reforms in the EBT card program. EBT, of course, stands for Everybody But Taxpayers. Anyone opposed to putting a halt to the fraud will be dismissed as mean-spirited, racist, xenophobic, or all of the above.

After all, these layabouts are merely seeking a “modest benefit,” as Deval Patrick — who hasn’t seen anything in years as he moves along — put it Monday.

Granted, it’s only Wednesday, but so far the EBT “anecdote” of the week comes from Beverly. Here’s the lead from the Salem News: “A Lowell man arrested Friday with nearly a half-pound of heroin was also carrying an EBT card belonging to a known drug user.”

A Lowell man indeed. The suspect allegedly entered the country illegally in 2010. And when lugged, he had not only an EBT card but a MassHealth card, the paper reported.

Nothing to see here folks.

Today, those mean-spirited solons will likely mention how 20,000 of the EBT cards go missing each month. But if we take them away from Deval’s constituents, what will they have to use as collateral in their heroin deals with illegal aliens? I know, nothing to see here ...

The Democrats have so many scandals to avert their eyes from, they must be getting sore necks from turning their heads so often.

Such as the cover-up of Lt. Gov. Crash Murray’s mystery 108 mph traffic accident, and the stonewalling in the governor’s office over releasing Crash Murray’s cellphone records.

Repeat after me: Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Or how the state refuses to participate in Secure Communities — it’s more important not to round up violent illegal aliens (and their EBT cards) than it is to protect American citizens. Remember, every deported illegal is one less vote for Barack in the fall.

So much not to see, so little space.

Granny Warren’s no-interest loan from Harvard — just what a one-percenter making $350,000 a year needs, right?

Monday, in the House, the Republicans tried to roll back Deval’s 25 percent sales tax increase. The Democrats wanted a “study.” The Republicans pointed out there was no study when the rate was jacked up. That’s right, said the Democrats, and we don’t want to make the same mistake twice, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Nothing to see here ...


The Salem News
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Police: Drug suspect had man's EBT card
By Julie Manganis


BEVERLY — A Lowell man arrested Friday with nearly a half-pound of heroin was also carrying an EBT card belonging to a known drug user — a card that may have been collateral for a drug debt, police and prosecutors believe.

Campeo A. Diaz-Carela, 43, is facing a minimum mandatory 15 years in prison if found guilty of trafficking heroin over 200 grams, the charge he was arraigned on yesterday in Salem District Court.

Diaz-Carela was also arraigned on charges of giving police a false name, after initially producing identification that showed him as Abisay Montanez, 36. Among the documents Diaz-Carela was carrying were a MassHealth card, a Pennsylvania identification card and a learner's permit, all bearing the name Montanez.

But police also found an electronic benefits transfer card that belongs to a Beverly resident known to police as a regular heroin user, prosecutor Patrick Collins told a Salem District Court judge.

Collins said EBT cards, which have come under scrutiny recently over their misuse, are now being handed over to dealers by addicts.

It wasn't until Diaz-Carela's fingerprints were submitted to an FBI database that he was identified — and discovered to be wanted by immigration officials, as well, having entered the country illegally through Arizona in 2010, Collins said.

Beverly Patrolman Thomas Nolan was working near the North Beverly Plaza when he noticed a Chrysler Pacifica passing slowly and looking at him.

Nolan took down the plate number and learned it was registered to a woman in Lynn whom he knew from prior investigations to be a "straw" buyer for a drug dealer, Collins told Judge Robert Brennan.

Nolan followed the Pacifica to Beverly Commons Drive, not far from the shopping plaza, near Tozer Road, and saw two men get out, one with his hand on a pocket knife attached to his belt.

As both men approached, Nolan pulled out a can of pepper spray. At first, the man with the pocket knife appeared to be cooperative but then ran off, throwing items from his pockets as he ran, according to the police report.

Nolan caught up with the man, as backup arrived.

Police found a package wrapped in foil, about 7 inches by 5 inches, that was filled with chunks of brown matter believed to be 220 grams (7.8 ounces) of heroin, worth about $30,000.

Because of the combination of a likely mandatory minimum sentence and Diaz-Carela's immigration status, Brennan granted Collins' request for $500,000 cash bail.

A status hearing is scheduled for May 15.


State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

House Budget Notebook – Evening Edition
House more than half-way through amendments after Day Two


After two days of debate, the House had dispensed with more than half of the 870 amendments filed to the $32.3 billion Ways and Means budget for fiscal 2013 blasting through 474 amendments on Monday and Tuesday with some of the issues expected to generate the fiercest debate over immigration and welfare benefits still to come.

On Tuesday, the House adopted five omnibus or “consolidated amendments” crafted largely out of the public eye dealing with the topics of housing and social services, transportation, energy and environmental affairs, veterans and soldiers homes, and mental health.

The debate in the House ground to a halt after a dinner break on Tuesday with members spending much of the evening talking with each other in the chamber as they waited to see what type of compromise House leadership would reach with representatives ...

The House is due to resume its debate at 10 a.m., with the first roll calls coming at 11 a.m.

 

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