CLT UPDATE
Friday, March 1, 2013
Massive tax hike testing nerves
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Gov. Deval Patrick is still taking heat over the
administration’s threat to jail motorists who dared defy the driving
ban he issued in advance of last week’s nor’easter.
It appears the chief executive has been
emboldened by recent Democratic gains both nationally and statewide.
The driving ban was a one-day phenomenon, but more ominous are his
plans to hike taxes on everything from gasoline to candy.
Citizens for Limited Taxation, for one,
isn’t about to take all this lying down. In a recent memo to its
membership, CLT official Chip Ford of Marblehead complains
about the $30 million the governor is seeking to rectify problems
created by the recent scandal at the state crime lab:
“We taxpayers already paid to prosecute the perps,
pay for their court-appointed lawyers, put them behind bars, (and)
are more lately releasing them for retrials. Talk about double
jeopardy — but it’s us taxpayers who’re paying the price twice!
We’re paying twice due to an inept governor and his befuddled
administration without a clue among them.”
He continues, regarding recent allegations of
welfare fraud, “(it is) us taxpayers who not only funded the fraud
but are now paying state employees overtime to straighten it out —
because they couldn’t get it right the first time, too.”
The Salem News
Friday, February 15, 2013
Weekly Column by Nelson Benton, editor emeritus
Think again if you see the field of caution
flags legislators are planting in front of Gov. Deval Patrick’s
tax hike plans as a sign that the Legislature will take a
no-new-tax approach to annual budgeting this spring.
While it appears lawmakers are politely
ruling out Patrick’s tax plan as he’s drafted it, they
painstakingly have not ruled out some type of major
revenue-raising plan to invest in transportation and appear to
be mulling options for something that raises less than the $1.9
billion Patrick wants and is less complex than the string of
major tax reforms that Patrick has requested.
State House News Service
Friday, February 15, 2013
Advances – Week of Feb. 17, 2013
The roster of state workers raking in
six-figure pay skyrocketed last year by an astonishing 12
percent to nearly 7,700 employees, according to a Herald review
— a budget-busting bombshell that has fiscal watchdogs howling
“enough.”
The review comes as Gov. Deval Patrick is
pushing for massive $1.9 billion in tax and fee hikes amid a
sputtering state economy and a climbing jobless rate.
The Herald found that 816 state workers have
cracked the ranks of the $100,000-plus pay club — bringing the
state total to 7,694 who earn six-figure pay, a tally that has
budget watchers seeing red.
“I am saying enough is enough,” said David
Tuerck of Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute. “As the
cost of government rises, (Patrick) has to look around for
big-ticket budget items he can cut instead of raising taxes.”
Shelling out $100,000 or more in pay to even
more state employees could doom the governor’s ambitious $34.8
billion budget because it sends the wrong message to beleaguered
taxpayers, Tuerck added.
“It’s a symptom of (Patrick’s) unwillingness
to get serious about budget cutting,” he said.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Mass. gives out 100 grand like candy
Skyrocketing six-figure state paychecks could
complicate Gov. Deval Patrick’s push for $1.9 billion in tax and
fee hikes, according to budget watchers.
“It’s always good that voters know how many
people are getting six-figure salaries while their legislators
are considering tax hikes. It gives us another argument,” said
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“We didn’t see any reason for a tax increase until they can
justify all the money they’re spending on salaries and
benefits.” ...
Anderson said Patrick’s proposal flies in the
face of the ballot question voters passed in 2000 to lower the
income tax rate to 5 percent — a measure later blocked by state
legislators.
“I don’t know where voters’ level of
tolerance ends, but neither do the legislators. I think that’s
why they’re not blindly following Gov. Patrick’s plan,” she
said. “People are going to get fed up sooner or later.”
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Experts: Pay spike hurts tax plan
State workers’ soaring six-figure incomes raise ire
Gov. Deval Patrick has big dreams — and
terrible timing.
His call for a $2 billion tax increase is
questionable on its face, of course, but coming amid so much bad
news — the state’s leaky welfare operation, a 12 percent
increase in the number of state employees earning six-figure
salaries, plummeting consumer confidence — renders it more
absurd by the day.
As the House and Senate prepare their own
budget plans taxpayers may find some relief in the doubts
expressed by leading lawmakers.
“We’re not feeling the ability terribly so
much that everybody can dig even deeper, and quite honestly we
hear from our constituents in that regard,” Senate Ways and
Means Chairman Stephen Brewer (D-Barre) said at a hearing last
week with Patrick’s top budget aide, “so as we balance ... the
spending and revenue, these are the challenges.”
OK, so that’s putting it mildly. It will be
more than a “challenge” to sell taxpayers on the notion that
they must render even more of their earnings unto Patrick and
his team of bureaucratic dreamers, especially when the state
budget has grown nearly 30 percent since Patrick took office.
The Herald reported this week that another
top official has been bounced from the Department of
Transitional Assistance, whose commissioner was fired last
month.
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Tone deaf on taxes
The state’s most dangerous sex predators ran
up a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded legal tab last year by quietly
using an obscure provision in state law that lets them hire
public defenders to go behind closed doors and argue to keep
their identities and whereabouts secret, a Herald review found.
Since 2003, when the state ordered the most
dangerous, or Level 3, sex offenders be posted on a public
website, convicts have flooded the Committee for Public Counsel
Services with requests for lower, laxer classification. Since
then, the public defenders’ office has had to shell out
skyrocketing sums for lawyers to take those cases before the Sex
Offenders Registry Board.
Last year alone, the bill to represent
indigent convicts cost taxpayers $1,228,065. That’s up a
hundredfold from $11,293 in 2002.
The Boston Herald
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sex offenders’ $1.2M tab
While Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed
bankrolling his $1 billion transportation plan with an income
tax hike that is central to his $34.8 billion budget plan, the
House might take a different approach and seek to raise funds
from users of the transportation system.
“The financing method for transportation
works best when there’s a connection or a nexus to the users or
those who benefit from the transportation system,” House
Chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation William Straus
told the News Service.
The Mattapoisett Democrat said that House and
Senate leadership might decide to carve the transportation
funding out of Patrick’s budget and consider a new
transportation financing bill, perhaps in tandem with the state
budget.
State House News Service
Monday, February 25, 2013
House eyeing transportation system users to raise revenues
Hungry after a recession-forced diet,
lawmakers are piling on the pork with a vengeance now, larding
the latest transportation spending bill with 217 earmarks that
would cost taxpayers $277 million if financed.
Legislators slipped earmarks for everything
from $5,000 for three street signs in Fall River to $12 million
to revitalize Haverhill's waterfront into the 2012
transportation bond bill, which was passed by lawmakers and
signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in August.
Lawmakers wasted no time bragging about
bringing home the bacon. . . .
Fox25 Boston
Monday, February 25, 2013
'Bacon' Hill's appetite for pork strong as ever
Video
In his legislation to hike state taxes by $2
billion a year, Gov. Deval L. Patrick's proposed 19 percent
increase in the income tax is getting most of the attention.
But, as part of his tax-increase package,
Patrick is also seeking to abolish 44 personal income tax
credits, deductions and other breaks which provide crucial
savings for tens of thousands of homeowners, people with
children, college tuition and medical expenses, according to an
analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Seeking to raise money for education and
transportation, Patrick is asking state legislators to approve a
tricky revision of the state's tax code and a big tax increase
at the same time.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, a Winthrop
Democrat, said he is hearing "grave concerns" from some
legislators, business representatives and others, but he said it
is too early to say if the House will go along with a tax
increase.
"There's a whole lot more to this package
than we originally thought," said DeLeo, when asked about the
governor's plan to eliminate some common credits and
deductions....
These include a critical exemption from the
state's long-term capital gains tax on the profits from the sale
of a person's primary home, a rare state deduction from personal
income to offset contributions to Social Security and public
pensions and another unusual state exemption from taxation on
interest from a certain amount of savings in a Massachusetts
bank.
Patrick's legislation would also eliminate
deductions for people with dependents, or children, less than
12, for college tuition, for adoption fees, certain tolls and
MBTA passes and for contributions to a health savings account,
which allow workers to contribute pre-tax money to be used for
qualified medical expenses.
None might whack taxpayers more than
abolishing the exemption of state long-term capital gains tax on
a sale of a primary residence, according to the analysis by the
[Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation].
The Springfield Republican
Monday, February 25, 2013
Gov. Deval Patrick aims to abolish 44 special tax breaks in
Massachusetts
Small business owners in Massachusetts
overwhelmingly oppose Gov. Deval Patrick’s tax code overhaul,
which the governor says will facilitate $1.9 billion in new
investments in education and transportation without raising tax
burdens on low and middle-income residents.
The state affiliate of the National
Federation of Independent Businesses issued a survey Monday
morning to its 8,000 small business members in Massachusetts and
released the results Tuesday after more than 400 responses
poured in. More than 92 percent of respondents opposed Patrick’s
plan, with 4.1 percent supporting it and 3.6 percent
undecided....
NFIB State Director Bill Vernon ... also
knocked groups rallying around Patrick’s tax plan and proposed
investments, saying they’ll be the beneficiaries of new tax
revenues and adding in the group's press release, “Small
business owners are too busy working to stage demonstrations,
but they are deeply skeptical of this phony sales pitch.”
About 120 groups aligned with the
Campaign
for Our Communities are touting Patrick's tax-and-investment
goals, including the governing boards of 16 communities such as
Boston, Springfield and Worcester as well as the Mass. Teachers
Association, the Mass. Coalition for the Homeless, and the Mass.
Public Health Association. The campaign plans a March 12 State
House rally.
State House News Service
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
State Capitol Briefs
Small biz group members oppose Patrick tax plans
“I’m scared. I’m concerned.”
— Gov. Deval Patrick on the impact of
sequestration budget cuts on Massachusetts.
Be afraid, governor. Be very afraid.
Because if you’re “scared” and “concerned”
about the impact of a 2.4 percent cut in the federal budget on
the Massachusetts economy, you must be terrified over a $3
billion direct hit on Massachusetts businesses and workers.
Hey, waitaminute — that $3 billion gross tax
hike is your idea, Deval. What gives? ...
Alas, this is Massachusetts, where Democrats
never have to explain themselves. Where the media never does the
math. Where voters who collect are more than happy to vote
themselves more money from the pockets of those who earn.
“Scared,” Gov. Patrick? Like every productive
taxpayer in Massachusetts, I’m terrified.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Gov’s bipolar economics
By
Michael Graham
Gov. Deval L. Patrick is working all sides to
build support for his plan to increase state income taxes and
cut sales taxes, putting up a
website Wednesday with maps showing local transportation and
school projects that would be funded with $1.9 billion in new
state revenue.
The website launch, which is a somewhat novel
approach by a governor trying to advance pending legislation,
follows a series of talks with business groups and community
leaders by the governor and his top aides making the case for
the steep revenue hikes.
Mr. Patrick also ramped up his pitch for the
tax plan at a closed meeting with House Democratic leaders and
distributed printed copies of the local project maps broken down
by legislative districts to each representative and senator....
“I think it is natural and right for people
to warm up slowly to tax increases,” Mr. Patrick said. “People
tend to like the part of the proposal that cuts the sales tax,
but less so, the part that raises the income tax. It's totally
natural, especially when the expectation in the culture at large
is that government wastes money,” he said....
The governor said he is not getting the sense
that Democrats in the Legislature are ruling out the tax hike
plan, and some of the state's business leaders expect some form
of tax hikes from the Legislature this year....
The website features maps of the state broken
down into the 200 House and Senate districts that show
transportation and school projects that may be funded if the tax
increase is approved.
“The site will enable everybody to see what
we get for these investments and to some extent what we give up
if we choose not to invest. The choice is ours,” Mr. Patrick
said.
The Telegram & Gazette
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Gov. Patrick: Public will 'warm up' to taxes
Fearful of an Election Day reckoning,
skittish Democrats say they aren’t buying Gov. Deval Patrick’s
latest sales pitch for his proposed $1.9 billion tax hike: a new
website that spells out the taxpayer largesse he’s promising for
their districts.
One rep even suggested Patrick brush up on
his history.
“I explained the election of 1990 to the
governor,” said state Rep. John Binienda (D-Worcester),
referring to the year dozens of Democratic lawmakers were booted
after party power brokers backed the largest tax increase in
state history. “The governor’s not coming back. He’s finishing
off his term and he’s gone. I don’t know how many people he’s
going to get to fall on their sword for him.” ...
“The first thing my constituents want to see
is that we continue to reform programs like EBT,” said Tom
Golden (D-Lowell). “I don’t believe my constituents are anywhere
near accepting of a tax increase yet. I think we need to
continue to let him sell his plan.” ...
“The people I represent are not rich people,
and they’re watching every dime they have,” Binienda said. “Look
at the price of gasoline. ... Now he’s messing around with the
gas tax.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Some Dems tell Deval Patrick to take hike over $1.9B plan
Gov. Deval Patrick, clearly finding his $1.9
billion tax hike proposal a tough sell to both the public and
the Legislature, has devised a new tool to illustrate just how
wisely the new revenue will be “invested.” It’s a series of
maps, drawn by legislative district, to help the public
understand the apparently life-altering impact that new funding
for transportation and education will have.
But sometimes, well — a tax hike is really
just a tax hike.
And if Patrick thinks he can win the hearts
of struggling taxpayers by highlighting a few extra bucks for
schools, or money for road resurfacing and bridge repairs that
are already government’s fundamental obligation, he may be in
for a rude awakening....
Patrick insists that people tell him over and
over that they want “more” from the transportation and education
systems — they just haven’t “warmed” to the idea of a tax
increase to pay for it. He seems willfully ignorant of the
reasons that people lack that warm and fuzzy feeling.
Could it be because the state spends billions
more every year than it did the year before, while continuing to
fall behind in its most basic obligations? Could it be because
hard-working taxpayers are weary of the elected leaders’ refrain
— that more is never enough?
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Deval the dreamer
If you absolutely, positively had to get
somewhere by a certain time, who would you trust more to get you
there?
Fung Wah Bus or Gov. Deval Patrick?
Say what you will about Fung Wah, it’s
Dreaded Private Sector, not some spoiled hack who’s had
everything in his life handed to him.
And a trip on Fung Wah costs 15 bucks. Does
anyone doubt that Deval’s preposterous Fall River-to-Boston
high-speed rail will come in for less than $2 billion?
Which is why I suspect that Deval is going to
have a problem putting across his “legacy” plan to become
America’s next railroad baron. The headline on his new website
is “Choosing Growth in Our Communities.”
Surely he meant to say, “Choosing Taxes in
Our Communities.” ...
Hey, Deval, you want to improve
transportation in this state? I’ll tell you what we really need.
Six-lane highways north, to New Hampshire, so we can get the
hell out of this state, first for tax-free shopping, and
finally, forever.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Instead of rail, make tracks to N.H.
By Howie Carr
A coalition of public sector unions, town
politicians and other supporters of Gov. Deval Patrick’s $1.9
billion tax proposal plan to rally at the State House later this
month, hoping to convince skeptical lawmakers to go along with
hiking taxes and fees to fund education and transportation
improvements.
“The goal of the rally is to speak to as many
legislators as we can to express our support for additional
revenue to invest in important programs and communities across
Massachusetts — transportation, education and health care,” said
Stephen Crawford of Campaign for Our Communities.
Behind the lobbying day are a group of more
than 100 organizations, including the Massachusetts Teachers
Association, AFSCME Council 93 and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, as
well as a number of city councils and boards of selectmen across
the Bay State.
They plan to rally March 12 and lobby Beacon Hill politicians,
who are
becoming increasingly skittish about Patrick’s tax-hike
plan, noting they have to run for re-election in two years and
he doesn’t.
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 1, 2013
Gov budget backers to target pols
The Telegram & Gazette
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Editorial cartoon by David Hitch
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 1, 2013
Editorial cartoon by Jerry Holbert
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
It's looking like many legislators have gotten
our message that crushing taxpayers under a mountain of tax hikes is
not the best route to re-election. Some, like Democrat state Rep.
John Binienda, are revisiting the devastating electoral results of
past massive tax hikes — as we've
recently reminded them by
memo and in
columns.
“I explained the election of 1990 to the
governor,” said state Rep. John Binienda (D-Worcester),
referring to the year dozens of Democratic lawmakers were
booted after party power brokers backed the largest tax
increase in state history. “The governor’s not coming back.
He’s finishing off his term and he’s gone. I don’t know how
many people he’s going to get to fall on their sword for
him.”
State Rep. Tom Golden (D-Lowell) gets it too:
“The first thing my constituents want to see is that we continue to
reform programs like EBT. I don’t believe my constituents are
anywhere near accepting of a tax increase yet.”
Still, the misfeasance, malfeasance,
incompetence, corruption,
profligate over-spending, and new scandals continue to be exposed
almost daily.
State Sen. Richard J. Ross (R-Wrentham), who
serves on the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, said:
“If Gov. Patrick is going to be raising
taxes and spending money the way he has been, it doesn’t
seem like we’re heading down a good road. We need to show
taxpayers we’re working to save money in every way we can
before we consider raising taxes. I think the taxpayer is
not convinced and nor am I as a legislator.”
Barbara observed:
“I don’t know where voters’ level of
tolerance ends, but neither do the legislators. I think
that’s why they’re not blindly following Gov. Patrick’s
plan. People are going to get fed up sooner or later.”
It's looking like "sooner" is arriving just in
time.
The independent small business community has come out strongly
against Patrick's insatiable money grab, with the state chapter of
the National Federation of Independent Businesses and its director
Bill Vernon leading its opposition. “Small business owners are too
busy working to stage demonstrations, but they are deeply skeptical
of this phony sales pitch,” he observed. “Our small business owners
obviously think education and transportation are important. There’s
no argument there. But the argument is, ‘Don’t we already pay
enough?’”
Gov. Patrick doesn't think so
— and he's hoping to perpetrate a
snatch-and-grab, a hit-and-run. He intends to be watching from his rear-view
mirror when the consequences arrive. Legislators now need to
answer that rhetorical question, "Don’t we already pay enough?"
They're the ones who'll be left in his dust holding the bag.
My thanks to the Boston Herald for again
promoting a longtime CLT slogan in its editorial yesterday, "Deval
the dreamer."
Patrick insists that people tell him over
and over that they want “more” from the transportation and
education systems — they just haven’t “warmed” to the idea
of a tax increase to pay for it. He seems willfully ignorant
of the reasons that people lack that warm and fuzzy feeling.
Could it be because the state spends
billions more every year than it did the year before, while
continuing to fall behind in its most basic obligations?
Could it be because hard-working taxpayers are weary of the
elected leaders’ refrain — that more is never enough?
We've asserted for over a decade that for the
Gimme Lobby, More Is
Never Enough (MINE) and never will be. Today nobody can deny it.
The More Is Never Enough cabal assertively
demonstrates this axiom, as if more is their due. The usual tax-borrow-and-spend suspects
will be circling over Beacon Hill like buzzards salivating over the
taxpayers' carcass. The Gimme Lobby's standing army will
marshal its force of government dependents for another assault on the
State House a week from Tuesday. Its demand for more, more, always
more is insatiable; it won't end until The Takers have stripped
productive taxpayers to the bone.
Aren't they fortunate to have so much free time,
enough to participate in their dog-and-pony show? NFIB's Bill Vernon
noted the obvious: "Small business owners are too busy working to stage
demonstrations." So too are we
working taxpayers, who are already over-taxed to fund every cent government
takes, has, spends, and squanders.
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Chip Ford |
CLT
depends entirely on whatever you the average
taxpayer can afford to contribute. If you haven't
renewed your membership for 2013 yet, we hope you will
do so immediately. You can make your
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The Boston Herald
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Mass. gives out 100 grand like candy
By Joe Dwinell
The roster of state workers raking in six-figure pay skyrocketed
last year by an astonishing 12 percent to nearly 7,700 employees,
according to a Herald review — a budget-busting bombshell that has
fiscal watchdogs howling “enough.”
The review comes as Gov. Deval Patrick is pushing for massive $1.9
billion in tax and fee hikes amid a sputtering state economy and a
climbing jobless rate.
The Herald found that 816 state workers have cracked the ranks of
the $100,000-plus pay club — bringing the state total to 7,694 who
earn six-figure pay, a tally that has budget watchers seeing red.
“I am saying enough is enough,” said David Tuerck of Suffolk
University’s Beacon Hill Institute. “As the cost of government
rises, (Patrick) has to look around for big-ticket budget items he
can cut instead of raising taxes.”
Shelling out $100,000 or more in pay to even more state employees
could doom the governor’s ambitious $34.8 billion budget because it
sends the wrong message to beleaguered taxpayers, Tuerck added.
“It’s a symptom of (Patrick’s) unwillingness to get serious about
budget cutting,” he said.
The highest pay — more than $700,000 — went to those in the
University of Massachusetts system. Yet, nurses, state troopers,
office workers, prison guards and managers also swelled the ranks of
the six-figure club, including:
• 2,557
University of Massachusetts employees who took home $100,000 or
more last year — with 196 earning anywhere from $200,000 to more
than $700,000;
• 1,583
state troopers who pulled in $100,000 or more — with 29 earning
$200,000 or more;
• 200
Department of Transportation workers, who drove home with
$100,000 or more; and
• More
than 200 Department of Correction employees who raked in upward
of $100,000.
Payroll records, obtained by the
Herald through a public records request, also show scores of
employees who are projected to see their pay grow even more this
year.
Patrick — who rolled out his new $34.8 billion budget this past week
— has asked the state Legislature to fund a bold but pricey slew of
transportation and education plans — and boost the income tax to
6.25 percent from 5.25 percent.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Michael Widmer, president of
the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “Without new revenues, we
will have a budget gap.”
Hearings on the budget kicked off this week with lawmakers saying
their constituents are worried about the tax hikes.
As for the new payroll, a Patrick spokeswoman said the governor and
Lt. Gov. Tim Murray have been working to cut overhead.
“Since October of 2008, the Patrick-Murray administration has
eliminated over 6,000 jobs in state government for a 9 percent
reduction,” said administration spokeswoman Alex Zaroulis.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Experts: Pay spike hurts tax plan
State workers’ soaring six-figure incomes raise ire
By Erin Smith
Skyrocketing six-figure state paychecks could complicate Gov. Deval
Patrick’s push for $1.9 billion in tax and fee hikes, according to
budget watchers.
“It’s always good that voters know how many people are getting
six-figure salaries while their legislators are considering tax
hikes. It gives us another argument,” said Barbara Anderson
of Citizens for Limited Taxation. “We didn’t see any reason
for a tax increase until they can justify all the money they’re
spending on salaries and benefits.”
The Herald reported yesterday the number of state workers with
six-figure paychecks skyrocketed by 12 percent last year to nearly
7,700 employees. Meanwhile, Patrick’s $34.8 billion budget proposal
calls for ambitious new transportation and education plans, a hike
in the state income tax from 5.25 percent to 6.25 percent and
automatic hikes in the gas tax, MBTA fares and RMV fees.
“If Gov. Patrick is going to be raising taxes and spending money the
way he has been, it doesn’t seem like we’re heading down a good
road,” said state Sen. Richard J. Ross (R-Wrentham), who serves on
the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. “We need to show taxpayers
we’re working to save money in every way we can before we consider
raising taxes. I think the taxpayer is not convinced and nor am I as
a legislator.”
Anderson said Patrick’s proposal flies in the face of the ballot
question voters passed in 2000 to lower the income tax rate to 5
percent — a measure later blocked by state legislators.
“I don’t know where voters’ level of tolerance ends, but neither do
the legislators. I think that’s why they’re not blindly following
Gov. Patrick’s plan,” she said. “People are going to get fed up
sooner or later.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 21, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
Tone deaf on taxes
Gov. Deval Patrick has big dreams — and terrible timing.
His call for a $2 billion tax increase is questionable on its face,
of course, but coming amid so much bad news — the state’s leaky
welfare operation, a 12 percent increase in the number of state
employees earning six-figure salaries, plummeting consumer
confidence — renders it more absurd by the day.
As the House and Senate prepare their own budget plans taxpayers may
find some relief in the doubts expressed by leading lawmakers.
“We’re not feeling the ability terribly so much that everybody can
dig even deeper, and quite honestly we hear from our constituents in
that regard,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer (D-Barre)
said at a hearing last week with Patrick’s top budget aide, “so as
we balance ... the spending and revenue, these are the challenges.”
OK, so that’s putting it mildly. It will be more than a “challenge”
to sell taxpayers on the notion that they must render even more of
their earnings unto Patrick and his team of bureaucratic dreamers,
especially when the state budget has grown nearly 30 percent since
Patrick took office.
The Herald reported this week that another top official has been
bounced from the Department of Transitional Assistance, whose
commissioner was fired last month.
Over the weekend we learned that an additional 816 state workers
have cleared the $100,000 threshold since last year. It’s
particularly insulting to learn that four Massport managers who
oversee what is essentially a zombie airport in Worcester are in the
six-figures club.
And this week the research firm Mass Insight reported that its
quarterly consumer confidence survey fell in January amid concerns
about scarce private sector jobs and stagnant wages.
Brewer and his House counterpart, Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill)
could have been more definitive in expressing doubts about Patrick’s
tax plan, and challenging the assertion by Administration and
Finance Secretary Glen Shor that the governor’s budget will
“(promote) opportunity and prosperity in every corner of the
commonwealth.”
But acknowledging the simmering anger of constituents is a start.
The Boston Herald
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sex offenders’ $1.2M tab
By Erin Smith
The state’s most dangerous sex predators ran up a $1.2 million
taxpayer-funded legal tab last year by quietly using an obscure
provision in state law that lets them hire public defenders to go
behind closed doors and argue to keep their identities and
whereabouts secret, a Herald review found.
Since 2003, when the state ordered the most dangerous, or Level 3,
sex offenders be posted on a public website, convicts have flooded
the Committee for Public Counsel Services with requests for lower,
laxer classification. Since then, the public defenders’ office has
had to shell out skyrocketing sums for lawyers to take those cases
before the Sex Offenders Registry Board.
Last year alone, the bill to represent indigent convicts cost
taxpayers $1,228,065. That’s up a hundredfold from $11,293 in 2002.
“These sex offenders have already been criminally convicted in
court. Now we’re handing them taxpayer-funded lawyers so they can
attack our laws? It’s ludicrous,” said Laurie Myers, a longtime
advocate for tougher laws for the state’s roughly 11,100 sex
offenders. “This is an administrative hearing. If you get a traffic
ticket, no one gives you a free lawyer.”
What’s more, the legal tab could rise even higher under a bill filed
recently by state Rep. Brian Mannal. The Barnstable Democrat wants
the registry board to contact all sex offenders requesting
reclassification or removal from the online registry and inform them
of their right to a hearing and a free, taxpayer-funded lawyer if
they’re deemed indigent.
The classification system is key to public safety — making the
difference between “high-risk” Level 3 offenders who must have their
names, mug shots, crimes and addresses posted on the Web;
“moderate-risk” Level 2 offenders, whose names are available only
upon request from the board or local police departments, and
“low-risk” Level 1 sex offenders, whose identities are available
only to law enforcement and certain state agencies.
Unlike parole hearings for second-degree murderers, critics point
out, hearings before the Sex Offender Registry Board are held behind
closed doors and without notice, or input, from victims or their
families.
The board does not report how many Level 3 offenders successfully
got their classification knocked down to Level 2, nor how many Level
2 offenders got reclassified as Level 1. As a result, it’s
impossible to determine how many of these sexual predators have gone
on to commit new crimes.
The Committee for Public Counsel Services said they’re just
following the law by representing convicts in their classification
appeals.
“The Legislature obviously recognized that this was an important
enabling issue. This isn’t something that CPCS has unilaterally
decided is a good idea,” said Lisa Hewitt, general counsel at CPCS.
Rep. Mannal, a criminal defense attorney, defended his bill, saying,
“I think for the folks that go through this process — while it’s not
a criminal proceeding — it will have a lasting impact on their
lives. Someone who doesn’t have a legal background could find
themselves unmatched in this environment.”
Meanwhile, state Rep. Brad Jones (R-North Reading) has filed a bill
to get taxpayers off the hook for paying convicted sex offenders’
legal fees.
“After you’ve been convicted and the taxpayer has paid for your
incarceration, now we’re going to have the taxpayer pay to say
you’re not at risk of re-offending?” Jones said. “I think that’s an
unjustifiable expense and it’s something that’s ballooned
exponentially.”
State House News Service
Monday, February 25, 2013
House eyeing transportation system users to raise revenues
By Andy Metzger
While Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed bankrolling his $1 billion
transportation plan with an income tax hike that is central to his
$34.8 billion budget plan, the House might take a different approach
and seek to raise funds from users of the transportation system.
“The financing method for transportation works best when there’s a
connection or a nexus to the users or those who benefit from the
transportation system,” House Chairman of the Joint Committee on
Transportation William Straus told the News Service.
The Mattapoisett Democrat said that House and Senate leadership
might decide to carve the transportation funding out of Patrick’s
budget and consider a new transportation financing bill, perhaps in
tandem with the state budget.
Straus said that funding transportation with user fees would be a
better guarantee that the funding stream would remain in place than
an income tax – which combined with the closure of tax incentives
provides the bulk of the new revenues Patrick sees as critical to
education and transportation investments.
“You can’t do it one annual budget at a time,” Straus said. He said,
“My preference is that we finance it in a way that essentially locks
the money up for transportation.”
While Patrick’s budget calls for regular gas tax increases by tying
the tax to inflation, the governor in the latest Beacon Hill debate
over transportation funding resisted using an increase in the tax as
the engine for funding transportation improvements.
"It would take a tripling of the gas tax to fund this plan. It would
put us way out of sync with our competitors in the region and
nationally, actually, so that is not at the top of my list," Patrick
said when unveiling “The Way Forward,” a report on the $1 billion
annual funding needs for transportation. The memory of his own
failed attempt to raise the gas tax in 2009 is still fresh in the
governor’s mind, as well.
“We've tried the gas tax before and I had my head handed to me,”
Patrick said last November, months before he submitted his own plan.
In 2009, the Legislature opted instead to increase the sales tax
from 5 percent to 6.25 percent, in order to shore up
recession-thinned state revenues. Patrick’s budget calls for a
rollback of the sales tax to 4.5 percent.
The gas tax was last increased in 1991, and still stands at 21 cents
per gallon, which is significantly less than the gas tax in all of
New England and New York, except for in New Hampshire, where it is
18 cents. Massachusetts also has a 2.5 cents per gallon underground
storage tank fee.
To raise the $1 billion deemed necessary to improve and expand
transportation in the state, the gas tax would have to rise to 51
cents per gallon, according to “The Way Forward,” which would make
it the highest gas tax in the region, though just barely edging out
New York’s 50.6-cent-per-gallon rate.
By drawing on income taxes, new corporate taxes and a closure of tax
breaks, Patrick’s budget would raise about $1.9 billion in revenue,
which the administration plans to devote in part towards education
as well as transportation.
Legislators have approached Patrick’s plan with caution and
described mostly negative reactions from constituents, though House
Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray have said
they remain open to the idea.
Straus is more bullish than Patrick on the benefits of the gas tax
as a means for raising transportation revenue. The motor fuel tax is
paid by those who use the state’s roads and highways, and consumers
who opt for more environmentally friendly vehicles pay less, Straus
said. He said the gas tax would have to remain “a central part of
our transportation system.”
Straus outlined some of his ideas on transportation financing in
response to a News Service story that revealed the income tax was
not among the “menu” of potential transportation funding sources in
a draft version of “The Way Forward” that Patrick sent back for more
work and refining.
A gas tax, and other taxes and fees paid by users of transportation
– such as MBTA fares and Registry of Motor Vehicle fees – are
insulated from the desires of future legislators and governors to
use those revenues for non-transportation areas of government,
Straus said, in a way that the income tax is not.
“The Way Forward” lays out the transportation funding needs for the
next 10 years. Straus said that income tax revenues would be more
easily shifted away from transportation needs, which could spell
uncertainty for transportation funding over the decade.
Straus said he agrees with “the administration's number of current 'underfunding'
of transportation each year at $1 billion” and pointed out that
includes the roughly $250 million it would take to transfer highway
workers from the capital budget to the operating budget.
Straus said that the administration’s goal of fully funding and
expanding the transportation system would require another, dedicated
route, and said it would be up to legislative leadership whether to
separate out the transportation funding from the governor’s budget.
“If the goal is more than one year, then as a logical conclusion you
have to be talking about another piece of legislation,” Straus said.
A spokesman for DeLeo said there has not yet been a decision about
whether to split the transportation financing from the overall
budget.
Transportation Secretary Richard Davey has said that he is aiming to
submit, by Friday, March 1, a $3 billion transportation bond bill,
that would secure a 10-year funding stream for local road projects.
Meanwhile, discussion of the transportation portion of Patrick’s
will be up for debate in Brockton on Wednesday where the House and
Senate Ways and Means Committee will address that portion of the
governor’s budget.
Fox25 Boston
Monday, February 25, 2013
'Bacon' Hill's appetite for pork strong as ever
By Mike Beaudet, Kevin Rothstein, Producer
Video
Hungry after a recession-forced diet, lawmakers are piling on the
pork with a vengeance now, larding the latest transportation
spending bill with 217 earmarks that would cost taxpayers $277
million if financed.
Legislators slipped earmarks for everything from $5,000 for three
street signs in Fall River to $12 million to revitalize Haverhill's
waterfront into the 2012 transportation bond bill, which was passed
by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in August.
Lawmakers wasted no time bragging about bringing home the bacon. On
Marshfield-based 95.9 WATD-FM, state Senate President Therese Murray
boasted about the benefits transportation bill would bring to the
South Shore.
"There's a $1 million for road and traffic lights improvements on
Route 53 in Pembroke and $5.1 million for reconstruction of Taylor
avenue of in Plymouth," Murray said.
FOX Undercover asked state Sen. Brian A. Joyce, chair of the Senate
Committee on Bonding, why lawmakers like earmarks so much.
"Part of our job is to ensure a fair amount of state tax dollars
come back to our district," said Joyce, D-Milton.
"Looking at the list of projects, do you think there are some in
there that are questionable?" asked FOX Undercover reporter Mike
Beaudet.
"Well I suspect you've looked at the list and you're going to pull
one or two out. What I suspect is there's one or two in there or
maybe more that wouldn't be a priority of mine or yours," Joyce
replied.
FOX Undercover first told you about one questionable project in the
bill in an October investigation.
That's when we found an earmark for "not less than $500,000" for a
traffic light outside Knollsbrook Condominiums in Stoughton, the
condo complex that's also home to the town's state representative,
Louis Kafka.
"Was that about helping yourself out?" Beaudet asked him.
"No," replied Kafka, D-Stoughton.
"How did it come about?" Beaudet asked.
"Just trying to figure out a way to stop traffic or slow down
traffic on Central Street," Kafka replied.
"You live in that condo complex don't you?" Beaudet asked.
"I do," Kafka replied.
FOX Undercover found that town officials never even asked for the
traffic light that was in the earmark. They had other priorities in
mind, including improving another nearby intersection on Route 27,
the spot where a three-year-old girl was struck and killed in
September.
"So when the Legislature or Congress tries to direct money to a
specific project, sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not.
And sometimes it's about personal gain and it's really hard for the
public to judge that," said Pam Wilmot of Common Cause
Massachusetts, which advocates for good government.
Wilmot said it's hard for the public to know which earmarks are
worthy projects.
"You need to delve into it and stories like this help that come out
but its very hard to make those calls," she said.
Making those calls is ultimately up to Richard Davey, the
Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation.
"Don't you people here at Mass. DOT know better than lawmakers what
projects should be done?" Beaudet asked him.
"Not necessarily," he replied.
Because earmarks in the transportation bond bill are only requests,
not mandates, to spend money, Davey says very few get funded or even
looked at seriously.
"I know you've got to be careful poking the Legislature. You've got
to work with these people. It seems based on the numbers of projects
put in there, there have got to be some questionable things" Beaudet
asked.
"We don't study each and every one of these earmarks," Davey
replied. "If we did due diligence on every single project, I am sure
there are some that we would not see as a priority at all."
But that doesn't stop lawmakers from trying to pile on the pork.
"I don't mean to sound cynical senator, but is that about impressing
voters in an election year?" Beaudet asked Sen. Joyce.
"Sure. Sure. There's a little bit of that absolutely," Joyce
replied.
Joyce's district includes the little town of Avon which has just
4,300 residents but landed four earmarks in the bond bill. They
include $500,000 for better traffic lights at an intersection and
another $500,000 for road improvements to Avon Industrial Park.
"Do you think all of your earmarks are legitimate?" Beaudet asked
Joyce.
"Certainly I think they all warrant further review or scrutiny from
the administration to see if they can make the priority list, yes,"
Joyce replied.
The Springfield Republican
Monday, February 25, 2013
Gov. Deval Patrick aims to abolish 44 special tax breaks in
Massachusetts
By Dan Ring
In his legislation to hike state taxes by $2 billion a year, Gov.
Deval L. Patrick's proposed 19 percent increase in the income tax is
getting most of the attention.
But, as part of his tax-increase package, Patrick is also seeking to
abolish 44 personal income tax credits, deductions and other breaks
which provide crucial savings for tens of thousands of homeowners,
people with children, college tuition and medical expenses,
according to an analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
Seeking to raise money for education and transportation, Patrick is
asking state legislators to approve a tricky revision of the state's
tax code and a big tax increase at the same time.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, said he is
hearing "grave concerns" from some legislators, business
representatives and others, but he said it is too early to say if
the House will go along with a tax increase.
"There's a whole lot more to this package than we originally
thought," said DeLeo, when asked about the governor's plan to
eliminate some common credits and deductions.
Another little-noticed aspect of the bill is that the state taxes on
dividends and longterm capital gains, both now 5.25 percent, would
also rise in tandem with the income tax to 6.25 percent. To simplify
the tax code, the 12 percent short-term capital gains tax would also
drop to 6.25 percent.
Gregory R. Mennis, assistant secretary for fiscal policy for
Patrick, said, "It is important to look at the tax package as a
whole." Overall, the plan is aimed at making the tax code more
simple and fair, and to help retirees, working families and the
needy, he said.
"We are mindful that everything about this proposal ... is something
to be taken very seriously," Mennis added, during an interview with
The Republican and MassLive.com in his Statehouse office. "Every
individual needs to understand the impacts on them and their
families."
Three key features of Patrick's plan would increase the income tax
from 5.25 percent to 6.25 percent, double all filers' personal
exemptions, or the amount of income not subject to taxation, and
lower the sales tax from 6.25 percent to 4.5 percent.
The governor's legislation is intended to eventually raise $1.9
billion a year for transportation and education improvements. The
tax package was submitted as part of Patrick's proposed $34.8
billion state budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.
It also includes a section to raise nearly $500 million a year in
additional corporate taxes.
Michael J. Widmer, president of the taxpayers foundation, said
business leaders and legislators are also starting to understand the
effects of wiping out so many credits and deductions.
The effort complicates a tax increase package that could be more
simple and straightforward and makes the governor's case more
difficult, he said.
"A huge majority of the public probably depends on more than one of
these," Widmer said of the deductions and credits. "That's the
problem."
These include a critical exemption from the state's long-term
capital gains tax on the profits from the sale of a person's primary
home, a rare state deduction from personal income to offset
contributions to Social Security and public pensions and another
unusual state exemption from taxation on interest from a certain
amount of savings in a Massachusetts bank.
Patrick's legislation would also eliminate deductions for people
with dependents, or children, less than 12, for college tuition, for
adoption fees, certain tolls and MBTA passes and for contributions
to a health savings account, which allow workers to contribute
pre-tax money to be used for qualified medical expenses.
None might whack taxpayers more than abolishing the exemption of
state long-term capital gains tax on a sale of a primary residence,
according to the analysis by the foundation.
Under current state law, which is tied to federal law, there is no
state or federal long-term capital gains tax on up to $500,000 in
profits for people married filing jointly and $250,000 for singles.
In order to qualify, sellers need to have lived in the home for at
least two out of the past five years.
If someone realizes $100,000 gain on the sale of a longtime home,
then the state tax would be $6,250, or 6.25 percent.
If Patrick gets his way, a total of 55,000 filers each year would be
hit with the state's long-term capital gains tax on the sale of a
primary residence, according to the taxpayers foundation.
Patrick is seeking to eliminate about half of the state's credits
and deductions, but he wants to preserve others.
For example, the governor wants to keep an exemption from state
taxes on Social Security checks. He also wants to keep intact the
earned income tax credit, which is used by low- to moderate-income
individuals and families.
Retirees on fixed incomes will generally not see increases in their
taxes, and many could see lower taxes because of the decrease in the
sales tax and the doubling of personal exemptions, according to
Mennis, the governor's assistant secretary for fiscal policy.
About half of households, including most earning less than $60,000 a
year, will pay about the same or less in combined sale and income
taxes, Mennis said.
Patrick's tax bill would be taken up first in the state House of
Representatives.
The House will release its fiscal 2014 budget in April.
DeLeo, the House speaker, said he is meeting with people each day to
review the tax plan including business leaders, legislators and
others.
While some are leery, people are generally saying they understand
the need for improvements in education and transportation, he said.
Asked if it's fair to say the state House of Representatives would
compromise with the governor and raise some kind of revenues, DeLeo
said, "I'm not going to say that's what we are going to do. Before
we do anything, whether it's in transportation or whatever, we have
to talk about what further efficiencies that we can gain from what
the present situation is ... It's a little premature to say that we
will or we won't do anything in terms of taxes."
Patrick's bill would generate $1 billion in new revenues from
eliminating the 44 personal income tax credits and deductions.
But, that would be offset by doubling the personal exemptions, which
would benefit all taxpayers, not just select groups, Mennis said.
The doubling of those exemptions would cost the state about $1
billion in revenues.
State House News Service
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
State Capitol Briefs
Small biz group members oppose Patrick tax plans
By Michael Norton
Small business owners in Massachusetts overwhelmingly oppose Gov.
Deval Patrick’s tax code overhaul, which the governor says will
facilitate $1.9 billion in new investments in education and
transportation without raising tax burdens on low and middle-income
residents.
The state affiliate of the National Federation of Independent
Businesses issued a survey Monday morning to its 8,000 small
business members in Massachusetts and released the results Tuesday
after more than 400 responses poured in. More than 92 percent of
respondents opposed Patrick’s plan, with 4.1 percent supporting it
and 3.6 percent undecided.
In addition to receiving arguments for and against the governor’s
tax plans, survey takers were asked, “Do you support lowering the
sales tax and increasing the income tax, for a net tax increase of
$1.9 billion to fund spending on transportation and education?”
NFIB State Director Bill Vernon, a former Republican state
representative, said lawmakers should be concerned about the level
of opposition to the governor’s proposal from small businesses.
Patrick’s plan would raise the income tax, lower the sales tax and
raise some personal exemptions, and eliminate a long menu of tax
breaks and incentives to generate revenue for investments that the
governor says are critical to the state’s long-term economic
prospects.
Vernon said he’s encouraged that lawmakers appear to be leaning
towards a smaller revenue proposal and focusing on transportation
system investment. “It’s quite evident . . . that they’re looking
and considering a much smaller package and much more direct sort of
approach to the problem,” he said in an interview.
Vernon said small business owners hope that if Beacon Hill agrees to
raise new revenues this year, they ensure that the money is used to
improve roads and bridges. “Our members are concerned about the
roads and bridges,” he said. “And they know that a transportation
system is important.”
Vernon also knocked groups rallying around Patrick’s tax plan and
proposed investments, saying they’ll be the beneficiaries of new tax
revenues and adding in the group's press release, “Small business
owners are too busy working to stage demonstrations, but they are
deeply skeptical of this phony sales pitch.”
About 120 groups aligned with the
Campaign for
Our Communities are touting Patrick's tax-and-investment goals,
including the governing boards of 16 communities such as Boston,
Springfield and Worcester as well as the Mass. Teachers Association,
the Mass. Coalition for the Homeless, and the Mass. Public Health
Association. The campaign plans a March 12 State House rally.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Gov’s bipolar economics
By Michael Graham
“I’m scared. I’m concerned.” — Gov. Deval Patrick on the impact of
sequestration budget cuts on Massachusetts.
Be afraid, governor. Be very afraid.
Because if you’re “scared” and “concerned” about the impact of a 2.4
percent cut in the federal budget on the Massachusetts economy, you
must be terrified over a $3 billion direct hit on Massachusetts
businesses and workers.
Hey, waitaminute — that $3 billion gross tax hike is your
idea, Deval. What gives?
Why is it that, as the Herald reported yesterday, “Patrick warned
(the sequester) could lead to a slowdown in the economy and to
crippling uncertainty in the private sector,” but hitting
Massachusetts with $3 billion in new income and gas taxes is no big
deal?
Yes, I know that Patrick is kicking back a billion of that tax money
with a cut in the sales tax, but that’s literally chump change —
people who don’t work pay sales taxes, so they get a tax cut paid
for by the chumps who punch the time clock every day.
But that’s a side issue. The real question is how liberals can argue
that a tiny cut in federal spending creates economic disaster, while
a huge gash in the Massachusetts private sector — $3 billion
transferred from your paycheck to Deval Patrick — is a great idea.
If you’re still not hip to Patrick’s hypocrisy, try this: Since
President Obama has been in office, the price of a gallon of gas has
gone up 100 percent. The result, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, is that the average household has gone
from spending around $2,000 a year on gasoline to almost $3,000.
Then there’s the ripple effect on the prices of goods and services
delivered by car and truck.
So if you’re faint of heart about economic impacts like our governor
is, the economic impact of higher gas prices should give you a case
of the vapors.
But is Patrick pushing for lower gasoline costs? Of course not. He’s
pushing an eternal, ever-rising “indexed-for-inflation” gas tax
hike so you can pay more.
Somehow cutting the National Park Service by a few pennies on the
dollar will cripple our local economy, but sucking millions out of
our gas tanks will create jobs.
It is true that Patrick has created a lot of good-paying jobs. The
number of state employees pulling down six figures is at an all-time
high. But he’s paying for it with billions in new taxes he’s already
signed into law, and billions more to come.
And we’re not talking “millionaires and billionaires” either.
Patrick’s proposed tax hike kicks in on Massachusetts families
earning around $40,000 a year.
I’d love it if some intrepid reporter would ask Patrick about his
bipolar economics (he has steadfastly refused to appear on my radio
show for seven years now). I’d like to hear him explain why less
money in government’s pocket leads to disaster, but less money in
your pocket is good times all around.
Alas, this is Massachusetts, where Democrats never have to explain
themselves. Where the media never does the math. Where voters who
collect are more than happy to vote themselves more money from the
pockets of those who earn.
“Scared,” Gov. Patrick? Like every productive taxpayer in
Massachusetts, I’m terrified.
Michael Graham hosts a
weekday talk show from noon to 3 p.m. on the New England
Talk Network.
The Telegram & Gazette
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Gov. Patrick: Public will 'warm up' to taxes
By John J. Monahan
Gov. Deval L. Patrick is working all sides to build support for his
plan to increase state income taxes and cut sales taxes, putting up
a
website Wednesday with maps showing local transportation and
school projects that would be funded with $1.9 billion in new state
revenue.
The website launch, which is a somewhat novel approach by a governor
trying to advance pending legislation, follows a series of talks
with business groups and community leaders by the governor and his
top aides making the case for the steep revenue hikes.
Mr. Patrick also ramped up his pitch for the tax plan at a closed
meeting with House Democratic leaders and distributed printed copies
of the local project maps broken down by legislative districts to
each representative and senator.
Mr. Patrick acknowledged lukewarm response by lawmakers and the
public since outlining the proposal in his budget last month. It
calls for raising the income tax from 5.25 to 6.25 percent and
lowering the sales tax from 6.25 to 4.5 percent.
But the governor said the merits of additional transportation and
education spending — and arguments for a generational responsibility
to do so — may still win out.
“I think it is natural and right for people to warm up slowly to tax
increases,” Mr. Patrick said. “People tend to like the part of the
proposal that cuts the sales tax, but less so, the part that raises
the income tax. It's totally natural, especially when the
expectation in the culture at large is that government wastes
money,” he said.
But he said the state has cut personnel, closed loopholes in
pensions and saved billions with reforms and cost-cutting in recent
years. More cost-cutting will not build new roads or schools, he
noted.
“We turn to taxes because roads and schools are the kind of things
we do together. We all have a stake in this,” Mr. Patrick said.
“This is about growing jobs and opportunity.”
The governor said he is not getting the sense that Democrats in the
Legislature are ruling out the tax hike plan, and some of the
state's business leaders expect some form of tax hikes from the
Legislature this year.
House and Senate Democratic leaders have not said where they stand
on tax hikes this year, but have yet to embrace the governor's
proposal.
William Vernon, state director for the National Federation of
Independent Businesses, said a survey of some of that group's 8,000
members in the state found 92 percent opposed to the proposal.
Mr. Vernon said the state's small businesses pay the bulk of their
taxes through the income tax.
“They are overwhelmingly opposed to the governor's plan,” he said.
“If you are talking about raising the income tax rate, that is
coming right out of their pockets and coming out of their business,
from their point of view.”
Mr. Vernon said businesses in the state already feel they pay a lot
for schools and transportation compared to other states and are
skeptical about how new tax revenue would be spent.
He said some of the transportation plans including development of
new commuter rail lines are “pie in the sky, dream world stuff.”
Still Mr. Vernon said, “I think they are going to enact some taxes.
That is what I expect to happen. I have to be realistic.”
The governor said he believes the public has not “fully appreciated”
that only those making more than $60,000 would see their taxes go
up.
“If you make $60,000 or less your taxes under this plan, total
taxes, would either stay the same or go down. If you make $60,000 to
$100,000 your total taxes would go up a couple hundred bucks,” the
governor said.
The website features maps of the state broken down into the 200
House and Senate districts that show transportation and school
projects that may be funded if the tax increase is approved.
“The site will enable everybody to see what we get for these
investments and to some extent what we give up if we choose not to
invest. The choice is ours,” Mr. Patrick said.
Mr. Patrick's website is
www.mass.gov/governor/choosegrowth.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Some Dems tell Deval Patrick to take hike over $1.9B plan
By Chris Cassidy and Erin Smith
Fearful of an Election Day reckoning, skittish Democrats say they
aren’t buying Gov. Deval Patrick’s latest sales pitch for his
proposed $1.9 billion tax hike: a new website that spells out the
taxpayer largesse he’s promising for their districts.
One rep even suggested Patrick brush up on his history.
“I explained the election of 1990 to the governor,” said state Rep.
John Binienda (D-Worcester), referring to the year dozens of
Democratic lawmakers were booted after party power brokers backed
the largest tax increase in state history. “The governor’s not
coming back. He’s finishing off his term and he’s gone. I don’t know
how many people he’s going to get to fall on their sword for him.”
Patrick rolled out the website yesterday, complete with 400 maps
that purport to show how much new education and transportation
revenue would flood into each of their Senate and House districts if
lawmakers vote to approve the governor’s massive tax and fee hikes.
“The first thing my constituents want to see is that we continue to
reform programs like EBT,” said Tom Golden (D-Lowell). “I don’t
believe my constituents are anywhere near accepting of a tax
increase yet. I think we need to continue to let him sell his plan.”
A day earlier, Patrick held a closed-door meeting in the Corner
Office with about 15 reluctant Democratic lawmakers and tried to
convince them to support his plan.
Binienda left the confab unswayed.
“The people I represent are not rich people, and they’re watching
every dime they have,” Binienda said. “Look at the price of
gasoline. ... Now he’s messing around with the gas tax.”
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, who has yet to embrace the governor’s
proposal, remained skeptical, even after seeing the new funds
members would get for schools and road repair in their districts.
“The maps Governor Patrick distributed today are one more thing for
the House to consider as it evaluates his ambitious and complex set
of changes to our state’s tax policies,” spokesman Seth Gitell said.
Patrick rejected the idea he’s losing the Beacon Hill battle with
his own party.
“Nope. I’m not,” he said. “Legislators also see people want more
transportation, not less. They want grade schools for everybody, not
inadequate schools.”
A Patrick spokeswoman said the Tuesday meeting was a “general
conversation” about the governor’s plan.
“He’s been meeting with various groups of legislators on the plan
since he announced it to make the case for these investments,”
spokeswoman Heather Johnson said, “and this was just another of the
opportunities for him.”
Meanwhile, small business owners are mobilizing against the tax
hikes.
“Our small business owners obviously think education and
transportation are important. There’s no argument there. But the
argument is, ‘Don’t we already pay enough?’” said Bill Vernon,
Massachusetts director of the National Federation of Independent
Business.
The group, which represents roughly 8,000 small businesses in
Massachusetts, just surveyed its members and found 92 percent oppose
the tax hikes.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 28, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
Deval the dreamer
Gov. Deval Patrick, clearly finding his $1.9 billion tax hike
proposal a tough sell to both the public and the Legislature, has
devised a new tool to illustrate just how wisely the new revenue
will be “invested.” It’s a series of maps, drawn by legislative
district, to help the public understand the apparently life-altering
impact that new funding for transportation and education will have.
But sometimes, well — a tax hike is really just a tax hike.
And if Patrick thinks he can win the hearts of struggling taxpayers
by highlighting a few extra bucks for schools, or money for road
resurfacing and bridge repairs that are already government’s
fundamental obligation, he may be in for a rude awakening.
Surely that is why Patrick is upping the rhetorical ante, too — in a
letter addressed “Dear friends” he calls for investing more in
transportation and public schools in the context of previous
generations’ calls to create a public education system, build a
transcontinental railroad, even to free the slaves and allow women
to vote.
Patrick insists that people tell him over and over that they want
“more” from the transportation and education systems — they just
haven’t “warmed” to the idea of a tax increase to pay for it. He
seems willfully ignorant of the reasons that people lack that warm
and fuzzy feeling.
Could it be because the state spends billions more every year than
it did the year before, while continuing to fall behind in its most
basic obligations? Could it be because hard-working taxpayers are
weary of the elected leaders’ refrain — that more is never enough?
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Instead of rail, make tracks to N.H.
By Howie Carr
If you absolutely, positively had to get somewhere by a certain
time, who would you trust more to get you there?
Fung Wah Bus or Gov. Deval Patrick?
Say what you will about Fung Wah, it’s Dreaded Private Sector, not
some spoiled hack who’s had everything in his life handed to him.
And a trip on Fung Wah costs 15 bucks. Does anyone doubt that
Deval’s preposterous Fall River-to-Boston high-speed rail will come
in for less than $2 billion?
Which is why I suspect that Deval is going to have a problem putting
across his “legacy” plan to become America’s next railroad baron.
The headline on his new website is “Choosing Growth in Our
Communities.”
Surely he meant to say, “Choosing Taxes in Our Communities.”
Not that Deval has an inflated opinion of his own proposed
boondoggle.
“When we decided settling the west was important, we built the
transcontinental railroad.”
He’s comparing the Pittsfield-to-New York line to the
transcontinental railroad? At least he got the name right, though.
His very brilliant mentor, Barack Obama, has been known to refer to
the “intercontinental railroad.” Isn’t a Harvard education great?
“Earlier this year, the lieutenant governor and I laid out a plan to
prepare for a better future.”
Nice to include Crash Murray in there. Of course the only plan Tiny
Tim is laying out right now is one to avoid going to Club Fed, once
his dear friend, convicted felon Mike McLaughlin, begins singing to
the grand jury.
“Many people ask, how will this plan help me?”
It helps you if you think you have too much money. Because once
Deval starts taking care of the don’t-kill-the-job trade unions
growing rich off their Davis-Bacon so-called prevailing wages on
these never-to-be-completed rail projects, your wallet will be
lighter. A lot lighter.
Why do we need better public transportation, Deval?
“Police and firefighters need it to get to emergencies.”
Police and other first responders riding to 911 calls on the T? If
that’s the future in Massachusetts, my suggestion is, buy a gun. And
a fire extinguisher.
It won’t cost much, of course. The income tax will “only” go up from
5.25 percent to 6.25 percent. Maybe that’s the real legacy Deval’s
looking for — to beggar working people by jacking up the income tax
rate to Dukakis-era levels.
What I don’t understand is, if these new railroads are such a good
“investment in the future,” why don’t we let private companies bid
on them, like we’re doing with casinos? Surely they’ll see what a
gold mine it will be, running empty trains back and forth from
Boston to Bristol County.
Hey, Deval, you want to improve transportation in this state? I’ll
tell you what we really need. Six-lane highways north, to New
Hampshire, so we can get the hell out of this state, first for
tax-free shopping, and finally, forever.
In the meantime, Fung Wah forever!
The Boston Herald
Friday, March 1, 2013
Gov budget backers to
target pols
By Chris Cassidy
A coalition of public sector unions, town politicians and other
supporters of Gov. Deval Patrick’s $1.9 billion tax proposal plan to
rally at the State House later this month, hoping to convince
skeptical lawmakers to go along with hiking taxes and fees to fund
education and transportation improvements.
“The goal of the rally is to speak to as many legislators as we can
to express our support for additional revenue to invest in important
programs and communities across Massachusetts — transportation,
education and health care,” said Stephen Crawford of Campaign for
Our Communities.
Behind the lobbying day are a group of more than 100 organizations,
including the Massachusetts Teachers Association, AFSCME Council 93
and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, as well as a number of city councils
and boards of selectmen across the Bay State.
They plan to rally March 12 and lobby Beacon Hill politicians, who
are
becoming increasingly skittish about Patrick’s tax-hike plan,
noting they have to run for re-election in two years and he doesn’t.
Patrick has been holding private meetings in the Corner Office with
lawmakers and launched a glitzy new web site Wednesday, complete
with 400 maps to illustrate how much new aid would flow into each
House and Senate district. House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo has said he
has “grave concerns” about the plan. |
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
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