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CLT UPDATE
Friday, April 5, 2013
Bacon Hill Pols: Are They Suicidal?
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Adding a major new dimension to what’s turning
into a full-fledged tax fight with the Legislature, Gov. Deval
Patrick said Thursday he would veto a $500 million tax plan unveiled
earlier this week by legislative leaders.
Patrick is seeking new taxes to pay for $1
billion in transportation system investments, but House Speaker
Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray this week said
their $500 million plan is more considerate to taxpayers given the
current state of the economy and addresses the state's most pressing
transportation needs.
Asked if he would veto the bill, Patrick said at
a press conference he called Thursday, “I am saying that if this
bill comes to my desk in this form, I am going to have to.” ...
While [Senate President Therese] Murray has
explicitly asserted a desire by legislative leaders to protect the
middle class from the impact of the tax bill, Patrick said Thursday,
““Let’s be clear the leadership proposal taxes the middle class.”
...
The House is scheduled to begin debate Monday on
a tax bill that critics from the left say will not generate enough
revenue and which has drawn harsh criticism from Republicans opposed
to taxes they say are unaffordable.
With the veto threat on the table, DeLeo and
Murray will need to decide whether to stick with their plan or
whether modify it, with each move potentially building support for
the bill or causing more lawmakers to oppose it. It takes a majority
vote to pass the bill but a two thirds vote in each branch to
override a veto.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Patrick threatens veto of trans-tax bill, calls it a "fiscal shell
game"
Governor Deval Patrick swiped back at legislators
Thursday, threatening to veto the less ambitious transportation
revenue proposal put forth by the two branches in what is amounting
to an increasingly public and pointed fight among state leaders.
Patrick, in a 35-minute State House news
conference, went so far as to intimate that House Speaker Robert A.
DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray were refusing to
compromise with a governor of their own party....
DeLeo was anything but contrite in the hours
after Patrick’s appearance. He disputed Patrick’s assertions that
the legislators’ smaller transportation package would cost residents
more money in the long run.
“I think arithmetic will show that our plan is
more responsive to the needs of the middle class,” DeLeo said. “It’s
not the House and the Senate plan that’s talking about the increase
in the income tax.”
The back and forth was the rawest exchange in the
often uneasy relationships between Patrick, DeLeo, and Murray, in a
return to the biting, often personality-driven disputes in the past.
The Boston Globe
Friday, April 5, 2013
Patrick rips rival transit package
After hearing Gov. Deval Patrick threaten to veto
what he called a “pretend fix” to the state’s transportation system
deficiencies, House Speaker Robert DeLeo defended the Democratic
legislative leadership’s proposal to raise $500 million in new taxes
as a plan that, unlike the governor’s, spares the middle class from
a major tax hike.
“Just the contrary, what this plan does actually
is to make sure we’re taking care of or addressing the issue of
transportation while at the same time not putting a bigger burden on
families or business that the governor’s plan would put on,” DeLeo
told reporters outside his office on Wednesday....
“Let’s be clear. The leadership proposal taxes
the middle class,” Patrick said, later adding, “It’s a fiction to
claim somehow this bill avoids new taxes.” ...
The governor and his staff would not speculate on
whether they could muster support in the House or the Senate to
sustain a veto, but the possibility exists that the leaders in
either branches could fail to rally the two-thirds margin needed to
overturn Patrick’s rejection of the financing plan as written. Under
that scenario, no bill would pass....
The speaker said people are “fiscally concerned”
about the governor’s planned elimination of deductions, and also
reiterated concerns raised by bond rating agencies about the
governor’s overreliance on income tax revenue, a multi-year
borrowing plan and a drawdown from the rainy day fund.
“It’s not the House and the Senate plan that is
talking about the increase to the income tax. It’s not the House and
the Senate plan that is talking about elimination of many of the
deductions that people presently get, whether they be for education,
whether they be for the selling of the home..,” DeLeo said.
“We’re trying to protect the middle class. That
is I think one of the major differences of the two plans,” DeLeo
said.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Patrick rips $500 mil tax plan as "pretend fix" for transportation
system
Beacon Hill Democrats yesterday already were
trying to line up enough votes to override a threatened veto of
their
$500 million tax plan, blasted as a Big Dig-style “shell
game” by a frustrated Gov. Deval Patrick, even as his own $1.9
billion tax proposal appeared to be headed for the trash bin.
“I’m pretty clear on where my district is,” said
state Rep. Joseph Wagner (D-Chicopee). “I’m also pretty clear that
the votes simply don’t exist in numbers sufficient to pass a nearly
$2 billion tax
increase. ... There’s a difference between where the
governor would like the Legislature to be and where the Legislature
is comfortable they have the votes to be.”
All indications yesterday were that Patrick’s
plan was drifting away from him, as House lawmakers planned to vote
on their own proposal as early as Monday....
A fired-up Patrick blasted House Speaker Robert
A. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray’s proposal yesterday in
what could go down as a last-ditch effort to save his fledgling
legacy program....
“We’re trying to protect the middle class,” DeLeo
said. “I think that’s one of the major differences between the two
plans.”
Leaders of two Boston think tanks — the Pioneer
Institute and the Beacon Hill Institute — both told the Herald that
Patrick’s plan doesn’t cut it.
“The governor’s plan is essentially a pretend
plan,” said Jim Stergios of Pioneer. “It builds a lot of new things,
but it doesn’t really pull in the cost of new things.”
David Tuerck of Beacon Hill said Patrick’s plan
was never
serious to begin with.
“I have no idea where he got the idea he could
pull that off,” Tuerck said. “He’s a short-timer now. Even if they
are a Democratically controlled Legislature, they’re not suicidal.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 5, 2013
Dems try to line up votes for override
Yesterday, the Governor bragged that no one lost
re-election when he slammed us with the sales tax increase. Is he
being forgetful or dishonest? After the sales tax increase,
Republicans doubled their numbers in the House. Oops. I guess there
are Deval's statements and then the facts!
What are these tax increases paying for in
reality? You are funding the Governor's mismanagement. The crime lab
is costing us $332 million. Welfare fraud is over $100 million.
We don't need tax hikes. We need a new Governor.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 4, 2013
$500 million tax payback
By Holly Robichaud
We can’t help but notice how Beacon Hill
lawmakers continue to forget how voters react to tax increases....
“Harkening back to 2009, the last time the
Legislature voted for a major tax hike raising the sales tax to 6.25
percent, Patrick said not only did he win re-election in 2010, but,
‘Not one of the people who voted for that sales tax increase lost
their seat,’” the [State House] News Service reported....
The News Service story continued, “In the 2010
election, House Republicans actually picked up 16 seats, defeating
12 incumbent Democrats, including nine who voted for the sales tax
increase. Reps. William Bowles, Geraldo Alicea, Steven D’Amico,
James Fagan, Mark Falzone, Danielle Gregoire, Barbara L’Italien,
Allen McCarthy and Matthew Patrick all supported the tax increase
and lost.”
A Salem News editorial
Friday, April 5, 2013
On taxes, how soon they forget
As Gov. Deval Patrick and Democratic
legislative leaders locked horns in a major dispute over new
taxes, House Republicans on Thursday called for leaner budgets
in other areas of state government to free up existing tax
dollars to devote to transportation.
On the heels of a $500 million tax proposal
offered by leaders of the Democratic majority in the
Legislature, House Minority Leader Bradley Jones said it is
possible to dedicate $500 million for transportation by fiscal
year 2016 without raising taxes....
[House Minority Leader Bradley] Jones did not
detail where the cuts would come from, but Republican leaders
have repeatedly identified places they think there could be
savings, including EBT reforms, revamping welfare benefits
eligibility, and revenues from uncollected legal fees from
indigent clients represented by public defenders....
In another bid for savings, Republicans also
called for the repeal of a law imposing requirements before the
state can privatize services delivery and the elimination of
project labor agreements. Supporters say taxpayers are assured
of quality work due to such agreements and the so-called Pacheco
law....
The GOP plan also projects the state could
allocate $51 million from future gaming revenues, $11 million
from Massachusetts Port Authority contributions, $10 million
from Convention Center Authority payments and $57 million from
projected increased fares....
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr
(R-Gloucester) praised the House Republicans’ plan, saying the
Senate GOP will focus on the same principles when crafting its
own solution to the problem.
“Today’s events on Beacon Hill clearly
illustrate the situation we’re in,” Tarr said in a statement.
“Governor Patrick has proven that not even $500 million will
satisfy his appetite for tax increases, and a new Republican
plan proves that transportation needs can be addressed without
massive increases in taxing and spending. What’s important now
is to hear from the people who pay the bills through taxes,
fares, and fees, and they deserve an opportunity for that to
happen.”
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Spending cuts part of House GOP's tax-free path to transpo $$$
After the Legislature extracted $300 million
in local road funding from the larger question of new revenues
to pay for transportation, Gov. Deval Patrick nudged the road
funding back into the tax debate by questioning whether revenues
proposed by the Legislature would cover the increase.
“We’ll have to take a look at the numbers and
see what that means,” Senate Transportation Chairman Tom McGee
(D-Lynn) told the News Service....
“There’s a lot of plans that are out there. I
think the discussion will continue,” McGee said. While he
declined to give his initial read on specific criticisms, McGee
said they were being considered. He said, “I’ll continue to look
at some of the criticisms of the plan that was proposed the
other day.”
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Senate transpo chief will look at criticisms
Tuesday could not have been the best of days
for the tax-and-spend wing of the Democratic Party.
First, leaders in the state House and Senate
came together before lunch to essentially reject Gov. Deval
Patrick’s plan to raise $1.9 billion in new taxes to spend on
transportation and education issues, instead offering a
relatively less expensive option of their own.
Then, that night, Peabody voters turned aside
two political mainstays to elect Republican Leah Cole, a
24-year-old nurse making her first run for office. Cole, a
relative unknown in Peabody, focused her campaign on opposing
tax increases and fighting government waste.
The fact, however, is this: Cole won, and her
promise to fight higher taxes resonated with residents still
struggling to make ends meet.
A Salem News editorial
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Sending a message on taxes
While Governor Patrick’s $1.9 billion
transportation, education, and tax-reform plan was sure to be a
hard sell in the Legislature, lawmakers should take the
far-reaching package as a basis for a productive negotiation.
Instead, House and Senate leaders gave Patrick’s strategy the
stiff arm Tuesday, unveiling a counterproposal that focuses
solely on transportation — but, over the long term, doesn’t
accomplish enough even in that one area....
Half a billion dollars may sound like a lot,
but it doesn’t meet the long-term challenges Patrick laid out —
neither the promise of advancing early-childhood education for
low-income kids, nor making higher education more affordable,
nor addressing the state’s transportation needs in a
comprehensive way. Obviously, lawmakers feel that a combination
of smaller tax increases will sit better with the electorate
than a hike in the income tax. But over time, this limited
approach could do more to breed cynicism about government than a
larger revenue hike; it perpetuates the sense that lawmakers
will constantly reach into voters’ pockets for more money while
providing faltering and inadequate services....
Far better to bite the bullet this year, and
begin addressing the state’s needs in a way that would build
confidence in state government — showing taxpayers that they
actually get more when they pay more....
But lawmakers should recognize that a rare
opportunity to make crucial investments is passing them by.
Patrick has made the case that a combination of tax hikes and
investments will improve the state’s competitiveness, and polls
suggest voters are open to a modestly higher income tax. The
confluence of a Legislature and governor willing to bring in new
revenues comes along rarely. Both need to make the most of the
current political climate.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Legislature’s tax plan lets opportunity pass
Describing the housing market as “more
stable” since the height of the foreclosure crisis, the Patrick
administration’s top housing official on Thursday asked
lawmakers to support a four-year $567 million spending program
that he said will both create affordable housing and jobs.
“The construction of affordable housing leads
to direct jobs and we have created 17,000 jobs through our
programs since 2007,” said Aaron Gornstein, undersecretary for
housing and economic development.
Gornstein testified Thursday before the Joint
Committee on Housing at a hearing on Gov. Deval Patrick’s
housing bond bill. The committee was also taking testimony on a
similar five-year, $1 billion housing bond bill filed by the
committee’s chairmen, Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and Rep.
Kevin Honan (D-Boston)....
Clark Ziegler, director of the Massachusetts
Housing Partnership, said economic recovery has not alleviated
the need for new affordable housing, citing Census data that
showed 160,000 “extremely low-income” families in Massachusetts
unable to find housing through the private market.
“The need has never been greater, so don’t
let anyone tell you otherwise,” Ziegler told lawmakers.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Activists cite continuing demand in push for major spending on
housing
One of the two companies competing to provide
Greater Boston’s commuter rail service is threatening to drop
out if the MBTA does not provide key information by Friday,
potentially leaving the state with only one bidder for the
largest contract in Massachusetts history.
The MBTA had promised to create an even
playing field in the competition for the $1 billion-plus
commuter rail contract, even though one of the bidders,
Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail, currently runs the system and
has close personal ties to state transportation leadership.
But the only other bidder, Keolis America
Inc., said that Mass Bay has not turned over to the MBTA crucial
information on the railroad’s huge labor costs, making it
impossible for Keolis to complete its bid and undermining the
MBTA’s promise of fairness....
Alan Eisner, a Keolis spokesman, said the
firm has received what it considers unacceptable responses to
104 of its 133 requests for information. He said some of the
information provided to date has been of little use because it
is in Spanish or in a computer format that makes it nearly
impossible to work with.
“What they have given us is either no
information, partial information, or grossly out-of-date
information,” he said. “It’s an overall pattern of going out of
their way to obstruct our ability to make a rationale bid. We’re
hoping something can be worked out in short order. We want to
stay in, but without the proper information we can’t do it.” ...
“We can only conclude that [Mass Bay] is
deliberately withholding this information” to hurt Keolis’s
chances of taking over the rail service next year, according to
a March 27 letter to the MBTA from Astrid Stumpf, Keolis’s
commuter rail project manager....
Keolis originally entered the bidding for
commuter rail service, knowing that Mass
Bay appeared to be on the inside track if only due to Mass Bay’s
superior knowledge gained from running the system since 2003.
Mass Bay, which has
collected more than $1 billion in fees from running the commuter
rail, was founded by James O’Leary, a former MBTA general
manager with deep local connections, including mentoring Richard
A. Davey, the state’s transportation secretary. Davey has
abstained from involvement in the selection process.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 4, 2013
MBTA could have 1 bidder for $1 billion rail contract
There’s just never enough taxpayer money for
the Patrick administration to throw at its pet projects.
So how predictable was it that just as
legislative leaders whittled the governor’s proposed $2 billion
tax hike down to a mere $500 million, an administration
official would be sent out to make the case that we are simply
doomed without that big dip into taxpayers’ wallets? ...
He also suggested that “if insufficient
revenues to address this gap are not advanced” there might be
weight restrictions on bridges and Registry offices closed — and
that’s with, let’s not forget, $500 million in new revenue.
Taxpayers who were told repeatedly that
federal sequestration would mean fired teachers, unsafe food and
long airport lines have every right to be skeptical when state
officials try to play the same game.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, April 5, 2013
‘Doomed’ on taxes
Finally, some good news out of the State
House — the Democratic Legislature and the Democratic governor
are throwing roundhouses at one another.
As they used to say about the Iran-Iraq war,
Isn’t there some way they can both lose?
Unfortunately, no. Here’s the dispute in a
nutshell: Gov. Deval Patrick wants to extract $1.9 billion from
the working classes. The legislative leadership says “only” $500
million will suffice. For now.
As the governor said yesterday of the general
court’s tax hike: “Everybody pays more and gets less.”
Deval’s plan is that everybody pays more and
more and more and gets less....
Deval immediately dusted off his pal Obama’s
sequester playbook. The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Take
hostages! Obama says, Give me the money or the cancer patients
get it! Deval says, Give me the money or the T gets it!
DeLeo said, “Our plan is more responsive to
the needs of the middle class.”
That’s exactly the problem, as far as Deval
is concerned. He wants to raise the income tax, which is a
burden on people who work, in order to cut the sales tax, which
is paid even by Deval’s EBT-cardholders.
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 5, 2013
Pols’ tax battle not free for all
By Howie Carr
No one likes paying taxes, but the state’s
gas tax hasn’t been raised in many years, and doing so in this
way still leaves Massachusetts’ rate below that of some of its
neighboring states. A 3-cent hike also recognizes that
over-reliance on the tax makes no sense as vehicles become more
efficient in the years ahead. And, by accounting for inflation,
the plan would remove a divisive political issue.
We wish lawmakers and Mr. Patrick alike would
apply similar reasoning to a proposal to hike the cigarette tax
by $1 a pack. Cigarette taxes do help discourage a habit that is
costly to individuals’ wallets and both personal and public
health.
But raising the tax too high leaves the state
overly dependent upon revenue that it should, in theory, want to
eliminate....
It leaves current income and sales tax rates
alone. While we favor returning both rates to 5 percent, Mr.
Patrick’s proposal to increase the rate on income while dropping
that on sales increases the state budget’s reliance on
upper-income earners and introduces greater volatility into the
budget process.
Overall, lawmakers have shown admirable
leadership and moderation in fashioning a sound alternative to
Mr. Patrick’s big-ticket vision of government. Their plan is
hardly an austerity budget, but it shows greater respect for Bay
State taxpayers, and a firmer grasp of the financial realities
we all face.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Friday, April 5, 2013
Budget, plan B
Legislators have clear alternative
The Telegram & Gazette
Friday, April 5, 2013
Editorial Cartoon By David Hitch
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
A lot is happening quickly on Beacon Hill, in
just the past day or two. Governor Patrick is sputtering with
indignation over the Legislature's cavalier rejection of his
long-touted transformation of Bay State tax policy, for which he and
his administration have campaigned
relentlessly for months across the state.
On Monday the Massachusetts House of
Representatives is expected to begin debate and to vote soon after
on its $500 million tax hikes package. Gov. Patrick has vowed to
veto the bill as proposed if it passes the House and Senate and
reaches him.
As Howie Carr wrote: "As they used to say about the Iran-Iraq war,
Isn’t there some way they can both lose?"
In the Senate, Transportation Committee
Chairman Sen. Tom McGee (D-Lynn) told the News Service, “There’s a lot of plans that are out there. I
think the discussion will continue. I’ll continue to look
at some of the criticisms of the plan that was proposed the
other day.”
One of those plans that should be
discussed has been drafted by the House Republican minority; it
would commit $500 million for transportation by fiscal year 2016
without raising taxes whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the blind to reality
tax-borrow-and-spenders are demanding more, more, more
— from Gov. Patrick to "advocates" for
low-income housing. The Patrick administration’s top housing
official is seeking an additional $567 million to create "affordable
housing" and the requisite shibboleth, "jobs." Even that's
not enough new spending for some of the more extreme of the
extremists. Joint Committee on Housing chairmen Sen. Jamie Eldridge
(D-Acton) and Rep. Kevin Honan (D-Boston) would rather spend $1
billion more that we don't have over five years on further state
government housing expansion.
All this transportation crisis response, last
year's promise of "reform over revenue" now in the rearview mirror
in a rush to hike taxes even more, but nothing's changed in the
Bacon Hill culture. While the schizophrenic Boston Globe
editorializes for more, more, more taxes and spending, its
investigative team on the reportage side of the paper exposes yet
more cronyism. In the ongoing bidding competition for a $1 billion-plus
commuter rail contract, it's now almost down to just one:
Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail. That one has collected over $1
billion for running the system.
"Coincidentally," I suppose, Massachusetts Bay
Commuter Rail was founded by James O'Leary, "a former MBTA general
manager with deep local connections, including mentoring Richard
A. Davey, the state’s transportation secretary," according to
the Globe. A little cronyism there maybe? Nah, not here: The state
just needs a little more "revenue" to bail out its transportation
system, and nobody at the State House has a more original solution
than more tax increases.
Lameduck Gov. Patrick may call ripping off
middle-class taxpayers to support his constituency of layabouts
"courageous," but as David Tuerck of the Beacon Hill noted, “I have no idea where he got the idea he could
pull that off. He’s a short-timer now. Even if they
are a Democratically controlled Legislature, they’re not suicidal.”
After the sales tax was hiked from 5% to 6.25%,
in 2010 twelve Democrat incumbents in the Legislature were trounced
by Republican challengers, including nine who voted for that tax
hike: Reps. William Bowles, Geraldo Alicea, Steven D’Amico,
James Fagan, Mark Falzone, Danielle Gregoire, Barbara L’Italien,
Allen McCarthy and Matthew Patrick. The Republicans picked up an
additional four seats in that election as well.
Already Republicans have added one more state
representative to their rank in Tuesday's special election.
Peabody's Leah Cole was elected on her clear message of no new taxes
and cutting government waste, fraud, and abuse. This should
act as the canary in the coal mine on Beacon Hill.
$500 million isn't as much as $1.9 billion
— but it's still more we can't
afford that will be taken from our own diminished family
budgets.
If our representatives in the House and Senate
can't comprehend our dire day-to-day struggle, our adamant
resistance to handing more of the little we have left over to them,
if they go ahead and take even more from us —
history will likely repeat itself on Election Day 2014, and none too
soon. Taxpayers across the Commonwealth have reached a financial
breaking point. Even low-information voters will be feeling
the pain — and the desperation
— by then. They may not know why
or how it happened, but they'll be energized to "throw the bums
out."
Our job will be to inform and remind them who
those bums are — and why those
incumbents need to be turned out into the private sector for a taste
of their own medicine.
Let's hope our senators and representatives
recognize history and the taxpayers' deepening struggle, before
mistakenly committing political suicide and taking us down with
themselves.
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State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Patrick threatens veto of trans-tax bill, calls it a "fiscal shell
game"
By Michael Norton and Matt Murphy
Adding a major new dimension to what’s turning into a full-fledged
tax fight with the Legislature, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday he
would veto a $500 million tax plan unveiled earlier this week by
legislative leaders.
Patrick is seeking new taxes to pay for $1 billion in transportation
system investments, but House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate
President Therese Murray this week said their $500 million plan is
more considerate to taxpayers given the current state of the economy
and addresses the state's most pressing transportation needs.
Asked if he would veto the bill, Patrick said at a press conference
he called Thursday, “I am saying that if this bill comes to my desk
in this form, I am going to have to.”
He later added, “I understand that if the legislative leadership
wants this bill they will have this bill and they will have my
veto.” He said he did not know whether he would have the votes to
see his veto sustained.
Patrick’s more comprehensive tax plan is built on a major income tax
hike and a major sales tax reduction and features a long menu of
other tax code changes that lawmakers have shown little interest in
advancing. The DeLeo-Murray plan leans on cigarette and tobacco,
gasoline and business taxes to pull in revenue designed to avert
near-term MBTA fare hikes, stop paying for personnel with bond
funds, and to shore up regional transit authorities.
Transportation Secretary Richard Davey on Wednesday predicted the
DeLeo-Murray plan, if adopted, would force higher transportation
fares, fees and tolls and could require the state to pick up the
full cost of the $1.3 billion Green Line extension, a project state
officials hope will be funded with a 50-50 state/federal funding
split.
Senate President Therese Murray on Thursday disputed the
administration’s claims about higher fares.
“Nope, they’re not on the table. That’s very clear,” Murray told the
News Service. “I know the spin is being put out there. It’s
absolutely not true. We made sure that they would not have to hike
fares.”
Patrick has touted his plan as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to
address longstanding funding gaps, but Murray defended her own
proposal Thursday. “It is something we can do now. It won’t bankrupt
people, and it makes a good investment with our future
transportation,” she said.
While Murray has explicitly asserted a desire by legislative leaders
to protect the middle class from the impact of the tax bill, Patrick
said Thursday, ““Let’s be clear the leadership proposal taxes the
middle class.”
Calling the DeLeo-Murray plan a “fiscal shell game,” Patrick said it
would not lead to the type of system improvements that lawmakers
could cite as a rationale for tax votes. “The bill at $500 million
means everybody everywhere will be asked to pay more and get the
same or less,” he said.
The House is scheduled to begin debate Monday on a tax bill that
critics from the left say will not generate enough revenue and which
has drawn harsh criticism from Republicans opposed to taxes they say
are unaffordable.
With the veto threat on the table, DeLeo and Murray will need to
decide whether to stick with their plan or whether modify it, with
each move potentially building support for the bill or causing more
lawmakers to oppose it. It takes a majority vote to pass the bill
but a two thirds vote in each branch to override a veto.
Another high-stakes showdown between Patrick and legislative leaders
in 2010 led to the failure of legislation authorizing casinos in
Massachusetts. Patrick and lawmakers in late 2011 found common
ground on casinos and passed a legalization bill, although state
regulators are still far from awarding any casino licenses.
Throughout his tenure as governor, Patrick and legislative leaders
have been unable to agree on a plan to infuse the transportation
system with a major influx of new dollars, which system supporters
say is needed to address crumbling infrastructure, antiquated trains
and to spur rail service expansion and economic growth.
Patrick does not plan to seek reelection next year, a fact not lost
on lawmakers who through history have proven more likely to work
with governors who have no plans to move on than with lame-duck
chief executives.
House members have until 5 p.m. Friday to file amendments to the
proposal. The House on Wednesday rejected a call from Republicans
for a public hearing on their bill. Patrick on Thursday also called
for a hearing on the bill.
The Boston Globe
Friday, April 5, 2013
Patrick rips rival transit package
By Martine Powers
Governor Deval Patrick swiped back at legislators Thursday,
threatening to veto the less ambitious transportation revenue
proposal put forth by the two branches in what is amounting to an
increasingly public and pointed fight among state leaders.
Patrick, in a 35-minute State House news conference, went so far as
to intimate that House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President
Therese Murray were refusing to compromise with a governor of their
own party.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who can say we have not bent over
backwards,” Patrick said, sounding astonished. “It takes two to
engage. It takes two parties to reach a deal, not just me coming in
and talking to them.”
He added, “If it comes to me in the current form . . . I’m going to
have to veto it,” Patrick said. “It won’t be a surprise to the
members of the Legislature.”
DeLeo was anything but contrite in the hours after Patrick’s
appearance. He disputed Patrick’s assertions that the legislators’
smaller transportation package would cost residents more money in
the long run.
“I think arithmetic will show that our plan is more responsive to
the needs of the middle class,” DeLeo said. “It’s not the House and
the Senate plan that’s talking about the increase in the income
tax.”
The back and forth was the rawest exchange in the often uneasy
relationships between Patrick, DeLeo, and Murray, in a return to the
biting, often personality-driven disputes in the past.
The $500 million transportation finance bill proposed by House and
Senate Democrats, which would raise gas, tobacco, and
business-related taxes to increase funding for transportation needs,
was significantly more limited than a proposal Patrick made in
January that called for major investments in current transit systems
and new transportation projects.
Patrick said the conversations he had with legislators in recent
weeks about a compromise on his ambitious plan were one-sided. After
the press conference, he added that he had not heard from either the
House or Senate leaders since their announcement Tuesday.
The plan announced by House and Senate leaders would raise the state
gas tax by 3 cents, then index the rate to inflation beginning in
2015. The bill also included an additional tax on tobacco products,
which would raise $165 million annually, as well as $244 million in
business-related taxes.
Patrick’s plan called for $1.9 billion annually in transportation
and education funding, which he proposed could come from raising the
income tax by 1 percent while cutting the sales tax by 1.75 percent.
The House-Senate plan garnered vehement criticism from all corners,
with transportation advocates calling the proposal too small to
elicit tangible improvements. Republicans blasted the bill for
failing to require transportation agencies to cut costs, and
criticizing Democrats for not holding a public hearing to discuss
the bill.
“The decision to force a massive tax hike on working families
without their input is pure one-party rule run amok and is an insult
to taxpayers,” said Kirsten Hughes, chairwoman of the state
Republican Party.
Even as Patrick hopes for a compromise, he has set plans in motion
to halt previously approved infrastructure projects in an effort to
preserve transportation money, a measure that he said was made
necessary by the Legislature’s current plan.
In a memo sent Thursday from Patrick to Richard A. Davey, secretary
of transportation, and the heads of several other state departments,
the governor called on the administrators to prepare a plan, due in
30 days, listing capital projects that could be eliminated or
postponed.
“While the process of reaching final legislation is ongoing, we
should be prepared to curtail current transportation, business
development, environmental, recreational and other infrastructure
investments should the Legislature’s proposal carry the day,”
Patrick’s memo read.
At Thursday’s press conference, Patrick provided a long list of his
objections to the legislators’ bill, saying he believes their plan
would prompt steep MBTA fare increases in coming years, and lead to
decaying roads and bridges and a diminished quality of public
transit throughout the region.
Patrick pointed to recent instances that he called evidence of the
need for more transportation funding, including a Red Line train
that ran with an open door this week, and a piece of concrete
supporting an elevated section of Interstate 91 that came loose in
Springfield on Wednesday.
“From what we can tell, everybody pays more and gets less,” Patrick
said.
“This is a return to an old way of doing business,” he continued.
“It’s the same short-term fiscal shell game that got us the Big Dig
and the mess that followed.”
Patrick said he was not certain that there would be enough votes in
the House and Senate to prevent legislators from overriding his
veto.
He chuckled when asked whether he felt he had been blind-sided by
the Legislature’s significant departure from his proposal. He said
he was surprised when he received a summary of the bill one hour
before it was announced, and suggested that he had communicated with
legislators in recent weeks about his willingness to come to a
compromise.
“We have talked about a couple different alternatives, and I will
say that I’ve done most of the talking in those conversations,”
Patrick said. “And when I say alternatives, I mean both in terms of
the size of the package and the way to raise the revenue.”
DeLeo maintained that the Legislature’s plan was a more fiscally
prudent option for the state, and would help maintain the state’s
credit rating, which he said was a high priority.
DeLeo added that he disagrees with Patrick’s pronouncement that the
legislators’ funding plan would prompt steeper MBTA fare hikes.
“There’s no need to raise fares,” DeLeo said. “I can’t say forever,
no one could ever say forever . . . This plan provides for
sufficient revenue to address the issue at the T. There’s some $500
million in this plan, I believe the T’s shortfall is somewhere
around $125 million. I think that adds up.”
Jim O’Sullivan contributed to this report.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Patrick rips $500 mil tax plan as "pretend fix" for transportation
system
By Matt Murphy
After hearing Gov. Deval Patrick threaten to veto what he called a
“pretend fix” to the state’s transportation system deficiencies,
House Speaker Robert DeLeo defended the Democratic legislative
leadership’s proposal to raise $500 million in new taxes as a plan
that, unlike the governor’s, spares the middle class from a major
tax hike.
“Just the contrary, what this plan does actually is to make sure
we’re taking care of or addressing the issue of transportation while
at the same time not putting a bigger burden on families or business
that the governor’s plan would put on,” DeLeo told reporters outside
his office on Wednesday.
Patrick, at a press conference, panned the Democratic leadership’s
transportation plan as inadequate and “not fair” to residents
outside Greater Boston who will be asked to pay more in gas and
cigarette taxes for what he predicted would be another short-term
solution to budget and debt problems at the MBTA and Department of
Transportation.
“Let’s be clear. The leadership proposal taxes the middle class,”
Patrick said, later adding, “It’s a fiction to claim somehow this
bill avoids new taxes.”
Patrick called the plan from DeLeo and Senate President Therese
Murray “too small” to make the improvements required around the
state, including the I-91 viaduct through Springfield from which
concrete came loose on Wednesday, causing major traffic delays.
“The I-91 viaduct is falling apart. The fact that it’s falling apart
is not a surprise. It’s falling apart because we haven’t taken care
of it,” Patrick said, blaming a Beacon Hill culture and
“administration after administration” that has been unwilling to
tackle the long-term funding problem.
He also reiterated that the proposal from House and Senate leaders
provides no funding for education, for capital expansion projects
like the Green Line extension that are important to economic
development, or for improvements to the existing system like
replacing deteriorating Orange and Red Line cars or regional transit
buses.
“They’re going to get all the blowback from a tax vote and none of
the benefit and it’s important for the public to see that. It’s
important for members to see that. And if that’s the choice they
want to make, I’m not going to play that game,” Patrick told the
News Service in Thursday in an interview.
As Senate Democrats caucused for hours behind closed doors to
discuss the transportation bill, DeLeo showed little interest in
slowing down the process or returning to the negotiating table with
Patrick to find a middle ground that the governor said he still
believes is within reach.
He said the House still intends to debate the bill on Monday, and he
will know more after the vote whether there is enough support in the
House to sustain Patrick’s promised veto. According to a State House
source, DeLeo began calling on members after Patrick’s press
conference to ask for their support, including progressive Democrats
sympathetic to the governor’s proposal.
Patrick said he, Murray and DeLeo have talked privately about a
“couple different alternatives” to the size of the revenue package
and the means of collecting it, but admitted he did most of the
talking.
“To come up with this plan is just not serious and to say it’s a
plan, to say it’s a solution is just not serious and I’m not going
to play that game. I’m still here. I’m still engaged. I’m still
willing to talk about compromise,” Patrick said.
After Senate President Therese Murray suggested Wednesday that
Patrick administration predictions of fare, fee and toll hikes under
the legislative leaders’ plan was “spin,” DeLeo backed up Murray.
“There’s no need to raise fares,” DeLeo said, clarifying, “I can’t
say forever. No one could ever say forever.”
The speaker did not directly address Patrick’s critique that the
House bill does not provide enough new revenue to ensure that the
MBTA and MassDOT wouldn’t be in a similarly difficult financial
situation six years from now. “The fiscal woes, the transportation
woes that we presently are concerned about, will be alleviated,”
DeLeo said.
Patrick conceded that DeLeo and Murray will be able to pass their
smaller financing package if they want to, but told the News Service
in an interview that he does not want to be associated with it.
“If we’re actually going to try to get a deal that we all can
believe in and that is a permanent fix, then they need to respond to
my interest in trying to find some place in the middle. If they
don’t, then they will have made their choice and they know what I
will do,” Patrick said in an interview.
Patrick, who did not highlight plans to increase taxes during his
last reelection bid, continued, “When I talk about generational
responsibility, it’s not a rhetorical thing for me. It’s a belief.
It’s the difference I ran on. It’s what we’ve been trying to do
differently here and this is not that and I’m not going to be a part
of it.”
When asked whether the Legislature was treating him as a lame duck -
the governor does not plan to seek a third term next year - Patrick
said, “No. No. I don’t think so. That would be a mistake.”
Describing the lengthy process undertaken by his administration over
the past year to craft a 10-year transportation investment plan and
a proposal to pay for it, Patrick chuckled at how the leadership’s
bill again requests a 10-year capital plan from the administration.
“Come on. I’m not going to play a game. We’ve got a serious fix.
That is a pretend fix,” Patrick said.
The House and Senate leadership plan provides the MBTA with enough
new funding in fiscal 2014 to avoid a fare increase or service cuts,
but asks the agency to come up with $250 million or more in new
revenue in subsequent years. “Hey, step up to the plate and start
being more efficient,” Murray said Thursday.
Patrick, however, told the News Service that message is different
from what they were saying privately.
“The House chair of transportation and the Ways and Means chair told
us that they were taking the $250 million in fee, fare and toll
increases from my plan and increasing that. If they're saying
something different now, let's take a little time to see what is
actually in the plan,” Patrick said.
House Transportation Chair Rep. William Straus denied giving the
administration that impression, writing in an email: “I never said,
indicated, implied or communicated in any way they ‘we’ were
increasing fees, fares or tolls in the package that would be
presented to the full House. I have tried to make it clear in all my
statements that a consequence of doing nothing prior to June 30,
with regard to transportation financing would result in the
administration having to use its existing options for increases and
or service cuts in FY 2014. Our plan to be debated Monday, avoids
that unfortunate consequence.”
Democratic leaders also believe the new revenue is enough to support
a $100 million increase in Chapter 90 funding, with the House
advancing a bill Wednesday that would authorize $300 million for the
local road repair program. Patrick said he has serious doubts about
whether that will be possible with the favored revenue package.
“Even the Chapter 90, it’s questionable whether there’s enough
revenue for that Chapter 90 which is why it blows my mind that the
Massachusetts Municipal Association is so enthusiastic about it,”
Patrick told the News Service.
In a memo obtained by the News Service to several of his Cabinet
secretaries on Thursday, Patrick asked his deputies to prepare
within 30 days a list of capital projects that could be cancelled or
postponed, including those already underway, and the cost of
shutting them down.
“While the process of reaching final legislation is on-going, we
should be prepared to curtail current transportation, business
development, environmental, recreational and other infrastructure
investments should the Legislature’s proposal carry the day,”
Patrick wrote in the memo.
The governor and his staff would not speculate on whether they could
muster support in the House or the Senate to sustain a veto, but the
possibility exists that the leaders in either branches could fail to
rally the two-thirds margin needed to overturn Patrick’s rejection
of the financing plan as written. Under that scenario, no bill would
pass.
Asked whether he was prepared to accept and explain to voters a 19
percent fare increase on the MBTA threatened by the agency if new
funding does not arrive, Patrick said it was a consequence he was
willing to risk.
“I cannot ask people all over the Commonwealth to pay to fix the T
alone. It’s not fair. We have been asking people everywhere else but
in downtown Boston to eat the cost of the Big Dig and we’ve been
asking them in two ways, the main way by starving investment
everywhere else,” Patrick said.
The speaker said people are “fiscally concerned” about the
governor’s planned elimination of deductions, and also reiterated
concerns raised by bond rating agencies about the governor’s
overreliance on income tax revenue, a multi-year borrowing plan and
a drawdown from the rainy day fund.
“It’s not the House and the Senate plan that is talking about the
increase to the income tax. It’s not the House and the Senate plan
that is talking about elimination of many of the deductions that
people presently get, whether they be for education, whether they be
for the selling of the home..,” DeLeo said.
“We’re trying to protect the middle class. That is I think one of
the major differences of the two plans,” DeLeo said.
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 5, 2013
Dems try to line up votes for override
By Chris Cassidy
Beacon Hill Democrats yesterday already were trying to line up
enough votes to override a threatened veto of their
$500 million
tax plan, blasted as a Big Dig-style “shell game” by a frustrated
Gov. Deval Patrick, even as his own $1.9 billion tax proposal
appeared to be headed for the trash bin.
“I’m pretty clear on where my district is,” said state Rep. Joseph
Wagner (D-Chicopee). “I’m also pretty clear that the votes simply
don’t exist in numbers sufficient to pass a nearly $2 billion tax
increase. ... There’s a difference between where the governor would
like the Legislature to be and where the Legislature is comfortable
they have the votes to be.”
All indications yesterday were that Patrick’s plan was drifting away
from him, as House lawmakers planned to vote on their own proposal
as early as Monday.
“I can understand how he’s getting frustrated by bringing the
dialogue to a level that maybe he shouldn’t,” state Rep. Michael
Moran (D-Brighton) said of Patrick, who has previously tried to
frame the debate as a matter of “political courage.” “I wouldn’t say
we don’t have the political courage. I wouldn’t say that at all.”
Patrick told reporters yesterday he’ll have no choice but to veto
the House’s plan, but Democratic lawmakers were working behind the
scenes to build what they hoped would be a large bloc to override
Patrick’s veto.
“The speaker and the leadership team, we’re sort of like the Boston
Celtics of old — we want to win every game by as many points as
possible,” said Moran, a division chairman. “On every vote, you want
to get the merits out there, explain your side and try to get as
many votes as you can for that. If that’s enough to be veto-proof,
time will tell.”
A fired-up Patrick blasted House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate
President Therese Murray’s proposal yesterday in what could go down
as a last-ditch effort to save his fledgling legacy program.
“The leadership’s proposal is a return to the old way of
doing
business,” Patrick said. “It’s the same short-term, fiscal shell
game that got us the Big Dig and the mess that followed.”
But DeLeo said his plan is the only reasonable option for average
Bay Staters.
“We’re trying to protect the middle class,” DeLeo said. “I think
that’s one of the major differences between the two plans.”
Leaders of two Boston think tanks — the Pioneer Institute and the
Beacon Hill Institute — both told the Herald that Patrick’s plan
doesn’t cut it.
“The governor’s plan is essentially a pretend plan,” said Jim
Stergios of Pioneer. “It builds a lot of new things, but it doesn’t
really pull in the cost of new things.”
David Tuerck of Beacon Hill said Patrick’s plan was never
serious
to begin with.
“I have no idea where he got the idea he could pull that off,”
Tuerck said. “He’s a short-timer now. Even if they are a
Democratically controlled Legislature, they’re not suicidal.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 4, 2013
$500 million tax payback
By Holly Robichaud
It is no surprise that the legislature is working hard to ram
through a $500 million tax increase. You are supposed to be grateful
it is not $2 billion more in taxes. Really? It contains a gas tax
increase until infinity.
Yesterday, the Governor bragged that no one lost re-election when he
slammed us with the sales tax increase. Is he being forgetful or
dishonest? After the sales tax increase, Republicans doubled their
numbers in the House. Oops. I guess there are Deval's statements and
then the facts!
What are these tax increases paying for in reality? You are funding
the Governor's mismanagement. The crime lab is costing us $332
million. Welfare fraud is over $100 million.
We don't need tax hikes. We need a new Governor.
The Salem News
Friday, April 5, 2013
A Salem News editorial
On taxes, how soon they forget
We can’t help but notice how Beacon Hill lawmakers continue to
forget how voters react to tax increases.
According to the State House News Service, Gov. Deval Patrick on
Wednesday rejected the assertion that Republican Leah Cole’s win
earlier this week in the Peabody state representative election was a
sign that voters were wary of his $1.9 billion tax plan.
“Harkening back to 2009, the last time the Legislature voted for a
major tax hike raising the sales tax to 6.25 percent, Patrick said
not only did he win re-election in 2010, but, ‘Not one of the people
who voted for that sales tax increase lost their seat,’” the News
Service reported.
Not so fast.
The News Service story continued, “In the 2010 election, House
Republicans actually picked up 16 seats, defeating 12 incumbent
Democrats, including nine who voted for the sales tax increase.
Reps. William Bowles, Geraldo Alicea, Steven D’Amico, James Fagan,
Mark Falzone, Danielle Gregoire, Barbara L’Italien, Allen McCarthy
and Matthew Patrick all supported the tax increase and lost.”
Voters do pay attention, even if their representatives do not.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Spending cuts part of House GOP's tax-free path to transpo $$$
By Andy Metzger and Colleen Quinn
As Gov. Deval Patrick and Democratic legislative leaders locked
horns in a major dispute over new taxes, House Republicans on
Thursday called for leaner budgets in other areas of state
government to free up existing tax dollars to devote to
transportation.
On the heels of a $500 million tax proposal offered by leaders of
the Democratic majority in the Legislature, House Minority Leader
Bradley Jones said it is possible to dedicate $500 million for
transportation by fiscal year 2016 without raising taxes.
House Republicans acknowledged the need for more transportation
spending.
“We think that this is a balanced fair plan that maintains regional
equity,” Jones during a press conference, adding the plan also
“respects that we’re still in a difficult economy.”
The proposal, backed by a number of Republicans, asks the state
budget to assume the $1.7 billion in so-called Big Dig debt from the
MBTA, with the approximate $140 million in annual payments coming
from revenue freed up by a 1.1 percent cut in discretionary
spending.
Republicans estimate $13 billion annually in discretionary spending
– expenditures not required under state law, debt agreements,
commitments to local aid, or mandates under health care reform.
Jones did not detail where the cuts would come from, but Republican
leaders have repeatedly identified places they think there could be
savings, including EBT reforms, revamping welfare benefits
eligibility, and revenues from uncollected legal fees from indigent
clients represented by public defenders.
“We leave that to the budget process,” Jones said.
In another bid for savings, Republicans also called for the repeal
of a law imposing requirements before the state can privatize
services delivery and the elimination of project labor agreements.
Supporters say taxpayers are assured of quality work due to such
agreements and the so-called Pacheco law.
Republicans also want to skim $195 million off the top of projected
revenue collections this fiscal year and dedicate it to
transportation. Over the next three years, the plan would dedicate
the $195 million, plus an additional quarter percent of new revenue
growth. So by fiscal year 2018, they project there would be
approximately $400 million dedicated to transportation, using a 3
percent growth rate.
The GOP plan also projects the state could allocate $51 million from
future gaming revenues, $11 million from Massachusetts Port
Authority contributions, $10 million from Convention Center
Authority payments and $57 million from projected increased fares.
The proposal arrived as Gov. Deval Patrick was dismissing the tax
plan outlined earlier in the week by Democratic lawmakers as a
“fiscal shell game.” The proposal calls for $500 million in new tax
revenue for transportation, or half of the $1 billion Patrick said
is needed.
Jones said his plan would forward-fund regional transit authorities,
rather than reimbursing them, and would allow the western turnpike
tolls to be phased out.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) praised the House
Republicans’ plan, saying the Senate GOP will focus on the same
principles when crafting its own solution to the problem.
“Today’s events on Beacon Hill clearly illustrate the situation
we’re in,” Tarr said in a statement. “Governor Patrick has proven
that not even $500 million will satisfy his appetite for tax
increases, and a new Republican plan proves that transportation
needs can be addressed without massive increases in taxing and
spending. What’s important now is to hear from the people who pay
the bills through taxes, fares, and fees, and they deserve an
opportunity for that to happen.”
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Senate transpo chief will look at criticisms
By Andy Metzger
After the Legislature extracted $300 million in local road funding
from the larger question of new revenues to pay for transportation,
Gov. Deval Patrick nudged the road funding back into the tax debate
by questioning whether revenues proposed by the Legislature would
cover the increase.
“We’ll have to take a look at the numbers and see what that means,”
Senate Transportation Chairman Tom McGee (D-Lynn) told the News
Service.
McGee joined House and Senate leaders Tuesday to announce a $500
million tax proposal to pay for transportation, which is half the
amount Patrick planned to raise for transportation. After the
Transportation Committee separated out one year of local road
funding from Patrick’s $19 billion transportation bond bill, Patrick
suggested that increasing local road funding from $200 million to
$300 million “raises some question” given the amount of new revenue
legislative leaders proposed.
Asked about claims that the plan by legislative leaders would double
state costs for the Green Line and lead to higher fares and tolls,
McGee said he would consider the criticisms leveled against the $500
million plan.
“There’s a lot of plans that are out there. I think the discussion
will continue,” McGee said. While he declined to give his initial
read on specific criticisms, McGee said they were being considered.
He said, “I’ll continue to look at some of the criticisms of the
plan that was proposed the other day.”
The Salem News
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A Salem News editorial
Sending a message on taxes
Tuesday could not have been the best of days for the tax-and-spend
wing of the Democratic Party.
First, leaders in the state House and Senate came together before
lunch to essentially reject Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to raise $1.9
billion in new taxes to spend on transportation and education
issues, instead offering a relatively less expensive option of their
own.
Then, that night, Peabody voters turned aside two political
mainstays to elect Republican Leah Cole, a 24-year-old nurse making
her first run for office. Cole, a relative unknown in Peabody,
focused her campaign on opposing tax increases and fighting
government waste.
“I had no name recognition. I was a first-time candidate,” Cole said
after Tuesday night’s victory. Despite that, she said, “My message
resonated.”
While there is evidence that the Massachusetts economy is growing
again, the recovery is, as Massachusetts Municipal Association
Executive Director Geoffrey Beckwith put it in February,
“excruciatingly slow and weak.” For many citizens, the recovery has
yet to arrive.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray at
least seemed to recognize that fact in unveiling their
transportation spending plan Tuesday.
The $500 million proposal would use, among other measures, a 3-cent
increase in the state gas tax and a $1 bump in the cigarette tax to
address the state’s most pressing transportation problems. The idea
is to close the MBTA budget gap without resorting to more service
cuts or fare increases and allow the state Department of
Transportation to pay employee salaries without borrowing. It would
also boost state spending on local bridge and road repair by $100
million, to a total of $300 million.
Legislative leaders did not address the other part of Patrick’s
initiative, which included major spending on early, K-12 and higher
education.
Murray told the Statehouse News Service that Democratic leaders were
reluctant to “further squeeze” the middle class with tax increases
along the lines of the governor’s proposal.
“We consider the governor a partner in this,” she said. He put out a
10-year vision. We’re just saying maybe 10 years is too ambitious
right away. ... It was hard to do the 3 cents, believe me, but we
need to invest in our infrastructure and transportation. I think
that’s doable. I think you can handle that.”
The legislative plan “addresses the most pressing problems by
providing adequate funding well into the future without asking our
residents and businesses to bear too much of the burden,” DeLeo said
at a press conference Tuesday.
Clearly, Murray and DeLeo sensed a lingering suspicion of the
economic recovery and a reluctance to increase taxes among their
constituents.
Cole was able to capitalize on that hesitation in Peabody, beating
School Committee member Beverley Ann Griffin Dunne and City
Councilor David Gravel.
It was an odd race in many ways. The seat opened unexpectedly, with
the passing of longtime state Rep. Joyce Spiliotis in November,
shortly after she was re-elected without opposition. Gravel ran as
an unenrolled candidate, and he and Dunne helped open a path for
Cole by splitting the Democratic-leaning vote. The special election
drew less than 6,000 people, and no candidate collected more than
2,000 votes.
The fact, however, is this: Cole won, and her promise to fight
higher taxes resonated with residents still struggling to make ends
meet.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A Boston Globe editorial
Legislature’s tax plan lets opportunity pass
While Governor Patrick’s $1.9 billion transportation, education, and
tax-reform plan was sure to be a hard sell in the Legislature,
lawmakers should take the far-reaching package as a basis for a
productive negotiation. Instead, House and Senate leaders gave
Patrick’s strategy the stiff arm Tuesday, unveiling a
counterproposal that focuses solely on transportation — but, over
the long term, doesn’t accomplish enough even in that one area.
Announced by Senate President Therese Murray, House Speaker Robert
DeLeo, and the heads of the Legislature’s budget and transportation
committees, the plan was a signal to Patrick that lawmakers aren’t
interested in the tectonic changes he’s proposed in the state tax
system. Lawmakers would instead raise $500 million a year by hiking
the cigarette tax, changing some business tax rules, and adding 3
cents to the gas tax. The multi-year plan also relies on a higher
level of toll and MBTA fare increases than the governor’s does.
Half a billion dollars may sound like a lot, but it doesn’t meet the
long-term challenges Patrick laid out — neither the promise of
advancing early-childhood education for low-income kids, nor making
higher education more affordable, nor addressing the state’s
transportation needs in a comprehensive way. Obviously, lawmakers
feel that a combination of smaller tax increases will sit better
with the electorate than a hike in the income tax. But over time,
this limited approach could do more to breed cynicism about
government than a larger revenue hike; it perpetuates the sense that
lawmakers will constantly reach into voters’ pockets for more money
while providing faltering and inadequate services.
If taxpayers are being asked to dig deeper, they deserve more in
return than a partial recovery from the financial mess of the Big
Dig era. The bills from the megaproject put such a strain on the
state’s transportation agencies that even routine repairs suffered.
Yet while the legislative leaders’ plan would seek to close a
long-term funding shortfall, it appears to treat some major repair
projects, such as the long-overdue replacement of MBTA subway cars,
as optional. And it doesn’t make good on legally binding commitments
— such as to extend the Green Line to Medford — that the state made
as part of Big Dig environmental mitigation agreements. Failing to
fund the extension doesn’t mean the T won’t have to build the
project; it just means Massachusetts is unlikely to get federal
money to defray the tab.
There’s been some talk of setting performance goals for the state’s
transportation bureaucracy that, presumably, could make it easier to
justify additional funding in the future. Yet given the trepidation
with which legislative leaders are approaching tax increases in the
current discussion, it’s hard to imagine that they’d want to do so
again next year or the year after.
Far better to bite the bullet this year, and begin addressing the
state’s needs in a way that would build confidence in state
government — showing taxpayers that they actually get more when they
pay more. The Legislature needn’t go as far as Patrick in remaking
the tax code. His proposed funding hike for public higher education
might wait until the universities make further cuts on their own;
and even his ambitious plans for transportation expansion and early
childhood learning need not be funded in whole.
But lawmakers should recognize that a rare opportunity to make
crucial investments is passing them by. Patrick has made the case
that a combination of tax hikes and investments will improve the
state’s competitiveness, and polls suggest voters are open to a
modestly higher income tax. The confluence of a Legislature and
governor willing to bring in new revenues comes along rarely. Both
need to make the most of the current political climate.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Activists cite continuing demand in push for major spending on
housing
By Matt Murphy
Describing the housing market as “more stable” since the height of
the foreclosure crisis, the Patrick administration’s top housing
official on Thursday asked lawmakers to support a four-year $567
million spending program that he said will both create affordable
housing and jobs.
“The construction of affordable housing leads to direct jobs and we
have created 17,000 jobs through our programs since 2007,” said
Aaron Gornstein, undersecretary for housing and economic
development.
Gornstein testified Thursday before the Joint Committee on Housing
at a hearing on Gov. Deval Patrick’s housing bond bill. The
committee was also taking testimony on a similar five-year, $1
billion housing bond bill filed by the committee’s chairmen, Sen.
Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and Rep. Kevin Honan (D-Boston).
The administration’s bill also assumes that it will be able to spend
the nearly $500 million in unspent affordable housing authorizations
over the next several years. The Eldridge-Honan bill cancels
previous unspent authorizations and outlines a new $1 billion plan.
One of the major differences between the administration’s bill and
the Eldridge-Honan bill is a new $45 million Early Education and Out
of School Time capital fund that the two lawmakers have proposed to
support building new facilities and modernizing existing child care
facilities catering to low-income children.
“I am pleased that the Joint Committee on Housing has recognized the
importance of quality child care facilities in creating healthy and
vibrant neighborhoods,” said Leo Delaney, president of the
Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care.
Gornstein said he has not spoken to Patrick about the proposed child
care fund, but expressed some concern that capital spending on the
education program from the DHCD budget would crowd out available
resources for housing. He said it might be better for the program to
be included under another secretariat’s bond cap.
Roger Herzog, executive director of the Community Economic
Development Assistance Corporation, called the child care fund a
“critically important residential service to achieving financial
independence” for low-income families.
Clark Ziegler, director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership,
said economic recovery has not alleviated the need for new
affordable housing, citing Census data that showed 160,000
“extremely low-income” families in Massachusetts unable to find
housing through the private market.
“The need has never been greater, so don’t let anyone tell you
otherwise,” Ziegler told lawmakers.
He also lent his support to maintaining the $20 million
authorization for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, a program
currently under review as part of the Patrick administration’s
overhaul of tax expenditures and one scheduled to decrease to $10
million.
Rep. Denise Provost, a Somerville Democrat, testified to the need
for affordable housing, particularly in communities like Somerville.
“One of the unfortunate ways Massachusetts is leading the nation is
the gap between its richer and poorer residents,” Provost said.
Provost said the foreclosure crisis left many former market rate
units “vacant and deteriorating” and called Attorney General Martha
Coakley’s receivership programs for foreclosed property a good idea
but a “glacially slow process” that leaves little option in most
cases but to gut the properties and covert homes into high-end
condominiums.
“We need to be producing housing which is affordable to people who
work and raise families, not just the very wealthy who happen to
come to our communities. God bless their success, but we need
something besides this increasingly competitive market,” Provost
said.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 4, 2013
MBTA could have 1 bidder for $1 billion rail contract
By Sean P. Murphy
One of the two companies competing to provide Greater Boston’s
commuter rail service is threatening to drop out if the MBTA does
not provide key information by Friday, potentially leaving the state
with only one bidder for the largest contract in Massachusetts
history.
The MBTA had promised to create an even playing field in the
competition for the $1 billion-plus commuter rail contract, even
though one of the bidders, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail,
currently runs the system and has close personal ties to state
transportation leadership.
But the only other bidder, Keolis America Inc., said that Mass Bay
has not turned over to the MBTA crucial information on the
railroad’s huge labor costs, making it impossible for Keolis to
complete its bid and undermining the MBTA’s promise of fairness.
More than 70,000 commuters depend on the rail service daily, and
MBTA officials had hoped robust competition might force bidders to
promise better service and lower costs in order to win the contract.
“We can only conclude that [Mass Bay] is deliberately withholding
this information” to hurt Keolis’s chances of taking over the rail
service next year, according to a March 27 letter to the MBTA from
Astrid Stumpf, Keolis’s commuter rail project manager.
Keolis, a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest transportation
companies, set a deadline of Friday to decide whether to drop out of
the bidding, despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars
already in preparing to bid.
Officials from Mass Bay sharply disagreed with their competitor’s
characterization, saying “any suggestion that [Mass Bay] is
withholding relevant information is false, inflammatory, and quiet
frankly nonsense.”
In a statement, released late Wednesday after first receiving a copy
of the Keolis letter from the Globe, Mass Bay spokesman Scott
Farmelant said the company has provided the MBTA “an unprecedented”
amount of information — 10 gigabytes of digital information, or “the
equivalent of a bookcase spanning the length of a football field.”
Farmelant said the only type of information that Mass Bay has
declined to provide concerns the firm’s business practices, which
the company statement said are “sensitive, proprietary . . . and
outside the scope of similar public contract bids” nationwide.
MBTA officials, who are responsible for collecting information from
Mass Bay on behalf of Keolis, said in a statement that they have
“satisfied more than 90 percent” of Keolis’s requests.
“The MBTA . . . continues to work diligently to provide the
extraordinary volume of information requested” by Keolis, MBTA
spokesman Joseph Pesaturo said in the statement.
Pesaturo also said the MBTA remains “strongly committed to
conducting this complex process in a deliberate and determined
manner” for the benefit of MBTA customers and Massachusetts
taxpayers.
Twenty-five companies from all over the world initially expressed
interest in competing for what is believed to be the most lucrative
rail contract in North America, and one of the biggest state
contracts of any kind in Massachusetts history.
But in the end only two stepped up to bid, which MBTA officials
admitted was disappointing.
MBTA officials said they had hoped for at least half a dozen
competitors to help sharpen bids for an eight-year contract that
currently pays the operator $300 million a year.
Final bids are due July 10.
The dispute centers mainly on labor cost for about 1,800 unionized
employees and 200 managers on the rail line. Keolis officials said
that labor represents about 70 percent of total costs, but that the
firm has received little data on a workforce that will stay on the
job no matter who wins the contract. Keolis wants more information
on the cost of employee benefits, such as bonuses, health insurance,
and pensions, and even the current number of employees.
Keolis officials also said that they have been furnished no detailed
information on management costs, and that some of the information
they have received is outdated, including documents from 2002.
Alan Eisner, a Keolis spokesman, said the firm has received what it
considers unacceptable responses to 104 of its 133 requests for
information. He said some of the information provided to date has
been of little use because it is in Spanish or in a computer format
that makes it nearly impossible to work with.
“What they have given us is either no information, partial
information, or grossly out-of-date information,” he said. “It’s an
overall pattern of going out of their way to obstruct our ability to
make a rationale bid. We’re hoping something can be worked out in
short order. We want to stay in, but without the proper information
we can’t do it.”
Eisner said it is up to the MBTA to pressure Mass Bay for the
information.
“The T has been trying to get the information, but they need to step
it up and lean on the incumbent a little harder,” Eisner said.
Keolis originally entered the bidding for commuter rail service,
knowing that Mass Bay appeared to be on the
inside track if only due to Mass Bay’s superior knowledge
gained from running the system since 2003.
Mass Bay, which has collected more than $1
billion in fees from running the commuter rail, was founded by James
O’Leary, a former MBTA general manager with deep local connections,
including mentoring Richard A. Davey, the state’s transportation
secretary. Davey has abstained from involvement in the
selection process.
Still, Keolis chief executive Steve Townsend told the Globe last
year that he felt the company had a chance to win the contract.
“We would not be investing money into this without having satisfied
itself that there’s a level playing field,” he said.
Now Keolis officials are not so sure that the playing field is level
after all, calling Mass Bay’s decision to withhold some information
“ludicrous.”
“We may be forced to withdraw from the competition,” wrote Keolis’s
Stumpf in the letter to the MBTA.
“This of course will be a result most beneficial to MBCR and a
travesty of the public bidding process,” the firm said.
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 5, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
‘Doomed’ on taxes
There’s just never enough taxpayer money for the Patrick
administration to throw at its pet projects.
So how predictable was it that just as legislative leaders whittled
the governor’s proposed $2 billion tax hike down to a mere
$500 million, an administration official would be sent out to make
the case that we are simply doomed without that big dip into
taxpayers’ wallets?
Yes, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray
announced a substantial but responsible plan to support
transportation basics and not hike the state income tax — a
move credit rating agencies had already warned would not win favor
in those quarters.
But the Patrick administration tax-and-spenders aren’t hearing it.
They want it all!
Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday called the legislative tax hike plan a
“fiscal shell game” and vowed to veto it.
And his designated whiner, Scott Jordan, assistant secretary of
capital finance, told lawmakers Wednesday their tax hike “fails” to
fund the administration’s proposed South Station expansion, South
Coast rail or that $1.3 billion Green Line expansion.
Well, some folks think you shouldn’t build what you can’t afford.
“The Ways and Means plan does not fund the necessary construction,
maintenance and rebuilding of the commonwealth’s roads, bridges and
other infrastructure,” Jordan told the House Bonding Committee.
“Failure to fund these projects will force the residents and
employees of the commonwealth to continue to contend with decaying
infrastructure and excessive congestion.”
In a memo reported on by State House News Service, Transportation
Secretary Richard Davey chimed in with his own version of how the
earth will open and swallow us up without Patrick’s tax hike.
He disparaged the legislative plan as a “short-term Band-Aid” for
transportation (everything’s a “Band-Aid” when you can’t spend money
fast enough). Then he insisted it would still require “steep
increases” in MBTA fare hikes and Turnpike tolls — the usual parade
of horribles that legislative leaders believe their plan averts.
He also suggested that “if insufficient revenues to address this gap
are not advanced” there might be weight restrictions on bridges and
Registry offices closed — and that’s with, let’s not forget, $500
million in new revenue.
Taxpayers who were told repeatedly that federal sequestration would
mean fired teachers, unsafe food and long airport lines have every
right to be skeptical when state officials try to play the same
game.
The Boston Herald
Friday, April 5, 2013
Pols’ tax battle
not free for all
By Howie Carr
Finally, some good news out of the State House — the Democratic
Legislature and the Democratic governor are throwing roundhouses at
one another.
As they used to say about the Iran-Iraq war, Isn’t there some way
they can both lose?
Unfortunately, no. Here’s the dispute in a nutshell: Gov. Deval
Patrick wants to extract $1.9 billion from the working classes. The
legislative leadership says “only” $500 million will suffice. For
now.
As the governor said yesterday of the general court’s tax hike:
“Everybody pays more and gets less.”
Deval’s plan is that everybody pays more and more and more and gets
less.
The governor and his hackerama are so desperate for more money that
Deval immediately issued an empty threat to veto the legislation.
Ask Mitt Romney how those work out.
Republican lawmakers proposed a no-new-taxes bailout of the
transportation system. But the GOP plan has three chances — slim,
fat and none.
“Today’s events on Beacon Hill,” said state Sen. Bruce Tarr
(R-Gloucester), “clearly illustrate the situation we’re in.”
Yes, they do. In 12-step terms, Speaker DeLeo is a problem taxer.
Deval is a full-blown taxaholic. Both of them need to go on the
wagon.
This fight has been brewing for a while now, since DeLeo reportedly
described Deval’s tax-’em-back-to-the-Stone-Age scheme as
“fantasyland.” I’d say “hallucination-land” is more like it.
Among other things, Deval wants billions for worthless new rail
lines, from Boston to Fall River and New Bedford and from Pittsfield
to New York (you can’t make this stuff up).
Plus $350 million more for the department formerly run by a
moonlighting, $200,000-a-year hack from New Haven whose minions
couldn’t be bothered to check if sex offenders were living at the
same addresses as day-care centers.
Deval immediately dusted off his pal Obama’s sequester playbook. The
sky is falling, the sky is falling! Take hostages! Obama says, Give
me the money or the cancer patients get it! Deval says, Give me the
money or the T gets it!
DeLeo said, “Our plan is more responsive to the needs of the middle
class.”
That’s exactly the problem, as far as Deval is concerned. He wants
to raise the income tax, which is a burden on people who work, in
order to cut the sales tax, which is paid even by Deval’s EBT-cardholders.
Three days ago, a Republican was elected to the House from Peabody
for the first time since 1990. Leah Cole, a 24-year-old nurse,
knocked on 3,000 doors in her campaign. I asked her what the No. 1
issue was among the voters she talked to.
“Taxes,” she said.
But that’s Peabody. Beacon Hill isn’t in Peabody, it’s in Boston.
The Telegram & Gazette
Friday, April 5, 2013
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Budget, plan B
Legislators have clear alternative
Legislative leaders in Massachusetts have responded to Gov. Deval
Patrick’s $1.9 billion tax increase proposal with a plan of their
own that is only about a quarter as large, yet still addresses
important transportation and budget priorities.
While the House and Senate leaders’ plan isn’t going to please
everyone. House Republicans have voiced opposition to its tax
increases, while Mr. Patrick yesterday vowed to veto it.
Nonetheless, the plan offers a more realistic view than Mr.
Patrick’s when it comes to what Massachusetts taxpayers can actually
afford.
For starters, lawmakers finally are endorsing a modest, sensible and
sustainable increase in the gasoline tax. While Mr. Patrick went for
a 19-cent hike in the gas tax several years ago, then refused to
compromise on any smaller figure when his original proposal was
rejected, legislators favor a 3-cent hike, indexed to inflation
starting in 2015. That should raise another $110 million each year.
No one likes paying taxes, but the state’s gas tax hasn’t been
raised in many years, and doing so in this way still leaves
Massachusetts’ rate below that of some of its neighboring states. A
3-cent hike also recognizes that over-reliance on the tax makes no
sense as vehicles become more efficient in the years ahead. And, by
accounting for inflation, the plan would remove a divisive political
issue.
We wish lawmakers and Mr. Patrick alike would apply similar
reasoning to a proposal to hike the cigarette tax by $1 a pack.
Cigarette taxes do help discourage a habit that is costly to
individuals’ wallets and both personal and public health.
But raising the tax too high leaves the state overly dependent upon
revenue that it should, in theory, want to eliminate.
The legislative alternative to Mr. Patrick’s plan has other
advantages:
• It does not include any money for costly expansions of South
Station, or the extension of commuter rail service to Fall River and
New Bedford. Lawmakers say those projects are worth doing, but
needn’t be done all at once.
• It moves Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority labor costs
into annual operating budgets in just three years, rather than the
10-year timetable outlined by Mr. Patrick. The current MBTA practice
of borrowing to pay salaries is counter to sound fiscal practice and
should be ended as soon as possible.
• It leaves current income and sales tax rates alone. While we favor
returning both rates to 5 percent, Mr. Patrick’s proposal to
increase the rate on income while dropping that on sales increases
the state budget’s reliance on upper-income earners and introduces
greater volatility into the budget process.
Overall, lawmakers have shown admirable leadership and moderation in
fashioning a sound alternative to Mr. Patrick’s big-ticket vision of
government. Their plan is hardly an austerity budget, but it shows
greater respect for Bay State taxpayers, and a firmer grasp of the
financial realities we all face.
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
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