|
Help save yourself
— join CLT
today! |
CLT introduction and membership application |
What CLT saves you from the auto excise tax alone |
Make a contribution to support
CLT's work by clicking the button above
Ask your friends to join too |
Visit CLT on Facebook |
Barbara Anderson's Great Moments |
Follow CLT on Twitter |
CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Sen. Chandler gorges, licks the
plate, belches on taxpayers
|
By taking Interstate 290, Interstate 495 and
the Massachusetts Turnpike on her commute to and from the
Statehouse, Senate Majority Leader Harriette L. Chandler,
D-Worcester, is able to add $5,000 to her travel expenses.
Under the new legislative pay scale,
legislators who live less than 50 miles from the Statehouse
in Boston receive $15,000 to cover expenses. Lawmakers who
live more than 50 miles away get $20,000.
According to Google Maps, if Mrs. Chandler
takes the faster route - via the Mass. Pike, Route 146 and
I-290 - the distance between her home on Aylesbury Road in
Worcester and the Statehouse in Boston is 49.7 miles - a
hair under 50.
But the alternate route suggested by Google
Maps, via Mass. Pike, I-495 and I-290, comes out to 53.1
miles.
According to the Senate clerk's office, Mrs.
Chandler is collecting the $20,000.
Travel expenses are one way state lawmakers
are able to augment their paychecks.
"Do you get paid for driving to work?" asks
Chip Faulkner, communications director for
Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Virtually anyone will
say, 'Of course not.' Yet the state Legislature does. How do
you figure that one?"
Another way legislators add to their pay is
through stipends for leadership and committee roles.
A newly-adopted Senate rule allows a member
to take stipends for as many as three positions.
Mrs. Chandler is taking two stipends. In
addition to her base legislator's pay of $62,547.97 and the
$20,000 for travel expenses, she receives $60,000 (newly
increased from $22,500) as majority leader, and $15,000 as
chairman of the Senate redistricting committee, for a total
take-home of $157,547.97, according to the Senate clerk.
She is one of the highest paid members of
the Legislature....
The redistricting committee Mrs. Chandler is
getting $15,000 to lead currently has no business before it
and no hearings scheduled, since the 2020 census that will
determine the redrawing of congressional districts is still
three years away.
"I wonder why they don't have a committee
for the Spanish-American War veterans. Of course, none
exist," said Mr. Faulkner of Citizens for Limited
Taxation.
Anti-tax activists have criticized what they
regard as overly handsome pay for limited work by
Massachusetts lawmakers.
"Speaking of no-show, they have not done
much of anything this legislative session," Mr. Faulkner
said Tuesday. "Since they've been in, they've taken 21 roll
call votes, on three different days. So they're not doing
much work to justify the pay increase.
"Not only that, but people have to
understand, last year they adjourned on July 31, and didn't
have a formal session or a roll call vote from the first of
August until January. It's equivalent to paying you
full-time and, by the way, you can take the last few months
off of the year." ...
The 79-year-old Democrat, elected to the
Senate in 2000 after serving as a state representative, is
in her 23rd year in the Legislature. She represents the 1st
Worcester District, which encompasses the northern portion
of Worcester; Boylston, Holden, Princeton and West Boylston;
and parts of Clinton and Northboro.
The Telegram & Gazette
Friday, March 24, 2017
Taking longer way to work pays for Worcester state senator
Beacon Hill Roll Call tracks the length of
time that the House and Senate were in session each week.
Many legislators say that legislative
sessions are only one aspect of the Legislature’s job and
that a lot of important work is done outside of the House
and Senate chambers. They note that their jobs also involve
committee work, research, constituent work and other matters
that are important to their districts.
Critics say that the Legislature does not
meet regularly or long enough to debate and vote in public
view on the thousands of pieces of legislation that have
been filed. They note that the infrequency and brief length
of sessions are misguided and lead to irresponsible late
night sessions and a mad rush to act on dozens of bills in
the days immediately preceding the end of an annual session.
During the week of March 6 through 10,
the House met for a total of 22 minutes and the Senate met
for a total of six minutes. . . .
During the week of March 13 through 17,
the House met for a total of two hours and 59 minutes and
the Senate met for a total of 17 minutes.
Beacon Hill Roll Call
By Bob Katzen
How long was last week's session?
There may be a major tax cut competing with
the significant tax increase that's already being prepared
for the 2018 ballot in Massachusetts.
Retailers have conducted polling and are
encouraged by results suggesting Massachusetts residents are
receptive to reducing the state sales tax, which was raised
to 6.25 percent from 5 percent during a 2009 push led by
House Speaker Robert DeLeo.
"At this point all options are open,"
Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst
told the News Service. "The board will be considering
options come May at our spring board meeting and we're
looking at what we can do."
In 2010, the same year Massachusetts voters
narrowly agreed to repeal a new sales tax on alcohol, voters
rejected a ballot question - 57 percent to 43 percent - that
would have pushed the overall sales tax rate down to 3
percent.
But the dynamics are different now.
Amid a prolonged economic recovery,
Democrats on Beacon Hill are leading the push for a 2018
ballot vote on a constitutional amendment imposing a 4
percent surtax on household income above $1 million. The
retail sector is exploring the possibility of adding a sales
tax cut to the mix on next year's ballot, which also
includes elections for governor and U.S. Senate and could
feature an initiative petition boosting the state's minimum
wage.
A poll conducted for the retailers
association in November by Princeton Research Associates
reminded respondents that the so-called millionaire's tax
may be headed for next year's ballot. Seventy-nine percent
of those respondents said they support reducing the sales
tax to about 4 percent or 4.5 percent to make the tax system
fairer and to support local retailers. In the poll, 66
percent said they believe the "proper sales tax range" for
Massachusetts would between 4 percent and 4.5 percent....
Opponents of the income surtax proposal
claim its passage would lead to further tax increases
through a graduated income tax structure under which tax
rates rise in lockstep with income levels. Republican
lawmakers denounced the proposed income surtax last session,
but were easily outvoted by Democrats who sent the measure
on to the 2017-2018 session where a second favorable vote
would ensure a ballot spot in 2018 for the constitutional
amendment....
A sales tax cut was briefly on Beacon Hill's
radar in 2013 when former Gov. Deval Patrick proposed
reducing the sales tax rate to 4.5 percent and repealing the
exemption of candy and soda from the sales tax. Patrick
included those proposals with a plan to raise the income tax
rate to 6.25 percent, eliminate certain tax breaks, and
boost the cigarette tax. On net, Patrick's plan would have
increased state revenues by $1.9 billion.
DeLeo and the Legislature opted for a plan
that raised the gas tax 3 cents and tied it to inflation,
increased tobacco taxes by $1 per pack and applied the sales
tax to software services. Lawmakers revisited and repealed
the software services tax and voters repealed the law
indexing the gas tax to inflation.
State House News Service
Monday, March 27, 2017
Retailers weighing sales tax cut ballot question
There's a temporary pause in the spate of
news about disappointing tax revenue growth levels.
Collections over the first half of March are
up 9.8 percent, or $124 million compared to the same period
in 2016, according to a letter to lawmakers from Revenue
Commissioner Michael Heffernan.
The $1.38 billion collected through March 15
brings fiscal year-to-date tax collections up to $17.235
billion. That's plus $429 million or 2.6 percent but shy of
the growth rate lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker are relying
on to back up their annual budget and midyear spending
plans.
The biggest state tax sources, the income
tax and sales and use taxes, are up 3.2 percent and 2.8
percent, fiscal year-to-date, respectively....
While tax collections are tracked with
precision, the Baker administration, like its predecessors,
does not maintain a publicly available metric to track
spending throughout the year.
Perhaps moreso than previously,
administration officials and Democrats who run the
Legislature are monitoring public policy and budget talks in
Washington where Republicans are making a push to shrink the
federal bureaucracy and rein in programs that deliver
funding to the states.
Gov. Charlie Baker's fiscal 2018 budget
includes an expected $11.437 billion in federal revenue.
Federal funding accounts for about 28 percent of Baker's
$40.5 billion spending plan. The amount of federal dollars
in the state budget has grown in recent years, rising from
$7.971 billion or nearly 26 percent of the $30.975 billion
budget in fiscal 2012....
Hoping to move people off MassHealth and
onto employer-sponsored health plans, the governor proposed
levying $2,000 per-employee assessment on businesses with 11
or more employees that don't offer health coverage or that
do not insure at least 80 percent of their full-time staff.
The proposal has received a mixed reception,
with business organizations objecting to the assessment and
a group of health providers, faith groups and unions
cheering the idea. Baker's budget also includes caps on the
rates health providers can charge for patient services.
State House News Service
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Mid-March tax collections up 9.8 percent
The $144.4 million supplemental budget that
bounced between the House and Senate on Wednesday afternoon
landed on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk by the end of the day,
having been approved by both branches nearly unanimously....
[Senate budget chief Karen Spilka] said she
expects another supplemental budget to emerge for fiscal
2017, which ends on June 30....
The House passed the bill Wednesday by a
156-1 roll call vote with Rep. James Lyons [R-Andover] the
lone dissenter. The Senate passed the bill on a 22-0
standing vote.
State House News Service
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
House and Senate pass $144M spending bill with more to come
As state representatives continue to mull a
response to President Donald Trump's actions and proposals,
a new analysis from Sen. Ed Markey predicts that spending
cuts suggested by the Trump administration would have a
disproportionate impact on Massachusetts.
Trump's budget, if unchanged by Congress,
could translate to Massachusetts losing out on $43 million
in National Science Foundation funding and ten of the
state's 34 Superfund sites losing access to cleanup
services, while nearly 26,000 low-income residents would be
left without civil legal representation and almost 200,000
families would be left without access to home energy
assistance, according to the report released by Markey's
office.
"The Massachusetts business plan relies on
investments in health care, education, scientific research
and innovation, but this budget takes a sledgehammer to
those sectors," Markey said. "Massachusetts is a bio-tech,
clean-tech, high-tech hub, and this budget puts our economy
directly in the crosshairs." ...
The Senate's main response to the Trump
administration so far has been passage of a resolution
expressing opposition to an executive order barring travel
to the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries.
That order, and second similar order, has been derailed by
court decisions.
[House Speaker Robert DeLeo] said he wants
the commission to "address those issues that affect
Massachusetts" and believes House members want to take
substantive action....
A chief area of concern is the amount of
money the state receives from the federal government for
running federal entitlement programs like Medicaid and the
manner in which that funding is allocated to the state. The
state's federal reimbursement revenue in fiscal 2017 is
expected to total $10.957 billion, according to the state's
most recent financial disclosure statement.
Gov. Charlie Baker's fiscal 2018 budget
includes an expected $11.437 billion in federal revenue, of
which the vast majority -- $11.151 billion -- falls under
the category of health and human services. The next largest
portion, more than $202 million, is dedicated to education,
with over $41 million for administration and finance....
House Minority Leader Brad Jones, a North
Reading Republican, said last month that lawmakers should
use caution before taking steps that could damage the
working relationship between the state and federal
government, but said he might be able to get on board with
some actions.
"What they perceive as a lack of thoughtful
leadership by the Trump administration shouldn't be in turn
met by a lack of thoughtful leadership by the membership
here," Jones said last month.
State House News Service
Monday, March 20, 2017
New Fed spending, priorities leave Beacon Hill on edge
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
It's time for septuagenarian (soon to become octogenarian)
Senate Majority Leader Harriette L. Chandler (D-Worcester)
to retire before she breaks the bank. The 79-year-old
Democrat, in her 23rd year in the Legislature, is all elbows
at the public trough wolfing down every cent of public
largesse she can wrap her greasy fingers around and inhale.
With the obscene new pay raise(s) recently rammed through
the Legislature, she now rakes in $157,547.97 every year
— up from the $62,547.97
legislators' base pay: a 157% pay increase for her. But
still that's not enough for a greedhead. She actually
drives the long way to work to add a few unnecessary miles
to her commute so she can pick an additional $5,000 from
taxpayers' pockets. Harriette Chandler is the face of
Bacon Hill gluttony in all its ugliness.
As you can see from the Beacon Hill Roll Call
report above ("How long was last
week's session?"), there's very little going happening on
Beacon Hill to report. The House has met for less than 3˝ hours over the last two weeks, the Senate for 23 minutes.
"The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" apparently is so
exhausted from ramming through their obscene pay grab that
it has done very little since. Those hard-working
legislators need to recover from all that heavy-lifting
before regrouping for their next assault on taxpayers.
Retailers are fighting back against the 6.25% sales tax.
The Legislature couldn't find the anticipated $18-$20
million in sales tax loss over the traditional "Sales Tax
Holiday" weekend last August —
though the Legislature did
find the $18 million for its obscene pay grab, which in
part no doubt is motivation for members of the
Retailers Association of Massachusetts, if bordering on
sales and income tax-free New Hampshire surely isn't
incentive enough for them.
I'm sure the retailers association can count on
taxpayer support with their ballot question if they pull the
trigger on it.
On Monday, March 20 the Department of Revenue
announced:
"Total Tax collections for the month-to-date period
were $1.381 billion, up $124 million or 9.8% versus
the same period last year. On a fiscal
year-to-date basis, Total Tax collections through
March 15th were $17.235 billion, which is $429
million or 2.6% greater than the same period last
year."
Here's another reminder that Massachusetts doesn't
have a revenue problem it has a spending
problem. It will spend every cent it takes from us,
then come back for more, more, always more.
As state representatives
continue to mull a response to President Donald
Trump's actions and proposals, a new analysis from
Sen. Ed Markey predicts that spending cuts suggested
by the Trump administration would have a
disproportionate impact on Massachusetts. . . .
"The Massachusetts business
plan relies on investments in health care,
education, scientific research and innovation, but
this budget takes a sledgehammer to those sectors,"
Markey said. "Massachusetts is a bio-tech,
clean-tech, high-tech hub, and this budget puts our
economy directly in the crosshairs."
So what's Sen. Markey's solution? The same as Sen.
Warren's and that of the nine Congressional Representatives
in our state's totally Democrat delegation in Washington. Relentlessly
attacking and trashing the Trump administration, a truly
stupid strategy if nothing else, is apparently derived from
an infected water supply in our state. Gov. Baker
seems to have tipped a few cups from that source as well, as
he and his administration distance itself from Trump then go hat-in-hand to the Trump
administration pleading for waivers and special exceptions
from Medicaid and other Obamacare requirements.
I guess none of them has come across the old adage "It's
easier to attract bees with honey than vinegar."
You've probably noticed that a multitude of news reports we
pass on to you are from the State House News Service (SHNS).
It used to be that the "press gallery"
— a big room on the fourth floor of the State House
— was packed solid with
reporters, desks jammed together cheek-by-jowl, representing
all the daily newspapers across the state whose cadre of
reporters covered Beacon Hill. That was before
newspapers began cutting costs, reporters, and coverage.
That once-packed room buzzing with activity is now but a
shadow of what it once was.
Most of the news you get about what's going on at the
State House in your local newspaper, but for a few
exceptions, is now reported by either the Associated Press
or the State House News Service, with the latter being the
most comprehensive. Local news publications subscribe
to and reproduce at their discretion news from SHNS reports and those of AP. CLT has
been a subscriber and customer of the SHNS for decades, so
that we can stay informed of breaking news and pass on
important events to our members. A subscription
currently costs CLT $156/month —
$1,872/year. I thought you should know that this is
one of the reasons we depend on your support to survive, and
one of the many ways we use your contributions.
Make a Contribution Here
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
|
The Telegram & Gazette
Friday, March 24, 2017
Taking longer way to work pays for Worcester
state senator
By Mark Sullivan
Call it a $5,000 detour.
By taking Interstate 290, Interstate 495 and the
Massachusetts Turnpike on her commute to and
from the Statehouse, Senate Majority Leader
Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester, is able to
add $5,000 to her travel expenses.
Under the new legislative pay scale, legislators
who live less than 50 miles from the Statehouse
in Boston receive $15,000 to cover expenses.
Lawmakers who live more than 50 miles away get
$20,000.
According to Google Maps, if Mrs. Chandler takes
the faster route - via the Mass. Pike, Route 146
and I-290 - the distance between her home on
Aylesbury Road in Worcester and the Statehouse
in Boston is 49.7 miles - a hair under 50.
But the alternate route suggested by Google
Maps, via Mass. Pike, I-495 and I-290, comes out
to 53.1 miles.
According to the Senate clerk's office, Mrs.
Chandler is collecting the $20,000.
Travel expenses are one way state lawmakers are
able to augment their paychecks.
"Do you get paid for driving to work?" asks
Chip Faulkner, communications director for
Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Virtually
anyone will say, 'Of course not.' Yet the state
Legislature does. How do you figure that one?"
Another way legislators add to their pay is
through stipends for leadership and committee
roles.
A newly-adopted Senate rule allows a member to
take stipends for as many as three positions.
Mrs. Chandler is taking two stipends. In
addition to her base legislator's pay of
$62,547.97 and the $20,000 for travel expenses,
she receives $60,000 (newly increased from
$22,500) as majority leader, and $15,000 as
chairman of the Senate redistricting committee,
for a total take-home of $157,547.97, according
to the Senate clerk.
She is one of the highest paid members of the
Legislature.
In January, the Democratic-controlled
Legislature overrode a veto by Republican Gov.
Charles D. Baker Jr. to pass an $18 million
legislative pay hike that included raises for
House and Senate leaders, six state
constitutional officers and scores of judges.
The redistricting committee Mrs. Chandler is
getting $15,000 to lead currently has no
business before it and no hearings scheduled,
since the 2020 census that will determine the
redrawing of congressional districts is still
three years away.
"I wonder why they don't have a committee for
the Spanish-American War veterans. Of course,
none exist," said Mr. Faulkner of
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Anti-tax activists have criticized what they
regard as overly handsome pay for limited work
by Massachusetts lawmakers.
"Speaking of no-show, they have not done much of
anything this legislative session," Mr. Faulkner
said Tuesday. "Since they've been in, they've
taken 21 roll call votes, on three different
days. So they're not doing much work to justify
the pay increase.
"Not only that, but people have to understand,
last year they adjourned on July 31, and didn't
have a formal session or a roll call vote from
the first of August until January. It's
equivalent to paying you full-time and, by the
way, you can take the last few months off of the
year."
Paul Craney, executive director of the
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a conservative
nonprofit organization run by former Republican
operatives, said: "This is the best part-time
job in America. The only place this doesn't
sound ridiculous is in the Statehouse."
But Mrs. Chandler this week defended the job she
does as a legislator and the pay she receives.
The 79-year-old Democrat, elected to the Senate
in 2000 after serving as a state representative,
is in her 23rd year in the Legislature. She
represents the 1st Worcester District, which
encompasses the northern portion of Worcester;
Boylston, Holden, Princeton and West Boylston;
and parts of Clinton and Northboro.
Mrs. Chandler was driving back to Worcester when
reached by phone Tuesday afternoon.
Asked about qualifying for the $20,000 travel
expenses, she said she's about to move, closer
to the Holden line, beyond the 50-mile mark from
Beacon Hill. She did not disclose her new
address. Her commute, she said, "depends on
which way is least crowded at the time of day
that I go."
Regarding the stipend she receives as chairman
of the redistricting committee, she was asked
how much work the committee can be doing now if
the census is three years off.
She said Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg,
D-Amherst, who has been involved in
redistricting twice, in 2000 and 2010, believes
the process works best if begun early.
Mrs. Chandler said she hopes to partner with the
University of Massachusetts at Boston on a study
of demographic changes since the last census,
when the Bay State lost a congressional seat in
redistricting.
"We believe that the 3rd (Congressional)
District that we are in may have picked up
people," said the Worcester lawmaker. "Where are
they? Are there enough to get another seat
back?"
"I'm a pretty good researcher myself," she said.
"At the moment it's just me and a small
committee. There is no staff for it, but there
will be staff.
"I'll be having a lot of meetings, absolutely a
lot of meetings," she said.
"This is a very important committee that becomes
increasingly more important as we move toward
the census, because this determines what our
congressional delegation will be, what our
various districts will look like. The changes
will become very significant.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm sure I will put in
$15,000 worth of work. Anybody who knows me
knows I'm a hard worker."
Mrs. Chandler voted in favor of the legislative
pay raise. She was asked how she responds to
critics who suggest she and other lawmakers are
padding their pay with stipends.
"They probably would prefer that I don't have a
salary," she said. "I think they would prefer
that we do it pro bono. But we can't do it that
way.
"The reason I voted for (the legislative pay
raise) was as much for the future as for the
present," she said. "We are really having a
problem getting good young people to run for
these jobs because they can earn so much more
elsewhere.
"Nobody blinks an eye when we talk about a pay
raise - which we hope we'll be able to do - for
teachers, or the police, or firefighters. That's
in the public sector. We don't even want to
compare it to what goes on in the private
sector. (Legislators' salaries) are way under
what the private sector gets.
"We work 24-7, 52 weeks a year," Mrs. Chandler
said. "At least I do, and I assume everybody
else does. I can't go to the grocery store
without meeting and talking to constituents who
have an issue. I'm always available to give them
help.
"I don't know of too many jobs that are 24-7.
That is the nature of the job. I happen to love
what I do. I've been doing it for a long time. I
still feel very passionately about what I do."
Her occupation as a legislator is "full-time,"
she said. "I'm going home now, hopefully to grab
a quick bite of dinner, then going out again, to
a 6 o'clock meeting. I have that every night.
Before I came in, I had a meeting. I'll be doing
the same thing tomorrow. It's all day, and it's
constant.
"That's the job," she said. "That's the job."
State House News Service
Monday, March 27, 2017
Retailers weighing sales tax cut ballot question
By Michael P. Norton
There may be a major tax cut competing with the
significant tax increase that's already being
prepared for the 2018 ballot in Massachusetts.
Retailers have conducted polling and are
encouraged by results suggesting Massachusetts
residents are receptive to reducing the state
sales tax, which was raised to 6.25 percent from
5 percent during a 2009 push led by House
Speaker Robert DeLeo.
"At this point all options are open," Retailers
Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst
told the News Service. "The board will be
considering options come May at our spring board
meeting and we're looking at what we can do."
In 2010, the same year Massachusetts voters
narrowly agreed to repeal a new sales tax on
alcohol, voters rejected a ballot question - 57
percent to 43 percent - that would have pushed
the overall sales tax rate down to 3 percent.
But the dynamics are different now.
Amid a prolonged economic recovery, Democrats on
Beacon Hill are leading the push for a 2018
ballot vote on a constitutional amendment
imposing a 4 percent surtax on household income
above $1 million. The retail sector is exploring
the possibility of adding a sales tax cut to the
mix on next year's ballot, which also includes
elections for governor and U.S. Senate and could
feature an initiative petition boosting the
state's minimum wage.
A poll conducted for the retailers association
in November by Princeton Research Associates
reminded respondents that the so-called
millionaire's tax may be headed for next year's
ballot. Seventy-nine percent of those
respondents said they support reducing the sales
tax to about 4 percent or 4.5 percent to make
the tax system fairer and to support local
retailers. In the poll, 66 percent said they
believe the "proper sales tax range" for
Massachusetts would between 4 percent and 4.5
percent.
Retailers feel public policy is stacked against
them as the volume of sales transacted online,
and largely tax-free, has soared in recent
years, pulling buyers away from stores that have
traditionally served as community anchors.
At the same time, brick-and-mortar retailers,
after being hit with the 25 percent sales tax
hike in 2009, have had to battle annually to
secure even a two-day reprieve from the sales
tax, a tax holiday that the Legislature decided
not to grant last summer. And long-running
efforts to enable states to collect sales taxes
on out-of-state purchases have failed to date,
with no breakthrough on that front in the
foreseeable future.
"There's just a lot of frustration," Hurst said.
"We've been talking about this for two decades."
The income surtax could generate up to $2
billion a year in new revenue. The sales tax,
the state's second largest source of tax revenue
behind the income tax, produced just over $6
billion in revenue for the state during fiscal
2016, the last full fiscal year. Fiscal 2016
income tax collections were $14.4 billion. Total
tax collections for fiscal 2016 were $25.3
billion.
Karyn Polito, now the lieutenant governor but
back then a state rep running for treasurer,
said in 2010 that she would vote for the measure
reducing the sales tax to 3 percent, while
Republican candidate for governor Charlie Baker
in 2010 suggested Question 3 went "too far."
At the time, Polito said, "Beacon Hill, the way
it operates, unless the people send a message
saying that higher taxes is not acceptable
they'll never lower the tax. So Question 3, if
it passes the Legislature can come in and get
that sales tax back to 5 percent where it should
be."
Before dropping his call for broad-based tax
cuts during his winning 2014 campaign, Baker in
his 2010 run supported reducing the income and
sales tax rates to 5 percent. During his 2014
campaign, Baker declined to take a no-new-taxes
pledge but called his opponent's' refusal to
rule out tax hikes and the idea of a graduated
income tax "unimaginative and bad economic
policies that will hurt Massachusetts families
at a time when they can least afford it."
Opponents of the income surtax proposal claim
its passage would lead to further tax increases
through a graduated income tax structure under
which tax rates rise in lockstep with income
levels. Republican lawmakers denounced the
proposed income surtax last session, but were
easily outvoted by Democrats who sent the
measure on to the 2017-2018 session where a
second favorable vote would ensure a ballot spot
in 2018 for the constitutional amendment.
Initiative petitions, such as measures
contemplated to reduce the sales tax or raise
the minimum wage, require 10 voters to sign and
submit language to the attorney general's office
by Aug. 2, 2017. The attorney general would need
to determine by Sept. 6 whether proposals are
eligible for the ballot. Once it is determined
that questions are eligible, campaigns must then
embark on long signature-gathering efforts
required to ensure ballot access.
A sales tax cut was briefly on Beacon Hill's
radar in 2013 when former Gov. Deval Patrick
proposed reducing the sales tax rate to 4.5
percent and repealing the exemption of candy and
soda from the sales tax. Patrick included those
proposals with a plan to raise the income tax
rate to 6.25 percent, eliminate certain tax
breaks, and boost the cigarette tax. On net,
Patrick's plan would have increased state
revenues by $1.9 billion.
DeLeo and the Legislature opted for a plan that
raised the gas tax 3 cents and tied it to
inflation, increased tobacco taxes by $1 per
pack and applied the sales tax to software
services. Lawmakers revisited and repealed the
software services tax and voters repealed the
law indexing the gas tax to inflation.
State House News Service
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Mid-March tax collections up 9.8 percent
By Michael P. Norton
There's a temporary pause in the spate of news
about disappointing tax revenue growth levels.
Collections over the first half of March are up
9.8 percent, or $124 million compared to the
same period in 2016, according to a
letter to
lawmakers from Revenue Commissioner Michael
Heffernan.
The $1.38 billion collected through March 15
brings fiscal year-to-date tax collections up to
$17.235 billion. That's plus $429 million or 2.6
percent but shy of the growth rate lawmakers and
Gov. Charlie Baker are relying on to back up
their annual budget and midyear spending plans.
The biggest state tax sources, the income tax
and sales and use taxes, are up 3.2 percent and
2.8 percent, fiscal year-to-date, respectively.
Heffernan cautioned that March revenues are
weighted toward the end of the month and advised
against using mid-month numbers to predict
trends.
"March is a mid-size month for revenue
collections, ranking #6 of the 12 months in each
of the last eight years," Heffernan wrote in his
letter, dated Monday. "The filing season for
individual income taxes is well underway in
March, which is reflected in the amount of
refunds flowing out during the full-month
period. Corporate and business tax payments are
due in the month."
State tax collections in January of $2.7 billion
were up 4.4 percent over January 2016. February
collections of $1.18 billion were down 7.5
percent.
On the heels of lowered projections and
unilateral budget cuts in December, receipts
through February trail the fiscal year benchmark
by $134 million.
While tax collections are tracked with
precision, the Baker administration, like its
predecessors, does not maintain a publicly
available metric to track spending throughout
the year.
Perhaps moreso than previously, administration
officials and Democrats who run the Legislature
are monitoring public policy and budget talks in
Washington where Republicans are making a push
to shrink the federal bureaucracy and rein in
programs that deliver funding to the states.
Gov. Charlie Baker's fiscal 2018 budget includes
an expected $11.437 billion in federal revenue.
Federal funding accounts for about 28 percent of
Baker's $40.5 billion spending plan. The amount
of federal dollars in the state budget has grown
in recent years, rising from $7.971 billion or
nearly 26 percent of the $30.975 billion budget
in fiscal 2012.
Hearings on Baker's fiscal 2018 budget resume
Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Reggie Lewis Center in
Boston.
With Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou
Sudders expected to testify, lawmakers at the
hearing could dig into one of the more
controversial aspects of Gov. Charlie Baker's
budget proposal.
Hoping to move people off MassHealth and onto
employer-sponsored health plans, the governor
proposed levying $2,000 per-employee assessment
on businesses with 11 or more employees that
don't offer health coverage or that do not
insure at least 80 percent of their full-time
staff.
The proposal has received a mixed reception,
with business organizations objecting to the
assessment and a group of health providers,
faith groups and unions cheering the idea.
Baker's budget also includes caps on the rates
health providers can charge for patient
services.
State House News Service
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
House and Senate pass $144M spending bill with
more to come
By Colin A. Young and Michael P. Norton
The $144.4 million supplemental budget that
bounced between the House and Senate on
Wednesday afternoon landed on Gov. Charlie
Baker's desk by the end of the day, having been
approved by both branches nearly unanimously.
The midyear spending bill (H 3448) included
$30.2 million for the Committee for Public
Counsel Services, $28 million for sheriffs
departments, $20.9 million for emergency
assistance shelters, $14 million for DOC
facilities, $12.4 million for collective
bargaining, $10.8 million for DDS Turning 22, $6
million for judgements and settlements, $5.2
million for the Department of Children and
Families, $4.5 million for elder home care, and
$300,000 for a new reserve to cover the cost to
begin legal marijuana implementation, Senate
budget chief Karen Spilka said.
The bill also doubles from $150,000 to $300,000
the one-time payment to families of first
responders killed in the line of duty, a change
that will take effect in time to benefit the
family of Watertown firefighter Joseph Toscano,
who died March 17 while on duty fighting a
two-alarm fire.
The bill is a reworked version of a $259 million
supplemental budget filed in February by Gov.
Baker, and Spilka said that the version up for a
vote Wednesday addresses "only the most pressing
needs of the commonwealth while making sure we
balance our fiscal responsibility and remain
good stewards of taxpayer dollars."
House Ways and Means Chairman Brian Dempsey said
legislative leaders wanted to limit the size of
the spending bill at this point in the year
after February revenue collections put the state
$134 million behind estimates for fiscal 2017.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr questioned the
lack of additional funding for snow and ice
removal, and Spilka said that the snow and ice
account had about a $14 million balance before
last week's storm. "Over the next few weeks we
will have a better sense of what that account
needs," she said, alluding to the fact that
though tax revenues remain in a funk, lawmakers
are not done spending this fiscal year. Spilka
said she expects another supplemental budget to
emerge for fiscal 2017, which ends on June 30.
The House passed the bill Wednesday by a 156-1
roll call vote with Rep. James Lyons the lone
dissenter. The Senate passed the bill on a 22-0
standing vote.
State House News Service
Monday, March 20, 2017
New Fed spending, priorities leave Beacon Hill
on edge
By Colin A. Young and Katie Lannan
As state representatives continue to mull a
response to President Donald Trump's actions and
proposals, a new analysis from Sen. Ed Markey
predicts that spending cuts suggested by the
Trump administration would have a
disproportionate impact on Massachusetts.
Trump's budget, if unchanged by Congress, could
translate to Massachusetts losing out on $43
million in National Science Foundation funding
and ten of the state's 34 Superfund sites losing
access to cleanup services, while nearly 26,000
low-income residents would be left without civil
legal representation and almost 200,000 families
would be left without access to home energy
assistance, according to the report released by
Markey's office.
"The Massachusetts business plan relies on
investments in health care, education,
scientific research and innovation, but this
budget takes a sledgehammer to those sectors,"
Markey said. "Massachusetts is a bio-tech,
clean-tech, high-tech hub, and this budget puts
our economy directly in the crosshairs."
Trump's budget blueprint calls for major
increases in spending military and defense,
border security, law enforcement and school
choice initiatives.
The report said an 18 percent budget cut at the
National Institutes of Health could mean $463
million less in NIH funding for Massachusetts,
905 fewer NIH grants awarded and $14.4 million
less in funds to train science researchers.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo also pegged National
Institutes of Health funding as an area of
particular concern for the state.
"It appears under the proposal as set forth
right now as we know it some of those monies may
be in jeopardy," DeLeo said in a Boston Herald
Radio interview Friday. "So that is something
we're very, very concerned about."
After announcing earlier this month that he
would create an inter-committee working group to
study how the Trump administration's activities
will affect Massachusetts and recommend
legislative responses, DeLeo on Friday said two
of his closest confidants will spearhead the
effort.
Majority Leader Ronald Mariano of Quincy and
Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad of Somerset
will lead the working group, which DeLeo has
described as a commission, and DeLeo said he
expects to have the rest of the roster completed
within two weeks.
"I think that what I'm hearing consistently from
members, probably at every caucus no matter what
the subject matter of the caucus is, is their
concerns relative to what's happening in
Washington and whatnot," DeLeo said.
Sixty percent of Massachusetts voters cast their
presidential ballot for Democrat Hillary Clinton
in November, compared to about 33 percent for
Trump. In the 160-member House, Democrats hold a
125-35 advantage over the Republicans.
House Democrats met in a closed-door caucus last
month to privately air their thoughts on early
moves by the Trump administration. The
commission headed by Mariano and Haddad was
created to provide an outlet to turn those
opinions into some type of policy action.
The Senate's main response to the Trump
administration so far has been passage of a
resolution expressing opposition to an executive
order barring travel to the United States from
seven majority-Muslim countries. That order, and
second similar order, has been derailed by court
decisions.
The speaker said he wants the commission to
"address those issues that affect Massachusetts"
and believes House members want to take
substantive action.
"What I heard loudly and clearly from the caucus
is they were frustrated just doing a so-called
resolution," DeLeo said on Herald Radio. "It
sends a message, but they would rather see
action on legislation. So that's what I'm
looking for, more or less, to try to get some
dissection, if you will, of legislation that's
coming down."
A chief area of concern is the amount of money
the state receives from the federal government
for running federal entitlement programs like
Medicaid and the manner in which that funding is
allocated to the state. The state's federal
reimbursement revenue in fiscal 2017 is expected
to total $10.957 billion, according to the
state's most recent financial disclosure
statement.
Gov. Charlie Baker's fiscal 2018 budget includes
an expected $11.437 billion in federal revenue,
of which the vast majority -- $11.151 billion --
falls under the category of health and human
services. The next largest portion, more than
$202 million, is dedicated to education, with
over $41 million for administration and finance.
In total, federal funding accounts for about 28
percent of Baker's $40.5 billion spending plan.
The amount of federal dollars in the state
budget has grown in recent years, rising from
$7.971 billion or nearly 26 percent of the
$30.975 billion budget in fiscal 2012.
Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday called
Trump's spending blueprint "the most
conservative budget since Ronald Reagan sat in
the Oval Office," pointing to "double-digit
reductions in no fewer than 10 federal
departments," including a 31 percent cut at the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Speaking to the conservative advocacy group Club
for Growth in West Palm Beach, Florida, Pence
also outlined additional Medicaid reform
proposals that, if adopted, would have
ramifications for state governments.
Pence said amendments to the American Health
Care Act, the Obamacare replacement plan backed
by congressional Republicans and the Trump
administration, would allow states to include a
work requirement for "able-bodied adults," give
states the option for block-grant Medicaid
funding and "stop more states from expanding
Medicaid by ceasing the expansion for states
that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare
immediately."
DeLeo said there has been discussion within the
House around health care, with lawmakers
considering ideas that "not only may respond to
what the president's talking about, but be
responsible to what the citizens of
Massachusetts are looking for."
House Minority Leader Brad Jones, a North
Reading Republican, said last month that
lawmakers should use caution before taking steps
that could damage the working relationship
between the state and federal government, but
said he might be able to get on board with some
actions.
"What they perceive as a lack of thoughtful
leadership by the Trump administration shouldn't
be in turn met by a lack of thoughtful
leadership by the membership here," Jones said
last month. |
| |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|