Citizens for Limited Taxation has
joined the effort by the Retailers Association of
Massachusetts to gather signatures for a referendum vote on
lowering the state sales tax. Their petition would lower the
tax from the current 6.25 percent to where it was in 2009 –
5 percent.
It would also mandate a tax-free weekend
every August. In recent years the Legislature has decided
this is a luxury the commonwealth cannot afford.
The Salem News
Friday, October 6, 2017
Weekly Political Potpourri Column
By Nelson Benton
Unfazed by two consecutive years in which
their budgets collapsed, the Massachusetts House on
Wednesday completed votes needed to restore the $320 million
that Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed from the budget in July.
The Senate so far has gone along with $40
million of House-approved overrides, with more veto
reversals expected. Both braches must sign off on the
spending before it is restored to the budget....
The House on Wednesday restored $36 million
to the fiscal 2018 budget, and the Senate took votes to
override $14.9 million in gubernatorial spending vetoes that
already passed through the House, according to aides in both
branch's budget-writing committees.
Supermajorities in both the House and Senate
allow Democrats to steamroll their Republican counterparts,
who often voted with the governor but sometimes sided with
their Democratic colleagues on Wednesday.
In July Baker vetoed $320 million as he
signed a $39.4 million fiscal 2018 budget, warning that
without additional reforms to MassHealth the budget would
fall out of balance and he would need to take corrective
action. Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka and
House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sánchez are in
agreement that the spending bill they sent the governor in
July was balanced....
In fiscal 2017, Baker vetoed $264 million,
the Legislature added back $229 million, and revenues missed
their revised benchmark by $431 million. In fiscal 2016, the
governor vetoed $163 million, lawmakers restored $98
million, and revenues came in $481 million below the state's
revised benchmark....
"Democrats' sole mission this legislative
session has been to put taxpayers at risk. First, they
sought to raise taxes on working families to fund their
giant pay hikes, and now they are pushing the budget out of
balance," Terry MacCormack, spokesman for the state
Republican party, said in a statement. "Instead of more
fiscal gamesmanship, they should promise to work with
Governor Baker to control state spending; and they could
start by returning their pay increases." ...
"We're going to be back here again
addressing programs that are underfunded because we simply
don't have the money," Rep. James Lyons, an Andover
Republican told colleagues on the House floor Wednesday. He
said the budget is based on "fuzzy math."
State House News Service
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
House steamrolls through Baker veto overrides, but work left
in Senate
As lawmakers this week continued the
systematic reversal of Gov. Charlie Baker’s budget vetoes,
Senate Ways and Means Committee chair Karen Spilka said she
believes the budget sent to Baker in July remains balanced.
Of course Spilka can believe the moon
is made of green cheese — it doesn’t much matter, since it
is the governor who is responsible for ensuring the budget
is balanced all year. The Legislature sent him what
turned out to be out-of-balance budgets two years in a row
and now it appears they’re going for the trifecta.
The House and Senate are set to restore most
if not all of the $320 million that Baker cut, because he
was concerned revenues wouldn’t support the planned
spending. And because September was a decent month for
revenue collections they now have a cushion to justify the
overrides (and blame Baker if he has to make mid-year
adjustments).
Because of lagging revenues Baker has been
forced to make mid-year cuts in the last two fiscal years.
In both of those budgets, he had trimmed spending at the
outset — including excising earmarks and excessive spending
on lawmakers’ pet projects — only to have those vetoes
reversed.
And after each round of cuts lawmakers
complained, and chided Baker for being too liberal with the
red pen. They also had to seek more funding in the middle of
the year for accounts they had underfunded. This is not a
pattern of responsible budgeting....
This year Baker also proposed a series of
money-saving health care reforms, which would have freed up
more funds for lawmakers to fund their critical gazebos and
municipal snowplows and cultural grants. Those reforms were
ignored, with Spilka and others saying they just didn’t have
time to deal with them. Meanwhile the full-time Legislature
has been back from its summer “break” for weeks, and nothing
has happened on health care yet.
Rep. James Lyons on Tuesday said the fiscal
2018 budget is based on “fuzzy math.” Sadly for taxpayers
that has become Beacon Hill’s specialty.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, October 6, 2017
Prodigal Legislature
With just one month left until the
Legislature recesses for the year, the Democrats' agenda has
been slow to take form, and business groups moved to
undercut one leg of their stool by filing a lawsuit
challenging the attorney general's certification of a ballot
question to impose a surtax on millionaires.
The Raise Up Coalition believes their
constitutional amendment remains on solid footing, but the
business groups' case is probably more than just a wish and
prayer, and if successful would seriously dampen the
excitement of lawmakers looking ahead to 2019 and all the
money they think they'll have to spend.
The one thing the branches have been able
agree on is that the budget they produced in July was fine
as it was before Gov. Charlie Baker got his jittery hands on
it.
House leaders flexed their muscles in a way
not seen for at least several years, completing their work
to reverse all $320 million worth of spending vetoes made by
Baker in July as the Republican governor warned about the
risk of a third-straight cycle of mid-year budget cuts.
House Democrats, however, didn't want to be
told about the need to exercise caution, and their
confidence in their own budgeting ability, whether it will
prove to be misguided or right on the money this year, got a
shot in the arm by a September revenue report showing that
for the time being the state has a $124 million cushion.
The Senate has been taking up budget
overrides at a slower pace – just $40 million so far – but
there's little indication to suggest they will be more
conservative about spending than their counterparts in the
House.
State House News Service
Friday, October 6, 2017
Weekly Roundup [Excerpt]
By Matt Murphy
House and Senate Democrats hold the type of
control over the Massachusetts Legislature that party
leaders wish they held in Congress, but Beacon Hill leaders
are showing in 2017 that they're not worked up about
exercising their power pushing an ambitious agenda.
Lawmakers voted themselves pay raises right
out of the gate this year and overhauled a marijuana
legalization law that voters forced on them, but since then
have mostly tended to local bills and alcohol licenses and
their annual requirement to pass a state budget....
In just over five weeks, lawmakers are
slated to take another recess - this one runs for more than
six weeks - and it's looking less and less likely that major
health care and criminal justice reform bills will get to
Gov. Charlie Baker before then.
State House News Service
Friday, October 6, 2017
Advances - Week of Oct. 8, 2017
The fact that five influential business
organizations have filed suit to challenge the legality of a
2018 referendum question that would add a 4 percent income
tax surcharge on the state's highest earners shouldn't be
taken at face value.
It involves more than contesting the right
of a citizens petition to pick the pockets of those whose
earnings exceed $1 million annually.
Known as the Fair Share Amendment, it would
impose a 4 percent surcharge on earnings over $1 million, in
addition to the state's 5.1 percent income tax. The proceeds
from this tax upon a tax - estimated to be $2 billion
annually - would be dedicated to bolstering the state's
transportation infrastructure and education system.
The business groups' argument questions the
constitutionality of the ballot initiative, since it
violates the state Constitution by specifying how the funds
should be spent, and by usurping the state Legislature's
authority to impose taxes....
Don't worry about the rich. They can move or
remain in Massachusetts no matter the tax burden. It's the
businesses that won't expand or take root at all -- and all
the jobs they would create -- that should be our main
concern if the added tax on those high earners becomes law.
A Sentinel & Enterprise editorial
Saturday, October 7, 2017
No need to lose Fair Share of Mass. business growth
A tax-exempt group backed by Republicans is
taking aim at Democratic lawmakers with a series of
blistering mailers that criticize a controversial vote
earlier this year to give themselves a pay raise.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, founded
by GOP businessman and congressional candidate Rick Green,
is targeting nearly 40 Democrats up for re-election to the
House of Representatives and Senate next year, including
Reps. Theodore Speliotis, of Danvers, and Ann-Margaret
Ferrante, of Gloucester.
The group has blanketed 29 House districts
and nine Senate districts with a barrage of "educational
fliers" that blast the raises.
Speliotis, who is seeking re-election from a
district that includes Danvers and part of West Peabody,
accused the group of distorting the issue.
"They've really gone over the top this
time," he said. "It's a pure political piece to highlight an
unpopular vote. There's nothing educational about it." ...
Paul Craney, the Fiscal Alliance's executive
director, said the group stands behind its claims. He said
voters were outraged over the pay raise.
“It’s up to the lawmakers to defend their
vote to give themselves a raise,” he said. “We’re just
putting that information out there for people.” ...
The increase in leadership pay came after
all 200 lawmakers saw a base pay increase this year of 4.2
percent, to $62,547 per year, under a 1998 constitutional
mandate requiring automatic adjustments based on changes in
median household income.
It also gave them the sixth-highest salary
of lawmakers in 10 full-time state legislatures in the
country....
Craney called the criticism by Democrats a
“distraction” that “targets the messenger.”
"We're just putting the information out
there," he said. "That's our mission statement – holding
lawmakers accountable – and we're not going to stop."
The Salem News
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Democrats hammered on raises
GOP-backed group targets local lawmakers
Whether the charges in those educational
mailers are true or not should be the only issue.
They are true.
The Legislature rammed through in a month
the obscene pay raises for themselves right after the last
election as the first order of business of this legislative
session, in Jan-Feb of 2017. The shock-and-awe process was
done with the hope (and expectation) that voters would
forget before the next election, almost two years away at
that time. They threw in more pay raises for judges just to
make it repeal-proof by referendum on the ballot by the
voters.
Reminding voters of legislators'
self-serving conspiracy of greed is not only appropriate but
is much appreciated. It is a public service. Legislators
whose first priority was filling their pockets at taxpayers'
expense should be held accountable for their greed.
We too will not forget, nor forgive. Read
for yourself and remember the History of the Legislators'
Obscene Pay Grab:
http://cltg.org/cltg/clt2017/payraise.htm
Comment by Chip Ford
to above Salem News report
