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and the
Citizens Economic Research Foundation
Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(508)
915-3665
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
44 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Sunday, April 29, 2018
House passes $41 Billion budget
— another $1B annual spending
increase
|
Ever wonder how many of those clamoring for
a “millionaires tax” in Massachusetts are themselves willing
to pay a few more bucks as their “fair share”?
The answer is, practically none — less than
one-twentieth of one percent of Massachusetts taxpayers are
voluntarily paying more for … the children … or the
infrastructure … or something.
I know this because of that special box on
state income tax forms. Checking this box allows the
millions of Social Justice Warriors here in Massachusetts to
reject paying the 5.1 percent rate favored by evil
deplorables, irredeemables, bitter clingers and other
assorted Trump voters.
How satisfying it must be for the “woke”
among us to virtue-signal by voluntarily paying at the old
Dukakis-era rate of 5.85 percent!
Considering recent election returns here,
not to mention postings on social media, one would expect
that at least two-thirds of the state’s filers would eagerly
part with more of their hard-earned wages — er, strike that,
Your Honor — I meant to say, the dividends from their trust
funds or, if they’re illegal immigrants, their welfare
handouts.
Surely these Democrats who endlessly talk
the CNN/MSNBC talk would gladly walk the walk.
Actually no, they would not.
According to the state Department of
Revenue’s most recent numbers, as of March 31, 2,027,928
income tax returns had been filed in the state and 894
taxpayers had opted to pay at Dukakis’ old 5.85 percent
rate.
The added state revenue from those 894
generous souls came to, drumroll please, $121,361.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Those who push ‘millionaires tax’ don’t volunteer extra
funds on state forms
By Howie Carr
A new group made up largely of organized
labor has formed to oppose a proposed ballot question that
would reduce the state sales tax by 20 percent, further
solidifying the campaign as one pitting unions against Bay
State retailers.
The Save Our Pubic Services Committee warned
that reducing the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5
percent would eliminate $1.25 billion in annual tax revenues
collected by the state, jeopardizing funding for local
schools, health programs and roads.
"If the sales tax cut passes, communities
will be forced to lay off teachers, police officers, and
firefighters. Mental health and addiction treatment programs
will close, spending on parks and environmental protection
will be cut, and important road and transit construction
projects will be delayed for years," said Deb Fastino,
executive director of the Coalition for Social Justice, in a
statement.
The opposition committee was founded by
1199SEIU, A Better City, AFSCME Council 93, American
Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts, Boston Teachers Union,
Coalition for Social Justice, Jewish Alliance for Law and
Social Action, Mass. AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Communities
Action Network, Massachusetts Teachers Association,
Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, Transportation
for Massachusetts, SEIU Local 509, United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 1445....
The ballot question has been pitched by the
Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
In addition to competition from online
sellers, RAM President Jon Hurst has said small business
owners faced added pressure from the state's earned sick
time law and other questions moving toward the ballot to
increase the minimum wage to $15 and institute a paid family
and medical leave program.
The sales tax cut question, according to
Hurst, is a response to multiple policy changes in the
offing that could negatively impact retailers.
"Our members, small and large basically need
two things to be successful: 1. Higher sales; and 2. Lower
costs," Hurst wrote in a recent email to major state
business groups and chambers of commerce. "And given a
combination of increased competition coupled with an
aggressive public policy agenda driven largely by unionized
interests those two objectives are increasingly harder to
obtain."
Hurst, in the March 19 email obtained by the
News Service, described the decision to go to the ballot as
"taking some pages out of the opposition’s playbook."
"We don’t take this effort lightly, and have
only taken this extraordinary step to protect our members
from government imposed discriminatory policies, and the
costly, anti-small business agendas put forward by certain
special interest labor groups," Hurst wrote.
State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2018
Sales tax cut will force layoffs and service cuts, new oppo
group says
The House rejected a pair of major tax cuts
on Monday, including one that may be headed for this year's
ballot.
Without debate or opposition, the House
voted against proposals by Billerica Republican Rep. Marc
Lombardo to reduce the sales tax (108) and income tax rates
(109) to 5 percent.
Currently at 5.1 percent, the income tax
remains on track to eventually fall to 5 percent - the level
voters approved in 2000 - if the state hits economic
triggers.
Retailers are pushing a ballot question this
year to reduce the sales tax rate from 6.25 percent to 5
percent and establish an annual sales tax holiday. The
Legislature in 2009 raised the sales tax from 5 percent to
6.25 percent.
Before the tax votes, Boston Democrat Rep.
Angelo Scaccia also pulled back the curtain on the House's
private budget deliberations, saying there was not enough
money available in the budget to fund various priorities as
he argued unsuccessfully to curb or eliminate the film tax
credit.
State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2018
House rejects major reductions in income, sales taxes
The Massachusetts House on Wednesday
approved legislation doing away with a restriction that
prohibits families from receiving an extra $100 per-month
cash assistance for a baby conceived while the family was
receiving public assistance.
An amendment released just before 3:45 p.m.
included language to circumvent the so-called Cap on Kids
and instead mandate that "aid shall be provided for each
such child or children without regard to whether the child
was conceived or born after the parent began receiving aid."
...
The measure was included in a consolidated
amendment put together by House Democrats after brokering
deals with representatives who filed a cumulative 1,400
amendments to the House's $40.9 billion fiscal year 2019
spending plan (H 4400). The leadership-backed amendments
receive swift approval. The consolidated amendment that
included the change to the cap was adopted by a 152-0 roll
call vote Tuesday....
Rep. Marjorie Decker, who had also filed
standalone legislation to eliminate the cap, told her
colleagues shortly before the change was approved that this
marked "probably one of my proudest days to be here."
"Today, we have made an historic change.
Twenty years ago there was a movement around the country
that suggested that women of under resources and low-income
women shouldn't have children," she said.
The Cambridge Democrat said she was a
legislative aide at the State House when the cap was
initially put in place. She said the debate included "wrath
and disdain that was expressed about why low-income women
choose to have children" and suggestions that women would
have more babies in an attempt to secure additional state
aid.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
House agrees to extra aid for babies born on public
assistance
The House passed its roughly $41 billion
fiscal 2019 budget on Thursday by a 150-4 vote, devoting
billions towards perennial priorities and much smaller
amounts toward pet projects favored by lawmakers.
Among the changes to the document made over
the course of four days of debate is an increase in the
earned income tax credit that assists the working poor,
fewer restrictions on welfare for young families, and more
tax credits to put land into conservation.
The budget bill now heads to the Senate.
House lawmakers added $81.3 million in spending to the
budget bill this week through amendments, according to Ways
and Means, bringing the final tally to $41.065 billion
State House News Service
Thursday, April 26, 2018
House passes $41B budget after four days of deliberation
By Tuesday, legislators who don't already
know whether they have challengers will find out if they do.
It's the biennial deadline for candidates to file nomination
signatures and it coincides with another tradition: an
uptick in lawmaking among incumbents eager to show
constituents that they have accomplished something since the
last election. The super-majorities long held by Democrats
in both branches do not appear at risk this year, despite a
session that started out with controversial pay raises and
has proceeded at times at a halting pace, punctuated by
leadership turmoil, turnover and near-chaos in the
Senate.... While candidates will meet
Tuesday's deadline to file signatures - 300 for Senate
candidates and 150 for House - the Legislature is not poised
to act by Wednesday on a series of high-profile ballot
questions, which means petitioners will be free to begin
collecting a second and final round of signatures needed to
lock their questions in for the November ballot....
Major bills laying out new health care policies and
addressing opioid addiction and housing production remain
stalled at the committee level heading into the final three
months of formal sessions. It's possible that the House will
soon advance a health care proposal now that it has wrapped
up its fiscal 2019 budget deliberations ... Senate leaders
plan to unveil their annual budget on May 10, with debate
planned the week before Memorial Day Weekend....
Tax collections are beating estimates over the first eight
months of fiscal 2018 - April collection numbers are due out
next week - and that's fueling both desire to spend more and
calls for restraint. State House News
Service
Friday, April 27, 2018
Advances - Week of April 29, 2018
Wyoming in 2017 was the most politically
conservative state in the U.S. for the second consecutive
year. Forty-six percent of Wyoming residents identified as
conservative and 13% as liberal, yielding a net-conservative
score of +33. At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont
and Massachusetts were the least conservative states, with
liberals outnumbering conservatives by double-digit margins.
Nine states are more liberal than
conservative. Within this group, Maryland, Washington and
Connecticut barely lean that way, while Massachusetts and
Vermont have double-digit liberal advantages.
The map below indicates how each state's
net-conservative score compares with the national average of
+9 . . .
Gallup
February 6, 2018
Wyoming Still Most Conservative; Vermont, Massachusetts
Still Most Liberal
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
CLT's "Voluntary
Tax Check-Off" (filed
and introduced by CLT on December 6, 2000;
adopted and passed into law on July 20, 2002) is serving
its intended purpose. It has been effectively calling
out all those Takers who asserted during our income
tax rollback ballot campaign that they "don't need or want"
the income tax reduction our successful 2000 ballot question
was proposing. Year after year since our tax rollback
ballot question passed overwhelmingly by the voters we have
exposed their demonstrated blatant hypocrisy.
Fortunately for taxpayers like us, Howie Carr has almost
annually followed up and publicized it. How
deliciously satisfying!
But that doesn't slow The Takers'
determination to extract more from hard-working taxpayers
— and the usual deep-pockets of
the teachers unions and government employees' unions are
pouring on millions again — as
usual — to squeeze even more
out of us. Besides providing tremendous funding for
the expected ballot questions to increase the minimum wage,
provide family medical leave, and the sixth attempt to
repeal our constitutional flat-tax and impose a graduated
income tax, the wealthy unions are now funding opposition to
rolling back the sales tax. It must be comforting to
have the funds to so easily finance so much political
action, and on so many fronts.
I suppose it's somewhat gratifying to
recognize how much CLT has accomplished for such a vast
number of taxpayers over the decades with so little to work
with and with such minimal support.
Once again the House has given the
middle-finger Beacon Hill salute to that vast majority of
voters who, in 2000, ordered state government
— which allegedly serves its
citizens, not rules over its subjects
— to roll back the 5.85% income tax to 5% by 2003.
Eighteen years after the voters ordered the income tax be
rolled back it remains still higher, now at 5.1 percent.
Despite the House's proposal to again increase spending
annually by another billion of our dollars, despite
state spending doubling since our rollback, despite
revenues pouring into the state's coffers higher than
anticipated, still Beacon Hill autocrats refuse to
respect the voters' mandate , again
rejected a bill CLT files every year and has since our
rollback was “frozen”
in 2002.
But they've got the money to
— in what they Orwellian call
"welfare reform" — provide
additional benefits to mothers of children born after
they are already receiving public assistance for
children they could not and cannot afford to provide for.
Legislators have chosen to reject: "If you want less
of something, tax it; if you want more of something,
subsidize it."
The recent Gallup poll explains our plight
as abused taxpayers who fund all of state government and its
insuppressible excesses. Along with Vermont, it found
Massachusetts to be the most liberal state in the nation.
As usual The Pay State moguls are striving to again make
this state Number One in notoriety, profligate and
insatiable spending, and abysmal mismanagement.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Those who push ‘millionaires tax’ don’t
volunteer extra funds on state forms
By Howie Carr
Ever wonder how many of those clamoring for a
“millionaires tax” in Massachusetts are
themselves willing to pay a few more bucks as
their “fair share”?
The answer is, practically none — less than
one-twentieth of one percent of Massachusetts
taxpayers are voluntarily paying more for … the
children … or the infrastructure … or something.
I know this because of that special box on state
income tax forms. Checking this box allows the
millions of Social Justice Warriors here in
Massachusetts to reject paying the 5.1 percent
rate favored by evil deplorables, irredeemables,
bitter clingers and other assorted Trump voters.
How satisfying it must be for the “woke” among
us to virtue-signal by voluntarily paying at the
old Dukakis-era rate of 5.85 percent!
Considering recent election returns here, not to
mention postings on social media, one would
expect that at least two-thirds of the state’s
filers would eagerly part with more of their
hard-earned wages — er, strike that, Your Honor
— I meant to say, the dividends from their trust
funds or, if they’re illegal immigrants, their
welfare handouts.
Surely these Democrats who endlessly talk the
CNN/MSNBC talk would gladly walk the walk.
Actually no, they would not.
According to the state Department of Revenue’s
most recent numbers, as of March 31, 2,027,928
income tax returns had been filed in the state
and 894 taxpayers had opted to pay at Dukakis’
old 5.85 percent rate.
The added state revenue from those 894 generous
souls came to, drumroll please, $121,361.
By my calculations, which may be what George W.
Bush would call “fuzzy math,” that means the
average liberal who wants to pay higher taxes
averages somewhere under $20,000 in annual
income.
In other words, Abigail Johnson and Bob Kraft,
among so many others, are most assuredly not
checking the box.
How often do you read about how the “Resistance”
is rising in righteous wrath against Trump? We
are told by the alt-left media that politicians
are proudly embracing the label of “Socialist.”
Pablum-puking liberal Democrat incumbents face
primary challengers from even further left.
Yet paradoxically, none of the woke community
want to pay their, dare I say it, fair share.
And those penurious numbers haven’t budged since
their hero, Barack Obama, who as we all know
never once squandered a tax dollar, vacated the
White House.
Last year, of 3,642,896 filers, a mere 1,619
opted to pay more money for the care and feeding
of Sen. and Mr. Stanley Rosenberg et al. Two
years ago, in the waning months of the Obama
junta, the comparable numbers were 3,783,209 and
1,663.
What seems to be the problem here, moonbats? How
come you want people who work for a living to
pay more, but those of you in the nonworking
classes refuse to pony up?
Remember the old saying: “Don’t tax you, don’t
tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.”
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, if you
have a real job, you’re the fellow behind the
tree — that’s why the hackerama has put the
so-called “millionaires tax” on the ballot this
fall. If passed by the dumbed-down electorate of
Massachusetts, a graduated income tax would be
imposed on the commonwealth, but only on
“millionaires,” wink wink nudge nudge.
And of course the extra money would be
“earmarked” for education and infrastructure,
double wink wink, double nudge nudge.
The effect of this “millionaires tax” — up to 9
percent on incomes of over $1 million — would
have the same impact on tax revenue that it’s
had in every other state where it’s been
imposed. Suddenly the number of “millionaires”
would plummet — thousands would flee, and many
more thousands would make sure they didn’t reach
the confiscatory threshold.
And so the definition of millionaire would
evolve, as the liberals say, to anyone who made
over $500,000, and then $100,000, and then,
everybody! Every man a king, as Huey Long used
to say, although in a very different context.
If you filed for an extension this week,
remember, it’s not too late to send Donald Trump
and his Russian masters a message — check the
box and send more of your own money to the
hackerama! That’ll show ’em, as well as the rest
of us.
Moonbats, we will all follow your example — of
what you do, not what you say, or post on
Facebook.
Buy Howie’s new book, “What Really Happened,”
at
howiecarrshow.com.
State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2018
Sales tax cut will force layoffs and service
cuts, new oppo group says
By Matt Murphy
A new group made up largely of organized labor
has formed to oppose a proposed ballot question
that would reduce the state sales tax by 20
percent, further solidifying the campaign as one
pitting unions against Bay State retailers.
The Save Our Pubic Services Committee warned
that reducing the state sales tax from 6.25
percent to 5 percent would eliminate $1.25
billion in annual tax revenues collected by the
state, jeopardizing funding for local schools,
health programs and roads.
"If the sales tax cut passes, communities will
be forced to lay off teachers, police officers,
and firefighters. Mental health and addiction
treatment programs will close, spending on parks
and environmental protection will be cut, and
important road and transit construction projects
will be delayed for years," said Deb Fastino,
executive director of the Coalition for Social
Justice, in a statement.
The opposition committee was founded by
1199SEIU, A Better City, AFSCME Council 93,
American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts,
Boston Teachers Union, Coalition for Social
Justice, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social
Action, Mass. AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Communities
Action Network, Massachusetts Teachers
Association, Professional Fire Fighters of
Massachusetts, Transportation for Massachusetts,
SEIU Local 509, United Food and Commercial
Workers Local 1445.
Extraordinary Step
The ballot question has been pitched by the
Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
In addition to competition from online sellers,
RAM President Jon Hurst has said small business
owners faced added pressure from the state's
earned sick time law and other questions moving
toward the ballot to increase the minimum wage
to $15 and institute a paid family and medical
leave program.
The sales tax cut question, according to Hurst,
is a response to multiple policy changes in the
offing that could negatively impact retailers.
"Our members, small and large basically need two
things to be successful: 1. Higher sales; and 2.
Lower costs," Hurst wrote in a recent email to
major state business groups and chambers of
commerce. "And given a combination of increased
competition coupled with an aggressive public
policy agenda driven largely by unionized
interests those two objectives are increasingly
harder to obtain."
Hurst, in the March 19 email obtained by the
News Service, described the decision to go to
the ballot as "taking some pages out of the
opposition’s playbook."
"We don’t take this effort lightly, and have
only taken this extraordinary step to protect
our members from government imposed
discriminatory policies, and the costly,
anti-small business agendas put forward by
certain special interest labor groups," Hurst
wrote.
The last time a sales tax cut was put on the
ballot opponents successfully beat back a
proposal to cut the sales tax rate all the way
to 3 percent. That question lost in 2010 with 57
percent opposed.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who in his 2010 campaign
supported a 5 percent sales tax rate, has not
yet taken a position, and said he hopes the
issue, along with others targeted for the
ballot, can be resolved by the Legislature
before voters are asked to decide in November.
The Supreme Judicial Court is expected to rule
shortly on whether a proposed constitutional
amendment to impose a 4 percent surtax on income
over $1 million to pay for education and
transportation is appropriate for the ballot,
while House and Senate lawmakers are actively
trying to negotiate a compromise with advocates
and the business community for paid family and
medical leave.
Some Democratic leaders, including Senate
President Harriette Chandler, have also
expressed interest in addressing the minimum
wage before the Legislature recesses from formal
sessions in July.
State House News Service
Monday, April 23, 2018
House rejects major reductions in income, sales
taxes
By Andy Metzger
The House rejected a pair of major tax cuts on
Monday, including one that may be headed for
this year's ballot.
Without debate or opposition, the House voted
against proposals by Billerica Republican Rep.
Marc Lombardo to reduce the sales tax (108) and
income tax rates (109) to 5 percent.
Currently at 5.1 percent, the income tax remains
on track to eventually fall to 5 percent - the
level voters approved in 2000 - if the state
hits economic triggers.
Retailers are pushing a ballot question this
year to reduce the sales tax rate from 6.25
percent to 5 percent and establish an annual
sales tax holiday. The Legislature in 2009
raised the sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25
percent.
Before the tax votes, Boston Democrat Rep.
Angelo Scaccia also pulled back the curtain on
the House's private budget deliberations, saying
there was not enough money available in the
budget to fund various priorities as he argued
unsuccessfully to curb or eliminate the film tax
credit.
Scaccia, the longest-serving House member and an
occasional thorn in Speaker Robert DeLeo's side,
said that while in the House Members Lounge
Monday afternoon he saw amendments intended to
help children and others that would not be
included in the budget because the state cannot
afford to pay for them even though its
unemployment rate is holding at a low 3.5
percent rate.
"I was in 347 a few minutes ago, and there had
to be at least $500 million in amendments that
were being offered," Scaccia said. He said,
"They're not going to get those amendments,
because we don't have the money, and it's sad."
During his unsuccessful 2010 run for governor,
Gov. Charlie Baker called for reducing the sales
and income tax rates to 5 percent. As governor,
Baker has not joined other Republicans who still
support those measures.
The House largely debates its budget in private;
members gathered in a nearby lounge can lobby
the Ways and Means Committee for inclusion of
their budget amendments, which shields the
back-and-forth from public view.
Scaccia argued that if filmmakers didn't have
access to those tax credits, there would be more
money available for government spending
priorities.
House Majority Leader Ron Mariano responded to
Scaccia's criticism of the tax incentive program
on the floor, saying that he would like to make
the film tax credit permanent beyond its
scheduled sunset in 2023.
Mariano filed an amendment (1264) that would
remove the sunset clause from the film tax
credit law.
According to the Quincy Democrat, making the
film tax credit permanent would address one of
Scaccia's criticisms – that the benefits of the
tax credit accrue to out-of-state film stars. A
permanent tax credit would encourage TV series
to film in Massachusetts, which would provide
more stable employment as they typically film 8
to 10 months per year, Mariano said.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
House agrees to extra aid for babies born on
public assistance
By Colin A. Young
The Massachusetts House on Wednesday approved
legislation doing away with a restriction that
prohibits families from receiving an extra $100
per-month cash assistance for a baby conceived
while the family was receiving public
assistance.
An amendment released just before 3:45 p.m.
included language to circumvent the so-called
Cap on Kids and instead mandate that "aid shall
be provided for each such child or children
without regard to whether the child was
conceived or born after the parent began
receiving aid."
The change, which advocacy groups and lawmakers
have sought for years for on Beacon Hill, would
take effect July 1, 2019 if it is included in
the final budget.
The measure was included in a consolidated
amendment put together by House Democrats after
brokering deals with representatives who filed a
cumulative 1,400 amendments to the House's $40.9
billion fiscal year 2019 spending plan (H 4400).
The leadership-backed amendments receive swift
approval. The consolidated amendment that
included the change to the cap was adopted by a
152-0 roll call vote Tuesday.
Welfare benefits increase $100 per month as
family size increases, but families do not
receive that additional money if a child is
conceived after the family is already receiving
public assistance. The cap, according to the
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, "denies
welfare benefits to children conceived while –
or soon after – the family received benefits."
The organization said the current cap denies
benefits to 9,400 children in Massachusetts.
According to the Coalition to Lift the Cap on
Kids, Massachusetts is one of 17 states that
still has such a rule, which denies benefits to
8,700 children.
Rep. Marjorie Decker, who had also filed
standalone legislation to eliminate the cap,
told her colleagues shortly before the change
was approved that this marked "probably one of
my proudest days to be here."
"Today, we have made an historic change. Twenty
years ago there was a movement around the
country that suggested that women of under
resources and low-income women shouldn't have
children," she said.
The Cambridge Democrat said she was a
legislative aide at the State House when the cap
was initially put in place. She said the debate
included "wrath and disdain that was expressed
about why low-income women choose to have
children" and suggestions that women would have
more babies in an attempt to secure additional
state aid.
On Wednesday, the House "acknowledged that women
have children out of love, out of joy and
sometimes not always out of choice, but that
low-income women have babies for the same
reasons any other woman does," Decker said.
A majority of the House -- at least 85 members
-- had signed onto a Decker amendment (1361)
that would have also increased the appropriation
for Transitional Assistance for Families with
Dependent Children by $13 million, bringing its
total to more than $205 million.
The House's consolidated amendment appears to
adopt the policy changes prescribed in Decker's
amendment and standalone legislation without
including her proposal for additional funding.
The policy change would take effect the first
day of fiscal year 2020, meaning the additional
costs would not arise during the budget year for
which the House is currently debating a spending
plan.
State House News Service
Thursday, April 26, 2018
House passes $41B budget after four days of
deliberation
By Andy Metzger
The House passed its roughly $41 billion fiscal
2019 budget on Thursday by a 150-4 vote,
devoting billions towards perennial priorities
and much smaller amounts toward pet projects
favored by lawmakers.
Among the changes to the document made over the
course of four days of debate is an increase in
the earned income tax credit that assists the
working poor, fewer restrictions on welfare for
young families, and more tax credits to put land
into conservation.
The budget bill now heads to the Senate. House
lawmakers added $81.3 million in spending to the
budget bill this week through amendments,
according to Ways and Means, bringing the final
tally to $41.065 billion.
It was Jamaica Plain Democrat Rep. Jeffrey
Sanchez's first cycle as chairman of the House
Committee on Ways and Means, a position he
attained last summer after the departure of
Brian Dempsey for a top position at the lobbying
firm ML Strategies. House Speaker Robert DeLeo
said Sanchez did an "outstanding job," and the
House members gave the chairman a standing
ovation. Sanchez returned the admiration,
telling the speaker, "Te quiero mucho," which
translates from Spanish to "I love you very
much."
The fiscal 2019 budget provides for the "most
vulnerable amongst us," while accounting for the
state's financial circumstances, Sanchez said
before the vote just after 7 p.m.
"This is a balanced budget," Sanchez said.
Republican Reps. Nick Boldyga, Kate Campanale,
Kevin Kuros and James Lyons cast votes against
the spending bill.
The vote to pass the bill occurred after four
solid days of deliberations – nearly all of
which occurred in private rooms off the House
floor. After the vote, reps had just enough time
to make it to Wilmington for the Thursday night
wake of the late Rep. James Miceli, who was the
longest continuously-serving member of the House
and who died on Saturday.
State House News Service
Friday, April 27, 2018
Advances - Week of April 29, 2018
By Tuesday, legislators who don't already know
whether they have challengers will find out if
they do. It's the biennial deadline for
candidates to file nomination signatures and it
coincides with another tradition: an uptick in
lawmaking among incumbents eager to show
constituents that they have accomplished
something since the last election. The
super-majorities long held by Democrats in both
branches do not appear at risk this year,
despite a session that started out with
controversial pay raises and has proceeded at
times at a halting pace, punctuated by
leadership turmoil, turnover and near-chaos in
the Senate. With Rep. Nick Collins poised to win
a Senate seat Tuesday in this year's last
special election, it appears the Senate will go
down the legislative stretch with Democrats
outnumbering Republicans 32-7. In the House, six
vacancies caused by departures or deaths will
leave Democrats with 118 members working with 34
Republicans and two independents.
Initiative Petition Milestone
While candidates will meet Tuesday's deadline to
file signatures - 300 for Senate candidates and
150 for House - the Legislature is not poised to
act by Wednesday on a series of high-profile
ballot questions, which means petitioners will
be free to begin collecting a second and final
round of signatures needed to lock their
questions in for the November ballot. Lawmakers
are just getting around to holding a hearing on
a nurse staffing initiative petition, which will
go before the Joint Committee on Public Health
on Monday. Proponents of questions raising the
sales tax, instituting a paid family and medical
leave program and raising the minimum wage to
$15 an hour will also be free next week to
gather their final rounds of signatures. So it's
the time of year for lawmakers to either act to
appease petitioners or risk having voters decide
the language of potentially major new laws, as
they did in 2016 with the proposal to legalize
adult marijuana use.
The Legislature Agenda
Major bills laying out new health care policies
and addressing opioid addiction and housing
production remain stalled at the committee level
heading into the final three months of formal
sessions. It's possible that the House will soon
advance a health care proposal now that it has
wrapped up its fiscal 2019 budget deliberations
... Senate leaders plan to unveil their annual
budget on May 10, with debate planned the week
before Memorial Day Weekend. Also, House and
Senate leaders are poised to try to reconcile a
fiscal 2018 supplemental budget after differing
versions have passed in each branch. Tax
collections are beating estimates over the first
eight months of fiscal 2018 - April collection
numbers are due out next week - and that's
fueling both desire to spend more and calls for
restraint …
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Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
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