 |
and the
Citizens Economic Research Foundation
Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 990-1251
“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
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Lies and
Hypocrisies
|
The Local Government Advisory Commission
heard from state and local officials at a hearing last week.
The topic was how the state should spend its estimated $1
billion fiscal 2018 surplus. The 40-member commission was
formed to be an independent advocate for the interests of
local city and town governments in their relationship with
state and federal governments. Under current law,
approximately half of the surplus is required to go into the
state’s reserve fund. The rest is up for grabs.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s Administration and
Finance Secretary Mike Heffernan assured the commission that
the administration is on top of the issue. “We’re engaged at
both the staff and leadership level ... especially now that
we got through the primaries,” Heffernan told the
commission....
“The surplus our state government is
experiencing should be returned to the taxpayers in the form
of a tax rebate,” said Paul Craney, Executive Director of
the Mass Fiscal Alliance. “It is their money.”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Friday, September 14, 2018
How To Spend A $1 Billion Surplus
Massachusetts residents are going to hear a
lot of promises this election season from incumbents taking
note of -- and trying to take credit for -- the state's
relatively healthy economy. We will also hear from
challengers saying more of that windfall needs to be spent
on government programs.
When going to the polls, however, voters
would do well to remember the lessons of the Great Recession
of a decade ago, and ask candidates what they are doing to
prepare for the next, inevitable economic downturn.
The answers should be interesting, as
financial analysts worry the state hasn't done enough.
According to a report released this week by
S&P Global Ratings, Massachusetts is at "elevated risk" of
financial distress during a future recession. In fact, the
report said, the Bay State is one of 15 states that are
"poorly situated" to handle a downturn.
"Widening federal budget deficits and a
still-low federal funds rate imply that the economic and
fiscal brunt of the next recession is likely to fall more
squarely on the states," the analysts said in their report.
Places such as Massachusetts, they said, "could be
challenged like never before."
A Salem News editorial
Friday, September 20, 2018
Sobering news on the horizon
It seems a reasonable assumption that
Massachusetts politicians would be eager to spend more than
$1 billion that — in a manner of speaking — is just lying
around on Beacon Hill.
Yet nearly three months after the state's
previous fiscal year ended with a sizeable revenue surplus,
the Democratic-controlled Legislature has yet to act on a
plan for how to use that unanticipated cash and close the
books on fiscal year 2018.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker filed a plan
with lawmakers in July which includes spending about $150
million of the surplus to enhance school safety and other
education initiatives.
The Legislature ended formal sessions for
the year without acting on the measure. While lawmakers
continue to meet informally, only routine or uncontested
bills typically advance during informal sessions.
Associated Press
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Massachusetts has a $1B surplus; why no hurry to spend it?
Under pressure to deliver new revenues for
promised education and transportation investments,
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez on Tuesday
will offer a 1.6 percent tax on certain private higher
education endowments, a proposal he estimates would generate
$1 billion.
Gonzalez plans to travel to Cambridge, where
Harvard University and its $36 billion endowment is based,
to formally offer his plan outside an MBTA station that
serves the campus and city. Gov. Charlie Baker, his
Republican opponent, has jabbed at Democrats this year with
warnings that they would raise taxes while he would not,
although Baker never took a pro or con position on an income
surtax on the wealthy, or households with annual incomes
above $1 million.
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Gonzales $1 Bil university endowment tax would fund
education, transportation
Gonzalez and his running mate Quentin
Palfrey stepped off the Red Line and up to a podium
Wednesday morning to propose, within shouting distance of
Harvard Yard, that universities sitting on gargantuan nest
eggs should be ponying up.
Harvard, and its $36 billion endowment, fell
squarely into that category.
Gonzalez called for endowments in excess of
$1 billion held by institutions of higher education to be
taxed 1.6 percent on the total value of the endowment. That,
he said, would hit nine schools and generate close to $1
billion in new tax revenue that could be used to make
child-care and pre-school affordable, to make public higher
education affordable and to make reliable public transit
affordable.
The tax plan eased the growing pressure on
Gonzalez to offer an alternative tax plan that has been
mounting ever since the Supreme Judicial Court knocked the
"millionaires tax" off the ballot. But there was catch.
Even though progressives like state Sen.
Jamie Eldridge have been pushing this concept for years,
another well-known, and less popular political figure had
also embraced the idea of targeting elite private colleges
for tax dollars.
"I start with the proposition that when
President Trump proposed this idea, I thought it was a bad
idea then, and I still think it's a bad idea," Gov. Charlie
Baker said in response to Gonzalez's plan.
State House News Service
Friday, September 21, 2018
Weekly Roundup – Turnaround Is Fair Play
When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court shot down the “millionaires tax” a few months ago,
Democratic candidate for governor Jay Gonzalez promised on
Herald Radio that “I will propose another progressive way to
ask those who are doing very well in this state to pay a
little bit more to make some of these critical investments
we need to make” in education and transportation.
Gonzalez has delivered on that promise with
a proposal that would target massive college endowments....
The proposal could not have been an easy one
for Gonzalez to choose because it looks a lot like the GOP’s
endowment tax that was included in the Trump tax cut bill,
only it’s worse: Trump’s tax of 1.4 percent was aimed at the
earnings on the endowments’ investments while Gonzalez’s
proposal directly targets the endowment in its entirety. It
would result in the transfer of nearly $1.1 billion a year
of private college endowments into the coffers of the
commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sens. Liz Warren, Ed Markey and Gov. Charlie
Baker all panned the GOP plan, which would inflict far less
pain on colleges, so Gonzalez is largely flying solo on this
one. “I start with the proposition that when President Trump
proposed this idea, I thought it was a bad idea then, and I
still think it’s a bad idea,” Gov. Baker said. The fact is
that Massachusetts has a spending problem and not a taxing
problem, and in a world in which Jay Gonzalez is governor,
that problem would balloon in size with his new investment
initiatives....
Now that we’re in the general election, Jay
Gonzalez is in the tough position of proposing pathways to
pay for primary promises. It won’t be easy and it should not
be done irresponsibly or impulsively just because there are
few targets left to fleece.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, September 21, 2018
Endowment tax a bad idea
The Baker administration will "formally
oppose" a proposed federal rule change that would restrict
the ability of immigrants to obtain green cards if they
receive public benefits including Medicaid or food stamps, a
spokesman for the governor said Monday.
The Department of Homeland Security
announced the move on Saturday, saying it would ensure
individuals seeking to enter and stay in the country "can
support themselves financially and will not be reliant on
public benefits." ...
"Under long-standing federal law, those
seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can
support themselves financially," Homeland Security Secretary
Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement....
Over the weekend, several Massachusetts
immigrant and health care advocacy groups condemned the
proposed rule, which will be subject to a 60-day public
comment period once it is officially published in the
Federal Register. Through a spokesman, Gov. Charlie Baker
offered criticism on Monday as well.
"The Baker-Polito Administration values the
immigrant community's role in making Massachusetts a vibrant
and competitive commonwealth and the Administration believes
this proposed rule change would result in individuals not
accessing basic needs like food assistance or medical care
for them or their family," Baker spokesman Brendan Moss said
in a statement to the News Service. "The Administration will
formally oppose this proposal as the process moves forward.”
State House News Service
Monday, September 24, 2018
Baker opposing Fed rule linking benefits, green card access
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Another day in Massachusetts, The
People's Republic. The usual problems reign:
How to spend that billion-plus dollars surplus; how to
extract even more to squander, and; in the name of
"compassion," promoting unfettered
handouts for more immigrants "seeking a better life" and
finding it here, on the taxpayers' dime.
"Widening federal budget deficits and a
still-low federal funds rate imply that the economic and
fiscal brunt of the next recession is likely to fall more
squarely on the states," the analysts said in their report.
Places such as Massachusetts, they said, "could be
challenged like never before."
So Beacon Hill does what Beacon Hill has
always done: Defer maintaining roads and bridges
until they deteriorate and fail then declare a "transportation crisis";
squander taxpayer resources in the name of compassion;
create more unsustainable programs, and; spend more,
more, always more. When the inevitable next
recession arrives they'll simply declare another "fiscal
crisis" and impose another "emergency, temporary" tax
hike on everyone.
Three decades later we're still paying
the last one from 1989 that was promised to be "only for
18-months," and 1990, when the Legislature hiked the
just-increased income tax from 5.75 to 6.25.
During the 2002 "fiscal crisis" the Legislature froze
our and the voters' income tax rollback, and in addition hiked the sales tax by 25%
to 6.25 percent. That was sixteen years ago, and
it too is still imposed on us.
Since the 1989 "fiscal crisis" the state
budget has grown from $12 Billion annually to $42
Billion this year – on
average a billion dollars budget spending increase every
year. But a billion dollars more added every year is
still not enough spending for them.
They're running out of ideas of what to
tax next, so desperate creativity has taken hold
– even at the expense of
blatant hypocrisy. What Democrat gubernatorial
candidate Jay Gonzalvez has proposed will be far more
onerous than the Trump/Republican tax reform that
Democrats and liberals railed against. The recent
federal tax reform taxed only the interest on
university endowment funds. When Trump and the
Republicans did that it was denounced as horrifying and despicable
by
the Democrat/Socialist left. But Gonzalez now
wants to go even further, tax not just the interest
earned on the endowments –
but the entire amount of the endowment itself.
When Great Depression-era bank robber
Willy Sutton was asked by a reporter why he robbed
banks, he replied: "Because that's where the money is."
Gonzalves has adopted that page directly from Sutton's
play book.
You can't keep track of these lies and
hypocrisies without a good scorecard
– and a long "institutional
memory."
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
|
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Friday, September 14, 2018
How To Spend A $1 Billion Surplus
By Bob Katzen
The Local Government Advisory Commission heard
from state and local officials at a hearing last
week. The topic was how the state should spend
its estimated $1 billion fiscal 2018 surplus.
The 40-member commission was formed to be an
independent advocate for the interests of local
city and town governments in their relationship
with state and federal governments. Under
current law, approximately half of the surplus
is required to go into the state’s reserve fund.
The rest is up for grabs.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s Administration and Finance
Secretary Mike Heffernan assured the commission
that the administration is on top of the issue.
“We’re engaged at both the staff and leadership
level ... especially now that we got through the
primaries,” Heffernan told the commission.
Baker recently filed a package to use the
surplus money for several things including $150
million for K-12 and higher education programs,
with $72 million of that amount dedicated to
support school safety. The proposal includes
training of first responders to better handle
threats within schools; $40 million in
additional aid to school districts to hire
social workers, mental health counselors and
psychologists; $20 million in matching state
grants for security and communications upgrades
in K-12 schools and public colleges and
universities; $1 million for school safety
training for educators, health officials and
first responders; $4 million to provide training
to School Resource Officers; $2.4 million to
create a tip line to provide public safety and
school personnel with timely information on
potential risks; $2 million for a statewide “Say
Something” campaign; and $500,000 to create a
school safety website.
Other provisions include $50 million for cities
and towns to fund local road and bridge
maintenance and improvement projects; $30
million for municipal clean water projects; $8
million for multi-year municipal police training
needs; $5.9 million for tuition and fee
reimbursements for National Guard members; and
$5 million in transitional housing assistance
for hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico.
“We hope that the administration and municipal
leadership will again get behind an effort to
secure legislation to make incremental
improvements to school budgets by implementing
recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review
Commission, especially as it includes accurate
census of economic disadvantaged children and
immigrant students, and addresses retiree health
insurance,” said Beverly Hugo, president of the
Massachusetts Association of School Committees.
“The surplus our state government is
experiencing should be returned to the taxpayers
in the form of a tax rebate,” said Paul Craney,
Executive Director of the Mass Fiscal Alliance.
“It is their money.”
The Salem News
Friday, September 20, 2018
A Salem News editorial
Sobering news on the horizon
Massachusetts residents are going to hear a lot
of promises this election season from incumbents
taking note of -- and trying to take credit for
-- the state's relatively healthy economy. We
will also hear from challengers saying more of
that windfall needs to be spent on government
programs.
When going to the polls, however, voters would
do well to remember the lessons of the Great
Recession of a decade ago, and ask candidates
what they are doing to prepare for the next,
inevitable economic downturn.
The answers should be interesting, as financial
analysts worry the state hasn't done enough.
According to a report released this week by S&P
Global Ratings, Massachusetts is at "elevated
risk" of financial distress during a future
recession. In fact, the report said, the Bay
State is one of 15 states that are "poorly
situated" to handle a downturn.
"Widening federal budget deficits and a
still-low federal funds rate imply that the
economic and fiscal brunt of the next recession
is likely to fall more squarely on the states,"
the analysts said in their report. Places such
as Massachusetts, they said, "could be
challenged like never before."
While lawmakers have made recent contributions
to the state's emergency "rainy day" fund, those
balances are still to low to weather a long-term
recession.
The S&P analysts estimate the state's reserves
could cover 62 percent of a revenue shortfall of
the first year of a moderate recession, and half
the shortfall of a severe recession.
The S&P report makes for sobering reading. Let's
hope the myriad of statewide and local
candidates take time to read it, and can offer a
path for the Bay State to take when the good
times come to an end.
State House News Service
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Gonzales $1 Bil university endowment tax would
fund education, transportation
By Michael P. Norton
Under pressure to deliver new revenues for
promised education and transportation
investments, Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Jay Gonzalez on Tuesday will offer a 1.6 percent
tax on certain private higher education
endowments, a proposal he estimates would
generate $1 billion.
Gonzalez plans to travel to Cambridge, where
Harvard University and its $36 billion endowment
is based, to formally offer his plan outside an
MBTA station that serves the campus and city.
Gov. Charlie Baker, his Republican opponent, has
jabbed at Democrats this year with warnings that
they would raise taxes while he would not,
although Baker never took a pro or con position
on an income surtax on the wealthy, or
households with annual incomes above $1 million.
Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology would pay $563 million and $210
million, respectively, under the plan, according
to the Gonzalez campaign. The campaign pegged
Harvard's 2017 endowment at $36 billion and
MIT's at $15 billion. Another roughly $200
million would be collected, in the aggregate,
from Williams College, Boston College, Amherst
College, Wellesley College, Boston University,
Smith College and Tufts University.
Democrats who control the Legislature have been
eyeing revenue sources for years to pay for
improvements to the MBTA and regional transit
systems, roads and bridges, and education from
pre-school and daycare through higher education.
Gonzalez, who backed the now-disqualified
millionaire's tax, now has a plan that could
produce major funds before lawmakers take
another run at passing a redrafted income
surtax, which cannot happen until 2022 at the
earliest.
The proposed tax on university endowments of
more than $1 billion is a perennial proposal on
Beacon Hill, an idea that private universities
have bottled up by arguing that university
systems are an economic engine that fuel jobs
and local economies while financing many
investments in local communities.
The Gonzalez campaign views the tax as a "fair
share" proposal that would draw funds from
universities that depend on public
transportation systems, receive tax breaks
associated with their non-profit status, depend
on host communities for municipal services, and
recruit students from the Bay State's K-12
system.
Under his plan, the tax would be applied each
year to the average annual value of the
endowment over the previous five years and the
new revenues would be steered into a new
Education and Transportation Investment Fund and
used only on investments in transportation and
education.
An official at the Associated of Independent
Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts (AICUM),
a trade group that represents private
universities, called Gonzalez's proposal "a
terrible idea."
"Our colleges and universities are clear drivers
of the Massachusetts economy. Undercutting their
ability to attract talent, to provide financial
aid for students across the state, and to
conduct breakthrough research is simply
irresponsible," AICUM President Richard Doherty
said in a statement Tuesday. "This was a bad
idea when Republicans in Washington proposed it,
and it is an even worse idea now."
During a May 2017 legislative hearing on a
proposed endowment tax bill, Rob McCarron, vice
president for state relations and general
counsel at AICUM, said the proposed tax violates
the equal protection clause of the constitution
and does not meet "proportional and reasonable"
standards for taxation since it would affect
only nine, mostly larger colleges in
Massachusetts. McCarron said endowment revenues
are also often limited to specific uses.
The Massachusetts Nonprofit Network on Tuesday
declared its opposition to the tax. "It's a bad
idea - for Massachusetts, and for everyone
served by nonprofits in Massachusetts," Jim
Klocke, CEO of the nonprofit network, said in a
statement.
The group said non-profits provide 550,000
Massachusetts jobs and deliver scholarships to
students as well as free and subsidized health
care and environmental, artistic, historic and
cultural programs.
Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern will join Gonzalez
at the Harvard Square MBTA Station at 11 a.m. to
announce the plan....
STORY OF THE WEEK: Millionaires tax? Forget it.
How about a billionaires tax?
State House News Service
Friday, September 21, 2018
Weekly Roundup – Turnaround Is Fair Play
By Matt Murphy
For weeks, Jay Gonzalez has been trying to hang
Donald Trump around the governor's neck like a
weighted tie, four inches too long. This week it
was Baker's turn to repay the favor.
Gonzalez and his running mate Quentin Palfrey
stepped off the Red Line and up to a podium
Wednesday morning to propose, within shouting
distance of Harvard Yard, that universities
sitting on gargantuan nest eggs should be
ponying up.
Harvard, and its $36 billion endowment, fell
squarely into that category.
Gonzalez called for endowments in excess of $1
billion held by institutions of higher education
to be taxed 1.6 percent on the total value of
the endowment. That, he said, would hit nine
schools and generate close to $1 billion in new
tax revenue that could be used to make
child-care and pre-school affordable, to make
public higher education affordable and to make
reliable public transit affordable.
The tax plan eased the growing pressure on
Gonzalez to offer an alternative tax plan that
has been mounting ever since the Supreme
Judicial Court knocked the "millionaires tax"
off the ballot. But there was catch.
Even though progressives like state Sen. Jamie
Eldridge have been pushing this concept for
years, another well-known, and less popular
political figure had also embraced the idea of
targeting elite private colleges for tax
dollars.
"I start with the proposition that when
President Trump proposed this idea, I thought it
was a bad idea then, and I still think it's a
bad idea," Gov. Charlie Baker said in response
to Gonzalez's plan.
Trump and Congressional Republicans included a
1.4 percent tax on endowment gains, not value,
as part of their larger tax cut package, which
at the time drew vitriol from Democrats like
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
When Republicans proposed it, Warren and others
said endowments should be used to support
research and financial aid, not taxes cuts for
the wealthy. This time around, though, Warren
and other Democrats gave Gonzalez a tepid pat on
the back, celebrating his willingness to start a
dialogue about new revenue sources, even if they
weren't quite ready to embrace the source.
A new Suffolk University poll out this week
found that almost 61 percent of the electorate
already views Baker as an anti-Trump Republican,
and the endowment tax gave the governor a chance
to be more anti-Trump than even Gonzalez.
Gonzalez's camp hopes that the tax pitch will
help get his name into the news and begin to
shrink his name recognition deficit ahead of the
debates. Because in addition to his cash
advantage and the financial support rolling in
from super PACs and the Republican Governors
Association, Baker led Gonzalez 55 percent to 28
percent in the Suffolk poll.
The Boston Herald
Friday, September 21, 2018
A Boston Herald editorial
Endowment tax a bad idea
When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
shot down the “millionaires tax” a few months
ago, Democratic candidate for governor Jay
Gonzalez promised on Herald Radio that “I will
propose another progressive way to ask those who
are doing very well in this state to pay a
little bit more to make some of these critical
investments we need to make” in education and
transportation.
Gonzalez has delivered on that promise with a
proposal that would target massive college
endowments. The plan — a 1.6 percent annual tax
on endowments holding more than $1 billion —
would hit nine schools in Massachusetts: Amherst
College, Boston College, Boston University,
Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Smith College, Tufts University,
Wellesley College and Williams College. Led by
Harvard’s behemoth $37.1 billion endowment, the
handful of schools together hold about $68
billion in the bank. Not surprisingly, the plan
has been panned by many in the university
community. “Taxing endowments is bad for
students, bad for our economy, and bad for
Massachusetts,” Association of Independent
Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts
president Richard Doherty said in a statement,
adding the schools award $608 million in
financial aid to state students and spend more
than $9 million in salaries each year.
The proposal could not have been an easy one for
Gonzalez to choose because it looks a lot like
the GOP’s endowment tax that was included in the
Trump tax cut bill, only it’s worse: Trump’s tax
of 1.4 percent was aimed at the earnings on the
endowments’ investments while Gonzalez’s
proposal directly targets the endowment in its
entirety. It would result in the transfer of
nearly $1.1 billion a year of private college
endowments into the coffers of the commonwealth
of Massachusetts.
Sens. Liz Warren, Ed Markey and Gov. Charlie
Baker all panned the GOP plan, which would
inflict far less pain on colleges, so Gonzalez
is largely flying solo on this one. “I start
with the proposition that when President Trump
proposed this idea, I thought it was a bad idea
then, and I still think it’s a bad idea,” Gov.
Baker said. The fact is that Massachusetts has a
spending problem and not a taxing problem, and
in a world in which Jay Gonzalez is governor,
that problem would balloon in size with his new
investment initiatives.
“These nonprofit institutions have accumulated
enormous wealth in part thanks to the fact that
they are not subject to taxation,” Gonzalez
said. He is right about that and there is a
conversation to be had there, but to raid an
investment center like an endowment, which is
cultivated largely by the private donations of
alumni, is not the way to go. Not only will it
be destabilizing, but it will incentivize
alternative forms of investment for
contributors, away from the greedy hands of the
state. Now that we’re in the general election,
Jay Gonzalez is in the tough position of
proposing pathways to pay for primary promises.
It won’t be easy and it should not be done
irresponsibly or impulsively just because there
are few targets left to fleece.
State House News Service
Monday, September 24, 2018
Baker opposing Fed rule linking benefits, green
card access
By Katie Lannan
The Baker administration will "formally oppose"
a proposed federal rule change that would
restrict the ability of immigrants to obtain
green cards if they receive public benefits
including Medicaid or food stamps, a spokesman
for the governor said Monday.
The Department of Homeland Security announced
the move on Saturday, saying it would ensure
individuals seeking to enter and stay in the
country "can support themselves financially and
will not be reliant on public benefits."
The proposal would expand the definition of
"public charge," a person who can be denied a
green card because they are dependent on
government benefits, to cover recipients of the
supplemental nutrition assistance program,
Section 8 housing choice vouchers and
project-based rental assistance, public housing,
"institutionalization for long-term care at
government expense," Medicare Part D Low Income
Subsidy, and Medicaid, with limited exceptions
for emergency medical conditions and certain
disability services related to education.
"Under long-standing federal law, those seeking
to immigrate to the United States must show they
can support themselves financially," Homeland
Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a
statement. "The Department takes seriously its
responsibility to be transparent in its
rulemaking and is welcoming public comment on
the proposed rule. This proposed rule will
implement a law passed by Congress intended to
promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect
finite resources by ensuring that they are not
likely to become burdens on American taxpayers."
Over the weekend, several Massachusetts
immigrant and health care advocacy groups
condemned the proposed rule, which will be
subject to a 60-day public comment period once
it is officially published in the Federal
Register. Through a spokesman, Gov. Charlie
Baker offered criticism on Monday as well.
"The Baker-Polito Administration values the
immigrant community's role in making
Massachusetts a vibrant and competitive
commonwealth and the Administration believes
this proposed rule change would result in
individuals not accessing basic needs like food
assistance or medical care for them or their
family," Baker spokesman Brendan Moss said in a
statement to the News Service. "The
Administration will formally oppose this
proposal as the process moves forward.”
Joined together as part of the national
Protecting Immigrant Families campaign, the
groups Massachusetts Law Reform Institute,
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy
Coalition (MIRA), Health Care for All and Health
Law Advocates said they would fight against the
change and work to raise awareness of it.
The groups said the new policy would make it
easier to deny permanent residency to anyone
earning less than 250 percent of the federal
poverty limit, or $62,750 for a family of four.
MIRA executive director Eva Millona called the
idea "a toxic blend of nativism and class
warfare."
"It is overtly discriminatory, and we will fight
vigorously to ensure that the proposed rule is
never adopted," she said.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal of the Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights and Economic Justice said the
proposal "is unconstitutional because the
federal government is using public assistance as
a proxy for race" and creates an "unprecedented
financial litmus test to qualify for immigration
protection and relief."
Espinoza-Madrigal -- whose organization has sued
the Trump administration over immigration
arrests at courthouses, the proposed defunding
of so-called sanctuary cities, and the
termination of temporary protected status for
nationals of Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras --
said there are already federal laws in place to
screen for immigrants likely to become a public
charge.
"The proposed policy change is already producing
a profound chilling effect. Families are
scared," he said in a statement. "They are
foregoing life-saving services to qualify for
immigration protection and relief. It is cruel
to make a family choose between putting food on
the table or getting a green card. It is
inhumane to make a family choose between staying
healthy or securing immigration protection."
The public charge inadmissibility provision does
not apply to asylees or refugees. The Department
of Homeland Security said disaster relief,
emergency medical assistance, benefits received
by an immigrant's U.S. citizen's children, or
benefits received by immigrants serving in the
U.S. military and their spouses and children
would not be considered for purposes of
determining inadmissibility.
|
| |
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
▪ (781) 990-1251
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|
