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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
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Last
year's budget and CLT almost closed out
|
“Unlike the federal government,
Massachusetts relies on a flat income tax and sales taxes.
Those with the least income end up paying the greatest
portion of it in state and local taxes. It’s like Robin Hood
in reverse.”
―Phineas
Baxandall, Senior Policy Analyst of Massachusetts Budget and
Policy Center and author of the report “Who Pays.”
“In a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision,
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said: ‘Taxes are what we
pay for civilized society.’ Of course this was only fourteen
years after the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted establishing
a federal income tax and a tax rate of between one to three
percent. Apparently maintaining a civilized society has
become far more expensive. But what can possibly be more
fair than each member of that society contributing the same
percentage of their income — large or small — to remain
civilized; in other words, ‘from each according to their
ability’”
―Chip Ford,
Executive Director of Citizens for Limited Taxation
responding to Baxandall’s study.
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of October 22-26
QUOTABLE QUOTES
By Bob Katzen
Massachusetts Democrats supporting Gov.
Charlie Baker, a Republican seeking his second term in the
deep blue Bay State, are particularly unprecedented in
today’s hyper-partisan political climate.
“It’s rare to see a governor of one party
get such strong backing from members of the other party,”
former Mitt Romney adviser Ryan Williams said. “Given the
state’s Democratic tilt, to be as popular as Gov. Baker and
to win convincingly as he likely will on Election Day is
nothing short of a miracle. It’s unheard of.”
A number of Democrats have gone against the
grain to endorse the Baker-Polito ticket, including Rep.
Dave Nangle and Rep. Chris Markey, nine Democratic mayors
and seven independent mayors....
Earlier this week, Baker was also endorsed
by both the Major City Police Chiefs for the group’s
first-ever endorsement, and the political arm of Everytown
for Gun Safety, which calls itself the largest gun violence
prevention organization in the U.S.
The Service Employees International Union,
which historically has backed Democrats for public office in
Massachusetts, decided to remain neutral in the contest for
governor after meeting with both candidates last month.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Charlie Baker gets nods from Democrats
Governor earns bipartisan support
As he runs for a second term against
Democrat Jay Gonzalez, Gov. Charlie Baker is now also facing
a different campaign from his right, as a conservative group
urges Republicans to blank their ballots in the
gubernatorial contest.
The Massachusetts Republican Assembly on
Thursday announced its "Blank Baker" campaign, saying the
governor has displayed a hesitance "to support fellow
Republicans," and alluding to his decision not to vote for
either candidate in the 2016 presidential election.
"In an election that offers no actual
gubernatorial choice to advance the cause of common sense or
conservatism, the Massachusetts Republican Assembly will
invoke Baker's own standard: Do not vote for the lesser of
two evils," the group said in a press release.
The group is selling "#BlankBaker2018"
bumper stickers for $5.
Asked about the Republican Assembly's
effort, Baker said his approach to governance is built on
bipartisanship and attempts "to listen to everybody." ...
A moderate Republican whose campaign
highlights endorsements from Democratic mayors and state
representatives, Baker has criticized President Donald
Trump's policy proposals on issues including health care,
and opposed the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh.
Fifty-five percent of the state's roughly
4.5 million voters were unenrolled as of Aug. 15, according
to Secretary of State William Galvin's office. The 465,952
registered Republicans make up just over 10 percent of
voters, with nearly 1.5 million Democrats accounting for 33
percent.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Republican group urges GOP voters to blank governor's race
Gov. Charlie Baker signed the bulk of a $541
million budget bill approved by the Legislature last week
that would push the state's reserves above $2 billion for
the first time in a decade and put millions of dollars into
school safety, but the governor on Tuesday also proposed
several amendment that will keep the state from fully
turning the page on fiscal 2018.
Baker's office announced late Tuesday
afternoon that the governor had signed off on $70 million in
infrastructure spending, including $40 million for roads and
bridges and $10 for clean water projects.
The bill also included $33 million to pay
for snow and ice removal done last winter, $5 million for
transitional housing assistance for hurricane evacuees from
Puerto Rico, $10 million for life science investments and
$700,000 for tuition and fee waivers for children who turned
18 while in the custody of the state and are headed to
college.
"This bill helps close the books on fiscal
2018, and provides targeted funding for important
initiatives including improved security and mental health
counseling in schools, as well as money for local roads,
bridges, and clean drinking water project," Baker said in a
letter to House and Senate leaders.
Lawmakers last week finally got around to
considering a close-out budget that both paid the state's
outstanding bills from fiscal 2018, which ended on July 1,
and decided how to allocate a surplus from last year....
"By doing so, we build a cushion we are able
to draw on in the event of a future recession, and at the
same time we protect the Commonwealth from over-reliance on
volatile sources of revenue," Baker wrote.
The "rainy day" fund, according to the
administration, will eclipse the $2 billion mark for the
first time since 2008, just prior to the Great Recession
when state leaders had to lean heavily on the stabilization
fund and federal stimulus dollars to avoid even deeper cuts
to state services.
The bill also increased the state's
contribution to its non-pension, post-employment benefit
liability from 10 percent to 30 percent tobacco settlement
funds.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
New budget law pushes state savings account balance past $2
Billion
Fighting a mountain-size deficit in the
public polls, Jay Gonzalez has whacked Governor Charlie
Baker on the MBTA. He’s attacked the Republican on gas
pipelines and the State Police. He’s tried to corner Baker
on his support for a conservative Senate candidate.
But what about Baker’s central 2014 campaign
promise to voters that he wouldn’t raise taxes? As a debate
moderator pressed the governor on the issue last week,
Gonzalez, the Democratic challenger, watched, waited his
turn, and then . . . changed the subject....
“To start with, it’s hard for a Democrat to
criticize someone for raising taxes they think are
necessary. Here, he’s already made a point to basically say
this guy should be taxing more,” Ray La Raja, a political
scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said
of Gonzalez. “That’s a tough one.” ...
Baker’s own nuanced dance with new taxes has
weaved through his first term, during which he has defended
his support for new revenue when he says it supports new
programs or levels a “playing field,” as in the case of new
taxes he backs on short-term rentals, such as Airbnb’s. The
Republican has reiterated his opposition to broad-based
increases on the income or sales tax, repeatedly filing
budgets without them. And he’ll continue to oppose them if
reelected, said campaign spokesman Terry MacCormack....
In response, the Republican defended the
payroll tax, noting it was tied to the so-called grand
bargain between activists, business leaders, and legislators
to keep several ballot questions from going to voters in a
“deal that people can live with,” Baker said.
“It’s an $800 million increase to support
that new benefit, yeah,” Baker said, adding that he didn’t
raise taxes as he closed what he called a $1 billion
structural budget deficit after taking office.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Baker promised not to raise taxes.
Facing a challenger, he rarely has to defend that promise
Advocates pushing to uphold the state's
transgender public accommodations law are also now rallying
against a potential Trump Administration change to the legal
definition of sex, a move Gov. Charlie Baker also said he'd
oppose.
The New York Times over the weekend reported
that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is
looking to establish, a uniform definition of sex as either
male or female, based on the genitals a person is born with.
"I've said before that I'm opposed to the
administration's positions on a variety of issues associated
with the LGBTQ community," Baker said after an unrelated
event Tuesday. "And this one is something that -- they
haven't promulgated anything yet, so far there's news
reports on internal memos -- but if they promulgate
something for comment, we're obviously going to comment
against it and explain why, and do some of the work we've
done before, which is to reach out to governors and to other
elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, who we believe
will have a similar point of view to ours and work hard to
get that idea overturned."
Question 3 on the Nov. 6 ballot in
Massachusetts asks voters whether to uphold or repeal the
state's 2016 public accommodations law, which allows
transgender people to access sex-segregated facilities, like
locker rooms, that correspond to their gender identity
rather than assigned sex at birth.
State House News Service
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Baker opposed to possible Fed move defining sex at birth
But Senator Marc R. Pacheco didn’t cast a
vote that day.
The Senate’s third-highest-ranking member
was 4,000 miles away in Austria, delivering a speech on
climate change in the picturesque mountain village of
Fresach, his travel costs picked up by Austrian groups. He
was the only member of the Senate who missed the chance to
move the momentous bill forward.
This was just one of nearly 50 trips — all
subsidized by outside groups — that the Taunton Democrat has
taken since January 2013. And each was made possible by what
one watchdog calls a “galactic-sized loophole” in state
ethics regulations, one that Pacheco and scores of lawmakers
take advantage of, according to a Globe analysis of more
than 600 disclosures filed by legislators.
Members of the Massachusetts House and
Senate have racked up about 3,000 traveling days and
accepted more than $1 million in free or subsidized flights,
hotels, meals, and other travel costs since the beginning of
2013, the Globe found....
Legislators emphasize that no taxpayer
dollars fund their journeys, which often include weekends
and holidays. And they say that any sightseeing is secondary
to the policy-heavy aspects of the trips, or that the
tourist activities actually benefit the state.
But taking far-flung voyages with few
out-of-pocket costs because of the largesse of a foreign
government, nonprofit, or company is a practice that raises
questions about what the outside group is hoping to get in
return for footing the bill, and underscores the indulgent
rules lawmakers get to play by.
Nonelected state employees — bureaucrats —
must get approval from their appointing authority before
accepting a trip, under state ethics regulations. State
representatives and senators are empowered to make that call
themselves.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Lawmakers make most of travel option
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
On finally closing out the Fiscal Year
2018 state budget, on Tuesday the State House News
Service reported:
Gov.
Charlie Baker signed the bulk of a $541 million
budget bill approved by the Legislature last
week that would push the state's reserves above
$2 billion for the first time in a decade and
put millions of dollars into school safety, but
the governor on Tuesday also proposed several
amendment that will keep the state from fully
turning the page on fiscal 2018. . . .
The bill
also increased the state's contribution to its
non-pension, post-employment benefit liability
from 10 percent to 30 percent tobacco settlement
funds.
Misuse and abuse of the so-called
"tobacco settlement fund" is being increased, spending
from it going from 10 percent to now 30 percent just to
bail out government employee benefits. Back in
1999 CLT fought hard to have the billions of dollars
Massachusetts received and continues receiving returned
to the taxpayers ― as was
the alleged original intent of the attorney general's
lawsuit against the tobacco industry. (See:
The CLT Tobacco Settlement Project)
In
my June 1999 testimony before the Joint Committee on
Taxation on CLT's bill,
S.1635, "To Provide for the Return to the Taxpayers
of the Proceeds from the Nationwide Tobacco Settlement,"
I noted:
In
1989, due to fiscal mismanagement by the Dukakis
administration, the state income tax rate was
"temporarily" increased from 5 percent to 5.75
percent. The estimated $793 million annual
revenue increase was to be used to close a $375
million FY '89 budget gap, to compensate
hospitals for $50 million lost through a
shortfall in federal Medicare funding -- and to
pay $484 million in past Medicaid bills.
A
decade later, taxpayers have long ago paid off
the state's Medicaid debt but the "temporary"
income tax rate is still stuck at 5.95 percent.
In
his lawsuit against the tobacco industry,
Attorney General Scott Harshbarger argued before
the courts: "[E]ach year, the Commonwealth must
spend millions of dollars to purchase or provide
medical and related services for Massachusetts
citizens suffering from diseases caused by
cigarette smoking. ... The 'smoking-related
costs to the Commonwealth' are said to include,
but not be limited to, 'medical assistance
provided under Massachusetts' Medicaid program'
and 'medical assistance provided under the
Common Health Program.' The complaint seeks
'both monetary damages and injunctive relief.'"
He
added: "As the Supreme Judicial Court has held,
reimbursement is simply 'repaying or making good
the amount paid out.'" ...
The
taxpayers have paid the cost of health care for
uninsured smokers with tobacco-related
illnesses; we have paid the same Medicaid bill
over and over again a number of times. A decade
later and we are still burdened with the
promised "temporary" income tax increase, a huge
revenue surplus due to continued over-taxation,
and now an additional $8.3 billion taxpayer
"reimbursement" that some want to spend.
It
took 207 years for the state to reach its first
$10 billion budget, but only the last dozen to
more than double it. When is enough enough?
I
hope this Legislature will not be a party to the
ongoing bait-and-switch scam, and will insure
that taxpayers get their long overdue promised
relief, that they finally receive their just
reimbursement for their decades of compassion.
As
then-Attorney General Harshbarger so aptly
pointed out to the court, using the very words
of the Supreme Judicial Court itself:
"Reimbursement is simply repaying or making good
the amount paid out."
Massachusetts and other states got the
settlement with Big Tobacco and for two decades and
counting our state continues to rake in the billions.
That was supposed to be our "reimbursement" for
taxes we'd already paid ―
and which were even increased on us "temporarily" to
bail out the cost of that "tobacco-related" health care.
Instead of reimbursing taxpayers for their cost, those
billions of our dollars disappeared into the state's
black hole, a new slush fund that's been used for all
sorts of unintended, unrelated purposes, including to
enrich state employees.
It would be remiss of me if I didn't
point out that in 1999, as noted in my testimony above,
the state budget had then doubled over the
previous dozen years to $20 Billion. Since that
testimony it has more than doubled again, to $42
Billion. The pols take in more, they
spend more, then they need more to keep up
the spending.
I've got to get back to packing and
hauling heavy boxes down to the PODS container out
front. Whew, I am exhausted; have lost 15 pounds
over the past month from all this forced exercise!
My weight surprisingly went up to 190 pounds over the
past two years, more than I've ever weighed.
Turned out this was directly due to being
shackled to my desk 16-18 hours a day, seven sedentary
days a week year 'round since Barbara Anderson passed
away and I took over her job as well as doing my own.
All I needed to do to lose that weight gain was to just
break away from my desk and move around!
Election Day is Tuesday, November 6th.
The day after will be my final day with a functioning
computer for a few weeks. On November 8th I will
break down the entire computer system and all its
components, pack it all up for my move. The moving
company truck is scheduled to arrive and load on
November 13th then take off for my new home in Kentucky.
Once I close on the sale of my house here, then
Gilgamesh (Barbara's and my cat that I inherited) and I
will be on the road heading for my new sanctuary state
― a thousand-mile drive.
I expect to arrive there by the 15th. It'll be a
week or two after that before I'm moved in, my computer
system is set up, and we're back on line.
In January keep an eye on your (U.S.
Postal) mail for a possible poll from CLT in exile, on
whether or not you want it to restart for 2019.
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Charlie Baker gets nods from Democrats
Governor earns bipartisan support
By Mary Markos
Massachusetts Democrats supporting Gov. Charlie
Baker, a Republican seeking his second term in
the deep blue Bay State, are particularly
unprecedented in today’s hyper-partisan
political climate.
“It’s rare to see a governor of one party get
such strong backing from members of the other
party,” former Mitt Romney adviser Ryan Williams
said. “Given the state’s Democratic tilt, to be
as popular as Gov. Baker and to win convincingly
as he likely will on Election Day is nothing
short of a miracle. It’s unheard of.”
A number of Democrats have gone against the
grain to endorse the Baker-Polito ticket,
including Rep. Dave Nangle and Rep. Chris
Markey, nine Democratic mayors and seven
independent mayors.
“One of the things I think is most attractive
about his candidacy is, he really has proven he
can work in a bipartisan way. Why not have
someone from the other party support him,”
Markey said. “It’s disheartening that we put
party over the people we govern. Obviously I’m a
Democrat and he’s a Republican and we disagree
on certain things, but overall I think the
message is, we can all work together for common
goals.”
Chairman of the Democratic Party Gus Bickford,
however, said that Democrats supporting Baker
instead of his Democratic challenger, Jay
Gonzalez, “isn’t unique.”
“It’s frustrating,” Bickford said. “But it also
reflects on the fact that Charlie Baker has been
in office controlling budgets for four years.
Jay Gonzalez is not the incumbent, so I think
that it says more about Jay that he’s got so
many Democrats behind him challenging Charlie
Baker.”
Many local mayors spoke of issues that impacted
their local communities — including Nor’easters
that caused immense damage, the opioid crisis
and, most recently, the explosions across the
Merrimack Valley caused by over-pressurization
of gas lines — and how the Baker-Polito
administration helped.
“I endorsed him before this happened, but the
emergency that just happened cemented my belief
in the governor’s inherent and instinctual
leadership at this level,” Lawrence Mayor Daniel
Rivera said. “He’s dealing with my problems and
he’s dealing with the problems of other
communities at the same time, but you never feel
like you’re second in line.”
“This is not about my personal politics as a
Democrat but as a mayor and what is in the best
interest for my city of Newburyport,”
Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday said. “Both
Charlie and Karyn come from leadership positions
in their communities and truly understand the
key role cities and towns hold across our
commonwealth.”
“I’m grateful for Gov. Baker and Lt. Gov.
Polito’s bipartisan leadership and support for
communities like Revere,” Mayor Brian Arrigo
said. “They have made the important investments
we need to support our schools and grow our
local economy, while taking on the big issues
that are important to making Massachusetts, and
Revere, a safer and healthier place in which to
live, work, start a business and raise a
family.”
Earlier this week, Baker was also endorsed by
both the Major City Police Chiefs for the
group’s first-ever endorsement, and the
political arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, which
calls itself the largest gun violence prevention
organization in the U.S.
The Service Employees International Union, which
historically has backed Democrats for public
office in Massachusetts, decided to remain
neutral in the contest for governor after
meeting with both candidates last month.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Republican group urges GOP voters to blank
governor's race
By Katie Lannan
As he runs for a second term against Democrat
Jay Gonzalez, Gov. Charlie Baker is now also
facing a different campaign from his right, as a
conservative group urges Republicans to blank
their ballots in the gubernatorial contest.
The Massachusetts Republican Assembly on
Thursday announced its "Blank Baker" campaign,
saying the governor has displayed a hesitance
"to support fellow Republicans," and alluding to
his decision not to vote for either candidate in
the 2016 presidential election.
"In an election that offers no actual
gubernatorial choice to advance the cause of
common sense or conservatism, the Massachusetts
Republican Assembly will invoke Baker's own
standard: Do not vote for the lesser of two
evils," the group said in a press release.
The group is selling "#BlankBaker2018" bumper
stickers for $5.
Asked about the Republican Assembly's effort,
Baker said his approach to governance is built
on bipartisanship and attempts "to listen to
everybody."
"I'm very proud of the fact that many of the
initiatives we've pursued have received
bipartisan support, in some cases unanimous
support from both branches, and I think that's
one of the things people appreciate about the
way we operate," Baker said Tuesday. "I also
think it's worked for the people of
Massachusetts. We have more people working than
at any time in state history, and the 215,000
jobs we've added over the last four years is the
largest number of jobs created since they
started keeping score in 1976, and we do listen
and try to listen to everybody as we go about
doing our jobs and doing our work, because
that's what I think we were elected to do."
A moderate Republican whose campaign highlights
endorsements from Democratic mayors and state
representatives, Baker has criticized President
Donald Trump's policy proposals on issues
including health care, and opposed the
nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh.
Fifty-five percent of the state's roughly 4.5
million voters were unenrolled as of Aug. 15,
according to Secretary of State William Galvin's
office. The 465,952 registered Republicans make
up just over 10 percent of voters, with nearly
1.5 million Democrats accounting for 33 percent.
Baker has led Gonzalez in a series of public
opinion polls, and registered strong support
from Democrats in those surveys.
Baker has endorsed much of the GOP slate in the
Nov. 6 election. In a debate against Gonzalez
last week, Baker initially said he had not
decided if he would vote for Republican Senate
candidate Geoff Diehl despite endorsing him,
then later told reporters he misspoke and would
vote for Diehl.
The Republican Assembly, in its press release,
cited Baker's "failure to immediately support"
Diehl during the debate and his status as "the
only prominent Republican in the nation to
abandon due process and common decency by saying
he believed the accusers of now US Supreme Court
Justice Brett Kavanaugh."
"Enough is enough, there is no I in TEAM,
Charlie," Assembly President Mary Lou Daxland
said in a statement. "Our party has a state and
national platform. Stop weighing down the
candidates who actually run on it."
The Shirley Republican Town Committee is also
urging blank votes in the governor's race. The
committee makes the ask in a Facebook post
referencing the debate and "a damaging bout of
indecisiveness from Baker on live television,
where he wavered and wobbled over several
questions on Diehl."
"Baker, not a Republican in any sense of the
word, will win as he has more Democrat support
than true Republican support!" the committee
wrote.
Baker reiterated his backing of Diehl the day
after the debate, saying he had "supported
candidates over the years that I didn't agree
with on everything, Democrats and Republicans."
Gonzalez and the Massachusetts Democratic Party
have also knocked Baker over his handling of the
Diehl question.
In WBUR/MassINC poll conducted Sept. 17 through
Sept. 21, 55 percent of voters said Baker's
endorsement of Diehl against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth
Warren made no difference to them, and 28
percent said it made them less likely to vote
for the governor.
The same poll found 67 percent of Democrats
viewed Baker favorably.
Baker on Tuesday said he is able to bring a
"constructive friction of having both teams on
the field" to his work with the
Democrat-controlled Legislature.
"Many of the initiatives that we've succeeded in
have been bipartisan, and we've worked through
with our colleagues in the Legislature but there
have been a lot of different points of view and
a lot of different ideas that have been worked
through in the process along the way, and that's
as I think it should be," he said. "My hope is
that many of the issues we end up wrestling with
the Legislature and with our colleagues in local
government about, most people could see as just
simply things that we should fix and things that
we should do to make the commonwealth a better
place for people but I definitely believe when
you have two teams on the field and there's
public accountability for both Democrats and
Republicans, you get a better product."
Asked to discuss his "Republican values," Baker
brought up "fiscal discipline," saying he came
into office with the state facing a structural
budget deficit and the most recent fiscal year
ended with a surplus.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
New budget law pushes state savings account
balance past $2 Billion
By Matt Murphy
Gov. Charlie Baker signed the bulk of a $541
million budget bill approved by the Legislature
last week that would push the state's reserves
above $2 billion for the first time in a decade
and put millions of dollars into school safety,
but the governor on Tuesday also proposed
several amendment that will keep the state from
fully turning the page on fiscal 2018.
Baker's office announced late Tuesday afternoon
that the governor had signed off on $70 million
in infrastructure spending, including $40
million for roads and bridges and $10 for clean
water projects.
The bill also included $33 million to pay for
snow and ice removal done last winter, $5
million for transitional housing assistance for
hurricane evacuees from Puerto Rico, $10 million
for life science investments and $700,000 for
tuition and fee waivers for children who turned
18 while in the custody of the state and are
headed to college.
"This bill helps close the books on fiscal 2018,
and provides targeted funding for important
initiatives including improved security and
mental health counseling in schools, as well as
money for local roads, bridges, and clean
drinking water project," Baker said in a letter
to House and Senate leaders.
Lawmakers last week finally got around to
considering a close-out budget that both paid
the state's outstanding bills from fiscal 2018,
which ended on July 1, and decided how to
allocate a surplus from last year.
The actions taken by Baker, however, are
unlikely to fully satisfy Comptroller Thomas
Shack, who had been urging lawmakers to act
sooner so that he could meet his legal
obligation to file the annual Statutory Basis
Financial Report by Oct. 31.
The administration said Baker signed all
spending authorizations in the bill and 66 of
the 70 outside sections, but Baker did return
four sections to the House with proposed
amendments that "are necessary to close the FY18
books completely."
The amendments Baker returned include one sought
by the attorney general and district attorneys
concerning access to prescription monitoring
program data from the Department of Public
Health, which was part of the opioid abuse
prevention bill completed at the end of the
session.
Attorney General Maura Healey told the
administration, according to Baker, that while
personnel in the Medicaid fraud control unit can
access prescription monitoring information, she
cannot access the same data in conjunction with
civil investigations. District attorneys have
made similar complaints about not being able to
access prescription monitoring information in
connection to fatal drug overdose
investigations.
The governor's amendment gives law enforcement
access in both cases.
The governor also proposed a technical change
related to the way a 2018 housing bond bill was
written, and is proposing to give the Regional
Transit Authority Performance and Funding Task
Force until Feb. 15 to complete its work, or an
extra two-and-a-half months.
While the Legislature will have to consider each
of those four amendments in the coming weeks,
the spending authorized in the bill takes effect
immediately.
The bulk of the funding was approved to pay
bills accrued over the course of fiscal 2018,
but it also made tax law changes that Baker
described as "necessitated by the federal Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act," and made statutory changes
needed to implement the new paid family leave
and sales tax holiday laws.
The bill also included funding for a new class
of state troopers and a class of correction
officers, and authorized a transfer of capital
gains tax revenues that will push the amount
saved in fiscal 2018 to more than $700 million.
"By doing so, we build a cushion we are able to
draw on in the event of a future recession, and
at the same time we protect the Commonwealth
from over-reliance on volatile sources of
revenue," Baker wrote.
The "rainy day" fund, according to the
administration, will eclipse the $2 billion mark
for the first time since 2008, just prior to the
Great Recession when state leaders had to lean
heavily on the stabilization fund and federal
stimulus dollars to avoid even deeper cuts to
state services.
The bill also increased the state's contribution
to its non-pension, post-employment benefit
liability from 10 percent to 30 percent tobacco
settlement funds.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Baker promised not to raise taxes.
Facing a challenger, he rarely has to defend
that promise
By Matt Stout
Fighting a mountain-size deficit in the public
polls, Jay Gonzalez has whacked Governor Charlie
Baker on the MBTA. He’s attacked the Republican
on gas pipelines and the State Police. He’s
tried to corner Baker on his support for a
conservative Senate candidate.
But what about Baker’s central 2014 campaign
promise to voters that he wouldn’t raise taxes?
As a debate moderator pressed the governor on
the issue last week, Gonzalez, the Democratic
challenger, watched, waited his turn, and then .
. . changed the subject.
“But we’ve got to make sure that people
understand the choice here on transportation,”
Gonzalez stressed.
For a governor who ran on not raising taxes and
fees, Baker has rarely had to defend it against
Gonzalez, a progressive Democrat who has built
his campaign on promising to pursue tax hikes on
the wealthy and invest, he says, in ways Baker
is unwilling.
On Tuesday, Gonzalez charged in a statement that
Baker has “waffled on taxes.” But his own
tax-heavy platform has otherwise left the former
state budget chief unable — if not unwilling —
to scrutinize Baker on whether he honored his
pledge, even after Baker signed into a law a
$800 million payroll tax and a $2 surcharge on
car rental transactions, among other new revenue
generators.
Jay Gonzalez, meet box.
“To start with, it’s hard for a Democrat to
criticize someone for raising taxes they think
are necessary. Here, he’s already made a point
to basically say this guy should be taxing
more,” Ray La Raja, a political scientist at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, said of
Gonzalez. “That’s a tough one.”
With less than two weeks until the Nov. 6
election, Gonzalez is trying to scratch out as
much ground as possible against an incumbent
who’s led by nearly 30 points in recent polling.
And he’s done so by heavily promoting his own
tax plans while criticizing Baker for not
presenting his own.
Baker’s own nuanced dance with new taxes has
weaved through his first term, during which he
has defended his support for new revenue when he
says it supports new programs or levels a
“playing field,” as in the case of new taxes he
backs on short-term rentals, such as Airbnb’s.
The Republican has reiterated his opposition to
broad-based increases on the income or sales
tax, repeatedly filing budgets without them. And
he’ll continue to oppose them if reelected, said
campaign spokesman Terry MacCormack.
“As a general rule, I don’t think balancing the
budget should be coming out of the pockets of
the taxpayers,” Baker told reporters following a
WBZ-hosted debate this month. “That should be
left up to us. That’s our job.”
The debate about how closely he’s hewed to that
pledge reared its head last week, when Jim
Braude posed a not-so-hypothetical situation to
Baker about a governor who imposed a
quarter-billion-dollar assessment on some
employers and new taxes to backstop a paid
medical and family leave.
“Would you say that person is a no-new-taxes
governor?” Braude asked during Baker and
Gonzalez’s second debate, at the WGBH-TV studios
in Brighton.
In response, the Republican defended the payroll
tax, noting it was tied to the so-called grand
bargain between activists, business leaders, and
legislators to keep several ballot questions
from going to voters in a “deal that people can
live with,” Baker said.
“It’s an $800 million increase to support that
new benefit, yeah,” Baker said, adding that he
didn’t raise taxes as he closed what he called a
$1 billion structural budget deficit after
taking office.
Largely absent from the back-and-forth was
Gonzalez, who in the debate — and elsewhere —
has highlighted his plans to tax the endowments
of the state’s wealthiest colleges to generate
$1 billion in new taxes.
He also said he’d push a constitutional
amendment through the Legislature to raise the
state income tax on those making $1 million or
more, after the Supreme Judicial Court rejected
a ballot question that sought to do the same.
Gonzalez has acknowledged that passing such a
measure would take an entire four-year term
under constitutional requirements.
Baker has criticized the plans, questioning
whether they’d even pay for all of Gonzalez’s
promises on transportation or moving toward a
single-payer health care system.
Asked last week if Baker broke his campaign
pledge, Gonzalez said: “I don’t know.”
“I’m concerned about the next four years, and
the next four years he’s not proposing to do
anything in this regard,” Gonzalez said. “I know
it’s not easy for a political candidate to say,
‘I’m going to raise taxes.’ But we can’t afford
not to.”
In a statement Tuesday, Gonzalez sharpened his
rhetoric somewhat, arguing that Baker “has
waffled on taxes,” among other topics, including
his support for US Senate candidate Geoff Diehl.
Baker said during the WGBH debate that he hadn’t
decided whether he’d back the conservative
Republican, but told reporters afterward that he
would.
“What does Governor Baker actually stand for?”
Gonzalez said in his statement. “He is
constantly trying to have it both ways and
basing important decisions on political
calculations.”
There’s also the calculation of whether such a
tactic would even catch voters’ attention. Lou
DiNatale, a veteran Democratic operative, said
jumping into the fray about Baker’s record on
taxes probably offers the Democrat few
victories.
“It’s too much of a reach, in this environment,”
he said, arguing races in this election cycle
are dominated not by policy but by personality.
There’s another challenge, too: It’s awkward for
Gonzalez to attack Baker on his tax pledge,
given his own push for more of them, said
Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor
at Tufts University.
“Judging the governor against all his promises
is a good talking point,” Berry said.
“But I think what Gonzalez needs to do is grab
the imagination of Massachusetts voters and make
them understand that the Gonzalez administration
is somehow going to make their lives better.
“He’s tried to do that and so far has failed,”
he added, “because I don’t think many people
have paid attention to him.”
Globe Correspondent Jackson Cote contributed
to this report.
State House News Service
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Baker opposed to possible Fed move defining sex
at birth
By Katie Lannan
Advocates pushing to uphold the state's
transgender public accommodations law are also
now rallying against a potential Trump
Administration change to the legal definition of
sex, a move Gov. Charlie Baker also said he'd
oppose.
The New York Times over the weekend reported
that the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services is looking to establish, a uniform
definition of sex as either male or female,
based on the genitals a person is born with.
"I've said before that I'm opposed to the
administration's positions on a variety of
issues associated with the LGBTQ community,"
Baker said after an unrelated event Tuesday.
"And this one is something that -- they haven't
promulgated anything yet, so far there's news
reports on internal memos -- but if they
promulgate something for comment, we're
obviously going to comment against it and
explain why, and do some of the work we've done
before, which is to reach out to governors and
to other elected officials, Democrats and
Republicans, who we believe will have a similar
point of view to ours and work hard to get that
idea overturned."
Question 3 on the Nov. 6 ballot in Massachusetts
asks voters whether to uphold or repeal the
state's 2016 public accommodations law, which
allows transgender people to access
sex-segregated facilities, like locker rooms,
that correspond to their gender identity rather
than assigned sex at birth.
The Yes on 3 Campaign, which supports keeping
the law, plans a Wednesday afternoon press
conference "in support of transgender youth and
in response to news of the Trump administration
legal memo to attempt to undermine federal civil
rights protections for transgender people by
advocating a restrictive definition of sex under
federal law."
Actress Laverne Cox of "Orange is the New Black"
and Alexandra Chandler, who ran in the Third
District Democratic primary as the state's first
openly transgender congressional candidate, are
among the scheduled speakers at the 1 p.m.
event, which will also feature teachers' union
members and transgender youths and their
families.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Lawmakers make most of travel option
By Joshua Miller and Matt Stout
In May 2016, Beacon Hill lawmakers gathered
inside the Senate chamber to make history: They
voted overwhelmingly to bar public
discrimination against transgender people in
what advocates hailed as a giant leap forward
for civil rights.
But Senator Marc R. Pacheco didn’t cast a vote
that day.
The Senate’s third-highest-ranking member was
4,000 miles away in Austria, delivering a speech
on climate change in the picturesque mountain
village of Fresach, his travel costs picked up
by Austrian groups. He was the only member of
the Senate who missed the chance to move the
momentous bill forward.
This was just one of nearly 50 trips — all
subsidized by outside groups — that the Taunton
Democrat has taken since January 2013. And each
was made possible by what one watchdog calls a
“galactic-sized loophole” in state ethics
regulations, one that Pacheco and scores of
lawmakers take advantage of, according to a
Globe analysis of more than 600 disclosures
filed by legislators.
Members of the Massachusetts House and Senate
have racked up about 3,000 traveling days and
accepted more than $1 million in free or
subsidized flights, hotels, meals, and other
travel costs since the beginning of 2013, the
Globe found.
Many trips were anchored by distinct public
policy goals. A key author of gun control
legislation went to a Chicago policy summit
about gun violence, for example. Lawmakers
considering marijuana regulation visited
Colorado, where pot had been legal for years.
The education committee House chairwoman went to
a Washington, D.C., education conference. (One
session she attended: “What is Student-Centered
Learning?”)
Then, there are the jackpot junkets —
itineraries that include touring the Great Wall
and visiting a panda center in China; wandering
through the Grand Bazaar in Marrakesh, Morocco;
and enjoying an elephant village in Thailand.
Massachusetts legislators can legally accept
free or subsidized travel — including from
foreign governments — as long they disclose the
details and value of the travel and sign a
document affirming it serves a legitimate public
purpose that “outweighs any special non-work
related benefit” to them.
But under the state’s broadly written ethics
regulations, it’s up to elected officials to
police themselves. Neither the state Ethics
Commission, nor the chambers’ lawyers, regularly
scrutinize the filed disclosures, whose content
can get exotic.
Sightseeing in a volcanic crater and at hot
springs in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago
in the Atlantic Ocean? Part of a trip with a
legitimate public purpose, lawmakers said.
Walking the holy streets of Jerusalem and
Bethlehem? Ditto. Taking in an Irish football
final where Pharrell Williams was invited to
play the halftime show? Same.
Legislators emphasize that no taxpayer dollars
fund their journeys, which often include
weekends and holidays. And they say that any
sightseeing is secondary to the policy-heavy
aspects of the trips, or that the tourist
activities actually benefit the state.
But taking far-flung voyages with few
out-of-pocket costs because of the largesse of a
foreign government, nonprofit, or company is a
practice that raises questions about what the
outside group is hoping to get in return for
footing the bill, and underscores the indulgent
rules lawmakers get to play by.
Nonelected state employees — bureaucrats — must
get approval from their appointing authority
before accepting a trip, under state ethics
regulations. State representatives and senators
are empowered to make that call themselves.
“Somebody other than the elected official should
be making the determination. It’s just so
obviously absurd because it just creates an
enormous vulnerability,” said Greg Sullivan, a
former state inspector general. “It’s too big
for a loophole. It’s a galactic-sized loophole.”
‘Floor-to-ceiling opulence’
Since January 2013, Pacheco, the state’s
longest-serving senator, has spent the
equivalent of eight months — at least 240 days —
traveling to give speeches, attend conferences,
and tour foreign countries, according to his
disclosures.
He’s been to Austria 10 times and made nine
trips to Portugal. He delivered a talk on a book
he co-edited in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and visited
Ireland, where an energy co-op paid for his
roundtrip airfare. The Czech Republic,
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Cape Verde all
dot his proverbial passport. His total costs
paid by others were at least $68,000 since the
beginning of 2013, according to the Globe
analysis. That’s the most for any lawmaker in
that timeframe.
The travel, Pacheco said in a statement and
lengthy interview, is something he is proud of
and is policy driven, with a big focus on
climate change and the Portuguese heritage he
and many of his constituents share. He chairs
the Senate’s Committee on Global Warming and
Climate Change, authored Massachusetts’ landmark
2008 Global Warming Solutions Act, and says he
is a sought-after voice on climate issues. And
he emphasized some of his travel has been tied
to leadership roles in well-respected groups
like the National Conference of State
Legislatures.
He underscored that he very rarely misses votes,
the transgender legislation notwithstanding, and
when he has, the legislative process has
afforded him other opportunities to make his
voice heard on those bills. (Pacheco has missed
about 3 percent of Senate votes since the
beginning of 2013, according to InstaTrac, the
Boston-based legislative information service.)
And the senator argued that what he’s learned on
international trips has directly affected state
policies, such as Massachusetts’ massive wind
energy effort that’s underway. Pacheco pointed
to a legislative hearing where Governor Charlie
Baker testified, and the senator cited his own
prodding as having helped move the
administration toward a more wind-focused
stance. (Baker said Pacheco was “one voice,” but
said his energy secretary, Matthew Beaton, and
George A. Bachrach, the former president of the
Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the
Boston company First Wind provided some of “the
most important conversations.”)
“You know, you just don’t wake up and just have
the knowledge about what’s going on in the
offshore wind industry. You have to see it,”
said Pacheco, whose Senate pay was $142,500 last
year. “You have to be out on a ship and actually
see these wind farms.”
But it’s not only turbine gawking that occupies
him in his travels. There are also plenty of
“special non-work related benefits.”
During one “energy tour” to Portugal, his hotel
itinerary included a night in a restored
16th-century convent in Tavira and a stay in an
18th-century baroque palace, that, in addition
to being classified as a national monument,
touts a riverside infinity pool and
“floor-to-ceiling opulence,” according to its
website.
On a September 2017 trip to Vienna, where he was
slated to give a speech, his itinerary included
a day of “cultural and educational tours” in the
Austrian capital — a place he had been just
three months prior and six times in the previous
four years.
Sullivan, the former inspector general who now
works at the conservative-leaning Pioneer
Institute, which has clashed with Pacheco on
other fronts, said, “When I was in the IG’s
office, we had a saying: If there were a law
against this, he’d be breaking it right now.
There should be a law against this.”
There were other benefits. During a return visit
to Portugal in 2016, Pacheco asked the director
of the foundation paying his way about getting a
special deal in case he wanted to extend his
time.
“If we do stay longer,” Pacheco wrote in one
e-mail attached to his travel disclosure, “it
would be good if they would honor the rate you
are able to negotiate.”
For the Luso-American legislators conference
that ran a day-and-a-half, Pacheco ended up
staying four nights for free in a five-star
Lisbon hotel — and at the same rate ($220) for
two additional nights, according to his
disclosure.
In the interview, Pacheco said he paid the “rate
that the hotel asked me to pay,” adding that
hotels prefer to keep guests from going “down
the street” to a competitor. “I think it’s not
unusual with conferences at all.”
‘More than just pandas’
During a trip several lawmakers took to China
last year, there were three full days of meeting
with government officials, according to an
itinerary. And at least three filled with the
kind of cultural tourism experiences a
non-elected official might, well, pay for.
There was a day touring the renown Palace
Museum, then the Great Wall; one that included a
giant panda center visit; and another traveling
to Guangzhou for a “cultural experience.”
The cost of it all, paid for by the Chinese
People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign
Countries: $8,671, according to disclosures.
“Pandas are fun, but there’s more than just
pandas,” state Representative Tackey Chan, a
Quincy Democrat who helped organize the trip,
said of the lawmakers’ visit to the Chengdu
animal center. He said they learned a lot about
conservation, development, and the environment.
House majority leader Ronald Mariano, a Quincy
Democrat who called the trip “amazing,” said it
gave him a broad view of the country, which is
one of the state’s top trading partners, and
helped him better understand the culture and
history of his Chinese-American constituents.
“You realize that the governmental problems that
they have are pretty much the same as the ones
we have, especially at the local levels,” said
Mariano, who, as the trip leader, had frequent
meetings with Communist Party officials, and as
majority leader made $137,500 in House salary
last year. “Philosophically, you begin to
realize we’re all in the same nest.”
For that reason and others, good-government
watchdogs don’t frown upon all such adventures.
Pam Wilmot, who leads Common Cause
Massachusetts, said subsidized travel is
positive for lawmakers when there is not a
conflict of interest.
“It exposes legislators to new way of doing
things. It expands their definition of what’s
possible or advisable,” she said. “One of the
problems I often see with Massachusetts state
government is lack of exposure to new ideas —
you know, ‘How we’ll do it is how we’ve always
done it.’ ”
Wilmot said if legislators are talking with
officials and going to meetings one day, and
seeing pandas and the Great Wall on others, “I
have a hard time getting exercised about it. A
lot of these lawmakers wouldn’t have the
opportunity to go any other way.”
The desire for those sorts of subsidized
experiences is one many lawmakers appear to
share. Since 2013, they have collectively
visited at least 31 countries, plus Taiwan and
the West Bank, the Globe found.
It’s how they justify the travel that varies.
This summer, Senate President Karen E. Spilka
jetted to France for a conference put on by the
National Conference of State Legislatures in
Normandy to “sharpen the leadership skills I
will need to ensure the Senate’s continued
legislative success,” she wrote in her filing.
During the six-day event, according to the
program, there were a total of 7.5 hours of
specific leadership programming, with the rest
of the time devoted to meals and visits to top
historical sites such as Omaha Beach, the
Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, and a
C-47 flight simulator. Spilka aides said,
however, the site visits were part of the
leadership training, not separate from it.
After the conference, Spilka, who made $147,700
in Senate salary last year, extended her France
trip “on personal time using her own personal
funds,” according to a spokesman, before heading
home on a flight paid for by the NCSL.
House Speaker pro Tempore Patricia A. Haddad has
jetted to eight foreign countries and Taiwan in
five-plus years. Her disclosures have her
walking the streets of Jerusalem in 2013 to help
“promote the interests of the Commonwealth” and
visiting top tourist sites in Casablanca and
Marrakesh to “explore opportunities to increase
tourism from Morocco in Massachusetts.”
Haddad, a Somerset Democrat, declined to be
interviewed about her subsidized travels, but
she spoke briefly to the Globe Tuesday after
returning from a trip with more than a dozen
other legislators to Lisbon and the Azores — a
sojourn that also included spouses of some
lawmakers.
“Everything that I have done has been declared
and put into the disclosures as we have to do by
law,” she said walking outside Logan
International Airport.
Asked about scheduled visits to an “elephant
village” and “crocodile show” on a 2016 Thailand
trip, Haddad said it’s “what you go to see in
the country. You go to see part of their culture
to put what they do in perspective.”
Pressed on how such excursions benefit her
constituents and the state, Haddad said, “When
you have people of different cultures who come
into your district, you’re aware of what’s
important to them.”
In a e-mail on Thursday, Haddad, who made
$132,500 in House salary last year, added, “All
travel serves a legitimate purpose.”
A brief recess
Few if any House members have accepted more in
free travel than Antonio F. D. Cabral, who’s run
up a tab of nearly $30,000 — paid by others — to
places like Lisbon and the Azores.
But no trip matched his May 2017 trek to East
Timor, a former Portuguese colony, paid for by
the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C., think
tank.
At $12,103, it was the most any state lawmaker
accepted for a single trip in the years the
Globe reviewed. And it meant Cabral, a New
Bedford Democrat who made a House salary of
$112,500 last year, could spend four days in
Southeast Asia to attend the country’s
presidential inauguration and, according to his
itinerary, enjoy a Dili beach boat cruise and
tour a coffee cooperative.
He also was there to accept the country’s
highest civilian honor, bestowed by Timorese
officials who called him “tireless in
advocating” for Timorese people when they were
under Indonesian occupation. (Cabral, for
example, filed bills in the late 1990s seeking
to limit investments in Indonesia.)
Cabral defended the travel, saying in a
statement his advocacy for the tiny nation of
1.3 million is followed closely in New Bedford,
and that the dialogue the trip opened could
bloom into “mutually beneficial” trade and
academic relationships.
So, after days in a faraway land hailed for its
bountiful coral reefs and marine life, he
returned to Boston on a Wednesday — and headed
“straight to the State House,” an aide said.
In the House chamber, business was already
humming, with lawmakers moving to sew up a
supplemental spending bill.
Cabral didn’t vote on that one, according to
House records. He also missed the roll call
establishing a quorum. Then, just before 3 p.m.,
formal activity halted, according to a State
House News Service report of the session.
“Rep. Mariano called a brief recess,” it read,
“while Rep. Cabral returned to the chamber.”
Globe correspondent Jamie Halper contributed
to this report. |
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