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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Saturday, May 18, 2019
"Not a
dime's worth of difference"?
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What happens when you establish a 15-member
commission whose goal is to represent various geographical,
political, and demographic backgrounds?
If you’re in Massachusetts, you appoint a
group that tries to represent everyone. Everyone, that is,
except Republicans.
The commission, ironically enough, is called
the Citizens Commission, although excluding Republicans from
citizenship seems a bit of a stretch, even in Massachusetts.
The 15 Commission members were appointed by the five most
powerful Massachusetts office holders: Governor Charlie
Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, Secretary of State
Bill Galvin, Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo, and Senate
President Karen Spilka. Each of the five officials named
three appointees, yet not one filled a slot with a
registered Republican.
The more aptly named No-Republicans
Commission resulted from a 2018 ballot question aimed at
overturning the 2010 United States Supreme Court Citizens
United v. FEC ruling that protected First Amendment
political speech rights....
Democrat power brokers control 12 of the 15
appointments to the No-Republicans Commission, while
Republican Governor Charlie Baker was awarded three
selections. Baker, whose favorable poll numbers skyrocket
through the stratosphere, chose two independents and
squeezed yet another Democrat onto a Commission already
weighed down with that party’s cohorts.
Among Baker’s choices was independent
William Kilmartin, a former Massachusetts State Comptroller
appointed during the last years of Democrat Mike Dukakis’s
administration. Kilmartin also sits on the Board of Trustees
of the misnamed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a big
government lobbying group not to be confused with the
genuinely pro-taxpayer Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Baker’s other independent nominee offers the
best hope for the Commission. A United States Marine and
businessman, Matthew McKnight will not be easily intimidated
by Democrat politicians. In his “statement of interest,”
McKnight talks about his Marine Corps oath to “protect and
defend the Constitution,” and his “allegiance to the core
values of the Constitution — namely a belief in individual
liberty and respect for human dignity.” One expects McKnight
to be the solitary spokesman for constitutionally protected
rights on a Commission whose goal is to restrict political
speech....
It’s fitting that Republicans got shut out
of the new commission. Only Democrats control the political
outcomes of the No-Republicans Commission. Because they are
bankrolled by big money, you can be sure Democrats will
protect their own.
The New Boston Post
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
No Republicans Need Apply
By Joseph Tortelli
When it comes to new taxes, the hacks at the
State House never take no for an answer.
Latest case in point: the unemployable
layabouts last week began their latest crusade to raise the
state income tax, taking the initial steps to put the
multibillion-dollar heist on the 2022 ballot.
This time they’re rebranding their odious
graduated income tax as a “millionaires’ tax.”
If you’ve ever fantasized about becoming a
millionaire, be sure for vote for this pig in a poke in
2022, because within a matter of months, the state will
declare you a “millionaire,” at least for the purposes of
paying a 9 percent income tax, as opposed to the current 5
percent and change.
Don’t worry, though, it’s for the children.
And the crumbling infrastructure. It’s an investment in the
future.
Their future, not ours.
If this graduated income tax scam sounds
familiar, that’s because it is.
In 1962, it was put on the statewide ballot
for the first time – and was rejected by 83 percent of the
electorate.
In 1968 the hacks tried again – 70 percent
voted no.
In 1972, the year Massachusetts was the only
state in the union to vote Democrat for president, 67
percent of the voters also said no new taxes.
In 1976, the hacks tried again. No – 73
percent.
In 1994 – 64.6 percent voted no.
In 2018, the hackerama went back for a sixth
bite at the apple – the Supreme Judicial Court, as
hack-infested as it is, told them to go pound sand.
What part of the word “NO!!!!!!” do the
payroll patriots on Beacon Hill not understand?
But they figure that the seventh time might
just be the charm. And they could be right – in recent
decades, the electorate has been dumbed down more than
somewhat....
But don’t worry – only the “millionaires” will be supporting
this ongoing orgy of waste, fraud and abuse. Until, of
course, the “millionaires” exercise some basic common sense,
by a) getting their reported income under what will be an
ever-lower threshold, or b) moving to New Hampshire or
Florida or some other sane state with no income tax.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 12, 2019
If 7th time’s the charm for tax hike, we’re all
‘millionaires’
By Howie Carr
The state’s politically powerful sheriffs
could score major salary increases under a House-passed
proposal that, should it survive budget negotiations, would
push the majority of the 14 sheriffs’ pay to nearly $170,000
a year in July.
The 12 percent hikes were tucked into one of
the nine bulging packages of earmarks and other policy
changes the House passed as part of its budget last
month....
The amendment was filed by Representative
John J. Lawn, a Watertown Democrat whose predecessor, Peter
J. Koutoujian, is currently the Middlesex County sheriff and
president of the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association, which
specifically made the request.
Koutoujian spoke directly to Lawn about the
amendment, a Koutoujian spokesman said. Efforts to reach
Lawn were not successful Friday.
The original $191,000 request wasn’t random,
either. It’s the same salary House budget writers proposed
last month for the state’s 11 district attorneys. At the
time, House officials called their $20,000 increase “a
modest cost of living adjustment,” noting that the
prosecutors hadn’t gotten a raise since 2014, when their pay
was set at $171,561.
The sheriffs are arguing the same thing.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Sheriffs may get pay hike under new state budget
Ten minutes after the Joint Committee on
Housing hearing was supposed to start Tuesday morning, a
court officer approached Rep. William Crocker and asked the
legislator, with three empty seats between him and his
nearest colleague, "Feeling lonely?"
It wasn't that Crocker's colleagues hadn't
reported for work Tuesday, but rather that there was so much
going on in the State House that lawmakers, lobbyists,
activists, reporters and staffers found themselves trying to
be in several places at once, an increasingly familiar
feeling on Tuesdays at the State House....
Six different joint committees held hearings
at the State House on Tuesday, accepting testimony on a
grand total of 160 bills running the gamut from memorial
bridge namings and measures to reduce noise pollution to
Gov. Charlie Baker's priority bills related to housing
production and detention of dangerous accused criminals....
Tuesdays tend to be the busiest day for
committee hearings on Beacon Hill. The House typically holds
its formal sessions on Wednesdays, the Senate holds most of
its formals on Thursdays and lawmakers like to reserve
Fridays as a day to work in their districts.
Last Tuesday, eight joint committees and a
special commission created by the Legislature met at the
State House. The committees held hearings for more than 200
bills that day and at one point five committees met
simultaneously. When the hearing schedule came into view,
first-term Sen. Becca Rausch tweeted that she was trying to
figure out how to meet all her obligations.
"Uh, yeah I haven't quite figured out how to
be at 3-4 hearings simultaneously," she tweeted at a News
Service reporter.
State House News Service
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Tuesday's becoming too much to take in on Beacon Hill
Beacon Hill leaders are doing their best to
downplay expectations about a budget surplus, but local
officials have taken notice that state tax collections are
running about $1 billion over expectations and are laying
out their spending hopes and dreams.
State House News Service
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Muni officials put in for piece of state budget surplus
There's a temporary break next week in the
wave of legislative hearings that have washed over Beacon
Hill. That's because the Massachusetts Senate will debate
its annual state spending bill, planning probably three or
four marathon sessions, beginning on Tuesday, where they
will dispense with the 1,142 amendments to the $42.7 billion
budget released by the Senate Ways and Means Committee on
May 7....
Since most bills die in committee and never
even reach the floors of the House and Senate for votes,
House and Senate members, aware that the budget bill must be
signed into law each year, try to essentially velcro as many
of their priorities onto the bill before it reaches the
governor's desk. It makes for a messy process.
The House took almost its entire budget
process offline last month, literally working in a room
adjacent to its chamber and then processing the
mega-amendments that were worked out behind closed doors.
The Senate also makes most of its decisions on amendments
privately -- a caucus on Monday represents another
opportunity for senators to privately debate things, for
instance.
While it doesn't categorize amendments by
subject matter like the House, the Senate toward the end of
its budget deliberations usually adopts large "yes" and "no"
bundles of amendments. And unlike the House, the Senate
usually dispenses with each amendment by either directly
adopting it, rejecting it, or withdrawing it....
Senators, often due to the prodding of
Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, are also more likely to stand up
and explain their proposals prior to votes. And when
amendments are rejected or withdrawn, senators sometimes
choose to make statements about their proposals that can
shed some light on the issues and decision-making.
State House News Service
Friday, May 17, 2019
Advances - Week of May 19, 2019
Sen. Bruce Tarr is often a fixture at the
rostrum during Senate budget debates, urging fiscal
restraint and responsibility among fellow lawmakers in the
Democratic-controlled chamber.
As leader of the minority Republicans, he
has pushed efforts to roll back the state's income and sales
taxes, ease regulations on businesses, and implement
cost-cutting reforms.
But when it comes to earmarks — a tradition
of the yearly process on Beacon Hill that drives up the
final price tag of the state budget — the Gloucester senator
is less restrained.
Tarr has filed or co-sponsored more than 125
amendments to the nearly $43 billion spending package the
Senate takes up on Tuesday, more than any other single
lawmaker. While many of these amendments seek policy
changes, others are for local projects....
He isn't the only one loading up the budget
with spending requests. Democratic senators from the north
of Boston region have filed dozens of amendments for
projects and programs as well....
"Earmarks aren't a Republican or a
Democratic thing, but they're endemic on Beacon Hill," said
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, a conservative watchdog group....
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, vetoed $49
million from the $41.7 billion budget he signed a year ago,
including about 300 earmarks. But the House and Senate, with
support from some GOP lawmakers, restored most of the cuts.
Political observers say the Republican
Party's ever-slimming minority in the Legislature means GOP
lawmakers have largely ceded their traditional opposition to
the budget-writing process.
"With the balance of power so lopsided on
Beacon Hill, it's no wonder that the minority party yielded
its watchdog role," said Mary Connaughton, director of
government transparency at the Pioneer Institute, a
Boston-based think tank. "Unless they have enough seats to
uphold a governor's veto, they have no real leverage to
demand the kind of transparency that would put an end to the
closed-door deal-making that leads to budgetary pork."
The Salem News
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Senators load budget with pet projects
To some Republicans, the recent
Massachusetts House budget deliberations were undemocratic,
driven by closed-door meetings and little transparency.
To House GOP leaders, however, they appeared
to be a boon.
The top three members of the House’s small
Republican caucus together landed close to $1.2 million in
local earmarks in their chamber’s budget discussions that
wrapped up two weeks ago, pouring money into everything from
new crosswalk lights to a senior center to a crab trapping
program in their districts and the surrounding communities.
They scored these wins while staying notably silent as
others outside the Legislature have criticized the budget
process for being opaque under House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo,
a Democrat.
The budget pork secured by minority leader
Bradley Jones and his two top lieutenants, Bradford Hill and
Elizabeth A. Poirier, matches, if not exceeds, that of some
of the House’s senior Democratic leaders in the $42.7
billion budget bill. And for Jones, the number of earmarks
he got included in the budget — 10 — was second only to the
House’s education chair, according to InstaTrac, the Boston
legislative information service....
Jones argued that Republicans have
successfully pushed for changes over the years to improve
the transparency of the budget process. But he disagreed
with critics that it’s problematic for lawmakers to craft
aspects of the budget away from public eyes and ears.
“If the criticism is, ‘Well, it’s not an
open and transparent process until the public can hear every
single conversation,’ then I guess what we should be doing
is removing all the doors in the State House,” he said in an
interview.
Now serving his ninth term as minority
leader, Jones successfully got $385,000 in local earmarks
inserted into the budget after filing more amendments — and
having more rejected — than any single lawmaker. That
included $50,000 for pedestrian crosswalk lights in Reading
and another $60,000 for an elder and human services van in
town.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
GOP leaders, while quiet on the budget process,
collect big local earmarks for districts
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Republicans in the Legislature have
apparently accepted defeat, lowered the flag, and
surrendered even pretense. "Let's go along to get
along" has become the Massachusetts GOP's strategy.
I suppose who can blame them. When a political
party's token representation in the Legislature has
degenerated to ineffective, insignificant, and wholly
irrelevant it's game-over as even the vaunted "loyal
opposition."
It seems Republicans in the Legislature
are now mostly concerned with what's best for them
individually. How to hold on to perhaps the best
jobs they'll ever have dominates most considerations.
The Boston Globe reported:
The
budget pork secured by minority leader Bradley
Jones and his two top lieutenants, Bradford Hill
and Elizabeth A. Poirier, matches, if not
exceeds, that of some of the House’s senior
Democratic leaders in the $42.7 billion budget
bill. And for Jones, the number of earmarks he
got included in the budget — 10 — was second
only to the House’s education chair, according
to InstaTrac, the Boston legislative information
service....
The Salem News added:
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, vetoed $49
million from the $41.7 billion budget he signed
a year ago, including about 300 earmarks. But
the House and Senate, with support from some GOP
lawmakers, restored most of the cuts.
Political observers say the Republican Party's
ever-slimming minority in the Legislature means
GOP lawmakers have largely ceded their
traditional opposition to the budget-writing
process.
In the annual Beacon Hill budget feeding
frenzy it's hard to fault a legislator for competing to
bring home for his or her district a fair share and more
of the sliced, diced, and minced bacon. In the
Legislature it's a given that tens of billions of
taxpayers' hard-earned dollars are going to be
squandered somewhere, so why not in their
district, where it will benefit their reelection?
I get that. It's the trade-offs
and literally backroom deals, the compromises and
outright sell-outs even of alleged principles, made to
fulfill each legislator's individual wish list of money
grabs that stinks.
This begins to explain
the quiet insertion of the poison pill by House Minority
Leader Brad Jones (R-North Andover) into the House
budget, passed unanimously by all Democrats and
Republicans, which knowingly made it a "money bill" and
opened it to tax increases in the Senate budget.
Somebody in the House had to do it
– who better than a
Republican?
Senate Democrats will enthusiastically
do the dirty work of hiking taxes, with Senate
Republicans offering their token opposition talking
points as expected from them. In the end
Republicans will bow their collective heads in
resignation then all will vote for the House/Senate
conference committee budget expanding spending and likely
taxes. When and if Gov. Baker vetoes anything in
it, they will again override as routine and life on
Bacon Hill will go on as usual.
Or I could be wrong. We shall soon
find out, when the Senate produces its own budget next
week.
Electing a Republican or electing a
Democrat: Is there "not a dime's worth of
difference"? In Massachusetts does it make any
difference anymore?
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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The New Boston Post
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
No Republicans Need Apply
By Joseph Tortelli
What happens when you establish a 15-member
commission whose goal is to represent various
geographical, political, and demographic
backgrounds?
If you’re in Massachusetts, you appoint a group
that tries to represent everyone. Everyone, that
is, except Republicans.
The commission, ironically enough, is called the
Citizens Commission, although excluding
Republicans from citizenship seems a bit of a
stretch, even in Massachusetts. The 15
Commission members were appointed by the five
most powerful Massachusetts office holders:
Governor Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura
Healey, Secretary of State Bill Galvin, Speaker
of the House Robert DeLeo, and Senate President
Karen Spilka. Each of the five officials named
three appointees, yet not one filled a slot with
a registered Republican.
The more aptly named No-Republicans Commission
resulted from a 2018 ballot question aimed at
overturning the 2010 United States Supreme Court
Citizens United v. FEC ruling that protected
First Amendment political speech rights. Liberal
interest groups, who have long defended the
power of union bosses to confiscate workers’
dues and turn those funds over to Democrats,
expressed horror at the prospect of business
corporations, non-profits, and other
associations also being permitted to spend and
comment on elections, while not coordinating
expenditures with candidates. Of course, this is
precisely what wealthy mainstream media
corporations have been doing for decades. In
Massachusetts, liberal multi-millionaire John
Henry influences elections and public policy
through his Boston Globe. In the nation’s
capital, liberal plutocrat Jeff Bezos maximizes
his political influence through his Washington
Post.
In order to build support for overturning the
Citizens United decision, activist Jeffrey
Clements founded an organization called American
Promise. Clements successfully led the drive for
the anti-Citizens United ballot initiative that
was approved by more than two-thirds of Bay
State voters. Having previously worked under
Democrat Attorneys General Scott Harshbarger and
Martha Coakley, Clements was appointed to the
newly-formed Commission by incumbent Democrat
Attorney General Healey. According to Shira
Schoenberg at MassLive.com, Clements called the
15 members a “ ‘great group’ that reflect
Massachusetts’ diversity …” and then added: “The
commission’s job is to make sure every
Massachusetts citizen is heard, and that’s what
we’ll do.”
Every Massachusetts citizen, except those
conspicuously absent Republican citizens.
In addition to Clements himself, his American
Prospect boasts one more member on the 15-person
No-Republicans Commission. Another Healey
appointee, Joyce Sanchez, had worked as the
group’s Citizens Engagement Coordinator.
Representing the diversity of Massachusetts: Two
officials from American Prospect; zero
Republicans. Admittedly, the Commonwealth is not
exactly brimming with Republicans. Still, one
might go out on a limb and suggest that the Bay
State includes a few more Republicans than
American Prospect adherents.
The No-Republicans Commission has plenty of room
for Democrats who occupy nine seats, while
Unenrolled or Independent voters are relegated
to a minority of six, despite constituting an
absolute majority of state voters. Among his
picks, Secretary Galvin chose longtime Democrat
insider and former Congressman Michael
Harrington. First elected to political office in
1960, the same year John F. Kennedy won the
presidency, Harrington left Congress before
Ronald Reagan won his first term. Another
Democrat pol, Representative Carmine Gentile of
Sudbury, was appointed by House Speaker DeLeo,
undoubtably after the proverbial nationwide — or
in this case, statewide — search that found the
most qualified choice right in the Speaker’s own
political domain. In a statement, the Sudbury
Democrat pledges to “defend and strengthen the
role of unions in our society while taking a
strong stand on the corrupting influence of
money in politics.”
A September 2014 report about the Democrat
primary in The MetroWest Daily News described
Gentile’s first election to the House: “Gentile
enjoyed a more than two-to-one fundraising
advantage over [opponent Brian] LeFort,
according to records available from the
Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political
Finance.” Apparently in Gentile’s estimation, a
two-to-one funding advantage does not rise to a
level demanding indignation about “the
corrupting influence of money in politics.”
Democrat power brokers control 12 of the 15
appointments to the No-Republicans Commission,
while Republican Governor Charlie Baker was
awarded three selections. Baker, whose favorable
poll numbers skyrocket through the stratosphere,
chose two independents and squeezed yet another
Democrat onto a Commission already weighed down
with that party’s cohorts.
Among Baker’s choices was independent William
Kilmartin, a former Massachusetts State
Comptroller appointed during the last years of
Democrat Mike Dukakis’s administration.
Kilmartin also sits on the Board of Trustees of
the misnamed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation,
a big government lobbying group not to be
confused with the genuinely pro-taxpayer
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Baker’s other independent nominee offers the
best hope for the Commission. A United States
Marine and businessman, Matthew McKnight will
not be easily intimidated by Democrat
politicians. In his “statement of interest,”
McKnight talks about his Marine Corps oath to
“protect and defend the Constitution,” and his
“allegiance to the core values of the
Constitution — namely a belief in individual
liberty and respect for human dignity.” One
expects McKnight to be the solitary spokesman
for constitutionally protected rights on a
Commission whose goal is to restrict political
speech.
Baker’s Democrat appointee, Bopha Malone, ran in
the primary for the Merrimack Valley
congressional seat ultimately won by Lori
Trahan. Malone’s statement at the Citizens
Commission web site sounds like boilerplate
Democrat rhetoric: “I believe that true reform
is necessary to achieve a true democracy, and
that big money in politics is the root of many
of the problems we face as a country today.”
Closing her statement, Malone says she intends
to “help Massachusetts explore ways to reduce
the power and influence of Big Money in
politics.”
In their effort to remove money from politics,
members of the No-Republicans Commission might
start by reviewing funding for the Question 2
referendum of 2018, the campaign that created
the Commission in the first place. In that
election cycle, the group called People Govern,
Not Money supported a “Yes” vote on Question 2
aimed at overturning Citizens United. The Not
Money activists raised a tidy total of
$330,771.65 and spent nearly every penny,
effectively swaying the election outcome.
On the other side stood those well-funded
reactionary forces who presumably want money
rather than people to govern. Exactly how this
works out is far from clear. But one gets the
picture of greenbacks, not persons, making
decisions.
If those campaigning to drive money out of
politics could raise several hundred thousand,
one can only guess how many millions were
delivered by the real big money interests. No
doubt panicked liberals would say they could
have raised unlimited sums. The sky’s the limit.
How much did these scary corporate-types raise?
$0.00. Zero. Goose egg. Nil. Zip.
No, your eyes do not deceive you. Those who
opposed Question 2 and its restrictions on
speech in politics were able to raise a total of
nothing. Paul Craney of the reform-minded
advocacy group Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance did
volunteer to debate and speak on the topic. With
no funds to influence the election outcome, is
it reasonable to conclude that opposing Question
2 really was all about people, and not about
money?
In contrast, hundreds of thousands of dollars
flowed to those who favored Question 2 as a step
toward driving corporate funds — but, tellingly,
not big labor money — out of politics.
Additionally, the Not Money lobbyists had the
valuable support and powerful endorsement of the
state’s dominant media business, The Boston
Globe. That’s the corporate entity owned by
moneyed financier John Henry.
On the face of it, this seems paradoxical. Until
one remembers: This is Massachusetts. Except in
a handful of campaigns, the Democrat candidate
raises more cash and outspends the Republican.
Not just by a little, but by a lot. Frequently,
Republicans even fail to field candidates
because of the lopsided funding advantages
enjoyed by liberal Democrats. Likewise on ballot
questions, the liberal side routinely raises far
more money than the conservative side.
It’s fitting that Republicans got shut out of
the new commission. Only Democrats control the
political outcomes of the No-Republicans
Commission. Because they are bankrolled by big
money, you can be sure Democrats will protect
their own.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, May 12, 2019
If 7th time’s the charm for tax hike, we’re all
‘millionaires’
By Howie Carr
When it comes to new taxes, the hacks at the
State House never take no for an answer.
Latest case in point: the unemployable layabouts
last week began their latest crusade to raise
the state income tax, taking the initial steps
to put the multibillion-dollar heist on the 2022
ballot.
This time they’re rebranding their odious
graduated income tax as a “millionaires’ tax.”
If you’ve ever fantasized about becoming a
millionaire, be sure for vote for this pig in a
poke in 2022, because within a matter of months,
the state will declare you a “millionaire,” at
least for the purposes of paying a 9 percent
income tax, as opposed to the current 5 percent
and change.
Don’t worry, though, it’s for the children. And
the crumbling infrastructure. It’s an investment
in the future.
Their future, not ours.
If this graduated income tax scam sounds
familiar, that’s because it is.
In 1962, it was put on the statewide ballot for
the first time – and was rejected by 83 percent
of the electorate.
In 1968 the hacks tried again – 70 percent voted
no.
In 1972, the year Massachusetts was the only
state in the union to vote Democrat for
president, 67 percent of the voters also said no
new taxes.
In 1976, the hacks tried again. No – 73 percent.
In 1994 – 64.6 percent voted no.
In 2018, the hackerama went back for a sixth
bite at the apple – the Supreme Judicial Court,
as hack-infested as it is, told them to go pound
sand.
What part of the word “NO!!!!!!” do the payroll
patriots on Beacon Hill not understand?
But they figure that the seventh time might just
be the charm. And they could be right – in
recent decades, the electorate has been dumbed
down more than somewhat.
The hacks in the Legislature have to vote in two
different sessions to put this recurring tax
hike catastrophe on the ballot. They took the
first votes last week – of the 160-plus
Democrats in the General Court, one or two,
maybe as many as three, voted with their
constituents who actually work for a living.
The front man for the Beacon Hill banditos is
Rep. James O’Day, whose blinding intellect
lights up the State House like a three-watt
bulb.
He says the money will go for “education, the
education foundation, transportation,
infrastructure,” blah-blah-blah.
In other words, it’s for the hackerama. They
will claim the dough is to be “earmarked” –
that’s a lie. They’ll say they’re going to put
all those new billions into a “lockbox.” Another
whopper, just like those “sunsetted” taxes, you
know, the way the tolls on the Mass Pike were
going to be ended after the original bonds were
paid off – in 1989.
This isn’t the only grift they’re running right
now on Beacon Hill. Remember the automatic
gas-tax increases that was voted down in 2014?
In that campaign, the taxpayers were outspent by
the hacks, 30-1, and yet we prevailed, going
away, by a 53-47 margin.
But now Big Asphalt and their pinky-ring union
thug cronies want another bite at that rotten
apple. This time the parasites will outspend
working people 300-1.
Whenever the non-working classes win a
referendum question, it instantly becomes
“settled law.” If we win one, the hacks pout and
demand a redo.
Consider the reduction of the state income tax
to 5 percent in 2000 – 56 percent of the voters
approved. Nineteen years later, the tax remains
above 5 percent. The hacks can’t “afford” to
take their hands out of our pockets.
If you want to know what the new billions will
really be used for, check out the state pension
system. On Friday, another crooked state trooper
was sentenced to prison. He was convicted of
embezzling $5,900 in public money and he got …
two months.
That doesn’t even rise to the level of a wrist
slap. At the courthouse, you know what they call
these light sentences for dirty cops –
professional courtesy.
The State Police have been embroiled now in
two-plus years of one outrageous scandal after
another. The MSP began unraveling under the
former colonel – Richard McKeon. He is now
collecting a pension of $169,777 a year.
One of his top henchmen was Dan Risteen, the
boyfriend of weed-dealing, money-laundering,
gangster-moll, drugged-out state trooper Leigha
Genduso. She got busted off the K-9 unit, but
nobody laid a glove on Dan Risteen – his pension
is $159,999 a year.
Risteen was an extra in “The Departed,” a movie
about crooked cops, with another statie named
Francis Hughes. Hughes likewise bailed out when
the truth about the organized-crime family known
as the MSP started oozing out.
Hughes’ state pension: $174,478 a year.
This insatiable greed is why the hacks need to
turn everyone in the state with a real job into
a “millionaire.” They need to keep their
corrupt, no-heavy-lifting gravy train going – it
beats working.
It is said in the Good Book that the wages of
sin is death. Now the wages of sin also includes
a state pension – 80 percent, no state taxes,
plus health care.
But don’t worry – only the “millionaires” will
be supporting this ongoing orgy of waste, fraud
and abuse. Until, of course, the “millionaires”
exercise some basic common sense, by a) getting
their reported income under what will be an
ever-lower threshold, or b) moving to New
Hampshire or Florida or some other sane state
with no income tax.
I’m opting for Florida. The weather’s better.
Ask any millionaire.
The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Sheriffs may get pay hike under new state budget
By Matt Stout
The state’s politically powerful sheriffs could
score major salary increases under a
House-passed proposal that, should it survive
budget negotiations, would push the majority of
the 14 sheriffs’ pay to nearly $170,000 a year
in July.
The 12 percent hikes were tucked into one of the
nine bulging packages of earmarks and other
policy changes the House passed as part of its
budget last month.
Sheriffs in a dozen counties, including Suffolk,
Middlesex, and Worcester, would see their pay
rise from $151,709 to $169,914, while those in
Dukes and Nantucket, where sheriffs are paid
less, would see smaller bumps to $134,144 and
$107,314, respectively.
The increases are, in fact, a step down from the
initial proposal. The original amendment called
for increasing the salary of each of the state’s
14 sheriffs to $191,000, a move that would have,
for example, more than doubled the Nantucket
sheriff’s current $95,816 pay.
The amendment was filed by Representative John
J. Lawn, a Watertown Democrat whose predecessor,
Peter J. Koutoujian, is currently the Middlesex
County sheriff and president of the
Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association, which
specifically made the request.
Koutoujian spoke directly to Lawn about the
amendment, a Koutoujian spokesman said. Efforts
to reach Lawn were not successful Friday.
The original $191,000 request wasn’t random,
either. It’s the same salary House budget
writers proposed last month for the state’s 11
district attorneys. At the time, House officials
called their $20,000 increase “a modest cost of
living adjustment,” noting that the prosecutors
hadn’t gotten a raise since 2014, when their pay
was set at $171,561.
The sheriffs are arguing the same thing.
“Similar to the district attorneys, sheriffs
have not had a cost of living increase in the
last five years,” Koutoujian said in a
statement. “We are grateful for the House’s
leadership in acknowledging this in their
[fiscal year 2020] budget.”
State House News
Service
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Tuesday's becoming too much to take in on Beacon
Hill
By Colin A. Young
Ten minutes after the Joint Committee on Housing
hearing was supposed to start Tuesday morning, a
court officer approached Rep. William Crocker
and asked the legislator, with three empty seats
between him and his nearest colleague, "Feeling
lonely?"
It wasn't that Crocker's colleagues hadn't
reported for work Tuesday, but rather that there
was so much going on in the State House that
lawmakers, lobbyists, activists, reporters and
staffers found themselves trying to be in
several places at once, an increasingly familiar
feeling on Tuesdays at the State House.
"It is a busy day around the State House," Rep.
William Straus said as he opened a hearing of
the Transportation Committee. Other committee
chairs echoed that sentiment at the outset of
their own hearings as they explained that some
lawmakers would have to leave one committee
hearing to testify at another.
Six different joint committees held hearings at
the State House on Tuesday, accepting testimony
on a grand total of 160 bills running the gamut
from memorial bridge namings and measures to
reduce noise pollution to Gov. Charlie Baker's
priority bills related to housing production and
detention of dangerous accused criminals.
On top of the committee hearings, hundreds of
parents from school districts across the state
rallied outside the State House to have
increased school funding tied to education
reform, caretakers and advocates packed the
Great Hall for a rally of their own, and
municipal officials from all over Massachusetts
gathered for a Local Government Advisory
Commission meeting.
Advocates and lobbyists for various causes
spread out across the building and mingled with
each other Tuesday, packing the fourth-floor
cafeteria area during lunchtime and creating a
bit of a traffic jam on the elevators that serve
the main committee hearing rooms. One group,
Elders Climate Action, took up residence on the
staircase at the back of the State House to have
lunch and strategize before a hearing on climate
change bills.
Before starting the Health Care Financing
Committee's hearing Tuesday morning, Chairwoman
Sen. Cindy Friedman said she wanted to wait a
little longer to give people a chance to get
into the State House through a "big backup at
security." Friedman would later have to duck out
of the committee hearing temporarily to accept
an award at the caretakers' rally.
The committee schedule Tuesday made it easy for
Gov. Baker to make the rounds with Lt. Gov.
Karyn Polito and various Cabinet secretaries to
tout his administration's housing production and
dangerousness bills. Before testifying at the
Judiciary Committee, Baker was able to chat with
district attorneys Marian Ryan, Tim Cruz and Tom
Quinn, as well as Springfield Mayor Domenic
Sarno, all of whom were attending the hearing.
Tuesdays tend to be the busiest day for
committee hearings on Beacon Hill. The House
typically holds its formal sessions on
Wednesdays, the Senate holds most of its formals
on Thursdays and lawmakers like to reserve
Fridays as a day to work in their districts.
Last Tuesday, eight joint committees and a
special commission created by the Legislature
met at the State House. The committees held
hearings for more than 200 bills that day and at
one point five committees met simultaneously.
When the hearing schedule came into view,
first-term Sen. Becca Rausch tweeted that she
was trying to figure out how to meet all her
obligations.
"Uh, yeah I haven't quite figured out how to be
at 3-4 hearings simultaneously," she tweeted at
a News Service reporter.
The joint rules that the House and Senate have
agreed to stipulate that committee chairs are to
schedule their hearings "so as not to conflict,
to the extent feasible, with the schedules of
other committees and, to the extent feasible,
the day of the week and times during that day
set aside for formal sessions by the respective
branches" but only from the start of a
legislative session through the fourth Wednesday
in April of the first year of the session.
Two Tuesdays ago was something of a similar
story, with five joint committees scheduled to
meet that day and a slew of advocacy rallies or
legislative hearings on the calendar.
"Number of events I want to attend at the State
House at 10am today: 6. Number of places I can
be in at once: 1. #statehouselife," Rep. Maria
Robinson tweeted at the time.
The uptick in committee hearings comes during an
already busy period at the State House. The
House of Representatives last month unveiled and
debated its fiscal year 2020 budget and the
Senate is doing the same this month.
"There's so much happening at this time of year,
budgets and finances," Polito said Tuesday at
the LGAC meeting.
By about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the State House was
returning to a more placid state, with the
sounds of activists and lobbyists replaced by
the familiar whirring and screeching of the
Zamboni-esque floor scrubber making its
end-of-day rounds.
Two committees -- the Joint Committee on
Election Laws and the Senate Committee on
Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets
-- plan to meet at the State House on Wednesday.
– Chris Lisinski,
Kaitlyn Budion, Katie Lannan and Michael P.
Norton contributed to this report.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Muni officials put in for piece of state budget
surplus
By Michael P. Norton
Beacon Hill leaders are doing their best to
downplay expectations about a budget surplus,
but local officials have taken notice that state
tax collections are running about $1 billion
over expectations and are laying out their
spending hopes and dreams.
Last year, a state budget surplus led the
Legislature and Gov. Charlie Baker to approve
$40 million in one-time local road and bridge
funds and $30 million in one-time clean water
project assistance. On Tuesday, Andover Town
Manager Andrew Flanagan, a member of the Local
Government Advisory Commission, told Lt. Gov.
Karyn Polito and Administration and Finance
Secretary Michael Heffernan that he hoped both
batches of one-time investments could be
replicated this year.
Cities and towns would also like to see state
government allocate $72 million in charter
school aid and $2.6 million in special education
aid to make up for shortfalls in state funding
in the fiscal 2019 state budget, Flanagan said.
Polito didn't express agreement, or
disagreement, with the funding requests. "Thank
you for the feedback," she told Flanagan and
Framingham School Committee member Beverly Hugo,
who said regional school transportation is
another pressing local funding need.
Heffernan cautioned that most of the
above-benchmark revenues are volatile in nature
and reminded local officials that final
collection numbers will not be known until after
taxes are collected during May and June. Fiscal
2019 ends June 30 and fiscal 2020 begins on July
1.
"I look forward to a really good final budget
and in a timely fashion," Heffernan said.
State House News
Service
Friday, May 17, 2019
Advances - Week of May 19, 2019
There's a temporary break next week in the wave
of legislative hearings that have washed over
Beacon Hill. That's because the Massachusetts
Senate will debate its annual state spending
bill, planning probably three or four marathon
sessions, beginning on Tuesday, where they will
dispense with the 1,142 amendments to the $42.7
billion budget released by the Senate Ways and
Means Committee on May 7.
It's the first budget for new Ways and Means
Chairman Michael Rodrigues, who has had more
than a week to look over the many changes his
colleagues would like him to make to the
spending bill.
Since most bills die in committee and never even
reach the floors of the House and Senate for
votes, House and Senate members, aware that the
budget bill must be signed into law each year,
try to essentially velcro as many of their
priorities onto the bill before it reaches the
governor's desk. It makes for a messy process.
The House took almost its entire budget process
offline last month, literally working in a room
adjacent to its chamber and then processing the
mega-amendments that were worked out behind
closed doors. The Senate also makes most of its
decisions on amendments privately -- a caucus on
Monday represents another opportunity for
senators to privately debate things, for
instance.
While it doesn't categorize amendments by
subject matter like the House, the Senate toward
the end of its budget deliberations usually
adopts large "yes" and "no" bundles of
amendments. And unlike the House, the Senate
usually dispenses with each amendment by either
directly adopting it, rejecting it, or
withdrawing it.
Senators, often due to the prodding of Minority
Leader Bruce Tarr, are also more likely to stand
up and explain their proposals prior to votes.
And when amendments are rejected or withdrawn,
senators sometimes choose to make statements
about their proposals that can shed some light
on the issues and decision-making.
The Salem News
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Senators load budget with pet projects
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Sen. Bruce Tarr is often a fixture at the
rostrum during Senate budget debates, urging
fiscal restraint and responsibility among fellow
lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled chamber.
As leader of the minority Republicans, he has
pushed efforts to roll back the state's income
and sales taxes, ease regulations on businesses,
and implement cost-cutting reforms.
But when it comes to earmarks — a tradition of
the yearly process on Beacon Hill that drives up
the final price tag of the state budget — the
Gloucester senator is less restrained.
Tarr has filed or co-sponsored more than 125
amendments to the nearly $43 billion spending
package the Senate takes up on Tuesday, more
than any other single lawmaker. While many of
these amendments seek policy changes, others are
for local projects.
In sum, Tarr seeks to steer more than $1.7
million for projects and initiatives to his
sprawling district, which includes 15
communities in Essex County and two in Middlesex
County.
Among the requests are $150,000 for public
safety improvements in Hamilton; $50,000 for a
public safety building in Essex; $200,000 for
public safety improvements in Wenham; $100,000
for public safety improvements in Ipswich; and
$50,000 for Plum Island public facilities.
He isn't the only one loading up the budget with
spending requests. Democratic senators from the
north of Boston region have filed dozens of
amendments for projects and programs as well.
Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, for example, has
filed amendments seeking roughly $650,000 in
local funding from next year's budget, including
$100,000 for Andover Youth Services; $75,000 for
the Tewksbury Fire Department; $100,000 for the
Dracut Senior Center; $25,000 for Camp Pohelo in
Tewksbury; and $15,000 for Hispanic Week
celebrations in Haverhill.
"Earmarks aren't a Republican or a Democratic
thing, but they're endemic on Beacon Hill," said
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, a conservative watchdog group.
Earmarks were virtually eliminated during the
recession to plug budget shortfalls. But as the
state's economy improved, they've made a
comeback.
Critics such as Craney say the amendment process
circumvents the checks and balances normally
required for government-funded programs. For
one, he notes, earmarks are not subject to the
state's competitive bidding law or other fiscal
requirements.
Decisions about including them in the budget are
often made by a handful of lawmakers in
closed-door meetings, which he said is "not how
the legislative process is supposed to work."
Lawmakers defend the practice as a means to get
state money for local projects, since the
executive branch largely controls statewide
capital spending.
Thousands of amendments
House lawmakers loaded up their version of the
budget with 1,400 amendments, adding another $71
million to the spending plan approved by the
body last month.
In the upper chamber, senators have filed nearly
1,200 budget amendments. Debate on the Senate
budget gets underway Tuesday.
Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, vetoed $49
million from the $41.7 billion budget he signed
a year ago, including about 300 earmarks. But
the House and Senate, with support from some GOP
lawmakers, restored most of the cuts.
Political observers say the Republican Party's
ever-slimming minority in the Legislature means
GOP lawmakers have largely ceded their
traditional opposition to the budget-writing
process.
"With the balance of power so lopsided on Beacon
Hill, it's no wonder that the minority party
yielded its watchdog role," said Mary
Connaughton, director of government transparency
at the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think
tank. "Unless they have enough seats to uphold a
governor's veto, they have no real leverage to
demand the kind of transparency that would put
an end to the closed-door deal-making that leads
to budgetary pork."
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
GOP leaders, while quiet on the budget process,
collect big local earmarks for districts
By Victoria McGrane and Matt Stout
To some Republicans, the recent Massachusetts
House budget deliberations were undemocratic,
driven by closed-door meetings and little
transparency.
To House GOP leaders, however, they appeared to
be a boon.
The top three members of the House’s small
Republican caucus together landed close to $1.2
million in local earmarks in their chamber’s
budget discussions that wrapped up two weeks
ago, pouring money into everything from new
crosswalk lights to a senior center to a crab
trapping program in their districts and the
surrounding communities. They scored these wins
while staying notably silent as others outside
the Legislature have criticized the budget
process for being opaque under House Speaker
Robert A. DeLeo, a Democrat.
The budget pork secured by minority leader
Bradley Jones and his two top lieutenants,
Bradford Hill and Elizabeth A. Poirier, matches,
if not exceeds, that of some of the House’s
senior Democratic leaders in the $42.7 billion
budget bill. And for Jones, the number of
earmarks he got included in the budget — 10 —
was second only to the House’s education chair,
according to InstaTrac, the Boston legislative
information service.
Of course, the amendments aren’t law yet. The
state Senate is expected to unveil its own
spending proposal Tuesday, with debate to follow
later this month for a budget covering the
fiscal year starting in July.
But the absence of public critique from
Republican lawmakers raised concerns for some
that a minority caucus once eager to hold
Democrats accountable has drifted from that
role.
“A key function of the minority party is to
maintain the transparency drumbeat,” said Mary
Z. Connaughton, a one-time GOP state auditor
candidate who now works at the Pioneer
Institute. “Without it, any hope of meaningful
public engagement in our democratic process is
lost. And who is left to turn to?”
James Lyons, chairman of the MassGOP and a
former state lawmaker, told the Boston Herald he
thought the process was a “joke” that’s played
out for years. (Lyons did not return requests
for comment for this story.)
“It’s a bipartisan problem,” said Paul Craney,
spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance,
a conservative nonprofit. “It’s the game that’s
being played right now where everyone is going
along with this process.”
No such public criticisms emerged from the
House’s 32-member Republican caucus.
Jones argued that Republicans have successfully
pushed for changes over the years to improve the
transparency of the budget process. But he
disagreed with critics that it’s problematic for
lawmakers to craft aspects of the budget away
from public eyes and ears.
“If the criticism is, ‘Well, it’s not an open
and transparent process until the public can
hear every single conversation,’ then I guess
what we should be doing is removing all the
doors in the State House,” he said in an
interview.
Now serving his ninth term as minority leader,
Jones successfully got $385,000 in local
earmarks inserted into the budget after filing
more amendments — and having more rejected —
than any single lawmaker. That included $50,000
for pedestrian crosswalk lights in Reading and
another $60,000 for an elder and human services
van in town.
Poirier, the second assistant minority leader,
did even better. She successfully pushed for
$500,000 for the Children’s Advocacy Center of
Bristol County, a Fall River nonprofit that
provides free services to children and families
affected by abuse or violence throughout Bristol
County, which includes her district. Poirier
said after several years of requesting that
level of funding for the center, this is the
first time she got that much.
The budget also included another $100,000 for
two other Poirier requests: helping convert a
school building into a senior center and funding
for a pool in North Attleborough, her hometown.
“Am I going to punish my district by acting out
in some way that is going to hurt it? No I’m not
going to do that,” Poirier said of criticizing
the budget process. “I can wish for and hope for
different circumstances, but we all have to work
with what we have.”
Hill, the assistant minority leader, got
$250,000 in earmarks, including $200,000 toward
“public safety improvements” in Hamilton,
Wenham, and his hometown of Ipswich, and $50,000
for a green crab trapping program. Aides to Hill
did not return requests for comment.
For comparison, Democratic Representatives Paul
J. Donato and Michael J. Moran, both second
assistant majority leaders under DeLeo, got
$475,000 and $425,000, respectively, in earmarks
tied directly to their districts. Speaker Pro
Tempore Patricia A. Haddad, the House’s
third-highest ranking Democrat, got $300,000 in
earmarks specifically for programs in
Southeastern Massachusetts and Bristol County,
which includes her district, according to a
Boston Globe review of the budget.
For years, the House has constructed its budget
debate by packaging proposals into huge bundles
of earmarks and other add-ons known as
consolidated amendments, which are cobbled
together by committee leaders and staff in a
private room.
Once complete, they’re ushered to the House
floor, where lawmakers often pass them with
scant debate and few, if any, “no” votes. The
process, while efficient, means much of the
budget action takes place out of public view.
House lawmakers filed more than 1,300 amendments
to the budget, but they took just 14 recorded
votes over four days of House deliberation on
the budget, not including procedural tallies to
count attendance or extend the debate one
evening.
DeLeo has defended the approach, arguing that
lawmakers have the option to debate an amendment
on the House floor if it’s excluded from a
consolidated package. And DeLeo said last week
that he heard only positive feedback from other
representatives.
“They felt it was one of the best budgets they
were involved with,” he said.
Jones said Republicans have, over the years,
pushed changes to open the budget process,
including requiring that consolidated amendments
detail how much they would raise spending. Same
goes for time: House rules now require
legislators to have at least 30 minutes to
consider a consolidated amendment before taking
a vote, whereas Republicans used to have to beg
for time to review them, said Jones.
This year, Jones offered an amendment to the
House rules package to increase the time to
consider consolidated amendments to an hour, but
it failed on a party line vote. There are 127
Democrats in the House, compared to 32
Republicans and one unenrolled lawmaker.
He said he could get up during the budget debate
and demand more time, “but then I’m spending all
the time arguing for more time that I could be
using to making sure I read through it.”
It wasn’t too long ago House Republicans were
eagerly blasting the process. In 2014, a
half-dozen GOP lawmakers advocated for a plan
that included eliminating the practice of
bundling amendments. At the time, Representative
Marc T. Lombardo, a Billerica Republican, said
it was “time to end the backroom deals.”
Their use, however, is now “embraced by the body
as a whole,” he said Friday.
“Our attempts years ago to dissuade that were
unsuccessful,” said Lombardo, who got $100,000
in earmarks for the Billerica Boys & Girls Club,
a BMX track, and other local programs. “In
general, the Republican caucus needs to pick
their spots, where we believe we have a better
policy approach, and we need to fight for those
ideas.
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