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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
46 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Baker to Accept
Trump's Deal
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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Unemployment
benefit checks for the more than 500,000 left jobless in
Massachusetts amid the coronavirus pandemic could soon be
growing $400 fatter.
Gov. Charlie Baker
on Tuesday signaled he intends to accept President Trump’s
plan to boost unemployment benefits.
“If this program
is there and it turns out to be the only thing that’s there,
I don’t think Massachusetts should pass on that,” he said.
The president
signed an executive order Aug. 8 to extend additional
benefits of $300 or $400 per week — depending on which plan
governors choose — to the unemployed after Congress failed
to strike a deal to extend a federally funded $600 weekly
benefit that expired in July.
Under Trump’s
plan, states are required to ante up 25% of the added cost,
or $100 per claimant in order to access the extra federal
benefit dollars — a requirement that has confused
cash-strapped states.
Baker said he
would have to dip into emergency aid provided in the CARES
Act to fund the unemployment extension. Alternatively,
states could count the first $100 they pay in weekly
benefits to meet the requirement — which would reduce the
weekly boost to claimants from $400 to $300....
New Hampshire on
Tuesday became the first New England state to sign onto the
plan after Gov. Chris Sununu announced his intention to
apply.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Charlie Baker says Massachusetts will accept Trump plan
to extend unemployment benefits
As Gov. Charlie
Baker said he intends to accept President Trump’s plan to
boost unemployment weekly benefits by as much as $400,
fiscal watchdogs tell the Herald that the plan requiring
states to pay $100 each week is “highly problematic.”
Massachusetts —
with the highest unemployment rate in the country at 17.4% —
simply doesn’t have the money, said Greg Sullivan of the
Pioneer Institute....
As Bay State
officials stare at a $6 billion structural deficit amid
plummeting tax revenue, adding this program would be quite
difficult, said Eileen McAnneny of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation.
“The state would
be hard-pressed to find that money,” she said, noting the
numerous competing needs during the coronavirus crisis.
Baker this week
signaled the state would apply to receive funds under the
new program.
Trump recently
signed an executive order to extend additional benefits of
$300 or $400 per week — depending on which plan governors
choose — to the unemployed after Congress failed to strike a
deal to extend a federally funded $600 weekly benefit.
Under Trump’s
plan, states are required to ante up 25% of the added cost,
or $100 per claimant in order to access the extra federal
benefit dollars.
“They’re asking
the states that are getting deeper and deeper in the red to
pony up additional funds,” said UMass Amherst economics
professor emeritus David Kotz. “How are they going to
do that?”
“Massachusetts
just doesn’t have extra money to put into unemployment
compensation,” he added.
Baker said he
would have to dip into emergency aid provided in the CARES
Act to fund the unemployment extension....
The Massachusetts
Unemployment Trust Fund is facing a projected deficit of
$3.2 billion by the end of the year, and $6.2 billion by the
end of 2021, Sullivan noted.
Instead of the
state paying 25% of the added cost for the unemployment
benefits, Sullivan is keeping his fingers crossed that
Congress will pass a $400 compromise when they reconvene.
“We just don’t
have the ability to deficit spend like Congress can do,” he
said.
But the fed can’t
print money forever, said Chip Ford of the
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“They can’t keep
paying out more and more,” he said. “People need to
get back to work.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, August 20, 2020
New $400 unemployment plan called ‘highly problematic’
for Massachusetts amid coronavirus crisis
The Bay State has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.
Massachusetts had
the nation’s highest unemployment rate in July — 16.1% —
followed by New York at 15.9%, according to a U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics report released Friday.
Bay State
unemployment was down from 17.4% in June but still far above
July’s national unemployment rate of 10.2%, which was down
from 11.1% in June.
“Massachusetts
continues to lead the rest of the country in the percentage
of people out of work. It’s not a statistic to be
proud of,” said Paul Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance.
Gov. Charlie Baker
and the legislative leaders “need to do everything they can
to reopen the state economy and instill confidence in the
private sector,” Craney said. “Looking forward, our
leaders must promise not to raise taxes, increase spending
or enact more harmful regulations if they really wish to see
our economy start to recover … it’s time they wake up to the
reality that they are forcing businesses and residents to
live every day.”
Robert Murphy,
professor of economics at Boston College, said
Massachusetts’ unemployment rate likely is remaining high
because it has more service jobs than manufacturing jobs.
“Some of those
hospitality jobs may be gone for good because those
employers just couldn’t hold on any longer,” Murphy said....
Jon B. Hurst,
president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts,
said in a recent survey of the group’s 4,000 members, many
said they expect to lay off even more people....
From July 2019 to
July 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates
Massachusetts lost 452,600 jobs, with the largest percentage
losses in leisure and hospitality, other services, trade,
transportation and utilities, and construction.
The Boston Herald
Friday, August 21, 2020
Massachusetts had the nation’s highest unemployment rate in
July
Folks are the salt
of the earth. They man the governor’s snitch lines, they
count up how many are congregating in the backyards and then
write up the fines for anyone having too much fun.
They scream at you
for not wearing a mask. They cut off the water and the
power in gyms whose owners try to reopen.
Folks are on the
public payroll. Some wear white lab coats and have
Ph.D.s, which they think makes them doctors. Folks
always tell Joe Biden’s BFF Charlie Parker what a wonderful
job he’s doing, and they never mention that we have the
third highest death rate in the nation, or the 5,658 deaths
on his watch in his nursing homes.
Folks have never
missed a paycheck these last five months.
Then there are the
people. You know who they are — they’re angry, just
because they’ve lost their jobs, their barrooms are shut
down and their kids can’t go back to school. And
perhaps most importantly, they’re fed up with being yelled
at by “folks.”
The unemployment
for people in Maskachusetts is 17.4%, the worst in the
nation. For folks, it’s zero....
“The crowding and
the behavior that our folks saw out there last weekend
simply can’t continue. If people can’t space out …
then we’ll have to limit the number of people who can be
there.”
Do you want to
loot and riot? That’s fine with Charlie Parker, as he
made clear after the mayhem in Boston. If you want to
work out at a gym, or have a beer on the golf course, you’re
people. Looting, though, is for folks.
“The vast majority
of the folks who participated in those demonstrations were
wearing masks.”
George Orwell
wrote that some animals were more equal than others.
In Charlie Parker’s Fourth Reich, folks are more equal than
people....
Remember that:
people must abide by the rules. And folks set the
rules for the people.
“Folks,” the
governor tells us, “are trying to do the right thing.”
People, on the
other hand, are always throwing “these parties (that) are
too big, too crowded, and people are simply not responsible
about face coverings or any of the major metrics.”
How dare people
not follow any of Tall Deval’s major metrics! Call 911
— call the folks....
Bob Dylan once
described the world as “one big prison yard. Some of
us are prisoners, and some of us are guards.”
Nothing’s changed
in Maskachusetts except the terminology. Nowadays,
some of us are people, and the rest of us are folks.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Charlie Baker’s ‘folks’ masking as COVID cops
By Howie Carr
One-third of
households in the state still need to be counted for the
United States Census, according to the state's overseer of
the count, which is slated to end field operations a month
earlier than previously planned.
Secretary of State
William Galvin said the uncounted households are
disproportionately in urban areas. Census workers
originally had until October to finish tallying residents
but U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham announced
in early August that field data collection would end on
Sept. 30.
"I'm particularly
concerned about the early end to the census that has been
announced by the Bureau. Once again, a politically
motivated effort quite clearly," Galvin said at a Tuesday
press conference. "I know the Attorney General and I,
we've had communication about that, probably suing on that
too."
Galvin said 65.8
percent of the households in Massachusetts have
self-reported. Cities like Worcester, Lawrence,
Boston, and Fall River are areas Galvin said he wants to
make sure get counted. Staff members from the
secretary of state's office traveled to Lawrence to work
with the U.S. Census Bureau, Galvin said, using handheld
tablets to count people.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Wary of Census Undercounts, Galvin Working With Cities
Congress and
the Trump administration deserve kudos for quickly
providing stimulus totaling $3.6 trillion. Conservatives
may worry about skyrocketing interest payments on the
national debt, but inflation will be the bigger
problem....
The Federal
Reserve has increased holdings of Treasuries and other
assets by about $3 trillion by printing money to pay for
those. Nearly all the interest the Fed earns on new
assets is remitted to the Treasury, so the net effect on
interest paid by Uncle Sam to private investors is
negligible.
Consequently,
virtually the whole stimulus was paid by running the
printing presses....
Increasing the
money supply must result in either more goods produced
or higher prices. If unemployment is low, inflation will
result, but underutilized capacity is currently
plentiful.
In April and
May, consumer prices generally fell and were hardly up
over the prior 12 months. Prices appear so tame that
some macroeconomists advocate that the Fed should push
interest rates below zero to further boost the economy,
but that would be a mistake.
The facts on
the ground will change as businesses reopen.
Already,
consumers are expecting more inflation and investors are
demanding higher premiums on ordinary Treasuries over
inflation-indexed bonds....
Food prices
have already jumped — it appears that grocery stores and
restaurants have different suppliers and requirements
for items like meat, milk, eggs, and vegetables. Some
suppliers are dumping milk and disposing of eggs, while
others get premium prices for what they have.
Theaters and
domestic cleaning services are charging more.
With the
shutdown, clearance sales, often online, for apparel and
many other household items pushed down prices but with
many stores permanently closed, prices will rebound.
With the
shutdown, clearance sales, often online, for apparel and
many other household items pushed down prices but with
many stores permanently closed, prices will rebound....
As the economy
recovers — even with some structural unemployment in
industries like air travel and restaurants — supply
bottlenecks will emerge as consumer dollars move to new
uses. Without more discipline at the Fed, inflation
could easily get out of control.
NewsMax
Finance
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
The Fed Should Plan for Increased Inflation Now |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
CORRECTION: CLT member Sarah B.
quickly contacted me upon receiving the last CLT Update, pointing out:
"I know $3.4
billion is a lot to you, but I think Nancy Pelosi is asking for
$3.4 Trillion. Everything that has been spent is in
the trillions over the coronavirus. I think the billions
have been left behind a long time ago."
So true. A billion is
1,000 millions. A trillion is 1,000 billions.
Quite a difference, but when you're never going to pay any
of it back, not so much. At the rate the U.S.
government is spending money (and the Federal Reserve Bank
is complicit in financing unfathomable federal deficit
spending) how long will it be before we're discussing
quadrillions (1,000 trillions)?
I was able to
correct my slip-up before publishing it to the CLT website.
Thanks Sarah!
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
With this in mind, I was called this
week by Boston Herald reporter Rick Sobey for my take on the state's
unemployment situation and His Majesty Charlie Baker's decision to
"accept" the Trump administration's unilateral plan to extend
federal unemployment benefits. We had a lengthy discussion,
but few of my comments made it into his report on Thursday ("New $400 unemployment plan called ‘highly problematic’
for Massachusetts amid coronavirus crisis;
The Bay State has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.").
I told Rick that Gov. Baker needs to
ease up on his lockdown, that the state's unemployment trust fund
has run out of money. (It is predicted to run a $3.2 billion
deficit by the end of the year, and $6.2 billion by the end of
2021.) Baker and his lockdown cabal must loosen the chokehold
on employment. "Since jobs have been outlawed only outlaws
have jobs," I told Rick with a smile. I said I think President
Trump's executive order, bypassing the dysfunctional U.S. House, was
smart, noting that it's now pretty obvious to most that the generous
$600 each week of federal unemployment benefits, on top of state
unemployment benefits, was providing more income to the unemployed
than when they were employed.
Nobody can blame the unemployed for
taking the deal and increasing their income —
free money is hard to resist. But it is depressing any kind of
economic recovery when workers decline returning to their jobs
because they're making more by remaining unemployed than working.
Trump's deal is to reduce the federal
hand-out from $600 to $400 a week, and require the state to pick up
25% of the cost if the state wishes to participate in the federal
hand-out. After some wrestling with it Gov. Baker has
indicated that he'll accept the president's deal. Once again
— free money is hard to resist.
The worst part of the unemployment
crisis is that while the state's unemployment trust fund is digging
a deeper hole paying out benefits for the highest unemployment
rate in the nation —
former-employers are no longer paying into the trust fund, as
they no longer have employees they must cover. This is the
Law of Diminishing Returns in action, and if the lockdown goes
on the eventual outcome will not be pretty for any.
Holding out for federal bailouts is
just whistling past the graveyard, I added. The federal
government doesn't have any money either. It's not
borrowing the trillions, they just get The Fed to print up
trillions more. In fact it's even easier today as printing
presses aren't necessary — it takes
just a few keystrokes on some Federal Reserve computer and voilà
— instant trillions of dollars appear
on balance sheets. All this "printing" out of thin air can
only lead to inflation, steadily devaluing the dollar toward
worthless. Thanks to the Federal Reserve bank interest rates
are already at near-zero, keeping down the government's cost of
borrowing multi-trillions but crushing savers and those on fixed
incomes.
Here's an excerpt
from Rick Sobey's report (full report below):
As Gov. Charlie
Baker said he intends to accept President Trump’s plan to
boost unemployment weekly benefits by as much as $400,
fiscal watchdogs tell the Herald that the plan requiring
states to pay $100 each week is “highly problematic.”
Massachusetts —
with the highest unemployment rate in the country at 17.4% —
simply doesn’t have the money, said Greg Sullivan of the
Pioneer Institute....
As Bay State
officials stare at a $6 billion structural deficit amid
plummeting tax revenue, adding this program would be quite
difficult, said Eileen McAnneny of the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation.
“The state would
be hard-pressed to find that money,” she said, noting the
numerous competing needs during the coronavirus crisis.
Baker this week
signaled the state would apply to receive funds under the
new program.
Trump recently
signed an executive order to extend additional benefits of
$300 or $400 per week — depending on which plan governors
choose — to the unemployed after Congress failed to strike a
deal to extend a federally funded $600 weekly benefit.
Under Trump’s
plan, states are required to ante up 25% of the added cost,
or $100 per claimant in order to access the extra federal
benefit dollars.
“They’re asking
the states that are getting deeper and deeper in the red to
pony up additional funds,” said UMass Amherst economics
professor emeritus David Kotz. “How are they going to
do that?”
“Massachusetts
just doesn’t have extra money to put into unemployment
compensation,” he added.
Baker said he
would have to dip into emergency aid provided in the CARES
Act to fund the unemployment extension....
The Massachusetts
Unemployment Trust Fund is facing a projected deficit of
$3.2 billion by the end of the year, and $6.2 billion by the
end of 2021, Sullivan noted.
Instead of the
state paying 25% of the added cost for the unemployment
benefits, Sullivan is keeping his fingers crossed that
Congress will pass a $400 compromise when they reconvene.
“We just don’t
have the ability to deficit spend like Congress can do,” he
said.
But the fed can’t
print money forever, said Chip Ford of the Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“They can’t keep
paying out more and more,” he said. “People need to
get back to work.”
CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW ACTIVE STATISTICS
Interest rates are low and
falling. In a normal market, prospects of
inflation would fall.
But this isn’t a normal
market.
The Federal Reserve is
providing money to bond markets. It’s
buying billions of dollars of corporate bonds.
And that’s hiding inflation.
Money & Markets
July 9, 2020
Inflation Isn’t Dead. It’s Hiding Behind the Fed
By Michael Carr
. . .
Implicit in that reasoning is the idea that inflation,
if when it starts to “overshoot,” can be tamed just like
that. History would suggest that’s not how it
works.
But
also implicit in that reasoning is that what the economy
(and employment) needs is interest-rate suppression.
While, with government debt as astronomically high as it
is, I can see why Washington — in the broad sense of
that term — would like to keep rates as low as possible,
it would be a mistake, in my view, (1) to overestimate
the extent to which ultra-low interest rates will juice
up the economy and (2) to underestimate the
malinvestment that may now lie ahead, not to speak of
the damage to pension funds, retirees, and those who
rely on fixed incomes.
The
Spectator
July 17, 2020
Federal Reserve & Inflation: A Change for the Worse?
If you’ve read my articles
in the last few weeks, you may have noticed I’ve
been writing about inflation more lately.
I’m doing so because your income
portfolios—especially your bonds!—are at risk as
a result of recent money printing.
My recent monetary focus
has taken many readers by surprise. After all,
we haven’t seen sustained inflation in 40 years.
Nothing like a four-decade lull to lure an
investor into a false sense of “60/40 retirement
portfolio” security!
But even though we’re
staring at day-to-day deflation right now, with
lockdowns hitting demand for most products
beyond the essentials, make no mistake: the
ingredients for inflation are there. Most
obvious: the massive increase in the money
supply, which has soared by $3 trillion since
March, thanks to Federal Reserve Chairman Jay
Powell’s printing press corporate-bond-buying
program.
Forbes Magazine
July 22, 2020
Inflation Is Coming. Here’s How I’m Getting
Ready
By Brett Owens
. . . The huge need of the
U.S. Treasury to finance the CARES act money
dumps put $7.35 billion of Treasury paper into
dealer inventories. By law, the Treasury
is prohibited from selling its debt directly to
the Fed. The wise crafters of the 1913
Federal Reserve Act did not want the central
bank to cater to the whims of the Congress or
President, fearing that the two could go on a
money printing spree! To get around this
prohibition, the Treasury sells to the Wall
Street money center dealers who parcel it out to
the public. Since today’s Fed has publicly
pledged to “keep interest rates accommodative,”
i.e., low, the Fed must now step in and begin
purchasing Treasury paper in the marketplace,
lest rates continue their uptrend.
Forbes Magazine
Monday, August 17, 2020
The Inflation Scare
By Robert Barone
Rick Sobey's report noted:
"Baker said he
would have to dip into emergency aid provided in the CARES
Act to fund the unemployment extension."
On July 21 the State House News Service
reported:
The state received $2.7 billion in COVID-19 relief funds under the CARES
Act and the Baker administration has been doling out that money.
There are strings attached as the federal funds can only cover
expenditures that had not been budgeted as of March 27, 2020 when the
CARES Act was enacted. The money may not supplant state or
municipal spending, and also may only cover expenditures incurred on or
after March 1, 2020, and up to December 30, 2020.
On August 6 the News Service
reported:
About $2.163
billion in July revenue will be counted towards fiscal 2021,
including an estimated $50 million in corporate and business
taxes that were deferred from the spring when state waived
penalties for late filing and payment, DOR said. Once the
numbers are adjusted for tax deferrals, tax collections
last month were about $88 million or 4.3 percent higher than the
equivalent tax collections in July 2019, DOR said. . . .
The state also has $3.5 billion stashed
away in its rainy day fund that could be used to address budget
shortfalls in fiscal year 2020 and beyond.
Have at your dipping away Charlie
— but better yet, free Maskachusetts
hostages, employers and workers. Allow the economy to pick itself
up, dust itself off, and get going again.
Howie Carr's column in The
Boston Herald on Tuesday ("Charlie Baker’s ‘folks’ masking as COVID cops")
reveals His Royal Majesty Baker's dystopian Maskachusetts.
Here's an excerpt from it (full column below):
Folks are the salt
of the earth. They man the governor’s snitch lines, they
count up how many are congregating in the backyards and then
write up the fines for anyone having too much fun.
They scream at you
for not wearing a mask. They cut off the water and the
power in gyms whose owners try to reopen.
Folks are on the
public payroll. Some wear white lab coats and have
Ph.D.s, which they think makes them doctors. Folks
always tell Joe Biden’s BFF Charlie Parker what a wonderful
job he’s doing, and they never mention that we have the
third highest death rate in the nation, or the 5,658 deaths
on his watch in his nursing homes.
Folks have never
missed a paycheck these last five months.
Then there are the
people. You know who they are — they’re angry, just
because they’ve lost their jobs, their barrooms are shut
down and their kids can’t go back to school. And
perhaps most importantly, they’re fed up with being yelled
at by “folks.”
The unemployment
for people in Maskachusetts is 17.4%, the worst in the
nation. For folks, it’s zero....
George Orwell
wrote that some animals were more equal than others.
In Charlie Parker’s Fourth Reich, folks are more equal than
people....
Remember that:
people must abide by the rules. And folks set the
rules for the people.
“Folks,” the
governor tells us, “are trying to do the right thing.”
People, on the
other hand, are always throwing “these parties (that) are
too big, too crowded, and people are simply not responsible
about face coverings or any of the major metrics.”
How dare people
not follow any of Tall Deval’s major metrics! Call 911
— call the folks....
Bob Dylan once
described the world as “one big prison yard. Some of
us are prisoners, and some of us are guards.”
Nothing’s changed
in Maskachusetts except the terminology. Nowadays,
some of us are people, and the rest of us are folks.
The State House News
Service reported on Wednesday ("Wary of Census Undercounts, Galvin Working With Cities):
One-third of
households in the state still need to be counted for the
United States Census, according to the state's overseer of
the count, which is slated to end field operations a month
earlier than previously planned.
Secretary of State
William Galvin said the uncounted households are
disproportionately in urban areas. Census workers
originally had until October to finish tallying residents
but U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham announced
in early August that field data collection would end on
Sept. 30.
"I'm particularly
concerned about the early end to the census that has been
announced by the Bureau. Once again, a politically
motivated effort quite clearly," Galvin said at a Tuesday
press conference. "I know the Attorney General and I,
we've had communication about that, probably suing on that
too."
Galvin said 65.8
percent of the households in Massachusetts have
self-reported. Cities like Worcester, Lawrence,
Boston, and Fall River are areas Galvin said he wants to
make sure get counted. Staff members from the
secretary of state's office traveled to Lawrence to work
with the U.S. Census Bureau, Galvin said, using handheld
tablets to count people.
Secretary of State Bill Galvin
is frantically scrambling to find as many warm bodies in
Massachusetts as he can uncover as the 2020 census window is
slamming shut next month. He's sent his legions of
body-counters out to the so-called "gateway cities" across
the state like ICE agents, rounding up "international
immigrants" that make up the Bay State's only population
influx. The desperation is telling.
In the
first CLT Update of 2020 I wrote:
Massachusetts
continues to lose its productive taxpayer population according
to a recently released U.S. Census Bureau report. The Bay State
Diaspora continues.
"Despite the overall
increase, Massachusetts was one of 27 states that lost
population through net domestic migration, the movement of
people to other states," the State House News Service reported
last week. "Domestic migration drove the population decrease in
the Northeast, the Census Bureau said.... The South, meanwhile,
experienced the largest regional population growth from 2018 to
2019, rising by more than 1 million people to 125,580,448,
primarily due to natural increase and domestic migration."
Just a year ago, on
December 19, 2019, the State House News Service reported ("Bay
State population growth tops in New England"):
Population growth in Massachusetts
is outpacing that of other New England states, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Secretary of State
William Galvin is now predicting that the state should
be able to hold on to all nine seats in Congress with an
accurate head count in 2020.
New data released on Wednesday
showed that the population in Massachusetts grew by
38,903 people to 6.9 million between July 1, 2017 and
July 1, 2018. The 0.6 percent growth rate equaled the
population growth in the country, and ranked
Massachusetts 22nd among all other states and first in
New England.
Galvin said that while the state
continues to lose residents to other states, those loses
are more than offset by international immigration.
"These numbers show how important it is that we ensure
every person in Massachusetts is counted in the 2020
Census, whether or not they are United States citizens,"
Galvin said.
After the 2010 Census,
Massachusetts lost one seat in Congress. Galvin said the
state should be able to avoid a repeat of that with an
accurate population count.
"The population numbers make it
clear that Massachusetts should retain all of our
congressional representation, as long as we have a fair
and accurate count," Galvin said. "I will continue to
pursue all legal options to prevent the current
administration from inserting questions about
citizenship status into the 2020 Census, in their effort
to shortchange states like ours by dissuading our
immigrant population from being counted."
The
Associated Press added:
Galvin said that according to the
new numbers, the driving factor behind Massachusetts'
population growth appears to be international
immigration.
He said while Massachusetts
continues to lose population by residents moving to
other states, the loss is offset by twice that number of
people moving to the state from other countries.
In
my commentary for that CLT Update I wrote:
Secretary of State William Galvin
is giddy. "He said while Massachusetts continues to
lose population by residents moving to other states, the
loss is offset by twice that number of people moving to
the state from other countries."
He thinks this will help the Bay
State hang onto its nine U.S. Congressional seats
despite the mass exodus of former-taxpayers, replaced by
immigrants legal and otherwise. "I will continue to
pursue all legal options to prevent the current
administration from inserting questions about
citizenship status into the 2020 Census, in their effort
to shortchange states like ours by dissuading our
immigrant population from being counted," he vowed.
A net increase in warm bodies does
not equate with a net increase
— or
even a balance —
in revenue coming into the state's coffers.
Just-defeated for re-election Rep.
Jim Lyons (R-Andover)
managed to pry from the Patrick administration's
clutching hands its accounting records that showed
Massachusetts taxpayers were spending "at least $93
million a year" on free health care for illegal aliens.
(CLT Update; Nov. 2, 2011, "$93M
for illegals' health care — 'the tip of the iceberg'")
Subsequent reports indicate that total taxpayer spending
on illegal aliens is actually over $2 billion a
year.
Nothing has
improved over the past year —
the exodus of taxpaying citizens continues. There's no need
to wonder why "revenue" needs to be continually increased on
those who remain. Somebody has to make up for the
transfer of wealth shortfall —
and that somebody is you and other productive
taxpayers.
Wouldn't it be just awful if Massachusetts
loses another seat in Congress, is reduced to eight U.S.
Representatives when the decennial census is concluded?
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
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The Boston
Herald
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Charlie Baker says Massachusetts will accept Trump plan
to extend unemployment benefits
By Erin Tiernan
Unemployment benefit checks for the more than 500,000 left
jobless in Massachusetts amid the coronavirus pandemic could
soon be growing $400 fatter.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday signaled he intends to accept
President Trump’s plan to boost unemployment benefits.
“If this program is there and it turns out to be the only
thing that’s there, I don’t think Massachusetts should pass
on that,” he said.
The president signed an executive order Aug. 8 to extend
additional benefits of $300 or $400 per week — depending on
which plan governors choose — to the unemployed after
Congress failed to strike a deal to extend a federally
funded $600 weekly benefit that expired in July.
Under Trump’s plan, states are required to ante up 25% of
the added cost, or $100 per claimant in order to access the
extra federal benefit dollars — a requirement that has
confused cash-strapped states.
Baker said he would have to dip into emergency aid provided
in the CARES Act to fund the unemployment extension.
Alternatively, states could count the first $100 they pay in
weekly benefits to meet the requirement — which would reduce
the weekly boost to claimants from $400 to $300.
Baker said he disagrees with Trump’s plan to ask FEMA to
administer $44 billion from the government’s $70 billion
Disaster Relief Fund — which typically pays for clean-up
after extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes.
“I don’t think this is the right way to do this,” Baker said
Tuesday. “I worry a lot that we’re taking money from federal
reimbursements for emergency services provided associated
with the first four months of COVID under FEMA to fund this
program,” Baker said.
New Hampshire on Tuesday became the first New England state
to sign onto the plan after Gov. Chris Sununu announced his
intention to apply.
Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico and
Utah are the first states to receive federal approval for
funding.
South Dakota is the only state so far to decline the
benefit.
Speaking from the State House, Baker told reporters “we did
submit a letter to the feds saying that we would apply to
receive funds under that program.”
A spokesman for the governor’s office later clarified the
administration has signaled to federal officials that they
intend to apply to participate in the program.
It’s unclear if Trump has the constitutional authority to
extend federal unemployment benefits by executive order.
The Boston
Herald
Thursday, August 20, 2020
New $400 unemployment plan called ‘highly problematic’
for Massachusetts amid coronavirus crisis
The Bay State has the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.
By Rick Sobey
As Gov. Charlie Baker said he intends to accept President
Trump’s plan to boost unemployment weekly benefits by as
much as $400, fiscal watchdogs tell the Herald that the plan
requiring states to pay $100 each week is “highly
problematic.”
Massachusetts — with the highest unemployment rate in the
country at 17.4% — simply doesn’t have the money, said Greg
Sullivan of the Pioneer Institute.
“The federal government is asking a state to pay a gigantic
amount of money when it’s flat broke,” Sullivan said.
“This proposal is highly problematic for Massachusetts,” he
added. “It’s tough to imagine how the state can come up with
this money.”
As Bay State officials stare at a $6 billion structural
deficit amid plummeting tax revenue, adding this program
would be quite difficult, said Eileen McAnneny of the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
“The state would be hard-pressed to find that money,” she
said, noting the numerous competing needs during the
coronavirus crisis.
Baker this week signaled the state would apply to receive
funds under the new program.
Trump recently signed an executive order to extend
additional benefits of $300 or $400 per week — depending on
which plan governors choose — to the unemployed after
Congress failed to strike a deal to extend a federally
funded $600 weekly benefit.
Under Trump’s plan, states are required to ante up 25% of
the added cost, or $100 per claimant in order to access the
extra federal benefit dollars.
“They’re asking the states that are getting deeper and
deeper in the red to pony up additional funds,” said UMass
Amherst economics professor emeritus David Kotz. “How are
they going to do that?”
“Massachusetts just doesn’t have extra money to put into
unemployment compensation,” he added.
Baker said he would have to dip into emergency aid provided
in the CARES Act to fund the unemployment extension.
But the state has several other pressing needs that it needs
to fund, including schools and universities, Sullivan said.
“Along with every other state, we just don’t have the money
here in Massachusetts,” he said. “Everything is hitting all
at once.”
If states don’t chip in the $100, it would reduce the weekly
boost to claimants from $400 to $300.
The Massachusetts Unemployment Trust Fund is facing a
projected deficit of $3.2 billion by the end of the year,
and $6.2 billion by the end of 2021, Sullivan noted.
Instead of the state paying 25% of the added cost for the
unemployment benefits, Sullivan is keeping his fingers
crossed that Congress will pass a $400 compromise when they
reconvene.
“We just don’t have the ability to deficit spend like
Congress can do,” he said.
But the fed can’t print money forever, said Chip Ford
of the Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“They can’t keep paying out more and more,” he said. “People
need to get back to work.”
— Erin Tiernan contributed
to this report.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, August 21, 2020
Massachusetts had the nation’s highest unemployment rate in
July
By Marie Szaniszlo
Massachusetts had the nation’s highest unemployment rate in
July — 16.1% — followed by New York at 15.9%, according to a
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday.
Bay State unemployment was down from 17.4% in June but still
far above July’s national unemployment rate of 10.2%, which
was down from 11.1% in June.
“Massachusetts continues to lead the rest of the country in
the percentage of people out of work. It’s not a statistic
to be proud of,” said Paul Craney, spokesman for the
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
Gov. Charlie Baker and the legislative leaders “need to do
everything they can to reopen the state economy and instill
confidence in the private sector,” Craney said. “Looking
forward, our leaders must promise not to raise taxes,
increase spending or enact more harmful regulations if they
really wish to see our economy start to recover … it’s time
they wake up to the reality that they are forcing businesses
and residents to live every day.”
Robert Murphy, professor of economics at Boston College,
said Massachusetts’ unemployment rate likely is remaining
high because it has more service jobs than manufacturing
jobs.
“Some of those hospitality jobs may be gone for good because
those employers just couldn’t hold on any longer,” Murphy
said. “But I would expect to see some improvement,
especially once people feel more confident that the virus is
under control and we’re going to have a vaccine by the end
of the year or certainly early next year.”
Michael Klein, professor of international economics at the
Fletcher School at Tufts University, cautioned against
drawing too many conclusions from any one jobs report.
“Ultimately, the success of the economy turns on the success
of dealing with the pandemic,” Klein said. “And there’s too
much uncertainty about that, especially with students about
to go back to school.”
Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of
Massachusetts, said in a recent survey of the group’s 4,000
members, many said they expect to lay off even more people.
“Their biggest problem is that consumer traffic and sales
haven’t picked up,” Hurst said. “We have to convince the
consumer that it’s safe to go out and shop, and that jobs
depend on it.”
From July 2019 to July 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
estimates Massachusetts lost 452,600 jobs, with the largest
percentage losses in leisure and hospitality, other
services, trade, transportation and utilities, and
construction.
The Boston
Herald
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Charlie Baker’s ‘folks’ masking as COVID cops
By Howie Carr
All of Gov. Charlie Baker’s world is divided into two parts.
People, and folks.
Folks are the salt of the earth. They man the governor’s
snitch lines, they count up how many are congregating in the
backyards and then write up the fines for anyone having too
much fun.
They scream at you for not wearing a mask. They cut off the
water and the power in gyms whose owners try to reopen.
Folks are on the public payroll. Some wear white lab coats
and have Ph.D.s, which they think makes them doctors. Folks
always tell Joe Biden’s BFF Charlie Parker what a wonderful
job he’s doing, and they never mention that we have the
third highest death rate in the nation, or the 5,658 deaths
on his watch in his nursing homes.
Folks have never missed a paycheck these last five months.
Then there are the people. You know who they are — they’re
angry, just because they’ve lost their jobs, their barrooms
are shut down and their kids can’t go back to school. And
perhaps most importantly, they’re fed up with being yelled
at by “folks.”
The unemployment for people in Maskachusetts is 17.4%, the
worst in the nation. For folks, it’s zero.
Here’s Charlie Parker at a spring press conference
describing his favorite “folks” who are dealing with COVID,
which would be health care folks and some folks in municipal
government and state government, and then “folks who work
with vulnerable populations.”
We used to call ‘em hacks. Now they’re folks.
Thank goodness Tall Deval has enough folks on the payroll to
keep an eye on these people who are behaving like this is
still a free country.
Remember the recent horror at the M Street Beach in South
Boston? People were having fun, a fact the governor found
“particularly oppressive.” Fortunately, his folks were there
to put a halt to such frivolity.
“The crowding and the behavior that our folks saw out there
last weekend simply can’t continue. If people can’t space
out … then we’ll have to limit the number of people who can
be there.”
Do you want to loot and riot? That’s fine with Charlie
Parker, as he made clear after the mayhem in Boston. If you
want to work out at a gym, or have a beer on the golf
course, you’re people. Looting, though, is for folks.
“The vast majority of the folks who participated in those
demonstrations were wearing masks.”
George Orwell wrote that some animals were more equal than
others. In Charlie Parker’s Fourth Reich, folks are more
equal than people.
Take Karyn Polito, the lieutenant governor. If she and her
family were people, they’d have been in big trouble for that
kegger they threw out at the compound on Lake Quinsigamond.
But they’re folks, plus Pay to Play has meetings, as Tall
Deval pointed out.
Being governor, Charlie has to make sure people do whatever
the hell he tells them to, no matter how absurd. That’s
where the folks come in.
“The response we’ve gotten from the folks we talk to is that
people are abiding by the rules … the place where you get
into the biggest trouble with respect to all of this is not
abiding by the rules, not doing the things that we’ve been
advised by many folks in the public health and health care
and epidemiological communities are the things that we need
to do to stay safe. People need to abide by the rules.”
Remember that: people must abide by the rules. And folks set
the rules for the people.
“Folks,” the governor tells us, “are trying to do the right
thing.”
People, on the other hand, are always throwing “these
parties (that) are too big, too crowded, and people are
simply not responsible about face coverings or any of the
major metrics.”
How dare people not follow any of Tall Deval’s major
metrics! Call 911 — call the folks.
“I was on a call this morning with a bunch of folks from the
health care community … We work pretty hard with some folks
to put together a pretty robust uh testing infrastructure
for colleges and universities … If you just look at the data
that’s on the weekly report that’s put out by um by the
folks at the Command Center.”
People, if you’re not at the public trough, you can’t be
folks, with one exception. The exception is, if you live in
a “community,” meaning, where a lot of illegals live. Those
are the communities getting free testing, in addition to
everything else they get for free, just like always.
“I certainly want the folks um who are living in those
communities and the folks who shop or whatever in those
communities to know what they uh, what their circumstances
(are) so that people will take appropriate precautions.”
Take appropriate precautions, folks, or the governor will
treat you like he treats people — like dogs.
Bob Dylan once described the world as “one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners, and some of us are guards.”
Nothing’s changed in Maskachusetts except the terminology.
Nowadays, some of us are people, and the rest of us are
folks.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Wary of Census Undercounts, Galvin Working With Cities
By Chris Van Buskirk
One-third of households in the state still need to be
counted for the United States Census, according to the
state's overseer of the count, which is slated to end field
operations a month earlier than previously planned.
Secretary of State William Galvin said the uncounted
households are disproportionately in urban areas. Census
workers originally had until October to finish tallying
residents but U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham
announced in early August that field data collection would
end on Sept. 30.
"I'm particularly concerned about the early end to the
census that has been announced by the Bureau. Once again, a
politically motivated effort quite clearly," Galvin said at
a Tuesday press conference. "I know the Attorney General and
I, we've had communication about that, probably suing on
that too."
Galvin said 65.8 percent of the households in Massachusetts
have self-reported. Cities like Worcester, Lawrence, Boston,
and Fall River are areas Galvin said he wants to make sure
get counted. Staff members from the secretary of state's
office traveled to Lawrence to work with the U.S. Census
Bureau, Galvin said, using handheld tablets to count people.
"We're working closely with local municipalities where
undercounts are a real problem and trying to make sure that
they all get counted," he said. "We're ahead of the country
but that's a small consolation when we're still looking at a
third of the households in Massachusetts."
NewsMax Finance
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
The Fed Should Plan for Increased Inflation Now
By Peter Morici
Congress and the Trump administration deserve kudos for quickly
providing stimulus totaling $3.6 trillion. Conservatives may
worry about skyrocketing interest payments on the national debt,
but inflation will be the bigger problem.
When the Treasury sells bonds, it may drive up interest rates
but how much depends on investor appetite for U.S. securities.
These days that is quite large, as an aging global population is
driving up savings, default prospects for developing country
bonds are rising, and corporations are bulking up on liquidity
to cope with pandemic-related uncertainties.
The net impact on the federal debt held by the public will be
less than $3.6 trillion, because some of the stimulus are loans
that will be repaid, and more spending will boost GDP and tax
revenues.
The Federal Reserve has increased holdings of Treasuries and
other assets by about $3 trillion by printing money to pay for
those. Nearly all the interest the Fed earns on new assets is
remitted to the Treasury, so the net effect on interest paid by
Uncle Sam to private investors is negligible.
Consequently, virtually the whole stimulus was paid by running
the printing presses.
Financial talking heads like to repeat Milton Freidman's
admonition that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon, but
that is not quite the same thing as saying more money always
causes inflation.
Increasing the money supply must result in either more goods
produced or higher prices. If unemployment is low, inflation
will result, but underutilized capacity is currently plentiful.
In April and May, consumer prices generally fell and were hardly
up over the prior 12 months. Prices appear so tame that some
macroeconomists advocate that the Fed should push interest rates
below zero to further boost the economy, but that would be a
mistake.
The facts on the ground will change as businesses reopen.
Already, consumers are expecting more inflation and investors
are demanding higher premiums on ordinary Treasuries over
inflation-indexed bonds.
Americans still will be eating at home more, and fast-food and
takeout prices are already rising briskly. Restaurants operating
even at Phase 3 levels will have to bear more overhead and
charge more to keep staff and diners safe while serving fewer
customers.
Folks will be flying less but Zooming more. Planes at two-thirds
capacity will require higher fares or airlines will take another
trip through bankruptcy.
Zoom was a novelty and free before the pandemic, but now that
schools and businesses rely on it, better security and
functionality are required. Microsoft, Google, and others have
jumped in and high-quality software will require paying more, or
those businesses will get it out of us by boosting prices
someplace else.
Food prices have already jumped — it appears that grocery stores
and restaurants have different suppliers and requirements for
items like meat, milk, eggs, and vegetables. Some suppliers are
dumping milk and disposing of eggs, while others get premium
prices for what they have.
Theaters and domestic cleaning services are charging more.
With the shutdown, clearance sales, often online, for apparel
and many other household items pushed down prices but with many
stores permanently closed, prices will rebound.
Oil prices were depressed by inadequate demand and a foolish
price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, but as the economy
recovers so are gasoline sales. OPEC, Russia, and U.S. shale
fields have cut production and gas rose to $2.13 a gallon in
late-June from an April low of $1.77. Those prices will likely
go to at least $2.50.
More stimulus is likely coming to aid state and municipal
governments and for extended unemployment benefits. However, the
latter should be limited to tax revenues lost owing to the
pandemic — the National Association of Governors requested $500
billion. That amount, not much greater sums advocated by
Democrats, should be appropriated, and unemployed workers should
not be better paid to stay at home than to accept jobs.
The Federal Reserve does not have to accommodate it all by
buying so many bonds and printing more money. It could keep its
target overnight bank borrowing rate near zero, but still let
the yields on 10-year Treasuries rise from below to above 1
percent without much harm to lending for new homes and
businesses.
As the economy recovers — even with some structural unemployment
in industries like air travel and restaurants — supply
bottlenecks will emerge as consumer dollars move to new uses.
Without more discipline at the Fed, inflation could easily get
out of control.
Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the
University of Maryland, and a national columnist. |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
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▪ (781) 639-9709
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