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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
47 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
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their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, January 25, 2021
Mass. State
Government Most Popular in U.S.
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to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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Opponents of a controversial carbon tax that will push
up the price of gas are lobbying a consortium of
mid-Atlantic states to reject an agreement Massachusetts
struck last month with several other states in an effort
to doom the deal.
“TCI is a poor
concept that is fundamentally regressive, economically
damaging and places an unnecessary financial burden on
people who can least afford it. Please reject it,”
Massachusetts-based Citizens for Limited Taxation
wrote in an open letter signed by 20 other groups.
The
Transportation Climate Initiative championed by Gov.
Charlie Baker aims to reduce motor vehicle pollution by
at least 26% and generate over $1.8 billion in
Massachusetts by 2032, according to a deal Massachusetts
signed with Rhode Island, Connecticut and Washington,
D.C. It will up the price of gas by 5 to 7 cents per
gallon, according to state estimates. Eight other states
are still considering the deal.
Chip Ford
of CLT told the Herald he’s concerned over the “lack of
accountability” the program creates and said tax
increases should be a function of the Legislature, not
the governor alone. He hopes that if other states fail
to sign on, the program will run out of gas.
He also argued
the cap-and-invest program would cost low-income
residents the most, as companies will pass costs along
to the consumer.
The Boston
Herald
Monday, January 18, 2021
TCI opponents push other states to reject
controversial carbon tax
Politics is
not all toxic. Here in Massachusetts, voters hold
political leaders in very high regard. The state
Legislature has climbed to 65 percent approval in a poll
we released last week, the highest we have seen in our
polling going back over a decade. Gov. Charlie Baker
sports a 73 percent approval rating and has been in the
70s and 80s for most of his term. Taken together, we
have what may be the most popular governor and the most
popular legislature in the country.
We’ve been
riding high for a little while now. A 2018 nationwide
poll found the Massachusetts Legislature atop the list
of most popular legislative bodies. And nationwide polls
tracking approval ratings have often found Baker at or
near the top of the most popular governors. Putting the
two together shows how much of an outlier Massachusetts
truly is....
Why this is
uniquely the case here in Massachusetts is not entirely
clear. It’s not the fact that Massachusetts is more or
less a one party state, though we certainly are. Other
than the governor, the state Republican Party barely
exists, and spends much of its time and energy in full
scale war with itself. But the high ratings are not just
Democratic voters appreciating Democratic leaders. There
are plenty of states with unified control where voters
hold their leaders in modest regard....
There is not
an obvious way we are different that explains why this
is. No matter what characteristic we look at (geography,
size, party distribution, etc) there are other states
that fit the same model where the numbers are not as
high. It’s also not unambiguously good, since it creates
incentives for stasis and incrementalism when the need
for change is both immense and immediate.
Our polling
throughout the pandemic finds voters with a long to-do
list for political leaders. The challenge is lighting a
fire under lawmakers with so little heat coming from
voters. Action on legislation sometimes comes from
friction between the two branches, but with voters
largely content (or not paying attention), the governor
and the Legislature have settled into a pattern of homey
incrementalism.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Voters hold Beacon Hill in high esteem
Mass. governor, lawmakers lead nation in popularity
Freedom from
income taxes is a New Hampshire delight: The Granite
State is one of nine that don’t tax ordinary income. Of
course, that benefit doesn’t apply to New Hampshire
residents who commute to work across the Massachusetts
border. Income earned inside Massachusetts by an
out-of-state resident is subject to Massachusetts taxes.
What about a
New Hampshire resident who used to commute to
Massachusetts?
A no-brainer,
surely. If you don’t live in Massachusetts, and you no
longer work in Massachusetts, then Massachusetts has no
right to tax your earnings. What could be more
self-evident?
Until last
spring, that was the law. The Massachusetts Department
of Revenue itself said so: “Compensation for services
rendered by a non-resident wholly outside Massachusetts,
even though payment may be made from an office or place
of business in Massachusetts,” the department affirmed
in a 1984 ruling, “is not subject to the individual
income tax.” And if a New Hampshire resident employed by
a Massachusetts company divided his hours between
Massachusetts and New Hampshire? In that case, “only
that portion of his salary attributable to his work in
Massachusetts will be taxed.”
Then came the
pandemic. Massachusetts declared an emergency and
ordered non-essential workplaces to close. Many of the
84,000 New Hampshire residents who had been commuting to
jobs in the Bay State switched to working from home.
Under the rule that had been in place for decades,
Massachusetts could no longer tax their income.
So it invented
a new rule.
In April, the
Department of Revenue published an “emergency
regulation” declaring that any income earned by a
nonresident who used to work in Massachusetts but was
now telecommuting from out of state “will continue to be
treated as Massachusetts source income subject to
personal income tax.” For the first time ever,
Massachusetts was claiming the authority to tax income
earned by persons who neither lived nor worked in
Massachusetts....
New Hampshire
isn’t fighting alone. Fourteen other states have filed
briefs urging the Supreme Court to take up its
complaint. They urge the justices to reassert and
reinvigorate a basic principle of the Constitution’s
federal system: that the power of states to tax
nonresidents’ income does not extend past their own
borders....
According to
the National Taxpayers Union, at least 2.1 million
Americans who previously crossed state lines for work
are now working from home because of COVID-19
restrictions. When the pandemic ends, remote work is
expected to remain far more common than it used to be.
The unfairness of what Massachusetts began doing last
spring, and of what a few other states have been doing
for much longer, will grow more galling. Only the
Supreme Court has the power to shut down such
overreaching. Now, thanks to New Hampshire, it has the
opportunity.
The Boston
Globe
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Why New Hampshire is suing
Massachusetts
The pandemic has kept Granite State commuters home.
The Bay State wants to tax their income anyway.
By Jeff Jacoby
Since June 1,
2020, Massachusetts has banned the sale of flavored
tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. When
signing the ban into law, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) argued
that the ban, which is the broadest in the country, was
enacted to limit youth uptake of nicotine products.
While youth uptake is a very real concern which deserves
the public’s attention, outright bans could impede
historically high smoking cessation rates. Lawmakers
must thread the needle between protecting adult smokers’
ability to switch and barring minors’ access to nicotine
products.
Aside from
public health concerns, a ban on flavored tobacco,
especially when including cigarettes, has significant
tax implications and could result in unintended
consequences such as increased smuggling. In
Massachusetts, more than 21 percent of cigarettes smoked
were purchased out of state in 2018 (latest data)....
Seven months
into Massachusetts’ flavor ban, early data is available
for the real-world effects. If we only look at
Massachusetts, the figures may look like a public health
success story at first: sales of cigarette tax stamps in
the Bay State have declined 24 percent comparing
June-November 2020 to the same months of 2019. In the
first half of 2020, Massachusetts only experienced a
decline of roughly 10 percent compared to the first half
of 2019.
Those numbers
would seem to back up the best argument for implementing
a ban: limiting use of tobacco and nicotine.
Unfortunately, if we dig a little deeper, it becomes
evident that Massachusetts’ flavor ban has not limited
use, just changed where Bay Staters purchase cigarettes.
In fact, sales of cigarette tax stamps in the Northeast
(Massachusetts as well as Connecticut, Maine, New
Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have
stayed remarkably stable, even increased a bit,
following Massachusetts’ ban when compared to sales in
2019....
If we look at
individual states, we can see that increases are skewed.
The increase in sales in the Northeast region is most
notable in Rhode Island and New Hampshire, but all have
seen increased sales immediately following the ban.
Unsurprisingly, New Hampshire benefits the most as that
is already the state in the nation with the highest
outflow of cigarettes.
The declining
and increasing sales obviously impact excise tax revenue
in all these states. Massachusetts collected $557
million in cigarette and other tobacco products (OTP)
excise taxes in FY 2019 ($515 million from cigarettes).
For FY 2020, sales decreased 10 percent in the first
half of 2020 which translates to a decline in revenue of
roughly $50 million.
While this is
still in the early days, assuming FY 2021’s accelerated
decline of over 20 percent continues through the rest of
the fiscal year, the cost of the flavor ban could end up
being approximately $120 million for FY 2021 (not
including sales tax losses). Over $100 million is a
significant cost to the state, especially considering
that sales are simply shifting to other states, not
actually being eliminated.
In December
2019, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue estimated
the ban would decrease collections by the slightly lower
$93 million in FY 2021. Whichever proves right, that
revenue is now being collected by Massachusetts
neighbors....
All in all,
early signs indicate that the ban will not decrease
tobacco consumption in the state. It is not in the
interest of Massachusetts to pursue a public health
measure that merely sends tax revenue to its neighboring
states without improving public health—nor should this
approach be copied by other states.
Tax
Foundation
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Massachusetts Flavored Tobacco Ban
Has Severe Impact on Tax Revenue
Gov. Charlie
Baker signed the Legislature’s transportation bond bill
into law on Friday, but used his line-item veto to
remove proposals raising fees on Uber and Lyft rides,
establishing means-tested fares on public transit, and
an initiative pushed by Senate President Karen Spilka
that would prohibit increases in Turnpike tolls to help
pay for the Allston I-90 interchange project.
The $16
billion bond bill authorizes the state to borrow money
to finance all sorts of ongoing transportation projects,
including bridge repairs, road improvements, and public
transit initiatives such as the Green Line extension and
South Coast Rail. The bill passed by the Legislature in
the wee hours of January 6 also contained a number of
new policy initiatives that Baker decided to scrap.
Because the Legislature that passed the bill is no
longer in session, the governor’s vetoes cannot be
overridden....
Baker also
vetoed a provision directing that all revenue from the
governor’s transportation climate initiative, which
places a price on the carbon contained in vehicle fuels,
should go into the state’s Commonwealth Transportation
Fund. Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett, the House’s
point person on transportation, inserted the provision
to clarify where the revenues should go.
Straus has
said he believes the state constitution requires the
revenues to go into the transportation fund. Baker, who
has said half of the money would go to public transit,
disagreed. “I believe it is more appropriate for a
significant portion of this funding to be available for
more flexible emissions reduction and equity
investments,” he said.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Friday, January 15, 2021
Baker vetoes key policy
initiatives in transportation bond bill
Governor
Charlie Baker, who proposed a fee increase on Uber and
Lyft trips twice in 2020, on Friday vetoed a proposal to
do just that, while approving a broader borrowing
package that will authorize up to $16 billion in
spending on transportation projects.
The
transportation bond bill will fund a wide array of
projects, such as reconfiguration of the roads near the
Cape Cod bridges, construction of South Coast Rail
commuter service to New Bedford and Fall River, and the
electrification of parts of the commuter rail, as well
as many other smaller-scale road, bridge, and transit
projects. In a statement, Baker said the bill will allow
“significant investments for building and modernizing a
statewide transportation system for our residents,
businesses and communities.”
But while
approving of the bulk of the measure passed by the
Legislature, Baker vetoed a number of policy proposals
in it that lawmakers attached to the bill, including
ones to explore reduced transit fares for low-income
riders, and congestion pricing for highway driving....
Representative
William Straus, who led the House’s negotiations on the
bill, questioned whether the state can afford the level
of borrowing in the transportation bill without the
revenue from ride-hail fees, which were projected to
raise an additional $95 million a year if ridership
returned to 2019 levels.
“If at the end
of the day, the administration’s approach is to borrow
money but not support the revenue that backs it up,
that’s an unusual approach,” Straus said....
Because
lawmakers passed the bill in the closing hours of the
last Legislative session, they do not have the
opportunity to override Baker’s veto. Straus, the state
representative, said he expects to discuss these issues
again during the new session.
The Boston
Globe
Friday, January 15, 2021
Baker vetoes Uber, Lyft fee increase as
he signs off on $16 billion in transportation borrowing
The climate
and emissions reduction bill vetoed by Gov. Charlie
Baker last week has been refiled by House and Senate
leaders in the hopes of quickly returning the
legislation to the governor, only this time with the
opportunity to override a veto if it comes.
The bill,
which was negotiated last session between the House and
Senate over five months of private talks, was refiled by
Sen. Michael Barrett and Rep. Thomas Golden late Tuesday
afternoon in the Senate, but Senate President Karen
Spilka's office said there were no concrete plans yet
for a vote on the bill....
If the
Legislature were to act quickly to reenact the same
climate bill, Baker could return the legislation with
amendments, which he was unable to do after Jan. 6 when
the 191st General Court dissolved.
"One way or
another the governor is going to have the opportunity to
participate. The usual course here would be for a bill
to go to him that he could sign or return with
amendments. That's the usual parliamentary route," said
Barrett, who negotiated the bill with Golden, and who is
the chief sponsor on the new bill (S 9).
"Rest assured
that we look forward to hearing from him and that his
ideas will get respectfully considered," Barrett said.
Another issue
the governor had with the bill included a requirement
for utilities to procure more offshore wind power, which
the Republican said could interfere with interstate
talks to procure clean energy regionally.
He also said
the Legislature missed an opportunity to invest in
climate resiliency to prepare for sea level rise,
flooding, droughts and other affects of climate change.
He proposed to pay for these investment by increasing
real estate transfer taxes.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Bill Filed to Restart Talks on
Climate, Emissions
Gov. Charlie
Baker has been taking criticism for his veto of the
climate and greenhouse gas emissions bill, as well as
measures included in omnibus economic development and
transportation bills, but the Democrats who run the
Legislature left themselves in a vulnerable position by
leaving some of last session's most important business
until the final days and even hours available for
lawmaking....
But by waiting
to send major bills to Baker until the final days of the
two-year session and turning Jan. 5 into an all-night
session, Democrats who possess super-majorities in both
chambers gave up their advantage and left themselves
without an opportunity to flex their power and override
the governor's vetoes.
The last of
the big vetoes were handed down Friday when Baker, while
signing a $16.5 billion transportation bond bill, hacked
off a series of proposals.
After House
and Senate Democrats failed during the last session to
find common ground on new transportation revenues, they
tried to salvage fee increases on transportation
networking companies by stuffing them into the bond
bill, only to see Baker nix that measure with a veto....
After voting
in July to extend formal sessions, the House and Senate
had months to finalize the bills while leaving
themselves time to deal with Baker amendments or vetoes,
as they were able to do with abortion and policing
reform bills.
But as the
last month of session wound down in December, and
pressure intensified to reach agreements, the House was
distracted by a late-session leadership change, with
former Speaker Robert DeLeo stepping down and
representatives electing Rep. Ronald Mariano to succeed
him. It's unclear if the upheaval affected House-Senate
conference committee talks, but Democrats did box
themselves out by leaving key matters until the final
days of session.
State House
News Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Long Session Ends with Deluge of
Baker Vetoes
December Speaker Change Preceded Dems' Frantic Finish
The state's
unemployment rate ticked back up in December, climbing
to 7.4 percent and again rising above the national
average, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce
Development announced Friday morning....
At 7.4
percent, the Massachusetts unemployment rate is worse
than the national average rate of 6.7 percent. It is
also more than two and a half times the rate from one
year ago, 2.8 percent, according to EOLWD.
Massachusetts
has lagged most other states when it comes to recovering
jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic and some trends
in the state's labor market data "implying deeper labor
market challenges" were highlighted this week in a
report from Fitch Ratings.
State House
News Service
Friday, January 22, 2021
Mass. Jobless Rate Rose in December
to 7.4 Percent
After four
years of watching Donald Trump govern by tweet,
President Joe Biden took to the medium from which Trump
is now banned on Wednesday morning with a message of his
own.
"It's a new
day in America," Biden tweeted.
He was right,
of course. Biden was about to institute a mask mandate
on federal property, order the United States back into
the Paris climate accord and stop building a wall along
the border with Mexico.
But the
inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden as the 46th
president of the United States also ensured that it will
soon be a new day in Massachusetts, with state-federal
relations about to undergo a complete reset....
As Donald
Trump departed Washington, he broke from tradition once
again by skipping his successor's inauguration, and
telling a small group of supporters at Andrews Air Force
Base that he would be "back in some form."
"So, have a
good life. We will see you soon. Thank you. Thank you
very much. Thank you very much," Trump said, making his
last public statement as president before jetting off to
Florida.
The
Massachusetts Republican Party responded to the occasion
by thanking Trump for four years of service, while Baker
waited until after Biden swore his oath of office to
make his only public statement of the day -- a welcome
to the new administration.
State House
News Service
Friday, January 22, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Friends in High
Places
Have you
noticed something missing from the home page of your
local news outlet in the last couple of days?
COVID-19 has
gone MIA.
If not quite
totally vanished, the coronavirus is certainly fading
from the front pages. No more apocalyptic headlines
about “cases” and “infections” which usually mean … not
very much.
A year ago, it
was the greatest threat to humankind since the Black
Death. Now it’s on the verge of becoming just another
seasonal virus.
What could
possibly have changed over the last couple of days to
reduce a yearlong torrent of unhinged, fact-free
hysteria to a mere trickle?
We all know
the answer to that question: Trump is gone. There is no
longer any upside to promoting the panic because 45 is
no longer president.
Mission
Accomplished!
Any bad news
now belongs to Dementia Joe. Ergo, no bad news....
Just as “the
homeless” disappear whenever a Democrat takes office,
along with rising gas prices or drone bombing of
“wedding parties” in terrorist states, seldom will be
heard a discouraging word about COVID-19 until further
notice.
If you doubt
that the air is rapidly deflating out of almost a year’s
worth of breathless hysteria in the alt-left media, just
Google “New COVID-19 cases decline.”
Here’s a small
sampling over the last 72 hours:
From CNN: “New
Covid-19 cases declined 11% after hitting a peak last
week.”
Wall Street
Journal: “Newly Reported U.S. Coronavirus Cases Decline
Again.”
National
Panhandler Radio: “Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus
Surge Has Peaked.”
At least until
the mid-term elections, when the Democrats will be
needing to ramp up mail-in voting yet again, because it
worked so well in November in the rotten boroughs where
voter turnout sometimes exceeded 100%.
That’s why Big
COVID is hedging its bets just a bit, allowing such
future potential horrors as “mutant strain B.1.1.7” to
start warming up in the bullpen — just in case.
This is
nothing new. Recall how Big Pharma didn’t announce that
the vaccines were ready to go until Nov. 5, when it was
too late to benefit Trump....
More a century
ago, H.L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore, exactly summed
up how COVID-19 would be used by the Democrats:
“The whole aim
of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it
with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.” ...
COVID-19?
Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, January 21, 2021
Without Trump to blame, coronavirus
turns the corner
By Howie Carr |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The Boston Herald on Monday, January 18, 2021 reported on
our TCI opposition coalition's joint
news release ("TCI
opponents push other states to reject controversial carbon tax"):
Opponents of a controversial carbon
tax that will push up the price of gas are lobbying a
consortium of mid-Atlantic states to reject an agreement
Massachusetts struck last month with several other
states in an effort to doom the deal.
“TCI is a poor concept that is
fundamentally regressive, economically damaging and
places an unnecessary financial burden on people who can
least afford it. Please reject it,” Massachusetts-based
Citizens for Limited Taxation wrote in an open
letter signed by 20 other groups.
The Transportation Climate
Initiative championed by Gov. Charlie Baker aims to
reduce motor vehicle pollution by at least 26% and
generate over $1.8 billion in Massachusetts by 2032,
according to a deal Massachusetts signed with Rhode
Island, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. It will up the
price of gas by 5 to 7 cents per gallon, according to
state estimates. Eight other states are still
considering the deal.
Chip Ford of CLT told the
Herald he’s concerned over the “lack of accountability”
the program creates and said tax increases should be a
function of the Legislature, not the governor alone. He
hopes that if other states fail to sign on, the program
will run out of gas.
He also argued the cap-and-invest
program would cost low-income residents the most, as
companies will pass costs along to the consumer.
I also participated in an interview
with Alan Zarek, news director for WSAR 1480 AM in New Bedford,
about the news release and our view of TCI.
I gave a presentation on Proposition 2½
and the many assaults upon it over just the past decade during
a Zoom conference meeting Friday among leaders of many statewide
business and political organizations. CLT was thanked and
praised by many of them for our relentless defense of Prop 2½
since passage of our tax limitation law in 1980.
I came across a report by Commonwealth
Magazine I found to be startling, very alarming, and quite
discouraging. It explained why the political situation in
Massachusetts seems to be deteriorating so steadily. If
accurate — and I have no reason to
question its conclusions — it does not
bode well for Bay State taxpayers.
On Tuesday it reported ("Voters hold Beacon Hill in
high esteem; Mass. governor, lawmakers lead nation in popularity"):
Politics is not all toxic.
Here in Massachusetts, voters hold political leaders in
very high regard. The state Legislature has
climbed to 65 percent approval in a poll we released
last week, the highest we have seen in our polling going
back over a decade. Gov. Charlie Baker sports a 73
percent approval rating and has been in the 70s and 80s
for most of his term. Taken together, we have what
may be the most popular governor and the most popular
legislature in the country.
We’ve been riding high for a little
while now. A 2018 nationwide poll found the
Massachusetts Legislature atop the list of most popular
legislative bodies. And nationwide polls tracking
approval ratings have often found Baker at or near the
top of the most popular governors. Putting the two
together shows how much of an outlier Massachusetts
truly is....
Why this is uniquely the case here
in Massachusetts is not entirely clear. It’s not
the fact that Massachusetts is more or less a one party
state, though we certainly are. Other than the
governor, the state Republican Party barely exists, and
spends much of its time and energy in full scale war
with itself. But the high ratings are not just
Democratic voters appreciating Democratic leaders.
There are plenty of states with unified control where
voters hold their leaders in modest regard....
There is not an obvious way we are
different that explains why this is. No matter
what characteristic we look at (geography, size, party
distribution, etc) there are other states that fit the
same model where the numbers are not as high. It’s
also not unambiguously good, since it creates incentives
for stasis and incrementalism when the need for change
is both immense and immediate.
Our polling throughout the pandemic
finds voters with a long to-do list for political
leaders. The challenge is lighting a fire under
lawmakers with so little heat coming from voters.
Action on legislation sometimes comes from friction
between the two branches, but with voters largely
content (or not paying attention), the governor and the
Legislature have settled into a pattern of homey
incrementalism.
It's a classic example of dropping a
frog into a bucket of comfortable water then gradually bringing it
to boil, instead of dropping it live into a bubbling-hot pot.
Incrementalism: Slowly, gradually cooking a reluctant meal to
completion to avoid any resistance.
I guess I'm not really shocked. It's
one of the reasons I felt the only escape from being cooked alive was to
flee the kitchen.
Token Boston Globe conservative
columnist Jeff Jacoby had a good take on the latest tax
controversy between New Hampshire and Taxachusetts. In
his Saturday column ("Why New Hampshire is suing
Massachusetts") he wrote:
Freedom from income taxes is a New Hampshire delight: The
Granite State is one of nine that don’t tax ordinary income. Of
course, that benefit doesn’t apply to New Hampshire residents
who commute to work across the Massachusetts border. Income
earned inside Massachusetts by an out-of-state resident is
subject to Massachusetts taxes.
What about a New Hampshire resident who used to commute to
Massachusetts?
A
no-brainer, surely. If you don’t live in Massachusetts, and you
no longer work in Massachusetts, then Massachusetts has no right
to tax your earnings. What could be more self-evident?
Until last spring, that was the law. The Massachusetts
Department of Revenue itself said so: “Compensation for services
rendered by a non-resident wholly outside Massachusetts, even
though payment may be made from an office or place of business
in Massachusetts,” the department affirmed in a 1984 ruling, “is
not subject to the individual income tax.” And if a New
Hampshire resident employed by a Massachusetts company divided
his hours between Massachusetts and New Hampshire? In that case,
“only that portion of his salary attributable to his work in
Massachusetts will be taxed.”
Then came the pandemic. Massachusetts declared an emergency and
ordered non-essential workplaces to close. Many of the 84,000
New Hampshire residents who had been commuting to jobs in the
Bay State switched to working from home. Under the rule that had
been in place for decades, Massachusetts could no longer tax
their income.
So it invented a new rule.
In April, the Department of Revenue published an “emergency
regulation” declaring that any income earned by a nonresident
who used to work in Massachusetts but was now telecommuting from
out of state “will continue to be treated as Massachusetts
source income subject to personal income tax.” For the first
time ever, Massachusetts was claiming the authority to tax
income earned by persons who neither lived nor worked in
Massachusetts....
New Hampshire isn’t fighting alone. Fourteen other states have
filed briefs urging the Supreme Court to take up its complaint.
They urge the justices to reassert and reinvigorate a basic
principle of the Constitution’s federal system: that the power
of states to tax nonresidents’ income does not extend past their
own borders....
According to the National Taxpayers Union, at least 2.1 million
Americans who previously crossed state lines for work are now
working from home because of COVID-19 restrictions. When the
pandemic ends, remote work is expected to remain far more common
than it used to be. The unfairness of what Massachusetts began
doing last spring, and of what a few other states have been
doing for much longer, will grow more galling. Only the Supreme
Court has the power to shut down such overreaching. Now, thanks
to New Hampshire, it has the opportunity.
In Massachusetts rapacious
government greed has no limits, and self-serving politicians have no
shame. Supposedly they are the most popular in the nation,
celebrated around the state for their character and methods.
Too many Bay Staters have frighteningly low standards.
Sometimes, if not usually, the state's
insatiable greed and overreaching stretches backfire. Such is
the case with the state's ban on flavored tobacco products,
according the the Washington DC-based Tax Foundation. An
excerpt from
its report released on Tuesday ("Massachusetts
Flavored Tobacco Ban Has Severe Impact on Tax Revenue"):
Since June 1, 2020, Massachusetts
has banned the sale of flavored tobacco products,
including menthol cigarettes. When signing the ban into
law, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) argued that the ban, which
is the broadest in the country, was enacted to limit
youth uptake of nicotine products. While youth uptake is
a very real concern which deserves the public’s
attention, outright bans could impede historically high
smoking cessation rates. Lawmakers must thread the
needle between protecting adult smokers’ ability to
switch and barring minors’ access to nicotine
products....
Seven months into Massachusetts’
flavor ban, early data is available for the real-world
effects. If we only look at Massachusetts, the figures
may look like a public health success story at first:
sales of cigarette tax stamps in the Bay State have
declined 24 percent comparing June-November 2020 to the
same months of 2019. In the first half of 2020,
Massachusetts only experienced a decline of roughly 10
percent compared to the first half of 2019....
Unfortunately, if we dig a little
deeper, it becomes evident that Massachusetts’ flavor
ban has not limited use, just changed where Bay Staters
purchase cigarettes. In fact, sales of cigarette tax
stamps in the Northeast (Massachusetts as well as
Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode
Island, and Vermont) have stayed remarkably stable, even
increased a bit, following Massachusetts’ ban when
compared to sales in 2019....
If we look at individual states, we
can see that increases are skewed. The increase in sales
in the Northeast region is most notable in Rhode Island
and New Hampshire, but all have seen increased sales
immediately following the ban. Unsurprisingly, New
Hampshire benefits the most as that is already the state
in the nation with the highest outflow of cigarettes.
The declining and increasing sales
obviously impact excise tax revenue in all these states.
Massachusetts collected $557 million in cigarette and
other tobacco products (OTP) excise taxes in FY 2019
($515 million from cigarettes). For FY 2020, sales
decreased 10 percent in the first half of 2020 which
translates to a decline in revenue of roughly $50
million.
While this is still in the early
days, assuming FY 2021’s accelerated decline of over 20
percent continues through the rest of the fiscal year,
the cost of the flavor ban could end up being
approximately $120 million for FY 2021 (not including
sales tax losses). Over $100 million is a significant
cost to the state, especially considering that sales are
simply shifting to other states, not actually being
eliminated.
There was a great gnashing of teeth on
Beacon Hill last week over Gov. Baker's vetoes of the Legislature's
long past-due major bills. You can read the full news reports
below (CommonWealth Magazine's "Baker vetoes key policy initiatives
in transportation bond bill"; the Boston Globe's "Baker vetoes
Uber, Lyft fee increase as he signs off on $16 billion in
transportation borrowing"; the State House News Service's "Bill
Filed to Restart Talks on Climate, Emissions.")
The State House News Service accurately
laid the blame on Tuesday in its report "Long
Session Ends with Deluge of Baker Vetoes":
Gov. Charlie Baker has been taking criticism for his veto of the
climate and greenhouse gas emissions bill, as well as measures
included in omnibus economic development and transportation
bills, but the Democrats who run the Legislature left themselves
in a vulnerable position by leaving some of last session's most
important business until the final days and even hours available
for lawmaking....
But by waiting to send major bills to Baker until the final days
of the two-year session and turning Jan. 5 into an all-night
session, Democrats who possess super-majorities in both chambers
gave up their advantage and left themselves without an
opportunity to flex their power and override the governor's
vetoes.
The last of the big vetoes were handed down Friday when Baker,
while signing a $16.5 billion transportation bond bill, hacked
off a series of proposals.
After House and Senate Democrats failed during the last session
to find common ground on new transportation revenues, they tried
to salvage fee increases on transportation networking companies
by stuffing them into the bond bill, only to see Baker nix that
measure with a veto....
After voting in July to extend formal sessions, the House and
Senate had months to finalize the bills while leaving themselves
time to deal with Baker amendments or vetoes, as they were able
to do with abortion and policing reform bills.
But as the last month of session wound down in December, and
pressure intensified to reach agreements, the House was
distracted by a late-session leadership change, with former
Speaker Robert DeLeo stepping down and representatives electing
Rep. Ronald Mariano to succeed him. It's unclear if the upheaval
affected House-Senate conference committee talks, but Democrats
did box themselves out by leaving key matters until the final
days of session.
The Massachusetts unemployment rate is
back on the increase, reported the State House News Service on
Friday ("Mass. Jobless Rate
Rose in December to 7.4 Percent"):
The state's unemployment rate ticked back up in December,
climbing to 7.4 percent and again rising above the national
average, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
announced Friday morning....
At 7.4 percent, the Massachusetts unemployment rate is worse
than the national average rate of 6.7 percent. It is also more
than two and a half times the rate from one year ago, 2.8
percent, according to EOLWD.
Massachusetts has lagged most other states when it comes to
recovering jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic and some
trends in the state's labor market data "implying deeper labor
market challenges" were highlighted this week in a report from
Fitch Ratings.
In its preliminary
report on Thursday the News Service noted:
While
Massachusetts' official unemployment rate improved in November,
Fitch said its own adjusted unemployment rate for the state got
worse, "implying deeper labor market challenges." Massachusetts,
Iowa and Vermont are the only three states that have a
Fitch-adjusted jobless rate that is five percentage points or
more higher than the official number.
Boston Herald columnist
and WRKO talkshow host Howie Carr has this all figured out.
Vast employment improvements are coming soon to a depressed nation.
With Biden now installed as the new president there will be little
if any need to continue the draconian lockdowns
— mission accomplished.
From his Friday column ("Without Trump
to blame, coronavirus turns the corner"):
Have you noticed something missing
from the home page of your local news outlet in the last
couple of days?
COVID-19 has gone MIA.
If not quite totally vanished, the
coronavirus is certainly fading from the front pages. No
more apocalyptic headlines about “cases” and
“infections” which usually mean … not very much.
A year ago, it was the greatest
threat to humankind since the Black Death. Now it’s on
the verge of becoming just another seasonal virus.
What could possibly have changed
over the last couple of days to reduce a yearlong
torrent of unhinged, fact-free hysteria to a mere
trickle?
We all know the answer to that
question: Trump is gone. There is no longer any upside
to promoting the panic because 45 is no longer
president.
Mission Accomplished!
Any bad news now belongs to
Dementia Joe. Ergo, no bad news....
Just as “the homeless” disappear
whenever a Democrat takes office, along with rising gas
prices or drone bombing of “wedding parties” in
terrorist states, seldom will be heard a discouraging
word about COVID-19 until further notice.
If you doubt that the air is
rapidly deflating out of almost a year’s worth of
breathless hysteria in the alt-left media, just Google
“New COVID-19 cases decline.”
Here’s a small sampling over the
last 72 hours:
From CNN: “New Covid-19 cases
declined 11% after hitting a peak last week.”
Wall Street Journal: “Newly
Reported U.S. Coronavirus Cases Decline Again.”
National Panhandler Radio:
“Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus Surge Has Peaked.”
At least until the mid-term
elections, when the Democrats will be needing to ramp up
mail-in voting yet again, because it worked so well in
November in the rotten boroughs where voter turnout
sometimes exceeded 100%.
That’s why Big COVID is hedging its
bets just a bit, allowing such future potential horrors
as “mutant strain B.1.1.7” to start warming up in the
bullpen — just in case.
This is nothing new. Recall how Big
Pharma didn’t announce that the vaccines were ready to
go until Nov. 5, when it was too late to benefit
Trump....
More a century ago, H.L. Mencken,
the Sage of Baltimore, exactly summed up how COVID-19
would be used by the Democrats:
“The whole aim of practical
politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence
clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
...
COVID-19? Nothing to see here,
folks, move along.
Sounds right in line with what many of
us have long suspected, dare I say expected.
As I noted above in my "how to boil a
frog" analogy above, sometimes the best thing a potential meal
ticket can do is jump out of the pot before the temperature gets too
hot. The contrast between Massachusetts and Kentucky is
becoming more and more stark. By members' requests some weeks
ago I provided a few comparisons (Observations
from the Bluegrass State on November 29 and
A Tale of Two
Commonwealths on December 6).
As I informed readers in A Tale of
Two Commonwealths, last month I contacted my state Senator, Mike
Wilson, with
my advice and recommendations for reining in the Kentucky
Democrat governor's unilateral China Virus pandemic decrees.
I'm satisfied that this is the direction the state Senate is taking.
For those interested, I'm providing
more insight and an update below, following
the full news reports. While Kentucky is overwhelmingly
conservative Republican (as you will see below) somehow voters
elected a Democrat as governor in 2019, by only some 5,000 votes
statewide. The General Assembly (legislature) is now acting to
limit if not remove his overreach response to the China Virus
pandemic. (As a part-time legislature this is the first
opportunity it has had to act on anything since last March.)
For many decades I've been a strong
advocate for part-time legislatures with fixed, limited sessions.
Anything more inevitably leads to mission creep; witness The
Peoples’ Republic of Taxachusetts where legislators have far too
much free time on their hands so create stupid laws.
Over that time I have been directly involved with two petitions
drives to limit sessions in the Massachusetts Legislature to six
months.
Admittedly the possibility of a
governor going rogue, unrestricted by legislative checks and
balances, had never crossed my mind and apparently those of others.
Of course until the past year there hadn't been the
likelihood of a governor seizing such unrestrained power.
But when you compare Kentucky with
Massachusetts and its compliant "fulltime" legislators
— what difference has limited vs.
year-around sessions made?
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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
Monday, January 18, 2021
TCI opponents push other states to reject controversial carbon
tax
By Erin Tiernan
Opponents of a controversial carbon tax that will push up the
price of gas are lobbying a consortium of mid-Atlantic states to
reject an agreement Massachusetts struck last month with several
other states in an effort to doom the deal.
“TCI is a poor concept that is fundamentally regressive,
economically damaging and places an unnecessary financial burden
on people who can least afford it. Please reject it,”
Massachusetts-based Citizens for Limited Taxation wrote
in an open letter signed by 20 other groups.
The Transportation Climate Initiative championed by Gov. Charlie
Baker aims to reduce motor vehicle pollution by at least 26% and
generate over $1.8 billion in Massachusetts by 2032, according
to a deal Massachusetts signed with Rhode Island, Connecticut
and Washington, D.C. It will up the price of gas by 5 to 7 cents
per gallon, according to state estimates. Eight other states are
still considering the deal.
Chip Ford of CLT told the Herald he’s concerned over the
“lack of accountability” the program creates and said tax
increases should be a function of the Legislature, not the
governor alone. He hopes that if other states fail to sign on,
the program will run out of gas.
He also argued the cap-and-invest program would cost low-income
residents the most, as companies will pass costs along to the
consumer.
The state has yet to lay out its plans for spending the roughly
$160 million that will be raised annually through the program. A
minimum of 35% of the proceeds will be reinvested in communities
most affected by air pollution, but Stacy Thompson of the
Liveable Streets Alliance said it isn’t enough.
“Even the best case scenario for TCI is just not enough to meet
the full scope of the transportation challenges we’re facing,”
Thompson said.
Baker spearheaded the TCI agreement and touted the December
agreement as a major victory for his administration. But the
Republican governor has since issued a series of vetoes that
Thompson called “an economic slap in the face.” Baker struck
down the Legislature’s attempts to impose a series of benchmarks
that would have set the state on a course to achieve is
“net-zero” carbon goals for 2050 and gutted its efforts to cut
costs for low-income MBTA riders by levying higher fees on
ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.
“There’s a disconnect,” Thompson said. “We’re not matching
resources to the needs of the state and that should worry
people.”
The state has committed to a public process to determine how
reinvestment funds are spent but has yet to lay out those plans.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Voters hold Beacon Hill in high esteem
Mass. governor, lawmakers lead nation in popularity
By Steve Koczela
Politics is not all toxic. Here in Massachusetts, voters hold
political leaders in very high regard. The state Legislature has
climbed to 65 percent approval in a poll we released last week,
the highest we have seen in our polling going back over a
decade. Gov. Charlie Baker sports a 73 percent approval rating
and has been in the 70s and 80s for most of his term. Taken
together, we have what may be the most popular governor and the
most popular legislature in the country.
We’ve been riding high for a little while now. A 2018 nationwide
poll found the Massachusetts Legislature atop the list of most
popular legislative bodies. And nationwide polls tracking
approval ratings have often found Baker at or near the top of
the most popular governors. Putting the two together shows how
much of an outlier Massachusetts truly is. Maryland — another
blue state with a moderate Republican governor — is the only
other state that comes close. A few states do not appear on this
chart due to insufficient sample sizes for their state
legislature polls. The gubernatorial polling was done in 2019
before the elections that year.
Massachusetts is also heads and shoulders above the federal
government, where Donald Trump is closing out his term with a
job approval in the 30s. If that sounds bad, Congress hasn’t
topped 30 percent job approval in more than 10 years.
Why this is uniquely the case here in Massachusetts is not
entirely clear. It’s not the fact that Massachusetts is more or
less a one party state, though we certainly are. Other than the
governor, the state Republican Party barely exists, and spends
much of its time and energy in full scale war with itself. But
the high ratings are not just Democratic voters appreciating
Democratic leaders. There are plenty of states with unified
control where voters hold their leaders in modest regard.
The truth may be that we don’t dislike politics or politicians
here the way popular culture suggests we should. Even during
campaigns, candidates locked in hard-fought races often come out
looking good. Both Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and her
opponent (now former) Congressman Michael Capuano were well
liked despite a spirited campaign. Same with Scott Brown and
Elizabeth Warren, Joe Kennedy III and Ed Markey, and Tito
Jackson and Marty Walsh among many other examples. Running for
office in Massachusetts doesn’t have to leave your name and
reputation in tatters.
There is not an obvious way we are different that explains why
this is. No matter what characteristic we look at (geography,
size, party distribution, etc) there are other states that fit
the same model where the numbers are not as high. It’s also not
unambiguously good, since it creates incentives for stasis and
incrementalism when the need for change is both immense and
immediate.
Our polling throughout the pandemic finds voters with a long
to-do list for political leaders. The challenge is lighting a
fire under lawmakers with so little heat coming from voters.
Action on legislation sometimes comes from friction between the
two branches, but with voters largely content (or not paying
attention), the governor and the Legislature have settled into a
pattern of homey incrementalism.
For now, Massachusetts voters continue to hold Beacon Hill in
high esteem. That’s a rare bright spot in an otherwise dismal
political landscape. Let’s see how long it lasts.
— Steve Koczela is the president
and Rich Parr is the research director at the MassINC Polling
Group.
The Boston
Globe
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Why New Hampshire is suing Massachusetts
The pandemic has kept Granite State commuters home.
The Bay State wants to tax their income anyway.
By Jeff Jacoby
Freedom from income taxes is a New Hampshire delight: The
Granite State is one of nine that don’t tax ordinary income. Of
course, that benefit doesn’t apply to New Hampshire residents
who commute to work across the Massachusetts border. Income
earned inside Massachusetts by an out-of-state resident is
subject to Massachusetts taxes.
What about a New Hampshire resident who used to commute to
Massachusetts?
A no-brainer, surely. If you don’t live in Massachusetts, and
you no longer work in Massachusetts, then Massachusetts has no
right to tax your earnings. What could be more self-evident?
Until last spring, that was the law. The Massachusetts
Department of Revenue itself said so: “Compensation for services
rendered by a non-resident wholly outside Massachusetts, even
though payment may be made from an office or place of business
in Massachusetts,” the department affirmed in a 1984 ruling, “is
not subject to the individual income tax.” And if a New
Hampshire resident employed by a Massachusetts company divided
his hours between Massachusetts and New Hampshire? In that case,
“only that portion of his salary attributable to his work in
Massachusetts will be taxed.”
Then came the pandemic. Massachusetts declared an emergency and
ordered non-essential workplaces to close. Many of the 84,000
New Hampshire residents who had been commuting to jobs in the
Bay State switched to working from home. Under the rule that had
been in place for decades, Massachusetts could no longer tax
their income.
So it invented a new rule.
In April, the Department of Revenue published an “emergency
regulation” declaring that any income earned by a nonresident
who used to work in Massachusetts but was now telecommuting from
out of state “will continue to be treated as Massachusetts
source income subject to personal income tax.” For the first
time ever, Massachusetts was claiming the authority to tax
income earned by persons who neither lived nor worked in
Massachusetts.
Not surprisingly, New Hampshire strenuously objected to its
neighbor’s unprecedented tax grab. When Massachusetts refused to
reconsider, New Hampshire turned to the Supreme Court, which
adjudicates lawsuits between states. The justices are expected
to decide this month whether to take the case.
Massachusetts, naturally, wants the justices to give New
Hampshire the brush-off. A brief filed by Attorney General Maura
Healey disparages New Hampshire’s complaint as lacking
“seriousness and dignity” and insists that Massachusetts “is not
injuring New Hampshire itself” by withholding millions of
dollars in taxes from the paychecks of New Hampshire residents.
If any of those residents object to being taxed by
Massachusetts, Healey’s brief suggests, they can always file for
an abatement. If that doesn’t work, they can always appeal to
the Appellate Tax Board. Why should the Supreme Court concern
itself with what amounts, at most, to the personal tax gripes of
New Hampshire telecommuters?
But Massachusetts has indeed injured New Hampshire itself. It
has launched what amounts to an attack on a fundamental aspect
of New Hampshire’s sovereign identity — its principled refusal
to tax the income earned in New Hampshire by New Hampshire
residents. It was one thing for Massachusetts to withhold taxes
from New Hampshire residents for income earned within the
borders of Massachusetts. But with its new tax rule,
Massachusetts is reaching over the border to extract taxes,
thereby undermining a core New Hampshire policy.
“Through its unprecedented action,” the New Hampshire brief
argues, “Massachusetts has unilaterally imposed an income tax
within New Hampshire that New Hampshire, in its sovereign
discretion, has deliberately chosen not to impose.”
New Hampshire isn’t fighting alone. Fourteen other states have
filed briefs urging the Supreme Court to take up its complaint.
They urge the justices to reassert and reinvigorate a basic
principle of the Constitution’s federal system: that the power
of states to tax nonresidents’ income does not extend past their
own borders.
To be fair, Massachusetts isn’t the first state to violate the
principle. A few states, including New York and Pennsylvania,
have for years been taxing nonresidents for income they earn
working at home. Resentment by other states has been heating up
for years. Now the pandemic, by transforming tens of millions of
employees into work-from-home telecommuters overnight, may have
pushed the issue past the boiling point.
States with no income tax, like New Hampshire, aren’t the only
ones affected when their work-from-home residents are taxed by
another state. So are states that do tax income, because they
commonly provide a credit to residents for taxes paid to other
states. That protects their own citizens from double taxation —
but it also means the loss of billions of dollars that would
otherwise be available to fund public services. In one of the
briefs supporting New Hampshire’s litigation, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Hawaii, and Iowa call this “the Hobson’s Choice to
which they are put: doubly tax residents’ income or suffer
fiscal consequences.”
According to the National Taxpayers Union, at least 2.1 million
Americans who previously crossed state lines for work are now
working from home because of COVID-19 restrictions. When the
pandemic ends, remote work is expected to remain far more common
than it used to be. The unfairness of what Massachusetts began
doing last spring, and of what a few other states have been
doing for much longer, will grow more galling. Only the Supreme
Court has the power to shut down such overreaching. Now, thanks
to New Hampshire, it has the opportunity.
Tax
Foundation
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Massachusetts Flavored Tobacco Ban Has Severe Impact on Tax
Revenue
By Ulrik Boesen
Since June 1, 2020, Massachusetts has banned the sale of
flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. When
signing the ban into law, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) argued that the
ban, which is the broadest in the country, was enacted to limit
youth uptake of nicotine products. While youth uptake is a very
real concern which deserves the public’s attention, outright
bans could impede historically high smoking cessation rates.
Lawmakers must thread the needle between protecting adult
smokers’ ability to switch and barring minors’ access to
nicotine products.
Aside from public health concerns, a ban on flavored tobacco,
especially when including cigarettes, has significant tax
implications and could result in unintended consequences such as
increased smuggling. In Massachusetts, more than 21 percent of
cigarettes smoked were purchased out of state in 2018 (latest
data).
Tobacco excise taxes are already an unstable source of tax
revenue. Further narrowing the tobacco tax base by banning a
portion of tobacco sales altogether could worsen the instability
of this revenue source while driving up the costs of
administration and law enforcement associated with the ban,
especially if the lost revenue is made up by raising the tax
rate on the remaining tobacco tax base.
Other states that are considering implementing a similar ban may
want to consider the lessons from Massachusetts. Maryland is one
of these states, but if its experience mirrors Massachusetts, it
could prove an extraordinarily expensive exercise. In fact, the
bill could be even larger in Maryland than in Massachusetts as,
according to industry data, 55 percent of smokers in the state
smoke menthol products (in Massachusetts that figure was only 34
percent).
Seven months into Massachusetts’ flavor ban, early data is
available for the real-world effects. If we only look at
Massachusetts, the figures may look like a public health success
story at first: sales of cigarette tax stamps in the Bay State
have declined 24 percent comparing June-November 2020 to the
same months of 2019. In the first half of 2020, Massachusetts
only experienced a decline of roughly 10 percent compared to the
first half of 2019.
Those numbers would seem to back up the best argument for
implementing a ban: limiting use of tobacco and nicotine.
Unfortunately, if we dig a little deeper, it becomes evident
that Massachusetts’ flavor ban has not limited use, just changed
where Bay Staters purchase cigarettes. In fact, sales of
cigarette tax stamps in the Northeast (Massachusetts as well as
Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and
Vermont) have stayed remarkably stable, even increased a bit,
following Massachusetts’ ban when compared to sales in 2019.
From June 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020, 230,797,000 stamps were
sold in the region. For the same period in 2019, that number was
225,897,000. This slight increase trends against the national
figures, where sales in 2020 were projected to decline around 2
percent. In other words, Massachusetts sales plummeted, but not
because people quit smoking—only because those sales went
elsewhere.
If we look at individual states, we can see that increases are
skewed. The increase in sales in the Northeast region is most
notable in Rhode Island and New Hampshire, but all have seen
increased sales immediately following the ban. Unsurprisingly,
New Hampshire benefits the most as that is already the state in
the nation with the highest outflow of cigarettes.
The declining and increasing sales obviously impact excise tax
revenue in all these states. Massachusetts collected $557
million in cigarette and other tobacco products (OTP) excise
taxes in FY 2019 ($515 million from cigarettes). For FY 2020,
sales decreased 10 percent in the first half of 2020 which
translates to a decline in revenue of roughly $50 million.
While this is still in the early days, assuming FY 2021’s
accelerated decline of over 20 percent continues through the
rest of the fiscal year, the cost of the flavor ban could end up
being approximately $120 million for FY 2021 (not including
sales tax losses). Over $100 million is a significant cost to
the state, especially considering that sales are simply shifting
to other states, not actually being eliminated.
In December 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue
estimated the ban would decrease collections by the slightly
lower $93 million in FY 2021. Whichever proves right, that
revenue is now being collected by Massachusetts neighbors.
Furthermore, these figures only account for cigarettes.
According to Massachusetts’ own Illegal Tobacco Task Force,
smokeless tobacco is commonly smuggled into the state due to the
state’s high excise rates (210 percent of wholesale value).
Because of the flavor ban, this smuggling activity is expected
to increase. The available data for FY 2021 (through November
2020) indicates that legal sale of smokeless tobacco and OTP in
the state is already down 35 percent compared to the previous
year.
State tax coffers are not all that is impacted by this ban,
however. Bans impact the large number of small business owners
operating vape shops, convenience stores, and gas stations.
Policymakers should not lose sight of the law of unintended
consequences as they set tax rates and regulatory regimes for
nicotine products.
All in all, early signs indicate that the ban will not decrease
tobacco consumption in the state. It is not in the interest of
Massachusetts to pursue a public health measure that merely
sends tax revenue to its neighboring states without improving
public health—nor should this approach be copied by other
states. In addition, the ban on flavored tobacco highlights the
complications of contradictory tax and regulatory policy, the
instability of excise taxes that go beyond pricing in the cost
of externalities, and the public risks of driving consumers into
the black market through excessive taxation or regulation.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Friday, January 15, 2021
Baker vetoes key policy initiatives in transportation bond bill
New Uber, Lyft fees and Spilka toll restriction scrapped
By Bruce Mohl
Gov. Charlie Baker signed the Legislature’s transportation bond
bill into law on Friday, but used his line-item veto to remove
proposals raising fees on Uber and Lyft rides, establishing
means-tested fares on public transit, and an initiative pushed
by Senate President Karen Spilka that would prohibit increases
in Turnpike tolls to help pay for the Allston I-90 interchange
project.
The $16 billion bond bill authorizes the state to borrow money
to finance all sorts of ongoing transportation projects,
including bridge repairs, road improvements, and public transit
initiatives such as the Green Line extension and South Coast
Rail. The bill passed by the Legislature in the wee hours of
January 6 also contained a number of new policy initiatives that
Baker decided to scrap. Because the Legislature that passed the
bill is no longer in session, the governor’s vetoes cannot be
overridden.
One key policy initiative in the bill called for replacing the
current 20-cent fee on Uber and Lyft rides with a 40-cent fee on
shared rides and a $1.20 fee on non-shared rides. The proposal
also added a $1 fee on rides in luxury vehicles and a special
20-cent transit fee on all rides originating and ending in 14
communities in the Greater Boston area. The Metropolitan Area
Planning Council estimated the fees would raise upwards of $56
million at current traffic levels.
Baker said the proposal was premature. “This proposal would
create a complicated fee structure that is based on pre-pandemic
assumptions,” he said in a letter to the Legislature. “Before
instituting fees that are aimed at incentivizing certain travel
behaviors, we need to understand what ridership and congestion
patterns are going to look like after the pandemic.”
In similar fashion, Baker deleted a proposal authorizing the
MBTA and possibly regional transit authorities to implement
means-tested fares – fares based on the income level of the
rider. Even though the governor’s MBTA Fiscal and Management
Control Board is pushing for means-tested fares, Baker said the
legislative provision was also premature.
“More study is needed to understand how transit authorities can
implement fare systems that depend on gathering information
about riders’ incomes and to understand what the revenue loss
would be and how that revenue would be replaced,” Baker said.
“No means-tested fares can be implemented until the MBTA and
RTAs have a financially sustainable plan in place to replace the
lost revenue.”
The Spilka provision, which would bar toll increases to pay for
the roughly $1 billion Allston project, was tacked on to a much
larger section directing how mitigation for the disruptive
project should be handled. In his letter, Baker did not address
the toll issue but said the section of the bill he was excising
contained conditions that could not be met. He said he would
work with the Legislature to address concerns raised by the
section.
Baker also vetoed a provision directing that all revenue from
the governor’s transportation climate initiative, which places a
price on the carbon contained in vehicle fuels, should go into
the state’s Commonwealth Transportation Fund. Rep. William
Straus of Mattapoisett, the House’s point person on
transportation, inserted the provision to clarify where the
revenues should go.
Straus has said he believes the state constitution requires the
revenues to go into the transportation fund. Baker, who has said
half of the money would go to public transit, disagreed. “I
believe it is more appropriate for a significant portion of this
funding to be available for more flexible emissions reduction
and equity investments,” he said.
Baker also vetoed a provision establishing a congestion pricing
commission, saying much more needs to be understood about the
future of work before congestion pricing can be considered.
Straus and his Senate counterpart, Joseph Boncore of Winthrop,
could not immediately be reached for comment.
Transportation advocates panned the governor’s vetoes,
particularly his veto.of new Uber and Lyft fees and his
dismantling of the proposal for means-tested fares. “Many of the
governor’s vetoes are counter to his own proposals and are
inconsistent with recommendations from the 2018 Commission on
the Future of Transportation,” said Rick Dimino, president and
CEO of the business group A Better City.
Transit Is Essential, a coalition of 60 organizations, lamented
the vetoes, singling out the rejection of means-tested fares.
The group urged legislative leaders to react to the
transportation bond bill vetoes the same way they did to the
veto of the climate change bill. “We urge the Massachusetts
Legislature to act swiftly to pass these provisions again and to
take action on stable, recurring revenue dedicated to transit
statewide,” the group said in a statement.
The Boston
Globe
Friday, January 15, 2021
Baker vetoes Uber, Lyft fee increase as he signs off on $16
billion in transportation borrowing
Governor also rejects a low-income fare discount on the MBTA.
By Adam Vaccaro
Governor Charlie Baker, who proposed a fee increase on Uber and
Lyft trips twice in 2020, on Friday vetoed a proposal to do just
that, while approving a broader borrowing package that will
authorize up to $16 billion in spending on transportation
projects.
The transportation bond bill will fund a wide array of projects,
such as reconfiguration of the roads near the Cape Cod bridges,
construction of South Coast Rail commuter service to New Bedford
and Fall River, and the electrification of parts of the commuter
rail, as well as many other smaller-scale road, bridge, and
transit projects. In a statement, Baker said the bill will allow
“significant investments for building and modernizing a
statewide transportation system for our residents, businesses
and communities.”
But while approving of the bulk of the measure passed by the
Legislature, Baker vetoed a number of policy proposals in it
that lawmakers attached to the bill, including ones to explore
reduced transit fares for low-income riders, and congestion
pricing for highway driving.
Most surprising, though, was the governor’s rejection of the
Legislature’s increase in fees on ride-hail trips, to $1.20 for
trips taken by single riders, and to 40 cents for shared rides
in order to encourage more carpooling. A separate surcharge
would have added 20 cents for rides taken within some Greater
Boston communities.
Baker himself had proposed an 80-cent fee increase months before
the Legislature even considered it, and he resurfaced the idea
as recently as October. But, in a letter to lawmakers, the
governor suggested part of his issue was with the differential
pricing between solo trips and shared trips.
“This proposal would create a complicated fee structure that is
based on pre-pandemic assumptions,” Baker wrote. “Before
instituting fees that are aimed at incentivizing certain travel
behaviors, we need to understand what ridership and congestion
patterns are going to look like after the pandemic.”
The move baffled some transportation advocates, who had cheered
Baker’s prior support for increasing the fees to help fund
public transit.
“This decision is a head-scratcher given it’s a proposal he’s
expressed support for in the past,” said Chris Dempsey, director
of the advocacy organization Transportation for Massachusetts.
“He can quibble with the details, but blocking this change
ultimately leaves us with the status quo which he was the first
to say wasn’t working.”
And Representative William Straus, who led the House’s
negotiations on the bill, questioned whether the state can
afford the level of borrowing in the transportation bill without
the revenue from ride-hail fees, which were projected to raise
an additional $95 million a year if ridership returned to 2019
levels.
“If at the end of the day, the administration’s approach is to
borrow money but not support the revenue that backs it up,
that’s an unusual approach,” Straus said.
Baker also cited changes in commuting habits during the pandemic
as he vetoed a proposal to study congestion pricing, which uses
tolls to discourage driving during heavy-traffic periods. In his
letter, he said it’s unclear whether congestion will even remain
a major issue long-term as more people have begun working
remotely during the pandemic.
Also vetoed was a requirement that the MBTA implement a fare
discount for low-income riders, a policy that agency officials
have long promised to enact. In his letter, Baker said he
supports a low-income fare program, but that it cannot go into
place until the MBTA has a plan to fill the revenue it would
lose.
Mela Miles, director of the T Riders Union at the Roxbury
nonprofit Alternatives for Community and Environment, was
frustrated that Baker did not allow the fare measure to stand.
“It’s dismissive. Insensitive. Out of touch with reality, in the
middle of a pandemic when people have lost their jobs,” she
said. “I wish he could be a little more connected to the people
it was being done for, and understand how important that is and
not just look at the bottom line.”
Baker also nixed $250 million in borrowing authorization for the
Allston Massachusetts Turnpike megaproject, even though his
administration has yet to come up with a plan to finance the
$1.3 billion construction. Baker cited provisions in the
borrowing authorization that he said “cannot be met.”
He did not detail which provisions, but the bill included
requirements such as maintaining commuter rail service
throughout construction, not raising tolls, and opening a new
transit station early in the work schedule despite being located
near what would essentially be a huge construction site.
Because lawmakers passed the bill in the closing hours of the
last Legislative session, they do not have the opportunity to
override Baker’s veto. Straus, the state representative, said he
expects to discuss these issues again during the new session.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Bill Filed to Restart Talks on Climate, Emissions
Baker's Views Central Ahead of Reopening of Debate
By Matt Murphy
The climate and emissions reduction bill vetoed by Gov. Charlie
Baker last week has been refiled by House and Senate leaders in
the hopes of quickly returning the legislation to the governor,
only this time with the opportunity to override a veto if it
comes.
The bill, which was negotiated last session between the House
and Senate over five months of private talks, was refiled by
Sen. Michael Barrett and Rep. Thomas Golden late Tuesday
afternoon in the Senate, but Senate President Karen Spilka's
office said there were no concrete plans yet for a vote on the
bill.
Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano issued a joint statement
calling the legislation that passed the House and Senate on Jan.
4, two days before the session ended, an "ambitious and ground
breaking climate bill" that had bipartisan support.
"Months of work was exhaustively studied by members of the
conference committee, and the result was a bill that rejects the
false choice between economic growth and addressing climate
change. We must combat climate change while also maintaining a
thriving economy and expanding the housing stock that will
ensure future, sustainable growth. The legislation sent to the
Governor showed how it can be done," Spilka and Mariano said.
Both leaders said they hoped the Legislature would act with
"urgency," but did not lay out a timeline for taking up the
legislation, or say whether it would get a public hearing.
Earlier in the day, legislative officials told the News Service
that the Baker administration was attempting to persuade
lawmakers to consider amendments to the bill based on his
positions before it comes up for another vote.
One legislative official said they thought Democrats could be
open to modest changes, but had not yet seen specific proposals
from the governor's office. Any changes, if not agreed to by
both branches, could slow the bill's movement through the
Legislature, and could even require another conference
committee.
"We are confident that members of the House and Senate will
again act with urgency by swiftly sending this bill back to
Governor Baker’s desk," Spilka and Mariano said.
Baker last week vetoed the bill that would have required
Massachusetts to become carbon neutral by 2050 and establish the
most ambitious timeline for carbon emission reductions in the
country.
While Baker supports the 2050 net-zero goal, the governor said
he worried that by allowing cities and towns to adopt a new
net-zero building code it could stop housing production at a
time when he's trying to encourage more construction.
Baker, in his veto letter, also raised concerns with the interim
emission target for 2030 of 50 percent below 1990 levels, which
he described as an unnecessary target that would cost $6 billion
more than his administration's target of 45 percent.
Both the House and Senate have created temporary Ways and Means,
Rules, and Bills in the Third Reading committees to to handle
bills while legislative leaders mull committee assignments for
the new session.
The Senate set up its committee structure on Tuesday during a
short informal session, and referred the bill to the temporary
Committee on Ways and Means.
The 40-member Senate has just two new members this session;
there are 17 new members in the 160-seat House.
The omnibus climate bill cleared the branches last session by
veto-proof votes of 145-9 in the House 38-2 in the Senate.
If the Legislature were to act quickly to reenact the same
climate bill, Baker could return the legislation with
amendments, which he was unable to do after Jan. 6 when the
191st General Court dissolved.
"One way or another the governor is going to have the
opportunity to participate. The usual course here would be for a
bill to go to him that he could sign or return with amendments.
That's the usual parliamentary route," said Barrett, who
negotiated the bill with Golden, and who is the chief sponsor on
the new bill (S 9).
"Rest assured that we look forward to hearing from him and that
his ideas will get respectfully considered," Barrett said.
Another issue the governor had with the bill included a
requirement for utilities to procure more offshore wind power,
which the Republican said could interfere with interstate talks
to procure clean energy regionally.
He also said the Legislature missed an opportunity to invest in
climate resiliency to prepare for sea level rise, flooding,
droughts and other affects of climate change. He proposed to pay
for these investment by increasing real estate transfer taxes.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Long Session Ends with Deluge of Baker Vetoes
December Speaker Change Preceded Dems' Frantic Finish
By Michael P. Norton
Gov. Charlie Baker has been taking criticism for his veto of the
climate and greenhouse gas emissions bill, as well as measures
included in omnibus economic development and transportation
bills, but the Democrats who run the Legislature left themselves
in a vulnerable position by leaving some of last session's most
important business until the final days and even hours available
for lawmaking.
A disappointed Ben Hellerstein of Environment Massachusetts said
of the climate bill veto: "In the race to 100 percent renewable
energy, this bill was going to take us the first few steps out
of the starting blocks. We'll need to do everything in this
bill, and a lot more, if we want to cross the finish line."
The Newton-Needham Regional Chamber pointed out that another
veto struck a transportation bill provision championed by Senate
President Karen Spilka that would have "made sure those of us
who live and work in the western burbs won't be subject to
higher Mass Pike tolls" to pay for the big I-90 project in
Allston.
And Baker's veto of an economic development bill measure
authorizing local option tenant right-to-purchase bylaws and
ordinances drew the attention of housing activists at City
Life/Vida Urbana who saw the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act
as a "key ingredient in preventing evictions and stabilizing
housing for renters."
But by waiting to send major bills to Baker until the final days
of the two-year session and turning Jan. 5 into an all-night
session, Democrats who possess super-majorities in both chambers
gave up their advantage and left themselves without an
opportunity to flex their power and override the governor's
vetoes.
The last of the big vetoes were handed down Friday when Baker,
while signing a $16.5 billion transportation bond bill, hacked
off a series of proposals.
After House and Senate Democrats failed during the last session
to find common ground on new transportation revenues, they tried
to salvage fee increases on transportation networking companies
by stuffing them into the bond bill, only to see Baker nix that
measure with a veto.
Baker also sliced from the bond bill a proposed commission to
study congestion pricing systems, a requirement that all
proceeds from the Transportation and Climate Initiative be
deposited into the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, and
language instructing the state's 15 regional transit authorities
to study means-tested fares and requiring the MBTA to launch a
low-income fare program.
And the governor rejected another bill (H 5185) that would
require the MBTA to use federal funding to restore spending on
capital projects and reverse a package of service cuts its board
approved in December.
"The Baker Administration is demonstrating yet again it is out
of touch with the transportation needs and frustrations of
Massachusetts residents and businesses," the advocacy group
Transportation for Massachusetts said Friday night. "The
Governor's vetoes of key sections of the bond bill block needed
financial support for transit service statewide, delay the
implementation of a transit fare program for low-income
residents, and leave his Administration less prepared to prevent
a return of our worst-in-the-nation traffic congestion."
The vetoes, the group said, "are a particularly cruel blow to
the essential workers who are relying on public transportation
to keep us healthy, safe, and fed in the midst of the pandemic."
The group left Democrats out of their post-session criticism.
After voting in July to extend formal sessions, the House and
Senate had months to finalize the bills while leaving themselves
time to deal with Baker amendments or vetoes, as they were able
to do with abortion and policing reform bills.
But as the last month of session wound down in December, and
pressure intensified to reach agreements, the House was
distracted by a late-session leadership change, with former
Speaker Robert DeLeo stepping down and representatives electing
Rep. Ronald Mariano to succeed him. It's unclear if the upheaval
affected House-Senate conference committee talks, but Democrats
did box themselves out by leaving key matters until the final
days of session.
Asked about that dynamic, Transportation for Massachusetts
Director Chris Dempsey suggested a softening of House-Senate
relations may be underway.
"Certainly the Legislature shares some blame for passing a Bond
Bill in the waning hours of the session," Dempsey told the News
Service. "Legislative leaders have the opportunity to correct
that by taking up these items immediately to effectively
override the Governor's veto, as they have smartly pledged to do
with the climate bill. The thawing of House-Senate relations in
the early days of Speaker Mariano's tenure is a welcome
development, one that many hope will continue."
The pandemic may have also played a role in how things unfolded.
As the final hours of the session ticked away, Mariano noted how
deadlines, and the possibility of failure, tend to produce
agreements. Had the pandemic not forced changes in legislative
operations and drawn the attention of lawmakers to other urgent
matters, it's possible that the House and Senate might have
agreed on bills earlier in 2020, and salvaged their capacity to
deal with vetoes. That's only speculation though, as
eleventh-hour accords, or disagreements, on major bills are
common when formal sessions end, usually July 31 in
even-numbered years.
Perhaps aware that they had ceded too much ground to the
governor, Mariano and Spilka issued a statement on Jan. 13,
eight days after the last session ended and while Baker was
mulling the House-Senate climate bill accord. They urged Baker
to sign the bill, but said the newly seated House and Senate
were "united in our intention to refile and pass the conference
committee bill in its entirety and get it onto the Governor's
desk in the coming days."
The refile is expected to emerge sometime this week, although
when it will come up for votes in the House and Senate remains
unclear. In the new session the Legislature now needs to decide
how it will hold remote public hearings to accept public
feedback on thousands of bills.
State House News
Service
Friday, January 22, 2021
Mass. Jobless Rate Rose in December to 7.4 Percent
By Colin A. Young
The state's unemployment rate ticked back up in December,
climbing to 7.4 percent and again rising above the national
average, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
announced Friday morning.
Preliminary job estimates from the federal Bureau of Labor
Statistics show that Massachusetts lost 600 jobs in December,
led by a drop of 9,200 leisure and hospitality jobs last month.
Though the private sector actually added 5,200 jobs in December,
it was not enough to make up for the 5,800 lost jobs in the
public sector.
At 7.4 percent, the Massachusetts unemployment rate is worse
than the national average rate of 6.7 percent. It is also more
than two and a half times the rate from one year ago, 2.8
percent, according to EOLWD.
Massachusetts has lagged most other states when it comes to
recovering jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic and some
trends in the state's labor market data "implying deeper labor
market challenges" were highlighted this week in a report from
Fitch Ratings.
The Massachusetts labor force, which includes people who are
employed and those who have actively sought work in the last
four weeks, increased by 70,400 to 3,658,500 in November. EOLWD
said there were 3,386,700 Massachusetts residents employed and
271,800 residents unemployed. The labor participation rate,
which reflects the percentage of working-age adults who are
either employed or seeking a job, was up 1.2 percentage points
to 64.5 percent.
Compared to one year ago, EOLWD said there are 340,900 fewer
residents employed and 165,200 more residents unemployed,
meaning they are actively seeking work.
State House News
Service
Friday, January 22, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Friends in High Places
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
After four years of watching Donald Trump govern by tweet,
President Joe Biden took to the medium from which Trump is now
banned on Wednesday morning with a message of his own.
"It's a new day in America," Biden tweeted.
He was right, of course. Biden was about to institute a mask
mandate on federal property, order the United States back into
the Paris climate accord and stop building a wall along the
border with Mexico.
But the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden as the 46th
president of the United States also ensured that it will soon be
a new day in Massachusetts, with state-federal relations about
to undergo a complete reset.
Baker often said he found Trump's Cabinet to be good to work
with, even if he didn't agree with the man in the Oval Office.
But the upper echelons of the Centers for the Disease Control,
the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Commerce
and the Federal Highway Administration will now be stocked with
true F.O.C. -- Friends of Charlie.
The development at Highway came to light this week in an
announcement Baker described as "bittersweet." After a six-year
stretch that started with the "Snowpocalypse" of 2015 and will
end with a round of pandemic service cuts at the MBTA,
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack is trading Baker for
Biden.
Pollack will begin work next week as deputy administrator of the
Federal Highway Administration. The governor tapped Registrar of
Motor Vehicles Jamey Tesler to fill Pollack's shoes temporarily.
When she was chosen by Baker at the start of his first term,
Pollack was one of the most high-profile examples of what would
become Baker's bipartisan approach to governing -- a Democrat
most closely identified with her work at the Conservation Law
Foundation to extract transit concessions from the state to
mitigate the impacts of the Big Dig.
She leaves as the face of Baker's transportation legacy, an
unwavering ally through good times and bad.
"It just never hurts to have relationships with people in high
places," Baker said Thursday.
And he'll have plenty of them.
As Donald Trump departed Washington, he broke from tradition
once again by skipping his successor's inauguration, and telling
a small group of supporters at Andrews Air Force Base that he
would be "back in some form."
"So, have a good life. We will see you soon. Thank you. Thank
you very much. Thank you very much," Trump said, making his last
public statement as president before jetting off to Florida.
The Massachusetts Republican Party responded to the occasion by
thanking Trump for four years of service, while Baker waited
until after Biden swore his oath of office to make his only
public statement of the day -- a welcome to the new
administration.
Baker is hoping that with the Biden team in charge of vaccine
distribution in Washington the state will get better "visibility
into the pipeline" that is currently delivering about 80,000
doses a week to Massachusetts.
The latest data released by the state Thursday indicated that
359,919 doses of the 591,775 shipped to Massachusetts have been
administered so far as Baker announced a series of steps this
week to increase access to the vaccine. But the governor and
Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel both talked this week
about it being difficult to plan for distribution when the state
is only told on a week-to-week basis how much vaccine to expect.
Congregate care facilities, including prisons and shelters,
began vaccinating this week, and Baker announced that as of
Thursday everyone in Phase I - which newly included home-based
health care and non-COVID care providers -- is now eligible.
To accommodate the growing pool of vaccine-eligible residents,
Baker announced while touring the mass vaccination site at
Gillette Stadium that Fenway Park would open next month as the
state's second mass vaccination site, and that CVS, Walgreens
and other private partners would begin to receive vaccine for
distribution.
The state Public Health Council also approved pharmacy students
and students training to be physician assistants to administer
vaccines after they've been properly trained, adding to a pool
of providers that already included medical and nursing students.
The push to ramp up vaccine distribution came as public health
officials announced that two cases of the more contagious, and
possibly more deadly, strain of the coronavirus first found in
the United Kingdom had been detected in Massachusetts.
It was only a matter of time and Bharel said the safety
protocols, including mask-wearing and distancing, don't change
with the new variant, but a more contagious form of the virus
could eat away at the positive trend lines that prompted Baker
to relax some of the post-holiday restrictions he put in place.
Baker said that since Jan. 1 new cases of COVID-19 had fallen 30
percent, the positive test rate had dropped 30 percent, and
hospitalizations were down 10 percent. Those improving public
health conditions were sufficient to convince him to lift the
stay-at-home advisory and curfews for businesses that he put in
place to protect against the post-Christmas surge.
The governor had been advising people to remain at home between
10 p.m. and 5 a.m., and in order to make that possible had told
businesses like restaurants that they must shut down by 9:30
p.m. each night.
While Baker is lifting those curfews on Monday morning, he's not
adjusting the 25 percent capacity limits for most businesses,
and won't for least another couple of weeks, he said.
The week quite literally revolved around Wednesday and the
activities in D.C., which turned out to be more celebratory than
calamitous, which had been feared. But it was hard not to feel
like the threat of more violence at state capitols kept Beacon
Hill quiet this week.
Lawmakers largely stayed away, though Speaker Ron Mariano and
Senate President Karen Spilka did make good Tuesday on their
promise to refile the climate and emission reduction bill that
Baker vetoed last week unchanged.
The big question now is when will they ask freshly sworn-in
House and Senate legislators to vote on the package that was
negotiated last session, and if they will entertain any changes
-- either ones sought by the governor or their own members -
before they send it back to Baker.
While legislative Democrats plotted their next moves on climate
change, Baker was preparing to give his first pandemic-era
"State of the Commonwealth" address next week and to file a
budget proposal for fiscal 2022.
He and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito teased the governor's budget with
the Massachusetts Municipal Association as a spending plan that
will increase unrestricted local aid by $39.5 million, or 3.5
percent, and for the first time fund the 2019 Student
Opportunity Act.
The MMA sneak peak has been a tradition spanning multiple
governors, and a sign that some things are returning to normal.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The inauguration of Joe Biden was a BFD in
Massachusetts, for more than just the obvious reasons.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, January 21, 2021
Without Trump to blame, coronavirus turns the corner
By Howie Carr
Have you noticed something missing from the home page of your
local news outlet in the last couple of days?
COVID-19 has gone MIA.
If not quite totally vanished, the coronavirus is certainly
fading from the front pages. No more apocalyptic headlines about
“cases” and “infections” which usually mean … not very much.
A year ago, it was the greatest threat to humankind since the
Black Death. Now it’s on the verge of becoming just another
seasonal virus.
What could possibly have changed over the last couple of days to
reduce a yearlong torrent of unhinged, fact-free hysteria to a
mere trickle?
We all know the answer to that question: Trump is gone. There is
no longer any upside to promoting the panic because 45 is no
longer president.
Mission Accomplished!
Any bad news now belongs to Dementia Joe. Ergo, no bad news.
Just as “the homeless” disappear whenever a Democrat takes
office, along with rising gas prices or drone bombing of
“wedding parties” in terrorist states, seldom will be heard a
discouraging word about COVID-19 until further notice.
If you doubt that the air is rapidly deflating out of almost a
year’s worth of breathless hysteria in the alt-left media, just
Google “New COVID-19 cases decline.”
Here’s a small sampling over the last 72 hours:
From CNN: “New Covid-19 cases declined 11% after hitting a peak
last week.”
Wall Street Journal: “Newly Reported U.S. Coronavirus Cases
Decline Again.”
National Panhandler Radio: “Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus
Surge Has Peaked.”
At least until the mid-term elections, when the Democrats will
be needing to ramp up mail-in voting yet again, because it
worked so well in November in the rotten boroughs where voter
turnout sometimes exceeded 100%.
That’s why Big COVID is hedging its bets just a bit, allowing
such future potential horrors as “mutant strain B.1.1.7” to
start warming up in the bullpen — just in case.
This is nothing new. Recall how Big Pharma didn’t announce that
the vaccines were ready to go until Nov. 5, when it was too late
to benefit Trump.
Let’s go state by state: “COVID death rate steadily declining in
CA … (Utah) Rolling 7-day average continues to decline… Ohio:
Hospitalizations continue to decline …Covid-19 Cases Continue to
Decline in Wisconsin … New Cases Continue to Fall in New Mexico
… Erie County’s COVID-19 cases decline … (TN) COVID cases in
state down 27% last week … (SD) Covid-19 hospitalizations fall
below 200 … (LA) NOLA Public Schools’ COVID-19 case decline.”
And so on.
Is there anything Joe Biden can’t do? When does he get the Nobel
Prize for medicine?
On Wednesday, Biden signed an executive order requiring mask
usage on federal land. Then he immediately left for the Lincoln
Monument, where he was photographed … not wearing a mask.
Remember when Slow Joe called Trump “an absolute fool” for not
wearing a mask? That was then, this is now.
More a century ago, H.L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore, exactly
summed up how COVID-19 would be used by the Democrats:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it
with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Even Gov. Charlie Baker’s amen chorus in the Boston media seems
to be drifting away. Where were the lachrymose press conferences
this week? No “friends” of the governor struck down?
You’d think he’d want to herald the fact that Massachusetts
cases “were down 27% from the week before.”
But they don’t want to tamp down the hobgoblin hysteria. That’s
why the state’s daily COVID-19 dashboard is now almost totally
indecipherable. That was, after all, the point. When in doubt,
obfuscate.
But here are the state’s latest statistics: 13,547 Massachusetts
deaths, of which 7,817 have occurred in the nursing homes
regulated by Gov. Parker’s own Department of Public Health.
Nationwide, Massachusetts has the highest per capita nursing
home death toll, with one of every eight residents in them dead
over the last 11 months.
Overall death rate: Massachusetts remains number three with 199
deaths per 100,000, trailing only New Jersey (231) and New York
(213).
In the last two weeks, 753 Massachusetts residents over the age
of 70 have died, of whom 545 were over the age of 80.
Among those under the age of 40, nine perished.
Yet the state remains locked down, our economy in shambles. For
what? The election is over.
By the way, a couple of days ago, the official U.S. death toll
reached 400,000. If Donald Trump had been re-elected, rest
assured that 400,000 figure would have represented a “grim
milestone,” or more likely a “GRIM MILESTONE.”
But now that there’s a Democrat in the White House, grim
milestones are verboten. They’re as extinct now in the
mainstream media as “fact checkers.”
Instead, the 400,000-figure was observed with such anodyne verbs
as “Passes,” “Exceeds,” “Eclipses,” “Surpasses,” or, my
favorite, from NBC, “Joe Biden Consoles Nation.”
COVID-19? Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
It Doesn't
Need To Be The Massachusetts Way
The Kentucky
General Assembly (legislature) convenes in regular session
on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January for
60 days in even-numbered years (its "long session"), and for
30 days in odd-numbered years (its "short session"). The
Kentucky Constitution mandates that a regular session be
completed no later than April 15 in even-numbered years and
March 30 in odd-numbered years.
It can be called back
and convene in special session only at the call of the governor.
Kentucky has a
two-year state budget, created during its "long session," so
doesn't need to create one every year, as is done perpetually in
Massachusetts.
First, here's the
political parties balance of power in the Bluegrass State:
Constitutional Offices —
2020-23
Governor: Andy
Beshear (D)
Lt. Governor: Jacqueline Coleman
(D)
Attorney General: Daniel Cameron
(R)
Treasurer: Allison Ball (R)
Secretary of State: Michael Adams
(R)
Auditor: Mike Harmon (R)
Commissioner of Agriculture: Dr. Ryan F. Quarles
(R)
General
Assembly (State Legislature) —
2021-22
Current
composition of the Kentucky Senate
—
(2021-22)
Republican
Party 30
Democratic Party 8
(State Senators serve staggered four-year terms, half up
for election every two years.)
Current
composition of the Kentucky House of Representatives
—
(2021-22)
Republican
Party 75
Democratic Party 25
Kentucky's
U.S. Congressional Delegation
U.S.
Senators:
Mitch
McConnell (R) -
(2020-2026)
Rand Paul (R) -
(2016-2022)
U.S.
Representatives (2020-21):
CD1 - James
Comer (R)
CD2 - Brett Guthrie (R)
CD3 - John Yarmuth (D)
CD4 - Thomas Massie (R)
CD5 - Harold "Hal" Rogers (R)
CD6 - Garland "Andy" Barr (R)
In 2016,
Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton 63% to 33%.
In 2020 Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden 62% to 36%.
The General Assembly
(legislature) prorogued sine die last March. Under
the state constitution it is prohibited from returning unless
called into special session by order of the governor. Gov.
Andy Beshear refused, decided he enjoyed ruling by edict and
decree. Legislators were angry but were constitutionally
blocked from reacting until they returned to Frankfort for this
year's "short session." On January 5 they returned loaded
for bear — or I should say, Beshear.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/19/kentucky-gov-andy-beshear-vetoes-5-bills-including-covid-19-measures/4211945001/
January 19, 2021
Gov. Andy Beshear vetoes 5 bills, including 3 that limit his
COVID-19 emergency powers
By Joe Sonka
Gov. Andy Beshear
has vetoed five bills passed by the Kentucky General
Assembly during the first week of the 2021 session, all of
which were high-priority legislation for the expanded
Republican supermajorities in both chambers.
Three of the bills
involved scale back his emergency powers to address the
pandemic.
Speaking during
his Tuesday COVID-19 press conference, Beshear said they
would "hamper what have been comparatively successful steps
we've taken in Kentucky."
"We've done a
better job than all of our neighboring states at keeping our
people alive," Beshear said. "Let's not backtrack on that,
especially now that we are vaccinating people — in fact,
vaccinating them at a rate higher than the supply we're
getting."
In addition to
citing Kentucky's COVID-19 per capita death rate trailing
surrounding states, Beshear pointed to polling to suggest
his restrictions are popular in the state.
As Republicans
promised before the session began, the top priority bill in
each chamber took on the governor's COVID-19 restrictions on
businesses and public gatherings, which they viewed as an
arbitrary abuse of power.
• House Bill 1
would allow businesses, schools, nonprofits and churches to
stay open if they meet the COVID-19 guidelines set by either
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or
Kentucky's executive branch, whichever is least restrictive.
• Senate Bill 1
would limit the governor's ability to issue executive orders
during a state of emergency to 30 days unless extended by
the General Assembly, in addition to requiring the attorney
general's permission to suspend a statute under an
emergency.
• Senate Bill 1
would also strip the ability of the governor and the
secretary of state to change the manner of an election
during an emergency, which they did in the primary and
general election last year to allow unprecedented access to
early and mail-in voting options.
• Senate Bill 2
would give legislative committees more oversight and control
over emergency administrative regulations the governor
imposes.
Beshear on Tuesday
repeated criticism of HB 1, saying CDC guidelines are
intended as recommendations and not to usurp state and local
regulations, as they are voluminous and complicated.
The governor also
cited the Kentucky Supreme Court's unanimous decision from
November upholding several of his emergency COVID-19 orders
to suggest HB 1 is unconstitutional, saying that "this is
the executive branch's job."
Beshear also said
SB 1 would be costly to taxpayers, requiring the governor to
call a special session whenever the 30-day period expired on
executive orders under the emergency statute.
The five bills
vetoed by Beshear passed both chambers with a large and
nearly party-line majority. Republicans would need only a
majority vote in each chamber to override the vetoes when
they come back from their break on Feb. 2.
If those vetoes
are overridden, the bills would immediately go into effect,
unless halted by litigation.
House Speaker
David Osborne, R-Prospect, issued a statement saying
Beshear's vetoes were not unexpected but "nevertheless
disappointing," adding that House Republicans "stand ready
to override these vetoes if necessary."
"House Majority
Leadership will reserve comment until we determine whether
the Governor is sincere in his desire to work with us,"
Osborne stated. "After all, ten months of unilateral
decision-making and unchecked spending has provided evidence
otherwise."
A spokesman for
Republican leadership in the Senate did not immediately
reply to a request for comment on the governor's vetoes.
Beshear also
vetoed one anti-abortion bill containing near identical
language to a bill he vetoed shortly after last year's
session of the legislature.
House Bill 2 would
give Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron the
authority to independently regulate and enforce violations
on abortion clinics in Kentucky, who currently can only do
so with clearance from the governor's administration.
Beshear also
vetoed House Bill 5, which would prohibit a governor from
temporarily reorganizing state boards and commissions to
replace its members. He added Tuesday that HB 5 would also
prevent the executive branch from reorganizing its own
cabinets and offices, requiring him "to go to the General
Assembly every time we want to combine two general council
offices to save a little bit of money."
The governor has
until Thursday to sign or veto Senate Bill 9, which would
require doctors to give life-saving measures to any infant
"born alive" during a "failed abortion" or premature birth.
Beshear vetoed a bill from last year's session with similar
language.
Beshear also has
until Monday to sign or veto House Bill 3, the only other
bill given final passage by the General Assembly last week
before it took a three-week break. The legislation would
direct litigation against state agencies or regarding
constitutional matters to be heard in the county where it is
filed, instead of in Franklin Circuit Court.
The governor said
he hoped to communicate with Republican legislators in the
coming days to "see if there is common ground that doesn't
violate the Constitution, that gives the flexibility we need
for what appears to be a mutating virus."
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/22/impeachment-efforts-kentucky-target-beshear-cameron-and-goforth/6675253002/
January 22, 2021
Beshear, Cameron and Goforth
What's with Kentucky's 3 impeachment efforts?
By Ben Tobin
Within two weeks,
Kentucky residents have submitted individual petitions to
impeach three separate elected officials in the Bluegrass
State.
The
Republican-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives
formed a committee to consider a petition created by four
Kentuckians and signed by roughly 50 more to impeach Gov.
Andy Beshear, a Democrat, for his COVID-19 response....
The signatories of
the Beshear impeachment petition argued that the governor
"violated the rights of Kentuckians." The petition
referenced multiple steps the governor took in response to
the coronavirus pandemic after declaring a state of
emergency in March, like a travel ban and forcing all
nonessential businesses to close to in-person traffic....
Following the
House's decision to form an impeachment committee, Beshear
spokeswoman Crystal Staley said the action is "silly and
completely unjustified."
And during a Jan.
12 press briefing, Beshear singled out two of the people who
filed the petition — Jacob Clark of Grayson County and Tony
Wheatley of Mercer County — and compared them to the
insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Beshear said
during the hearing it was dangerous for the state
legislature to "lift these folks up," which is "fanning the
flames of their hate and of their anger." ...
Why did the
Kentucky House of Representatives form a committee for the
Beshear impeachment petition?
House Speaker
David Osborne, R-Prospect, and state Rep. Jason Nemes, a
Republican from Louisville and chairman of the impeachment
committee, have both said they were statutorily required to
create the committee in response to receiving the petition.
"We have to take
it seriously," Osborne said Jan. 9. "This is a serious
issue, regardless of whether anything comes of it or not."
The committee met
for the first time Jan.13 and is scheduled to have its next
meeting on Wednesday.
Osborne and Nemes
previously said the Goforth petition would be sent to the
committee handling the allegations against Beshear, as would
any additional impeachment potentially filed during the 2021
legislative session.
Greg Stumbo, a
Democrat who served as House speaker for eight years,
previously told The Courier Journal while the House is
statutorily required to "act" on such petitions, that did
not necessarily mean creating an impeachment committee.
With the exception
of the impeachment of Agriculture Commissioner Butch
Burnette in 1991, Stumbo said the House received several
petitions per session that were deemed not "credible" after
staff conducted preliminary investigations.
Instead of
creating an impeachment committee, Stumbo said they were
posted to the standing judiciary committee but never called
— which itself was considered an action.
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