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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”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, March 29, 2021
Is Beacon Hill Crazy
Enough Yet? Don't Bank On It!
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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[SD-2462,
An Act Establishing a Public Bank of Massachusetts]
establishes a publicly owned, state-run Bank of
Massachusetts funded to the tune of up to $2 billion through
the sale of bonds, funding from the Legislature and
unclaimed property proceeds. A 10-member board of
directors, chaired by the state treasurer, would provide a
list of potential CFOs and COOs to the governor, secretary
of state and state treasurer who would appoint the officers
by a majority vote.
The Bank would
focus on providing capital access to underbanked
populations, industries, small-business, public-private
partnerships or local governments for development of
infrastructure and business, incorporating broader
public benefits in the climate, equity, health, clean
water and education....
“The Big Dig,
state police overtime pay, RMV backlogged/missing
driver’s license suspensions, Farak, Dookhan and the
state crime lab scandals, the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home
deaths, the governor’s vaccination rollout,” cited
Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation. “Oversight and
accountability non-existent. Now Sen. Hinds wants
to establish a state bank. Whoa boy!
What could possibly go wrong, leaving taxpayers again on
the hook? Even the Fed wouldn’t touch a bailout of
this bank crisis-in-the-making.”
Beacon Hill
Roll Call
March 22-26, 2021
Create State-Owned Bank (SD-2462)
A tax expert
who has been involved with Massachusetts tax policy for
years suggested Wednesday that lawmakers could scrap the
idea of a Constitutional amendment to impose a surtax on
household income over $1 million and instead repeal the
Constitution's requirement for a flat tax and impose the
graduated income tax rate through traditional
legislation.
Democrats on
Beacon Hill have been working for years to establish a 4
percent surtax on annual income greater than $1 million
by putting a Constitutional amendment to that effect
before voters. The process is more complicated than it
is for a normal piece of legislation because the state
Constitution currently requires that a tax on income be
applied evenly to all residents, so the so-called
Millionaires Tax would be unconstitutional as a
standalone law.
Jane
Steinmetz, office managing principal of Ernst & Young,
said she thinks it is bad tax administration to enshrine
a tax rate into the state Constitution. If the
Legislature wants to go forward with a graduated income
tax, she said, lawmakers should repeal Article 44 of the
Constitution and write the surtax provision directly
into Chapter 62 of the Mass. General Laws, which deals
with the taxation of income.
"When you have
a tax change, there are these unintended consequences,"
Steinmetz, who was appointed by then-Senate President
Therese Murray to a special commission that studied
corporate tax issues in 2007, said. "If we etch this in
constitutional stone and there's these unintended
consequences, you can't just amend the Constitution. It
could take four years."
Steinmetz, who
did not stake out her own position on the issue, and
Stanford University finance professor Joshua Rauh
discussed some of the potential consequences of the
Massachusetts income surtax Wednesday during a virtual
event hosted by Pioneer Institute and the Mass. High
Tech Council....
Steinmetz also
pointed out that Massachusetts is not exactly hurting
for revenue at the moment. Fiscal year 2020 ended about
$120 million short -- "which is close to breakeven, but
it's still a shortfall," she said -- and fiscal year
2021 "seems to be doing fine," with the state having
collected $1.123 billion more from taxpayers in the
first eight months of the budget year than it did the
previous year.
On top of
that, she said, is a deluge of billions of dollars in
federal funding, some of which comes to the state under
the restriction that it not be used to directly or
indirectly offset a tax cut.
State House
News Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Expert Warns Against Setting Tax Rate
in Constitution
Flat Tax Repeal Could Open Up Debate on Graduated Tax
House Speaker
Ron Mariano has voted against a proposed tax on the
wealthy earning over $1 million a year and more recently
for the proposed Constitutional amendment, but with
supporters hoping for a second and final vote in the
Legislature this spring the speaker made clear Thursday
he's been no fan of the process.
"It really
bypasses the whole spirit of the Legislature. It
bypasses compromise. It bypasses the ability to work for
a better product on the issue, and it's very frustrating
for us," Mariano said during a question-and-answer
session with the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce....
Before he was
speaker, Mariano initially voted against putting a
constitutional amendment on the ballot to add a surtax
on millionaires, but supported the measure when it came
up for a vote in 2020. The Legislature must vote one
more time either this year or next year in order for the
question to advance to the 2022 ballot, and supporters
have been hoping it would surface this spring.
"As you said,
if it passes and it's baked into the Constitution it's
very very difficult to change it," Mariano said. "It's a
process that's used by people who are frustrated because
their positions may be too extreme to get enough support
to get a bill through the House, so they resort to, I
call it an end run around the Legislature."
Last year, the
joint session of the House and Senate voted 147-48 in
favor of putting the wealth surtax on the ballot,
including a 112-43 vote in the House.
A tax expert
suggested Wednesday that lawmakers could scrap the idea
of a constitutional amendment to impose a surtax on
household income over $1 million and instead repeal the
constitution's requirement for a flat tax and impose the
graduated income tax rate through traditional
legislation.
State House
News Service
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Income Surtax in Constitution
“Bypasses Compromise,” Speaker Says
With $1
billion in federal relief funding for public transit on
its way to Massachusetts, House Speaker Ron Mariano said
Thursday he was not in a rush to push another vote on
transportation revenue a year after the House voted for
more than $500 million in new revenue, including a
5-cent hike in the gas tax.
The House's
transportation financing package stalled out in the
Senate in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
That bill
would have increased the gas tax by 5 cents and the
diesel tax by 9 cents, hiked the corporate minimum tax
and raised fees on Uber and Lyft to help pay for
improvements to transportation system clogged with
vehicles and riders.
Asked during
an appearance before the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce whether he would return to the issue of
transportation revenue, and specifically the gas tax,
Mariano said, "I think it's a little premature just yet.
I wouldn't rule anything off the table." ...
"Now with this
federal money coming in it's a chance for us to take a
step back and recalculate..."
State House
News Service
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Mariano: “Premature” to Return to New
Transportation Revenues
Holding the
line on new taxes. Reforming early education and child
care. Getting people out of their cars.
With a major
climate policy bill set to become law Friday and work on
key unemployment system changes nearly complete, one of
Beacon Hill's most powerful legislators, Senate
President Karen Spilka, on Friday morning outlined other
likely focus areas for the Senate in the coming weeks
and months....
Spilka also
announced that a new panel led by Sen. Adam Hinds to
help Massachusetts reimagine its post-pandemic future
and "come back better" will hold an April 6 session to
hear about business, housing and the digital divide, and
an April 14 listening session focused on education and
child care....
Spilka's
Senate Democrats last session led a deep dive into state
tax policy and that group led by Hinds is expected to
release its conclusions this spring.
But with House
and Senate budget debates on deck, Spilka echoed
Mariano's recent statements about tax increases -- the
Quincy Democrat said last month that "we have no
intention of raising taxes."
Noting she
remains concerned about wealth gaps and saying there is
"room for improvement" in the state tax code over the
long term, Spilka recalled how in 2020 Beacon Hill
resisted tax increases when the pandemic struck, and job
losses mounted.
"It was not
the time to pass any broad-based tax increases," she
said. "Our outlook, I believe, is still precarious and
we need to be cautious. So I anticipate continuing to
hold this view." ...
Spilka said
"replacing" $3.5 billion in one-time fiscal 2021
revenues will be one of the biggest challenges for
budget writers. However, with state tax collections
surpassing estimates and "billions" in federal aid
flowing in, Spilka said, "I hope to really minimize any
withdrawal from our rainy day fund."
In his fiscal
2022 budget proposal, which was released before the
American Rescue Act was signed, Baker did not call for
tax increases on residents and proposed trimming state
spending by about $300 million even though state tax
revenues are expected to rise 3.5 percent over the
current budget year. Baker also proposed spending $1.6
billion in one-time revenues drawn from the state's
rainy day fund.
State House
News Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Spilka Weighs In On Taxes, Early Ed,
Public Health
It took
basically all of the last legislative session and the
first three months of the new one to get major climate
policy signed into law, but the real work begins now
that Gov. Charlie Baker has put his signature on the
law.
After it took
a long, winding and sometimes contentious road, the
governor on Friday afternoon signed the long-discussed
legislation designed to commit Massachusetts to achieve
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, establish interim
emissions goals between now and the middle of the
century, adopt energy efficiency standards for
appliances, authorize another 2,400 megawatts of
offshore wind power and address needs in environmental
justice communities.
"I'm proud to
say that climate change has not been, ever, a partisan
issue. We know the impacts on our coasts, on our
fisheries, on our farms and our communities are real,
and demand action, and that's why we've been committed
for over a decade to ... doing the things we need to do
to deal with the issue at hand and to maintain a
structure that's affordable for the people of the
commonwealth," Baker said after signing the bill in the
State House library. He added, "This bill puts us on an
ambitious path to achieving a cleaner and more livable
commonwealth, while also creating economic development
opportunities to support the initiatives."
Baker and the
Legislature see eye-to-eye when it comes to the goal of
achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the
details of how the state would get there proved to be a
much more complicated conversation. On Friday, Baker
said he was glad lawmakers "went back and forth and back
and forth and back and forth on this" with his
administration before settling on the final language....
"This bill is
a significant step closer to putting our knowledge about
a foreseeable risk into action. This critical piece of
legislation will help us seize major benefits for the
commonwealth on our way to addressing an existential
threat to our modern society and human life as we know
it," Sen. Marc Pacheco, one of the most vocal lawmakers
when it comes to climate policy, said.
But the new
law does not deal with the "climate emergency"
aggressively enough, he said.
"That's why as
soon as this bill is done, we need to get about the
business of putting in place the other elements that we
need to be dealing with as a state, and working with our
national governmental leaders and our world leaders to
do everything we can to continue to move forward," he
said when the Senate re-enacted the climate bill on
March 15.
Pacheco added,
"Let us not close the door on this issue. Let's make
sure we kick it open for the future, that this is just
our new beginning on a commitment to make sure we
embrace a clean energy future. We're on the cusp of a
sustainability revolution, let's embrace that clean
energy revolution."
Pacheco has
filed a bevy of climate-related bills for consideration
in the current session, including proposals to target
retrofitting one million homes over the next decade and
to create the jobs necessary to complete those retrofits
(SD 2102)....
State House
News Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Baker Signs Law Committing to
Net-Zero Emissions by 2050
Change Can't Wait, They Said, But Bill Was Long in
Making
Massachusetts
is largely in the driver’s seat on a regional plan to
reduce carbon emissions from cars and trucks, but the
initiative, which could lead to higher gas prices, now
hinges on the approval of lawmakers in two neighboring
states.
Gov. Charlie
Baker, the governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island,
and the mayor of Washington, D.C., signed a regional
agreement in December that aims to substantially curb
tailpipe emissions while drumming up revenue for
projects to mitigate climate change and improve
transportation infrastructure.
The
Transportation and Climate Initiative won't be put to a
vote in Massachusetts, but it still must be ratified by
Connecticut and Rhode Island in order to go forward.
In
Connecticut, lawmakers are debating whether to enter
into the pact. A bill filed by Democratic Gov. Ned
Lamont is expected to clear a key committee but its fate
in the General Assembly is less certain.
Rhode Island
lawmakers have yet to file a proposal to ratify the
deal, but supporters say they expect legislation to
emerge soon.
Backers of the
initiative in Connecticut and Rhode Island say they
expect it to be ratified, but opponents argue that it’s
anything but a done deal.
"If lawmakers
go ahead with this, they are going to be increasing gas
prices for their constituents, which will be a hard
sell," said Christian Herb, executive director of the
Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, a trade group
that opposes the pact. "The governor is clearly in favor
of it, but the Legislature will ultimately have the
final say." ...
"In order to
reach the emissions cuts they're proposing, it's going
to have to be 30, 40, 50 cents a gallon," said Mike
Stenhouse, founder and CEO of the Rhode Island Center
for Freedom and Prosperity. "Make no mistake, this isn't
about reducing carbon emissions. It's basically a cash
grab by these states."
The Salem
News
Friday, March 26, 2021
Climate pact up in the air
Effort hinges on approval by 2 other states
It's Trump's
fault.
Not the
insurrection at the US Capitol or the discrediting of
fairly conducted elections or the general degradation of
democratic principles – though there may be those
things, too. In this case, the damage done by the former
president is to Charlie Baker’s approval ratings.
The governor whose political standing with voters seemed
to defy the laws of gravity has seen his poll numbers
come down closer to earth, and Politico’s Stephanie
Murray says Trump is to blame. Not because of anything
he did, but rather because he’s now gone.
“Wildly unpopular in Massachusetts, Trump served as a
foil for Baker, who was able to establish his own
political independence — and win over Democratic
constituents — by frequently criticizing his fellow
Republican,” she writes.
With no Trump
to kick around anymore, Baker is finding himself on the
receiving end of the blue-state brickbats. And he’s not
alone, says Murray, who points to falling approval
ratings for two other Republican governors in heavily
Democratic states, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Phil Scott
in Vermont.
Baker’s
approval rating has fallen from close to 80 percent last
August to 52 percent last month, she writes. He’s seen a
similar falloff in polls asking specifically about his
handling of the COVID pandemic.
And there’s
the rub. Trump’s exit has coincided with the state’s
problem-plagued vaccine rollout and a growing overall
weariness with the pandemic as it enters its second
year. That makes it hard to tease out any independent
effect of Trump’s disappearance from the public stage.
Still, it’s
not just public poll numbers that have shifted for
Baker. The Democrats who dominate the Legislature have
shown a new willingness to spar more directly with him,
including in two recent oversight hearings where the
lawmakers Baker loves to refer to as “our colleagues”
have been decidedly less collegial.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Is Trump’s exit bad for Baker?
As recently as
October, Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker was
basking in his typically stratospheric poll ratings.
More than 70 percent approved of his job performance.
Roughly the same amount felt the same way about his
handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
Those were the
days.
Since then,
Baker’s numbers have nosedived, knocking him off his
pedestal as arguably the nation’s most popular governor.
His coronavirus approval ratings have dropped from a
high of 80 percent last April to 59 percent in February,
according to the Covid States Project, which has been
tracking gubernatorial approval ratings for the past
year. His overall job performance ratings have also
declined — from 78 percent in August to 52 percent at
the end of February, according to a recent UMass Amherst
poll.
In part,
Baker’s downward slide can be attributed to his state's
troubled vaccine rollout, which got off to a slow start
and was marked by a very public website crash for the
vaccine appointment booking system. Yet there are also
signs another factor may be contributing to his decline:
Donald Trump’s departure from the White House.
Wildly
unpopular in Massachusetts, Trump served as a foil for
Baker, who was able to establish his own political
independence — and win over Democratic constituents — by
frequently criticizing his fellow Republican.
Baker isn’t
the only blue-state Republican governor who’s seen his
popularity dented by coronavirus fatigue and Trump’s
absence from the news cycle. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan
and Vermont Gov. Phil Scott — two other Trump critics
who have long rated among the most popular governors in
the nation — have also seen their numbers dip in the
post-Trump era....
Between their
moderate politics and Trump-resistant stances, the three
governors have actually managed to become more popular
with Democratic voters than Republicans....
"There's
nobody a Democrat loves more than a Republican
criticizing Trump," said pollster Rich Clark of
Vermont’s Castleton University.
In Baker’s
case, his standing within his own party is so strained
that, in the event he seeks a third term next year, a
Republican close to state GOP leadership is gearing up
to challenge him in the primary....
“I don’t know
if I have a future in the Republican Party, but I care
about the future of the Republican Party,” [Maryland
Gov. Larry Hogan] said in an interview this month at
POLITICO’s The Fifty: America’s Governors event.
That kind of
oppositional stance makes for good politics in Maryland,
Massachusetts and Vermont, which ranked as Trump’s three
weakest states in 2020 — he won just under one-third of
the vote in each of them.
POLITICO
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Blue-state Republicans slump without
Trump as foil
Some of the nation’s most popular governors have been
knocked off their pedestals
The Democratic
sharks are circling, sensing vulnerability in a
Republican governor with few teammates to protect his
flank. But even if Gov. Charlie Baker looks like easy
prey to some in a state like Massachusetts, Democrats on
Beacon Hill are unpracticed hunters.
"We know he's
a RINO anyway," joked Sen. Nick Collins during his
resurrection of the South Boston St. Patrick's Day
breakfast last Sunday, alluding to the fact that Baker
is actually more popular with Democratic voters than
Republicans....
Even as
Massachusetts has climbed the state rankings for shots
administered, the choice to administer many of those
shots at mass vaccination sites instead of through local
clinics and municipal public health infrastructure is
the hill some in the legislature have chosen to plant
their flag.
Democrats
accused him of throwing out the playbook right before
the big game, and spending millions on private-run
facilities when that money could have been used to scale
up locally-run clinics....
The defense
didn't sit well with Baker's critics on the committee:
"What we're getting from you is, 'You're all wrong,
we're doing great, please, we don't want to hear it
anymore.' And I find that hard to take," said an
exasperated Sen. Cindy Friedman....
Everyone
agrees the faster the vaccine arrives and gets put into
arms, the sooner the state can emerge from the year-long
pandemic. That's why Baker's hiring of McKinsey & Co. to
write a report about the "future-of-work" has generated
so much interest.
But Attorney
General Maura Healey's interest in the report this week
had nothing to do with her curiosity to learn what the
global consulting firm recommends. Healey, who is being
watched like a hawk for hints at her political future,
went after Baker for hiring McKinsey after her office
and others around the country reached a settlement with
the firm last month for $573 million over its role in
helping Purdue Pharma "turbocharge" opioid sales to turn
a profit.
The
"future-of-work" contract is one of many the firm holds
with the state, and Healey called it "outrageous" that
Massachusetts would continue to give them business. One
of her opening salvos in the 2022 gubernatorial
campaign? Maybe. But even a visit by the attorney
general to a picket line in Worcester these days is
cause for speculation....
House Speaker
Ron Mariano told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
... he wasn't in any rush to return to debate over
raising taxes to pay for transportation, at least not
until the pandemic aftershocks subside and leaders can
take stock of the MBTA and its new needs.
Besides, he
said, there's $1 billion coming to Massachusetts from
the "American Rescue Plan" for public transit and $4.5
billion more in direct aid for state government that
changes the calculations.
State House
News Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Blood in the Water |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Just when you thought insanity on Beacon
Hill had reached its apex along comes a leap for higher plateaus.
This week we learned a legislator is going for broke with absurdity.
Sen. Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield), chairman of the Joint Committee on
Revenue and member of the Senate and the Joint Committee on Ways and
Means, among others, has proposed establishing Massachusetts' own
bank!
Not just your run-of-the-mill
everyday bank. He seeks to establish a progressive WOKE
bank, a new version of the sub-prime mortgage scheme
— and we know how that
turned out, beginning with President Bill Clinton's "Community
Reinvestment Act" of 1977. Hinds' bill,
SD-2462, "An Act Establishing a Public Bank of
Massachusetts," proposes to finance this predictable disaster
start-up with $2 Billion from state loans and appropriations by
the Legislature.
The Beacon Hill Roll Call exposed
this late last week, reporting:
[SD-2462,
An Act Establishing a Public Bank of Massachusetts]
establishes a publicly owned, state-run Bank of
Massachusetts funded to the tune of up to $2 billion
through the sale of bonds, funding from the Legislature
and unclaimed property proceeds. A 10-member board
of directors, chaired by the state treasurer, would
provide a list of potential CFOs and COOs to the
governor, secretary of state and state treasurer who
would appoint the officers by a majority vote.
The Bank would focus on providing
capital access to underbanked populations, industries,
small-business, public-private partnerships or local
governments for development of infrastructure and
business, incorporating broader public benefits in the
climate, equity, health, clean water and education.
“There are communities throughout
Massachusetts, particularly in Western Massachusetts,
that are underserved by traditional banking,” said the
measure’s sponsor, Sen. Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield). “A
state-owned bank would provide underbanked populations
such as minority-owned businesses and the cannabis
industry the opportunity to access much-needed capital.”
“The Big Dig, state police overtime
pay, RMV backlogged/missing driver’s license
suspensions, Farak, Dookhan and the state crime lab
scandals, the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home deaths, the
governor’s vaccination rollout,” cited Chip Ford,
executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Oversight and accountability non-existent. Now
Sen. Hinds wants to establish a state bank.
Whoa boy! What could possibly go wrong, leaving
taxpayers again on the hook? Even the Fed wouldn’t
touch a bailout of this bank crisis-in-the-making.”
Section 2 of Hinds's twelve-page
bill states:
The Bank
shall foster economic development by providing capital
access to underbanked populations, industries,
small-business, public-private partnerships or local
governments for development of infrastructure and business,
incorporating broader public benefits in the climate,
equity, health, clean water, education.
The Bank
will deliver outcomes to achieve the aforementioned goals
including but not restricted to the following specific
outcomes:
To expand
credit, liquidity and the supply of money, increasing local
lending within Massachusetts communities and regions that
are expanding local businesses;
To reduce
costs paid by Massachusetts towns, municipalities and
counties for access to capital;
To create
and expand socially responsible enterprises that work toward
Massachusetts community needs and goals;
To offer
Massachusetts INFRASTRUCTURE including but not restricted to
financing for communities’ water, sewer, transportation,
road, rail, bridge, electrical, cable, broadband, telephone
conduit and public utility loans;
To lessen
stress on those who have to pay college loans by offering
college debt refinancing at lower rates for Massachusetts
residents;
To provide
growth capital for strategic, underfunded new industries in
Massachusetts;
To reduce
the tax burden of debt service costs in local towns and
municipalities in Massachusetts to pay for capital
improvements by issuing and refinancing debt at lower
interest rates;
To lower
inequality in the concentration of wealth in Massachusetts;
To provide
affordable financial services and guidance to small
businesses to convert to inclusive employee ownership
models;
To
capitalize solar energy, wind energy and other renewable
energy projects that reduce carbon emissions in
Massachusetts;
To provide
higher returns than commercial banks on investments of
taxpayer funds in Massachusetts;
To provide
programs to develop commercial and industrial enterprises
that do not harm the environment, raise carbon emissions or
increase the rate of climate change in Massachusetts;
To provide
greater income opportunities and affordable housing
availability to enable Massachusetts residents to obtain
shelter to reduce homelessness.
Other sections of his bill state:
The Bank
shall be governed and its corporate powers exercised by a
Board of Directors, which shall consist of 10 members, 1 of
whom shall be the Massachusetts State Treasurer & Receiver
General who shall serve as chair, and 9 of whom shall be
appointed by the majority vote of a committee consisting of
the governor, the senate president, the speaker of the house
of representatives, who will ensure 1 of each appointment
from a major organization representing the following groups:
Minorities, Women, Low-income populations, Historically
Under-funded Towns or Municipalities, Emerging Industries,
Institutions of Higher-learning and Thought-leadership in
Banking and ESG investment....
Section 5
(b): The commonwealth or its agencies may capitalize the
Bank with an initial investment of capital in the range of
$2,000,000,000 as an equity investment from the pension fund
or from a direct legislative appropriation....
Section 5
(d): To meet the expenditures necessary in carrying out
section 5, the State Treasurer shall, upon request of the
governor, issue and sell bonds of the commonwealth in an
amount to be specified by the governor from time to time but
not exceeding, in the aggregate, $2,000,000,000. All such
bonds issued by the commonwealth shall be designated on
their face, “An Act Establishing a Public Bank of
Massachusetts” Bank and shall be issued for a maximum term
of years, not exceeding 10 years, as the governor may
recommend to the general court under section 3 of Article
LXII of the Amendments to the Constitution of the
Commonwealth. The bonds shall be payable not later than
DATE. All interest and payments on account of principal on
these obligations shall be payable from the General Fund.
Bonds and interest thereon issued under this section shall,
notwithstanding any other provision of this act, be general
obligations of the commonwealth....
Section 7
(e): The benefit policy shall include a statement that
material, relevant, and decision-useful sustainability
factors related to the goals of the Bank have been or are
regularly considered by the PBANK, within the bounds of
financial and fiduciary prudence, in evaluating investment
decisions. Such factors will be derived from industry
accepted public benefit guidelines such as United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainability Accounting
Standards Board (SASB) standards for impact....
All those dreamy progressive goals
and desires are his stated purpose for establishing a
state-owned, state-run bank. I wonder if he spoke with any
actual bankers before launching this ruinous debacle?
Banks are not charities; they exist in a free market to earn
money for their shareholders by providing financial services to
the public. Banks succeed or fail based on investment
decisions. Banking institutions are not subsidized by
government — but regulated by it.
Of course your local bank isn't backed up by the full faith and
credit of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
— meaning its taxpayers.
"The Bank of Massachusetts" will
never fail in the understood business sense
— not so long as there are
taxpayers to endlessly bail it out.
“A state-owned bank would provide
underbanked populations such as minority-owned businesses and
the cannabis industry the opportunity to access much-needed
capital,” Sen. Hinds asserted.
Methinks that cannabis perhaps is a
basis for this lunacy — not so much
"much-needed capital" but instead
over-consumption.
We can see where this is going with
the so-called "Millionaire's Tax," aka, "The Fair Share
Amendment." As we've asserted since this sixth attempt was
unleashed to abolish the flat state income tax and replace it
with a graduated income tax, this latest proposed constitutional
amendment is nothing more than a Trojan Horse to get their feet
in the door — before coming after
all taxpayers one tax bracket at a time.
In our CLT news release of August
5, 2015 ("CLT
still opposes Grad Tax schemes") we warned:
Twenty-one
years later the Takers are back. They last lost their last
assault on productive taxpayers in 1994 by a two-to-one
margin, defeated again as they were in 1962, 1968, 1972, and
1976. But a resounding "NO" is never good enough for
the Takers....
Make no
mistake about it — what is being proposed is termination of
the Massachusetts flat tax, in effect since John Adams
authored the oldest functioning written constitution in
continuous effect in the world (1779-80).
If there
is ever more than one single rate in the Constitution then
the state will have replaced de facto the flat income tax
with a graduated income tax scheme.
Once the
state Constitution has been transformed with a graduated
income tax the precedent will have been established.
The only question is which bracket will be targeted next.
This
proposal is the first step in an inevitable slippery slope.
Note the
phrase "so we can have everyone paying their fair share" in
Rep. Kaufman's statement above.
Maybe not
today, maybe not next year or the year after — but as sure
as the sun rises in the east you know it will come; 'Just on
those earning over $100,000 ... over $75,000 ...
For the
Takers it is always "We need a significant amount of new
money." More Is Never Enough and never will be.
If a
graduated income tax is ever adopted in Massachusetts the
question will always be: "Who's next?"
Citizens
for Limited Taxation was founded to oppose the graduated
income tax in 1976. CLT led opposition that defeated
grad tax assaults on taxpayers ever since, and will be at
the opposition forefront of this sixth one as well.
It's taken them over five years to
reach this point, one vote away in the Legislature to put their
constitutional amendment on the 2022 ballot. They're
confident of accomplishing this —
again, for the sixth time. Confident enough now to begin
dropping their masks and revealing the true goal all along.
"A
tax expert who has been involved with Massachusetts tax policy
for years suggested Wednesday that lawmakers could scrap the
idea of a Constitutional amendment to impose a surtax on
household income over $1 million and instead repeal the
Constitution's requirement for a flat tax and impose the
graduated income tax rate through traditional legislation," the
State House News Service reported on Wednesday ("Expert
Warns Against Setting Tax Rate in Constitution; Flat Tax Repeal
Could Open Up Debate on Graduated Tax"):
Democrats on Beacon Hill have been
working for years to establish a 4 percent surtax on
annual income greater than $1 million by putting a
Constitutional amendment to that effect before voters.
The process is more complicated than it is for a normal
piece of legislation because the state Constitution
currently requires that a tax on income be applied
evenly to all residents, so the so-called Millionaires
Tax would be unconstitutional as a standalone law.
Jane Steinmetz, office managing
principal of Ernst & Young, said she thinks it is bad
tax administration to enshrine a tax rate into the state
Constitution. If the Legislature wants to go forward
with a graduated income tax, she said, lawmakers should
repeal Article 44 of the Constitution and write the
surtax provision directly into Chapter 62 of the Mass.
General Laws, which deals with the taxation of income.
A day later the News Service
reported ("Income Surtax
in Constitution 'Bypasses Compromise,' Speaker Says"):
House Speaker Ron Mariano has voted
against a proposed tax on the wealthy earning over $1
million a year and more recently for the proposed
Constitutional amendment, but with supporters hoping for a
second and final vote in the Legislature this spring the
speaker made clear Thursday he's been no fan of the process.
"It really bypasses the whole spirit of
the Legislature. It bypasses compromise. It bypasses the
ability to work for a better product on the issue, and it's
very frustrating for us," Mariano said during a
question-and-answer session with the Greater Boston Chamber
of Commerce....
Before he was speaker, Mariano
initially voted against putting a constitutional amendment
on the ballot to add a surtax on millionaires, but supported
the measure when it came up for a vote in 2020. The
Legislature must vote one more time either this year or next
year in order for the question to advance to the 2022
ballot, and supporters have been hoping it would surface
this spring.
"As you said, if it passes and it's
baked into the Constitution it's very very difficult to
change it," Mariano said. "It's a process that's used by
people who are frustrated because their positions may be too
extreme to get enough support to get a bill through the
House, so they resort to, I call it an end run around the
Legislature."
Last year, the joint session of the
House and Senate voted 147-48 in favor of putting the wealth
surtax on the ballot, including a 112-43 vote in the House.
A tax expert suggested Wednesday that
lawmakers could scrap the idea of a constitutional amendment
to impose a surtax on household income over $1 million and
instead repeal the constitution's requirement for a flat tax
and impose the graduated income tax rate through traditional
legislation.
"It's a process that's used by
people who are frustrated because their positions may be too
extreme to get enough support to get a bill through the House,
so they resort to, I call it an end run around the Legislature,"
House Speaker Mariano, to which I say Amen.
But at this moment too many
— including the Speaker — are
counting on the projected $2 Billion in additional revenue to
come pouring in when and if the "Millionaire's Tax" is approved
by the voters. They've got it already spent, have for
years — and not just on
"transportation and education" as it's being falsely sold to
less-than-fully-informed voters. My key qualifier: "At
this moment." If they think they can get away with
amending the proposed constitutional amendment, changing it to a
straight and unabashed graduated income tax
— the ultimate goal for almost five
decades — then all bets are off the table.
On Thursday the State House News
Service also reported perhaps some good news for motorists, in
what these days qualifies as "good" news. The new House
speaker is in no apparent rush to hike the gas tax even more
than will happen under Gov. Baker's Transportation and Climate
Initiative (TCI) when and if it kicks in. You might recall
that former House speaker DeLeo took the same position, until it
changed and he pushed a gas tax hike along with many other tax
and fee increases, so never say never. The News Service
reported ("Mariano:
'Premature' to Return to New Transportation Revenues"):
With $1
billion in federal relief funding for public transit on
its way to Massachusetts, House Speaker Ron Mariano said
Thursday he was not in a rush to push another vote on
transportation revenue a year after the House voted for
more than $500 million in new revenue, including a
5-cent hike in the gas tax.
The House's
transportation financing package stalled out in the
Senate in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
That bill
would have increased the gas tax by 5 cents and the
diesel tax by 9 cents, hiked the corporate minimum tax
and raised fees on Uber and Lyft to help pay for
improvements to transportation system clogged with
vehicles and riders.
Asked during
an appearance before the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce whether he would return to the issue of
transportation revenue, and specifically the gas tax,
Mariano said, "I think it's a little premature just yet.
I wouldn't rule anything off the table." ...
"Now with this
federal money coming in it's a chance for us to take a
step back and recalculate..."
Speaker Mariano gave himself plenty
of wiggle-room there — in fact
exactly what did he actually say that enlightened? Senate
President Karen Spilka was equally as ambiguous on new or higher
taxes. The State House News Service reported on Friday ("Spilka
Weighs In On Taxes, Early Ed, Public Health"):
Holding the line on new taxes.
Reforming early education and child care. Getting people out
of their cars.
With a major climate policy bill set to
become law Friday and work on key unemployment system
changes nearly complete, one of Beacon Hill's most powerful
legislators, Senate President Karen Spilka, on Friday
morning outlined other likely focus areas for the Senate in
the coming weeks and months....
Spilka also announced that a new panel
led by Sen. Adam Hinds to help Massachusetts reimagine its
post-pandemic future and "come back better" will hold an
April 6 session to hear about business, housing and the
digital divide, and an April 14 listening session focused on
education and child care....
Spilka's Senate Democrats last session
led a deep dive into state tax policy and that group led by
Hinds is expected to release its conclusions this spring.
But with House and Senate budget
debates on deck, Spilka echoed Mariano's recent statements
about tax increases -- the Quincy Democrat said last month
that "we have no intention of raising taxes."
Noting she remains concerned about
wealth gaps and saying there is "room for improvement" in
the state tax code over the long term, Spilka recalled how
in 2020 Beacon Hill resisted tax increases when the pandemic
struck, and job losses mounted.
"It was not the time to pass any
broad-based tax increases," she said. "Our outlook, I
believe, is still precarious and we need to be cautious. So
I anticipate continuing to hold this view." ...
Spilka said "replacing" $3.5 billion in
one-time fiscal 2021 revenues will be one of the biggest
challenges for budget writers. However, with state tax
collections surpassing estimates and "billions" in federal
aid flowing in, Spilka said, "I hope to really minimize any
withdrawal from our rainy day fund."
In his fiscal 2022 budget proposal,
which was released before the American Rescue Act was
signed, Baker did not call for tax increases on residents
and proposed trimming state spending by about $300 million
even though state tax revenues are expected to rise 3.5
percent over the current budget year. Baker also proposed
spending $1.6 billion in one-time revenues drawn from the
state's rainy day fund.
As obscure as those two statements
individually and taken together are, note that would-be state
bank founder Sen. Adam Hinds, apparently a very busy and
important man these days, along with "reimagining the future" of
post-pandemic Massachusetts to "come back better" is also
leading
Senate Democrats on a "deep dive into state tax policy" with
an eye toward restructuring the entire revenue system.
Could a graduated income tax not be in his sights?
Just thinking out loud folks, you know me. Always trying
to connect the dots as they pop up before the truth is finally
introduced.
The long-pending massive "net zero"
climate-and-constituent control bill became law with the proud
signature of Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday. The State House
News Service reported ("Baker
Signs Law Committing to Net-Zero Emissions by 2050; Change Can't
Wait, They Said, But Bill Was Long in Making"):
It took basically all of the last
legislative session and the first three months of the new
one to get major climate policy signed into law, but the
real work begins now that Gov. Charlie Baker has put his
signature on the law.
After it took a long, winding and
sometimes contentious road, the governor on Friday afternoon
signed the long-discussed legislation designed to commit
Massachusetts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,
establish interim emissions goals between now and the middle
of the century, adopt energy efficiency standards for
appliances, authorize another 2,400 megawatts of offshore
wind power and address needs in environmental justice
communities.
"I'm proud to say that climate change
has not been, ever, a partisan issue. We know the impacts on
our coasts, on our fisheries, on our farms and our
communities are real, and demand action, and that's why
we've been committed for over a decade to ... doing the
things we need to do to deal with the issue at hand and to
maintain a structure that's affordable for the people of the
commonwealth," Baker said after signing the bill in the
State House library. He added, "This bill puts us on an
ambitious path to achieving a cleaner and more livable
commonwealth, while also creating economic development
opportunities to support the initiatives."
Baker and the Legislature see
eye-to-eye when it comes to the goal of achieving net-zero
carbon emissions by 2050, but the details of how the state
would get there proved to be a much more complicated
conversation. On Friday, Baker said he was glad lawmakers
"went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth
on this" with his administration before settling on the
final language....
But proving that More
Is Never Enough (MINE) for Progressives like Baker and
Massachusetts Democrats, the News Service report went on:
"This bill is a significant step closer
to putting our knowledge about a foreseeable risk into
action. This critical piece of legislation will help us
seize major benefits for the commonwealth on our way to
addressing an existential threat to our modern society and
human life as we know it," Sen. Marc Pacheco, one of the
most vocal lawmakers when it comes to climate policy, said.
But the new law does not deal with the
"climate emergency" aggressively enough, he said.
"That's why as soon as this bill is
done, we need to get about the business of putting in place
the other elements that we need to be dealing with as a
state, and working with our national governmental leaders
and our world leaders to do everything we can to continue to
move forward," he said when the Senate re-enacted the
climate bill on March 15.
Pacheco added, "Let us not close the
door on this issue. Let's make sure we kick it open for the
future, that this is just our new beginning on a commitment
to make sure we embrace a clean energy future. We're on the
cusp of a sustainability revolution, let's embrace that
clean energy revolution."
Pacheco has filed a bevy of
climate-related bills for consideration in the current
session, including proposals to target retrofitting one
million homes over the next decade and to create the jobs
necessary to complete those retrofits (SD 2102)....
It's not all smooth
sailing for Massachusetts progressives using "climate change" as
another fear generator to promote their agenda. The Salem
News reported on Friday ("Climate pact up in the air; Effort
hinges on approval by 2 other states") that Baker's still going
it alone with his grand Transportation and Climate Initiative
(TCI) scheme. Without passage in the Rhode Island and
Connecticut legislatures for some distant and unaccountable
entity to hike their constituents' gas and diesel tax Gov. Baker
will be walking this plank alone. Only Baker has been
granted unilateral authority to participate in this alleged
"multi-state" grand pact, the Massachusetts Legislature having
handed their power over to him. According to the Salem
News report:
Massachusetts is largely in the
driver’s seat on a regional plan to reduce carbon emissions
from cars and trucks, but the initiative, which could lead
to higher gas prices, now hinges on the approval of
lawmakers in two neighboring states.
Gov. Charlie Baker, the governors of
Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the mayor of Washington,
D.C., signed a regional agreement in December that aims to
substantially curb tailpipe emissions while drumming up
revenue for projects to mitigate climate change and improve
transportation infrastructure.
The Transportation and Climate
Initiative won't be put to a vote in Massachusetts, but it
still must be ratified by Connecticut and Rhode Island in
order to go forward.
In Connecticut, lawmakers are debating
whether to enter into the pact. A bill filed by Democratic
Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to clear a key committee but its
fate in the General Assembly is less certain.
Rhode Island lawmakers have yet to file
a proposal to ratify the deal, but supporters say they
expect legislation to emerge soon.
Backers of the initiative in
Connecticut and Rhode Island say they expect it to be
ratified, but opponents argue that it’s anything but a done
deal.
"If lawmakers go ahead with this, they
are going to be increasing gas prices for their
constituents, which will be a hard sell," said Christian
Herb, executive director of the Connecticut Energy Marketers
Association, a trade group that opposes the pact. "The
governor is clearly in favor of it, but the Legislature will
ultimately have the final say." ...
"In order to reach the emissions cuts
they're proposing, it's going to have to be 30, 40, 50 cents
a gallon," said Mike Stenhouse, founder and CEO of the Rhode
Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity. "Make no mistake,
this isn't about reducing carbon emissions. It's basically a
cash grab by these states."
It looks like Charlie Baker may be
missing President Trump as much as most MAGA supporters, though
for a different reason. CommonWealth Magazine reported on
Wednesday ("Is Trump’s exit bad for Baker?"):
It’s Trump’s fault.
Not the
insurrection at the US Capitol or the discrediting of fairly
conducted elections or the general degradation of democratic
principles – though there may be those things, too. In this
case, the damage done by the former president is to Charlie
Baker’s approval ratings.
The
governor whose political standing with voters seemed to defy
the laws of gravity has seen his poll numbers come down
closer to earth, and Politico’s Stephanie Murray says Trump
is to blame. Not because of anything he did, but rather
because he’s now gone.
“Wildly
unpopular in Massachusetts, Trump served as a foil for
Baker, who was able to establish his own political
independence — and win over Democratic constituents — by
frequently criticizing his fellow Republican,” she writes.
With no
Trump to kick around anymore, Baker is finding himself on
the receiving end of the blue-state brickbats. And he’s not
alone, says Murray, who points to falling approval ratings
for two other Republican governors in heavily Democratic
states, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Phil Scott in Vermont.
Baker’s
approval rating has fallen from close to 80 percent last
August to 52 percent last month, she writes. He’s seen a
similar falloff in polls asking specifically about his
handling of the COVID pandemic.
And
there’s the rub. Trump’s exit has coincided with the state’s
problem-plagued vaccine rollout and a growing overall
weariness with the pandemic as it enters its second year.
That makes it hard to tease out any independent effect of
Trump’s disappearance from the public stage.
Still,
it’s not just public poll numbers that have shifted for
Baker. The Democrats who dominate the Legislature have shown
a new willingness to spar more directly with him, including
in two recent oversight hearings where the lawmakers Baker
loves to refer to as “our colleagues” have been decidedly
less collegial.
The above referenced Politico
report ("Blue-state
Republicans slump without Trump as foil") noted:
As recently as October,
Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker was basking
in his typically stratospheric poll ratings. More than
70 percent approved of his job performance. Roughly the
same amount felt the same way about his handling of the
Covid-19 crisis.
Those were the days.
Since then, Baker’s numbers have
nosedived, knocking him off his pedestal as arguably the
nation’s most popular governor. His coronavirus approval
ratings have dropped from a high of 80 percent last
April to 59 percent in February, according to the Covid
States Project, which has been tracking gubernatorial
approval ratings for the past year. His overall job
performance ratings have also declined — from 78 percent
in August to 52 percent at the end of February,
according to a recent UMass Amherst poll.
In part, Baker’s downward slide can
be attributed to his state's troubled vaccine rollout,
which got off to a slow start and was marked by a very
public website crash for the vaccine appointment booking
system. Yet there are also signs another factor may be
contributing to his decline: Donald Trump’s departure
from the White House.
Wildly unpopular in Massachusetts,
Trump served as a foil for Baker, who was able to
establish his own political independence — and win over
Democratic constituents — by frequently criticizing his
fellow Republican.
Baker isn’t the only blue-state
Republican governor who’s seen his popularity dented by
coronavirus fatigue and Trump’s absence from the news
cycle. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Vermont Gov. Phil
Scott — two other Trump critics who have long rated
among the most popular governors in the nation — have
also seen their numbers dip in the post-Trump era....
Between their moderate politics and
Trump-resistant stances, the three governors have
actually managed to become more popular with Democratic
voters than Republicans....
"There's nobody a Democrat loves
more than a Republican criticizing Trump," said pollster
Rich Clark of Vermont’s Castleton University.
In Baker’s case, his standing
within his own party is so strained that, in the event
he seeks a third term next year, a Republican close to
state GOP leadership is gearing up to challenge him in
the primary....
"The Democratic
sharks are circling, sensing vulnerability in a Republican
governor with few teammates to protect his flank. But
even if Gov. Charlie Baker looks like easy prey to some in a
state like Massachusetts, Democrats on Beacon Hill are
unpracticed hunters," the State House News Service reported
on Friday in its Weekly Roundup ("Blood in the Water"):
"We know he's a RINO anyway," joked
Sen. Nick Collins during his resurrection of the South
Boston St. Patrick's Day breakfast last Sunday, alluding to
the fact that Baker is actually more popular with Democratic
voters than Republicans....
Even as Massachusetts has climbed the
state rankings for shots administered, the choice to
administer many of those shots at mass vaccination sites
instead of through local clinics and municipal public health
infrastructure is the hill some in the legislature have
chosen to plant their flag.
Democrats accused him of throwing out
the playbook right before the big game, and spending
millions on private-run facilities when that money could
have been used to scale up locally-run clinics....
Everyone agrees the faster the vaccine
arrives and gets put into arms, the sooner the state can
emerge from the year-long pandemic. That's why Baker's
hiring of McKinsey & Co. to write a report about the
"future-of-work" has generated so much interest.
But Attorney General Maura Healey's
interest in the report this week had nothing to do with her
curiosity to learn what the global consulting firm
recommends. Healey, who is being watched like a hawk for
hints at her political future, went after Baker for hiring
McKinsey after her office and others around the country
reached a settlement with the firm last month for $573
million over its role in helping Purdue Pharma "turbocharge"
opioid sales to turn a profit.
The "future-of-work" contract is one of
many the firm holds with the state, and Healey called it
"outrageous" that Massachusetts would continue to give them
business. One of her opening salvos in the 2022
gubernatorial campaign? Maybe. But even a visit by the
attorney general to a picket line in Worcester these days is
cause for speculation....
Baker without Trump to petulantly
attack is steadily losing popularity and it's been noticed.
The political sharks are circling their wounded prey. He
and/or his Lieutenant Gov., Karyn Polito, will be hard pressed
even to win the Republican primary (without Democrat support at
the ballot box). Maura Healey has always been next in line
on the Democrat dance ticket —
attorneys general usually are. The Democrat nomination for
governor is hers for the taking and she's been positioning
herself for it for a very long time. All the other
Democrats announced or contemplating a run for the governorship
are but white noise in the background.
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
|
Beacon Hill
Roll Call
Volume 46 - Report No. 13
March 22-26, 2021
By Bob Katzen
Create State-Owned Bank (SD-2462)
Establishes a publicly owned, state-run Bank of
Massachusetts funded to the tune of up to $2 billion through
the sale of bonds, funding from the Legislature and
unclaimed property proceeds. A 10-member board of
directors, chaired by the state treasurer, would provide a
list of potential CFOs and COOs to the governor, secretary
of state and state treasurer who would appoint the officers
by a majority vote.
The Bank would focus on providing capital access to
underbanked populations, industries, small-business,
public-private partnerships or local governments for
development of infrastructure and business, incorporating
broader public benefits in the climate, equity, health,
clean water and education.
“There are communities throughout Massachusetts,
particularly in Western Massachusetts, that are underserved
by traditional banking,” said the measure’s sponsor, Sen.
Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield). “A state-owned bank would
provide underbanked populations such as minority-owned
businesses and the cannabis industry the opportunity to
access much-needed capital.”
“The Big Dig, state police overtime pay, RMV
backlogged/missing driver’s license suspensions, Farak,
Dookhan and the state crime lab scandals, the Holyoke
Soldiers’ Home deaths, the governor’s vaccination rollout,”
cited Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation. “Oversight and
accountability non-existent. Now Sen. Hinds wants to
establish a state bank. Whoa boy! What could
possibly go wrong, leaving taxpayers again on the hook?
Even the Fed wouldn’t touch a bailout of this bank
crisis-in-the-making.”
State House News
Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Expert Warns Against Setting Tax Rate in Constitution
Flat Tax Repeal Could Open Up Debate on Graduated Tax
By Colin A. Young
A tax expert who has been involved with Massachusetts tax policy
for years suggested Wednesday that lawmakers could scrap the
idea of a Constitutional amendment to impose a surtax on
household income over $1 million and instead repeal the
Constitution's requirement for a flat tax and impose the
graduated income tax rate through traditional legislation.
Democrats on Beacon Hill have been working for years to
establish a 4 percent surtax on annual income greater than $1
million by putting a Constitutional amendment to that effect
before voters. The process is more complicated than it is for a
normal piece of legislation because the state Constitution
currently requires that a tax on income be applied evenly to all
residents, so the so-called Millionaires Tax would be
unconstitutional as a standalone law.
Jane Steinmetz, office managing principal of Ernst & Young, said
she thinks it is bad tax administration to enshrine a tax rate
into the state Constitution. If the Legislature wants to go
forward with a graduated income tax, she said, lawmakers should
repeal Article 44 of the Constitution and write the surtax
provision directly into Chapter 62 of the Mass. General Laws,
which deals with the taxation of income.
"When you have a tax change, there are these unintended
consequences," Steinmetz, who was appointed by then-Senate
President Therese Murray to a special commission that studied
corporate tax issues in 2007, said. "If we etch this in
constitutional stone and there's these unintended consequences,
you can't just amend the Constitution. It could take four
years."
Steinmetz, who did not stake out her own position on the issue,
and Stanford University finance professor Joshua Rauh discussed
some of the potential consequences of the Massachusetts income
surtax Wednesday during a virtual event hosted by Pioneer
Institute and the Mass. High Tech Council.
In June 2019, House and Senate members voted 147-48 in favor of
the Constitutional amendment (H 86) that would impose a 4
percent surtax on annual household income greater than $1
million.
That amendment must also win at least 101 votes of support among
the 200 state legislators at a Constitutional Convention in the
current legislative session in order to go before voters on the
November 2022 ballot.
Supporters of the surtax say it could generate as much as $2
billion per year for education and transportation in
Massachusetts without dipping into the pockets of most
residents. But critics have long said it could prompt wealthy
residents to move out of the Bay State and encourage employers
to steer clear of Massachusetts.
"Maybe people hear this discussion and think, 'gee, high-income
people, these are millionaires, who really cares if they leave
or they reduce their income, does it really matter?' Well, the
fact is, it does really matter," Rauh, a Newton native, said.
A 2012 referendum in California raised the top tax rate for the
state's highest earners, Rauh said, which was followed by "a big
spike in departures of high-income people." Compared to the rate
of departures before the initiative passed, he said, the rate of
departure doubled following the tax rate hike.
"The other thing we found that had maybe even more of an
economic consequence was that for people who stayed in
California who were high earners, the income that they were
reporting to tax authorities really leveled off compared to the
income growth that we saw from taxpayers who were located in
other states but who were comparable to these taxpayers who were
in California," Rauh said, citing his own research. "And on
balance, what we found was that within a couple of years around
60 percent of the state's expected windfall revenue gain from
this tax increase was actually eroded away by this combination
of people leaving and also high-income earners apparently
reporting less income to the state."
A previous Pioneer Institute event looked at how remote working
opportunities made popular during the COVID-19 pandemic could
encourage people to leave Massachusetts for low-tax states like
Florida and New Hampshire, but Steinmetz said Wednesday that the
Congressional response to the pandemic and its economic impacts
-- especially the appetite for federal tax increases among
Congressional Democrats and the White House -- also bears
consideration.
"We're talking about this 4 percent surtax, but when individuals
are thinking about their tax bill, they're thinking about it in
totality. So as these tax proposals move forward at the federal
level, the Mass. Legislature has to really watch them and
analyze how those potential increases might impact what a surtax
could do here in Massachusetts," she said.
Steinmetz also pointed out that Massachusetts is not exactly
hurting for revenue at the moment. Fiscal year 2020 ended about
$120 million short -- "which is close to breakeven, but it's
still a shortfall," she said -- and fiscal year 2021 "seems to
be doing fine," with the state having collected $1.123 billion
more from taxpayers in the first eight months of the budget year
than it did the previous year.
On top of that, she said, is a deluge of billions of dollars in
federal funding, some of which comes to the state under the
restriction that it not be used to directly or indirectly offset
a tax cut.
"We've gone on this crazy rollercoaster ride through COVID-19
and now we're coming out of it and there's largely a reset
button being hit," Steinmetz said. She added, "So it's a real
important decision for the Mass. Legislature to make about do we
move now, or do we kind of pump the brakes a little bit and move
forward maybe 12 months from now and see how this reset worked
itself out because it would be hard to adjust taxes on a
go-forward basis. "
Rep. Jim O'Day, the House sponsor of the amendment, expressed a
desire to take the issue up sooner rather than later this
session and said he has no reason to believe that the 19 new
members of the Legislature this session will significantly alter
the support for the measure.
"I've not heard anything overwhelming at all from any of my new
colleagues other than asking if we were doing the amendment
again," he told the News Service in February. "If anything, the
newer members have been interested in being able to sign on to
that."
Senate President Karen Spilka has until May 12 to convene a new
Constitutional Convention.
State House News
Service
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Income Surtax in Constitution “Bypasses Compromise,” Speaker
Says
By Matt Murphy
House Speaker Ron Mariano has voted against a proposed tax on
the wealthy earning over $1 million a year and more recently for
the proposed Constitutional amendment, but with supporters
hoping for a second and final vote in the Legislature this
spring the speaker made clear Thursday he's been no fan of the
process.
"It really bypasses the whole spirit of the Legislature. It
bypasses compromise. It bypasses the ability to work for a
better product on the issue, and it's very frustrating for us,"
Mariano said during a question-and-answer session with the
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
Chamber CEO Jim Rooney asked Mariano to talk about the trend of
advocates using ballot questions to "create legislation" and
"without getting into sort of what it's for, the use of the
Constitutional Convention to actually sort of put what we think
of as legislative policy into our Constitution that is now hard
to reverse once it's in there."
While Mariano and Rooney danced around the specific question of
the millionaire's tax, which would add a 4 percent surtax on all
income earned over $1 million, Mariano made clear he knew what
Rooney was hinting at.
"I'd love to be able to sit down, and I know what we're talking
about here, and have a discussion of tax policy. But instead we
have this or nothing and it's a difficult choice for
legislators," Mariano said.
Before he was speaker, Mariano initially voted against putting a
constitutional amendment on the ballot to add a surtax on
millionaires, but supported the measure when it came up for a
vote in 2020. The Legislature must vote one more time either
this year or next year in order for the question to advance to
the 2022 ballot, and supporters have been hoping it would
surface this spring.
"As you said, if it passes and it's baked into the Constitution
it's very very difficult to change it," Mariano said. "It's a
process that's used by people who are frustrated because their
positions may be too extreme to get enough support to get a bill
through the House, so they resort to, I call it an end run
around the Legislature."
Last year, the joint session of the House and Senate voted
147-48 in favor of putting the wealth surtax on the ballot,
including a 112-43 vote in the House.
A tax expert suggested Wednesday that lawmakers could scrap the
idea of a constitutional amendment to impose a surtax on
household income over $1 million and instead repeal the
constitution's requirement for a flat tax and impose the
graduated income tax rate through traditional legislation.
The current version of the millionaire's tax was filed by Rep.
Jim O'Day in House after a push by a coalition of civic, labor
and religious groups known as the Raise Up Coalition to
amendment the Constitution was ruled ineligible for the ballot
as a citizen-generated petition.
State House News
Service
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Mariano: “Premature” to Return to New Transportation Revenues
Matt Murphy
With $1 billion in federal relief funding for public transit on
its way to Massachusetts, House Speaker Ron Mariano said
Thursday he was not in a rush to push another vote on
transportation revenue a year after the House voted for more
than $500 million in new revenue, including a 5-cent hike in the
gas tax.
The House's transportation financing package stalled out in the
Senate in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
That bill would have increased the gas tax by 5 cents and the
diesel tax by 9 cents, hiked the corporate minimum tax and
raised fees on Uber and Lyft to help pay for improvements to
transportation system clogged with vehicles and riders.
Asked during an appearance before the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce whether he would return to the issue of transportation
revenue, and specifically the gas tax, Mariano said, "I think
it's a little premature just yet. I wouldn't rule anything off
the table."
The Chamber played helped build support among the business
community for tax increases to improve the state's
transportation system, and CEO Jim Rooney noted that Senate
Transportation Committee Chairman Joe Boncore has filed an
omnibus transportation bill this session that would, among other
things, increase the gas tax by 12 cents by 2025.
"I think it's interesting that the senator decided we needed
revenue. We knew that a year ago," Mariano said. "Now with this
federal money coming in it's a chance for us to take a step back
and recalculate what we want the T to look like."
Mariano said he had been "very disappointed" with the service
cuts being made by T before they revered course on many of the
changes, including cuts to ferry service that he said was
important to Quincy and the South Shore.
"We need to do a full cost-benefit analysis of the routes that
they want to cut. The T has for an awful long time shut down
routes that were fairly heavily traveled to get our attention to
vote for fare increases," Mariano said.
The speaker said that before routes are changed or services cut
to address budget deficits the MBTA and the Legislature should
be working to gain a better understanding of how commuting
patterns will change after the pandemic and what kind of system
will be needed to meet the new demand.
State House News
Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Spilka Weighs In On Taxes, Early Ed, Public Health
By Michael P. Norton
Holding the line on new taxes. Reforming early education and
child care. Getting people out of their cars.
With a major climate policy bill set to become law Friday and
work on key unemployment system changes nearly complete, one of
Beacon Hill's most powerful legislators, Senate President Karen
Spilka, on Friday morning outlined other likely focus areas for
the Senate in the coming weeks and months.
The Ashland Democrat's list, as described during an early
morning Associated Industries of Massachusetts executive forum,
also includes fully funding the state's new education equity
law, increasing investments in public health infrastructure, and
minimizing additional draws from the state's cash reserves.
Spilka also announced that a new panel led by Sen. Adam Hinds to
help Massachusetts reimagine its post-pandemic future and "come
back better" will hold an April 6 session to hear about
business, housing and the digital divide, and an April 14
listening session focused on education and child care.
The policy and spending agenda she outlined comes a day after
House Speaker Ronald Mariano named job creation and training,
improved access to broadband, and offshore wind energy as among
his favored investment areas.
Spilka's Senate Democrats last session led a deep dive into
state tax policy and that group led by Hinds is expected to
release its conclusions this spring.
But with House and Senate budget debates on deck, Spilka echoed
Mariano's recent statements about tax increases -- the Quincy
Democrat said last month that "we have no intention of raising
taxes."
Noting she remains concerned about wealth gaps and saying there
is "room for improvement" in the state tax code over the long
term, Spilka recalled how in 2020 Beacon Hill resisted tax
increases when the pandemic struck, and job losses mounted.
"It was not the time to pass any broad-based tax increases," she
said. "Our outlook, I believe, is still precarious and we need
to be cautious. So I anticipate continuing to hold this view."
Equating the importance of child care to transportation, Spilka
said the pandemic exposed gender pay gaps and "wiped out" a
decade of progress for women.
"I have to say that gives me the chills and goosebumps," she
said. "We must take a close look at the factors that affect
women's employment moving forward and the most obvious place to
start is child care."
In addition to the educational importance to children, Spilka
emphasized the role that quality child care and early education
can plan in ensuring that all residents are participating in and
growing the state's economy, and pointed to the availability of
$500 million in supports in the American Rescue Plan.
"So the Senate will continue to prioritize, and we will work to
reform, to update, to meet the needs, the true needs of our
residents, post-pandemic, we will reform early education and
child care moving forward," she said.
With remote work likely to endure, Spilka said that even the
locations of child care facilities is an issue. She also
highlighted the potential for broadening hours to meet the needs
of working parents and addressing how centers are paid.
"Right now we pay per child, per head, and that hasn't worked
because child care centers need to be open and their funding
model now figures it out with a full capacity. We realized
during the pandemic not all of them had full capacities. So what
can we do to support our centers? What can businesses do?" she
said. "Because clearly businesses benefit from child care. I
would imagine all businesses want to get the best talent that
they can ... and oftentimes it happens to be a woman and we
should make sure that we foster that and support it and put the
resources necessary to do that."
In January, Gov. Baker signed a $16.5 billion multi-year capital
funding bill for transportation, but vetoed measures raising
fees on ride-hailing services, creating a commission to study
congestion pricing systems and requiring the MBTA to launch a
low-income fare program.
Spilka said the new law will still make transportation more
reliable and accessible, and vowed to continue pursuing policies
to change behaviors.
"I have often said that my goal is to get people out of their
cars and into public transportation," she said. "And we all know
that it's more easily said than done. But the Senate is really
committed to continuing to work on policies that will help
change people's behavior. So that will ultimately be done."
Education, Public Health, State Finances
Since the release of Baker's $45.6 billion fiscal 2022 budget,
critics have alleged that the governor underfunded aid to
schools under the new seven-year Student Opportunity Act by
using enrollment projections that don't capture students likely
to return to classrooms in the fall of 2021.
State officials last year skipped the first of seven scheduled
funding years under the $1.5 billion law. They now face pressure
to meet funding commitments they made in November 2019 when they
agreed to the big investments without establishing a dedicated
funding source for the law.
Without getting into specific numbers or the enrollment debate,
Spilka said, "I can tell you right now the Senate intends to
fulfill our promise to fully fund the Student Opportunity Act,
which is so important and so timely. We need to make sure we do
that."
Spilka said the pandemic has "held a mirror to our public health
infrastructure and ability to respond to widespread emergencies,
and we know that there are lessons to learn," and cited research
conducted recently by lawmakers seated on a new committee.
"What we have heard is clear -- that we need increased
investment in our public health infrastructure, especially if we
anticipate any other large-scale emergencies in the future,
which we know are likely," Spilka said. "So while we continue to
work on health care affordability and overall access,
particularly in mental health, I anticipate public health being
a big part of our discussion this session as well."
Public health investments, either at the local or state levels,
will come into clearer focus during legislative budget
deliberations in April and May.
Spilka said "replacing" $3.5 billion in one-time fiscal 2021
revenues will be one of the biggest challenges for budget
writers. However, with state tax collections surpassing
estimates and "billions" in federal aid flowing in, Spilka said,
"I hope to really minimize any withdrawal from our rainy day
fund."
In his fiscal 2022 budget proposal, which was released before
the American Rescue Act was signed, Baker did not call for tax
increases on residents and proposed trimming state spending by
about $300 million even though state tax revenues are expected
to rise 3.5 percent over the current budget year. Baker also
proposed spending $1.6 billion in one-time revenues drawn from
the state's rainy day fund.
Gross MassHealth spending in Baker's budget would fall from
$18.2 billion this year to $17.6 billion in fiscal 2022, while
all non-MassHealth spending in his annual spending blueprint is
slated to increase by 1 percent, from $27.7 billion to $28
billion, the administration said.
State House News
Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Baker Signs Law Committing to Net-Zero Emissions by 2050
Change Can't Wait, They Said, But Bill Was Long in Making
By Colin A. Young
It took basically all of the last legislative session and the
first three months of the new one to get major climate policy
signed into law, but the real work begins now that Gov. Charlie
Baker has put his signature on the law.
After it took a long, winding and sometimes contentious road,
the governor on Friday afternoon signed the long-discussed
legislation designed to commit Massachusetts to achieve net-zero
carbon emissions by 2050, establish interim emissions goals
between now and the middle of the century, adopt energy
efficiency standards for appliances, authorize another 2,400
megawatts of offshore wind power and address needs in
environmental justice communities.
"I'm proud to say that climate change has not been, ever, a
partisan issue. We know the impacts on our coasts, on our
fisheries, on our farms and our communities are real, and demand
action, and that's why we've been committed for over a decade to
... doing the things we need to do to deal with the issue at
hand and to maintain a structure that's affordable for the
people of the commonwealth," Baker said after signing the bill
in the State House library. He added, "This bill puts us on an
ambitious path to achieving a cleaner and more livable
commonwealth, while also creating economic development
opportunities to support the initiatives."
Baker and the Legislature see eye-to-eye when it comes to the
goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the
details of how the state would get there proved to be a much
more complicated conversation. On Friday, Baker said he was glad
lawmakers "went back and forth and back and forth and back and
forth on this" with his administration before settling on the
final language.
Sen. Michael Barrett, who led the negotiations for the Senate
and said he is concerned that the Baker administration has tried
to "evade legislative intent" of the new law, said Friday that
everyone in state government now must start "pulling in the same
direction" now that the work turns to implementation.
"The order of the day beginning tomorrow is ensuring
interpretations of the law that are true to legislative intent
and then overseeing implementation in a way that is true to
legislative intent," he said. "One reason I've been so concerned
about the administration's insistence on idiosyncratic readings
of the new statute is because today's abstract discussion segues
over in tomorrow's implementation. If the administration pushes
back against the plain language of the law today, how are they
going to implement it tomorrow?"
The new law requires that greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 be at
least 50 percent lower than 1990 emissions, that 2040 emissions
be at least 75 percent lower and that 2050 emissions be at least
85 percent below 1990 emissions. In order to actually net out at
zero emissions by 2050, the state will have to make up the
remainder, up to 15 percent, through strategies like carbon
sequestration and carbon banking. The Baker administration has
similarly embraced natural climate solutions in its own climate
plans.
"We now have in place a path forward for robust climate action
that will truly make a difference when it comes to tackling and
reversing climate change in Massachusetts and beyond," Deb
Markowitz, state director of The Nature Conservancy in
Massachusetts, said. "We are especially pleased that, for the
first time, the new framework acknowledges the important
contribution of natural and working lands -- such as forests,
farms and wetlands -- to draw carbon pollution from the air."
Massachusetts has the potential to remove one to two million
metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere
through natural climate solutions each year, roughly equal to
the emissions from 435,000 cars annually, TNC has said.
The law also requires the executive branch to set interim limits
for 2025, 2035 and 2045, and to set sublimits for six sectors of
the economy -- electric power; transportation; commercial and
industrial heating and cooling; residential heating and cooling;
industrial processes; and natural gas distribution and service
-- every five years. Each five-year emissions limit "shall be
accompanied by publication of a comprehensive, clear and
specific roadmap plan to realize said limit," the law requires.
That work will begin almost immediately. The first interim plan
required by the new law, the plan for 2025, must be in place
along with the 2025 emissions limit by July 1, 2022. The bill
also requires the Department of Public Utilities to consider
emissions reductions on an equal footing as its considerations
of reliability and affordability within 90 days, that the
governor appoint three green building experts to the Board of
Building Regulations and Standards, and that the administration
establish the first-ever greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal
for the home energy efficiency program MassSave.
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides
said she stopped by her daughter's room before driving to
Friday's signing ceremony to see if she wanted to join her
mother to watch the governor sign a climate bill into law.
"She said, 'So, why is that important? I thought you have to do
something to stop climate change?' and I said, 'Yes, you do. But
this is step one and we have a lot of work ahead of us,'"
Theoharides said. "And so I really look forward to that work,
that work we're doing for all of our children and for the future
of our residents here in the commonwealth."
The law, through one of Baker's amendments, newly requires the
Department of Environmental Protection to conduct cumulative
impact analysis as a condition of permitting certain projects to
ensure that environmental justice communities -- neighborhoods
that are mostly made up of people with lower incomes and people
of color that are at risk of being negatively and
disproportionately impacted by environmental policies -- no
longer bear an undue burden of air pollution.
Offshore wind is becoming an increasingly important part of the
state's energy and environmental strategies and the new law
requires that the executive branch direct Massachusetts
utilities to buy an additional 2,400 MW of offshore wind power
generation.
So far, Massachusetts lawmakers have authorized the procurement
of a total of 3,200 MW of offshore wind power. The Vineyard Wind
I and Mayflower Wind projects are under contract for a combined
roughly 1,600 MW and the state is in the early stages of a third
procurement, one that could fulfill the remaining 1,600 MW of
authorization with a single project.
The Road to the Governor's Signature
"I want to thank the governor for signing this bill today, a
bill that has more miles on it than my car," House Speaker
Ronald Mariano said Friday.
Eighty-one state lawmakers rang in 2019 and the start of the
current two-year legislative session by resolving to pursue a
suite of climate policies, including moving the state to
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The year brought youth
climate strikes and clean energy pushes from municipal and
business leaders but not, ultimately, completed climate
legislation.
At the start of 2020, Gov. Charlie Baker, then-House Speaker
Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka all declared
their support for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 on the same
day in January. But that shared goal, one that climate activists
spent years clamoring for, was not carved into statutory stone
until Friday afternoon.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed a package of climate bills in
January 2020 and the House, which had earlier passed a $1.3
billion climate adaptation bill, in July 2020 passed its
response to the main Senate proposal calling for net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050.
Six lawmakers negotiated from early August until early January
to strike a compromise between the House and Senate versions.
That was passed in the final days of the last legislative
session, so close to the end that Baker was left with only two
options: sign the bill, or veto it.
Though he made clear that he would have preferred to send the
bill back with amendments, Baker vetoed the bill. Lawmakers
pledged to pass the exact same bill and did just that by the end
of January. This time, Baker sent the bill back in early
February with amendments he said would make the legislation more
palatable.
Lawmakers then sat on the bill for a month as negotiations with
the administration played out. The Legislature agreed to many,
but not all, of Baker's amendments.
Though the Legislature's changes satisfied the governor and his
administration, the two sides continued to disagree over whether
the changes were generally significant (as the administration
would say) or more technical in nature (as the Legislature would
tell you). For example, Barrett said the final version of the
bill incorporated "none of the major" amendments suggested by
the governor, but the administration says lawmakers adopted all
but one of its most significant proposals.
Either way, both sides displayed a willingness to negotiate
throughout the process and those talks got the bill to a point
where both sides could claim some victories.
More Climate Action to Come?
"This bill is a significant step closer to putting our knowledge
about a foreseeable risk into action. This critical piece of
legislation will help us seize major benefits for the
commonwealth on our way to addressing an existential threat to
our modern society and human life as we know it," Sen. Marc
Pacheco, one of the most vocal lawmakers when it comes to
climate policy, said.
But the new law does not deal with the "climate emergency"
aggressively enough, he said.
"That's why as soon as this bill is done, we need to get about
the business of putting in place the other elements that we need
to be dealing with as a state, and working with our national
governmental leaders and our world leaders to do everything we
can to continue to move forward," he said when the Senate
re-enacted the climate bill on March 15.
Pacheco added, "Let us not close the door on this issue. Let's
make sure we kick it open for the future, that this is just our
new beginning on a commitment to make sure we embrace a clean
energy future. We're on the cusp of a sustainability revolution,
let's embrace that clean energy revolution."
Pacheco has filed a bevy of climate-related bills for
consideration in the current session, including proposals to
target retrofitting one million homes over the next decade and
to create the jobs necessary to complete those retrofits (SD
2102).
"For all that last session's bill will accomplish, a lot has
been left on the table, and legislators will need to take
further action on climate this year," Ben Hellerstein, state
director for Environment Massachusetts, said. "One policy that's
at the top of the to-do list: a bill championed by Rep. Marjorie
Decker, Rep. Sean Garballey, and Sen. Joseph Boncore to
transition our electricity, buildings, and transportation system
to 100 percent clean energy."
Former Sen. Ben Downing, who hopes to be the Democratic nominee
for governor in 2022, shared similar sentiments Friday, saying
that "[b]efore the ink is dry on the Governor's signature,
Massachusetts again finds itself behind."
"For years Governor Baker and Massachusetts state government
have approached the climate crisis with sluggishness and delay.
That makes today frustrating. There is rightfully much to
celebrate in this bill. But these are provisions that should
have been the law of the land in Massachusetts long ago,"
Downing said. "In the years ahead we have to accelerate our
climate response in a way today's bill barely imagines. That's
going to require state leadership -- starting with a Governor --
that understands we're out of time."
The
Salem News
Friday, March 26, 2021
Climate pact up in the air
Effort hinges on approval by 2 other states
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Massachusetts is largely in the driver’s seat on a regional plan
to reduce carbon emissions from cars and trucks, but the
initiative, which could lead to higher gas prices, now hinges on
the approval of lawmakers in two neighboring states.
Gov. Charlie Baker, the governors of Connecticut and Rhode
Island, and the mayor of Washington, D.C., signed a regional
agreement in December that aims to substantially curb tailpipe
emissions while drumming up revenue for projects to mitigate
climate change and improve transportation infrastructure.
The Transportation and Climate Initiative won't be put to a vote
in Massachusetts, but it still must be ratified by Connecticut
and Rhode Island in order to go forward.
In Connecticut, lawmakers are debating whether to enter into the
pact. A bill filed by Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to
clear a key committee but its fate in the General Assembly is
less certain.
Rhode Island lawmakers have yet to file a proposal to ratify the
deal, but supporters say they expect legislation to emerge soon.
Backers of the initiative in Connecticut and Rhode Island say
they expect it to be ratified, but opponents argue that it’s
anything but a done deal.
"If lawmakers go ahead with this, they are going to be
increasing gas prices for their constituents, which will be a
hard sell," said Christian Herb, executive director of the
Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, a trade group that
opposes the pact. "The governor is clearly in favor of it, but
the Legislature will ultimately have the final say."
Herb said a Republican minority in the Connecticut Legislature,
and even some Democrats, strongly oppose approving a pact that
would lead to higher gas prices and "cede their taxing authority
to some autonomous bureaucracy."
“If it had steam, I think they would've already voted on it by
now," he said. "I expect it will come out of committee, but it's
going to be a different story in the General Assembly."
The pact aims to cut motor vehicle emissions by at least 26%
within the next 11 years. It targets gasoline and diesel fuel
consumption, which account for about 40% of regional emissions
that scientists say contribute to climate change.
The three states now involved in the pact account for about 73%
of vehicle emissions in New England.
Under the plan, suppliers who deliver fuel across state lines
will be taxed on emissions above limits that have yet to be set.
Their costs will likely be passed to consumers.
Supporters say the plan caps increases at 5 cents per gallon in
the first year, but opponents say it's unclear what will happen
down the road. They say the deal ultimately will hurt consumers
while doing little to reduce emissions.
"In order to reach the emissions cuts they're proposing, it's
going to have to be 30, 40, 50 cents a gallon," said Mike
Stenhouse, founder and CEO of the Rhode Island Center for
Freedom and Prosperity. "Make no mistake, this isn't about
reducing carbon emissions. It's basically a cash grab by these
states."
Stenhouse said his group has done polling that shows even Rhode
Islanders who support cutting vehicle emissions change their
mind when told it will cost them at the pump. He said dozens of
lawmakers have gone on record in opposition to the pact.
Former Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat who signed the climate
pact, has left to serve as President Joe Biden’s commerce
secretary. It's not yet clear where her successor, Democratic
Gov. Dan McKee, stands on the issue.
But Hank Webster, director of the Rhode Island chapter of the
Acadia Center, said he expects the pact to be ratified. He noted
the Legislature is in the process of approving a massive climate
change bill, and he anticipates something will “emerge soon.”
A majority of the 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that were
part of the original TCI pact haven't committed to the
agreement. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, says
his state won't join.
Of the current group, Massachusetts is the only state that won't
be putting the issue to a vote.
The Baker administration says the 2008 Global Warming Solutions
Act gives the governor the authority to ratify the climate
agreement without legislative approval.
A group of Republican lawmakers filed a bill last year that
would have required a vote in the Legislature, but it failed to
win support.
— Christian M. Wade covers the
Massachusetts Statehouse for The Salem News and its sister
newspapers and websites.
CommonWealth Magazine
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Is Trump’s exit bad for Baker?
Michael Jonas
It’s Trump’s fault.
Not the insurrection at the US Capitol or the discrediting of
fairly conducted elections or the general degradation of
democratic principles – though there may be those things, too.
In this case, the damage done by the former president is to
Charlie Baker’s approval ratings.
The governor whose political standing with voters seemed to defy
the laws of gravity has seen his poll numbers come down closer
to earth, and Politico’s Stephanie Murray says Trump is to
blame. Not because of anything he did, but rather because he’s
now gone.
“Wildly unpopular in Massachusetts, Trump served as a foil for
Baker, who was able to establish his own political independence
— and win over Democratic constituents — by frequently
criticizing his fellow Republican,” she writes.
With no Trump to kick around anymore, Baker is finding himself
on the receiving end of the blue-state brickbats. And he’s not
alone, says Murray, who points to falling approval ratings for
two other Republican governors in heavily Democratic states,
Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Phil Scott in Vermont.
Baker’s approval rating has fallen from close to 80 percent last
August to 52 percent last month, she writes. He’s seen a similar
falloff in polls asking specifically about his handling of the
COVID pandemic.
And there’s the rub. Trump’s exit has coincided with the state’s
problem-plagued vaccine rollout and a growing overall weariness
with the pandemic as it enters its second year. That makes it
hard to tease out any independent effect of Trump’s
disappearance from the public stage.
Still, it’s not just public poll numbers that have shifted for
Baker. The Democrats who dominate the Legislature have shown a
new willingness to spar more directly with him, including in two
recent oversight hearings where the lawmakers Baker loves to
refer to as “our colleagues” have been decidedly less collegial.
“We just seem to have thrown the playbook out and decided on
something completely different,” Sen. Cindy Friedman told Baker
bluntly in yesterday’s hearing, criticizing the administration’s
turn away from long-established plans to rely on local public
health departments in a crisis. She called the testimony to that
effect yesterday from municipal health officials “damning.”
Despite the dip in poll numbers, Baker’s coronavirus approval
rating was still 59 percent last month. Hogan’s approval rating
on his handling of the pandemic went from 78 percent to 64
percent, while Scott’s had ticked down just 8 points, from 78
percent to 70 percent.
If that’s the sort of punishment in store for Republican
governors, Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom may be looking to sign
up.
POLITICO
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Blue-state Republicans slump without Trump as foil
Some of the nation’s most popular governors have been knocked
off their pedestals.
BOSTON — As recently as October, Massachusetts Republican Gov.
Charlie Baker was basking in his typically stratospheric poll
ratings. More than 70 percent approved of his job performance.
Roughly the same amount felt the same way about his handling of
the Covid-19 crisis.
Those were the days.
Since then, Baker’s numbers have nosedived, knocking him off his
pedestal as arguably the nation’s most popular governor. His
coronavirus approval ratings have dropped from a high of 80
percent last April to 59 percent in February, according to the
Covid States Project, which has been tracking gubernatorial
approval ratings for the past year. His overall job performance
ratings have also declined — from 78 percent in August to 52
percent at the end of February, according to a recent UMass
Amherst poll.
In part, Baker’s downward slide can be attributed to his state's
troubled vaccine rollout, which got off to a slow start and was
marked by a very public website crash for the vaccine
appointment booking system. Yet there are also signs another
factor may be contributing to his decline: Donald Trump’s
departure from the White House.
Wildly unpopular in Massachusetts, Trump served as a foil for
Baker, who was able to establish his own political independence
— and win over Democratic constituents — by frequently
criticizing his fellow Republican.
Baker isn’t the only blue-state Republican governor who’s seen
his popularity dented by coronavirus fatigue and Trump’s absence
from the news cycle. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Vermont Gov.
Phil Scott — two other Trump critics who have long rated among
the most popular governors in the nation — have also seen their
numbers dip in the post-Trump era.
"If you happen to be a Republican governor, and you're sort of
disagreeing with Trump, you're likely to be really, really
popular among the other side, much more so than if you were
agreeing with the main party. So I think that goes a long way to
explaining it," said Matthew Baum, a researcher on the Covid
States Project.
Between their moderate politics and Trump-resistant stances, the
three governors have actually managed to become more popular
with Democratic voters than Republicans.
Seventy-three percent of Democrats approved of Scott's job
performance in September, compared to just 65 percent of
Republicans, according to a VPR-Vermont PBS poll. In Maryland, a
March Goucher College poll reported Hogan’s approval rating
among Democrats at 81 percent, compared to just 65 percent among
Republicans.
"There's nobody a Democrat loves more than a Republican
criticizing Trump," said pollster Rich Clark of Vermont’s
Castleton University.
In Baker’s case, his standing within his own party is so
strained that, in the event he seeks a third term next year, a
Republican close to state GOP leadership is gearing up to
challenge him in the primary.
Like Baker, Hogan and Scott managed to keep a significant
distance from the former president while he was in office — all
of them made clear that while they may have been on the same
team as Trump, they were certainly not on the same page.
Prior to the pandemic, the three governors were frequent Trump
critics. Hogan was floated as a potential 2020 primary
challenger to Trump. Scott went so far as to call Trump “racist”
when the president told four Democratic congresswomen of color
to "go back" to where they came from.
After the election, each confessed that they did not vote for
Trump in November. Hogan wrote in Ronald Reagan’s name. Scott
said he voted for Biden. Baker blanked his ballot for the second
election in a row.
Hogan continues to speak out against Trump, saying the GOP will
struggle to rebuild as long as the former president remains
involved in politics.
“I don’t know if I have a future in the Republican Party, but I
care about the future of the Republican Party,” Hogan said in an
interview this month at POLITICO’s The Fifty: America’s
Governors event.
That kind of oppositional stance makes for good politics in
Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont, which ranked as Trump’s
three weakest states in 2020 — he won just under one-third of
the vote in each of them.
“I’m a Republican elected in the bluest state in America — twice
— by being just the opposite of that, and by winning over a
large number of Black voters and suburban women and independents
and Democrats,” said Hogan. “I think I have something to add to
the conversation about how can Republicans have a winning
message and how can you go about winning more people over to our
side of the argument. ”
The Covid States Project found that support for the three
governors still remains relatively high compared to their
counterparts in other states. The trio often acted earlier or
more aggressively than Trump to shut down their states and slow
the spread of coronavirus, positions that were largely welcomed
in their blue states. Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland, for
example, instituted mask mandates when Trump rejected face
coverings.
But faced with the last major logistical challenge of the
pandemic — vaccine distribution — Baker, Hogan and Scott have
seen their approval ratings slip.
"Earlier perception of Baker as a very capable manager and
trusted leader was seriously undermined by the way he
underperformed the last few months," said Boston-based
Republican strategist Todd Domke.
Asked about his slide in the polls, Baker pointed to coronavirus
fatigue in an interview with WGBH News. "I think everybody's
anxious for the pandemic to be over. I am,” he said. “I don't
know why everybody else wouldn't be either."
Hogan's coronavirus approval rating is down from 78 percent in
late April to 64 percent in February, according to the Covid
States Project, which is a joint effort by Northeastern
University, Harvard University, Rutgers University and
Northwestern University. Scott's coronavirus approval rating
dropped the least — by about 8 percentage points, from 78
percent in August to 70 percent in February.
Mileah Kromer, who oversees the Goucher College poll in
Maryland, notes that the governors’ polling numbers are still
pretty enviable despite the recent drops.
"It is kind of amazing, though. It tells you how much political
capital you have built in," Kromer said. "When your approval
rating hits 70 [percent], you can take a 20-point hit and still
be at 50."
State House News
Service
Friday, March 26, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Blood in the Water
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
The Democratic sharks are circling, sensing vulnerability in a
Republican governor with few teammates to protect his flank. But
even if Gov. Charlie Baker looks like easy prey to some in a
state like Massachusetts, Democrats on Beacon Hill are
unpracticed hunters.
"We know he's a RINO anyway," joked Sen. Nick Collins during his
resurrection of the South Boston St. Patrick's Day breakfast
last Sunday, alluding to the fact that Baker is actually more
popular with Democratic voters than Republicans.
Collins brought back the breakfast after a one-year COVID-19
hiatus at a time when his own political ambitions for City Hall,
still shrouded in mystery, were ripe for roasting. And while it
may have been even less clear if the attempts at jokes landed in
the virtual realm, the live-streamed, green-themed breakfast
jump-started a week during which good-natured ribbing would
quickly give way to intentional and, at times, pointed jabs.
The Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and
Management held its second oversight hearing on Tuesday with a
clear objective -- challenge Baker's decision not to rely more
on local boards of health for vaccination distribution.
Even as Massachusetts has climbed the state rankings for shots
administered, the choice to administer many of those shots at
mass vaccination sites instead of through local clinics and
municipal public health infrastructure is the hill some in the
legislature have chosen to plant their flag.
Democrats accused him of throwing out the playbook right before
the big game, and spending millions on private-run facilities
when that money could have been used to scale up locally-run
clinics.
Baker stood his ground, suggesting he is acting off the same
script being used by the BIden administration and pointing out
how privately operated mass vaccination sites aren't even the
largest distributors of vaccines in Massachusetts. Hospitals
are.
The governor said local disaster plans weren't developed to
deliver a vaccine of limited quantity with very specific
cold-storage requirements and a short shelf life. And he and
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said that
while some local health agencies, like the ones invited to
testify, may have been equipped to administer COVID-19 shots,
hundreds of other boards of health were not and made that clear
when they didn't raise their hands to help vaccinate their own
first responders or the 75+ population.
The defense didn't sit well with Baker's critics on the
committee: "What we're getting from you is, 'You're all wrong,
we're doing great, please, we don't want to hear it anymore.'
And I find that hard to take," said an exasperated Sen. Cindy
Friedman.
For much of the hour, lawmakers monologued and Baker scribbled
notes off screen. Some shots landed and others missed the mark,
like when Baker had to explain that he didn't control how many
doses go to retail pharmacies.
And at the end of a long day, it was unclear if any progress had
been made: "The stark differences between the testimony received
demands that we dig deeper and understand better why decades of
public investment in emergency preparedness have been shelved in
favor of another approach, hastily constructed during a global
pandemic," Driscoll and Comerford said in a post-hearing
statement.
While the theme of the hearing was to dunk on mass vaccination
sites, the idea of a federally supported site, and the thousands
of extra doses that come with it, was one that seemed to hold
some interest for Democrats.
Rep. William Driscoll appeared very curious to know when exactly
the state had applied for one of these FEMA run sites, which was
announced in February when the delegation sent a letter of
support to the Biden administration.
On Friday, the White House and Baker announced that the newest
state-run mass vaccination site at the Hynes Convention Center
would be supported with an additional 6,000 doses a day from the
federal government, raising the daily capacity of the site to
7,000.
The FEMA sponsorship of the Hynes was one of several good-news
announcements about supply this week that also brought word of
40,000 additional doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson
vaccine. The J&J increase prompted Baker to launch a
locally-supported vaccination program to reach homebound
residents.
Everyone agrees the faster the vaccine arrives and gets put into
arms, the sooner the state can emerge from the year-long
pandemic. That's why Baker's hiring of McKinsey & Co. to write a
report about the "future-of-work" has generated so much
interest.
But Attorney General Maura Healey's interest in the report this
week had nothing to do with her curiosity to learn what the
global consulting firm recommends. Healey, who is being watched
like a hawk for hints at her political future, went after Baker
for hiring McKinsey after her office and others around the
country reached a settlement with the firm last month for $573
million over its role in helping Purdue Pharma "turbocharge"
opioid sales to turn a profit.
The "future-of-work" contract is one of many the firm holds with
the state, and Healey called it "outrageous" that Massachusetts
would continue to give them business. One of her opening salvos
in the 2022 gubernatorial campaign? Maybe. But even a visit by
the attorney general to a picket line in Worcester these days is
cause for speculation.
Before Boston voters even get to 2022, they will have to choose
a new mayor in the fall and it won't be Marty Walsh ... Labor
Secretary Marty Walsh.
Wheeling his suitcase through Logan Airport and clutching a cup
of Doughboy Donuts coffee, Walsh left Boston for Washington,
D.C. on Tuesday, the morning after the U.S. Senate confirmed his
nomination to lead the Labor Department. He officially resigned
as mayor at 9 p.m. on March 22, handing the reins of the city
over to Kim Janey, the former City Council president who became
the first woman and Black resident of Boston to be able to call
themselves mayor.
Whether Janey will seek extend her historic elevation as mayor
beyond the next eight months remains to be seen, but given the
current field it would appear the long-running hold on the
office by Irish and Italian men will soon be broken.
Janey takes over a city where the school department was granted
a waiver by Education Commissioner Jeff Riley to delay its
return to in-person learning for K-8 students until April 26.
Boston was one of at least 60 districts given a reprieve from
the April 5 deadline to bring elementary students back to the
classroom.
House Speaker Ron Mariano told the Greater Boston Chamber of
Commerce that the waiver process was important because
ultimately it should be the local districts deciding when it's
safe to return to school.
The speaker has largely sided with the teachers' unions in their
dispute with Baker over classroom safety. But overall, Mariano
said the governor has worked "very effectively" with the
Legislature through the pandemic, and used his executive powers
"extremely well" apart from some well documented "hiccups" with
the vaccine rollout.
Baker even put his name this week on a game-changing climate
bill that will put Massachusetts on the path to net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050 after working with lawmakers to make small but
important adjustments.
The new climate law also directs another massive 2,400-megawatt
procurement of offshore wind power. And that was actually what
Mariano wanted to talk to the GBCC about.
The speaker announced that the forthcoming House budget proposal
would direct $10 million through the Clean Energy Center to
train workers for careers in offshore wind, and he promised to
pursue a "large-scale" bonding effort to secure the South
Coast's position as the regional hub of the offshore wind
industry.
Mariano also said he wasn't in any rush to return to debate over
raising taxes to pay for transportation, at least not until the
pandemic aftershocks subside and leaders can take stock of the
MBTA and its new needs.
Besides, he said, there's $1 billion coming to Massachusetts
from the "American Rescue Plan" for public transit and $4.5
billion more in direct aid for state government that changes the
calculations.
Walsh's Dorchester successor in the House, Rep. Dan Hunt, will
lead a hearing next week to dive into the pot of gold that is
the latest stimulus package, and already Baker has committed
$100 million to Chelsea, Everett, Randolph and Methuen where
leaders have said federal funding formulas shortchanged those
hard-hit cities because of their size.
House and Senate leaders have said they want to exert more
control over how this newest round of stimulus gets spent, but
Mariano said he agrees that those communities should be
supported, and believes there may be more cities and towns
deserving.
With unemployment ticking down to 7.1 percent, the House and
Senate also agreed that workers unemployed over the last year
are deserving of a new tax deduction on their first $10,200 in
unemployment benefits.
The more expensive Senate version of the tax break was part of a
bill that will limit the hit to businesses of unemployment
insurance rate hikes this year and extend additional COVID-19
sick leave to Massachusetts workers.
The legislation was enacted Thursday, along with a piece of the
joint rules setting up committees like the Joint Bonding
Committee so that a $400 million borrowing bill to rebuild the
Holyoke Soldiers' Home can be advanced.
And while there were few objections to substance, Sen. Diana
DiZoglio and Sen. John Keenan again had a few concerns with
process.
"State House News knew before the members of this body knew what
we were going to be doing," said a miffed Sen. DiZoglio.
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STORY OF THE WEEK: It took more than six years, but the
Democratic empire is striking back against a
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