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Post Office Box 1147
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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, April 12, 2021
Rolling in Cash &
Proposed Constitutional Amendments
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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The Department of Revenue collected more than $3 billion
from Massachusetts residents, workers and businesses last
month, once again shattering the Baker administration's
expectations and putting the state's coffers more than $1.5
billion ahead of where they were at the same time last year.
Revenue collections for March added up to a total of
$3.061 billion -- $402 million or 15.1 percent more than
what was collected in March 2020 and $648 million or
26.8 percent more than what the Baker administration was
expecting to collect last month.
Now nine months through fiscal year 2021, Massachusetts
state government has collected $22.588 billion in taxes
from people and businesses, which is $1.524 billion or
7.2 percent more than it did during the same nine mostly
pre-pandemic months of fiscal year 2020. The last month
Massachusetts saw a year-over-year decline in tax
collections was September.
For the last three months, actual tax collections have
blown DOR's monthly benchmarks out of the water. January
collections beat the benchmark by 14.7 percent, February
collections surpassed the benchmark by 24.8 percent and
now March revenues came in 26.8 percent over
expectations.
If collections come in at exactly the DOR benchmarks for
April, May and June, Massachusetts will have collected
$30.539 billion in tax revenue in fiscal year 2021.
That would be $1.45 billion more than what the Baker
administration projected it would collect this fiscal
year when it last updated its expectations, $943 million
or 3.1 percent more than what was collected during
fiscal year 2020, and about $419 million more than the
consensus revenue agreement being used to build the
forthcoming fiscal year 2022 budget.
The over-benchmark collections, if they hold up, could
lead to a significant surplus at the end of fiscal 2021
this summer, which would come just as state officials
are making decisions about how to spend billions of
dollars in federal aid coming as part of the American
Rescue Plan. Budget writers in the Legislature and the
Baker administration have expressed interest in using
available revenues to limit rainy day fund draws.
State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
State Tax Collections Keep Up
Brisk Pace in March
Revenues Rising as State Awaits Influx of Federal Aid
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act cleared
Congress without any Republican support, but it didn't
draw any opposition recently from Republican Gov.
Charlie Baker, who instead pointed to the need for
federal resources to help states and localities deal
with new realities.
"Whether this thing is exactly the right number or
exactly the right categories or all the rest I think is
a really hard question to answer," Baker told Jon Keller
of CBS Boston in an interview that aired March 28.
Keller had asked Baker about former Massachusetts Gov.
Mitt Romney, now a Republican Utah senator, calling the
bill a "clunker filled with bad policies and sloppy math
that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars" and Maine
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican whom Baker endorsed
last year, saying the bill "can't be justified."
"Honestly, I think on both sides I'd appreciate a little
less absolutism and a little more commitment to the idea
that in many cases we're dealing with something no one's
ever dealt with before and everybody should be a little
bit more humble about what they think the right answer
is," Baker said....
Romney has said Democrats who wrote the massive bill had
not accepted any Republican proposals and steered
billions of dollars to states based on incorrect
assumptions about major tax revenue losses. Arguing for
an approach that favored aid to cover COVID-19 and
Medicaid expenses and to states that did experience
revenue losses, Romney said 21 states were seeing rising
revenues and listed four states -- Florida, Oklahoma,
Utah and California -- that he said did not need more
federal money but were still getting massive amounts.
State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
Baker Not Joining GOP Critics of
$1.9 Trillion Rescue Act
As state tax revenues continue to race past
expectations, Gov. Charlie Baker expressed interest in
replenishing the state's "rainy day" savings account
this year but stopped short of suggesting how lawmakers
should alter their near-term budget plans.
The Department of Revenue announced Monday that it
collected $3.061 billion in March, about 15 percent more
than in March 2020 and nearly 27 percent more than the
Baker administration anticipated bringing in over the
course of the month....
"A lot of us worked really hard over the last few years
to triple the size of the rainy day fund so that it
would be there when it was raining," Baker said. "One of
the things we'll definitely talk to the Legislature
about, and we have talked a little bit with them about
it at this point, is replenishing the rainy day fund
because it's really important that Massachusetts
continue to have for the future a very robust rainy day
fund. It really proved its mettle early on in the
pandemic."
The Baker administration has projected using $1.35
billion to $1.6 billion from the rainy day fund as part
of its $45.6 billion fiscal year 2022 budget, following
a net reduction of about $978 million in the current
fiscal year. At the start of fiscal year 2021, the fund
had a balance of about $3.5 billion.
Since Baker filed his spending proposal in January,
President Joe Biden signed a stimulus package set to
deliver almost $4.55 billion to state government in
Massachusetts. If the next three months of state tax
collections hit DOR's benchmarks, the state will have
collected $1.45 billion more in taxes than the
administration projected for the year.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Rainy Day Fund Restoration On The
Table
State economists are telling taxpayers to keep an eye on
the state budget — and the rainy-day fund — as tens of
billions in federal aid and tax collections beyond
expectations flow into Massachusetts....
In addition to more than $8.1 billion in direct
[federal] aid coming to Massachusetts, the state
continues to outpace estimates on tax revenue
collections. The state Department of Revenue reported
more than $3 billion in tax revenue for March. That’s
$402 million — 15.1% higher — than revenue collected the
prior year during March and $648 million or 26.8% over
the state’s benchmark.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Climbing tax revenues, federal aid
leave Massachusetts in improving financial place
House lawmakers made clear to the Baker administration
Thursday that they want more information about how the
discretionary portion of $71 billion in one-time aid
that's already come to Massachusetts has been spent and
want to have greater say around how another $40 billion
in federal stimulus money that's on the way will be
spent.
After ceding some of its power through the early months
of the COVID-19 pandemic as the governor flexed his
executive authority around public health, the
Legislature has in recent months shown a renewed
interest in playing an oversight role when it comes to
the vaccine rollout and the distribution of federal
funds.
Secretary of Administration and Finance Michael
Heffernan provided the House Committee on Federal
Stimulus and Census Oversight with a detailed breakdown
of the more than $40 billion in one-time federal funds
that will soon come to Massachusetts residents,
businesses and governments through the American Rescue
Plan Act (ARPA) and the nearly $71 billion in aid that
has already been made available. He also pointed the
committee and the public to the state's federal funds
transparency website,
www.mass.gov/federalfunds.
But the questions from the committee members made clear
that representatives feel they haven't been given enough
information about how much federal aid has already been
spent and how the administration decided how it would
spend that funding. Rep. John Barrett told Gov. Charlie
Baker's budget chief that lawmakers "almost feel like
we're being left out of the process." ...
Rep. Colleen Garry, a moderate Democrat from Dracut who
often supports the Republican Baker and endorsed him in
the 2018 election, said she was speaking for other
members who are also annoyed that the executive branch
doesn't keep them in the loop as much as they would
like.
"I guess I voice the frustration of many members to find
out after the fact that things are happening," she said.
"We get the update of where the governor and lieutenant
governor are going to be that day and that they're going
to make an announcement of some type, but when it
includes something that the Legislature should be
involved in, it would be nice to be able to have that
information upfront, even if it's within six hours of
the announcement."
Garry said it is especially frustrating to feel left out
of the decision-making process when she routinely
defends Baker from constituents who think the governor's
executive actions have been an overreach.
"We've been getting a lot in our communities and
standing up for the governor when they're calling him
King Charles ... and how the Legislature should take
back the control of him making these one-way decisions,"
she said. "For one, I am defending the governor that he
is doing the right thing by everything he's done to keep
people safe, but it would be nice to have a heads-up
ahead of time so we don't find out in the press or have
to watch the press conference to find information and
then have to follow-up with the administration on some
of the other announcements to find out exactly what it
meant."
State House News Service
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Flood of Fed Funds Fuels Tension Over
Decisions, Information
For years, with both Democrats and Republicans in the
corner office, the leadership of the Legislature has
basically been able to do what it wants.
Speakers and Senate presidents - always Democrats - have
controlled enough votes to set the agenda, override
vetoes and ignore or compromise with the governor as
they see fit. The difference between then and now? They
didn't always talk about it.
Increasingly, however, House and Senate lawmakers are
not only frustrated with Gov. Charlie Baker over the
things they can't control, but they're willing to say it
publicly. Lawmakers have been clashing with Baker and
his administration on everything from the distribution
of vaccines to climate legislation and the return to
in-person learning for thousands of young students
(though Baker has largely gotten his way on schools)....
"I don't want to feel like the red-headed stepchild as a
member of the Legislature and being left out of this,
and I'm sure my colleagues don't want to feel [that way]
about it. And I don't think we're going to anymore,
hopefully," said Rep. John Barrett, a former mayor who
has been in the executive's shoes.
Barrett's commentary was directed at Administration and
Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan at an oversight
hearing where legislators were demanding to play more of
a role in how the federal relief funding gets spent.
Heffernan wouldn't say, exactly, whether Baker plans to
file a budget bill proposing how to spend the relief
money, but that's one way the governor could give back a
bit of agency to the Legislature....
Next week attention will also turn to managing the
state's finances when the House is expected to release
its version of the fiscal 2022 budget. This week's
continuation of strong tax collections in March gave
budget writers more reasons to be optimistic about the
future.
One additional expense the Legislature will have to plan
for, however, is added expenses in the MassHealth
program. Over the past year, the MassHealth caseload has
increased to more than 2 million individuals, and
President Joe Biden's decision to extend the COVID-19
emergency through 2021 means the state can't comb its
rolls and kick out people who might no longer be
eligible.
Secretary Marylou Sudders told the Ways and Means
Committees this week that MassHealth's budget -- already
the largest slice of the overall pie -- might end up
being $1.4 billion higher than in the governor's budget.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, however,
predicted the increased expenses will be more than
offset by the enhanced reimbursements the feds are
making for Medicaid.
State House News Service
Friday, April 9, 2021
Weekly Roundup - A Strained
Partnership
After sitting out the 2018 campaign despite the party's
nominee struggling to raise money, the Democratic
Governors Association on Monday took notice of Gov.
Charlie Baker's modest fundraising in March, suggesting
the Republican is "increasingly vulnerable."
Baker, who has been managing the state's day-to-day
response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has not said
whether he will seek a third term in 2022, reported
raising just $25,456 in March and $102,687 over the
first three months of the year.
While his lieutenant governor has been raising money at
a faster clip, Baker's haul is less than both former
state Sen. Ben Downing, who has declared his candidacy
on the Democratic side, and Harvard professor Danielle
Allen, another Democrat who is still exploring a bid.
Both Democrats reported raising more than $200,000 in
the first quarter....
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who has twice been Baker's
running mate, reported raising more than twice as much
as Baker in March -- $64,576 -- and $183,849 since the
New Year. She has over $2 million in cash-on-hand that
could be used by a Baker-Polito ticket in 2022, and
Baker reported another $561,253 in cash-on-hand.
State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
“Vulnerable” Baker Draws Attention
of DGA
Removing gendered language, declaring laws that produce
unequal outcomes for different groups to be
unconstitutional, and banning some eminent domain land
takings are among the changes that some Massachusetts
lawmakers want to make to the state constitution.
Three months into the 2021-2022 session, the Legislature
is winding up to consider constitutional amendments at
the Constitutional Convention the House and Senate must
convene by May 12.
At a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Adam
Hinds urged his colleagues to support his amendment
aimed at creating a more robust state response to reduce
racial and gender inequity across Massachusetts.
The amendment (S 21) filed by Hinds (D-Pittsfield) would
declare "persistent unequal outcomes" for groups with
constitutionally protected status, such as race or
sexual orientation, to represent inequality and
therefore be unconstitutional.
That change, he said, would force lawmakers and the
administration into a more "proactive" position on
issues such as housing access, education funding and
justice system oversight and to excise "racist policies"
from state law.
"This amendment is critical to addressing inequality
arising from laws that appear to be neutral on their
face but have, for decades, had disproportionate
negative impacts on communities of color, religious
minorities and immigrants," Hinds said. "The impact and
implication is that when persistent outcomes exist by
race, for example, the state must take action to remedy
that by force of law." ...
Tuesday's hearing also included testimony on two
constitutional amendments proposed by Rep. Mindy Domb.
The first (H 79) would replace what Domb counted as 83
instances of the word "he" in the Massachusetts
constitution with the gender-neutral phrase "the
person." That change, Domb told lawmakers, would make
the document more inclusive to people of all gender
identities and make its language more consistent -- the
word "person," she said, already appears 64 times.
Domb's second amendment (H 80) would allow lawmakers in
Massachusetts to affirm their oaths of office rather
than swearing them. Under the constitution as it stands,
she said, only Quakers can affirm the oath of office,
forcing everyone else to take an oath with religious
connotations that might not mirror their faith or belief
system....
Several speakers testified Tuesday in favor of a
constitutional amendment from House Minority Leader Brad
Jones (H 82) prohibiting the use of eminent domain to
take land for private commercial or economic development
interests.
"Just because someone owns a modest home does not mean
they should worry the government will take their
property to build more expensive homes," said Jaimie
Cavanaugh, an attorney with the Institute for Justice
group that advocates to limit the scope of government
power.
One of the most high-profile topics that will feature at
this session's Convention, a proposed 4 percent surtax
on household incomes above $1 million per year, was not
on the agenda for Tuesday's hearing but is automatically
on the convention agenda. The measure needs approval
from Constitutional Conventions in two successive
lawmaking sessions before it can go before voters as a
ballot question for final approval.
In June 2019, the Constitutional Convention advanced the
constitutional amendment with a 147-48 vote to clear the
first hurdle.
If it passes again, as is expected, the question will be
placed on the ballot in November 2022.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano voted against the proposal
in the past before supporting it as a constitutional
amendment, and last week he criticized the process as
one that "bypasses compromise."
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Constitutional Amendment
Targets Outcomes of “Racist Policies”
Domb Amendment Addresses Gendered Language
The state Constitution has been amended 121 times since
it was ratified more than 240 years ago, most recently
in 2006, when voters approved the state's health care
law.
But some on Beacon Hill say the historical parchment,
penned by Massachusetts' own founding father, John
Adams, is in need of a different kind of revision.
A group of lawmakers want to update the Constitution to
make it gender-neutral, changing the pronoun "he" to
"the person" throughout the document.
"We are making such great strides to become inclusive in
the commonwealth," Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, primary
sponsor of the bill, told members of the Legislature's
Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. "We should make sure the
Constitution reflects that."
There are at least 83 references to "he" in the
document, which begins with the words: "All men are born
free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and
unalienable rights."
Domb pointed out the word "person" is already used 64
times in the document.
"By striking the word 'he' and replacing it with 'the
person,' we are making the Constitution more consistent
as well as gender inclusive," she told the panel....
Domb has filed another proposal to allow state and local
elected officials to decline to recite the phase "so
help me, God" when taking the oath of office....
Supporters of the dozen or so constitutional amendments
acknowledge they face a long slog.
To be successful, amendments must be approved by two
consecutive Legislatures — a process that could take
three years or more. The earliest a proposal could be
put on a ballot for voters is November 2024.
The Salem News
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Pronouns get scrutiny in state
Constitution
A Massachusetts state legislator wants to make unequal
outcomes by race and other categories a violation of the
state constitution that would prompt action by the state
government.
The proposed constitutional amendment would add sexual
orientation to the currently protected classes of sex,
race, color, creed, and national origin and add a
sentence after that stating: “Persistent unequal
outcomes among such categories shall constitute
inequality under the law and shall thereby be
unconstitutional.”
The idea is to get state officials to make policy
changes whenever unequal outcomes among certain classes
of people are found, in order to try to make the
outcomes equal...
“Massachusetts has a fundamental obligation to eliminate
not only overt but subtle discrimination in state laws
as it works to remedy these inequities. And we have an
obligation to aggressively and unceasingly intervene
until equal opportunity is visible in its outcomes that
we create,” state Senator Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield), the
sponsor of the measure, told a legislative committee
this past week...
Hinds envisions a new Office of Antiracism in state
government with a leader empowered to “coordinate across
all agencies and branches of government to promote
antiracist policy and work[] to undo the harmful effects
of racism in all aspects of life including in
healthcare, finance, education, housing, environmental
policy, and the justice system,” according to a related
bill he has filed.
During the hearing, Hinds outlined how state officials
would be expected to fix social inequities, with the
assumption that inequities arise because of unfair
government policy....
Hinds got pushback from state Representative Colleen
Garry (D-Dracut), who suggested that existing state
offices have the authority to challenge or overturn
state policies that violate the rights of people in the
state, including protected classes.
“I guess I’m a little confused about changing the
language of the constitution. Wouldn’t we already have
the ability, through the inspector general or the
attorney general, or someone else to – the courts — to
be able to determine if the outcome of a policy … is not
getting the outcome that we want?” Garry asked....
The two legislators represent opposite wings of the
state’s dominant Democratic Party.
Hinds has a 0 percent lifetime American Conservative
Union rating, which is the lowest possible. Garry, with
a 31 percent lifetime American Conservative Union
rating, has the most conservative voting record among
Democrats in the state Legislature.
Hinds got a B+ from Progressive Massachusetts during the
2019-2020 legislative session, while Garry got an F from
the left-wing group.
The New Boston Post
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Make Unequal Racial Outcomes
Unconstitutional, State Legislator Says
The rich still thrive while the middle class struggles
to survive....
A review by the Pioneer Institute of the so-called
“millionaires tax” concludes it won’t just pick the
pockets of the wealthiest few, but would also nail
members of the middle-class cashing out for retirement.
This graduated income-tax proposal would slap an
additional 4% income tax on annual income over $1
million. A supportive Legislature is expected to vote in
the coming months on whether to put it on the ballot in
2022.
“It has the ability to push those with significant
capital gains and valuable asset sales into higher tax
brackets, punishing owners of retirement nest eggs and
desirable real estate. In practice, these ‘one-time
millionaires,’ who cash in on a lifetime of work and
sacrifice in anticipation of retirement, outnumber those
who consistently have seven-figure salaries or stock
market windfalls,” wrote study authors Greg Sullivan &
Andrew Mikula....
We’ve criticized this millionaires tax because it seeks
to punish the state’s entrepreneurial class that employs
thousands of Massachusetts workers.
But our wealthiest residents possess the mobility to
move their residences – and potentially their businesses
– elsewhere.
Middle-class earners who’ve worked diligently all their
lives to create a comfortable retirement that could now
be unfairly taxed likely have far fewer options.
Net result: the middle-class baby gets thrown out with
the soak-it-to-the-rich bathwater.
A (Fitchburg) Sentinel & Enterprise editorial
Sunday, April 4, 2021
Discouraging state of middle class
in Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is capable of halting
global warming – just ask them.
Just don’t expect the hacks to issue an inspection
sticker for your car, because while stopping rising sea
levels is no problem, the failed Registry of Motor
Vehicles has been unable for more than a week to process
even one single vehicle inspection.
Here’s what Gov. Charlie Baker talks endlessly about
achieving: “net zero emissions.”
Here’s what he’s accomplished over the last 10 days with
no end in sight: net zero inspections.
Gov. Charlie Baker, though, has bigger fish to fry than
the 15,000 to 20,000 drivers every single day who are
unable to renew their annual inspection stickers.
The man known to his Democrat admirers as “Charlie
Bacon” or “Charlie Parker” can’t be bothered with such
mundane concerns as plebeians having to pay years of
insurance surcharges because of his calamitous
incompetence.
“As a Commonwealth,” Tall Deval recently harrumphed, “we
have an obligation to address climate change head on.”
Charlie, before you think globally, how about you act
locally?
The entire state government has degenerated into a
corrupt hackerama, Charlie, and your solution is to
steal billions more from the state’s motorists by
raising the gasoline tax from 24 cents a gallon to
perhaps as high as 62 cents, according to a Tufts
University study.
And in return for that, motorists can now get… stopped
by local cops for having an expired inspection sticker
because yet another Charlie Parker agency has seized up
and utterly failed.
“The price of doing nothing is very big,” Charlie Bacon
once said.
Of course, he wasn’t talking about the Registry. He was
talking about, what are they calling it today, global
cooling, global warming, climate change, extreme
weather....
A moving violation, which is what an expired sticker is
(even if the car isn’t actually moving) is a
surchargeable offense. The statute of limitations runs
out on bank robberies before it runs out on a
surchargeable offense in the kleptocracy known as
Maskachusetts....
Meanwhile, Charlie says he’s been talking to “folks in
the climate and atmospheric communities.”
Maybe he should be talking to this poor driver who’s
going to be out thousands of dollars because state
government right now is as poorly run as it has ever
been, and that includes Mike Dukakis days.
“Yesterday’s solutions and yesterday’s plans are no
longer sufficient.”
Neither, Charlie, is your breathtaking incompetence –
with the Registry, or the dead kids at the DCF, or the
dead veterans at the Holyoke Soldiers Home, or the
corrupt state cops still on the payroll, or the 65,000
faked criminal drug tests by the Department of Public
Health….
To repeat, Charlie Parker’s own stated goal: net zero
emissions.
What he’s accomplished: net zero inspections.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 8, 2021
The wheels are coming off the RMV
By Howie Carr |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"The
Department of Revenue collected more than $3 billion from Massachusetts
residents, workers and businesses last month, once again shattering the
Baker administration's expectations and putting the state's coffers more
than $1.5 billion ahead of where they were at the same time last year."
The Revenue Bonanza continues.
The State
House News Service reported last Monday ("State
Tax Collections Keep Up Brisk Pace in March; Revenues Rising as
State Awaits Influx of Federal Aid"):
The Department of Revenue collected
more than $3 billion from Massachusetts residents, workers
and businesses last month, once again shattering the Baker
administration's expectations and putting the state's
coffers more than $1.5 billion ahead of where they were at
the same time last year.
Revenue collections for March added up
to a total of $3.061 billion -- $402 million or 15.1 percent
more than what was collected in March 2020 and $648 million
or 26.8 percent more than what the Baker administration was
expecting to collect last month.
Now nine months through fiscal year
2021, Massachusetts state government has collected $22.588
billion in taxes from people and businesses, which is $1.524
billion or 7.2 percent more than it did during the same nine
mostly pre-pandemic months of fiscal year 2020. The last
month Massachusetts saw a year-over-year decline in tax
collections was September.
For the last three months, actual tax
collections have blown DOR's monthly benchmarks out of the
water. January collections beat the benchmark by 14.7
percent, February collections surpassed the benchmark by
24.8 percent and now March revenues came in 26.8 percent
over expectations.
If collections come in at exactly the
DOR benchmarks for April, May and June, Massachusetts will
have collected $30.539 billion in tax revenue in fiscal year
2021.
That would be $1.45 billion more than
what the Baker administration projected it would collect
this fiscal year when it last updated its expectations, $943
million or 3.1 percent more than what was collected during
fiscal year 2020, and about $419 million more than the
consensus revenue agreement being used to build the
forthcoming fiscal year 2022 budget.
The over-benchmark collections, if they
hold up, could lead to a significant surplus at the end of
fiscal 2021 this summer, which would come just as state
officials are making decisions about how to spend billions
of dollars in federal aid coming as part of the American
Rescue Plan. Budget writers in the Legislature and the Baker
administration have expressed interest in using available
revenues to limit rainy day fund draws.
The
Boston Herald reported on Tuesday ("Climbing tax revenues,
federal aid leave Massachusetts in improving financial place"):
State economists are telling
taxpayers to keep an eye on the state budget — and the
rainy-day fund — as tens of billions in federal aid and
tax collections beyond expectations flow into
Massachusetts....
In addition to more than $8.1
billion in direct [federal] aid coming to Massachusetts,
the state continues to outpace estimates on tax revenue
collections. The state Department of Revenue reported
more than $3 billion in tax revenue for March. That’s
$402 million — 15.1% higher — than revenue collected the
prior year during March and $648 million or 26.8% over
the state’s benchmark.
On top of that
news
the State House News Service on Thursday reported ("Flood of
Fed Funds Fuels Tension Over Decisions, Information"):
Secretary of Administration and Finance Michael Heffernan
provided the House Committee on Federal Stimulus and Census
Oversight with a detailed breakdown of the more than $40
billion in one-time federal funds that will soon come to
Massachusetts residents, businesses and governments through
the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the nearly $71
billion in aid that has already been made available.
The federal
government has provided (or will provide with the latest
infusion of cash) $111 Billion in direct pandemic aid to
Massachusetts; the state itself, municipalities, individuals
— and counties in which county
governments no longer even exist. Yeah, "Billion"
stopped me for a bit too — I had to
check it out for myself! The U.S. government has now
jacked up the national debt to over $28 Trillion
— Trillion!
— it will exceed $31
Trillion once the latest borrowing is consummated. Nobody
in Washington cares anymore — they
just keep borrowing and spending. The numbers are too
incomprehensible to make the effort, and they'll all be dead or
living well on their generous pensions when the sky finally
collapses.
That's fine
with Governor Baker. He even broke with former-governor
and current U.S. Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney in his haste to
take the money.
State House News Service reported last Monday ("Baker Not
Joining GOP Critics of $1.9 Trillion Rescue Act"):
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue
Plan Act cleared Congress without any Republican
support, but it didn't draw any opposition recently from
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who instead pointed to
the need for federal resources to help states and
localities deal with new realities.
"Whether this thing is exactly the
right number or exactly the right categories or all the
rest I think is a really hard question to answer," Baker
told Jon Keller of CBS Boston in an interview that aired
March 28.
Keller had asked Baker about former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now a Republican Utah
senator, calling the bill a "clunker filled with bad
policies and sloppy math that wastes hundreds of
billions of dollars" and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a
Republican whom Baker endorsed last year, saying the
bill "can't be justified."
"Honestly, I think on both sides
I'd appreciate a little less absolutism and a little
more commitment to the idea that in many cases we're
dealing with something no one's ever dealt with before
and everybody should be a little bit more humble about
what they think the right answer is," Baker said....
Romney has said Democrats who wrote
the massive bill had not accepted any Republican
proposals and steered billions of dollars to states
based on incorrect assumptions about major tax revenue
losses. Arguing for an approach that favored aid to
cover COVID-19 and Medicaid expenses and to states that
did experience revenue losses, Romney said 21 states
were seeing rising revenues and listed four states --
Florida, Oklahoma, Utah and California -- that he said
did not need more federal money but were still getting
massive amounts.
Of course if
Mitt Romney was still governor of Massachusetts he would take
Charlie Baker's position in a heartbeat. We all know
Mitt's ease with flip-flops of convenience, after all, he's now
"severely
conservative" — or was in 2012
while running from president. Who knows what he is today,
or will be tomorrow, but what's best for Mitt at any given
moment.
With this
massive influx of free federal cash having landed with more to
come, legislators on Beacon Hill have become energized.
Nothing shakes them from a lethargy quicker than free money to
spend, and they want their share of spending. Finally this
got their attention — they want to
reign in Gov. Baker's emergency and unilateral power, at last.
I don't
disagree with legislators that how funds are spent is a
legislative prerogative, but find it shameful that this
is what it took for them to reclaim some semblance of their own
power, to remind them that this isn't a monarchy, that the
Legislature is an equal branch of a constitutional republican
form of government. I am concerned though with how
they will deem to direct the of spending those funds
— but then that is always a
concern for taxpayers.
In its report
("Flood of Fed Funds
Fuels Tension Over Decisions, Information") on Thursday the
State House News Service noted:
House lawmakers
made clear to the Baker administration Thursday that they
want more information about how the discretionary portion of
$71 billion in one-time aid that's already come to
Massachusetts has been spent and want to have greater say
around how another $40 billion in federal stimulus money
that's on the way will be spent.
After ceding some of its power through
the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as the governor
flexed his executive authority around public health, the
Legislature has in recent months shown a renewed interest in
playing an oversight role when it comes to the vaccine
rollout and the distribution of federal funds....
But the questions from the committee
members made clear that representatives feel they haven't
been given enough information about how much federal aid has
already been spent and how the administration decided how it
would spend that funding. Rep. John Barrett told Gov.
Charlie Baker's budget chief that lawmakers "almost feel
like we're being left out of the process." ...
Rep. Colleen Garry, a moderate Democrat
from Dracut who often supports the Republican Baker and
endorsed him in the 2018 election, said she was speaking for
other members who are also annoyed that the executive branch
doesn't keep them in the loop as much as they would like.
"I guess I voice the frustration of
many members to find out after the fact that things are
happening," she said. "We get the update of where the
governor and lieutenant governor are going to be that day
and that they're going to make an announcement of some type,
but when it includes something that the Legislature should
be involved in, it would be nice to be able to have that
information upfront, even if it's within six hours of the
announcement."
Garry said it is especially frustrating
to feel left out of the decision-making process when she
routinely defends Baker from constituents who think the
governor's executive actions have been an overreach.
"We've been getting a lot in our
communities and standing up for the governor when they're
calling him King Charles ... and how the Legislature should
take back the control of him making these one-way
decisions," she said. "For one, I am defending the governor
that he is doing the right thing by everything he's done to
keep people safe, but it would be nice to have a heads-up
ahead of time so we don't find out in the press or have to
watch the press conference to find information and then have
to follow-up with the administration on some of the other
announcements to find out exactly what it meant."
In its Weekly
Roundup on Friday ("A
Strained Partnership") the News Service added:
For years, with both Democrats and
Republicans in the corner office, the leadership of the
Legislature has basically been able to do what it wants.
Speakers and Senate presidents - always
Democrats - have controlled enough votes to set the agenda,
override vetoes and ignore or compromise with the governor
as they see fit. The difference between then and now? They
didn't always talk about it.
Increasingly, however, House and Senate
lawmakers are not only frustrated with Gov. Charlie Baker
over the things they can't control, but they're willing to
say it publicly. Lawmakers have been clashing with Baker and
his administration on everything from the distribution of
vaccines to climate legislation and the return to in-person
learning for thousands of young students (though Baker has
largely gotten his way on schools)....
"I don't want to feel like the
red-headed stepchild as a member of the Legislature and
being left out of this, and I'm sure my colleagues don't
want to feel [that way] about it. And I don't think we're
going to anymore, hopefully," said Rep. John Barrett, a
former mayor who has been in the executive's shoes.
Barrett's commentary was directed at
Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan at an
oversight hearing where legislators were demanding to play
more of a role in how the federal relief funding gets spent.
Heffernan wouldn't say, exactly,
whether Baker plans to file a budget bill proposing how to
spend the relief money, but that's one way the governor
could give back a bit of agency to the Legislature....
Next week attention will also turn to
managing the state's finances when the House is expected to
release its version of the fiscal 2022 budget. This week's
continuation of strong tax collections in March gave budget
writers more reasons to be optimistic about the future.
Members of The
Great and General Court, aka the Legislature, are beginning to
stir. Many are tired of legislating remotely or attempting
to, I was told last week by one of them. Missing are
critical elements of the job: collegiality, rubbing
elbows, the casual corridor conversations and banter where views
are exchanged and compromises are worked out. Very little
if any of this has occurred over the past year through remote
Zoom meetings in living rooms and offices across the state.
Isolation makes consensus among legislators difficult and their
knowledge of what's being planned ahead impossible. This
only further empowers "the leadership."
Massachusetts
legislators have too much free time on their hands, the sessions
are much too long and provide for far too much mischief and
outright foolishness to root and take form. This is
chronic, not due to the Wuhan Chinese pandemic, though that has
certainly contributed to recent frenzy of proposed ridiculous
amendments to the state's Constitution that have suddenly arisen
like weeds on the spring lawn. Just when you thought the
Bay State was whacky enough along comes a surge of craziness.
They simply have much too much free time on their hands with
little else to do but dream up more craziness, just because they
can.
The Salem News reported on Wednesday ("Pronouns get scrutiny
in state Constitution")
The state Constitution has been
amended 121 times since it was ratified more than 240
years ago, most recently in 2006, when voters approved
the state's health care law.
But some on Beacon Hill say the
historical parchment, penned by Massachusetts' own
founding father, John Adams, is in need of a different
kind of revision.
A group of lawmakers want to update
the Constitution to make it gender-neutral, changing the
pronoun "he" to "the person" throughout the document.
"We are making such great strides
to become inclusive in the commonwealth," Rep. Mindy
Domb, D-Amherst, primary sponsor of the bill, told
members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee on
Tuesday. "We should make sure the Constitution reflects
that."
There are at least 83 references to
"he" in the document, which begins with the words: "All
men are born free and equal, and have certain natural,
essential, and unalienable rights."
Domb pointed out the word "person"
is already used 64 times in the document.
"By striking the word 'he' and
replacing it with 'the person,' we are making the
Constitution more consistent as well as gender
inclusive," she told the panel....
Domb has filed another proposal to
allow state and local elected officials to decline to
recite the phase "so help me, God" when taking the oath
of office....
Supporters of the dozen or so
constitutional amendments acknowledge they face a long
slog.
To be successful, amendments must
be approved by two consecutive Legislatures — a process
that could take three years or more. The earliest a
proposal could be put on a ballot for voters is November
2024.
The State House News Service reported on Tuesday
("Constitutional Amendment Targets Outcomes of “Racist Policies”
— Domb Amendment Addresses Gendered
Language"):
Removing gendered language,
declaring laws that produce unequal outcomes for
different groups to be unconstitutional, and banning
some eminent domain land takings are among the changes
that some Massachusetts lawmakers want to make to the
state constitution.
Three months into the 2021-2022
session, the Legislature is winding up to consider
constitutional amendments at the Constitutional
Convention the House and Senate must convene by May 12.
At a Judiciary Committee hearing on
Tuesday, Sen. Adam Hinds urged his colleagues to support
his amendment aimed at creating a more robust state
response to reduce racial and gender inequity across
Massachusetts.
The amendment (S 21) filed by Hinds
(D-Pittsfield) would declare "persistent unequal
outcomes" for groups with constitutionally protected
status, such as race or sexual orientation, to represent
inequality and therefore be unconstitutional.
That change, he said, would force
lawmakers and the administration into a more "proactive"
position on issues such as housing access, education
funding and justice system oversight and to excise
"racist policies" from state law.
"This amendment is critical to
addressing inequality arising from laws that appear to
be neutral on their face but have, for decades, had
disproportionate negative impacts on communities of
color, religious minorities and immigrants," Hinds said.
"The impact and implication is that when persistent
outcomes exist by race, for example, the state must take
action to remedy that by force of law." ...
Tuesday's hearing also included
testimony on two constitutional amendments proposed by
Rep. Mindy Domb.
The first (H 79) would replace what
Domb counted as 83 instances of the word "he" in the
Massachusetts constitution with the gender-neutral
phrase "the person." That change, Domb told lawmakers,
would make the document more inclusive to people of all
gender identities and make its language more consistent
-- the word "person," she said, already appears 64
times.
Domb's second amendment (H 80)
would allow lawmakers in Massachusetts to affirm their
oaths of office rather than swearing them. Under the
constitution as it stands, she said, only Quakers can
affirm the oath of office, forcing everyone else to take
an oath with religious connotations that might not
mirror their faith or belief system....
One of the most high-profile topics
that will feature at this session's Convention, a
proposed 4 percent surtax on household incomes above $1
million per year, was not on the agenda for Tuesday's
hearing but is automatically on the convention agenda.
The measure needs approval from Constitutional
Conventions in two successive lawmaking sessions before
it can go before voters as a ballot question for final
approval.
In June 2019, the Constitutional
Convention advanced the constitutional amendment with a
147-48 vote to clear the first hurdle.
If it passes again, as is expected,
the question will be placed on the ballot in November
2022.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano voted
against the proposal in the past before supporting it as
a constitutional amendment, and last week he criticized
the process as one that "bypasses compromise."
The New Boston Post yesterday reported ("Make Unequal Racial
Outcomes Unconstitutional, State Legislator Says"):
A Massachusetts state legislator
wants to make unequal outcomes by race and other
categories a violation of the state constitution that
would prompt action by the state government.
The proposed constitutional
amendment would add sexual orientation to the currently
protected classes of sex, race, color, creed, and
national origin and add a sentence after that stating:
“Persistent unequal outcomes among such categories shall
constitute inequality under the law and shall thereby be
unconstitutional.”
The idea is to get state officials
to make policy changes whenever unequal outcomes among
certain classes of people are found, in order to try to
make the outcomes equal...
“Massachusetts has a fundamental
obligation to eliminate not only overt but subtle
discrimination in state laws as it works to remedy these
inequities. And we have an obligation to aggressively
and unceasingly intervene until equal opportunity is
visible in its outcomes that we create,” state Senator
Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield), the sponsor of the measure,
told a legislative committee this past week...
Hinds envisions a new Office of
Antiracism in state government with a leader empowered
to “coordinate across all agencies and branches of
government to promote antiracist policy and work[] to
undo the harmful effects of racism in all aspects of
life including in healthcare, finance, education,
housing, environmental policy, and the justice system,”
according to a related bill he has filed.
During the hearing, Hinds outlined
how state officials would be expected to fix social
inequities, with the assumption that inequities arise
because of unfair government policy....
Hinds got pushback from state
Representative Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), who suggested
that existing state offices have the authority to
challenge or overturn state policies that violate the
rights of people in the state, including protected
classes.
“I guess I’m a little confused
about changing the language of the constitution.
Wouldn’t we already have the ability, through the
inspector general or the attorney general, or someone
else to – the courts — to be able to determine if the
outcome of a policy … is not getting the outcome that we
want?” Garry asked....
The two legislators represent
opposite wings of the state’s dominant Democratic Party.
Hinds has a 0 percent lifetime
American Conservative Union rating, which is the lowest
possible. Garry, with a 31 percent lifetime American
Conservative Union rating, has the most conservative
voting record among Democrats in the state Legislature.
Hinds got a B+ from Progressive
Massachusetts during the 2019-2020 legislative session,
while Garry got an F from the left-wing group.
There are three
proposed constitutional amendments that ought not pass
— but it is of course Massachusetts
and virtue-signaling is the trend.
The latter is
proposed by
Sen. Adam Hinds, an inspired progressive Democrat of
Pittsfield (located in the northwest corner of the state along
the New York and Vermont borders, much closer to the Empire
State capital in Albany than to Boston) —
the senator who also wants to create a
Massachusetts-owned state bank. Here is a list of the
committees he serves on or chairs, including chairman of the
Revenue (formerly-Taxation) Committee:
Chairperson, Senate Committee on Reimagining
Massachusetts Post-Pandemic Resiliency
Chairperson, Joint Committee on Revenue
Vice Chair, Senate Committee on Intergovernmental
Affairs
Senate Committee on Redistricting
Senate Committee on Rules
Senate Committee on Ways and Means
Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil Rights, and
Inclusion
Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and
Energy
Joint Committee on Ways and Means
Special Joint Committee on Redistricting
Let us not forget the proposed constitutional amendment
being pitched as the "Millionaires Tax" or "Fair Share
Amendment" which seeks to impose a graduated income tax.
That will likely come up for its final vote soon before
making its way to the 2022 ballot. The (Fitchburg)
Sentinel & Enterprise last Sunday published an editorial
opposing it ("Discouraging state of middle class in
Massachusetts"):
The rich still thrive while the middle
class struggles to survive....
A review by the Pioneer Institute of
the so-called “millionaires tax” concludes it won’t just
pick the pockets of the wealthiest few, but would also nail
members of the middle-class cashing out for retirement.
This graduated income-tax proposal
would slap an additional 4% income tax on annual income over
$1 million. A supportive Legislature is expected to vote in
the coming months on whether to put it on the ballot in
2022.
“It has the ability to push those with
significant capital gains and valuable asset sales into
higher tax brackets, punishing owners of retirement nest
eggs and desirable real estate. In practice, these ‘one-time
millionaires,’ who cash in on a lifetime of work and
sacrifice in anticipation of retirement, outnumber those who
consistently have seven-figure salaries or stock market
windfalls,” wrote study authors Greg Sullivan & Andrew
Mikula....
We’ve criticized this millionaires tax
because it seeks to punish the state’s entrepreneurial class
that employs thousands of Massachusetts workers.
But our wealthiest residents possess
the mobility to move their residences – and potentially
their businesses – elsewhere.
Middle-class earners who’ve worked
diligently all their lives to create a comfortable
retirement that could now be unfairly taxed likely have far
fewer options.
Net result: the middle-class baby gets
thrown out with the soak-it-to-the-rich bathwater.
I'll leave you
with excerpts from Howie Carr's column in Thursday's The Boston
Herald ("The wheels are
coming off the RMV"):
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
is capable of halting global warming – just ask them.
Just don’t expect the hacks to
issue an inspection sticker for your car, because while
stopping rising sea levels is no problem, the failed
Registry of Motor Vehicles has been unable for more than
a week to process even one single vehicle inspection.
Here’s what Gov. Charlie Baker
talks endlessly about achieving: “net zero emissions.”
Here’s what he’s accomplished over
the last 10 days with no end in sight: net zero
inspections.
Gov. Charlie Baker, though, has
bigger fish to fry than the 15,000 to 20,000 drivers
every single day who are unable to renew their annual
inspection stickers.
The man known to his Democrat
admirers as “Charlie Bacon” or “Charlie Parker” can’t be
bothered with such mundane concerns as plebeians having
to pay years of insurance surcharges because of his
calamitous incompetence.
“As a Commonwealth,” Tall Deval
recently harrumphed, “we have an obligation to address
climate change head on.”
Charlie, before you think globally,
how about you act locally?
The entire state government has
degenerated into a corrupt hackerama, Charlie, and your
solution is to steal billions more from the state’s
motorists by raising the gasoline tax from 24 cents a
gallon to perhaps as high as 62 cents, according to a
Tufts University study....
To repeat, Charlie Parker’s own
stated goal: net zero emissions.
What he’s accomplished: net zero
inspections.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
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State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
State Tax Collections Keep Up Brisk Pace in March
Revenues Rising as State Awaits Influx of Federal Aid
By Colin A. Young
The Department of Revenue collected more than $3 billion
from Massachusetts residents, workers and businesses last
month, once again shattering the Baker administration's
expectations and putting the state's coffers more than $1.5
billion ahead of where they were at the same time last year.
Revenue collections for March added up to a total of $3.061
billion -- $402 million or 15.1 percent more than what was
collected in March 2020 and $648 million or 26.8 percent
more than what the Baker administration was expecting to
collect last month.
Now nine months through fiscal year 2021, Massachusetts
state government has collected $22.588 billion in taxes from
people and businesses, which is $1.524 billion or 7.2
percent more than it did during the same nine mostly
pre-pandemic months of fiscal year 2020. The last month
Massachusetts saw a year-over-year decline in tax
collections was September.
For the last three months, actual tax collections have blown
DOR's monthly benchmarks out of the water. January
collections beat the benchmark by 14.7 percent, February
collections surpassed the benchmark by 24.8 percent and now
March revenues came in 26.8 percent over expectations.
If collections come in at exactly the DOR benchmarks for
April, May and June, Massachusetts will have collected
$30.539 billion in tax revenue in fiscal year 2021.
That would be $1.45 billion more than what the Baker
administration projected it would collect this fiscal year
when it last updated its expectations, $943 million or 3.1
percent more than what was collected during fiscal year
2020, and about $419 million more than the consensus revenue
agreement being used to build the forthcoming fiscal year
2022 budget.
The over-benchmark collections, if they hold up, could lead
to a significant surplus at the end of fiscal 2021 this
summer, which would come just as state officials are making
decisions about how to spend billions of dollars in federal
aid coming as part of the American Rescue Plan. Budget
writers in the Legislature and the Baker administration have
expressed interest in using available revenues to limit
rainy day fund draws.
But it would still be about $611 million less than the
pre-pandemic estimate of $31.15 billion in tax revenue for
fiscal year 2021.
DOR considers March a "mid-size month" for tax collections,
usually ranking sixth out of the 12 months. The agency said
all income tax collections for March came in $178 million
above benchmark, sales and use taxes were $95 million over
benchmark, corporate and business taxes ended up $274
million above benchmark and the 'all other' category
finished the month $101 million ahead of expectations,
according to DOR.
"March revenue included increases in withholding and
nonwithheld income taxes, corporate and business taxes, 'all
other tax,' and sales and use taxes Although C corporation
returns are not due until April 15th, some corporate return
payments were received in March, resulting in an increase in
that category relative to the benchmark and prior year
collections. The increase in 'all other tax' is primarily
attributable to estate taxes, a category that tends to
fluctuate," Revenue Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder said.
"Income tax refunds are below benchmark due to the late
start of the tax filing season and recent tax law changes,
including the extensions of the state and federal individual
income tax filing deadlines from April 15th to May 17th.
However, those tax refunds may catch up as the filing season
progresses."
DOR last month announced that it had moved the state tax
filing deadline for individuals to May 17 to comport with
the federal deadline, which could necessitate adjustments to
the agency's monthly estimates and benchmarks -- or perhaps
another adjustment to the underlying revenue assumption for
the fiscal year that ends June 30.
State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
Baker Not Joining GOP Critics of $1.9 Trillion Rescue Act
By Michael P. Norton
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act cleared Congress
without any Republican support, but it didn't draw any
opposition recently from Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who
instead pointed to the need for federal resources to help states
and localities deal with new realities.
"Whether this thing is exactly the right number or exactly the
right categories or all the rest I think is a really hard
question to answer," Baker told Jon Keller of CBS Boston in an
interview that aired March 28.
Keller had asked Baker about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt
Romney, now a Republican Utah senator, calling the bill a
"clunker filled with bad policies and sloppy math that wastes
hundreds of billions of dollars" and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a
Republican whom Baker endorsed last year, saying the bill "can't
be justified."
"Honestly, I think on both sides I'd appreciate a little less
absolutism and a little more commitment to the idea that in many
cases we're dealing with something no one's ever dealt with
before and everybody should be a little bit more humble about
what they think the right answer is," Baker said.
Baker said he learned in the pandemic "that we should all be
really careful about making absolute statements about much of
anything" and pointed to Dr. Anthony Fauci saying early in the
pandemic that he didn't think there was a lot of asymptomatic
COVID-19 spread. "That turned out to be a giant issue for all of
us," he said.
Unknowns around the future of business travel and work-from-home
trend that emerged in the pandemic, Baker said, will have major
ramifications on economies and the ability of people to find and
keep jobs.
"Those are things that the federal government is probably going
to have to help states and locals figure out. And I would argue
that in some respects that requires a lot of resources," he
said.
Asked by Keller if he would give any of the federal money back,
Baker said, "Honestly just figuring out what the money we're
getting from the feds, how it actually works and how it actually
can be used is something we're still chewing our way through."
Romney has said Democrats who wrote the massive bill had not
accepted any Republican proposals and steered billions of
dollars to states based on incorrect assumptions about major tax
revenue losses. Arguing for an approach that favored aid to
cover COVID-19 and Medicaid expenses and to states that did
experience revenue losses, Romney said 21 states were seeing
rising revenues and listed four states -- Florida, Oklahoma,
Utah and California -- that he said did not need more federal
money but were still getting massive amounts.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Rainy Day Fund Restoration On The Table
By Chris Lisinski
As state tax revenues continue to race past expectations, Gov.
Charlie Baker expressed interest in replenishing the state's
"rainy day" savings account this year but stopped short of
suggesting how lawmakers should alter their near-term budget
plans.
The Department of Revenue announced Monday that it collected
$3.061 billion in March, about 15 percent more than in March
2020 and nearly 27 percent more than the Baker administration
anticipated bringing in over the course of the month.
Asked Monday if he believes the state should move away from
plans to spend $1.6 billion from the stabilization fund in the
fiscal 2022 budget, Baker said "we'll see where we are" at the
end of the current fiscal year.
"A lot of us worked really hard over the last few years to
triple the size of the rainy day fund so that it would be there
when it was raining," Baker said. "One of the things we'll
definitely talk to the Legislature about, and we have talked a
little bit with them about it at this point, is replenishing the
rainy day fund because it's really important that Massachusetts
continue to have for the future a very robust rainy day fund. It
really proved its mettle early on in the pandemic."
The Baker administration has projected using $1.35 billion to
$1.6 billion from the rainy day fund as part of its $45.6
billion fiscal year 2022 budget, following a net reduction of
about $978 million in the current fiscal year. At the start of
fiscal year 2021, the fund had a balance of about $3.5 billion.
Since Baker filed his spending proposal in January, President
Joe Biden signed a stimulus package set to deliver almost $4.55
billion to state government in Massachusetts. If the next three
months of state tax collections hit DOR's benchmarks, the state
will have collected $1.45 billion more in taxes than the
administration projected for the year.
House plans for the rainy day fund could become clear when the
House Ways and Means Committee releases its fiscal 2022 budget,
perhaps next week.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Climbing tax revenues, federal aid leave Massachusetts in
improving financial place
By Erin Tiernan
State economists are telling taxpayers to keep an eye on the
state budget — and the rainy-day fund — as tens of billions in
federal aid and tax collections beyond expectations flow into
Massachusetts.
A Tuesday memo from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
points out that “much has changed” in the 10 weeks since Baker
released his $45.9 billion fiscal 2022 budget.
Baker’s budget relies on drawing $1.6 billion from the state’s
shrinking stabilization fund — a trend that emerged last year as
the Legislature pushed off the passage of the FY 2021 budget for
nearly seven months amid an uncertain financial picture as much
of the state’s economy remained in lockdown throughout 2020.
Reliance on one-time funding sources like the rainy-day fund has
irked economists. Marie-Frances Rivera, MassBudget president, at
the time warned it sets the state up for a “short-sighted
recovery.”
“The combination of action at the federal level, changing
assumptions on the state’s Medicaid program and the public
health and economic response to COVID-19 all have altered the
fiscal landscape for budget writers,” according to the memo.
In addition to more than $8.1 billion in direct aid coming to
Massachusetts, the state continues to outpace estimates on tax
revenue collections. The state Department of Revenue reported
more than $3 billion in tax revenue for March. That’s $402
million — 15.1% higher — than revenue collected the prior year
during March and $648 million or 26.8% over the state’s
benchmark.
With the House Committee on Ways and Means poised to release its
budget next week, MTF says the “resource and spending
implications for the FY 2022 budget … will need to be accounted
for by both the House and Senate budgets.”
The House budget “should also provide flexibility in the use of
one-time resources, like the Stabilization Fund,” economists
wrote in the memo.
“One of the things we’ll definitely talk to the Legislature
about — and we have talked a little bit about it at this point —
is about replenishing the rainy day fund because it’s really
important that Massachusetts continues to have, for the future
period, a very robust rainy day fund. It really proved its
mettle early on in the pandemic,” Baker said during an unrelated
briefing at the Hynes Convention Center on Tuesday.
“By the time we get to the end of the year, we’ll see where we
are,” the Republican governor continued. “A lot of us worked
really hard over the last few years to triple the size of the
rainy day fund so it would be there when it’s raining.”
State House News Service
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Flood of Fed Funds Fuels Tension Over Decisions, Information
Heffernan Won't Commit to Supp for ARPA Funds
By Colin A. Young
House lawmakers made clear to the Baker administration Thursday
that they want more information about how the discretionary
portion of $71 billion in one-time aid that's already come to
Massachusetts has been spent and want to have greater say around
how another $40 billion in federal stimulus money that's on the
way will be spent.
After ceding some of its power through the early months of the
COVID-19 pandemic as the governor flexed his executive authority
around public health, the Legislature has in recent months shown
a renewed interest in playing an oversight role when it comes to
the vaccine rollout and the distribution of federal funds.
Secretary of Administration and Finance Michael Heffernan
provided the House Committee on Federal Stimulus and Census
Oversight with a detailed breakdown of the more than $40 billion
in one-time federal funds that will soon come to Massachusetts
residents, businesses and governments through the American
Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the nearly $71 billion in aid that
has already been made available. He also pointed the committee
and the public to the state's federal funds transparency
website, www.mass.gov/federalfunds.
But the questions from the committee members made clear that
representatives feel they haven't been given enough information
about how much federal aid has already been spent and how the
administration decided how it would spend that funding. Rep.
John Barrett told Gov. Charlie Baker's budget chief that
lawmakers "almost feel like we're being left out of the
process."
Barrett, of North Adams, told Heffernan that he took particular
issue with a comment attributed to the secretary in an October
press release about the administration having worked in "close
coordination with federal, state, and local partners including
our Legislative colleagues" before announcing an economic
recovery plan that drew upon federal money.
"I didn't see that. I don't know if my colleagues saw it, but I
didn't see that reaching out, getting our input, getting input
from the leadership -- both the prior House leadership and the
present leadership -- and that was concerning," Barrett, the
committee vice chair, said.
He added, "I don't want to feel like the red-headed stepchild as
a member of the Legislature and being left out of this, and I'm
sure my colleagues don't want to feel [that way] about it. And I
don't think we're going to anymore, hopefully. I think that
there has to be a reconcilation here of how this future money is
going to be spent and oversight, because I believe that not all
the money is being used as it's intended to do."
What Money Has Already Come In? How Much Has Been Spent?
Before the ARPA was signed into law March 11, the federal
government had already provided Massachusetts with $71 billion
in aid since the start of the pandemic, Heffernan said. Of that
$71 billion, he said state government has exercised some amount
of discretion over approximately $7 billion, most notably the
$2.7 billion provided through the Coronavirus Relief Fund
created in the CARES Act.
"Over $950 million of this funding has been transferred to other
governments, $780 million has been allocated for economic
assistance, $510 million has supported public health and medical
expenses, nearly $370 million has supported first responders,
and approximately $70 million has covered other expenses," the
secretary said. "Separate from the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the
commonwealth has also received over $750 million for testing and
tracing efforts, nearly $500 million for vaccine efforts, over
$450 million in federal rental assistance and over $500 million
in FEMA Public Assistance, which is supporting priorities such
as PPE and food security."
He also said his office had recently shared information with
every member of the Legislature regarding the federal funding
that has been distributed or made available to the cities and
towns in their districts.
Rep. Dan Hunt, the Dorchester Democrat who leads the House
panel, asked Heffernan and his staff to detail how much of the
federal funding has been spent so far and which accounts have
money remaining.
The answer was not so simple.
"If you were to look online today, you would see $2.158 billion
spent from the Coronavirus Relief Fund. So that's sort of
useful, you can say '$2.2 billion spent, we received $2.46
[billion], there's a little bit of money left.' But the point
that we're hoping to convey is that the trouble with point
estimates is that they are in this constant state of flux,"
Heath Fahle, special director of federal funds in the Executive
Office of Administration and Finance, said. "So I can you know I
can list for you 13 different ways that that $2.2 billion number
is misleading."
Fahle, Heffernan and Budget Director Bran Shim explained to the
committee that most of the work of maximizing the use of federal
revenues and ensuring compliance with federal restrictions is
done "retrospectively."
"By that I mean that the commonwealth spends money on a use, and
then a large part of our work is in matching that use with the
most appropriate federal revenue source. That sounds relatively
straightforward, but it's actually an iterative process as the
federal guidance changes, as the nature of the response to the
pandemic changes," Fahle said. "And so there's this ongoing
process of recalibrating, sort of rematching, sources and uses
that takes place over time."
Under the Trump administration, Fahle said, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency would reimburse 75 percent of
eligible costs and states could then use Coronavirus Relief
Funds to cover the remaining 25 percent. But when President Joe
Biden took office, he upped the FEMA reimbursement rate to 100
percent retroactively to Jan. 20, 2020, which then freed up
Coronavirus Relief Fund money that the state could reapply
elsewhere.
At the same time, the U.S. Treasury revised its guidelines for
acceptable uses of Coronavirus Relief Fund money "no less than
16 times in 2020," Heffernan said.
"That continues to swing positively and negatively. And that has
been an unrelenting swing for now ... it's been just basically a
year, or 11 months," the secretary said. "So it's just an
example of how fluid the situation is and how the pendulum
swings just in that one FEMA category and just in that other
category for the Coronavirus Relief Fund."
Hunt said he was trying to drill down into what is remaining in
various flexible accounts, specifically money that was allocated
through last year's CARES Act, so that representatives can try
to secure some of that money to meet needs in their districts.
He said he understands and appreciates that the administration
sometimes has to juggle things to get the most benefit out of
federal money.
"But at the end of the day, it has been expressed by the
membership that it's a little frustrating to figure out exactly
what's out there and how we can best advocate for our districts,
and have that being put forward, and seeing a need in our
districts. And then, it seems that the administration will take
a different tact and tackle one issue at a time, or some
particular need, and then tack to a different place," he said.
"So maybe this isn't the right forum and we'll follow up with
you on those accounts."
During the hearing, Rep. Chris Hendricks of New Bedford asked
Heffernan whether Baker plans to file a supplemental budget
since he did not account for ARPA funding in the current budget.
That would be one way for representatives to have greater say
over the use of federal dollars, by appropriating them through
legislation that could be debated, amended and passed.
"All that is under discussion," Heffernan said after Hendricks
asked twice. He added, "The actual final budget was signed well
late into the year so the normal timing on your first
supplemental budget for the 2021 budget is not as dire or
time-sensitive as it would be on a normal budget ... we're
actively working on supps and what will be in, what won't be out
of the supp and the timing."
Hunt asked Heffernan directly whether the administration is
considering using federal funds in a supplemental budget.
"It's still under discussion," the secretary said. "I'll have
those conversations when we've actually made it, when we're
final final."
'The Frustration of Many Members'
Hunt, the committee chairman, said Thursday that Heffernan and
his staff have been generous with their time and have made lots
of information available to his committee and other lawmakers.
But he added that frustration over what many lawmakers feel is a
lack of sufficient communication from the governor's team "has
been a consistent theme over the last year."
Rep. Colleen Garry, a moderate Democrat from Dracut who often
supports the Republican Baker and endorsed him in the 2018
election, said she was speaking for other members who are also
annoyed that the executive branch doesn't keep them in the loop
as much as they would like.
"I guess I voice the frustration of many members to find out
after the fact that things are happening," she said. "We get the
update of where the governor and lieutenant governor are going
to be that day and that they're going to make an announcement of
some type, but when it includes something that the Legislature
should be involved in, it would be nice to be able to have that
information upfront, even if it's within six hours of the
announcement."
Garry said it is especially frustrating to feel left out of the
decision-making process when she routinely defends Baker from
constituents who think the governor's executive actions have
been an overreach.
"We've been getting a lot in our communities and standing up for
the governor when they're calling him King Charles ... and how
the Legislature should take back the control of him making these
one-way decisions," she said. "For one, I am defending the
governor that he is doing the right thing by everything he's
done to keep people safe, but it would be nice to have a
heads-up ahead of time so we don't find out in the press or have
to watch the press conference to find information and then have
to follow-up with the administration on some of the other
announcements to find out exactly what it meant."
Heffernan said he understands where the representatives are
coming from and pledged to "lower the level of frustration, up
the level of communication" and work cooperatively with the
Legislature as the next round of federal money starts rolling
in. He said that Hunt made the point clear to him when they
first met ahead of Thursday's hearing.
"He did a very good job of helping us understand exactly the
position that we put you in sometimes and we will work across
the administration to make sure that we are a partner in word,
but more importantly a partner in deed," Heffernan said, adding
that he got the message that the administration should be
working with all 200 members of the Legislature and not just
with certain members or leadership.
State House News Service
Friday, April 9, 2021
Weekly Roundup - A Strained Partnership
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
For years, with both Democrats and Republicans in the corner
office, the leadership of the Legislature has basically been
able to do what it wants.
Speakers and Senate presidents - always Democrats - have
controlled enough votes to set the agenda, override vetoes and
ignore or compromise with the governor as they see fit. The
difference between then and now? They didn't always talk about
it.
Increasingly, however, House and Senate lawmakers are not only
frustrated with Gov. Charlie Baker over the things they can't
control, but they're willing to say it publicly. Lawmakers have
been clashing with Baker and his administration on everything
from the distribution of vaccines to climate legislation and the
return to in-person learning for thousands of young students
(though Baker has largely gotten his way on schools).
This week there was more tension over the administration's
urgent request made in February to quickly authorize $400
million in borrowing for the construction of a new Holyoke
Soldiers' Home, and the administration's plans for billions in
discretionary federal relief funding from the "American Rescue
Plan."
"I don't want to feel like the red-headed stepchild as a member
of the Legislature and being left out of this, and I'm sure my
colleagues don't want to feel [that way] about it. And I don't
think we're going to anymore, hopefully," said Rep. John
Barrett, a former mayor who has been in the executive's shoes.
Barrett's commentary was directed at Administration and Finance
Secretary Michael Heffernan at an oversight hearing where
legislators were demanding to play more of a role in how the
federal relief funding gets spent.
Heffernan wouldn't say, exactly, whether Baker plans to file a
budget bill proposing how to spend the relief money, but that's
one way the governor could give back a bit of agency to the
Legislature.
Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka also came
out jointly to say that they would insist municipal employees,
including teachers, can take advantage of a proposed COVID-19
paid leave program that is still under negotiation.
The governor supports the creation of the new leave program, but
Baker returned the bill last week with several amendments,
including one supported by the Massachusetts Municipal
Association to eliminate a mandate on cities and towns to offer
their workers up to a week of paid-time off to recover from
COVID-19, care for a family member or to get vaccinated.
The program, as recommended by Baker, would cover most other
employers and state government, but the administration said
municipal workforces tend to be "highly unionized" with strong
leave benefits already in place.
Speaking of taking time during work hours to get vaccinated,
Gov. Baker rolled up his right sleeve on Tuesday and got a dose
of Pfizer at the Hynes Convention Center.
"I'm happy to report I feel good," the 64-year-old said the next
day from Revere, where he was touring a different vaccination
clinic.
Massachusetts passed a milestone this week with more than 1.5
million people fully vaccinated with either two doses of the
Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson
vaccine. By the end of the week, the total was actually up above
1.6 million.
But the spread of new variants continues to compete with the
vaccine for control of the pandemic's trajectory, and the number
of communities in the high-risk category climbed by 22 this week
to 77.
With so many people vaccinated and the general, healthy public a
little over a week away from becoming eligible, Baker got asked
about the concept of vaccine passes - a digital tool that New
York launched and other states are considering to make business
reopenings easier.
Madison Square Garden is among the early adopters, but Baker
said, "No, no, no," about plans for something similar in
Massachusetts. It wasn't a no, never. But more of a no, not now.
"I want to vaccinate people. Let's get people vaccinated," Baker
said. "I think having a conversation about creating a barrier
before people have even had an opportunity to be eligible to be
vaccinated, let's focus on getting people vaccinated."
More than half of the 1.5 million residents who preregistered
for a vaccine have been contacted already with a chance to book
an appointment, but for the 700,000 people still waiting more
locations are being added to the system.
Baker said that two regional collaboratives with vaccine sites
in Northampton, Amherst and Marshfield were being added this
week to the preregistration system that already connects people
with seven mass vaccination sites, and more regional sites would
be added this month.
With all the focus on the pandemic and figuring how to get shots
in people's arms, it's easy to forget sometimes that next year
is a gubernatorial election year and under different
circumstances Baker might be getting asked daily about his
plans.
Harvard professor and political theorist Danielle Allen seems to
be inching closer to a run as she announced a beefed up staff
with Liberty Square Group and media consultant Josh Wolf among
those climbing on board. Wolf ran Steve Grossman's 2014 campaign
for governor.
Meanwhile, declared Democratic candidate Ben Downing overcame
some technical glitches to roll out his climate agenda, which
includes Massachusetts becoming a 100 percent clean energy state
by 2040, or 10 years earlier than Baker and the Legislature set
the goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
The jockeying comes as the Democratic Governors Association took
an interest this week in Baker's underwhelming fundraising in
March, and really for the whole first quarter, suggesting the
incumbent with enduring but diminished popularity may be
vulnerable.
Baker raised just $25,456 in March and $102,687 over the first
three months of the year, but Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito was more
active on the fundraising front and most people assume that if
he does decide to run Baker will be able to crank up the money
operation quickly.
"The governor and lieutenant governor are focused on managing
the pandemic response, not electoral politics," Baker's campaign
committee spokesman Jim Conroy said.
Next week attention will also turn to managing the state's
finances when the House is expected to release its version of
the fiscal 2022 budget. This week's continuation of strong tax
collections in March gave budget writers more reasons to be
optimistic about the future.
One additional expense the Legislature will have to plan for,
however, is added expenses in the MassHealth program. Over the
past year, the MassHealth caseload has increased to more than 2
million individuals, and President Joe Biden's decision to
extend the COVID-19 emergency through 2021 means the state can't
comb its rolls and kick out people who might no longer be
eligible.
Secretary Marylou Sudders told the Ways and Means Committees
this week that MassHealth's budget -- already the largest slice
of the overall pie -- might end up being $1.4 billion higher
than in the governor's budget. The Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, however, predicted the increased expenses will be
more than offset by the enhanced reimbursements the feds are
making for Medicaid.
There will undoubtedly be more budgetary surprises in the months
to come as the coronavirus and economy continue down their
unpredictable paths, but Boston Mayor Kim Janey caught very few
people, if anyone, off guard this week when she announced that
she would, in fact, seek the job on a more permanent basis.
Janey entering the mayoral contest boosts the field to six
serious contenders for City Hall, and the Roxbury resident used
perhaps her biggest advantage in the race - the fact that people
call her mayor right now - to get out into the city and sell an
agenda that included using federal stimulus funding to make
buses free in Boston.
Many state and local officials have warned about using relief
funding for services that won't be affordable once the federal
aid dries up, but Janey said she was eyeing a pilot to start.
"I understand that there are challenges which is why I hope --
at the state level as well as the city level -- I am looking at
that federal money and I hope our state partners are as well,"
she said.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Baker takes one in the arm, a few on the
chin.
State House News Service
Monday, April 5, 2021
“Vulnerable” Baker Draws Attention of DGA
By Matt Murphy
After sitting out the 2018 campaign despite the party's nominee
struggling to raise money, the Democratic Governors Association
on Monday took notice of Gov. Charlie Baker's modest fundraising
in March, suggesting the Republican is "increasingly
vulnerable."
Baker, who has been managing the state's day-to-day response to
the COVID-19 pandemic and has not said whether he will seek a
third term in 2022, reported raising just $25,456 in March and
$102,687 over the first three months of the year.
While his lieutenant governor has been raising money at a faster
clip, Baker's haul is less than both former state Sen. Ben
Downing, who has declared his candidacy on the Democratic side,
and Harvard professor Danielle Allen, another Democrat who is
still exploring a bid.
Both Democrats reported raising more than $200,000 in the first
quarter.
"Charlie Baker's dismal fundraising haul comes as his approval
ratings continue to tumble and his administration deals with the
fallout over his botched vaccine rollout. There's no way around
it, Baker is increasingly vulnerable should he choose to run for
office in 2022," said DGA Deputy Communications Director Sam
Newton.
"Given that potential Democratic candidates are outraising Baker
and other top Republicans, Massachusetts could be ready for a
change in leadership next year," Newton said.
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who has twice been Baker's running mate,
reported raising more than twice as much as Baker in March --
$64,576 -- and $183,849 since the New Year. She has over $2
million in cash-on-hand that could be used by a Baker-Polito
ticket in 2022, and Baker reported another $561,253 in
cash-on-hand.
"The governor and lieutenant governor are focused on managing
the pandemic response, not electoral politics," Baker's campaign
committee spokesman Jim Conroy said.
The DGA did not spend in Massachusetts is 2018 to support the
party's nominee Jay Gonzalez against Baker after putting $1.4
million into former Attorney General Martha Coakley's 2014
campaign against Baker.
Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford in 2018
said the DGA's decision to stay out of the gubernatorial race
had to do with the strength of the party's organization, funded
in large part by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
A recent Suffolk University/ Boston Globe poll found 71 percent
of residents approve of the governor's handling of the pandemic,
and 67 percent said they approve of Baker's job performance
overall.
State House News Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Constitutional Amendment Targets Outcomes of “Racist Policies”
Domb Amendment Addresses Gendered Language
By Chris Lisinski
Removing gendered language, declaring laws that produce unequal
outcomes for different groups to be unconstitutional, and
banning some eminent domain land takings are among the changes
that some Massachusetts lawmakers want to make to the state
constitution.
Three months into the 2021-2022 session, the Legislature is
winding up to consider constitutional amendments at the
Constitutional Convention the House and Senate must convene by
May 12.
At a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Adam Hinds
urged his colleagues to support his amendment aimed at creating
a more robust state response to reduce racial and gender
inequity across Massachusetts.
The amendment (S 21) filed by Hinds (D-Pittsfield) would declare
"persistent unequal outcomes" for groups with constitutionally
protected status, such as race or sexual orientation, to
represent inequality and therefore be unconstitutional.
That change, he said, would force lawmakers and the
administration into a more "proactive" position on issues such
as housing access, education funding and justice system
oversight and to excise "racist policies" from state law.
"This amendment is critical to addressing inequality arising
from laws that appear to be neutral on their face but have, for
decades, had disproportionate negative impacts on communities of
color, religious minorities and immigrants," Hinds said. "The
impact and implication is that when persistent outcomes exist by
race, for example, the state must take action to remedy that by
force of law."
Hinds pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate
impact on communities of color as evidence that Massachusetts
has policies and laws on its books that contribute to racial
inequalities.
Cities and towns with larger populations of color have been hit
particularly hard by the pandemic, in part because many Black
and Latinx residents work in front-line jobs where they have
been exposed to the virus. Vaccination rates for Hispanic
residents in particular continue to lag as well, and communities
of color have borne more severe economic impacts from shutdowns
and changes in business patterns.
Those disproportionate outcomes, Hinds said, "do not happen by
chance."
"We have a history of policies and laws that have yielded racial
inequities, or they have led to the belief and the mindset that
such inequities are somehow inevitable or too big to change,"
Hinds said. "These health disparities are the predictable
endpoint of decades of policy choices that result in economic,
housing and environmental injustice."
Hinds has filed a complementary bill (SD 2446) creating a state
Office of Racial Equity to work with the Legislature and every
secretariat to examine and reform policy through a lens of
racial justice.
The judicial system has in the past flagged major inequities
across different groups. In 1993, the Supreme Judicial Court
concluded that students in less affluent communities were not
receiving the education to which they were constitutionally
entitled, prompting passage of a landmark education reform law
significantly boosting funding to schools and implementing new
accountability standards.
During Tuesday's hearing, Rep. Colleen Garry of Dracut voiced
concerns that Hinds's amendment might overlap with the work of
existing agencies. She asked whether offices such as the
inspector general or attorney general are already addressing
disparate outcomes through the courts.
"They could, but do they?" Hinds said in response to Garry.
"Where is the mandate? Is it only when it's brought on a
case-by-case basis? Is it when there's a lawsuit filed? Where is
the impetus and where is the initiative?"
"I think this would put in statute that it's clear, when you
have those disparate outcomes, it's evident that there's a
problem and it's evident that there's a need to intervene," he
continued. "I just don't see the action resulting based on what
we have in the statute now."
Tuesday's hearing also included testimony on two constitutional
amendments proposed by Rep. Mindy Domb.
The first (H 79) would replace what Domb counted as 83 instances
of the word "he" in the Massachusetts constitution with the
gender-neutral phrase "the person." That change, Domb told
lawmakers, would make the document more inclusive to people of
all gender identities and make its language more consistent --
the word "person," she said, already appears 64 times.
Domb's second amendment (H 80) would allow lawmakers in
Massachusetts to affirm their oaths of office rather than
swearing them. Under the constitution as it stands, she said,
only Quakers can affirm the oath of office, forcing everyone
else to take an oath with religious connotations that might not
mirror their faith or belief system.
"It doesn't take God out of the constitution -- trust me, I've
looked at our constitution. There's a lot of references that are
in there," Domb said, noting that the U.S. Constitution allows
members of Congress to swear or affirm their oath. "This
amendment would put us in line with not only the federal
constitution, but providing any person who becomes a state
legislator regardless of their religion with this option."
Last session, the Judiciary Committee advanced a version of the
proposal, but along with many other items on the ConCon agenda
it did not receive a vote at a Constitutional Convention.
Several speakers testified Tuesday in favor of a constitutional
amendment from House Minority Leader Brad Jones (H 82)
prohibiting the use of eminent domain to take land for private
commercial or economic development interests.
"Just because someone owns a modest home does not mean they
should worry the government will take their property to build
more expensive homes," said Jaimie Cavanaugh, an attorney with
the Institute for Justice group that advocates to limit the
scope of government power.
One of the most high-profile topics that will feature at this
session's Convention, a proposed 4 percent surtax on household
incomes above $1 million per year, was not on the agenda for
Tuesday's hearing but is automatically on the convention agenda.
The measure needs approval from Constitutional Conventions in
two successive lawmaking sessions before it can go before voters
as a ballot question for final approval.
In June 2019, the Constitutional Convention advanced the
constitutional amendment with a 147-48 vote to clear the first
hurdle.
If it passes again, as is expected, the question will be placed
on the ballot in November 2022.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano voted against the proposal in the
past before supporting it as a constitutional amendment, and
last week he criticized the process as one that "bypasses
compromise."
The Salem News
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Pronouns get scrutiny in state Constitution
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
The state Constitution has been amended 121 times since it was
ratified more than 240 years ago, most recently in 2006, when
voters approved the state's health care law.
But some on Beacon Hill say the historical parchment, penned by
Massachusetts' own founding father, John Adams, is in need of a
different kind of revision.
A group of lawmakers want to update the Constitution to make it
gender-neutral, changing the pronoun "he" to "the person"
throughout the document.
"We are making such great strides to become inclusive in the
commonwealth," Rep. Mindy Domb, D-Amherst, primary sponsor of
the bill, told members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee
on Tuesday. "We should make sure the Constitution reflects
that."
There are at least 83 references to "he" in the document, which
begins with the words: "All men are born free and equal, and
have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights."
Domb pointed out the word "person" is already used 64 times in
the document.
"By striking the word 'he' and replacing it with 'the person,'
we are making the Constitution more consistent as well as gender
inclusive," she told the panel.
Several states, including Vermont and Maine, have changed their
constitutions to use gender-neutral language, while others are
considering doing so, according to the National Conference of
State Legislatures.
New York voters approved such changes in 2001. Rhode Island also
made the switch.
Roughly half of all U.S. states have moved toward gender-neutral
language, in drafts of laws and proposed revisions of their
state constitutions.
The Massachusetts proposal was one of 10 Constitutional
amendments heard by the panel on Tuesday, the first step toward
getting on the ballot. The Legislature is expected to convene a
joint session next month to consider the amendments.
Domb has filed another proposal to allow state and local elected
officials to decline to recite the phase "so help me, God" when
taking the oath of office.
That amendment, which was advanced by the Judiciary Committee in
the previous two-year session, calls for substituting a secular
version, known as the Quaker oath, which states, "This I do
under the pains and penalties of perjury."
"It doesn't take God out of the Constitution," Domb said. "This
only allows for an option for a person, regardless of their
religion, to take the oath."
Another proposal, filed by House Minority Leader Brad Jones,
R-North Reading, would prohibit the state from using the eminent
domain law to take private property.
State law allows citizens to petition their representatives and
senators to file proposed amendments to the Constitution.
A proposed amendment filed by Vincent Dixon, a Winchester
Republican who ran unsuccessfully for the Governor's Council in
2014, would establish a term renewal process requiring state
judges to be reconfirmed every 10 years.
Currently, judges are appointed for life after being nominated
by the governor, vetted by a state commission and confirmed by
the Governor's Council.
Supporters of the dozen or so constitutional amendments
acknowledge they face a long slog.
To be successful, amendments must be approved by two consecutive
Legislatures — a process that could take three years or more.
The earliest a proposal could be put on a ballot for voters is
November 2024.
— Christian M. Wade covers the
Massachusetts Statehouse for The Salem News and its sister
newspapers and websites.
The New Boston Post
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Make Unequal Racial Outcomes Unconstitutional, State Legislator
Says
By Matt McDonald
A Massachusetts state legislator wants to make unequal outcomes
by race and other categories a violation of the state
constitution that would prompt action by the state government.
The proposed constitutional amendment would add sexual
orientation to the currently protected classes of sex, race,
color, creed, and national origin and add a sentence after that
stating: “Persistent unequal outcomes among such categories
shall constitute inequality under the law and shall thereby be
unconstitutional.”
The idea is to get state officials to make policy changes
whenever unequal outcomes among certain classes of people are
found, in order to try to make the outcomes equal.
“Massachusetts has a fundamental obligation to eliminate not
only overt but subtle discrimination in state laws as it works
to remedy these inequities. And we have an obligation to
aggressively and unceasingly intervene until equal opportunity
is visible in its outcomes that we create,” state Senator Adam
Hinds (D-Pittsfield), the sponsor of the measure, told a
legislative committee this past week. (A transcript of the
discussion during the hearing is available here.)
Racial minorities and others have for too long suffered under
state government policies that appear to treat everyone the same
but actually don’t, Hinds said.
“This amendment is critical to addressing inequality that arises
from laws that appear to be neutral on their face but have for
decades had a disproportionate negative impact on communities of
color, religious minorities, and immigrants,” Hinds told the
Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary
during an online hearing Tuesday, April 6.
Hinds envisions a new Office of Antiracism in state government
with a leader empowered to “coordinate across all agencies and
branches of government to promote antiracist policy and work[]
to undo the harmful effects of racism in all aspects of life
including in healthcare, finance, education, housing,
environmental policy, and the justice system,” according to a
related bill he has filed.
During the hearing, Hinds outlined how state officials would be
expected to fix social inequities, with the assumption that
inequities arise because of unfair government policy.
“The impact and implication is that when persistent disparities
and outcomes exist by race, for example, then the state must
take action to remedy that, by force of law,” Hinds said. “You
can imagine this forcing more proactive action to address
housing access, education funding, health interventions, justice
system oversight, and more.”
Hinds got pushback from state Representative Colleen Garry
(D-Dracut), who suggested that existing state offices have the
authority to challenge or overturn state policies that violate
the rights of people in the state, including protected classes.
“I guess I’m a little confused about changing the language of
the constitution. Wouldn’t we already have the ability, through
the inspector general or the attorney general, or someone else
to – the courts — to be able to determine if the outcome of a
policy … is not getting the outcome that we want?” Garry asked.
Hinds suggested the current system is too scattershot, because
it depends on individual initiative by certain state officials.
“I guess my first reaction is: They could, but do they? And
where is the mandate? Is it only when it’s brought on a
case-by-case basis? Is it when there’s a lawsuit filed? Where is
the impetus, and where is the initiative?” Hinds said. “And I
think this would put in statute that it’s clear that if you have
those disparate outcomes, it’s evidence that there’s a problem,
and there’s evidence that there’s a need to intervene.”
The two legislators represent opposite wings of the state’s
dominant Democratic Party.
Hinds has a 0 percent lifetime American Conservative Union
rating, which is the lowest possible. Garry, with a 31 percent
lifetime American Conservative Union rating, has the most
conservative voting record among Democrats in the state
Legislature.
Hinds got a B+ from Progressive Massachusetts during the
2019-2020 legislative session, while Garry got an F from the
left-wing group.
Hinds, during his earlier remarks, cited Ibram Kendi as the
inspiration for the proposed state constitutional amendment.
Kendi, a professor of history at Boston University, has called
for public policy to be “outcome-centered” and “victim-centered”
– and that it’s irrelevant whether a policy is intended to be
race-neutral or not.
Kendi is the founding director of Boston University’s Center for
Antiracist Research. As an example of an anti-racist policy,
Kendi supports race-based reparations to try to eliminate the
wealth gap between whites and blacks. He sees requiring
identification in order to vote as a form of race-based voter
suppression.
“Voter ID laws are a much more sophisticated form of voter
suppression than poll taxes,” Kendi said during a June 2019
forum at The Aspen Institute.
People justify racist policies that are in their self-interest,
Kendi argues, citing his research into black history and public
policy. “What I found, actually, is instead of racist ideas
leading to racist policies, I actually found racist policies
leading to racist ideas,” Kendi said during a June 2019
interview at The Aspen Institute.
Kendi in September 2019 at the University of California at
Berkeley said he’d like to eliminate the descriptions “not
racist” and “race neutral” — which he said would force people
“to recognize that all policies are either racist or
anti-racist.”
Kendi drew nationwide attention in September 2020 when he
challenged the notion that Amy Coney Barrett, then a nominee for
the U.S. Supreme Court and now a member of the court, cannot not
be a racist because she and her husband are raising two black
children from Haiti whom they adopted.
To be enacted, Hinds’s proposed constitutional amendment would
require support from at least 50 of the 200 Massachusetts state
legislators during the current 2020-2021 legislative session and
then also during the 2022-2023 legislative session – and if it
did, would then go to the state’s voters in the November 2024
general election.
The proposed amendment would alter Article I in Part the First
of the Massachusetts Constitution. The original state
constitution, largely written by John Adams, was approved by
voters in 1780. It has been amended 120 times since then.
Here’s the original 1780 version of Article I:
"All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural,
essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be
reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and
liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting
property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their
safety and happiness.
Here is the current version, after state legislators proposed
adding protected classes to Article I in 1973 and voters
approved the amendment in 1976:
"All people are born free and equal and have certain
natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may
be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives
and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting
property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their
safety and happiness.
Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged
because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin."
Here’s what Article I would look like if state Senator Hinds’s
amendment is approved by state legislators and by voters:
"All people are born free and equal and have certain
natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may
be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives
and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting
property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their
safety and happiness.
Equality under the law and within the policies of the
commonwealth shall not be denied or abridged because of sex,
race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or national origin.
"Persistent unequal outcomes
among such categories shall constitute inequality under the
law and shall thereby be unconstitutional."
The (Fitchburg) Sentinel & Enterprise
Sunday, April 4, 2021
A Sentinel & Enterprise editorial
Discouraging state of middle class in Massachusetts
The rich still thrive while the middle class struggles to
survive.
That variation on a well-known theme applies to a pair of recent
developments that highlight just how difficult it is for the
average Joe or Jane to make it in Massachusetts.
Gov. Charlie Baker undoubtedly felt he was speaking to the choir
Wednesday during a visit to a Quincy shelter run by a charity
working to end homelessness.
There he mentioned that he wants to see “a lot of shovels in the
ground” to build sorely needed new housing across the state,
once Massachusetts emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Baker said a new law that enables municipal zoning changes aimed
at spurring housing production to be adopted by a
simple-majority vote “creates a statutory framework,” and a $1.8
billion housing bond bill signed in 2018 “gives us a ton of dry
powder.”
We all now Massachusetts home prices are among the highest in
the nation, as are rents; that’s especially true in metropolitan
Boston.
For those being shut out of home ownership due to the escalating
cost, or forced to pay an ever-increasing amount of their income
on rent, it’s obvious that the commonwealth’s 351 cities and
towns must build more housing, in a mix that meets the needs of
the workforce that sustains the state’s economy.
But that comes down to the decisions made by individual
municipalities, which ultimately decide whether to allow
additional housing through their zoning bylaws and permitting
process.
The governor hoped that provision in the massive
economic-development bill passed last year changing the zoning
vote would spur housing construction.
Restrictive zoning and intentionally development-discouraging
infrastructure, common in the state’s more affluent communities,
has frustrated attempts to diversify their housing stock, and by
extension, their physical character and socioeconomic makeup.
Unfortunately, one of the ostensibly unintended consequences in
another piece of comprehensive legislation, the wide-ranging
climate bill recently passed by lawmakers and signed — we assume
reluctantly — by the governor, allows these same tony towns to
enact net-zero building codes for new construction, driving up
costs and effectively neutralizing the potential
housing-friendly benefit of that zoning change in the very
places for which it was intended.
Net result: little if any change in the housing-construction
status quo, which ensures continued low inventory and
out-of-reach prices for the state’s working class.
And then we have a new study that identifies another unintended
consequence of a widely-backed initiative.
A review by the Pioneer Institute of the so-called “millionaires
tax” concludes it won’t just pick the pockets of the wealthiest
few, but would also nail members of the middle-class cashing out
for retirement.
This graduated income-tax proposal would slap an additional 4%
income tax on annual income over $1 million. A supportive
Legislature is expected to vote in the coming months on whether
to put it on the ballot in 2022.
“It has the ability to push those with significant capital gains
and valuable asset sales into higher tax brackets, punishing
owners of retirement nest eggs and desirable real estate. In
practice, these ‘one-time millionaires,’ who cash in on a
lifetime of work and sacrifice in anticipation of retirement,
outnumber those who consistently have seven-figure salaries or
stock market windfalls,” wrote study authors Greg Sullivan &
Andrew Mikula.
Advocates for the measure say this would require the wealthiest
few to pay their “fair share,” which would then provide funding
for various state programs.
We’ve criticized this millionaires tax because it seeks to
punish the state’s entrepreneurial class that employs thousands
of Massachusetts workers.
But our wealthiest residents possess the mobility to move their
residences – and potentially their businesses – elsewhere.
Middle-class earners who’ve worked diligently all their lives to
create a comfortable retirement that could now be unfairly taxed
likely have far fewer options.
Net result: the middle-class baby gets thrown out with the
soak-it-to-the-rich bathwater.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 8, 2021
The wheels are coming off the RMV
By Howie Carr
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is capable of halting global
warming – just ask them.
Just don’t expect the hacks to issue an inspection sticker for
your car, because while stopping rising sea levels is no
problem, the failed Registry of Motor Vehicles has been unable
for more than a week to process even one single vehicle
inspection.
Here’s what Gov. Charlie Baker talks endlessly about achieving:
“net zero emissions.”
Here’s what he’s accomplished over the last 10 days with no end
in sight: net zero inspections.
Gov. Charlie Baker, though, has bigger fish to fry than the
15,000 to 20,000 drivers every single day who are unable to
renew their annual inspection stickers.
The man known to his Democrat admirers as “Charlie Bacon” or
“Charlie Parker” can’t be bothered with such mundane concerns as
plebeians having to pay years of insurance surcharges because of
his calamitous incompetence.
“As a Commonwealth,” Tall Deval recently harrumphed, “we have an
obligation to address climate change head on.”
Charlie, before you think globally, how about you act locally?
The entire state government has degenerated into a corrupt
hackerama, Charlie, and your solution is to steal billions more
from the state’s motorists by raising the gasoline tax from 24
cents a gallon to perhaps as high as 62 cents, according to a
Tufts University study.
And in return for that, motorists can now get… stopped by local
cops for having an expired inspection sticker because yet
another Charlie Parker agency has seized up and utterly failed.
“The price of doing nothing is very big,” Charlie Bacon once
said.
Of course, he wasn’t talking about the Registry. He was talking
about, what are they calling it today, global cooling, global
warming, climate change, extreme weather.
Guess what Charlie – if you’ve got an expired inspection sticker
and a cop spots you and he’s having a bad day, the “price” of
doing nothing – you and your corrupt hacks doing nothing, that
is — can be “very big.”
Not for Charlie, of course, but for the motorist who if Tall
Deval’s dream comes true will be paying close to an extra
sawbuck for every 20-gallon fill-up.
A moving violation, which is what an expired sticker is (even if
the car isn’t actually moving) is a surchargeable offense. The
statute of limitations runs out on bank robberies before it runs
out on a surchargeable offense in the kleptocracy known as
Maskachusetts.
How long does a surcharge remain on your bill? Six years? Seven?
Let me put it another way. Since Charlie Parker et al. agree
that the world may well be destroyed in a fiery apocalypse in 10
or fewer years, because of this latest Commonwealth catastrophe
you may be paying more for your insurance for 70 percent of the
time to enjoy the planet before climate Armageddon.
The wretched RMV is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the
outage,” according to their own press release. This means they
are asking local cops not to write any tickets – half the
proceeds of which go to the local courts, i.e., hacks whose
endless virus vacation continues as we speak.
“According to RMV records,” a spokesman told me yesterday, “only
one citation has been received to date that was issued for a
vehicle with an inspection that expired on 3/31/2021.”
Well, that’s a relief – unless you’re that one person.
Meanwhile, Charlie says he’s been talking to “folks in the
climate and atmospheric communities.”
Maybe he should be talking to this poor driver who’s going to be
out thousands of dollars because state government right now is
as poorly run as it has ever been, and that includes Mike
Dukakis days.
“Yesterday’s solutions and yesterday’s plans are no longer
sufficient.”
Neither, Charlie, is your breathtaking incompetence – with the
Registry, or the dead kids at the DCF, or the dead veterans at
the Holyoke Soldiers Home, or the corrupt state cops still on
the payroll, or the 65,000 faked criminal drug tests by the
Department of Public Health….
“On climate change,” Charlie Bacon likes to say, “Massachusetts
continues to be a national leader.”
On the more mundane issue of motor-vehicle inspections … not so
much.
But give Charlie Parker credit – the state is a national leader
not just in climate change but in COVID-19 deaths (third among
50 states per 100,000 population, fifth in job loss, and for
months last summer, first in unemployment rate in the U.S.
And don’t forget the “grim milestone” we just passed — more than
9,000 deaths in nursing homes (regulated by Charlie Parker). So
more than half the total deaths in Massachusetts (17,358) are on
Gov. Bacon.
To repeat, Charlie Parker’s own stated goal: net zero emissions.
What he’s accomplished: net zero inspections.
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