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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
Sunday, June 20, 2021
Post-Pandemic
Politics
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 Fair Share Amendment establishes through law a
"millionaire's tax" that is actually a graduated income
tax. It allows the state to impose a four percent
surcharge on so-called millionaires. Make no mistake
about it, before long the millionaire's tax will become
the "thousandaire tax" when lawmakers run out of money
again.
In other words, you get to vote to change the world's
oldest functioning constitution next year in order to
sock it to those dirty millionaires. Lawmakers have
launched an ad blitz to convince you that the wealthy
are the bad guys. To be successful is to be punished and
treated unfairly. It's class warfare, us against the
rich.
As a result "the rich" will flee Massachusetts, as will
businesses, as they've done in other states where this
has been attempted. Along with them, investments, jobs,
and tax revenues will disappear as well.
Massachusetts voters have traditionally rejected the
concept of a graduated income tax in the past and should
again. This is corruption at its finest. The
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has already struck
it down as unconstitutional and that is why the crooks
on Bacon Hill are attempting to change the constitution.
Vote no on the "Fair Share Amendment" when it appears on
the ballot next year.
WBSM 1420-AM
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Massachusetts' Fair Share
Amendment Is A Pile Of Garbage
By Barry Richard
A new study revealed that Americans are continuing to
flee New York and California for places like Texas and
Florida in recent months.
“Despite the 2020 pandemic, this year Americans are
following similar moving trends as prior years. Millions
of Americans are moving either to start a new job or to
move home,” said a
report from North American Van Lines, a trucking and
moving company.
Specifically, it noted that Americans “are fleeing”
California to Texas and Idaho, although New York, New
Jersey, and Illinois “are the three states with the most
outbound moves.” Other states that have seen a mass
exodus of people, the report said, are Michigan and
Pennsylvania....
“The average long-distance mover relocated to a ZIP code
with home values nearly $27,000 lower than where they
came from last year,” its report said. “U.S. movers in
2020 relocated to ZIP codes with homes 33 square feet
larger than where they came from, on average.”
Zillow used data from North American Van Lines to find
["The
opportunity, emotion and trends behind the Great
Reshuffling"] that “movers that changed states in
2020 moved to areas with homes that were, on average,
both larger and less-pricey than in the areas they moved
from.” That finding, according to the analysis, is a
“notable reversal” of previous years’ trends.
The Epoch Times
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Americans Are Fleeing California and
New York for Florida and Texas: Study
State lawmakers on Thursday agreed to schedule this
year's sales tax holiday for the weekend of August 14
and 15.
A 2018 law that put the state's minimum hourly wage on a
gradual path to $15 and created the paid family and
medical leave program also made the holiday, when the
6.25 percent sales tax is waived for many purchases, an
annual fixture and tasked the Legislature with picking
an exact date each August.
The House and Senate each adopted a resolution (S 2487)
setting August 14 and 15 as this year's dates....
Through May, the state had collected $30.451 billion in
tax revenue, an increase of 23 percent over the same 11
months of fiscal 2020 and $3.938 billion above the
revenue department's expectations.
State House News Service
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Legislature Calls For Aug. 14-15
Sales Tax Holiday
With a bill that would extend authorization for virtual
public meetings now on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk,
advocacy groups are calling on lawmakers to make remote
meeting access permanent.
Groups including the ACLU of Massachusetts,
Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, Boston
Center for Independent Living, MASSPIRG and the New
England First Amendment Coalition support legislation (H
3152, S 2082), filed by Rep. Denise Garlick and Sen.
Jason Lewis, that would require a remote access
component at public meetings.
"We need a permanent system requiring in-person meetings
while also allowing online access for citizens who
cannot be in the room," said Justin Silverman of the New
England First Amendment Coalition. "It's a matter of
access and public oversight."
State and local government entities shifted many
proceedings online during the pandemic, which advocates
say opened up participation to people who could not
attend in-person, including those with disabilities,
lack of transportation, or work and caregiving
responsibilities.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Remote Meetings Hailed as Major Public
Access Reform
Governor Charlie Baker is pursuing his own plans to spend
more than half of Massachusetts’ $5.3 billion federal
stimulus windfall, with $1 billion in housing initiatives at
the top of his priority list. Though he could run into
resistance from leaders in the Legislature who want to
control the purse strings.
The Republican governor is filing a measure Thursday that
would set aside $2.8 billion of that federal aid to address
a variety of his key priorities: Housing and homeownership,
economic development, job training, mental and emotional
health, and water-and-sewer infrastructure. He would leave
most of the rest for the Legislature to allocate.
The proposal marks the latest twist in a tango between Baker
and the Democrat-led Legislature over how to spend the
state’s share of American Rescue Plan Act proceeds. Baker
maintains he has the authority, at least right now, to spend
the full amount as he chooses.
The Legislature earlier this month sent him a brief piece of
legislation that would divert the state’s ARPA money into a
fund state lawmakers control. Baker is seeking to amend this
bill, by leaving $2.3 billion for them to divvy up....
[Baker] also did not heed the business community’s request
to set aside money to help pay for the state’s huge
unemployment insurance costs, which ballooned last year
during the pandemic. Baker pointed to a recently-signed bill
that spreads the hike in what’s called the solvency
assessment over 20 years, to spread out $7 billion in
unemployment payments tied to pandemic-related job losses.
Businesses, even those without any layoffs in 2020, had been
faced with an unexpected additional cost of as much as
$1,300 per worker this year before that “fix” became law.
Baker said there will be a “big sigh of relief” when
employers get their new bills.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Baker looks to spend half of state’s $5b
stimulus windfall quickly ...
setting himself up for a conflict with the Legislature
In an attempt to end the battle over who gets to spend
nearly $5.2 billion in federal relief money, Gov. Charlie
Baker on Thursday pitched a plan that would see him cede
much of his control over the aid to the Legislature, as long
as lawmakers agree quickly to spend more than half on
priorities such as home ownership assistance, substance
abuse treatment and job training....
The governor made his pitch on the same day he faced a
deadline to act on a bill passed by the Legislature that
would sweep nearly $5.18 billion in American Rescue Plan Act
funding into the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund.
That fund is subject to appropriation by lawmakers, meaning
the APRA relief funding would go through a more traditional
budgeting process.
"While we're willing to agree to move this aid into a
separate fund, we need to work together to get part of this
funding out the door to start addressing the immediate needs
we have in our communities across the commonwealth," Baker
said.
The governor has asserted that he does not need legislative
approval to spend the federal relief money, but said
Thursday he was willing to meet Democratic leaders half-way.
The governor returned the bill (H 3827) with an amendment
that would allow the full amount to be transferred to the
trust fund, but would also appropriate more than half of it
immediately.
If he had vetoed the bill, House and Senate leaders likely
would have had the votes to override the governor....
House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka
didn't need to think too long, however, dismissing the
governor's proposal mere hours after he made his case
publicly.
"The Legislature has made clear its belief that
appropriating American Rescue Plan funding must be done
through a transparent and deliberative process. We
appreciate the Governor’s spending proposal, but we continue
to believe that this once in a generation opportunity
demands a thoughtful public vetting. To that end, we will
continue to pursue placing these one-time federal dollars,
which were intended to be spent over multiple years, into
the segregated fund so that we can hear from communities and
stakeholders throughout the Commonwealth," Mariano and
Spilka said in a statement....
Baker's return of the bill to the Legislature keeps the
federal funding in limbo a month after Massachusetts
received the lump sum aid through the American Rescue Plan
Act.
Legislative leaders have not laid out a specific timetable
for developing a spending plan of their own...
The Massachusetts chapter of the National Federation of
Independent Businesses said it was "disappointed" Baker did
not propose to use any money to replenish the unemployment
insurance trust fund.
Baker recently partnered with lawmakers to relieve the
sticker shock felt by businesses when they got their UI
bills this spring by borrowing the money to recapitalize the
depleted fund and allowing businesses to repay the money
over 20 years.
Some states, however, have used chunks of their ARPA funding
to rebuild their unemployment insurance trust funds and
permanently reduce the debt burden on employers.
"The state-mandated restrictions and overly generous state
benefits helped fuel the current UI crisis, and now the
state should help employers pay for it," said NFIB State
Director Christopher Carlozzi.
State House News Service
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Baker Outlines $2.8 Billion Rescue Act
Spending Bill
Republican Guv to Legislature: Start Spending Now
Massachusetts employers added 9,200 jobs in May and the
statewide unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points to
6.1 percent, labor officials announced Friday.
The pace of job gains slowed from the revised 10,200
positions businesses added in April, according to Bureau of
Labor Statistics figures cited by the Executive Office of
Labor and Workforce Development.
That continues a deceleration, from from 37,900 jobs added
in January to 19,700 in February, 14,800 in March, 10,200 in
April and now 9,200 in May....
Total employment, estimated based on a survey of employers,
has increased in Massachusetts for five months straight and
12 of the past 13 months. The Bay State lost 691,000 jobs in
March 2020 and April 2020, and since then has brought back
about 406,600 jobs, less than 60 percent of the early
losses.
Many business groups and smaller employers have warned
lately that they are struggling to attract workers and fill
open positions while the state pushes toward a post-pandemic
economic recovery, citing factors ranging from the continued
availability of supplemental unemployment benefits to a lack
of available housing.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday outlined plans to immediately
spend $2.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds to help
further the economic recovery. His proposal drew a tepid
initial response from legislators, who emphasized the
importance of putting the ARPA money in a special fund while
hearing more public feedback.
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Pace of Mass. Job Gains Continued to Slow
During May
The authorization for to-go alcohol sales by restaurants was
one of the measures that lapsed for a little more than a day
when the COVID-19 state of emergency lifted at 12:01 a.m.
Tuesday but lawmakers hadn't yet completed a bill to extend
popular policies linked to the emergency declaration.
So that they could reach a compromise at least on the same
day that the emergency expired, the House and Senate sent
Baker only a bill reflecting areas of common ground --
keeping to-go cocktails and outdoor dining around for a
while longer, allowing but not requiring remote public
meetings for entitites that opt for them, and extending
eviction protections, for instance -- while opting to
continue their talks on issues like mail-in voting and
telehealth rates.
The roughly 33-hour window between the emergency's end and
Baker's pen hitting the parchment Wednesday was shorter than
the time in 2018 when horse racing and simulcasting became
illegal for about 36 hours because lawmakers didn't finish a
reauthorization bill in time. But it was still long enough
to create headaches for restaurants trying to plan their
operations and school committees, select boards and other
entities wondering how, exactly, to hold their next meeting.
Incidentally, legislators never had to worry about their own
remote-voting capabilities vanishing if they didn't ink a
deal. They get that option not from the state's Open Meeting
Law -- which doesn't apply to the House and Senate -- but
under the emergency rules each branch adopted.
Those rules, it turns out, let Speaker Ronald Mariano cast
his votes last week from Florida, an under-the-radar trip
that only came to light after he disclosed this week that
he'd been fitted for a pacemaker while in the Sunshine
State.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Four hundred and sixty-two days later,
Massachusetts emerges from the COVID-19 state of emergency.
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Weekly Roundup - No Emergency Here
This is the time of year when the first indication of a
likely overdue annual budget comes in the form of an interim
budget filed by the governor and quickly approved by the
Legislature to give negotiators more time to hammer out a
final spending bill. House and Senate Democrats can avoid
that if they reach a budget deal in the coming days. Unlike
last year, when concerns over a revenue freefall and
uncertainty about federal aid caused budget writers to
intentionally put their annual budgeting exercises on hold,
lawmakers this year say they are trying to get back on their
old schedule.
But even before the pandemic, House and Senate Democrats had
trouble meeting their annual July 1 budget deadline. The
challenges this year are significantly different than past
years and center largely on settling policy differences and
not overspending at a time when Massachusetts taxpayers are
giving Beacon Hill far more in tax revenue than the
architects of the pending $47.7 billion budget proposals
envisioned.
When combined with record amounts of federal aid, it's a
revenue glut spiraling into the billions of dollars, the
likes of which the state has never seen before.
[Emphasis added]
And there's also a logjam of budget bills building behind
the big annual budget. The House last week sent the Senate a
$257 million fiscal 2021 supplemental budget (H 3871) that
makes mail-in and expanded early voting permanent...
Storylines in Progress
As the wait for a State House reopening timeline continues,
the building remains one of the few in the state without
some kind of plan and lawmakers continue to be advised to
participate in sessions remotely. Six months into the
session, House and Senate Democrats also remain in
disagreement over public access to committee votes and
virtual testimony. And the House also has yet to even adopt
its own permanent rules for this session ...
The Transportation Committee takes testimony next week on
the proposal to make undocumented immigrants eligible for
standard Massachusetts driver's licenses ...
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Advances - Week of June 20 |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Most of what's happened at the
State House over the past week (and likely the coming weeks)
has been dealing with the fallout of the pandemic
— the long-term consequences of
the lockdown, this week's rediscovered freedom, and the
dilemma of how to spend the combined $10 Billion windfall
from some $5B of unexpected state tax revenue and over $5B
in federal relief. Dealing with the fallout
— and using it as an
opportunity. ("Never let a crisis go to waste!")
WBSM 1420-AM talk-show host
Barry Richard on Tuesday wrote a column decrying the coming
ballot question to crack the flat tax and take the first
step toward a graduated income tax. In "Massachusetts'
Fair Share Amendment Is A Pile Of Garbage" he wrote:
The Fair Share Amendment
establishes through law a "millionaire's tax" that is
actually a graduated income tax. It allows the state to
impose a four percent surcharge on so-called
millionaires. Make no mistake about it, before long the
millionaire's tax will become the "thousandaire tax"
when lawmakers run out of money again.
In other words, you get to vote to
change the world's oldest functioning constitution next
year in order to sock it to those dirty millionaires.
Lawmakers have launched an ad blitz to convince you that
the wealthy are the bad guys. To be successful is to be
punished and treated unfairly. It's class warfare, us
against the rich.
As a result "the rich" will flee
Massachusetts, as will businesses, as they've done in
other states where this has been attempted. Along with
them, investments, jobs, and tax revenues will disappear
as well....
Vote no on the "Fair Share
Amendment" when it appears on the ballot next year.
"The rich" aren't the only ones
fleeing abusive, overly-taxed, and dysfunctional blue
states. This growing phenomenon now has its own name:
"The Great Reshuffling."
Zillow, the online real estate
portal, noted in its April 6 2021 Mover Report ("The
opportunity, emotion and trends behind the Great Reshuffling"):
“The
pandemic brought an acceleration of trends we were
seeing in 2018 and 2019,” said Zillow senior economist
Jeff Tucker. “More affordable, medium-sized metro areas
across the Sun Belt saw significantly more people coming
than going, especially from more expensive, larger
cities farther north and on the coasts.”
The Epoch Times reported on
Tuesday ("Americans Are Fleeing California
and New York for Florida and Texas: Study"):
A new study revealed that Americans
are continuing to flee New York and California for
places like Texas and Florida in recent months.
“Despite the 2020 pandemic, this
year Americans are following similar moving trends as
prior years. Millions of Americans are moving either to
start a new job or to move home,” said a
report from North American Van Lines, a trucking and
moving company.
Specifically, it noted that
Americans “are fleeing” California to Texas and Idaho,
although New York, New Jersey, and Illinois “are the
three states with the most outbound moves.” Other states
that have seen a mass exodus of people, the report said,
are Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Massachusetts' timing for
potentially imposing a graduated income tax, motivating more
productive taxpayers to flee for their life-savings if not
their lives, couldn't be worse. If the constitutional
flat tax is cracked and a graduated income tax ever becomes
law the proportion of dependents of state government's
largesse will grow until it consumes all state revenue,
requiring tax increases while driving out even more
productive taxpayers along the way. Such dogmatic and
self-destructive blind greed would ignite the law of
diminishing returns without end. Well, there's always
an end I suppose, though not necessarily pretty.
The State House News Service
reported on Thursday ("Legislature Calls
For Aug. 14-15 Sales Tax Holiday"):
State lawmakers on Thursday agreed
to schedule this year's sales tax holiday for the
weekend of August 14 and 15.
A 2018 law that put the state's
minimum hourly wage on a gradual path to $15 and created
the paid family and medical leave program also made the
holiday, when the 6.25 percent sales tax is waived for
many purchases, an annual fixture and tasked the
Legislature with picking an exact date each August.
The House and Senate each adopted a
resolution (S 2487) setting August 14 and 15 as this
year's dates....
Through May, the state had
collected $30.451 billion in tax revenue, an increase of
23 percent over the same 11 months of fiscal 2020 and
$3.938 billion above the revenue department's
expectations.
Barbara
loved the annual sales tax holiday. For
weeks in advance she'd make lists of things to buy to last
her for months, put off spending on them until the big day
arrived to go on her celebratory shopping spree "to stick it
to the man." I couldn't be bothered. She'd shop,
I'd go sailing.
Then the Legislature ignored a
sales tax holiday for a couple years, so the Mass. Retailers
Association collected enough signatures (CLT helped) to put
a sales tax reduction (from 6.25% down to 5%) on the 2018
ballot where it was expected to easily pass. In the "Grand
Bargain" the Legislature and Governor compromised with
The Takers on different ballot questions they'd
collected signatures to put on the ballot that could have
crippled small businesses. The Retailers Association
in exchange dropped its sales tax question and got a promise
of a guaranteed annual sales tax holiday
— and this is it. Three
years later the promise is still being kept. So far so
good.
"Never let a crisis go to
waste" Part 1
The State House News Service
reported on Wednesday ("Remote Meetings
Hailed as Major Public Access Reform"):
With a bill that would extend
authorization for virtual public meetings now on Gov.
Charlie Baker's desk, advocacy groups are calling on
lawmakers to make remote meeting access permanent.
Groups including the ACLU of
Massachusetts, Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers
Association, Boston Center for Independent Living,
MASSPIRG and the New England First Amendment Coalition
support legislation (H 3152, S 2082), filed by Rep.
Denise Garlick and Sen. Jason Lewis, that would require
a remote access component at public meetings.
"We need a permanent system
requiring in-person meetings while also allowing online
access for citizens who cannot be in the room," said
Justin Silverman of the New England First Amendment
Coalition. "It's a matter of access and public
oversight."
State and local government entities
shifted many proceedings online during the pandemic,
which advocates say opened up participation to people
who could not attend in-person, including those with
disabilities, lack of transportation, or work and
caregiving responsibilities.
"Never let a crisis go to waste" Part 2
State House News Service reported in its
Weekly Roundup on Friday:
. . . But it was still long enough
to create headaches for restaurants trying to plan their
operations and school committees, select boards and
other entities wondering how, exactly, to hold their
next meeting.
Incidentally, legislators never had
to worry about their own remote-voting capabilities
vanishing if they didn't ink a deal. They get that
option not from the state's Open Meeting Law -- which
doesn't apply to the House and Senate -- but under the
emergency rules each branch adopted.
Those rules, it turns out, let
Speaker Ronald Mariano cast his votes last week from
Florida, an under-the-radar trip that only came to light
after he disclosed this week that he'd been fitted for a
pacemaker while in the Sunshine State.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Four hundred and
sixty-two days later, Massachusetts emerges from the
COVID-19 state of emergency.
"Never let a crisis go to waste" Part 3
From the State House News Service's
Advances - Week of June 20 on Friday:
Unlike last year, when concerns
over a revenue freefall and uncertainty about federal
aid caused budget writers to intentionally put their
annual budgeting exercises on hold, lawmakers this year
say they are trying to get back on their old schedule.
But even before the pandemic, House
and Senate Democrats had trouble meeting their annual
July 1 budget deadline. The challenges this year are
significantly different than past years and center
largely on settling policy differences and not
overspending at a time when Massachusetts taxpayers are
giving Beacon Hill far more in tax revenue than the
architects of the pending $47.7 billion budget proposals
envisioned.
When combined with record
amounts of federal aid, it's a revenue glut spiraling
into the billions of dollars, the likes of which the
state has never seen before. [Emphasis added]
And there's also a logjam of budget
bills building behind the big annual budget. The House
last week sent the Senate a $257 million fiscal 2021
supplemental budget (H 3871) that makes mail-in and
expanded early voting permanent...
Storylines in Progress
As the wait for a State House
reopening timeline continues, the building remains one
of the few in the state without some kind of plan and
lawmakers continue to be advised to participate in
sessions remotely. Six months into the session, House
and Senate Democrats also remain in disagreement over
public access to committee votes and virtual testimony.
And the House also has yet to even adopt its own
permanent rules for this session ...
The Transportation Committee takes
testimony next week on the proposal to make undocumented
immigrants eligible for standard Massachusetts driver's
licenses ...
It would appear that many on Beacon Hill already are
missing the advantages provided by a once-in-a-century
pandemic. Having conditioned the sheep and
mushrooms to docility, apparently the intent now is to
make many of their emergency responses and temporary
provisions permanent.
The most interesting dynamic to observe is the growing
battle over how that $10 Billion will be divvied up to
be squandered — a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for politicians looking
to do what they do best; spend other peoples' money.
"Governor Charlie Baker is pursuing his own plans to
spend more than half of Massachusetts’ $5.3 billion
federal stimulus windfall, with $1 billion in housing
initiatives at the top of his priority list. Though he
could run into resistance from leaders in the
Legislature who want to control the purse strings,"
The Boston Globe reported on Thursday ("Baker
looks to spend half of state’s $5b stimulus windfall
quickly ... setting himself up for a conflict with the
Legislature").
State House News Service reported the reaction on
Thursday ("Baker Outlines $2.8 Billion
Rescue Act Spending Bill
Republican Guv to Legislature: Start Spending Now"):
House Speaker Ron Mariano and
Senate President Karen Spilka didn't need to think too
long, however, dismissing the governor's proposal mere
hours after he made his case publicly.
"The Legislature has made clear its
belief that appropriating American Rescue Plan funding
must be done through a transparent and deliberative
process. We appreciate the Governor’s spending proposal,
but we continue to believe that this once in a
generation opportunity demands a thoughtful public
vetting. To that end, we will continue to pursue placing
these one-time federal dollars, which were intended to
be spent over multiple years, into the segregated fund
so that we can hear from communities and stakeholders
throughout the Commonwealth," Mariano and Spilka said in
a statement.
With some $10 Billion of "free money" floating around
the State House to get in the way is to get trampled.
Gov. Baker is trying to play fair, spending half himself
and leaving the other half to legislative leaders.
Unfortunately Charlie doesn't realize that More Is Never
Enough (MINE) and never will be. Now we shall see
just how much all his "bipartisanship" has been worth
when there's a fortune on the table.
Notes from the Bluegrass State
"It doesn't need to be "The Massachusetts Way'"!
I broke away from my desk for a few hours yesterday
morning, attended the Warren County Kentucky Republican
Committee's first post-pandemic meeting, this one to
select new officers for the coming year and the
elections ahead. I thought it was time I dipped my
toes into local politics if for no other reason than
self-preservation, to keep Kentucky Kentucky!
County government is the primary level of government in
Kentucky. Precincts are a division of each county
— not of municipalities as
in Massachusetts. I stumbled upon my new best friend
here, Ron Cummings, while shopping for my new home back
in 2018; he was my real estate broker and was also
running for his first political office as
one of the six county
Fiscal Court magistrates (similar to county
commissioners in Massachusetts when there was county
government). He won his first election that
November and I left Massachusetts two weeks later.
Ron's been encouraging me
to get involved in local politics; I thought this would
be a good opportunity to see how it works and meet some
like-minded new people (most welcome after a year-plus
of forced solo isolation).
As an introduction (if anyone was interested) I brought
along a copy of my
political action résumé
and my first column published in the local newspaper, "Lucky
in Kentucky." I met and was introduced to a
lot of interesting and friendly folks. The next
thing I knew I'd been recruited and elected as my
county precinct's vice-chairman (or is it
"vice-captain")! Never mind dipping my
toes, that's getting both feet wet awfully fast.
Oh well, kind of fits the pattern.
While my focus remains on what
I've invested my life for the past 35 years doing —
informing Massachusetts taxpayers, defending them from a
rapacious, oppressive state government — maybe I've
found a hobby for myself, dabbling in a more sane
political environment, and can perhaps expand life
beyond staring at a computer screen 12, 14 hours every
day of the week.
The Newest Recruit
Voting for County Officers
The rest of the members attending were sitting in rows
along the back wall
behind we the elected among the precincts
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
Full News Reports
(excerpted above) |
|
WBSM 1420-AM
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Massachusetts' Fair Share Amendment Is A Pile Of Garbage
By Barry Richard
Try as I might, I was unable to block out all of the news
from home during my recent vacation. It's kind of difficult
to do when you carry a pocket-sized computer around with you
all day long.
One such news report involved the final passage of the
so-called Fair Share Amendment by the Massachusetts
Legislature. In doing so, the matter will now appear on the
2022 state ballot.
The Fair Share Amendment establishes through law a
"millionaire's tax" that is actually a graduated income tax.
It allows the state to impose a four percent surcharge on
so-called millionaires. Make no mistake about it, before
long the millionaire's tax will become the "thousandaire
tax" when lawmakers run out of money again.
In other words, you get to vote to change the world's oldest
functioning constitution next year in order to sock it to
those dirty millionaires. Lawmakers have launched an ad
blitz to convince you that the wealthy are the bad guys. To
be successful is to be punished and treated unfairly. It's
class warfare, us against the rich.
As a result "the rich" will flee Massachusetts, as will
businesses, as they've done in other states where this has
been attempted. Along with them, investments, jobs, and tax
revenues will disappear as well.
Massachusetts voters have traditionally rejected the concept
of a graduated income tax in the past and should again. This
is corruption at its finest. The Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court has already struck it down as
unconstitutional and that is why the crooks on Bacon Hill
are attempting to change the constitution.
Vote no on the "Fair Share Amendment" when it appears on the
ballot next year.
— Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on
1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to
3 p.m.
The Epoch Times
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Americans Are Fleeing California and New York for Florida
and Texas: Study
By Jack Phillips
A new study revealed that Americans are continuing to flee
New York and California for places like Texas and Florida in
recent months.
“Despite the 2020 pandemic, this year Americans are
following similar moving trends as prior years. Millions of
Americans are moving either to start a new job or to move
home,” said a
report from North American Van Lines, a trucking and
moving company.
Specifically, it noted that Americans “are fleeing”
California to Texas and Idaho, although New York, New
Jersey, and Illinois “are the three states with the most
outbound moves.” Other states that have seen a mass exodus
of people, the report said, are Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“The top five inbound states in 2020 are Idaho, Arizona,
Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina, with
Tennessee overtaking South Carolina from the 2019 results,”
the report found.
North American Van Lines did not make mention of the
widespread protests and riots last year, or the pandemic.
Crime rates in some cities have also spiked amid the “defund
the police” movement that became popular in the summer of
2020. In major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Philadelphia, New York City, and Chicago, shootings and
homicides saw upticks in 2020 and during the first six
months of 2021.
But the report speculated that people might be leaving
northeastern states due to the “harsh winters,” job
availability as many firms “are avoiding the region” for
now, and that many northeastern cities have a high cost of
living that makes housing affordability more challenging.
The city that is most popular as a moving destination is now
Phoenix, according to the report. The next on the list are
Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver.
“With Texas’ warm climate and low taxes it’s not surprising
that three of the top ten MSA [Metropolitan Statistical
Area] destinations are in Texas,” the report noted.
Another report released this week from real estate website
Zillow ["The
opportunity, emotion and trends behind the Great Reshuffling"]
confirmed that there has been a significant shift in where
people are living now, saying that Americans are
“reshuffling” to “larger” and “more-affordable homes.”
“The average long-distance mover relocated to a ZIP code
with home values nearly $27,000 lower than where they came
from last year,” its report said. “U.S. movers in 2020
relocated to ZIP codes with homes 33 square feet larger than
where they came from, on average.”
Zillow used data from North American Van Lines to find that
“movers that changed states in 2020 moved to areas with
homes that were, on average, both larger and less-pricey
than in the areas they moved from.” That finding, according
to the analysis, is a “notable reversal” of previous years’
trends.
State House News Service
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Legislature Calls For Aug. 14-15 Sales Tax Holiday
By Katie Lannan
State lawmakers on Thursday agreed to schedule this year's
sales tax holiday for the weekend of August 14 and 15.
A 2018 law that put the state's minimum hourly wage on a
gradual path to $15 and created the paid family and medical
leave program also made the holiday, when the 6.25 percent
sales tax is waived for many purchases, an annual fixture
and tasked the Legislature with picking an exact date each
August.
The House and Senate each adopted a resolution (S 2487)
setting August 14 and 15 as this year's dates.
"We invite all residents to go out and benefit from this
opportunity as we incentivize investment in our businesses
and continue the work of setting our economy on a path to
post-pandemic recovery," Senate President Karen Spilka and
House Speaker Ronald Mariano said in a statement.
The law directs the Legislature to adopt the joint
resolution "not later than June 15," which was Tuesday, and
says that if lawmakers fail to adopt the resolution, the
revenue commissioner must designate a date by July 1. Last
year, the Baker administration scheduled the weekend for
August 29 and 30th.
A Department of Revenue spokesperson did not immediately
respond to an email asking if the department would go along
with the Legislature's chosen date or pursue something else
in light of the missed deadline.
The holiday, in which the state agrees to give up revenue
that would otherwise be collected in a bid to spur buying at
local businesses, allows shoppers to avoid paying taxes on
most retail items that cost less than $2,500.
Through May, the state had collected $30.451 billion in tax
revenue, an increase of 23 percent over the same 11 months
of fiscal 2020 and $3.938 billion above the revenue
department's expectations.
State House News Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Remote Meetings Hailed as Major Public Access Reform
By Katie Lannan
With a bill that would extend authorization for virtual
public meetings now on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk, advocacy
groups are calling on lawmakers to make remote meeting
access permanent.
Groups including the ACLU of Massachusetts, Massachusetts
Newspaper Publishers Association, Boston Center for
Independent Living, MASSPIRG and the New England First
Amendment Coalition support legislation (H 3152, S 2082),
filed by Rep. Denise Garlick and Sen. Jason Lewis, that
would require a remote access component at public meetings.
"We need a permanent system requiring in-person meetings
while also allowing online access for citizens who cannot be
in the room," said Justin Silverman of the New England First
Amendment Coalition. "It's a matter of access and public
oversight."
State and local government entities shifted many proceedings
online during the pandemic, which advocates say opened up
participation to people who could not attend in-person,
including those with disabilities, lack of transportation,
or work and caregiving responsibilities.
The bill lawmakers sent Baker Tuesday night (S 2475) would
allow, but not require, public bodies to hold their meetings
virtually through April 1, 2022, as long as they continue to
offer a method of public access during those remote
meetings.
"We commend the legislature for moving to allow remote
public meetings until April 2022," ACLU of Massachusetts
Executive Director Carol Rose said. "But we have concerns
about what will happen as more and more state agencies and
city halls reopen in person. Unless they also enable members
of the public to join remotely, they will be shutting the
door again on those members of the community who have always
been left out of our political process."
Dianna Hu of the Boston Center for Independent Living
compared remote participation to other accessibility
features "that expanded to universal popularity," like curb
cuts, elevators, closed captioning and audiobooks.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Baker looks to spend half of state’s $5b stimulus windfall
quickly, with housing topping the priority list
Governor could be setting himself up for a conflict with the
Legislature over how to best spend the state’s federal
allocation
By Jon Chesto
Governor Charlie Baker is pursuing his own plans to spend
more than half of Massachusetts’ $5.3 billion federal
stimulus windfall, with $1 billion in housing initiatives at
the top of his priority list. Though he could run into
resistance from leaders in the Legislature who want to
control the purse strings.
The Republican governor is filing a measure Thursday that
would set aside $2.8 billion of that federal aid to address
a variety of his key priorities: Housing and homeownership,
economic development, job training, mental and emotional
health, and water-and-sewer infrastructure. He would leave
most of the rest for the Legislature to allocate.
The proposal marks the latest twist in a tango between Baker
and the Democrat-led Legislature over how to spend the
state’s share of American Rescue Plan Act proceeds. Baker
maintains he has the authority, at least right now, to spend
the full amount as he chooses.
The Legislature earlier this month sent him a brief piece of
legislation that would divert the state’s ARPA money into a
fund state lawmakers control. Baker is seeking to amend this
bill, by leaving $2.3 billion for them to divvy up. (About
$194 million of the $5.3 billion has already been spent,
with $109 million going to four hard-hit municipalities and
$75 million to help subsidize the state’s new sick-leave
law).
It’s unclear how much leeway the Legislature will give
Baker. Legislative leaders could choose to further amend the
bill or simply return it to him with the amendment excised.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen
Spilka have made it clear they prefer to use the legislative
process to decide how to spend the full amount.
“Our objective here is to try to put some of these dollars
to work in a hurry,” Baker said. “Let’s get started on this
stuff, and they can use a more deliberative process to
decide what happens with the other half.”
Baker noted that all the programs he’s funding have already
been approved by lawmakers.
“Everything we’ve proposed is part of an existing program
that the Legislature has already signed off in in the past,”
he said. “What we’ve really done is turbocharge a number of
these programs by putting very significant resources into
them because we believe especially the investments in the
communities that were hardest hit by COVID need to be made
now.”
Baker is putting a clear priority on the state’s housing
shortage, saying the need is more pressing than ever as
Massachusetts emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly
one-third of his allocations would go to housing-related
causes: $300 million for homeownership opportunities, $300
million to finance senior and veteran housing construction,
$200 million to finance new housing for buyers with moderate
incomes, and $200 million to help build more apartments.
He announced the funding Thursday afternoon outside a new
housing development in Haverhill, and emphasized the
importance of creating opportunities for lower-income and
Black and Latino families — many of whom have been hit hard
by the COVID-19 crisis — to buy and own homes.
“For the most part, people of color have either been
directly or indirectly excluded from participating in
[homeownership] programs. That has a lot to do with the
difference in wealth between whites and people of color in
this country,” he said. “We have an opportunity to do
something about that and we should do it with this funding —
and we should do it now.”
Baker also wants to spend $900 million of the federal funds
on various infrastructure projects, ranging from addressing
water-and-sewer issues to improving aging dams to fixing up
state parks facilities.
His economic development portion would set aside up to $350
million to help with downtowns and other local business
districts, and $100 million for cultural facilities and
other tourism sites. He would pump $240 million into a suite
of job training programs, with the hopes of addressing a
labor shortage that is vexing employers. And he would set
aside $225 million for healthcare, mostly for addiction
treatment and other behavioral services, with some money for
financially-distressed hospitals.
Baker said he did not address transit or childcare because
those needs already have dedicated funding streams coming
from the ARPA bill.
He also did not heed the business community’s request to set
aside money to help pay for the state’s huge unemployment
insurance costs, which ballooned last year during the
pandemic. Baker pointed to a recently-signed bill that
spreads the hike in what’s called the solvency assessment
over 20 years, to spread out $7 billion in unemployment
payments tied to pandemic-related job losses. Businesses,
even those without any layoffs in 2020, had been faced with
an unexpected additional cost of as much as $1,300 per
worker this year before that “fix” became law. Baker said
there will be a “big sigh of relief” when employers get
their new bills.
Baker said he has had “high level” discussions with
legislative leaders about the proposal, at least making it
clear the administration would put forth its own proposal
for how the federal stimulus money should be spent.
“What I’m trying to do here is make a proposal that would
get a bunch of stuff going that we believe needs to get
going now,” Baker said. “Here are the things we think we
should do to jump-start the economy.”
State House News Service
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Baker Outlines $2.8 Billion Rescue Act Spending Bill
Republican Guv to Legislature: Start Spending Now
By Matt Murphy
In an attempt to end the battle over who gets to spend
nearly $5.2 billion in federal relief money, Gov. Charlie
Baker on Thursday pitched a plan that would see him cede
much of his control over the aid to the Legislature, as long
as lawmakers agree quickly to spend more than half on
priorities such as home ownership assistance, substance
abuse treatment and job training.
Baker visited a new housing development in Haverhill on
Thursday where he detailed his proposal to allocate about
$2.8 billion in federal relief money, attaching a sense of
urgency to a plan that would also allow the Legislature to
determine for itself how to spend the remaining funds.
Gov.
Charlie Baker's proposed American Rescue Plan Act spending
The governor made his pitch on the same day he faced a
deadline to act on a bill passed by the Legislature that
would sweep nearly $5.18 billion in American Rescue Plan Act
funding into the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund.
That fund is subject to appropriation by lawmakers, meaning
the APRA relief funding would go through a more traditional
budgeting process.
"While we're willing to agree to move this aid into a
separate fund, we need to work together to get part of this
funding out the door to start addressing the immediate needs
we have in our communities across the commonwealth," Baker
said.
The governor has asserted that he does not need legislative
approval to spend the federal relief money, but said
Thursday he was willing to meet Democratic leaders half-way.
The governor returned the bill (H 3827) with an amendment
that would allow the full amount to be transferred to the
trust fund, but would also appropriate more than half of it
immediately.
If he had vetoed the bill, House and Senate leaders likely
would have had the votes to override the governor. But with
his spending plan, which gives Democrats a vehicle to begin
advancing their own ARPA spending bill, the Republican
governor gave lawmakers something new to think about.
House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka
didn't need to think too long, however, dismissing the
governor's proposal mere hours after he made his case
publicly.
"The Legislature has made clear its belief that
appropriating American Rescue Plan funding must be done
through a transparent and deliberative process. We
appreciate the Governor’s spending proposal, but we continue
to believe that this once in a generation opportunity
demands a thoughtful public vetting. To that end, we will
continue to pursue placing these one-time federal dollars,
which were intended to be spent over multiple years, into
the segregated fund so that we can hear from communities and
stakeholders throughout the Commonwealth," Mariano and
Spilka said in a statement.
Overall, the governor proposed putting $1 billion toward
housing, including $300 million earmarked to help first-time
home buyers in communities of color disproportionately
impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
His amendment proposes another $200 million to support
housing production through the CommonWealth Builder program,
$200 million for rental housing production and $300 million
for supportive senior and veteran housing.
"Folks in these communities are going to have a harder time
getting back to work and a harder time getting back on their
feet the longer we go thinking about how to spend this
money," Baker said. "And we chose areas that we that we
believe the Legislature will be every bit as interested in
spending resources on quickly as we are."
The spending plan also includes hundreds of millions of
dollars for job training, broadband internet infrastructure,
addiction treatment and behavioral health, downtown
development, tourism and nearly $1 billion for parks,
culverts, dams, water and sewer infrastructure and other
climate change resiliency projects.
"This $2.8 billion plan will jump-start our recovery, and it
keeps the focus where it needs to be on the families and
communities that have been hardest hit by the virus, and by
the pandemic," Baker said.
Baker's return of the bill to the Legislature keeps the
federal funding in limbo a month after Massachusetts
received the lump sum aid through the American Rescue Plan
Act.
Legislative leaders have not laid out a specific timetable
for developing a spending plan of their own, but Baker said
he was reticent to just start spending the relief money on
his own with the House and Senate on record as wanting more
control over how the funding gets spread around. Mariano
previously mentioned decisions could be made "around June."
"I think we're trying to pursue this in what I would
describe as a good faith manner," Baker said.
Mariano and Spilka said they would consider Baker's
priorities, but made no commitments on timing or how they
would prioritize the money.
"As this process unfolds, we will consider the Governor's
proposal and the worthy causes he identified as we
collaborate with all parties to ensure a robust, sustained,
and equitable recovery," the Democratic leaders said.
The governor has already released $109 million from the $5.3
billion in ARPA funding for Massachusetts to the cities of
Chelsea, Everett, Methuen and Randolph who missed out on a
chunk of federal aid due to quirks in the federal funding
formula.
Earlier this week, he also said he intended to use ARPA
funding to pay for a new vaccine Lottery.
The "VaxMillions" giveaway rolled out by Baker and Treasure
Deb Goldberg is intended to encourage unvaccinated residents
to get the shot and features 10 prizes totaling $6.5
million, including five $1 million prizes, and five
scholarships of $300,000 each for entrants under 18.
The Massachusetts chapter of the National Federation of
Independent Businesses said it was "disappointed" Baker did
not propose to use any money to replenish the unemployment
insurance trust fund.
Baker recently partnered with lawmakers to relieve the
sticker shock felt by businesses when they got their UI
bills this spring by borrowing the money to recapitalize the
depleted fund and allowing businesses to repay the money
over 20 years.
Some states, however, have used chunks of their ARPA funding
to rebuild their unemployment insurance trust funds and
permanently reduce the debt burden on employers.
"The state-mandated restrictions and overly generous state
benefits helped fuel the current UI crisis, and now the
state should help employers pay for it," said NFIB State
Director Christopher Carlozzi.
Other groups reacted warmly to the governor's plan.
Deb Markowitz, state director of The Nature Conservancy in
Massachusetts, said the governor's proposed use of the
federal funding would help by "fostering healthy
communities, providing clean water, addressing the impacts
of climate change, and supporting our natural and working
lands."
"This type of bipartisan collaboration between our federal
and state policymakers is essential for our nation to
achieve a green recovery," Markowitz said.
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Pace of Mass. Job Gains Continued to Slow During May
By Chris Lisinski
Massachusetts employers added 9,200 jobs in May and the
statewide unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points to
6.1 percent, labor officials announced Friday.
The pace of job gains slowed from the revised 10,200
positions businesses added in April, according to Bureau of
Labor Statistics figures cited by the Executive Office of
Labor and Workforce Development.
That continues a deceleration, from from 37,900 jobs added
in January to 19,700 in February, 14,800 in March, 10,200 in
April and now 9,200 in May.
The unemployment rate dropped from a revised April 2021 rate
of 6.4 percent to 6.1 percent in May. The jobless rate stood
at 16.4 percent in April 2020, but remains more than twice
as high as the 2.7 percent unemployment rate from right
before COVID-19 upended public life.
Total employment, estimated based on a survey of employers,
has increased in Massachusetts for five months straight and
12 of the past 13 months. The Bay State lost 691,000 jobs in
March 2020 and April 2020, and since then has brought back
about 406,600 jobs, less than 60 percent of the early
losses.
Many business groups and smaller employers have warned
lately that they are struggling to attract workers and fill
open positions while the state pushes toward a post-pandemic
economic recovery, citing factors ranging from the continued
availability of supplemental unemployment benefits to a lack
of available housing.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday outlined plans to immediately
spend $2.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds to help
further the economic recovery. His proposal drew a tepid
initial response from legislators, who emphasized the
importance of putting the ARPA money in a special fund while
hearing more public feedback.
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Weekly Roundup - No Emergency Here
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Katie Lannan
An Old Fashioned and a historical commission meeting? A
Manhattan and city council? A Ward 8 to go with the election
commission, or maybe just an espresso martini to complement
yet another night of Town Meeting?
However you prefer to combine takeout cocktails and remote
public meetings (or to partake in each separately),
lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Baker this week said it's OK for
you to keep at it, aside from a brief blip Tuesday.
But if you were following the Legislature's progress toward
reaching that deal via livestream Tuesday night, though,
your beverage options were limited to whatever was on hand.
The authorization for to-go alcohol sales by restaurants was
one of the measures that lapsed for a little more than a day
when the COVID-19 state of emergency lifted at 12:01 a.m.
Tuesday but lawmakers hadn't yet completed a bill to extend
popular policies linked to the emergency declaration.
So that they could reach a compromise at least on the same
day that the emergency expired, the House and Senate sent
Baker only a bill reflecting areas of common ground --
keeping to-go cocktails and outdoor dining around for a
while longer, allowing but not requiring remote public
meetings for entitites that opt for them, and extending
eviction protections, for instance -- while opting to
continue their talks on issues like mail-in voting and
telehealth rates.
The roughly 33-hour window between the emergency's end and
Baker's pen hitting the parchment Wednesday was shorter than
the time in 2018 when horse racing and simulcasting became
illegal for about 36 hours because lawmakers didn't finish a
reauthorization bill in time. But it was still long enough
to create headaches for restaurants trying to plan their
operations and school committees, select boards and other
entities wondering how, exactly, to hold their next meeting.
Incidentally, legislators never had to worry about their own
remote-voting capabilities vanishing if they didn't ink a
deal. They get that option not from the state's Open Meeting
Law -- which doesn't apply to the House and Senate -- but
under the emergency rules each branch adopted.
Those rules, it turns out, let Speaker Ronald Mariano cast
his votes last week from Florida, an under-the-radar trip
that only came to light after he disclosed this week that
he'd been fitted for a pacemaker while in the Sunshine
State.
It was a different sort of road show this week for Baker,
who hit Bridgewater and West Boylston and Springfield and
Haverhill and Worcester for public events. Aside from a
vaccine clinic visit in Springfield, these weren't the
coronavirus-focused, public health data-heavy updates that
have been typical over the past year-plus. (And in some
cases, they weren't livestreamed on the state's website, in
another transition away from a pandemic-era norm that has
had the side effect of expanding public access to state
government)
Instead, they included a statue dedication, a
ribbon-cutting, a roundtable discussion about early college
and a capital budget announcement -- the kinds of events
with crowds and handshakes that Baker often talked about
missing when social distancing was at its peak.
As in many cases where folks have been returning to their
pre-COVID routines, atmospheres at times bordered on giddy.
During the governor's Wednesday visit to Springfield's White
Lion Brewing Company, the beer-related quips flowed as if on
tap.
"I'm so excited to be outside!" MassHousing Executive
Director Chrystal Kornegay exclaimed the next day as she
took the mic at a new townhome development in Haverhill,
where Baker put forward a new plan for using a lot of the
state's American Rescue Plan Act money.
Legislative leaders didn't appear quite as enthusiastic.
Baker and the Legislature have been at odds over who should
control the state's more than $5 billion in federal ARPA
funds, and it looks like they'll stay that way a while
longer.
Last week, the House and Senate sent Baker a bill that would
transfer the money into a dedicated fund, from which
lawmakers could appropriate it in something akin to the
normal budgetary process. Baker has maintained he doesn't
need their approval to spend the money.
Trying his hand at a compromise, Baker returned the bill
with an amendment that would sweep the full amount of the
money into the fund but put about $2.8 million to work right
away on what he sees as urgent priorities, like housing,
economic development, workforce training, health care and
infrastructure.
The response from Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka?
Nice try, but we still like our idea better.
The two Democrats said they appreciated Baker's proposal,
but would "continue to pursue placing these one-time federal
dollars, which were intended to be spent over multiple
years, into the segregated fund so that we can hear from
communities and stakeholders throughout the Commonwealth."
They said they'd keep Baker's suggestions in mind as they
do.
Even before returning the COVID-19 fund bill with his
amendment, Baker announced another way he planned to use
some of the ARPA money -- to fund a "VaxMillions" lottery
incentive, with vaccinated individuals able to enter for a
chance to win cash prizes and college scholarships.
Baker and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg rolled out the COVID-19
shot lottery the same day that Massachusetts crossed the
milestone of 4 million full vaccinations, inching closer to
Baker's 4.1 million goal.
As the emergency officially ended and the state's COVID-19
command center wound down, the governor set a new vaccine
target.
"More," he said. "The new number is more."
Meanwhile, the early pandemic response and the uneven toll
borne by different sectors of the population were a main
focus of Harvard professor Danielle Allen's gubernatorial
campaign launch on Boston Common.
"The powerful plainly abandoned the powerless, and the pain
is still visceral, raw and deep, but the truth is this
abandonment has been building for a long time," Allen said,
calling for Bay Staters to raise their expectations of
institutions and each other.
Allen joins former state Sen. Ben Downing as the second
Democrat to officially enter the race. If elected, she'd be
the first Black woman to serve as governor of Massachusetts.
Republican Rep. James Kelcourse threw his hat into a
different-sized ring on Wednesday, pulling papers to run for
Amebsury mayor.
Amesbury City Hall is about a four-minute drive from South
Hampton, New Hampshire, the type of border town that fellow
North Shore Rep. Brad Hill had in mind when he pitched the
Economic Development Committee on sports betting legislation
by pointing to all the dollars leaving Massachusetts in the
pockets of Granite State-bound gamblers.
"They're going right by our mom-and-pop stores, our
restaurants, and they're staying in New Hampshire," Hill
said.
Once again, the committee is weighing a host of bills that
would impose various regulatory and taxation schemes on
sports betting, and proponents used Thursday's hearing to
make the case that revenue and jobs are passing
Massachusetts by in favor of the 30 other states that have
already made the wagers legal.
If it's not the sports betting but the tax-free shopping
drawing you to plan a New Hampshire weekend, the Legislature
might suggest you stick closer to home on August 14 and 15.
That's when the Senate and House agreed to schedule this
year's sales tax holiday. While a 2018 state law made the
tax-free weekend an annual fixture, it left it up to the
Legislature to pick the exact dates each year, by June 15.
This just wasn't a good year for June 15 deadlines. The two
branches did adopt a resolution setting the dates, but not
until June 17. No consequences seem to have arisen from the
two days' tardiness.
Saturday will mark the first observance of a new state
holiday, and this one arrives without any additional
legislative activity required beforehand.
Juneteenth celebrates the day in 1865 that enslaved African
Americans in Texas received word they were free, more than
two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation.
Previously recognized in Massachusetts with an annual
proclamation, Juneteenth became a state holiday thanks to a
Rep. Bud Williams amendment in a COVID-19 spending bill
signed last July.
After a whirlwind of activity in Washington, D.C. this week,
it's now officially a federal holiday, too -- just in time
to be observed on Friday.
President Biden signed the Juneteenth Independence Day Act,
filed by Sen. Ed Markey, on Thursday, after votes in the
U.S. House Wednesday and Senate Tuesday.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Four hundred and sixty-two days later,
Massachusetts emerges from the COVID-19 state of emergency.
State House News Service
Friday, June 18, 2021
Advances - Week of June 20
This is the time of year when the first indication of a
likely overdue annual budget comes in the form of an interim
budget filed by the governor and quickly approved by the
Legislature to give negotiators more time to hammer out a
final spending bill. House and Senate Democrats can avoid
that if they reach a budget deal in the coming days. Unlike
last year, when concerns over a revenue freefall and
uncertainty about federal aid caused budget writers to
intentionally put their annual budgeting exercises on hold,
lawmakers this year say they are trying to get back on their
old schedule.
But even before the pandemic, House and Senate Democrats had
trouble meeting their annual July 1 budget deadline. The
challenges this year are significantly different than past
years and center largely on settling policy differences and
not overspending at a time when Massachusetts taxpayers are
giving Beacon Hill far more in tax revenue than the
architects of the pending $47.7 billion budget proposals
envisioned.
When combined with record amounts of federal aid, it's a
revenue glut spiraling into the billions of dollars, the
likes of which the state has never seen before.
And there's also a logjam of budget bills building behind
the big annual budget. The House last week sent the Senate a
$257 million fiscal 2021 supplemental budget (H 3871) that
makes mail-in and expanded early voting permanent and
recommends a new composition for the MBTA Board, the current
iteration of which expires on June 30.
In addition, after President Joe Biden and Democrats in
Washington rammed through the massive American Rescue Plan
Act (ARPA) earlier this year to provide immediate and
long-term economic supports, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker
on Thursday offered the Legislature a $2.8 billion spending
bill (H 3827) and urged them to act on it quickly to begin
putting to work a big chunk of the $5.2 billion in direct
ARPA aid received by the state.
House Speaker Ron Mariano previously mentioned June as a
time to move on an ARPA spending bill, but Mariano and
Senate President Karen Spilka in a statement on Thursday
didn't commit to any timeline for action and emphasized
instead their hope to continue attracting public feedback.
Storylines in Progress
... More mass vaccination sites are set to come down, with
the Hynes Convention Center closing up its shots site on
Tuesday and the site at the Natick Mall wrapping up on
Wednesday ...
The Board of Education, controlled by Baker appointees,
faces pressure ahead of a Tuesday vote to adopt additional
changes to make access to vocational schools more equitable
...
Jamey Tesler next Friday hits his five-month anniversary as
acting transportation secretary, and Beacon Hill still has
not come up with a succession plan for the MBTA Fiscal and
Management Control Board, which expires in less than two
weeks ...
As the wait for a State House reopening timeline continues,
the building remains one of the few in the state without
some kind of plan and lawmakers continue to be advised to
participate in sessions remotely. Six months into the
session, House and Senate Democrats also remain in
disagreement over public access to committee votes and
virtual testimony. And the House also has yet to even adopt
its own permanent rules for this session ...
The Transportation Committee takes testimony next week on
the proposal to make undocumented immigrants eligible for
standard Massachusetts driver's licenses ...
The Redistricting Committee will hear from people in the
state's largest and western-most district next week, and the
next move on a bill altering the way new districts are built
belongs to the Senate ...
The battle over allowing debit card Lottery payments will be
aired before a committee next week, although the full Senate
has already adopted the measure as part of its fiscal 2022
budget ...
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE - LICENSES FOR IMMIGRANTS:
Legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants in
Massachusetts to acquire standard driver's licenses is the
only topic on the agenda at a virtual Transportation
Committee hearing.
A similar version of the bill cleared the Transportation
Committee by a 14-4 party line vote last session, before
dying in the Senate Ways and Means Committee without action.
The refiled bills (H 3456 / S 2289) have a total of 104
co-sponsors, representing a majority of the 200-member
Legislature, but sponsors still have to convince legislative
leaders to bring the bill to the floor for the votes needed
to advance it.
Senate President Karen Spilka voiced her support for the
licensing bill in 2019, and House Speaker Ronald Mariano
said in March that he sees "value" in the proposal, though
legislative leaders generally have been hesitant to advance
major immigration-related proposals. Republican Gov. Charlie
Baker opposes the bill, saying "the bar's pretty high on
this one," so Democrats might need to line up a two-thirds
majority to override any potential veto if they hope to
advance the measure.
Supporters argue the bill would ensure undocumented
immigrants are properly tested and licensed while driving
and relieve them from concerns about deportation while
traveling to work, school or medical appointments, while
opponents contend it would reward undocumented immigration.
(Wednesday, 2 p.m.,
More information)
Thursday, June 24, 2021
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE: Joint Committee on Transportation
holds a virtual hearing on 14 bills concerning aviation,
privacy and gender identification.
Several bills on the agenda (H 3564, H 3597) propose new
regulations on automatic license plate reader systems,
seeking to limit the instances in which they can be deployed
or how the data can be retained. A Sen. Julian Cyr proposal
(S 2305) would require the Massachusetts Port Authority or
airport commissions governing municipal- or county-owned
airports to impose a "climate impact landing fee" of at
least $1,000 on private, corporate-owned and charter rental
aircraft -- but not commercial passenger or freight flights
-- that arrive in Massachusetts.
Two other bills (H 3521 / S 2282) would enshrine in law a
requirement that the Registry of Motor Vehicles allow those
applying for driver's licenses or ID cards to select a
nonbinary "X" as their gender instead of male or female. In
November 2019, the RMV started allowing residents to choose
a gender designation of X on their driver's licenses or
state ID cards, making the change administratively after
several sessions in which the Senate approved the change and
the House did not. (Thursday, 2 p.m.,
More information)
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