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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
47 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
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CLT UPDATE
Monday, November 1, 2021
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State Bank and Reparations for Illegal
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Most Relevant News
Excerpts
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A virtual hearing by
the Committee on Financial Services included a bill
that would establish a publicly owned, state-run
Bank of Massachusetts funded to the tune of up to $2
billion through the sale of bonds, funding from the
Legislature and unclaimed property proceeds. A
10-member board of directors, chaired by the state
treasurer, would provide a list of potential CFOs
and COOs to the governor, secretary of state and
state treasurer who would appoint the officers by a
majority vote.
The Bank would focus on
providing capital access to underbanked populations,
industries, small-business, public-private
partnerships or local governments for development of
infrastructure and business and broader public
benefits in the climate, equity, health, clean water
and education fields....
“Have its sponsors
spoken with actual bankers before launching this
ruinous debacle?” asked Chip Ford, executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Banks are not charities. They exist in a free
market to earn money for their shareholders by
providing financial services to the public. Banks
succeed or fail based on investment decisions.
Banking institutions are not subsidized by
government—but regulated by it. Of course your local
bank isn’t backed up by the full faith and credit of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—meaning its
taxpayers. The Legislature opening its own
‘too-big-to-fail’ state bank begs the question,
‘what could possibly go wrong?’”
Beacon
Hill Roll Call
October 25-29, 2021
Create a State-Owned Bank (S-682)
By Bob Katzen
Massachusetts was the
only state in September to see an increase in
unemployment, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ Friday release. The rate grew from 5.0%
to 5.2% from August to September, putting
Massachusetts 0.4 percentage points above the
national average of 4.8%.
This marks the second
consecutive month Massachusetts’ unemployment rate
has increased since its initial jump of 13.7
percentage points at the beginning of the
coronavirus pandemic. It plateaued at 4.9% in June
and July before rising in August.
The rate is still
considerably lower than the 8.9% of Sept. 2020, but
higher than the pre-pandemic 3.0% of Sept. 2019.
The Commonwealth was
one of 28 states to have a statistically significant
change in its unemployment rate last month, as 22
states remained basically stable through the month.
Despite rising
unemployment, the state added 11,900 jobs in
September, which is a 0.3% growth from the jobs
added in August. Since Sept. 2020, 175,200 total
jobs have been added. Massachusetts has added jobs
at the fourth highest rate over the last year.
Worcester
Business Journal
Friday, October 22, 2021
October 22, 2021
Mass. is the only state to see unemployment increase
in September
By Katherine Hamilton
Earlier this year, the
District of Columbia Council attempted to pass a tax
of $0.15 per ounce on sodas and other drinks with
high sugar content. Despite a belief that the tax
would “discourage residents from buying sugary
drinks” and choosing healthier alternatives, early
evidence suggests a tax would do little to curb
consumer habits despite the lofty public health
ambitions.
The broader public
health objective of D.C.’s soda tax was to cut rates
of obesity and diabetes, particularly among
residents in low-income neighborhoods that
experience higher rates than more affluent zip
codes. While soda tax advocates may have believed
increasing costs would curb consumption, its failure
was entirely predictable. As a result, residents of
the District are left with a regressive tax that
forces them to pay more for goods and are left with
less disposable income....
In 2017, Philadelphia
introduced a 1.5 cents per ounce tax on sugary and
artificially sweetened beverages. While the tax did
lead to a significant decline in sales, estimated at
around 38.9%, the decline in sales was caused by
individuals shopping outside the city, which had
knock-on effects on the wider economy. As the
American Consumer Institute previously pointed out,
Philadelphia’s soda tax “cost the city 1,192 jobs,
reduced economic output by nearly $80 million, and
deprived workers of $55 million in labor income.”
A study from Drexel
University found the tax did little to alter
consumption habits. It “had minimal to no influence
on what Philadelphians are drinking,” with
Philadelphians only consuming “three fewer sugary
beverages” each month.
The
Boston Herald
Thursday, October 28, 2021
The tax on sugary soda falls
flat, again
Gov. Charlie Baker said
Tuesday that he would "probably not" sign a law
reviving rent control if the Legislature were to
send one to his desk, making clear the challenges
that Boston mayoral frontrunner Michelle Wu could
face in making her agenda a reality if she becomes
mayor.
Rent control was
outlawed in Massachusetts by a 1994 ballot question,
but the idea of capping price increases to keep
rents affordable has figured into the mayoral
campaign in Boston. Wu supports the policy but
candidate Annissa Essaibi George does not.
Enacting rent control
in Boston would require approval from the
Legislature and governor....
A recent Suffolk
University poll taken for the Boston Globe and NBC10
found that 59 percent of the 500 likely Boston
voters surveyed said they support the idea of rent
control in Boston.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Experience As Renter Informs
Baker’s Rent Control Opposition
Massachusetts Lottery
sales and estimated profit were each up about $34
million in September as the Lottery kept pace with
last year's records during the first quarter of the
new fiscal year.
The Lottery reported
$455.4 million in sales last month as nearly all
product types posted increases over September 2020.
Monthly sales were up $34.1 million or 8.1 percent,
Executive Director Michael Sweeney told the Lottery
Commission.
Three months into the
fiscal year, sales are up $97.7 million or 6.6
percent over the same period last year....
The $33.5 million
increase in profit puts the Lottery $6.6 million
ahead of its three-month profit total from fiscal
2021, a year in which the Lottery set records with
an estimated profit of $1.112 billion from $5.827
billion in revenue.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Lottery Profits Outpacing Last
Year’s Records
OCTOBER TAX REVENUES:
[On Wednesday] Department of Revenue is due to
report on tax collections in October, which the
agency has said is "among the lower months for
revenue collection." DOR's monthly benchmark is set
at $2.248 billion and the state had collected $988
million as of Oct. 15. Since fiscal year 2022 began
on July 1, DOR has collected $8.751 billion from
residents and businesses. The year-to-date total is
$1.501 billion or 20.7 percent greater than actual
collections during the same time period of fiscal
2021 and $525 million or 6.4 percent above the
administration's year-to-date benchmark.
State
House News Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
Advances - Week of Oct. 31, 2021
Gov. Charlie Baker is
not merely waiting to announce whether he will seek
a third term in office next year, he said Tuesday,
as he described the decision as "a very complicated
issue ... for all kinds of reasons."
During a portion of a
GBH Radio interview that got slightly testy Tuesday,
co-host Jim Braude asked the governor what happened
to his plan of taking the summer to talk about
reelection with his family and announcing a decision
at some point after Labor Day.
"I do remember that,"
Baker said, "And we are post-Labor Day...and we'll
make a decision soon." ...
If Baker opts to seek a
third term next year, he will have to face former
Rep. Geoff Diehl in a Republican primary and, if
successful, would face whichever Democrat emerges
from a field that so far includes Sen. Sonia
Chang-Diaz, former Sen. Ben Downing and Harvard
professor Danielle Allen.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Baker Calls Reelection Choice
“Very Complicated Issue”
A major spending bill
allocating federal COVID-19 relief funds and surplus
state tax revenues cleared the House on Friday
evening by a vote of 159-0 after lawmakers added
nearly $174 million via the amendment process.
The bill began with a
bottom line of $3.65 billion and representatives
took a handful of votes to add on tens of millions
of dollars more, much of it earmarked for local
programs and projects, through four mega-amendments
compiled outside of public view based on the 1,126
individual amendments filed earlier in the week. The
bill's final bottom line increased to $3.82 billion.
House and Senate
leaders have already agreed on two key features of
the bill -- a $500 million deposit into the state's
unemployment trust fund and another $500 million for
one-time bonus payments to low-income essential
workers who remained on the job in-person throughout
the COVID-19 state of emergency.
Otherwise, it's unclear
how closely aligned the spending will be between the
House plan and the proposal that Senate Democrats
are expected to soon put forward, and how much
negotiating will need to take place before lawmakers
can ship a final version to Gov. Charlie Baker....
With formal sessions
for the year set to end Nov. 17 under joint
legislative rules, House and Senate leaders have not
indicated if they aim to get a final bill on Baker's
desk or into private conference committee
negotiations before the winter recess....
House leaders left
themselves a sizable pot of money to be spent at a
future date. The base bill left unallocated about
$2.4 billion in ARPA money and roughly $350 million
of the state's fiscal year 2021 surplus.
With nearly $174
million added to the bill, [House Ways and Means
Chair Aaron] Michlewitz said "most of the work that
was done" via the amendment process did not touch
the additional ARPA funds the House had left aside
and primarily drew from the fiscal 2021 surplus
revenue.
State
House News Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
ARPA Bill Grew to $3.82 Bil Before
House Passage
For thousands of South
Shore residents, Halloween weekend will begin in
darkness after a terrifying storm ripped its way up
the coast mid-week, knocking out power and trees
along the way.
But on Beacon Hill, it
felt a bit more like Christmas.
While parts of the
state were entangled in difficult storm recovery
efforts, House lawmakers were deep into COVID-19
recovery wish lists, at long last getting their
hands on a vast pot of money from the feds awarded
last spring through the American Rescue Plan Act....
The proposal from House
leaders was anchored around an agreement with Senate
leadership for a $500 million bonus pay program for
low-income, essential workers who stayed on the job
during the pandemic, and another $500 million for
unemployment insurance.
The bonus pay program
would dwarf what had been proposed by Gov. Charlie
Baker, but the governor said conceptually he thought
it was the "right thing to do." Baker, however, is
also on record agreeing with many business groups
that $500 million for UI is too low, having proposed
$1 billion himself.
"While this bill is not
a panacea, we believe that it specifically targets
through a cornucopia of funds the issues that we
identified over the last six months that are in most
need," said Rep. Dan Hunt, chair of the House's
Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight Committee,
invoking imagery from yet another holiday.
The rank-and-file,
however, clearly thought the first draft could get
closer to a "panacea" if only they tried a little
harder. Over two days, the House combed through more
than 1,100 amendments proposing to add $5.8 billion
in additional spending.
While the bottom line
did grow, it was more like tens of millions than
billions of dollars added....
Scituate happens to be
in Republican Sen. Patrick O'Connor's district, and
that won't change after 2022 when new district
boundaries go into effect. But for many senators,
their constituencies could soon change if Gov. Baker
signs off on redistricting plans that reached his
desk this week.
The House approved a
map for its members last week, but the Senate took a
little extra time as leadership responded to some
criticism of its initial effort by tweaking a few
boundaries and overhauling Sen. Michael Brady's
district to make a new majority-minority district
centered on Brockton that now includes Avon and half
of Randolph.
All in, the two maps
sent to Baker would increase the number of districts
where non-whites make up a majority of the
population from 20 to 33 in the House and three to
six in the Senate. Leaders prioritized the creation
of opportunities for candidates of color to join the
Legislature after the 2020 U.S. Census reflected an
increasingly diverse state not matched by
representation on Beacon Hill....
Baker hasn't said boo
about either the House or Senate plans, but with
legislators from his party mostly on board and
whispers of lawsuits all quiet at the moment, he may
just sign them without a fuss.
The new political
geography won't come into play until 2022.
State
House News Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Making It Rain
The debate and lobbying
over American Rescue Plan Act spending decisions
shifts to the Senate next week, and voters in Boston
are set to make history Tuesday by electing a woman
to serve as the next mayor of the city.
November's arrival on
Monday means a final sprint toward the Nov. 17 end
of formal sessions for 2021, and it increases
pressure on the Senate to release and pass its own
plan to allocate ARPA funds and surplus fiscal 2021
tax revenues.
House leaders,
meanwhile, need to take additional votes if they
wish to extend pandemic-era voting reforms and also
face decisions on whether to take down voter
registration barriers that are in place just before
and on election day. Early and mail-in voting
options are operative for the municipal elections
that are set to unfold on Tuesday....
Legislators made major
progress on redistricting this week, sending Gov.
Charlie Baker bills (H 4217 / S 2563) that redraw
the boundaries of the 160 House districts and 40
Senate districts. As they await Baker's signature on
those bills, legislators with about a year to go
until next year's elections face pressure now to
realign the boundaries of the state's nine
Congressional districts and eight Governor's Council
districts to reflect population shifts and growth
over the last decade....
State
House News Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
Advances - Week of Oct. 31, 2021
WASHINGTON—The Biden
administration is in talks to offer immigrant
families that were separated during the Trump
administration around $450,000 a person in
compensation, according to people familiar with the
matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits
filed on behalf of parents and children who say the
government subjected them to lasting psychological
trauma.
The U.S. Departments of
Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human
Services are considering payments that could amount
to close to $1 million a family, though the final
numbers could shift, the people familiar with the
matter said. Most of the families that crossed the
border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the
U.S. included one parent and one child, the people
said. Many families would likely get smaller
payouts, depending on their circumstances, the
people said....
“President Biden has
agreed that the family separation policy is a
historic moral stain on our nation that must be
fully remedied,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director
of the ACLU’s immigrant-rights project and a lead
negotiator on one of the lawsuits. “That remedy must
include not only meaningful monetary compensation,
but a pathway to remain in the country.” ...
The discussions have
been at times contentious. They have taken place
over the past few months among a group of dozens of
private lawyers representing the families and
government lawyers. Some government lawyers have
viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had
violated the law by crossing the border, the people
said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his
name from the case out of disagreement with the
potential settlement offer, the people said.
In another instance, a
Department of Homeland Security attorney involved in
the settlement talks complained on a conference call
that the payouts could amount to more than some
families of 9/11 victims received, one person said.
Other people said senior departmental officials were
in alignment on the amount and disputed the 9/11
comparison, given that the U.S. government hadn’t
been responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. The 9/11 victim compensation fund averaged
awards to the dead of around $2 million, tax-free,
at the time an unprecedented payout, the
administrator of the fund has said....
The total potential
payout could be $1 billion or more....
A January report from
the Justice Department’s inspector general faulted
senior Trump Justice Department officials for
knowing the policy change would result in families
being separated, but pressing ahead without
preparing for it....
Apart from talks over
damages, the administration has already begun a
process of locating deported parents and reuniting
them with their children in the U.S. The
administration has reunited 52 families and is in
the process of reuniting about 200 more. The
families are being given a three-year grant of
parole, a form of temporary humanitarian protection
that allows them to live and work legally in the
U.S. but doesn’t offer them a path to permanent
legal status.
The Wall
Street Journal
Thursday, October 28, 2021
U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of
Millions to Families Separated at Border
Government is considering payments of $450,000
per person affected by Trump
administration’s zero-tolerance policy in 2018 for
asylum seekers illegally crossing border
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In
my commentary
for the CLT Update of March 29, 2021 ("Is
Beacon Hill Crazy Enough Yet? Don't Bank On It!") I wrote:
Just when you thought insanity on
Beacon Hill had reached its apex along comes a leap for higher
plateaus. This week we learned a legislator is going for broke
with absurdity. Sen.
Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield), chairman of the Joint Committee
on Revenue and member of the Senate and the Joint Committee on
Ways and Means, among others, has proposed establishing Massachusetts'
own bank!
Not just your run-of-the-mill
everyday bank. He seeks to establish a progressive WOKE bank, a
new version of the sub-prime mortgage scheme — and we know how that turned
out, beginning with President Bill Clinton's "Community
Reinvestment Act" of 1977. Hinds' bill, SD-2462,
"An Act Establishing a Public Bank of Massachusetts," proposes
to finance this predictable disaster start-up with $2 Billion
from state loans and appropriations by the Legislature....
"The Bank of Massachusetts" will
never fail in the understood business sense — not so long as
there are taxpayers to endlessly bail it out.
“A state-owned bank would provide underbanked populations such
as minority-owned businesses and the cannabis industry the
opportunity to access much-needed capital,” Sen. Hinds asserted.
Methinks that cannabis perhaps is a basis for this lunacy — not
so much "much-needed capital" but instead over-consumption.
Sen. Adam Hinds continues
to pursue his state-owned and state-run bank fever dream. It
now has a senate bill number (S-682)
and was heard before
the Committee on Financial Services last week.
When asked by Beacon Hill Roll Call for my response to it I replied:
“Have its sponsors
spoken with actual bankers before launching this
ruinous debacle?” asked Chip Ford,
executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation. “Banks are not charities. They
exist in a free market to earn money for their
shareholders by providing financial services to
the public. Banks succeed or fail based on
investment decisions. Banking institutions are
not subsidized by government—but regulated by
it. Of course your local bank isn’t backed up by
the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts—meaning its taxpayers. The
Legislature opening its own ‘too-big-to-fail’
state bank begs the question, ‘what could
possibly go wrong?’”
If Sen. Hinds' bank
boondoggle can be dodged for a short while taxpayers might get a
reprieve from his insanity. The State House News Service
reported on October 21, "The Senate seat that covers Berkshire
County will be vacant in 2022, with incumbent Sen. Adam Hinds
pursuing the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor."
Whether or not he's elected lieutenant governor he will no longer be
a state senator, chairman of the Joint Committee on Revenue, and
member of the Senate and the Joint Committee on Ways and Means come January 2023, to which I say good riddance, one
less headache.
Massachusetts, Number One
again in a category no state wants to lead the nation.
On October 22 The Worcester Business Journal reported:
Massachusetts was the only
state in September to see an increase in
unemployment, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics’ Friday release. The rate grew
from 5.0% to 5.2% from August to September,
putting Massachusetts 0.4 percentage points
above the national average of 4.8%.
This marks the second
consecutive month Massachusetts’ unemployment
rate has increased since its initial jump of
13.7 percentage points at the beginning of the
coronavirus pandemic. It plateaued at 4.9% in
June and July before rising in August.
In last week's CLT Update
("Governments Are Flush But Still Demand More Taxes")
I noted in my commentary:
Then there are the relentless
taxes professed to being imposed "for the children" or other
such "noble" causes for your own good while raking in more of
your whatever discretionary income you might still have as the
true objective.
The State
House News Service reported last Monday ("Drink Taxes Pitched To
Boost Health, Addiction Treatment; Voters Rejected Alcohol Tax
Plan in 2010"):
Rep. Kay
Khan, a Newton Democrat, has filed two bills to tax sugary
beverages (H-2972) and double the excise taxes on beer, wine
and liquor (H-2973).
Khan told the
Committee on Revenue Monday that she thought the time for
both ideas had come, with the state spending $2.6 billion
every year in response to alcoholism and addiction, and
other cities finding success with sugar taxes.
"I just
think that we need to be really looking at this very
seriously," Khan said.
"The Best
Legislature Money Can Buy" with far too much spare time on their
"full-time" hands is never at a loss for ideas on how to siphon
in more revenue by whatever means is necessary. It's pretty much
all they think about with all that free time available.
The Boston Herald
published an op-ed column on Thursday by Edward
Longe, a research associate at the American Consumer
Institute ("The tax on sugary
soda falls flat, again"). He concluded:
In 2017, Philadelphia
introduced a 1.5 cents per ounce tax on sugary
and artificially sweetened beverages. While the
tax did lead to a significant decline in sales,
estimated at around 38.9%, the decline in sales
was caused by individuals shopping outside the
city, which had knock-on effects on the wider
economy. As the American Consumer Institute
previously pointed out, Philadelphia’s soda tax
“cost the city 1,192 jobs, reduced economic
output by nearly $80 million, and deprived
workers of $55 million in labor income.”
A study from Drexel
University found the tax did little to alter
consumption habits. It “had minimal to no
influence on what Philadelphians are drinking,”
with Philadelphians only consuming “three fewer
sugary beverages” each month.
It reminds me of the
insistent defense of Communism's inevitable failures. It has
never worked anywhere it has ever been imposed but still its
adherents insist "It'll work the next time if we just do it right."
Not that a veto by Gov.
Baker carries any weight whatsoever on Beacon Hill but wouldn't it
be nice to see him stand tall in defense of the voters' decisions
instead of his typical weak-kneed wavering?
The Alt-Left legislators,
the far-left Democrats in general, never accept or admit defeat.
They just keep coming back to impose their agendas until they
succeed. This is why we came up with the term
"over-and-override" when they keep coming back for another
Proposition 2½ override after just being
defeated on the same last one. "What part of 'No!'
don't you understand?" is a question they ignore time and time
again.
The State House News
Service on Tuesday reported ("Experience
As Renter Informs Baker’s Rent Control Opposition"):
Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday
that he would "probably not" sign a law reviving rent control if
the Legislature were to send one to his desk, making clear the
challenges that Boston mayoral frontrunner Michelle Wu could
face in making her agenda a reality if she becomes mayor.
Rent control
was outlawed in Massachusetts by a 1994 ballot question, but the
idea of capping price increases to keep rents affordable has
figured into the mayoral campaign in Boston. Wu supports the
policy but candidate Annissa Essaibi George does not.
Enacting rent
control in Boston would require approval from the Legislature
and governor....
A recent
Suffolk University poll taken for the Boston Globe and NBC10
found that 59 percent of the 500 likely Boston voters surveyed
said they support the idea of rent control in Boston.
Another poll showing how
three wolves and a lamb would vote on what to have for dinner.
The
State House News Service reported onTuesday ("Lottery
Profits Outpacing Last Year’s Records"):
Massachusetts Lottery sales
and estimated profit were each up about $34
million in September as the Lottery kept pace
with last year's records during the first
quarter of the new fiscal year.
The Lottery reported $455.4
million in sales last month as nearly all
product types posted increases over September
2020. Monthly sales were up $34.1 million or 8.1
percent, Executive Director Michael Sweeney told
the Lottery Commission.
Three months into the
fiscal year, sales are up $97.7 million or 6.6
percent over the same period last year....
The $33.5 million increase
in profit puts the Lottery $6.6 million ahead of
its three-month profit total from fiscal 2021, a
year in which the Lottery set records with an
estimated profit of $1.112 billion from $5.827
billion in revenue.
In its Advances for this
coming week the News Service reported:
OCTOBER TAX
REVENUES: [On Wednesday] Department of Revenue is due to report
on tax collections in October, which the agency has said is
"among the lower months for revenue collection." DOR's monthly
benchmark is set at $2.248 billion and the state had collected
$988 million as of Oct. 15. Since fiscal year 2022 began on July
1, DOR has collected $8.751 billion from residents and
businesses. The year-to-date total is $1.501 billion or 20.7
percent greater than actual collections during the same time
period of fiscal 2021 and $525 million or 6.4 percent above the
administration's year-to-date benchmark.
The state continues to
roll in obscene amounts of revenue, but as always, More Is Never
Enough (MINE) and never will be until they have extracted every last
cent from taxpayers. This is what the Massachusetts
Legislature does, why far too many legislators think they exist.
Their primary purpose is to separate taxpayers from their money and
squander it as fast as they can.
The State House News
Service reported on Friday ("ARPA
Bill Grew to $3.82 Bil Before House Passage"):
A major spending bill
allocating federal COVID-19 relief funds and
surplus state tax revenues cleared the House on
Friday evening by a vote of 159-0 after
lawmakers added nearly $174 million via the
amendment process.
The bill began with a
bottom line of $3.65 billion and representatives
took a handful of votes to add on tens of
millions of dollars more, much of it earmarked
for local programs and projects, through four
mega-amendments compiled outside of public view
based on the 1,126 individual amendments filed
earlier in the week. The bill's final bottom
line increased to $3.82 billion....
With formal sessions for
the year set to end Nov. 17 under joint
legislative rules, House and Senate leaders have
not indicated if they aim to get a final bill on
Baker's desk or into private conference
committee negotiations before the winter
recess....
House leaders left
themselves a sizable pot of money to be spent at
a future date. The base bill left unallocated
about $2.4 billion in ARPA money and roughly
$350 million of the state's fiscal year 2021
surplus.
With nearly $174 million
added to the bill, [House Ways and Means Chair
Aaron] Michlewitz said "most of the work that
was done" via the amendment process did not
touch the additional ARPA funds the House had
left aside and primarily drew from the fiscal
2021 surplus revenue.
Likely the most disturbing
news this week was — as is becoming the
norm on a weekly if not daily basis — out of
Dementia Joe's administration, aka, cabal. This one exceeds
even the most shocking ones over the past ten months it piles upon.
I had to read it twice, then again, to make sure it wasn't a joke,
satire, a spoof.
On Thursday The Wall Street Journal published its
astonishing report, U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of
Millions to Families Separated at Border. Here are some
excerpts from it:
WASHINGTON—The Biden
administration is in talks to offer immigrant
families that were separated during the Trump
administration around $450,000 a person in
compensation, according to people familiar with
the matter, as several agencies work to resolve
lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children
who say the government subjected them to lasting
psychological trauma.
The U.S. Departments of
Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human
Services are considering payments that could
amount to close to $1 million a family, though
the final numbers could shift, the people
familiar with the matter said. Most of the
families that crossed the border illegally from
Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one
parent and one child, the people said. Many
families would likely get smaller payouts,
depending on their circumstances, the people
said....
“President Biden has agreed
that the family separation policy is a historic
moral stain on our nation that must be fully
remedied,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of
the ACLU’s immigrant-rights project and a lead
negotiator on one of the lawsuits. “That remedy
must include not only meaningful monetary
compensation, but a pathway to remain in the
country.” ...
The discussions have been
at times contentious. They have taken place over
the past few months among a group of dozens of
private lawyers representing the families and
government lawyers. Some government lawyers have
viewed the payouts as excessive for people who
had violated the law by crossing the border, the
people said. One government lawyer threatened to
remove his name from the case out of
disagreement with the potential settlement
offer, the people said.
In another instance, a
Department of Homeland Security attorney
involved in the settlement talks complained on a
conference call that the payouts could amount to
more than some families of 9/11 victims
received, one person said. Other people said
senior departmental officials were in alignment
on the amount and disputed the 9/11 comparison,
given that the U.S. government hadn’t been
responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. The 9/11 victim compensation fund
averaged awards to the dead of around $2
million, tax-free, at the time an unprecedented
payout, the administrator of the fund has
said....
The total potential payout
could be $1 billion or more....
A January report from the
Justice Department’s inspector general faulted
senior Trump Justice Department officials for
knowing the policy change would result in
families being separated, but pressing ahead
without preparing for it....
Apart from talks over
damages, the administration has already begun a
process of locating deported parents and
reuniting them with their children in the U.S.
The administration has reunited 52 families and
is in the process of reuniting about 200 more.
The families are being given a three-year grant
of parole, a form of temporary humanitarian
protection that allows them to live and work
legally in the U.S. but doesn’t offer them a
path to permanent legal status.
I'll
end my commentary here and let that final revelation sink in.
What more can I say but that the United States of America as we knew
it is steadily circling the drain, faster with each passing day.
All this dire deconstruction has occurred within just ten months.
The Washington Cabal that obviously is propping up a clearly
incompetent president and pulling his strings has 38 more months to continue and complete its
mission of national destruction. I pray it can be stopped in time then
turned about quickly.
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
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Beacon Hill Roll
Call
Volume 46 - Report No. 44
October 25-29, 2021
Create a State-Owned Bank (S-682)
By Bob Katzen
CREATE A STATE-OWNED BANK (S-682) – A virtual hearing by the
Committee on Financial Services included a bill that would
establish a publicly owned, state-run Bank of Massachusetts
funded to the tune of up to $2 billion through the sale of
bonds, funding from the Legislature and unclaimed property
proceeds. A 10-member board of directors, chaired by the
state treasurer, would provide a list of potential CFOs and
COOs to the governor, secretary of state and state treasurer
who would appoint the officers by a majority vote.
The Bank would focus on providing capital access to
underbanked populations, industries, small-business,
public-private partnerships or local governments for
development of infrastructure and business and broader
public benefits in the climate, equity, health, clean water
and education fields.
“There are communities throughout Massachusetts,
particularly in Western Massachusetts, that are underserved
by traditional banking,” said the measure’s sponsor, Sen.
Adam Hinds (D-Pittsfield). “A state-owned bank would provide
underbanked populations such as minority-owned businesses
and the cannabis industry the opportunity to access
much-needed capital.”
“Have its sponsors spoken with actual bankers before
launching this ruinous debacle?” asked Chip Ford,
executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Banks are not charities. They exist in a free market to
earn money for their shareholders by providing financial
services to the public. Banks succeed or fail based on
investment decisions. Banking institutions are not
subsidized by government—but regulated by it. Of course your
local bank isn’t backed up by the full faith and credit of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—meaning its taxpayers. The
Legislature opening its own ‘too-big-to-fail’ state bank
begs the question, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’”
The Boston
Herald
Thursday, October 28, 2021
The tax on sugary soda falls flat, again
By Edward Longe
Earlier this year, the District of Columbia Council
attempted to pass a tax of $0.15 per ounce on sodas and
other drinks with high sugar content. Despite a belief that
the tax would “discourage residents from buying sugary
drinks” and choosing healthier alternatives, early evidence
suggests a tax would do little to curb consumer habits
despite the lofty public health ambitions.
The broader public health objective of D.C.’s soda tax was
to cut rates of obesity and diabetes, particularly among
residents in low-income neighborhoods that experience higher
rates than more affluent zip codes. While soda tax advocates
may have believed increasing costs would curb consumption,
its failure was entirely predictable. As a result, residents
of the District are left with a regressive tax that forces
them to pay more for goods and are left with less disposable
income.
A recent study from the Center for Science in the Public
Interest has provided early evidence that the soda tax has
done little to dent consumer demand. CSPI’s recent study
found that “sugary drinks were placed in anywhere from eight
to 59 different locations per store.” While this evidence
only shows that stores are still stocking sugary drinks, it
can be inferred that consumer demand has not been altered,
given convenience stores’ sensitivity to demand.
If other studies replicate CSPI’s findings, it will be
apparent that the soda tax will achieve nothing more than
making soft drinks more expensive and unnecessarily
straining incomes, particularly for low-income Americans who
consume sugary beverages at higher rates than more affluent
Americans.
While soda tax advocates may have had altruistic intentions,
many empirical studies have shown that levying taxes does
little to adjust consumer demand or improve public health.
For example, a global study conducted by the New Zealand
Institute of Economic Research in 2017 was unable to find
any “evidence that any sugar tax actually implemented
anywhere in the world has led to improvements in health.”
NZIER’s findings were later backed up by McKinsey, who found
that increased taxes on sodas and high sugar drinks was an
ineffective way to cut obesity and diabetes. McKinsey’s
studies suggested that a tax of 10% would only save about
500 lives per year. Better educating people about correct
portion control, on the other hand, could save over 2,000
lives every year.
Perhaps policymakers and lawmakers should be focusing their
efforts on educating the public rather than levying
ineffective taxes on consumers that cut their spending
power. Lawmakers in the District could have found real-world
evidence about the soda taxes failure had they just looked
to Philadelphia and their failure to cut consumption of
sugary drinks.
In 2017, Philadelphia introduced a 1.5 cents per ounce tax
on sugary and artificially sweetened beverages. While the
tax did lead to a significant decline in sales, estimated at
around 38.9%, the decline in sales was caused by individuals
shopping outside the city, which had knock-on effects on the
wider economy. As the American Consumer Institute previously
pointed out, Philadelphia’s soda tax “cost the city 1,192
jobs, reduced economic output by nearly $80 million, and
deprived workers of $55 million in labor income.”
A study from Drexel University found the tax did little to
alter consumption habits. It “had minimal to no influence on
what Philadelphians are drinking,” with Philadelphians only
consuming “three fewer sugary beverages” each month.
While D.C.’s soda tax has yet to pass, the proposal would
fail to cut sales and it would not improve public health.
Nevertheless, proposals like these are entirely predictable
based on the empirical evidence from global studies and the
experience of Philadelphia. Therefore, D.C. and other cities
or states considering such proposals should forget about the
sugary drinks tax and begin investing in proven programs to
cut diabetes and obesity.
— Edward Longe is a research
associate at the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit
educational and research organization. This column provided
by InsideSources.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Experience As Renter Informs Baker’s Rent Control Opposition
By Colin A. Young
Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday that he would "probably not"
sign a law reviving rent control if the Legislature were to
send one to his desk, making clear the challenges that
Boston mayoral frontrunner Michelle Wu could face in making
her agenda a reality if she becomes mayor.
Rent control was outlawed in Massachusetts by a 1994 ballot
question, but the idea of capping price increases to keep
rents affordable has figured into the mayoral campaign in
Boston. Wu supports the policy but candidate Annissa Essaibi
George does not.
Enacting rent control in Boston would require approval from
the Legislature and governor.
During an appearance Tuesday afternoon on GBH Radio, Baker
told co-hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan that he would
"probably not" sign a home rule petition from Boston that
sought to reimpose a form of rent control and said the
experience he had living in Boston in the age of rent
control informs his thinking.
"I'm going to leave the door open a little bit because maybe
there's something that could be done to deal with this,"
Baker said, pointing to the issue of fairness and the
effects rent control could have on housing development.
The governor added, "I lived for a bunch of years in Boston
paying market rent when I was a young person next to two
apartments that had older folks in them that made more than
me who paid about half what I paid in rent because their
apartments were rent-controlled and mine wasn't. As we all
know, that was in many ways one of the biggest issues people
have with rent control generally, which is basically it did
not treat everybody the same and your income had nothing to
do with whether or not you had a rent-controlled apartment."
A recent Suffolk University poll taken for the Boston Globe
and NBC10 found that 59 percent of the 500 likely Boston
voters surveyed said they support the idea of rent control
in Boston.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Lottery Profits Outpacing Last Year’s Records
By Colin A. Young
Massachusetts Lottery sales and estimated profit were each
up about $34 million in September as the Lottery kept pace
with last year's records during the first quarter of the new
fiscal year.
The Lottery reported $455.4 million in sales last month as
nearly all product types posted increases over September
2020. Monthly sales were up $34.1 million or 8.1 percent,
Executive Director Michael Sweeney told the Lottery
Commission.
Three months into the fiscal year, sales are up $97.7
million or 6.6 percent over the same period last year.
September's sales led to an estimated profit of $95 million
last month compared to $61.5 million in September 2020,
which Sweeney attributed to a $16.4 million increase in Keno
sales with more bars and restaurants open, and to a combined
$19.6 million increase in Mega Millions and Powerball sales
fueled by larger jackpots.
The $33.5 million increase in profit puts the Lottery $6.6
million ahead of its three-month profit total from fiscal
2021, a year in which the Lottery set records with an
estimated profit of $1.112 billion from $5.827 billion in
revenue.
Instant tickets, Mass Cash and Megabucks Doubler were the
only three Lottery product types that saw sales dip from
September 2020 to September 2021. Scratch tickets, which
typically account for more than two-thirds of the Lottery's
business, were down $3.4 million or 1.1 percent last month
and are down $8 million or 0.8 percent so far this year with
the lucrative holiday season upcoming.
State House News
Service
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Baker Calls Reelection Choice “Very Complicated Issue”
By Colin A. Young
Gov. Charlie Baker is not merely waiting to announce whether
he will seek a third term in office next year, he said
Tuesday, as he described the decision as "a very complicated
issue ... for all kinds of reasons."
During a portion of a GBH Radio interview that got slightly
testy Tuesday, co-host Jim Braude asked the governor what
happened to his plan of taking the summer to talk about
reelection with his family and announcing a decision at some
point after Labor Day.
"I do remember that," Baker said, "And we are post-Labor
Day...and we'll make a decision soon."
When Braude asked Baker directly whether he has made a
decision, the governor responded, "It's a very complicated
issue, Jim, for all kinds of reasons." Baker then rejected
Braude's assertion that "it sounds like you've made a
decision and you just don't, you're not yet ready to
announce it."
Braude, who has made a habit of asking Baker about
reelection each time the governor appears on his show, then
seemed to annoy the governor by asking why the decision is a
complicated one.
"Are you serious?" Baker said before saying that some of the
many considerations "are professional and some are
personal."
"Let's put it this way: Anybody who makes a decision about
something like this without thinking really hard about it
isn't doing themselves, their families or the communities
they want to serve any favors because you're signing up for
something that is hugely important," Baker, who has made the
decision to run for governor in 2010, 2014 and 2018, said.
"And it comes with an enormous amount of opportunity, and at
the same time, tremendous challenges, many of which you
don't get to know about in advance."
If Baker opts to seek a third term next year, he will have
to face former Rep. Geoff Diehl in a Republican primary and,
if successful, would face whichever Democrat emerges from a
field that so far includes Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, former
Sen. Ben Downing and Harvard professor Danielle Allen.
Though Baker frequently bemoans the lack of civility in
politics, especially at the national level, he responded
last month to a question from WBZ's Jon Keller about whether
he feels burnt out by the job by saying how excited he is to
put American Rescue Plan Act money to use. During that
interview, Baker even offered a brief sketch of what his
third-term priorities could be.
State House News
Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
ARPA Bill Grew to $3.82 Bil Before House Passage
Leaderships Sees Issues 'To Work Out' With Senate
By Katie Lannan, Chris Lisinski and Chris Van Buskirk
A major spending bill allocating federal COVID-19 relief
funds and surplus state tax revenues cleared the House on
Friday evening by a vote of 159-0 after lawmakers added
nearly $174 million via the amendment process.
The bill began with a bottom line of $3.65 billion and
representatives took a handful of votes to add on tens of
millions of dollars more, much of it earmarked for local
programs and projects, through four mega-amendments compiled
outside of public view based on the 1,126 individual
amendments filed earlier in the week. The bill's final
bottom line increased to $3.82 billion.
House and Senate leaders have already agreed on two key
features of the bill -- a $500 million deposit into the
state's unemployment trust fund and another $500 million for
one-time bonus payments to low-income essential workers who
remained on the job in-person throughout the COVID-19 state
of emergency.
Otherwise, it's unclear how closely aligned the spending
will be between the House plan and the proposal that Senate
Democrats are expected to soon put forward, and how much
negotiating will need to take place before lawmakers can
ship a final version to Gov. Charlie Baker.
Baker had prodded lawmakers to quickly put the state's
billions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act money to
work, but the Legislature opted to gather public input at a
series of hearings before crafting a bill.
With formal sessions for the year set to end Nov. 17 under
joint legislative rules, House and Senate leaders have not
indicated if they aim to get a final bill on Baker's desk or
into private conference committee negotiations before the
winter recess.
"We have been continuing to talk with our Senate
counterparts and I think that there are some things we will
have to work out and we'll see what proposals they put to
the floor maybe next week or whatnot," House Ways and Means
Chair Aaron Michlewitz told the News Service. "I think that
after they get done we're going to try as hard as we can to
get it to the governor's desk as quickly as we can."
Michlewitz said lawmakers received feedback and testimony
from nearly 400 people and organizations, including the
governor. Rep. Dan Hunt, who chairs the House Committee on
Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight, cited more than 300
meetings with advocates.
Michlewitz, a Democrat from Boston's North End, called the
resulting bill "a truly equitable spending package."
"A consistent theme we heard from these hearings was the
need for this one-time revenue to go toward areas and
communities that have been disproportionately impacted by
this pandemic," he said. "These communities that were
hardest hit by COVID, and it is only appropriate that the
lens with which we view these funds be toward filling the
needs of these communities."
Before amendments were tacked on, the bill contained $777
million in economic development spending, $765 million for
health and human services, $750 million towards workforce
development, $600 million for housing and homeownership,
$350 million toward environmental and climate change
mitigation, and $265 million for education.
Rep. Kate Lipper-Garbedian, a Melrose Democrat, addressed
her colleagues for the first time to highlight a provision,
backed by $10 million, that will expand eligibility for
special education services to students who turned 22 during
the pandemic. She said students with disabilities are
eligible for K-12 services until they turn 22, but the
disruption and suspension of those services left some young
adults cut off from programs like vocational and life-skills
training.
Elected last year in a special election, Lipper-Garabedian
was sworn in during a socially distanced State House
ceremony on March 25, 2020.
"Many of us in this chamber have had COVID babies. Some of
us have had COVID puppies," she said Thursday. "I'm pleased
to have been your first COVID rep."
The House Ways and Means Committee's bill features $200
million in tax relief for small-business owners who paid
personal income taxes on state or federal relief money, $12
million to aid the resettling of Afghan refugees, and $5
million for Inspector General Glen Cunha's office to create
a public website and database tracking the number of
contracts awarded to minority-owned businesses and the flow
of funding to disproportionately impacted communities.
The bill included $20 million to improve technical
infrastructure at community health centers, and through the
amendment process representatives added $15 million for
"programs that promote primary care workforce development,
recruitment and retention at community health centers."
Other health investments lawmakers noted included $250
million for financially strapped hospitals and $70 million
for nursing homes.
Environment and climate spending represents another sizable
chunk of the bill with more than $400 million total
following the adoption of a mega-amendment. Rep. Carolyn
Dykema said areas that will see new investments include
combined sewer overflow issues, climate resiliency, offshore
wind development and PFAS mitigation.
"Water infrastructure upgrades and the mitigation of
contaminants like PFAS can be extremely costly for our
municipalities, and providing this relief to cities and
towns who are already facing challenging financial times is
badly needed," Dykema, who co-chairs the Joint Committee on
Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, said Friday.
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance criticized what it called
a "closed doors" negotiating process on the four
mega-amendments that House lawmakers added to the spending
bill. Spokesman Paul Craney said the branch "once again
proved to the rest of the world why they maintain the top
spot as the most secretive and opaque legislative body in
America."
"Regular people have no way of knowing the deliberations
behind how their tax dollars are spent in the Massachusetts
House of Representatives," Craney said in the statement
released Friday afternoon.
Lawmakers held six public hearings ahead of crafting the
$3.82 billion proposal where hundreds of people and
organizations, including Baker, testified on areas where the
funds should be spent.
House leaders left themselves a sizable pot of money to be
spent at a future date. The base bill left unallocated about
$2.4 billion in ARPA money and roughly $350 million of the
state's fiscal year 2021 surplus.
With nearly $174 million added to the bill, Michlewitz said
"most of the work that was done" via the amendment process
did not touch the additional ARPA funds the House had left
aside and primarily drew from the fiscal 2021 surplus
revenue.
State House News
Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
Weekly Roundup - Making It Rain
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
Matt Murphy
For thousands of South Shore residents, Halloween weekend
will begin in darkness after a terrifying storm ripped its
way up the coast mid-week, knocking out power and trees
along the way.
But on Beacon Hill, it felt a bit more like Christmas.
While parts of the state were entangled in difficult storm
recovery efforts, House lawmakers were deep into COVID-19
recovery wish lists, at long last getting their hands on a
vast pot of money from the feds awarded last spring through
the American Rescue Plan Act.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano and several of his top deputies
helped unveil a $3.65 billion spending package on Monday
that would dole out parts of the state's ARPA kitty and
three-quarters of the fiscal year 2021 surplus, and still
leave more for a second round.
The proposal from House leaders was anchored around an
agreement with Senate leadership for a $500 million bonus
pay program for low-income, essential workers who stayed on
the job during the pandemic, and another $500 million for
unemployment insurance.
The bonus pay program would dwarf what had been proposed by
Gov. Charlie Baker, but the governor said conceptually he
thought it was the "right thing to do." Baker, however, is
also on record agreeing with many business groups that $500
million for UI is too low, having proposed $1 billion
himself.
"While this bill is not a panacea, we believe that it
specifically targets through a cornucopia of funds the
issues that we identified over the last six months that are
in most need," said Rep. Dan Hunt, chair of the House's
Federal Stimulus and Census Oversight Committee, invoking
imagery from yet another holiday.
The rank-and-file, however, clearly thought the first draft
could get closer to a "panacea" if only they tried a little
harder. Over two days, the House combed through more than
1,100 amendments proposing to add $5.8 billion in additional
spending.
While the bottom line did grow, it was more like tens of
millions than billions of dollars added.
House leadership managed to keep a sizable chunk in the
bank, and part of the reason the initial House plan proposed
to keep back $2.75 billion in ARPA and surplus money was
because Congress continues to deliberate over trillions in
spending for infrastructure and other priorities.
President Joe Biden this week put forward a framework for a
$1.75 trillion compromise over social spending, on top of a
$1 trillion infrastructure package, and state policymakers
don't want to duplicate efforts.
Of course, after Tuesday night, a few extra dollars for
climate change mitigation might not hurt. (The initial House
bill put $100 million toward environmental infrastructure).
If more severe weather is a symptom of climate change, many
parts of the state got a frightening look at their future
this week. The storm and ensuing power outages had been
forecast, but the wreckage might not have been fully
imagined.
As late as 8 p.m. on Tuesday night as the winds started to
pick up, Baker was preparing to be in western Massachusetts
the next day with stops planned in Amherst, Charlemont and
Pittsfield, including ribbon cutting for the aquaponics
greenhouse at the Berkshire County House of Corrections.
That swing would get scrapped by late Wednesday morning as
Baker was redirected to Scituate and a region in the dark
after hurricane-force gusts knocked out power to more than
half a million residents from Cape Cod to Quincy. Some still
had not been restored by Friday.
Scituate happens to be in Republican Sen. Patrick O'Connor's
district, and that won't change after 2022 when new district
boundaries go into effect. But for many senators, their
constituencies could soon change if Gov. Baker signs off on
redistricting plans that reached his desk this week.
The House approved a map for its members last week, but the
Senate took a little extra time as leadership responded to
some criticism of its initial effort by tweaking a few
boundaries and overhauling Sen. Michael Brady's district to
make a new majority-minority district centered on Brockton
that now includes Avon and half of Randolph.
All in, the two maps sent to Baker would increase the number
of districts where non-whites make up a majority of the
population from 20 to 33 in the House and three to six in
the Senate. Leaders prioritized the creation of
opportunities for candidates of color to join the
Legislature after the 2020 U.S. Census reflected an
increasingly diverse state not matched by representation on
Beacon Hill.
The chamber's three Republicans voted for the plan,
including O'Connor whose aforementioned district didn't
change at all, while three Democrats cast the lone
dissenting votes. Sen. Marc Pacheco complained that he was
misled about the final look of his Taunton-based district,
while Sens. Diana DiZoglio and Barry Finegold voted against
the map that would dramatically alter their districts in
order to create a new, incumbent-free, majority-minority
district anchored by Lawrence.
DiZoglio, of Methuen, won't be running in her new district
because she's seeking to become state auditor, but Finegold
would lose Lawrence, a city that he has represented on and
off for close to 20 years in both the House and Senate.
Baker hasn't said boo about either the House or Senate
plans, but with legislators from his party mostly on board
and whispers of lawsuits all quiet at the moment, he may
just sign them without a fuss.
The new political geography won't come into play until 2022.
More immediately, cities around the state are preparing for
municipal elections next week.
As the Boston mayoral race stormed into the final stages,
Baker said during a radio interview that he would "probably
not" sign a city home rule petition seeking to bring back
rent control, intentionally leaving the door slightly ajar
to one of City Councilor Michelle Wu's signature campaign
proposals.
Baker recalled being a young renter in the city during the
days of rent control when he paid market rate, while, he
said, older wealthier residents in units next to his paid
significantly less because they had a rent-controlled
apartment.
"As we all know, that was in many ways one of the biggest
issues people have with rent control generally, which is
basically it did not treat everybody the same and your
income had nothing to do with whether or not you had a
rent-controlled apartment," Baker said.
Baker is also not keen on Wu's "Free the T" platform to make
the MBTA fare free, but the two might have to find a way to
work together - at least for a year - if polling holds that
continues to show Wu with a huge lead over Councilor Annissa
Essaibi George.
It might only be a year, because Baker still has not said
whether he plans to seek a third term. Pressed again on the
topic this week, Baker would only repeat "soon" in terms of
a timeline for announcing a decision.
"It's a very complicated issue, Jim, for all kinds of
reasons," Baker told GBH host Jim Braude.
STORY OF THE WEEK: A few billion among friends. House lays
out plans to spend ARPA, and keeps a little in reserve.
State House News
Service
Friday, October 29, 2021
Advances - Week of Oct. 31, 2021
The debate and lobbying over American Rescue Plan Act
spending decisions shifts to the Senate next week, and
voters in Boston are set to make history Tuesday by electing
a woman to serve as the next mayor of the city.
November's arrival on Monday means a final sprint toward the
Nov. 17 end of formal sessions for 2021, and it increases
pressure on the Senate to release and pass its own plan to
allocate ARPA funds and surplus fiscal 2021 tax revenues.
House leaders, meanwhile, need to take additional votes if
they wish to extend pandemic-era voting reforms and also
face decisions on whether to take down voter registration
barriers that are in place just before and on election day.
Early and mail-in voting options are operative for the
municipal elections that are set to unfold on Tuesday.
On Beacon Hill, another milestone is approaching as
legislative leaders move guardedly toward a phased reopening
of the State House. State representatives and House staff by
Monday need to prove they have been vaccinated against
COVID-19 or seek a religious or medical exemption if they
want to work from the State House. Vaccine mandate deadlines
have already passed for Senate and executive branch
employees.
Legislators made major progress on redistricting this week,
sending Gov. Charlie Baker bills (H 4217 / S 2563) that
redraw the boundaries of the 160 House districts and 40
Senate districts. As they await Baker's signature on those
bills, legislators with about a year to go until next year's
elections face pressure now to realign the boundaries of the
state's nine Congressional districts and eight Governor's
Council districts to reflect population shifts and growth
over the last decade.
The Senate has a pair of informal sessions scheduled next
week and the House plans are unavailable.
Storylines In Progress
... Children as young as five years old could begin to get
vaccinated against COVID-19 at pediatricians' offices and
pharmacies as soon as midweek, pending a final meeting of
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's advisory group
scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, which would make about
515,000 more Massachusetts residents eligible for
vaccination
... Legislative leaders in both branches have been giving
voice to near-term action on health care bills with
different focuses but have so far not produced any proposals
... They haven't announced their intentions for 2022, but
Gov. Baker and Lt. Gov. Polito keep raising money. Next
week, it's a fundraiser at a Boston restaurant and bar
... Voters in Maine on Tuesday will pass judgement on a
hydropower transmission project that is critical to efforts
in Massachusetts to meet its clean energy requirements
... Voters in a House district that gets carved up under the
redistricting bill on Baker's desk go to the polls Tuesday
to settle special election primaries
... And it's also decision time for candidates in the
special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Joseph
Boncore of Winthrop. Candidates in that race must submit
nomination signatures by Tuesday
... Now subject to a vaccine mandate, senators will soon
need to decide whether they want to revise, extend or let
lapse the pandemic-era rules that have allowed them to
participate in sessions remotely, which have a Jan. 1
expiration date
... A federal judge is weighing arguments in a case about
the new state law concerning motor vehicle telematic data,
which automakers challenged after voters approved it via
ballot question in November. The Boston Globe reported that
the decision could come as soon as next week, but noted that
Attorney General Maura Healey is looking to introduce new
evidence that Subaru has deactivated its telematic systems
in new vehicles to comply with the "right to repair" law ...
Municipal Elections
Tuesday is municipal election day in a host of Massachusetts
communities. Boston and North Adams voters are each poised
to elect their first female mayors, and mayoral races are
also on the ballot in Agawam, Amesbury, Attleboro, Beverly,
Brockton, Chicopee, Easthampton, Everett, Fall River,
Fitchburg, Framingham, Gardner, Gloucester, Haverhill,
Holyoke, Lawrence, Leominster, Lynn, Marlborough, Medford,
Methuen, Newburyport, Newton, Northampton, Peabody, Salem,
Somerville, Taunton, Westfield, West Springfield, Woburn and
Worcester.
In Amesbury, Rep. James Kelcourse is hoping to unseat
incumbent Mayor Kassandra Gove. Boston, Holyoke and Lawrence
are currently being led by acting mayors. Mayoral contests
in Lynn, Newburyport and Somerville feature open seats.
Lowell is holding its first city council and school
committee elections under a new system involving
district-based seats, the result of a settlement of a Voting
Rights Act case against the previous all at-large model.
In addition to council and school committee races, Randolph
has a ballot question that would permit the operation of
marijuana-related businesses.
Municipal elections are also held in Amherst, Barnstable,
Braintree, Cambridge, Chelsea, Franklin, Greenfield, Malden,
Melrose, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere, Saugus,
Springfield, Waltham, Watertown, Weymouth and Winthrop.
The Wall Street
Journal
Thursday, October 28, 2021
POLITICS
U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Families
Separated at Border
Government is considering payments of $450,000 per person
affected by Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy in
2018 for asylum seekers illegally crossing border
By Michelle Hackman, Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer
immigrant families that were separated during the Trump
administration around $450,000 a person in compensation,
according to people familiar with the matter, as several
agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents
and children who say the government subjected them to
lasting psychological trauma.
The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and
Health and Human Services are considering payments that
could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the
final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the
matter said. Most of the families that crossed the border
illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included
one parent and one child, the people said. Many families
would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their
circumstances, the people said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents
families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500
children separated at the border over the course of the
Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the
government. The number of families eligible under the
potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people
said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come
forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the
families, the people said.
The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.
As part of a so-called zero-tolerance enforcement policy,
immigration agents separated thousands of children, ranging
from infants to teenagers, from their parents at the
southern border in 2018 after they had crossed illegally
from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. In some cases
families were forcefully broken up with no provisions to
track and later reunite them, government investigations
found. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered
from a range of ailments, including heat exhaustion and
malnutrition, and were kept in freezing cold rooms and
provided little medical attention.
Many of the lawsuits describe lasting mental-health problems
for the children from the trauma of the months without their
parents in harsh conditions, including anxiety, a fear of
strangers and nightmares. The lawsuits seek a range of
payouts, with the average demand being roughly $3.4 million
per family, some of the people said.
In recent months, lawyers for the families and the
government have told courts overseeing the cases that they
are engaged in settlement negotiations and hoped to reach a
deal by the end of November.
“President Biden has agreed that the family separation
policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be
fully remedied,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the
ACLU’s immigrant-rights project and a lead negotiator on one
of the lawsuits. “That remedy must include not only
meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in
the country.”
In his first weeks in office, Mr. Biden pledged to reunite
the separated families, describing those actions undertaken
by the Trump administration a “moral and national shame.”
A DHS spokeswoman referred questions to the Justice
Department, where a spokeswoman declined to comment. The
Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately
respond to a request for comment.
The discussions have been at times contentious. They have
taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens
of private lawyers representing the families and government
lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as
excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing
the border, the people said. One government lawyer
threatened to remove his name from the case out of
disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people
said.
In another instance, a Department of Homeland Security
attorney involved in the settlement talks complained on a
conference call that the payouts could amount to more than
some families of 9/11 victims received, one person said.
Other people said senior departmental officials were in
alignment on the amount and disputed the 9/11 comparison,
given that the U.S. government hadn’t been responsible for
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 9/11 victim
compensation fund averaged awards to the dead of around $2
million, tax-free, at the time an unprecedented payout, the
administrator of the fund has said.
“Damage class actions in this kind of case are pretty rare,
it’s hard to think of a recent comparison,” said Margo
Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama
administration at the Department of Homeland Security and
now teaches at the University of Michigan law school. Ms.
Schlanger said class-action compensation claims are more
common in cases involving defective medical devices or other
consumer products.
“It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” to try to
resolve hundreds of different lawsuits at the same time, and
“sometimes even more complex to try the cases,” Ms.
Schlanger said, adding that it made sense to try to resolve
them together.
The Trump administration in May 2018 implemented a
zero-tolerance approach, in which agents apprehended
everyone crossing the border illegally, including those
seeking asylum. That practice meant that children
accompanying those adults were separated from their parents
and put on a separate administrative track. The overall
goal, the Trump administration said at the time, was to slow
the number of people crossing the border illegally, but
several of those officials have since apologized for the
consequences of that policy.
Immigration law gives children greater legal protections
than adults, so while the adults’ asylum cases could be
dismissed quickly, allowing them to be deported, children
mostly remained in the U.S. in child-welfare shelters or
living with relatives. The Trump administration also hadn’t
built a system to track which children belong to which
parents before beginning to separate them.
A January report from the Justice Department’s inspector
general faulted senior Trump Justice Department officials
for knowing the policy change would result in families being
separated, but pressing ahead without preparing for it.
President Trump ended the policy through an executive order
on June 20, 2018, following bipartisan blowback and global
condemnation.
Many of the families filed tort claims, a type of civil
claim seeking damages for loss or harm, asking for
compensation to cover mental-health treatment to address the
emotional and psychological toll the practice took. Some of
the cases were resolved under the Trump administration. In a
2019 settlement in New Jersey, for example, an adult and a
minor received a total of $125,000.
Most such cases remained pending at the start of the Biden
administration. When Mr. Biden became president, he formed a
task force to reunite the families that remained separated.
Settlement talks are also ongoing in a separate lawsuit,
known as Ms. L V. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
in which the ACLU has asked the government to provide
families with mental-health and other services, along with a
permanent legal status.
Apart from talks over damages, the administration has
already begun a process of locating deported parents and
reuniting them with their children in the U.S. The
administration has reunited 52 families and is in the
process of reuniting about 200 more. The families are being
given a three-year grant of parole, a form of temporary
humanitarian protection that allows them to live and work
legally in the U.S. but doesn’t offer them a path to
permanent legal status.
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