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Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
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“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
48 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, July 17, 2022
A Small Tax Rebate,
Some Tax Reforms
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 House
budget chief is "hopeful" that a deal on the overdue
state budget will be reached this week, but did not
on Tuesday call a deal "very close," as his Senate
counterpart did on Monday.
"We're
getting there, but it's not done 'til it's done,"
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Aaron
Michlewitz told the News Service on Tuesday
afternoon.
The budget
was due by July 1. As talks drag on deeper into the
month, the chief negotiators -- Michlewitz and
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues --
remain on budget duty rather than focused squarely
on a mountain of other unfinished major bills, and
myriad calls from advocacy groups to pass additional
legislation.
Formal
sessions are scheduled under legislative rules to
end for the year on July 31, so the window is
closing on a process that's likely to eventually
require many additional votes on budget amendments
and potential gubernatorial vetoes.
Rodrigues
said Monday that budget negotiators were "very
close" to a deal....
Most
states start their fiscal year July 1, and the
National Conference of State Legislatures reported
that Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were the two
states entering fiscal 2023 that day without a plan
in place.
Pennsylvania missed its Constitutional deadline by
eight days, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Its Republican-majority General Assembly passed a
budget accord Friday that was signed the same day by
Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf.
State
House News Service
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Last In Nation, Budget
Negotiators Still “Getting There”
With just
three weeks left in their legislative session, top
Massachusetts Democrats on Monday unveiled a
multibillion-dollar economic development package
that pledges more than $1 billion in tax breaks and
rebates, including increases to the credits that
seniors, low-income workers, and parents can claim.
The
sweeping bill would constitute one of the largest
tax relief measures in Massachusetts in a
generation, and offers a response to calls for
Beacon Hill to ease the burden on taxpayers at a
time of sharply spiking consumer prices and
overflowing state coffers.
In all,
the $3.8 billion package House Democrats released
Monday includes nearly $524 million in permanent tax
breaks, as well as $510 million in previously
announced one-time rebates that would be distributed
to potentially millions of taxpayers by October....
“These tax
changes are permanent,” House Speaker Ronald Mariano
said. “They don’t expire, they are not sun-setted.”
It’s also
likely taxpayers may not realize them for nearly two
years. Each of the measures would take effect in
January, House officials said, meaning residents are
likely to claim the increased credits when filing
their 2023 taxes in the spring of 2024....
Most tax
debate in recent years on Beacon Hill have focused
on how to raise levies, not slash them, whether it
be during the depths of the recession when
then-governor Deval Patrick signed $1 billion in tax
increases into law, or in 2020, when the House
passed a $600 million tax package that died during
the pandemic.
One of the
last major tax decreases residents enjoyed came from
a 2000 initiative voters approved to lower the
state’s income tax from 5.85 percent to 5 percent.
But it took nearly 20 years for it to be fulfilled,
thanks to a years-long, legislatively created
process to phase in the decline far more slowly than
voters wanted.
The
Boston Globe
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Mass. lawmakers
promise one of Beacon Hill’s largest packages of tax
relief in a generation. It mirrors much of what
Governor Baker pitched in January.
In
response to intense pressure to provide relief to
families squeezed by inflation, Massachusetts
lawmakers last week unveiled a plan to give
potentially millions of taxpayers a one-time rebate
of $250, or $500 for some dual-income households.
But the
floor, which excludes the state’s lowest income
residents, has given some lawmakers and experts
pause.
State
Senator Diana DiZoglio sent a letter to Senate
President Karen E. Spilka, saying that she agreed
with the rationale for the proposed rebate but
expressed her distaste for the income floor, calling
the proposal “unsupportable.”
But top
lawmakers say that low-income earners were
prioritized in the last year, with stimulus
payments, enhanced unemployment benefits, and a
temporary extension of the federal child tax credit.
“We felt
we had addressed a lot of the needs there,” House
Speaker Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, said last
week, referring to the state’s low-income earners.
In a
statement Monday, Spilka said “every working
individual making less than $38,640 who filed taxes
in 2021 and did not claim unemployment was eligible
to receive a $500 COVID premium payment.”
“Those
checks have already gone out,” she said.
But some
of those benefits were meant for pandemic-related
expenses, some argue, and left out swaths of poor
residents like those who don’t earn their income,
don’t have Social Security numbers, received
unemployment benefits, or were too old or young to
be eligible.
The
Boston Globe
Monday, July 11, 2022
The Legislature wants to
give tax rebates to many, but not all.
Some lawmakers and experts say more help for
low-income families is needed.
The
Massachusetts House Thursday night passed a massive,
wide-ranging economic development bill that infuses
$4.2 billion into the state economy in the form of
tax relief, investments in health care and
environmental programs, and support to businesses,
as well as a slew of policy changes and earmarks for
local projects and programing.
The bill
would be paid for by a combination of $2.8 billion
in federal American Rescue Plan dollars and expected
state surplus money, and $1.4 billion in money the
state borrows through bonds....
In a
two-day process of amending the bill, House members
dispatched nearly 900 amendments by bundling some
and leaving others out behind closed doors, then
publicly passing multiple mega “consolidated”
amendments. The amendments totaled $468 million in
added funds.
The
legislation serves as a vehicle for tax reform and
relief, which was born out of pressure to help
residents being squeezed by record-high inflation
during “unsettling times,” Michlewitz said. The bill
would give potentially millions of middle income
taxpayers a one-time stimulus check of $250 or $500
for joint filers, but only for those who reported at
least $38,000 in 2021 income, a caveat that has
drawn scrutiny.
Mirroring
tax breaks pitched by Governor Charlie Baker, it
also would increase the deduction renters can claim,
increase the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit,
increase the threshold on the state’s estate tax,
and increase the state’s child and dependent tax
credit.
That adds
up to a total of nearly $524 million in permanent
tax breaks and $510 million in one-time relief
payments....
The
pending final vote on the economic development bill
comes as the chambers resolve differences in their
budgets for the 2023 fiscal year, which began July
1. According to House and Senate budget chiefs, a
compromise budget document will be released “in the
coming days” and will be primed for a Monday vote.
“We’ve
obviously got a time crunch here,” Michlewitz said.
“We’ve definitely got some work to do, but I feel
confident we’ll be able to get it done.”
The
Boston Globe
Friday, July 15, 2022
Mass. House approves
wide-ranging economic development bill
that offers tax relief, health care investments,
earmarks
The House and Senate
advanced some $15 billion in legislation over the
course of the week, stepping closer to sending Baker
authorizations for multibillion-dollar
infrastructure investments, one-time tax rebates for
millions of Bay Staters, and a list of earmarks for
local projects thick enough to be published as a
novella.
In free-spend mode,
they worked day and night to pump up the combined
bottom lines of an economic development bill and an
infrastructure bond bill by more than $900 million
-- nearly the entire value of the combined rebates
and tax breaks the House took months to craft.
And that money flying
through the halls of Beacon Hill all comes before
passage of a roughly $50 billion final budget for
fiscal year 2023. That action now appears imminent.
Legislative leaders, who showed no desire to get the
spending bill done by the July 1 deadline, announced
Thursday that they reached "an agreement in
principle," which has the potential to allow the
state to shed its
last-in-the-nation-without-a-budget label.
House Democrats kicked
off the week by unveiling additional contours of
their long-awaited tax relief plan: $500 million in
permanent annual tax breaks and credits for renters,
parents, seniors and those affected by the estate
tax to go alongside the previously announced $500
million in one-time, $250 payments to middle-income
earners.
What about those who
are uninspired by the idea of a $250 check, which
one reporter likened to "an expensive coffee, not a
Dunkies, but an expensive coffee a week"?
"Send it back to me if
it's not enough," House Speaker Ronald Mariano
joked.
Although they faced
some pressure from progressives within their own
ranks and voices outside the State House to scrap an
income floor denying the rebates to anyone who
earned less than $38,000 last year, representatives
stuck to their tax proposal as drafted and insisted
that much of the relief would flow to low-income
earners.
They were less hesitant
about making other changes. The House over two days
packed on nearly $480 million in additional spending
to the economic development bill, and they also
added language that would greenlight deployment of
online lottery games in Massachusetts -- an idea
that much of the Senate's current leadership has
previously opposed even though the full Senate
approved the idea in 2016.
That's the thing about
big spending bills that move at the end of session:
they can be a home for almost anything lawmakers
want to toss into the mix.
Legislative leaders
often leave priorities until the eleventh hour, and
catch-all bills can help them minimize the impacts
of procrastination. They also sometimes slide
language unpopular with the other branch or Baker
into a larger proposal as a negotiation tactic,
hoping it will get more attention as part of a bill
bound to pass than it would languishing as a
standalone idea that never emerges.
The House wasn't alone
using the amendment process to reshape a hefty bill.
Across the hall, senators padded an infrastructure
bond bill with $440 million in amendments...
State
House News Service
Friday, July 15, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Pack It On
A glut of
conference committees have already been created,
with House and Senate members just waiting for some
of them to reach agreements on issues like sports
betting, climate and energy policies, mental health
care and cannabis industry operations. But with just
two weeks before formal sessions end for the year,
it's time to fret for proponents of other measures
like sex education legislation, a sexting and
revenge porn bill, checks on hospital expansions,
and assorted prescription drug policy measures.
Each of
those topics has gotten through one branch but not
the other. It's also the time of session where the
parasite effect kicks in. Proponents of online
Lottery wagering were able to convince the House
this week to attach their proposal to the economic
development bill, which should hit the Senate floor
soon. And senators stuck a mandate for free or
reduced MBTA fares for low-income riders to their
infrastructure bill.
Unable to
move their ideas as standalone bills, supporters of
other proposals are also desperately angling to glom
their measures on to larger bills that they believe
will reach the governor's desk. The strategy puts
more chips on the table ahead of the wheeling and
dealing among senior House and Senate Democrats who
can trade priorities in late-session dealmaking.
When the
dust settles in early August, supporters of bills
that come up short can point to whatever momentum
they were able to achieve to position themselves in
the 2023-2024 session, when many Democrats are
convinced that one of their own -- Attorney General
Maura Healey -- will hold the governorship and bring
a new ideology to the governor's office on issues
like abortion rights and gun control, for instance.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 15, 2022
Advances - Week of July 17, 2022
Tuesday,
July 19, 2022
BACK TO
TAXACHUSETTS? Pioneer Institute Executive Director
Jim Stergios and senior fellow Charles Chieppo lead
a discussion about their new book "Back to
Taxachusetts?" The book summarizes 24 studies
conducted by the institute that attempt to document
what they believe will be the negative consequences
of a ballot question backed by the Legislature to
amend the Constitution and add a surtax of 4 percent
on all annual household income over $1 million.
The
discussion is expected to focus on evidence used by
Stergios and Chieppo to argue that the tax will
cause homeowners, retirees and small business owners
to leave Massachusetts, having a negative impact on
the economy. The virtual event is hosted by the
Massachusetts High Technology Council. A
question-and-answer session will follow the
presentation and all attendees will receive a
complimentary copy of the book.
State
House News Service
Friday, July 15, 2022
Advances - Week of July 17, 2022
With the
state Supreme Judicial Court having rejected his
challenge to the new law making early voting and
vote-by-mail permanent features of elections here,
MassGOP Chairman James Lyons said Monday that he
plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to
"provide relief to prevent a constitutional
travesty."
Lyons and
a handful of Republican candidates filed a lawsuit
last month seeking to overturn the so-called VOTES
Act, which made voting-by-mail permanent in
Massachusetts. The plaintiffs argued last week
before the SJC that the VOTES Act, which codified
pandemic-era policies that proved popular with
voters, violates the allowances for absentee voting
contained in Article 105 of the state Constitution
and that Secretary of State William Galvin should be
blocked from sending mail-in ballot applications to
the more than 4.7 million voters in Massachusetts.
In June,
the voting reforms were enacted on a 37-3 vote in
the Senate and by a 126-29 margin in the House.
The court
ruled in an order Monday morning that "judgment
shall enter in the county court for the Secretary on
all claims in the plaintiffs' complaint" and that
"the plaintiffs' request to enjoin the Secretary
from putting the VOTES act into effect is denied."
The ruling clears the way for Galvin to begin
sending ballot applications by the July 23 deadline
called for in the law, though he said he intends to
beat the deadline....
Lyons and
the GOP pointed to part of the Massachusetts
Constitution that explicitly allows for absentee
voting for three reasons -- when a voter is going to
be out of town for Election Day, has a disability,
or has a religious-based conflict with Election Day
-- and argued those were the only allowable reasons
a voter should vote by mail. The defendants and
others, however, argued that mail-in voting is a
form of early voting, totally separate from Election
Day and absentee voting covered by the Constitution.
The SJC's
order did not come with the usual explanation of the
justices' thinking, so it is not known exactly how
the justices came down on that question. The court
said it wanted to issue the order quickly because
the deadline for Galvin to mail the applications is
fast approaching and added that a complete opinion
detailing the court's thinking would "follow in due
course." ...
Lyons said
the Republican Party appreciates the consideration
of the seven SJC justices, all of whom were
nominated to the SJC by Republican Gov. Charlie
Baker. But he also noted that the case "presented
significant issues of both state and federal law."
"With
respect, however, [the SJC justices] are the final
arbiters of state law. Their decisions must also
conform to the federal constitution. Having
conferred with counsel, we will be seeking emergency
relief from the U.S. Supreme Court because of
federal law issues presented in the VOTES Act,
including the first amendment black-out posed by the
electioneering ban, the differential treatment
between absentee voters and early voters, and the
enshrining of the partisan selection of election
officials into state law," Lyons said....
Getting
the matter before the U.S. Supreme Court will be no
small task for Lyons and the Republican Party....
If an
application gets to the full court, justices
consider whether they would be likely to take the
case up on its own merits, whether there would be a
"fair prospect" that they would overrule the lower
court, and whether the lower court ruling would
cause permanent harm if allowed to remain in effect,
SCOTUSBlog said. At least five justices would need
to be in favor for the court to grant a stay.
The
legislative leaders who shepherded the VOTES Act
through their chambers said repeatedly that they
were confident it would withstand a legal challenge,
though they often said so without getting into the
reasons for their confidence.
State
House News Service
Monday, July 11, 2022
SJC Upholds Mail-in, Early
Voting Law
Galvin Ready To Mail Ballots, Lyons Plans Appeals To
U.S. Supreme Court
The push
to deny driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants has
hit the grocery stores where the competition is as
fierce as the discounts inside.
The
campaign needs 41,000 signatures to put a referendum
question on the statewide November ballot to
overturn the law. Those signatures are due by Aug.
24 and some Democrats — including a state senator —
have soured on the idea.
“We’re
literally being blocked when we set up,” MassGOP
Chairman Jim Lyons said about the signature tables
at mostly grocery stores. “They are being
off-the-charts aggressive and I told them they are
violating the law.”
Booths
seeking to repeal the law have been targeted in
Waltham, Tewksbury, Berlin and less so in Haverhill.
Police were called to a Tewksbury store where
“protesting customers from signing the petition,”
police wrote. It got so bad police asked everyone to
go.
A 1983
state Supreme Judicial Court case upheld the rights
of anyone to solicit signatures at shopping centers
— giving this push legal footing. “Interference or
attempted interference with these rights … violates
the state civil rights law,” a directive states.
State Sen.
Jamie Eldridge told the Herald Monday he is proud to
be protesting signature gatherers attempting to
overturn the state’s new immigrant license law.
“I have
been proud to support the Work and Family Mobility
Act, and oppose the effort to repeal the law,
sharing with voters my point of view,” he said....
Lyons,
however, sees it differently.
“We have a
right not to be interfered with,” he said, adding
other protesters have taken sides against funding
for police and other far-left causes. “They are
going way too far and Eldridge is acting like an
elitist.”
The
Boston Herald
Monday, July 11, 2022
Signature drive
to put driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants
up for a vote in November heats up;
Protesters called out for being too ‘aggressive’
Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons
said Thursday he's noticed a common trend among
leftist efforts to shut down the daily signature
collection drives necessary to put the question of
whether illegal immigrants should be entitled to
receive state-issued driver's licenses before voters
in the form of a referendum.
"The
leftists harassing our volunteers are deploying
what's known as a 'heckler's veto,' which happens
when one side throws a big enough tantrum and
creates enough of a nuisance to prompt police or
store managers to have to shut down the collection
drive altogether," Lyons said. "That's what's been
happening in front of supermarkets across
Massachusetts on a daily basis."
Lyons said
this exact scenario recently played out at a
Tewksbury Market Basket where he was collecting
signatures. A left-wing activist later identified by
police as Wes McEnany was part of a group of
individuals who, according to Lyons, caused enough
of a disturbance to prompt police to order both
sides to leave the premises.
McEnany
has previously advocated on social media in favor of
"defund(ing) the police and "kick(ing) cops out of
unions."
Similar
incidents have been reported at shopping centers in
Hudson, Chelmsford, and Waltham. Lyons earlier this
week issued an advisory to local Republican
committee leaders requesting that volunteers refrain
from engaging with protesters, and if necessary,
call police to file formal complaints....
"If the
Democrats and their shopping center agitators think
this is such a great law, what could they possibly
be worried about?," Lyons said. "We want the people
to be the ones who decide this, and not elitist
Democrats who think they know better than the
voters."
Massachusetts Republican Party
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Press Release: Radical leftists
deploy "heckler's veto" strategy
in effort to shut down referendum signature
collection drives |
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary |
|
With two weeks remaining
on the legislative calendar before the Legislature abandons it's
duplicitous "full-time" claim and legislators hit their re-election
campaign trails, funded by the taxpayers, most of the major
legislation expected to be passed before the deadline remains works
in progress. Even the state budget —
the one job constitutionally required to be performed
— remains incomplete with the deadline
looming, as usual. In its Friday
Advances - Week of July 17, 2022
the State House News Service noted:
House and Senate Democrats have again made Massachusetts the
last state with an annual budget in place, but signaled
Thursday that they have an agreement and just need a little
more time to finalize details and will have a fiscal 2023
budget ready for votes on Monday, when both branches have
scheduled formal sessions.
On Tuesday the News Service reported ("Last In Nation, Budget
Negotiators Still 'Getting There'"):
The budget
was due by July 1. As talks drag on deeper into the
month, the chief negotiators -- Michlewitz and
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues --
remain on budget duty rather than focused squarely
on a mountain of other unfinished major bills, and
myriad calls from advocacy groups to pass additional
legislation....
Most
states start their fiscal year July 1, and the
National Conference of State Legislatures reported
that Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were the two
states entering fiscal 2023 that day without a plan
in place.
Pennsylvania missed its Constitutional deadline by
eight days, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
Its Republican-majority General Assembly passed a
budget accord Friday that was signed the same day by
Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf.
The "full-time"
Massachusetts legislature — "The Best
Legislature Money Can Buy" — long ago adopted
Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time
available for its completion."
For an example of the
contrary, among other legislation (such as reducing the state income
tax from 5% to 4.5% effective in January on a path to abolishing it
altogether), the Kentucky General Assembly completed its two-year
FY 2023-24 state budget by its constitutional deadline of April 15
during its budget-writing "long session" limited to 60 legislative
days. Then it permanently adjourned for the remainder of the
year. Legislators went home and back to work at their
respective businesses and real jobs until January, when they'll
return for the "short session" —
constitutionally limited to 30 legislative days terminated not later
than March 30.) It does not need to be "The
Massachusetts Way"!
In its
Advances the News Service
also noted:
A glut of
conference committees have already been created,
with House and Senate members just waiting for some
of them to reach agreements on issues like sports
betting, climate and energy policies, mental health
care and cannabis industry operations. But with just
two weeks before formal sessions end for the year,
it's time to fret for proponents of other measures
like sex education legislation, a sexting and
revenge porn bill, checks on hospital expansions,
and assorted prescription drug policy measures.
Each of
those topics has gotten through one branch but not
the other. It's also the time of session where the
parasite effect kicks in. Proponents of online
Lottery wagering were able to convince the House
this week to attach their proposal to the economic
development bill, which should hit the Senate floor
soon. And senators stuck a mandate for free or
reduced MBTA fares for low-income riders to their
infrastructure bill.
Unable to
move their ideas as standalone bills, supporters of
other proposals are also desperately angling to glom
their measures on to larger bills that they believe
will reach the governor's desk. The strategy puts
more chips on the table ahead of the wheeling and
dealing among senior House and Senate Democrats who
can trade priorities in late-session dealmaking.
When the
dust settles in early August, supporters of bills
that come up short can point to whatever momentum
they were able to achieve to position themselves in
the 2023-2024 session, when many Democrats are
convinced that one of their own -- Attorney General
Maura Healey -- will hold the governorship and bring
a new ideology to the governor's office on issues
like abortion rights and gun control, for instance.
Some good news came our
way this week — tax reforms along with at
least minimal tax relief. It remains hard to comprehend how
taxpayers are likely in line to have only a total of $1 Billion
refunded out of an astounding revenue surplus over the past two
years of over $9 Billion from over-taxation. I suppose
anything is better than nothing from the Massachusetts
Legislature. Still, that's the most the Democrat-dominated
House and Senate felt they had to surrender to perform a victory lap
of greed.
The
Boston Globe reported on Tuesday ("Mass. lawmakers
promise one of Beacon Hill’s largest packages of tax
relief in a generation"):
With just
three weeks left in their legislative session, top
Massachusetts Democrats on Monday unveiled a
multibillion-dollar economic development package
that pledges more than $1 billion in tax breaks and
rebates, including increases to the credits that
seniors, low-income workers, and parents can claim.
The
sweeping bill would constitute one of the largest
tax relief measures in Massachusetts in a
generation, and offers a response to calls for
Beacon Hill to ease the burden on taxpayers at a
time of sharply spiking consumer prices and
overflowing state coffers.
In all,
the $3.8 billion package House Democrats released
Monday includes nearly $524 million in permanent tax
breaks, as well as $510 million in previously
announced one-time rebates that would be distributed
to potentially millions of taxpayers by October....
“These tax
changes are permanent,” House Speaker Ronald Mariano
said. “They don’t expire, they are not sun-setted.”
It’s also
likely taxpayers may not realize them for nearly two
years. Each of the measures would take effect in
January, House officials said, meaning residents are
likely to claim the increased credits when filing
their 2023 taxes in the spring of 2024....
Most tax
debate in recent years on Beacon Hill have focused
on how to raise levies, not slash them, whether it
be during the depths of the recession when
then-governor Deval Patrick signed $1 billion in tax
increases into law, or in 2020, when the House
passed a $600 million tax package that died during
the pandemic.
One of the
last major tax decreases residents enjoyed came from
a 2000 initiative voters approved to lower the
state’s income tax from 5.85 percent to 5 percent.
But it took nearly 20 years for it to be fulfilled,
thanks to a years-long, legislatively created
process to phase in the decline far more slowly than
voters wanted.
"One of the
last major tax decreases residents enjoyed came from
a 2000 initiative voters approved to lower the
state’s income tax from 5.85 percent to 5 percent.
But it took nearly 20 years for it to be fulfilled,
thanks to a years-long, legislatively created
process to phase in the decline far more slowly than
voters wanted."
That
would be CLT's rollback of the "temporary" income tax hike of 1989
that we put on the 2000 ballot and won with an overwhelming vote.
Two years later the Legislature "froze" it, again "temporarily,"
with an convoluted formula of economic "triggers" which stalled our
full rollback back down to 5 percent until 2020 — two decades
after the voters had ordered it done. How much did that
rejection of the voters' decision by the Legislature cost
Massachusetts taxpayers over that twenty years?
But
be not concerned. The Legislature will in all its generosity
be providing a one-time tax rebate of $250 for some
individual taxpayers. Recognize also that $250 in this
Bidenflation era is equal to a few bucks short of $300 in the
pre-Biden good old days just nineteen months ago, likely to be
devalued even more by the time you receive it in a few months.
But it'll be in your hands before the November election so you'll
know who to thank. House Speaker Ron Mariano had a message for
those who see this token refund as insulting if not a bad joke,
according to the State House News excerpt from its Weekly Roundup
that follows:
. . . House Democrats kicked
off the week by unveiling additional contours of
their long-awaited tax relief plan: $500 million in
permanent annual tax breaks and credits for renters,
parents, seniors and those affected by the estate
tax to go alongside the previously announced $500
million in one-time, $250 payments to middle-income
earners.
What about those who
are uninspired by the idea of a $250 check, which
one reporter likened to "an expensive coffee, not a
Dunkies, but an expensive coffee a week"?
"Send it back to me if
it's not enough," House Speaker Ronald Mariano
joked. . . .
State
House News Service,
Friday, July 15, 2022 ("Weekly Roundup - Pack It On"):
The House and Senate
advanced some $15 billion in legislation over the
course of the week, stepping closer to sending Baker
authorizations for multibillion-dollar
infrastructure investments, one-time tax rebates for
millions of Bay Staters, and a list of earmarks for
local projects thick enough to be published as a
novella.
In free-spend mode,
they worked day and night to pump up the combined
bottom lines of an economic development bill and an
infrastructure bond bill by more than $900 million
-- nearly the entire value of the combined rebates
and tax breaks the House took months to craft.
And that money flying
through the halls of Beacon Hill all comes before
passage of a roughly $50 billion final budget for
fiscal year 2023. That action now appears imminent.
Legislative leaders, who showed no desire to get the
spending bill done by the July 1 deadline, announced
Thursday that they reached "an agreement in
principle," which has the potential to allow the
state to shed its
last-in-the-nation-without-a-budget label.
House Democrats kicked
off the week by unveiling additional contours of
their long-awaited tax relief plan: $500 million in
permanent annual tax breaks and credits for renters,
parents, seniors and those affected by the estate
tax to go alongside the previously announced $500
million in one-time, $250 payments to middle-income
earners.
What about those who
are uninspired by the idea of a $250 check, which
one reporter likened to "an expensive coffee, not a
Dunkies, but an expensive coffee a week"?
"Send it back to me if
it's not enough," House Speaker Ronald Mariano
joked.
Although they faced
some pressure from progressives within their own
ranks and voices outside the State House to scrap an
income floor denying the rebates to anyone who
earned less than $38,000 last year, representatives
stuck to their tax proposal as drafted and insisted
that much of the relief would flow to low-income
earners.
They were less hesitant
about making other changes. The House over two days
packed on nearly $480 million in additional spending
to the economic development bill, and they also
added language that would greenlight deployment of
online lottery games in Massachusetts -- an idea
that much of the Senate's current leadership has
previously opposed even though the full Senate
approved the idea in 2016.
That's the thing about
big spending bills that move at the end of session:
they can be a home for almost anything lawmakers
want to toss into the mix.
Legislative leaders
often leave priorities until the eleventh hour, and
catch-all bills can help them minimize the impacts
of procrastination. They also sometimes slide
language unpopular with the other branch or Baker
into a larger proposal as a negotiation tactic,
hoping it will get more attention as part of a bill
bound to pass than it would languishing as a
standalone idea that never emerges.
The House wasn't alone
using the amendment process to reshape a hefty bill.
Across the hall, senators padded an infrastructure
bond bill with $440 million in amendments...
I
admit surprise with the Legislature holding the line on no tax
rebates to those who didn't pay any taxes I'd have expected
the House, Senate, or both to cave to their most useful favored
constituency, but legislative leaders held firm.
On Monday The
Boston Globe reported ("The Legislature wants to
give tax rebates to many, but not all.
Some lawmakers and experts say more help for
low-income families is needed."):
In
response to intense pressure to provide relief to
families squeezed by inflation, Massachusetts
lawmakers last week unveiled a plan to give
potentially millions of taxpayers a one-time rebate
of $250, or $500 for some dual-income households.
But the
floor, which excludes the state’s lowest income
residents, has given some lawmakers and experts
pause.
State
Senator Diana DiZoglio sent a letter to Senate
President Karen E. Spilka, saying that she agreed
with the rationale for the proposed rebate but
expressed her distaste for the income floor, calling
the proposal “unsupportable.”
But top
lawmakers say that low-income earners were
prioritized in the last year, with stimulus
payments, enhanced unemployment benefits, and a
temporary extension of the federal child tax credit.
“We felt
we had addressed a lot of the needs there,” House
Speaker Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, said last
week, referring to the state’s low-income earners.
In a
statement Monday, Spilka said “every working
individual making less than $38,640 who filed taxes
in 2021 and did not claim unemployment was eligible
to receive a $500 COVID premium payment.”
“Those
checks have already gone out,” she said.
But some
of those benefits were meant for pandemic-related
expenses, some argue, and left out swaths of poor
residents like those who don’t earn their income,
don’t have Social Security numbers, received
unemployment benefits, or were too old or young to
be eligible.
Imagine that? Excluded from the small tax rebates were "swaths
of poor residents like those who don’t earn their income, don’t have
Social Security numbers, received unemployment benefits, or were too
old or young to be eligible." Oh the cruelty, the horror — the
shameless inhumanity of not doling out more to the swaths of poor
residents who didn't earn their income or even have a Social
Security number! Sen. DiZoglio and some "experts" don't seem
to recognize that this "tax relief" maneuver is minimal political
cover for legislators by rebating a pittance of the overpaid taxes
to those from whom the billions in overpayments were extracted — not
another welfare handout.
Other political news that
should be of interest:
With the
state Supreme Judicial Court having rejected his
challenge to the new law making early voting and
vote-by-mail permanent features of elections here,
MassGOP Chairman James Lyons said Monday that he
plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to
"provide relief to prevent a constitutional
travesty."
State
House News Service
Monday, July 11, 2022
SJC Upholds Mail-in, Early
Voting Law
Galvin Ready To Mail Ballots, Lyons Plans Appeals To
U.S. Supreme Court
The push
to deny driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants has
hit the grocery stores where the competition is as
fierce as the discounts inside....
“We’re
literally being blocked when we set up,” MassGOP
Chairman Jim Lyons said about the signature tables
at mostly grocery stores. “They are being
off-the-charts aggressive and I told them they are
violating the law.”
Booths
seeking to repeal the law have been targeted in
Waltham, Tewksbury, Berlin and less so in Haverhill.
Police were called to a Tewksbury store where
“protesting customers from signing the petition,”
police wrote. It got so bad police asked everyone to
go.
The Boston Herald
Monday, July 11, 2022
Signature drive to put
driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants
up for a vote in
November heats up;
Protesters called out for being too
‘aggressive’
Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons
said Thursday he's noticed a common trend among
leftist efforts to shut down the daily signature
collection drives necessary to put the question of
whether illegal immigrants should be entitled to
receive state-issued driver's licenses before voters
in the form of a referendum.
"The
leftists harassing our volunteers are deploying
what's known as a 'heckler's veto,' which happens
when one side throws a big enough tantrum and
creates enough of a nuisance to prompt police or
store managers to have to shut down the collection
drive altogether," Lyons said. "That's what's been
happening in front of supermarkets across
Massachusetts on a daily basis." ...
Similar
incidents have been reported at shopping centers in
Hudson, Chelmsford, and Waltham. Lyons earlier this
week issued an advisory to local Republican
committee leaders requesting that volunteers refrain
from engaging with protesters, and if necessary,
call police to file formal complaints....
Massachusetts Republican Party
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Press Release: Radical leftists
deploy "heckler's veto" strategy
in effort to shut down referendum signature
collection drives
For those interested in
getting or signing a petition to repeal the law recently passed to
allow illegal aliens to acquire Massachusetts driver’s licenses, or
to find locations this weekend or in the days ahead where you can
sign one, visit the sponsor’s website:
https://www.fairandsecurema.com/
Or contact Wendy via email
at:
Wendy@fairandsecurema.com –
or -
wendydwakeman@yahoo.com
Citizens for Limited Taxation is
not in a position to do more
than pass on this invitation to our members. Please
DO NOT send any completed
petitions to CLT or you’ll have wasted your postage, time and
effort.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
State House News
Service
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Last In Nation, Budget Negotiators Still “Getting There”
By Michael P. Norton and Sam Doran
The House budget chief is "hopeful" that a deal on the
overdue state budget will be reached this week, but did not
on Tuesday call a deal "very close," as his Senate
counterpart did on Monday.
"We're getting there, but it's not done 'til it's done,"
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Aaron
Michlewitz told the News Service on Tuesday afternoon.
The budget was due by July 1. As talks drag on deeper into
the month, the chief negotiators -- Michlewitz and Senate
Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues -- remain on
budget duty rather than focused squarely on a mountain of
other unfinished major bills, and myriad calls from advocacy
groups to pass additional legislation.
Formal sessions are scheduled under legislative rules to end
for the year on July 31, so the window is closing on a
process that's likely to eventually require many additional
votes on budget amendments and potential gubernatorial
vetoes.
Rodrigues said Monday that budget negotiators were "very
close" to a deal.
The developing accord is setting up like a politician's
dream, with enough revenue available to fund the most
generous spending plans on the negotiating table while still
leaving sufficient revenue to pay for a tax relief package
and drive up the state's rainy day savings account to a new
high.
Massachusetts is pretty much last-in-the-nation on its
fiscal 2023 budget.
Most states start their fiscal year July 1, and the National
Conference of State Legislatures reported that Massachusetts
and Pennsylvania were the two states entering fiscal 2023
that day without a plan in place.
Pennsylvania missed its Constitutional deadline by eight
days, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Its
Republican-majority General Assembly passed a budget accord
Friday that was signed the same day by Democrat Gov. Tom
Wolf.
Michigan is the only other state that hasn't finalized its
budget, but it isn't late, according to the National
Association of State Budget Officers. The Great Lake State's
budget is already on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk and its
fiscal year doesn't start until Oct. 1.
The Boston
Globe
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Mass. lawmakers promise one of Beacon Hill’s largest
packages of tax
relief in a generation. It mirrors much of what Governor
Baker pitched in January.
By Matt Stout
With just three weeks left in their legislative session, top
Massachusetts Democrats on Monday unveiled a
multibillion-dollar economic development package that
pledges more than $1 billion in tax breaks and rebates,
including increases to the credits that seniors, low-income
workers, and parents can claim.
The sweeping bill would constitute one of the largest tax
relief measures in Massachusetts in a generation, and offers
a response to calls for Beacon Hill to ease the burden on
taxpayers at a time of sharply spiking consumer prices and
overflowing state coffers.
In all, the $3.8 billion package House Democrats released
Monday includes nearly $524 million in permanent tax breaks,
as well as $510 million in previously announced one-time
rebates that would be distributed to potentially millions of
taxpayers by October.
Many of the proposed tax breaks hew closely to a plan
Governor Charlie Baker released months ago, and leaders in
the House and Senate say they have agreed to the “framework”
of the tax changes, which should help ease its passage
during the final scramble before the formal legislative
session ends on July 31.
The House bill would spend more than $2.5 billion from a
state budget surplus — which is expected to range in the
billions — and the state’s remaining share of federal
stimulus money, including doling out hundreds of millions of
dollars for hospitals, infrastructure projects, and the
state’s unemployment trust fund.
“We have stayed focused on providing real relief for the
citizens of the Commonwealth,” Representative Mark J.
Cusack, a Braintree Democrat and the House’s revenue
chairman, told reporters Monday. “Not political gimmicks,
not what’s politically expedient, not for a quick press hit
that we have seen not work in state after state across the
country. What we have here today is $1 billion in relief.”
As part of the bill, lawmakers are seeking to increase a tax
credit low-income seniors can claim to offset property taxes
or rental costs, hiking the maximum from $1,170 to $1,755.
They also want to increase the state’s child and dependent
tax credit to allow families to claim $310 per dependent —
the current credit per child is $180 — and eliminate a total
$360 cap. The plan would also increase the state’s earned
income tax credit from 30 percent to 40 percent of the
federal tax credit, a move lawmakers say would help nearly
400,000 taxpayers with incomes under $57,000.
The plan would also lift a deduction cap some 881,000
renters can claim to $4,000 from $3,000, marking what would
be the first adjustment in more than two decades.
The most costly proposed tax change — and the one that would
affect the fewest people under the plan — targets the
state’s estate tax. Currently, just 12 states, plus
Washington, D.C., tax estates after death, according to the
AARP, with Massachusetts taxing estates above $1 million.
That’s tied with Oregon for the lowest threshold in the
country.
Similar to Baker’s proposal, House lawmakers are seeking to
double it to $2 million, and tax only those dollars after
that threshold; currently, should an estate exceed the $1
million mark, all the money is taxed. The House is also
seeking to increase the tax rate on estates over $5 million,
from 16 to 17 percent, to potentially capture more from the
state’s wealthiest.
All told, the changes would help roughly 2,500 taxpayers
save more than $200 million annually, the House estimated.
The House is expected to debate and pass the measure this
week, after which it would go to the Senate.
“These tax changes are permanent,” House Speaker Ronald
Mariano said. “They don’t expire, they are not sun-setted.”
It’s also likely taxpayers may not realize them for nearly
two years. Each of the measures would take effect in
January, House officials said, meaning residents are likely
to claim the increased credits when filing their 2023 taxes
in the spring of 2024.
The proposal appears to borrow heavily from Baker’s plan for
$700 million in tax breaks, though with slightly different
dimensions. “The Administration is pleased that the
Legislature is advancing many of these ideas,” Terry
MacCormack, a Baker spokesman, said in a statement Monday.
It also didn’t include several of Baker’s ideas. The House
opted against raising the income threshold for residents to
qualify for “no-tax status,” a move Baker administration
officials said would help save 234,000 taxpayers roughly $41
million.
Democrats have also shunned Baker’s proposal to reduce the
tax rate on short-term capital gains — investments held for
up to a year — from 12 percent to 5 percent. Progressive
lawmakers have criticized it as a move that would largely
benefit the state’s wealthier residents.
Most tax debate in recent years on Beacon Hill have focused
on how to raise levies, not slash them, whether it be during
the depths of the recession when then-governor Deval Patrick
signed $1 billion in tax increases into law, or in 2020,
when the House passed a $600 million tax package that died
during the pandemic.
One of the last major tax decreases residents enjoyed came
from a 2000 initiative voters approved to lower the state’s
income tax from 5.85 percent to 5 percent. But it took
nearly 20 years for it to be fulfilled, thanks to a
years-long, legislatively created process to phase in the
decline far more slowly than voters wanted.
The drumbeat recently has been for more relief. Baker and
others have repeatedly pressed lawmakers to take action,
citing the state’s strong financial standing.
The state still has $2.3 billion in unspent federal stimulus
money, of which nearly $1.3 billion would be spent under the
House bill. And the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a
business-backed budget watchdog that has pushed Baker’s tax
cut package, projected lawmakers will have an additional
surplus of nearly $3.6 billion from the fiscal year that
ended last month.
Eileen McAnneny, the foundation’s president, praised the
House’s package for offering help to low- and middle-income
families, but she bristled at the effort to increase the tax
rate on the most valuable estates, arguing it will give
“another reason for wealthy residents to leave this state.”
Baker has already said he’d back a proposal the Legislature
announced last week to send potentially millions of
taxpayers a one-time $250 rebate by October. Under the $510
million plan, those eligible would have to have reported a
minimum of $38,000 in 2021 income, and not more than
$100,000 for individual filers or $150,000 for joint filers.
Representative Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat who is
his chamber’s budget leader, said the rebate program would
be the third-largest in the country, behind ones in Georgia
and Colorado.
The economic development bill announced Monday would fund a
variety of other areas. It would set aside $350 million for
what House officials called “financially strained”
hospitals, as well as $165 million for nursing facilities.
Another $175 million would go toward upgrading state parks
and recreational facilities, while $300 million would help
prop up the state’s unemployment trust.
As expected, the bill would delay Baker’s push to redevelop
the Hynes Convention Center.
It also would create a new tax credit program for theater
productions, allowing up to $5 million to help cover
payroll, production, and transportation costs. The program
has similarities to the state’s controversial film tax
credit program, which lawmakers last year voted to make
permanent.
The state’s Inspector General in the spring urged lawmakers
not to adopt a theater production credit. As proposed by the
House, the program would offer a 35 percent credit for
in-state labor costs, which Inspector General Glenn Cunha
has said is higher than every other live theater tax credit
program in the country.
The Boston
Globe
Monday, July 11, 2022
The Legislature wants to give tax rebates to many, but not
all.
Some lawmakers and experts say more help for low-income
families is needed.
By Samantha J. Gross
When James Gilliam and his wife, Hiroko, moved from Missouri
to Peabody to be near their grandchildren in 2013, they soon
learned the premium they’d pay for living in Massachusetts —
from housing costs to car registration. But lately Gilliam,
a retired family portrait photographer and his wife, a
former Japanese teacher, find themselves pinched even more
by inflation.
And with little earned income and poverty-level Social
Security payments, they wouldn’t benefit from a proposed
rebate the Legislature has put forward for households that
reported at least $38,000 in 2021 income.
“It doesn’t seem to serve the purpose of helping people,”
Gilliam, 78, said. “We get absolutely nothing.”
In response to intense pressure to provide relief to
families squeezed by inflation, Massachusetts lawmakers last
week unveiled a plan to give potentially millions of
taxpayers a one-time rebate of $250, or $500 for some
dual-income households.
But the floor, which excludes the state’s lowest income
residents, has given some lawmakers and experts pause.
State Senator Diana DiZoglio sent a letter to Senate
President Karen E. Spilka, saying that she agreed with the
rationale for the proposed rebate but expressed her distaste
for the income floor, calling the proposal “unsupportable.”
But top lawmakers say that low-income earners were
prioritized in the last year, with stimulus payments,
enhanced unemployment benefits, and a temporary extension of
the federal child tax credit.
“We felt we had addressed a lot of the needs there,” House
Speaker Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, said last week,
referring to the state’s low-income earners.
In a statement Monday, Spilka said “every working individual
making less than $38,640 who filed taxes in 2021 and did not
claim unemployment was eligible to receive a $500 COVID
premium payment.”
“Those checks have already gone out,” she said.
But some of those benefits were meant for pandemic-related
expenses, some argue, and left out swaths of poor residents
like those who don’t earn their income, don’t have Social
Security numbers, received unemployment benefits, or were
too old or young to be eligible.
Phineas Baxandall, a senior tax analyst at the left-leaning
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said for those who
didn’t benefit from pandemic-related benefits last year but
make less than $38,000, “it’s insult to injury for them,” he
said.
“And it’s hardly as if folks under $38,000 are in great
economic shape now,” he said.
Some lawmakers have attempted to ease the squeeze on their
constituents in other ways, proposing relief to serve as an
alternative to a suspension of the state’s gas tax, an
action pushed by Republicans in the state but firmly
rejected by Massachusetts’ overwhelmingly Democratic
Legislature.
Spilka, Mariano, and other legislative leaders also support
a package that would increase the child and dependent care
tax credit, the earned income tax credit, the senior circuit
breaker tax credit, and provide for rental assistance, all
proposals legislative leaders say are designed to benefit
low-income families.
In an interview, DiZoglio, a Methuen Democrat, who is also
running for state auditor, said “there should absolutely not
be a minimum income requirement” on the tax rebates, noting
that the current state of inflation is a “different
emergency” than that of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which
some workers received assistance from the state and federal
government.
The state is facing what’s projected to be a nearly $3.6
billion surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30,
DiZoglio wrote in her letter, leading her to ask: “What
reason can we rightfully give to exclude lower income
households from receiving a straightforward tax rebate?”
State Senator Becca Rausch, a Needham Democrat, filed an
amendment to give a rebate to anyone under a certain income
threshold who owned a gas-powered vehicle or received
government benefits, “to make sure we were capturing
everybody. "
“We need to capture all the people who are really feeling
that pinch the most,” she said.
The new rebate plan emerged as lawmakers remain in
negotiations over the $50 billion state budget. The plan was
tucked into a wide-ranging economic development bill that
emerged in the House Monday, which pledges more than $1
billion in tax breaks and rebates, including increases to
the credits that seniors, low-income workers, and parents
can claim.
The rebate would cost between $500 million and $510 million
and could be financed by the expected multibillion-dollar
budget surplus. Representative Mark J. Cusack, the House
chairman of the revenue committee, said last week that more
than 2 million taxpayers could receive a rebate.
“This has been an ongoing evaluation of what has the best
impact on the most amount of people,” Mariano told reporters
Monday morning. “That is what we tried to do.”
But for the Gilliams, lawmakers’ rebate plan falls short
“If we had to rent, we couldn’t live here,” Gilliam said
The Boston
Globe
Friday, July 15, 2022
Mass. House approves wide-ranging economic development bill
that offers tax relief, health care investments, earmarks
By Samantha J. Gross
The Massachusetts House Thursday night passed a massive,
wide-ranging economic development bill that infuses $4.2
billion into the state economy in the form of tax relief,
investments in health care and environmental programs, and
support to businesses, as well as a slew of policy changes
and earmarks for local projects and programing.
The bill would be paid for by a combination of $2.8 billion
in federal American Rescue Plan dollars and expected state
surplus money, and $1.4 billion in money the state borrows
through bonds.
Much of the spending is meant to target “communities that
were hardest hit by the pandemic,” Representative Aaron
Michlewitz, a North End Democrat who is the House’s budget
leader, said while presenting the bill Wednesday morning.
“This is a well-rounded spending package that will help
support major sectors of our economy and help us be more
competitive with other states.”
In a two-day process of amending the bill, House members
dispatched nearly 900 amendments by bundling some and
leaving others out behind closed doors, then publicly
passing multiple mega “consolidated” amendments. The
amendments totaled $468 million in added funds.
The legislation serves as a vehicle for tax reform and
relief, which was born out of pressure to help residents
being squeezed by record-high inflation during “unsettling
times,” Michlewitz said. The bill would give potentially
millions of middle income taxpayers a one-time stimulus
check of $250 or $500 for joint filers, but only for those
who reported at least $38,000 in 2021 income, a caveat that
has drawn scrutiny.
Mirroring tax breaks pitched by Governor Charlie Baker, it
also would increase the deduction renters can claim,
increase the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, increase the
threshold on the state’s estate tax, and increase the
state’s child and dependent tax credit.
That adds up to a total of nearly $524 million in permanent
tax breaks and $510 million in one-time relief payments.
The bill included $100 million for the Affordable Housing
Trust Fund and $25 million to address food insecurity. It
sets $350 million aside for “financially strained”
hospitals, $165 million for nursing facilities, $15 million
for reproductive health care providers, and $175 million for
state parks and public recreation. An additional $300
million goes toward the state’s unemployment fund.
Lawmakers tucked policy changes into the legislation too,
creating a controversial $5 million annual live theater tax
credit, a major expansion of the Housing Development
Incentive Program, a feasibility study on the future of the
Hynes Convention Center that would delay Baker’s push to
redevelop the prime Back Bay real estate, and, notably,
authorizing the Massachusetts Lottery to sell products
online.
Marlene Warner, executive director of the Massachusetts
Council on Gaming and Health, said her group, which works to
address gaming problems and addiction, said Treasurer
Deborah B. Goldberg has wanted online lottery products “for
a long time,” and that she plans to send a letter expressing
her concerns when the bill presumably will go to a joint
conference committee with representatives and senators after
the Senate is set to pass its own version early next week.
Warner said future legislation or rulemaking should create
guard rails to encourage heathy gaming online, such as a
dashboard to show customers how much time or money they have
spent on the website or practice sites where customers can
learn how to play the games.
“I think the Massachusetts State Lottery has a steep hill to
climb to be prepared for their current products and future
products to go online,” Warner said.
In a statement, Goldberg said her office “is prepared to
implement a safe and reliable iLottery product for
Massachusetts residents.”
One bundle of amendments the House passed Thursday was an
$85 million assortment of earmarks to fund local projects,
with bigger items including $8 million for riverfront
upgrades in Revere, $5 million for the Martin Richard
Foundation and Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester to
renovate the Dorchester Field House in Harbor Point, $5
million for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute to pay its debt,
and $1 million to repair and upgrade the Basketball Hall of
Fame in Springfield.
Another “consolidated” mega-amendment added about $24
million in spending for local and statewide environmental
and tourism projects, such as $1 million for projects at the
Old South Meeting House and Old State House in downtown
Boston, $2 million for a climate-resilient waterfront park
in East Boston, and $2 million for upgrades to the New
England Aquarium.
The largest consolidated amendment was a $250 million
package that included $50 million for MBTA improvements in
Norfolk County, $10 million to renovate the Huntington
Theatre in Boston, and $10 million for low-income
communities to build broadband networks.
That one passed around 9:30 p.m. Thursday, with no debate.
The bill notably does not include a suspension of the
state’s gas tax, a provision that was pushed by many
Republicans and business interest groups.
“We have not done what is politically expedient or a quick
press hit,” Representative Mark J. Cusack, a Braintree
Democrat and the House’s revenue chairman, said on the House
floor Wednesday during the first day of debate. “We learned
from state after state what works and what doesn’t, and
that’s how we got here today.”
The pending final vote on the economic development bill
comes as the chambers resolve differences in their budgets
for the 2023 fiscal year, which began July 1. According to
House and Senate budget chiefs, a compromise budget document
will be released “in the coming days” and will be primed for
a Monday vote.
“We’ve obviously got a time crunch here,” Michlewitz said.
“We’ve definitely got some work to do, but I feel confident
we’ll be able to get it done.”
State House News
Service
Friday, July 15, 2022
Weekly Roundup - Pack It On
By Chris Lisinski
When he returns from a string of travel to Vacationland, Sin
City and a conference with fellow Republicans in Colorado,
Gov. Charlie Baker will have a lot of line items to read.
The House and Senate advanced some $15 billion in
legislation over the course of the week, stepping closer to
sending Baker authorizations for multibillion-dollar
infrastructure investments, one-time tax rebates for
millions of Bay Staters, and a list of earmarks for local
projects thick enough to be published as a novella.
In free-spend mode, they worked day and night to pump up the
combined bottom lines of an economic development bill and an
infrastructure bond bill by more than $900 million -- nearly
the entire value of the combined rebates and tax breaks the
House took months to craft.
And that money flying through the halls of Beacon Hill all
comes before passage of a roughly $50 billion final budget
for fiscal year 2023. That action now appears imminent.
Legislative leaders, who showed no desire to get the
spending bill done by the July 1 deadline, announced
Thursday that they reached "an agreement in principle,"
which has the potential to allow the state to shed its
last-in-the-nation-without-a-budget label.
House Democrats kicked off the week by unveiling additional
contours of their long-awaited tax relief plan: $500 million
in permanent annual tax breaks and credits for renters,
parents, seniors and those affected by the estate tax to go
alongside the previously announced $500 million in one-time,
$250 payments to middle-income earners.
What about those who are uninspired by the idea of a $250
check, which one reporter likened to "an expensive coffee,
not a Dunkies, but an expensive coffee a week"?
"Send it back to me if it's not enough," House Speaker
Ronald Mariano joked.
Although they faced some pressure from progressives within
their own ranks and voices outside the State House to scrap
an income floor denying the rebates to anyone who earned
less than $38,000 last year, representatives stuck to their
tax proposal as drafted and insisted that much of the relief
would flow to low-income earners.
They were less hesitant about making other changes. The
House over two days packed on nearly $480 million in
additional spending to the economic development bill, and
they also added language that would greenlight deployment of
online lottery games in Massachusetts -- an idea that much
of the Senate's current leadership has previously opposed
even though the full Senate approved the idea in 2016.
That's the thing about big spending bills that move at the
end of session: they can be a home for almost anything
lawmakers want to toss into the mix.
Legislative leaders often leave priorities until the
eleventh hour, and catch-all bills can help them minimize
the impacts of procrastination. They also sometimes slide
language unpopular with the other branch or Baker into a
larger proposal as a negotiation tactic, hoping it will get
more attention as part of a bill bound to pass than it would
languishing as a standalone idea that never emerges.
The House wasn't alone using the amendment process to
reshape a hefty bill. Across the hall, senators padded an
infrastructure bond bill with $440 million in amendments,
pushing funding for a western Massachusetts rail expansion
$25 million above the House-approved level and authorizing
new investments in fare-free transit and extensive ferry
pilots.
However, the most significant Senate addition came on the
policy front. Potentially risking exposure to a
gubernatorial veto for the second session in a row, senators
voted to add language requiring the MBTA to implement a free
or reduced fare program across the system for low-income
riders.
The MBTA is careening toward a cliff with a budget gap of
hundreds of millions of dollars looming and a backlog of
unaddressed maintenance needs, but senators feel it's
imperative for the agency to absorb the new cost -- which
the T projected at $52 million to $85 million a year -- of
slashing fares for qualifying riders.
"We have the funding," said Sen. Lydia Edwards of East
Boston, likely with an eye toward the historic state budget
surplus, which voters outside the T district are also eager
to share in. "We can do this."
Baker is not so sure Massachusetts has the funding, or at
least he wasn't 18 months ago when he vetoed a nearly
identical requirement from a transportation bond bill the
Legislature sent him in the final stretch of the 2019-2020
session.
Democrats left themselves without time last session to flex
their veto-proof majorities on an override, and they will
have to work quickly this time around to keep that option on
the table. The House left a similar mandate on the cutting
room floor last month in its version of the infrastructure
bill.
The Senate's amendment was actually the second time this
week that concerns about a potential Baker veto popped into
view.
Top Senate Democrats kept their version of a reproductive
and gender-affirming care access bill narrower in scope on
late-term abortions than the House did. While the House bill
explicitly adds "severe fetal anomalies" to the list of
allowable reasons for an abortion after 24 weeks of
pregnancy, the Senate bill instead seeks to clarify the
language in the existing law.
In 2020, Baker vetoed the ROE Act, which eventually became
law through an override, partly over concerns with how it
expanded the availability of abortions later in pregnancy.
Baker has not yet weighed in on the latest bill. He spent
part of the week in Portland, Maine for a National Governors
Association event and will continue his sojourn from the
local spotlight with a family trip to Las Vegas followed by
a few days in Colorado to meet with Republican governors.
But would the Republican governor, who describes himself as
pro-choice and implemented several abortion access
protections in an executive order, go for a veto again if
the bill included the word "severe"?
"Based on what I know of the governor's past actions, I
think that is a fair assumption," said Sen. Cindy Friedman,
an Arlington Democrat and lead sponsor of the Senate's
rewrite. "His issues originally were around late-term
pregnancies and early consent, and this goes directly at
that."
Lawmakers this week quickly sent the abortion access bill
prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson
decision into private conference committee negotiations, as
they did with competing versions of a veterans bill that
took dramatically different approaches.
That pushed the number of active conference committees
working to secure final passage of already-approved bills to
10, an unusually high number.
Not every pressing matter needed a panel of negotiators,
though. The House and Senate found a way to reach agreement
more informally on Thursday, settling on a bill that will
extend through the end of March several pandemic-era
policies set to lapse Friday.
Another measure rolled out as a COVID response is also here
to stay. The state's highest court on Monday rejected a
state Republican Party challenge to a new law permanently
allowing mail-in voting and expanded early voting.
MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons said he will appeal the case to
the U.S. Supreme Court, but in the meantime, the route is
clear for Secretary of State William Galvin to begin
printing ballot applications.
The state Supreme Judicial Court issued a brief order
upholding the law supporters dubbed the VOTES Act, and
justices will later publish a full opinion outlining their
rationale.
"For me, it's kind of like getting dessert before dinner,"
Galvin, a Democrat, said of receiving the order before the
opinion. "The bottom line is I got my dessert."
STORY OF THE WEEK: Three more milestone bills advance
dealing with abortion access, decades of investment in
environmental and transportation infrastructure, and
economic development, and the changes adopted along the way
could create friction in House-Senate negotiations.
SONG OF THE WEEK: By adopting nearly $480 million in
amendments on a House economic development bill and $440
million in amendments on a Senate infrastructure bond bill,
lawmakers were happy to take the legislation and pump it
up....
State House News
Service
Friday, July 15, 2022
Advances - Week of July 17, 2022
The universe of major bills that appear on a glide path
toward Gov. Charlie Baker is coming into clearer focus each
day, and perhaps the biggest of those bills is poised to
land on his desk Monday, when Baker plans to be in Colorado
meeting with Republican governors.
House and Senate Democrats have again made Massachusetts the
last state with an annual budget in place, but signaled
Thursday that they have an agreement and just need a little
more time to finalize details and will have a fiscal 2023
budget ready for votes on Monday, when both branches have
scheduled formal sessions.
A sweeping abortion rights bill was assigned Thursday to a
conference committee and once the Senate passes its version
of an omnibus economic development bill - their proposal is
coming out on Monday - that legislation will also be routed
to conference.
A glut of conference committees have already been created,
with House and Senate members just waiting for some of them
to reach agreements on issues like sports betting, climate
and energy policies, mental health care and cannabis
industry operations. But with just two weeks before formal
sessions end for the year, it's time to fret for proponents
of other measures like sex education legislation, a sexting
and revenge porn bill, checks on hospital expansions, and
assorted prescription drug policy measures.
Each of those topics has gotten through one branch but not
the other. It's also the time of session where the parasite
effect kicks in. Proponents of online Lottery wagering were
able to convince the House this week to attach their
proposal to the economic development bill, which should hit
the Senate floor soon. And senators stuck a mandate for free
or reduced MBTA fares for low-income riders to their
infrastructure bill.
Unable to move their ideas as standalone bills, supporters
of other proposals are also desperately angling to glom
their measures on to larger bills that they believe will
reach the governor's desk. The strategy puts more chips on
the table ahead of the wheeling and dealing among senior
House and Senate Democrats who can trade priorities in
late-session dealmaking.
When the dust settles in early August, supporters of bills
that come up short can point to whatever momentum they were
able to achieve to position themselves in the 2023-2024
session, when many Democrats are convinced that one of their
own -- Attorney General Maura Healey -- will hold the
governorship and bring a new ideology to the governor's
office on issues like abortion rights and gun control, for
instance.
As the News Service continues its gavel-to-gavel coverage of
the session, keep an eye on which major bills legislative
leaders choose to move next week since those may be the
proposals where they are expecting vetoes or amendments from
the governor and they need to leave themselves time to
respond before the curtain closes on formal sessions for
2022....
Tuesday,
July 19, 2022
BACK TO TAXACHUSETTS? Pioneer Institute Executive
Director Jim Stergios and senior fellow Charles Chieppo lead
a discussion about their new book "Back to Taxachusetts?"
The book summarizes 24 studies conducted by the institute
that attempt to document what they believe will be the
negative consequences of a ballot question backed by the
Legislature to amend the Constitution and add a surtax of 4
percent on all annual household income over $1 million.
The discussion is expected to focus on evidence used by
Stergios and Chieppo to argue that the tax will cause
homeowners, retirees and small business owners to leave
Massachusetts, having a negative impact on the economy. The
virtual event is hosted by the Massachusetts High Technology
Council. A question-and-answer session will follow the
presentation and all attendees will receive a complimentary
copy of the book.
State House News
Service
Monday, July 11, 2022
SJC Upholds Mail-in, Early Voting Law
Galvin Ready To Mail Ballots, Lyons Plans Appeals To U.S.
Supreme Court
By Colin A. Young
With the state Supreme Judicial Court having rejected his
challenge to the new law making early voting and
vote-by-mail permanent features of elections here, MassGOP
Chairman James Lyons said Monday that he plans to appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court to "provide relief to prevent a
constitutional travesty."
Lyons and a handful of Republican candidates filed a lawsuit
last month seeking to overturn the so-called VOTES Act,
which made voting-by-mail permanent in Massachusetts. The
plaintiffs argued last week before the SJC that the VOTES
Act, which codified pandemic-era policies that proved
popular with voters, violates the allowances for absentee
voting contained in Article 105 of the state Constitution
and that Secretary of State William Galvin should be blocked
from sending mail-in ballot applications to the more than
4.7 million voters in Massachusetts.
In June, the voting reforms were enacted on a 37-3 vote in
the Senate and by a 126-29 margin in the House.
The court ruled in an order Monday morning that "judgment
shall enter in the county court for the Secretary on all
claims in the plaintiffs' complaint" and that "the
plaintiffs' request to enjoin the Secretary from putting the
VOTES act into effect is denied." The ruling clears the way
for Galvin to begin sending ballot applications by the July
23 deadline called for in the law, though he said he intends
to beat the deadline.
"We proved here in Massachusetts that election reforms that
empower voters work. We demonstrated that with the success
of our turnout numbers but also by the transparency by which
we conducted those elections. The success beyond any doubt
of those elections, the integrity of the elections that we
held, the absence of controversy about ballots being counted
-- all of that proves that the reforms and election laws
that empower voters, that include voters, works," Galvin
said at the State House on Monday, noting that the deadline
for voters to apply for a mail-in ballot for the Sept. 6
primaries will be Aug. 29. He added, "We hope to lead the
nation. We hope that, as we regretfully see around the
country the pendulum swing the other way -- voters being
deprived of their rights, limited opportunities -- is the
wrong way to go. The right way to go is the way that we're
going."
Lyons and the GOP pointed to part of the Massachusetts
Constitution that explicitly allows for absentee voting for
three reasons -- when a voter is going to be out of town for
Election Day, has a disability, or has a religious-based
conflict with Election Day -- and argued those were the only
allowable reasons a voter should vote by mail. The
defendants and others, however, argued that mail-in voting
is a form of early voting, totally separate from Election
Day and absentee voting covered by the Constitution.
The SJC's order did not come with the usual explanation of
the justices' thinking, so it is not known exactly how the
justices came down on that question. The court said it
wanted to issue the order quickly because the deadline for
Galvin to mail the applications is fast approaching and
added that a complete opinion detailing the court's thinking
would "follow in due course."
"The presses are rolling to put out the applications,"
Galvin said Monday. "We queued up everything we need to do.
We expect the presses to be rolling ... today. It's a huge
mailing, in excess of 4 million pieces." He added, "We're
doing it as rapidly as possible."
Lyons said the Republican Party appreciates the
consideration of the seven SJC justices, all of whom were
nominated to the SJC by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. But
he also noted that the case "presented significant issues of
both state and federal law."
"With respect, however, [the SJC justices] are the final
arbiters of state law. Their decisions must also conform to
the federal constitution. Having conferred with counsel, we
will be seeking emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court
because of federal law issues presented in the VOTES Act,
including the first amendment black-out posed by the
electioneering ban, the differential treatment between
absentee voters and early voters, and the enshrining of the
partisan selection of election officials into state law,"
Lyons said.
The VOTES Act's extension of the existing electioneering
buffer zone requirements for Election Day polling places to
early voting locations during voting hours was one area of
the MassGOP's complaint that justices zoomed in on during
last week's oral arguments.
"The electioneering ban ... which before only applied to
polling places on the narrow occasion of Election Day, now
covers town hall for weeks at a time. It is by definition no
longer a narrowly-tailored impingement upon free speech,"
Michael Walsh, a Lynnfield attorney representing Lyons and
the plaintiffs, wrote in his brief. "Since the ban is now
not restricted to a single-use facility, the geographic
location conscripted for 12 hours of polling on election
day, it restricts all manner of access to the government."
Justice Scott Kafker took note of the expansion of the times
when the 150-foot buffer zones are in effect and what that
could mean for the expression of rights by citizens at
places like city or town hall when those facilities are
functioning as early voting locations.
"I'm just trying to understand," he said. "So we've got
these smaller towns in Massachusetts where town hall is,
basically, the single public forum ... and it's going to be
shut down for two weeks or so."
Getting the matter before the U.S. Supreme Court will be no
small task for Lyons and the Republican Party. To request a
stay in an election law case, someone must file an
application that goes before a circuit justice who can grant
or deny the request on their own, or send the request to the
full court for the justices to vote on, according to an
explainer published by SCOTUSBlog.
If an application gets to the full court, justices consider
whether they would be likely to take the case up on its own
merits, whether there would be a "fair prospect" that they
would overrule the lower court, and whether the lower court
ruling would cause permanent harm if allowed to remain in
effect, SCOTUSBlog said. At least five justices would need
to be in favor for the court to grant a stay.
The legislative leaders who shepherded the VOTES Act through
their chambers said repeatedly that they were confident it
would withstand a legal challenge, though they often said so
without getting into the reasons for their confidence.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano said Monday afternoon that he
was not at all surprised with the SJC's ruling.
"We did a very good bill and we were confident that we would
be successful in any challenge. That's not a surprise," he
said.
Asked about Lyons' declaration that he would attempt to
bring the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, the speaker
said, "They can do whatever they want."
— Chris Lisinski contributed
to this report.
The Boston
Herald
Monday, July 11, 2022
Signature drive to put driver’s licenses for illegal
immigrants
up for a vote in November heats up;
Protesters called out for being too ‘aggressive’
By Joe Dwinell
The push to deny driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants has
hit the grocery stores where the competition is as fierce as
the discounts inside.
The campaign needs 41,000 signatures to put a referendum
question on the statewide November ballot to overturn the
law. Those signatures are due by Aug. 24 and some Democrats
— including a state senator — have soured on the idea.
“We’re literally being blocked when we set up,” MassGOP
Chairman Jim Lyons said about the signature tables at mostly
grocery stores. “They are being off-the-charts aggressive
and I told them they are violating the law.”
Booths seeking to repeal the law have been targeted in
Waltham, Tewksbury, Berlin and less so in Haverhill. Police
were called to a Tewksbury store where “protesting customers
from signing the petition,” police wrote. It got so bad
police asked everyone to go.
A 1983 state Supreme Judicial Court case upheld the rights
of anyone to solicit signatures at shopping centers — giving
this push legal footing. “Interference or attempted
interference with these rights … violates the state civil
rights law,” a directive states.
State Sen. Jamie Eldridge told the Herald Monday he is proud
to be protesting signature gatherers attempting to overturn
the state’s new immigrant license law.
“I have been proud to support the Work and Family Mobility
Act, and oppose the effort to repeal the law, sharing with
voters my point of view,” he said.
The Act was made law last month over the veto of Gov.
Charlie Baker and will grant illegal immigrants the ability
to demonstrate their identification with home nation
documents giving them access to the driver’s licensing
process.
Ballot proponents, led by Maureen Maloney — the mother of a
man slain by an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk —
have been working to gather the more than 40,000 signatures
they will need to get a question onto the ballot, which
would ask voters whether they want to overturn the law.
According to Eldridge, he has been supporting protests
against signature gatherers he found at the Cabela’s in
Hudson over the last two weekends, but did not attempt to
stop their signature gathering or prevent signers from
signing.
“I have not interfered with any voters who have decided to
sign the petition,” he told the Herald.
Eldridge said that the petitioners are expressing their
rights, but that so is he.
“Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the
rights of free speech are among our most cherished and
protected liberties. These rights also apply when an
individual, or a group of individuals, publicly collect
signatures to pass a particular bill, and when they
respectfully provide the other point of view, including when
voters are being solicited outside of a retail store,” he
said.
Lyons, however, sees it differently.
“We have a right not to be interfered with,” he said, adding
other protesters have taken sides against funding for police
and other far-left causes. “They are going way too far and
Eldridge is acting like an elitist.”
Both Republican candidates for governor, Geoff Diehl and
Chris Doughty, announced they would also work to gather
supporting signatures.
The law, as it stands now, will allow those without legal
status, but with the ability to demonstrate their identity
using documents from their home country, to receive driver’s
licenses from the state on July 1, 2023.
Massachusetts Republican
Party
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Press Release: Radical leftists deploy "heckler's
veto" strategy
in effort to shut down referendum signature collection
drives
WOBURN -- Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons
said Thursday he's noticed a common trend among leftist
efforts to shut down the daily signature collection drives
necessary to put the question of whether illegal immigrants
should be entitled to receive state-issued driver's licenses
before voters in the form of a referendum.
"The leftists harassing our volunteers are deploying what's
known as a 'heckler's veto,' which happens when one side
throws a big enough tantrum and creates enough of a nuisance
to prompt police or store managers to have to shut down the
collection drive altogether," Lyons said. "That's what's
been happening in front of supermarkets across Massachusetts
on a daily basis."
Lyons said this exact scenario recently played out at a
Tewksbury Market Basket where he was collecting signatures.
A left-wing activist later identified by police as Wes
McEnany was part of a group of individuals who, according to
Lyons, caused enough of a disturbance to prompt police to
order both sides to leave the premises.
McEnany has previously advocated on social media in favor of
"defund(ing) the police and "kick(ing) cops out of unions."
Similar incidents have been reported at shopping centers in
Hudson, Chelmsford, and Waltham. Lyons earlier this week
issued an advisory to local Republican committee leaders
requesting that volunteers refrain from engaging with
protesters, and if necessary, call police to file formal
complaints.
On Thursday, MassGOP's legal counsel distributed a memo to
Market Basket's upper management describing the situation,
noting that state law protects the rights of volunteers to
collect signatures at high-traffic public shopping areas, as
long as they do not interfere with business.
"Our volunteers have been peacefully collecting signatures
but when agitators begin bothering customers and causing a
commotion, it creates problems for the businesses," Lyons
said. "For those unaware, it is an outright violation of
state civil rights laws to interfere with individuals
collecting signatures for a referendum.
"Leftists think that if they throw a big enough tantrum,
they can shut us down. This has been their strategy since
day one."
Lyons added that the central goal for signature collectors
is for Massachusetts voters to decide whether a partisan law
passed by solely by Democrats to reward illegal immigrants
with the privilege of securing a state driver's license
should remain on the books.
"If the Democrats and their shopping center agitators think
this is such a great law, what could they possibly be
worried about?," Lyons said. "We want the people to be the
ones who decide this, and not elitist Democrats who think
they know better than the voters." |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
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interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
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