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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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After nearly half a
century of saving Massachusetts taxpayers countless billions of
their dollars,
Citizens for Limited Taxation will be permanently shut down on December
31, 2022
due to insufficient and diminishing support from those taxpayers.
Goodbye, and good luck. |
CLT UPDATE
Saturday, December 31, 2022
Reactions to CLT's
Imminent Shutdown:
Is Taking Out Proposition 2½ the First Target?
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
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More than
900,000 Massachusetts residents have received tax
refunds so far under Chapter 62F [CLT's 1986 Tax Cap
law], the controversial tax cap law that’s requiring
state government to return nearly $3 billion in
excess revenues back to taxpayers.
That
equates to nearly $1 billion distributed to eligible
Bay Staters as of Tuesday, a state official told
MassLive Thursday evening.
The Baker
administration began doling out checks at the start
of November, with the distribution process expected
to span through mid-December. It’s a randomized
rollout, meaning officials are not sending refunds
to the lowest earners first, alphabetically, or in
any other predictable order....
The
Department of Revenue previously said it intended to
send out about 500,000 Chapter 62F refunds in the
first week, followed by about 1 million in
subsequent weeks “until all currently eligible
refunds have been distributed.”
The
Springfield Republican
Friday, November 11, 2022
At least roughly $1 billion
in tax refunds sent to Mass. residents so far
Lower the
flag to half-staff. Don a black armband. Citizens
for Limited Taxation — one of the most admirable
grass-roots organizations ever created in
Massachusetts and the most influential ally the
commonwealth’s taxpayers ever had — has passed away
peacefully at 48.
In
a final
e-mailed update to supporters and friends on
Nov. 11, CLT’s executive director Chip Ford reviewed
the results of the election, analyzed developments
on Beacon Hill, and expressed gratitude to the small
band of donors who kept CLT alive for so many years.
He noted with pride that CLT had saved Massachusetts
taxpayers “tens of billions of their dollars” and
was “leaving them in a far better place than had CLT
never existed.”
The most
recent evidence of CLT’s beneficent legacy is —
literally — in the mail. Even as the organization
turns out its lights for the last time, checks are
being mailed this month to every single Bay State
taxpayer under the terms of a 1986 law limiting
state tax revenue from growing faster than the wages
and salaries of Massachusetts residents. It was CLT
that drafted that law and got it on the ballot in
the teeth of
opposition from Beacon Hill. Because CLT refused
to stand down then, $3 billion is on its way back to
taxpayers now....
Again and
again, CLT saddled up to fight for tax relief. A
long crusade to roll back the income tax rate in
Massachusetts to 5 percent
finally prevailed in 2000. CLT repeatedly had to
head off attempts by legislators to eviscerate
Proposition 2½ and always found itself ridiculously
outmatched, above all when it came to staff and
money. At its peak, it had only four paid staffers —
and they were paid a pittance. Before she retired as
executive director, Anderson was getting just $10 an
hour. For CLT’s devoted activists, it was never
about their money. It was always about the people’s
money. In the Commonwealth’s storied history,
perhaps no one since Samuel Adams has done more for
the sake of Massachusetts taxpayers.
Over time,
Massachusetts taxpayers came to take CLT for
granted. They got used to property taxes that could
no longer shoot upward, to auto excise fees that
were modest, and to an income tax lower than that in
many other states. Having achieved most of what it
set out to accomplish, CLT saw its thousands of
supporters dwindle to just a few dozen. Its funding,
always modest, trickled to a halt.
Anderson died of cancer in 2016; Ford, now 73,
is retiring.
For nearly
half a century, Citizens for Limited Taxation fought
the good fight with hard work, fierce integrity, and
good humor, leaving Massachusetts better than it
found it. If you live in this state, CLT deserves
your thanks.
Barbara
Anderson, the longtime executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation,
outside of her home in Marblehead, Mass., in 1990.
The
Boston Globe
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
RIP, Citizens for Limited Taxation
The most influential ally Massachusetts taxpayers
ever had is turning out the lights.
By Jeff Jacoby
Citizens
for Limited Taxation, one of the most powerful
forces on Beacon Hill for nearly a half century, one
that has kept billions of dollars in your wallet and
away from the government, has quietly closed its
doors.
R.I.P.,
CLT.
Have you
gotten a check or a deposit from the state lately?
In fact, more than 1.3 million Massachusetts
taxpayers have received about $1.2 billion in
refunds, and there are still 1.8 million people
awaiting another $1.8 billion.
Thank CLT.
Back in
1986, the small band of taxpayer advocates backed a
referendum preventing state tax revenue from growing
faster than the salaries and wages of Massachusetts
residents. Beacon Hill objected, of course, but
voters approved the proposal.
For years,
the law was forgotten. But the law resurfaced this
year when Massachusetts enjoyed a historic surplus
and the state was forced to return about $3 billion
to taxpayers.
Because
CLT fought state leadership, you received or will
get a refund that will at least take a little sting
out of the skyrocketing prices of food and fuel.
But CLT is
best known for the law known as Proposition 2½....
CLT was
always a small group without a lot of money.
Anderson’s top pay as executive director reportedly
was $10 an hour.
The ranks
have grown even thinner in recent years, as has the
money.
Anderson
died of cancer in 2016, followed three years later
by Faulkner, also of cancer.
The
current executive director, Chip Ford, is retiring
at age 73. In a final email sent to supporters and
friends, he thanked the donors who kept the
organization alive for 48 years. The organization,
Ford said, saved Massachusetts taxpayers “tens of
billions of dollars” and was “leaving them in a far
better placed than had CLT never existed.”
That’s
very true, and that’s why I’ll say it again — and
why we should all say it.
Thanks,
and R.I.P., CLT.
The
[Attleboro] Sun Chronicle
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Thank you CLT
By Mike Kirby
It’s the
day after the midterms and one of the biggest issues
on the ballot — Question 1 about income tax rates —
has either won or lost.
The
referendum was widely endorsed, including by The Sun
Chronicle, but it was not necessarily on its way to
victory as I sat down last week to write this
day-after column.
That is
the local connection to previous statewide anti-tax
campaigns which go all the way back to 1980 and —
does this ring a bell? — Proposition 2½.
The local
connection is Francis “Chip” Faulkner, a Norfolk
native, president of the Class of 1963 at King
Philip Regional High School, longtime resident of
Wrentham (and later Attleboro). He was well known to
conservative politicians and his memory was honored
in 2020 by placement of a bench and plaque in the
lobby of KPRHS.
Faulkner
was the No. 2 person in Citizens for Limited
Taxation which was led by tax foe Barbara Anderson
for 35 years. She was a media personality and an
indefatigable campaigner against a graduated income
tax, but she also could make people laugh.
She told
The Boston Globe in 1994, “There are three reasons
to oppose the grad tax: One, you can’t trust the
Legislature; two, it’s bad for the economy; and
three, you can’t trust the Legislature.”
Anderson
died in 2016 and Faulkner in 2019, but their legacy
lives on....
Proposition 2½ was only one of CLT’s undertakings.
[Faulkner] and Barbara Anderson were drivers of
successful efforts to repeal a state income tax
surtax and defeat a “temporary” state income tax
rollback which was not what it seemed.
As for the
1994 campaign against a graduated income tax they
had the support of Republican Gov. William Weld, who
skewered the proposal with a famous one-liner: “I
majored in classics and I think I know a Trojan
horse when I see one.”
Weld won
re-election that year with 71 percent of the vote
while the grad tax proposal lost by almost as much,
69.6 percent.
The
current governor, Republican Charlie Baker, was a
Weld protégé and served in his administration. Baker
did not take a firm stand on Question 1, saying
only, “I don’t think we should be raising taxes.”
But in eulogizing Barbara Anderson in 2016, he
credited her with moving Massachusetts from the
sixth-heaviest taxed state to 36th.
Chip
Faulkner, shown in 1978, was an advocate for the
tax-limiting law
that eventually became known as Proposition 2½.
Sun Chronicle ARCHIVES
The
Attleboro Sun Chronicle
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
What would Chip Faulkner
think?
By Ned Bristol
Was it
greed or envy or resentment? Or was it all three
that prompted just over half the state to vote for
the Question 1 tax hike on Nov. 8?
It
couldn’t have been want of money. Even as the voting
took place, Massachusetts taxpayers were/are getting
tax refunds. Those refunds are coming, courtesy of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, because Massachusetts
had a tax surplus in 2021, and, according to the
law, overtaxed its citizens.
In
addition to that, the state is awash in money: This
year’s tax receipts are running 5% ahead of last
year, which ran 20% ahead of the year before, which
ran 15% ahead of the year before that.
Voters
knew all this, so something besides a need for money
motivated the “yes” vote. Despite the advocates
outspending the opposition 2:1, the vote was a close
52-48. The proponents claimed it was just a
“millionaire” tax – implying that only those
routinely earning ordinary income of over $1 million
would pay. But that’s not true. The surtax also
applies to sales of small businesses and homes.
I know of
a woman who enthusiastically voted for the tax hike.
She thought it applied only to those with annual
income over $1 million. Then she found out that the
million-dollar threshold also applies to the money
she’ll get when she sells one of her two houses. She
was horrified and utterly distraught.
Apparently, life was joyous when she voted to take
away other people’s money. (They have too much
anyway.) But her money, well now, that’s a different
matter entirely.
The woman
is not exceptional. We all know people of similar
bent....
There is,
of course, another category of takers: those who are
always feeding at the government trough. For them,
the tax take is never large enough, and they find it
easy to vote other people’s money for themselves.
The action
of these constituencies was manifest in places that
are hotbeds of left-wing sentiment. Boston approved
the surtax with 65%. Cambridge delivered 75%
approval; Somerville, 79%.
In this
matter, Massachusetts lurched further left than even
ultra-liberal California. There, voters struck down
Proposition 30 – to impose a 1.75% tax on annual
incomes above $2 million. A bad sign when we’re to
the left of California.
Citizens
for Limited Taxation (CLT) was founded in 1975 to
oppose the fourth graduated income tax proposal –
defeated on the 1976 ballot. CLT also defeated the
fifth attempt in 1994. Now, regrettably, CLT is
closing down. But the best summary quote for the
2022 result comes from CLT’s indefatigable executive
director, Chip Ford: “I hope none of those who voted
to end the century-old flat income tax ever becomes
successful enough to regret their decision.”
Applause,
curtain.
The
Boston Herald
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Greed, envy resentment spurred
Question 1 vote
By Avi Nelson
Robert
DeNiro once said, “You’ll have time to rest when
you’re dead.” But surely the spirit of Barbara
Anderson is restless these days.
Anderson,
one of the state’s most impactful political
activists from her perch as executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT), passed in 2016.
Had she lived, she would be incensed about three
events this month:
● The end
of her friend and former ballot-campaign sparring
partner Jim Braude’s run as host of WGBH-TV’s
nightly news show;
● The
failure of Gov. Charlie Baker’s effort to fulfill
her dying wish for a pardon for Gerald Amirault and
his sister Cheryl, who she believed had been
unfairly convicted in a controversial 1980s child
sexual abuse case;
● And
worst of all, the official demise of CLT, the group
she steered for four decades. “The time has come to
pass the tax limitation torch on to another
generation,” said CLT Executive Director Chip Ford,
who’s been keeping the group alive on a shoestring
since decamping to Kentucky four years ago....
Ford says
he hopes the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (MFA), a
conservative non-profit that’s been turning out
polls, lawsuits and literature attacking the
tax-and-spend establishment for a decade, can fill
the breach. He says he’s impressed with their
“organizational ability” and “high-tech capacity.”
But he
also says MFA lacks “institutional memory” and
doesn’t “grasp the magnitude of a petition drive,”
CLT’s signature technique for harnessing populist
anti-tax backlash. That’s an understatement....
CLT was a
legit grassroots operation – at its peak, a few
business contributors and a bunch of small-dollar
donors gave them a puny $250,000 budget to work
with. A 2020 MFA federal tax filing reports $490,532
in contributions and grants, apparently not enough
to buy a fraction of the visibility and clout
Anderson once wielded....
“I think
Massachusetts is a hopeless cause,” says Ford.
That’s bad news for Barbara Anderson’s legacy, not
to mention all others who pale at the prospect of
future tax hikes. As Cheri Reval, author of “Haunted
Massachusetts,” once put it: “If the dead can’t rest
in peace, how on Earth can the living?”
MASSterList
Monday, December 26, 2022
Keller @ Large
Why Barbara Anderson can’t
rest in peace
Over the
last few decades, Massachusetts has passed a host of
major laws and regulations that made good sense at
the time but aren't well-suited for our current,
overheated economic environment. Recall the recent
kerfuffle over state tax rebates and 62F, and then
imagine it splintered across the policy landscape as
other long-standing laws have their unforeseen
quirks exposed by a new economic reality.
Take
Proposition 2½, a 1980s-era ballot initiative
setting strict limits on property taxes in cities
and towns....
This cap
made a certain kind of anti-tax sense when inflation
was muted and real estate prices were rising at a
steady, but not extravagant, pace. In those
circumstances, it acted as a meaningful but not
debilitating check on local taxes across the 351
cities and towns in Massachusetts.
But at
moments of high inflation and tight labor markets --
like right now -- Proposition 2½ takes on a whole
different character. It doesn't just limit local tax
growth; it forces municipalities to actually cut
taxes (in real terms) even as it gets more expensive
to hire municipal workers and purchase construction
materials....
Some of
the pillars of state policy were built for a very
different economic world, one where inflation was
mild enough to be treated as background noise and
job creation was a driving challenge. But these
pillars are starting to crack; we'd be well served
to fix some and replace others.
CommonWealth Magazine
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Old laws, like Prop. 2½,
need to adapt to times
By Evan Horowitz
Don't
touch Proposition 2½. That's what Gov. Charlie Baker
had to say in an exit interview yesterday with WBZ's
Jon Keller. In excerpts that aired on CBS last
night, Baker talked taxes and his concern for the
message sent in November by the passage of the
so-called "millionaire's tax." "There's going to be
a lot of consequences, I think, that won't be all
that great to some of the issues associated with the
millionaires tax," Baker said.
Keller
pushed further, asking about a return to "Taxachusetts"
and whether Proposition 2½ -- the ballot law that
caps annual growth in property taxes -- could be at
risk. Baker said that during his eight years Prop 2½
was "sacrosanct," but he acknowledged that the idea
of tinkering with or scrapping the law is always
lurking just beneath the surface. "I think doing
anything to Prop 2½ would be a huge mistake," Baker
said. The full interview airs Saturday morning.
MASSterlist
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Baker: Hands off Proposition 2½
CBS
Boston | WBZ TV-4
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Keller @ Large: Governor Baker says rising taxes
could hurt Massachusetts
CLICK ABOVE GRAPHIC TO WATCH
@1:10 mins
WBZ-TV's
Jon Keller reports.
Keller:
"And what about Proposition 2½, the 41 year old
property tax limitation law that some on Beacon Hill
have been trying to undermine for years?"
Gov.
Baker: "Yes, it's always on the agenda. Prop 2½ has
been on the radar every year as long as I can
remember."
The choice
that was placed before voters on whether to levy an
additional 4% tax on high incomes raised and spent
tens of millions more dollars this general election
cycle than all of the major party statewide
campaigns for office combined....
According
to data provided by the Massachusetts Office of
Campaign and Political Finance, the campaign to
pass question 1, which passed by about 4 points,
raised over $32.2 million and spent about $28.5
million in 2022 to convince residents taxing incomes
over $1 million would result in better roads and
more successful schools.
The
general election campaigns of candidates for
governor, lieutenant governor, state treasurer,
attorney general, secretary of the commonwealth and
state auditor from the Republican and Democratic
parties raised, between the 11 of them, just $11.6
million in 2022, according to OCPF.
The
campaign against question 1 raised $14.4 million,
according to OCPF, also out-raising and outspending
all of the general election candidates.
“Tens of thousands of union members funded
this campaign with their hard-earned wages
because they cared deeply about improving our
schools, colleges, roads, and transit. And thousands
of volunteers across the state spent nights and
weekends talking to their neighbors about Question
1, because they wanted to see the ultra-rich finally
pay their fair share,” [Fair
Share Campaign spokesman Andrew] Farnitano
said....
Question
4, which asked voters whether to keep a law passed
this summer, the Work and Family Mobility Act, or to
overturn it. 53.7% of voters thought that people who
cannot demonstrate lawful presence in the state
should nevertheless be allowed driver’s licenses.
The law will take effect in July.
Supporters raised $3.6 million, opponents, who
gathered the tens of thousands of signatures
required to add the question to the ballot, raised
just $222,000.
The
Boston Herald
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Question 1 out-raised, outspent
all other statewide campaigns combined
In the
2022 midterm elections, residents of California,
like those of Massachusetts, voted to put Democrats
in commanding control of their state government.
Yet these two left-leaning electorates rendered
opposing verdicts on similar tax measures seeking to
raise state income tax rates on upper income
households.
With 57%
voting No, California voters resoundingly defeated
Proposition 30, a ballot measure that would’ve added
a new, 15.05% top marginal state income tax rate
applying to income above $2 million. At 13.3%,
California already levies the highest top personal
state income tax rate in the country....
While
Golden State voters rejected an income tax hike on
high earners, in Massachusetts another “millionaires
tax” proposal, Question One, passed with nearly 52%
support. Question One is a constitutional amendment
that will move Massachusetts from a flat to
progressive income tax structure. Massachusetts
currently has a 5% flat state income tax rate and
passage of Question One will create a new 9% rate on
income above $1 million dollars.
Question
One is projected to raise an additional $1.5 billion
annually for state coffers. Whereas the progressive
tax hike rejected by Californians would’ve been used
to fund EV infrastructure, the income tax increase
approved in Massachusetts will use the additional
funds to boost education and transportation
spending.
While
the state teachers union was a major opponent of the
defeated California income tax increase, they
were the top proponent and funder of the
Massachusetts income tax hike. The California
Teachers Association spent $5 million to defeat
Proposition 30. The Massachusetts Teachers
Association, meanwhile, spent $15.5 million in
support of Question One. The American Federation for
Teachers also kicked in $6.7 million to help pass
the income tax hike....
By moving from a flat to a progressive income tax
structure, Massachusetts is bucking a national
trend, as more states have been moving in the
opposite direction, going from a progressive to a
flat income tax. In September, Idaho became the
fifth state in the past two years where lawmakers
enacted legislation moving from a progressive to a
flat state income tax structure. Other states where
lawmakers have passed legislation to move from a
progressive to flat income tax over the past two
years include Georgia, Mississippi, Iowa, and
Arizona.
Forbes
Magazine
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Massachusetts Voters Approve
‘Millionaires Tax’
As Californians Reject An Income Tax Hike On High
Earners
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary |
|
As CLT departs the
scene in Massachusetts forever after the past 48 years of
relentlessly defending its taxpayers, it's gratifying to see
that some recognize its contribution to the commonwealth
— in terms of the actual
definition and meaning of that word.
But it wasn't just
the few who actually appreciate the multiple billions CLT
has saved Bay State taxpayers over its existence for almost
half a century. The Takers are also awakening,
sensing the potential opportunity not available for so long
to take back all that CLT has provided to The Producers.
The Takers
have noted CLT's departure and already are wheeling and
circling overhead like vultures eyeing their next carrion
banquet below. This is not surprising, considering
their longtime hatred of CLT's Proposition 2½
and its supporters, and the frustration with their failed
efforts to unwind if not destroy tax limitations of any
sort.
Moving right in, on December 11
CommonWealth Magazine published an article by Evan
Horowitz, the executive director of the Center for
State Policy Analysis at Tufts University,
presenting the most direct assault on Proposition 2½
in memory ("Old laws, like Prop. 2½, need to adapt to times").
I expect their gloves are off and they'll be coming
for Prop
2½ very soon. Here's a
few excerpts of what Horowitz asserted:
Over the last few decades,
Massachusetts has passed a host of major laws and
regulations that made good sense at the time but aren't
well-suited for our current, overheated economic
environment. Recall the recent kerfuffle over state tax
rebates and 62F, and then imagine it splintered across
the policy landscape as other long-standing laws have
their unforeseen quirks exposed by a new economic
reality.
Take Proposition 2½, a 1980s-era
ballot initiative setting strict limits on property
taxes in cities and towns....
This cap made a certain kind of
anti-tax sense when inflation was muted and real estate
prices were rising at a steady, but not extravagant,
pace. In those circumstances, it acted as a meaningful
but not debilitating check on local taxes across the 351
cities and towns in Massachusetts.
But at moments of high inflation
and tight labor markets -- like right now -- Proposition
2½ takes on a whole different character. It doesn't just
limit local tax growth; it forces municipalities to
actually cut taxes (in real terms) even as it gets more
expensive to hire municipal workers and purchase
construction materials....
Some of the pillars of state policy
were built for a very different economic world, one
where inflation was mild enough to be treated as
background noise and job creation was a driving
challenge. But these pillars are starting to crack; we'd
be well served to fix some and replace others.
Horowitz hopes his
audience is too ignorant to recall events that happened more
than twenty minutes ago, let alone what was happening 43
years ago in 1980 when our Proposition 2½
ballot question was adopted by an overwhelming vote of
60%-40%. We CLT members and staff are not. We
are aware that Prop 2½ passed
the same year Ronald Reagan was first elected president
after trouncing the last Democrat incumbent, Jimmy Carter,
who delivered the worst inflation in memory, even worse than
today's Bidenflation.
"But at moments of high inflation and
tight labor markets — like right now — Proposition 2½ takes
on a whole different character," Horowitz,
the executive director of the Center for State
Policy Analysis at Tufts University, pronounced. "Some
of the pillars of state policy were built for a very
different economic world, one where inflation was mild
enough to be treated as background noise and job creation
was a driving challenge. But these pillars are starting to
crack; we'd be well served to fix some and replace others,"
he added.
But that is either an intentional lie or his
ignorance alone should disqualify him for his position with
Tufts University.
According to
InflationData.com ("Inflation
in the 1980s"):
In January 1980, Inflation was
13.91%, and Unemployment was 6.3%. Inflation peaked in
April 1980 at 14.76% and fell to “only” 6.51% the
following April. By December 1989, Inflation had
decreased drastically to 4.65%, and Unemployment had
declined to 5.4%.
U.S. inflation on
election day 1980 — when CLT's
Proposition 2½ was vigorously adopted
— stood at 12.65%.
The U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics announced this week that current inflation
rate for last month came in at 6.5%.
The unemployment
rate for last month was 3.5% — just
over half the 6.3% rate of 1980.
Nice try Evan but you've just been
exposed as another deceptive tool of The Takers.
On Friday the entire staff at
MassFiscal and I engaged in a Zoom conference meeting to
discuss Proposition 2½ so I could enlighten them
further on its many subtleties, the little-known or
understood complexities, and how they all work together as a
unified package to limit municipal taxation. (You can
read
my briefing paper here.) Going forward I expect
they will be up to the job of preserving and protecting
Proposition 2½.
If you too want to see that happen,
then I recommend that you quickly
contact and support the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
and join their team. Lack of actual support killed
CLT. Now you know that it can, and did happen. I
hope you won't let that happen to MassFiscal, or truly you
will be entirely on your own.
In early June of
last year I recognized the waning interest and support of
taxpayers for Citizens for Limited Taxation. We had
been here before, in 2018, and the result was CLT needing to
shut down before the funds entirely ran out. The
situation in 2022 had only become even graver.
Soon after members
had
the letter from CLT in their hands announcing the
decision to shut down CLT permanently we were all blindsided
by the fantastic news on July 27 that CLT's 1986 Tax Cap law
had been triggered (for only the second time) and a large
refund to taxpayers was likely due to them. So much
for CLT quietly fading away as my days became more
leisurely. Suddenly it was full battle mode around the
clock through mid-December to ensure the refunds went out as
mandated by our law.
If I hadn't
decided in June that CLT required to be shut down due to the
obvious lack of support this would have guaranteed it.
For a long time I've recognized that Citizens for Limited
Taxation is the only organization, the only entity I've ever
heard of where the more successful it was, the more of their
money it saved taxpayers, the more it was punished by them
with less and less support. Providing a $3 Billion
refund in one lump sum to 3.4 million taxpayers would have
drove the final nail into CLT's coffin. The punishment
would have crushed what little of CLT remained. We
dodged that retribution just by the skin of our teeth with
that already-planned exodus!
A few days before
her death Barbara and I had a very solemn discussion about
CLT's future, whether I would keep it going and what would
happen to Proposition 2½ without CLT
there to defend it. She was highly concerned about
seniors living on fixed incomes being forced out of their
homes if property tax policies returned to where they were
prior to 1980. I told her I'd keep CLT going "for as
long as humanly possible" and I did that for the next six
years. My primary focus since making that promise to
her has been defending Proposition 2½.
Now it is out of my hands and back in yours — and those of
the MassFiscal staff. I pray that will be enough to
keep it alive for decades to come.
I wish you the best of luck and
success with that in the months and years ahead. I'll
be watching from afar, rooting for you.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director,
Retired |
|
|
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The
Springfield Republican
Friday, November 11, 2022
At least roughly $1 billion in tax refunds sent to Mass.
residents so far
By Alison Kuznitz
More than 900,000 Massachusetts residents have received tax
refunds so far under Chapter 62F, the controversial tax cap
law that’s requiring state government to return nearly $3
billion in excess revenues back to taxpayers.
That equates to nearly $1 billion distributed to eligible
Bay Staters as of Tuesday, a state official told MassLive
Thursday evening.
The Baker administration began doling out checks at the
start of November, with the distribution process expected to
span through mid-December. It’s a randomized rollout,
meaning officials are not sending refunds to the lowest
earners first, alphabetically, or in any other predictable
order.
Refunds, which are being sent as paper checks in the mail
and via direct deposits, equal about 14% of an individual’s
2021 personal income tax liability. No action is needed from
eligible Bay Staters — namely, those who filed their tax
returns by mid-October or who will do so by mid-September —
to receive the refunds, according to updated eligibility
parameters.
About 200,000 refunds were distributed via direct deposit so
far, with another 700,000 refunds as issued as checks in the
mail, the state official told MassLive.
The Department of Revenue previously said it intended to
send out about 500,000 Chapter 62F refunds in the first
week, followed by about 1 million in subsequent weeks “until
all currently eligible refunds have been distributed.” But
officials warned delays in the U.S. Postal Service might
slow down the process.
Bay Staters can direct their questions about Chapter 62F
refunds to a state call center at 877-677-9727. It’s
available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
The call center has fielded more than 5,600 calls so far,
answering questions about refund amounts and Chapter 62F
overall, the state official said.
The Boston
Globe
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
RIP, Citizens for Limited Taxation
The most influential ally Massachusetts taxpayers ever
had is turning out the lights.
By Jeff Jacoby
Barbara
Anderson, the longtime executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation,
outside of her home in Marblehead, Mass., in 1990.
Lower the flag to half-staff.
Don a black armband. Citizens for Limited Taxation — one of
the most admirable grass-roots organizations ever created in
Massachusetts and the most influential ally the
commonwealth’s taxpayers ever had — has passed away
peacefully at 48.
In a final e-mailed
update to supporters and friends on Nov. 11, CLT’s
executive director Chip Ford reviewed the results of the
election, analyzed developments on Beacon Hill, and
expressed gratitude to the small band of donors who kept CLT
alive for so many years. He noted with pride that CLT had
saved Massachusetts taxpayers “tens of billions of their
dollars” and was “leaving them in a far better place than
had CLT never existed.”
The most recent evidence of CLT’s beneficent legacy is —
literally — in the mail. Even as the organization turns out
its lights for the last time, checks are being mailed this
month to every single Bay State taxpayer under the terms of
a 1986 law limiting state tax revenue from growing faster
than the wages and salaries of Massachusetts residents. It
was CLT that drafted that law and got it on the ballot in
the teeth of opposition
from Beacon Hill. Because CLT refused to stand down
then, $3 billion is on its way back to taxpayers now.
I first heard of Citizens for Limited Taxation in 1980. I
was a newcomer to the state and CLT was the moving force
behind an earlier ballot initiative: Proposition 2½. In
those days, residents of “Taxachusetts” staggered under one
of the highest tax burdens in the nation. But they could get
no relief from Beacon Hill, which was a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Democratic Party and the public-employee
unions.
That didn’t deter CLT, a small but committed band of
activists led by an intrepid free spirit named Barbara
Anderson. (Ford became Anderson’s codirector in 1996). In
the face of wall-to-wall hostility from the state’s
political class, CLT urged voters to approve Proposition 2½,
which was designed to cut property and auto excise taxes,
and establish an income-tax deduction for renters.
Opponents warned that if Proposition 2½ passed, the results
would be catastrophic. Buildings would burn to the ground
for lack of firefighters, sick people would die for lack of
hospitals, and children would wallow in ignorance for lack
of schools. The Massachusetts League of Cities and Towns
prophesied that a yes vote “would effectively wipe out
government.” The Boston Globe urged its readers to vote no,
condemning Proposition 2½ for its “meat-ax approach” and
scorning its supporters as “fanatical.”
The voters trusted CLT. Proposition 2½ became law. Far from
unleashing a cataclysm, the law became —
as the Globe would eventually acknowledge — “the most
powerful engine of change in recent Massachusetts political
history” and the foremost factor in “the state’s amazing
turnaround.”
CLT first came into existence in 1974. It was launched to
fight a proposal to replace the state’s flat-rate income tax
with graduated tax brackets, a proposal it defeated in the
1976 election. In 1994, when a grad-tax proposal was again
on the ballot, CLT again beat it back.
Again and again, CLT saddled up to fight for tax relief. A
long crusade to roll back the income tax rate in
Massachusetts to 5 percent
finally prevailed in 2000. CLT repeatedly had to head
off attempts by legislators to eviscerate Proposition 2½ and
always found itself ridiculously outmatched, above all when
it came to staff and money. At its peak, it had only four
paid staffers — and they were paid a pittance. Before she
retired as executive director, Anderson was getting just $10
an hour. For CLT’s devoted activists, it was never about
their money. It was always about the people’s money. In the
Commonwealth’s storied history, perhaps no one since Samuel
Adams has done more for the sake of Massachusetts taxpayers.
Over time, Massachusetts taxpayers came to take CLT for
granted. They got used to property taxes that could no
longer shoot upward, to auto excise fees that were modest,
and to an income tax lower than that in many other states.
Having achieved most of what it set out to accomplish, CLT
saw its thousands of supporters dwindle to just a few dozen.
Its funding, always modest, trickled to a halt.
Anderson died of cancer in 2016; Ford, now 73, is
retiring.
For nearly half a century, Citizens for Limited Taxation
fought the good fight with hard work, fierce integrity, and
good humor, leaving Massachusetts better than it found it.
If you live in this state, CLT deserves your thanks.
The New York
Times
December 8, 1985
Lobbying Group Seeks Tax Repeal
Special to the New York Times
Visitors to the downtown offices of Citizens for Limited
Taxation catch on very quickly that this organization
emphasizes substance, not style.
Entry is by way of an elevator tucked into the dining area
of a fast-food restaurant. Passage to the top is shared with
mops and buckets of floor cleaner.
Once inside, visitors are greeted by partly consumed meals,
half-empty coffee cups and reams of computer printouts.
But mention Citizens for Limited Taxation or its leader,
Barbara Anderson, to a state legislator, and he will likely
snap to attention - albeit sometimes grudgingly.
In five years this band of tax-curb advocates has become one
of the most effective and controversial political forces in
the state. Its members forced the tax-limiting Proposition
2½ on state government in 1980, with the support of 60
percent of the electorate and against the opposition of most
appointed and elected officials. The law caps municipal
taxing authority at 2½ percent of the fair market value of
property.
Starting at Grass Roots
''Everything starts at the grass roots level,'' Mrs.
Anderson says. ''None of the important issues start at the
government level.''
This week, her organization wrote what is widely regarded as
the second chapter of this state's tax revolution. It
collected more than 135,000 signatures in support of a
petition to repeal the state's 7.5 percent surtax on
personal income. The tax was imposed in 1975 during Gov.
Michael S. Dukakis's first term. The number of signatures is
more than twice the minimum required to place the issue on
the ballot in November.
The petition also calls for limiting the growth in state tax
revenues to a three-year average of growth in taxpayers'
wages and salaries. But Mr. Dukakis and the Legislature hope
to head off that issue. They are scrambling to pass a surtax
repeal bill before the voters get a chance to vent their
feelings at the polls.
Mrs. Anderson, the leading force in this upheaval, divorced
her first husband, a military officer, after he objected to
her demonstrating against the Vietnam War. These days her
politics are generally considered conservative, but she
prefers the label populist.
She says the initiative petition is the trend of the future
and the most efficient way to return government to the
people.
Relations With Governor
Her enthusiasm for cutting taxes has given her high
visibility among the electorate and in the Statehouse, where
she is a registered lobbyist. She has access to the
Governor's policy advisers, but no access to the Governor.
Therein lies a story:
When Mrs. Anderson was introduced to Mr. Dukakis, shortly
before he regained his office in the 1982 election, she
mentioned - in jest, she says - that she hoped to repeal the
surtax. Gov. Edward J. King had tried unsuccessfully in the
bitter primary to defeat Mr. Dukakis with the surtax issue.
''The temperature in the room must have dropped 20
degrees,'' Mrs. Anderson recalled. ''He said, 'Well, you're
not going to get it' and turned on his heels.''
Since then, Mrs. Anderson says, she has not been able to get
an audience with the Governor.
Of course, the surtax repeal is no jest. It would cost the
state about $260 million a year. And with the possiblity of
a third King-Dukakis match in 1986, Mr. Dukakis would like
to see the matter resolved before the legislative year ends
Dec. 31.
Mr. Dukakis says the state can now afford to repeal the
surtax, which he signed into law in a severe recession.
Today Massachusetts is enjoying a budget surplus of historic
proportions, estimated by some to be as high as $400
million.
Opposition From Towns
The repeal effort, however, has its detractors. The
Massachusetts Municipal Association, representing
communities around the state, said last week that repeal
would leave the commonwealth's cities and towns $300 million
in the hole for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1986.
James M. Segel, the association's executive director, said
the deficit would come from not having the surtax to offset
cuts in various Federal programs, including revenue sharing,
mass transportation assistance, housing and development
block grants.
''Why enact a permanent tax cut now?'' Mr. Segel asked.
''Why not wait until we do know the shape of the Federal
budget for fiscal year 1987?''
Mr. Segel's organization was one of the leading opponents to
Proposition 2 ½. In recent months Mr. Segel has publicly
applauded the measure and says it has helped the state
reduce its unhealthy reliance on property taxes.
Since Proposition 2½, the revenue burden on citizens has
dropped dramatically, according to a report last week by a
special tax overhaul commission. The public-private
commission said Massachusetts, for a long time derisively
regarded by industry as ''Taxachusetts,'' is now below the
national average in the per capita tax burden.
In the state Legislature, both the House and the Senate have
passed different versions of a repeal bill. Members of a
legislative conference committee, who were waiting to see
the results of the initiative petition, say they expect a
compromise to be hammered out this week.
If not, Mrs. Anderson said her organization will spend the
next 10 months embarrassing every legislator who voted
against the repeal.
The [Attleboro] Sun
Chronicle
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Thank you CLT
By Mike Kirby
Citizens for Limited Taxation, one of the most powerful
forces on Beacon Hill for nearly a half century, one that
has kept billions of dollars in your wallet and away from
the government, has quietly closed its doors.
R.I.P., CLT.
Have you gotten a check or a deposit from the state lately?
In fact, more than 1.3 million Massachusetts taxpayers have
received about $1.2 billion in refunds, and there are still
1.8 million people awaiting another $1.8 billion.
Thank CLT.
Back in 1986, the small band of taxpayer advocates backed a
referendum preventing state tax revenue from growing faster
than the salaries and wages of Massachusetts residents.
Beacon Hill objected, of course, but voters approved the
proposal.
For years, the law was forgotten. But the law resurfaced
this year when Massachusetts enjoyed a historic surplus and
the state was forced to return about $3 billion to
taxpayers.
Because CLT fought state leadership, you received or will
get a refund that will at least take a little sting out of
the skyrocketing prices of food and fuel.
But CLT is best known for the law known as Proposition 2½.
That referendum, approved in 1980, the same year
Massachusetts voters backed Ronald Reagan for president,
limits the increase in property taxes cities and towns can
collect each year to 2½ percent, plus new construction. The
law also placed a ceiling on the amount a community can
raise in property taxes, limited motor vehicle excise taxes
to 2½ percent and established an income-tax deduction for
renters.
Nearly all 351 cities and towns faced enormous budget cuts
when the law took effect, although Proposition 2½ did allow
municipalities to reduce spending in stages, by 15 percent a
year until they were under the cap.
In Attleboro, for instance, it took three years before Mayor
Gerald Keane and the city council were able to get spending
to comply with Proposition 2½. Dozens of jobs were cut, but
the city managed to find new ways to do business and to
bring in revenue.
For instance, the first trash fees and school athletic fees
were imposed at that time. Water and sewer fees, which were
largely subsidized by property taxes prior to Proposition
2½, were assessed entirely to the users.
Isn’t that just shifting the costs, you ask. Yes, but I’ll
argue that it’s better to have the people who use municipal
services pay for them than a cash-poor, house-rich widow.
Governments actually changed their ways, cutting back on
jobs and programs or simply learning to do with less.
In addition, the state began to better support municipal
governments with higher amounts of local aid. It had no
choice; the law also required the state to fund any mandates
it imposed on cities and towns.
Proposition 2½, at first vigorously opposed by Democrats and
public-employee unions, has gained widespread if begrudging
acceptance as part of the rules of the game in
Massachusetts.
What’s really amazing is that CLT had only been in existence
a few years when the referendum went before voters.
The group was formed in 1974 to fight a proposal to replace
the state’s flat income tax with a graduated system, similar
to the federal government. CLT successfully defeated that
referendum in 1976 and in 1994 when it was proposed again.
CLT was led by Barbara Anderson, a Marblehead resident with
fiery red hair and a personality to match. Often at her side
was a local man, Francis “Chip” Faulkner.
Faulkner, who lived in Wrentham before moving to Attleboro,
was hired by CLT in 1979 to work on the Proposition 2½
campaign, then stayed on in a variety of roles, including
spokesman and associate director. In my days as a reporter,
both Anderson and Faulkner were great to talk to, slinging
quotes that ticked off the political establishment.
CLT was always a small group without a lot of money.
Anderson’s top pay as executive director reportedly was $10
an hour.
The ranks have grown even thinner in recent years, as has
the money.
Anderson died of cancer in 2016, followed three years later
by Faulkner, also of cancer.
The current executive director, Chip Ford, is retiring at
age 73. In a final email sent to supporters and friends, he
thanked the donors who kept the organization alive for 48
years. The organization, Ford said, saved Massachusetts
taxpayers “tens of billions of dollars” and was “leaving
them in a far better placed than had CLT never existed.”
That’s very true, and that’s why I’ll say it again — and why
we should all say it.
Thanks, and R.I.P., CLT.
The Attleboro Sun
Chronicle
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
What would Chip Faulkner think?
By Ned Bristol
Chip
Faulkner, shown in 1978, was an advocate for the
tax-limiting law
that eventually became known as Proposition 2½.
Sun Chronicle ARCHIVES
It’s the day after the midterms
and one of the biggest issues on the ballot — Question 1
about income tax rates — has either won or lost.
The referendum was widely endorsed, including by The Sun
Chronicle, but it was not necessarily on its way to victory
as I sat down last week to write this day-after column.
That is the local connection to previous statewide anti-tax
campaigns which go all the way back to 1980 and — does this
ring a bell? — Proposition 2½.
The local connection is Francis “Chip” Faulkner, a Norfolk
native, president of the Class of 1963 at King Philip
Regional High School, longtime resident of Wrentham (and
later Attleboro). He was well known to conservative
politicians and his memory was honored in 2020 by placement
of a bench and plaque in the lobby of KPRHS.
Faulkner was the No. 2 person in Citizens for Limited
Taxation which was led by tax foe Barbara Anderson for 35
years. She was a media personality and an indefatigable
campaigner against a graduated income tax, but she also
could make people laugh.
She told The Boston Globe in 1994, “There are three reasons
to oppose the grad tax: One, you can’t trust the
Legislature; two, it’s bad for the economy; and three, you
can’t trust the Legislature.”
Anderson died in 2016 and Faulkner in 2019, but their legacy
lives on.
This year’s “millionaires tax” vote came 28 years after the
last comparable effort to amend the state Constitution to
raise taxes. Before that there were four attempts, in 1962,
1968, 1972 and 1976, all of which were landslide losses.
Question 1 was said to apply to 26,000 households, or less
than one percent of taxpayers, and the estimated proceeds of
$2 billion was ostensibly directed to education and
transportation improvements.
It’s important to note that 1980’s Proposition 2½ ballot
question was aimed at property taxes, not income taxes. It
is still in effect. It caps the amount of taxes a community
can levy on homes and businesses, but it also includes
safety valves which allow individual communities to pass
“overrides” to raise taxes.
Proposition 2½ also allows cities and towns to set different
real estate tax rates for homeowners and businesses,
something the Attleboro City Council voted to do last week.
This is the kind of nitty-gritty municipal finance that Chip
Faulkner got into. Proposition 2½ was only one of CLT’s
undertakings. He and Barbara Anderson were drivers of
successful efforts to repeal a state income tax surtax and
defeat a “temporary” state income tax rollback which was not
what it seemed.
As for the 1994 campaign against a graduated income tax they
had the support of Republican Gov. William Weld, who
skewered the proposal with a famous one-liner: “I majored in
classics and I think I know a Trojan horse when I see one.”
Weld won re-election that year with 71 percent of the vote
while the grad tax proposal lost by almost as much, 69.6
percent.
The current governor, Republican Charlie Baker, was a Weld
protégé and served in his administration. Baker did not take
a firm stand on Question 1, saying only, “I don’t think we
should be raising taxes.” But in eulogizing Barbara Anderson
in 2016, he credited her with moving Massachusetts from the
sixth-heaviest taxed state to 36th.
The vote on Question 1 says a lot about state politics and
the politicking to come for the presidential election of
2024.
— NED BRISTOL is a Sun
Chronicle columnist.
The Boston
Herald
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Greed, envy resentment spurred Question 1 vote
By Avi Nelson
Was it greed or envy or resentment? Or was it all three that
prompted just over half the state to vote for the Question 1
tax hike on Nov. 8?
It couldn’t have been want of money. Even as the voting took
place, Massachusetts taxpayers were/are getting tax refunds.
Those refunds are coming, courtesy of Citizens for Limited
Taxation, because Massachusetts had a tax surplus in 2021,
and, according to the law, overtaxed its citizens.
In addition to that, the state is awash in money: This
year’s tax receipts are running 5% ahead of last year, which
ran 20% ahead of the year before, which ran 15% ahead of the
year before that.
Voters knew all this, so something besides a need for money
motivated the “yes” vote. Despite the advocates outspending
the opposition 2:1, the vote was a close 52-48. The
proponents claimed it was just a “millionaire” tax –
implying that only those routinely earning ordinary income
of over $1 million would pay. But that’s not true. The
surtax also applies to sales of small businesses and homes.
I know of a woman who enthusiastically voted for the tax
hike. She thought it applied only to those with annual
income over $1 million. Then she found out that the
million-dollar threshold also applies to the money she’ll
get when she sells one of her two houses. She was horrified
and utterly distraught.
Apparently, life was joyous when she voted to take away
other people’s money. (They have too much anyway.) But her
money, well now, that’s a different matter entirely.
The woman is not exceptional. We all know people of similar
bent. They’re usually not middle-income working folks;
rather they’re pretty well-off themselves. But they look up
resentfully at those they perceive as better off. They
begrudge “rich” people their wealth and often harbor a
suspicion (unverified) that those riches were somewhat
ill-gotten. “Rich” is vaguely defined as anyone who has more
than they, and since we all tend to keep the other guy’s
bankbook more opulently than he does, it’s an oversized
category.
Envy, resentment, greed. Democrats and their constituencies
foster these baser instincts in promoting identity politics
and the politics of class warfare. Democrats’ 11th
Commandment: “Resent and envy thy wealthier neighbors, and
take what thou can from them.” (Democrats rank it higher
than 11th.) But remember, always expropriate by legal
process, so it’s technically not called “theft.”
Then there are those who camouflage their dislike of the
affluent with advocacy of socialism. In pure socialism there
is no private property; everything is owned by the state. So
those who profess socialism can justify seizing others’
private property without limit and without compunction. No
envy or greed here, they protest, they’re just being
devoutly socialistic.
There is, of course, another category of takers: those who
are always feeding at the government trough. For them, the
tax take is never large enough, and they find it easy to
vote other people’s money for themselves.
The action of these constituencies was manifest in places
that are hotbeds of left-wing sentiment. Boston approved the
surtax with 65%. Cambridge delivered 75% approval;
Somerville, 79%.
In this matter, Massachusetts lurched further left than even
ultra-liberal California. There, voters struck down
Proposition 30 – to impose a 1.75% tax on annual incomes
above $2 million. A bad sign when we’re to the left of
California.
Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT) was founded in 1975 to
oppose the fourth graduated income tax proposal – defeated
on the 1976 ballot. CLT also defeated the fifth attempt in
1994. Now, regrettably, CLT is closing down. But the best
summary quote for the 2022 result comes from CLT’s
indefatigable executive director, Chip Ford: “I hope none of
those who voted to end the century-old flat income tax ever
becomes successful enough to regret their decision.”
Applause, curtain.
— Avi Nelson is a
Boston-based political analyst and talk-show host.
MASSterList
Monday, December 26, 2022
Keller @ Large
Why Barbara Anderson can’t rest in peace
by Jon Keller
Robert DeNiro once said, “You’ll have time to rest when
you’re dead.” But surely the spirit of Barbara Anderson is
restless these days.
Anderson, one of the state’s most impactful political
activists from her perch as executive director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation (CLT), passed in 2016. Had she lived,
she would be incensed about three events this month:
● The end of her friend and former ballot-campaign sparring
partner Jim Braude’s run as host of WGBH-TV’s nightly news
show;
● The failure of Gov. Charlie Baker’s effort to fulfill her
dying wish for a pardon for Gerald Amirault and his sister
Cheryl, who she believed had been unfairly convicted in a
controversial 1980s child sexual abuse case;
● And worst of all, the official demise of CLT, the group
she steered for four decades. “The time has come to pass the
tax limitation torch on to another generation,” said CLT
Executive Director Chip Ford, who’s been keeping the group
alive on a shoestring since decamping to Kentucky four years
ago.
Braude will continue to co-host his popular GBH Radio show,
but his step away from TV is the latest episode in the
long-term deterioration of the region’s once-robust
political media ecosphere.
Barbara’s advocacy for the Amiraults, sparked by evidence of
gross manipulation of the very young alleged victims by
prosecutors, was emblematic of her attraction to seemingly
hopeless causes.
And as CLT finally dissolves, it’s unclear if that torch is
being handed off to anyone capable of keeping its resistance
to pro-tax pressure from becoming yet another lost cause.
Ford says he hopes the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (MFA),
a conservative non-profit that’s been turning out polls,
lawsuits and literature attacking the tax-and-spend
establishment for a decade, can fill the breach. He says
he’s impressed with their “organizational ability” and
“high-tech capacity.”
But he also says MFA lacks “institutional memory” and
doesn’t “grasp the magnitude of a petition drive,” CLT’s
signature technique for harnessing populist anti-tax
backlash. That’s an understatement.
MFA filed a petition to put the gas-tax-hiking
Transportation and Climate Initiative on the ballot but
didn’t lift a finger to gather signatures. (TCI died for
lack of political support late last year.) And the meager
amount they donated to support the push for repeal of the
law allowing non-citizens to get driver’s licenses left its
proponents totally outspent down the stretch.
CLT was a legit grassroots operation – at its peak, a few
business contributors and a bunch of small-dollar donors
gave them a puny $250,000 budget to work with. A 2020 MFA
federal tax filing reports $490,532 in contributions and
grants, apparently not enough to buy a fraction of the
visibility and clout Anderson once wielded.
And while Barbara and disciples Ford and the late Chip
Faulkner wore their humble budgets and scant salaries as a
badge of honor, MFA is a less-principled animal. According
to records on file with the attorney general’s office, a
separate nonprofit that funds MFA pocketed $109,424 in
federal Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury
Disaster loans during the pandemic, all forgiven in full.
A nice, hypocritical windfall for a group that slammed
“radical left-wing legislators” for promoting tax hikes
while “not a single member of this progressive caucus has
forgone a paycheck or any of their other perks during the
pandemic.”
“I think Massachusetts is a hopeless cause,” says Ford.
That’s bad news for Barbara Anderson’s legacy, not to
mention all others who pale at the prospect of future tax
hikes. As Cheri Reval, author of “Haunted Massachusetts,”
once put it: “If the dead can’t rest in peace, how on Earth
can the living?”
CLICK ABOVE GRAPHIC TO LISTEN
CommonWealth Magazine
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Old laws, like Prop. 2½, need to adapt to times
Commentary by Evan Horowitz
I've been struggling to find the right metaphor for our
current economic situation. After the great recession of
2007-2009, my go-to was a staircase: the recession had
knocked us down a flight of stairs and it took us a decade
to climb back up. But that won't do today. If COVID knocked
us down the stairs, our response was to leap--like some
superhero--up and out of the building. Only afterwards did
we realize we don’t know how to land.
Or how's this analogy -- to avoid a dangerous tangle on the
highway, we successfully accelerated around it -- only to
discover that our brakes aren’t working well.
You get the point. For the first time in decades, the
problem with the US economy is that it's running too hot,
with plentiful job opportunities driving unsustainable wage
growth and consumer demand keeping inflation above healthy
levels.
Fixing all this is mostly a job for the feds. But lawmakers
here in Massachusetts have an important role to play: they
need to adapt.
To start with a straightforward example, we need to stop
looking for policies that will create jobs. That goal is
simply futile with the Federal Reserve working hard to slow
the job market.
Instead, efforts to help workers and spur economic
development should emphasize skill-building and job
matching--so that less-educated workers and those held back
by discrimination can benefit from the surfeit of
opportunities. At the same time, we can help underperforming
regions of the state by copying place-based approaches being
successfully used in states like California.
Ultimately, though, the real challenge of this moment is far
broader. Over the last few decades, Massachusetts has passed
a host of major laws and regulations that made good sense at
the time but aren't well-suited for our current, overheated
economic environment. Recall the recent kerfuffle over state
tax rebates and 62F, and then imagine it splintered across
the policy landscape as other long-standing laws have their
unforeseen quirks exposed by a new economic reality.
Take Proposition 2½, a 1980s-era ballot initiative setting
strict limits on property taxes in cities and towns. Among
other things, Proposition 2½ says that property tax revenues
can't rise faster than 2.5 percent per year (with some
exceptions that we can set aside for simplicity sake.)
This cap made a certain kind of anti-tax sense when
inflation was muted and real estate prices were rising at a
steady, but not extravagant, pace. In those circumstances,
it acted as a meaningful but not debilitating check on local
taxes across the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
But at moments of high inflation and tight labor markets --
like right now -- Proposition 2½ takes on a whole different
character. It doesn't just limit local tax growth; it forces
municipalities to actually cut taxes (in real terms) even as
it gets more expensive to hire municipal workers and
purchase construction materials.
Last year, real property taxes in Massachusetts fell 2.6
percent, the first decline since the early 1980s -- and
possibly the start of a worrisome pattern for Massachusetts
municipalities. And while the state could compensate cities
and towns for this lost revenue, that's hardly guaranteed.
Not to mention that if the state did use its own tax revenue
to backstop municipalities, the ironic effect would be to
transform Proposition 2½ from an effort to constrain taxes
into a mechanism for expanding the importance of Beacon
Hill's own, much more potent taxing authority.
Here's another example: health care costs.
Massachusetts has a well-established but weakly-enforced
target for health care costs, where spending per person is
not supposed to grow faster than 3.6 percent per year (the
exact benchmark varies but it’s never been higher than
this.) As with proposition 2½, it's a totally reasonable --
and justly celebrated -- way to limit health care cost
growth, provided that inflation and economic growth stay
within certain bounds.
But in overheated times like today, or economy-cratering
times like early 2020, our whole approach breaks down -- and
not just temporarily but for years.
To understand the issue, consider recent events. Health care
spending actually declined 2.4 percent in 2020, as COVID
lockdowns stopped all manner of elective and deferrable
treatment. That's obviously way below the 3.6 percent
benchmark. But it also sets up a weird problem, because when
you try to measure spending growth for 2021, you're starting
from this aberrant baseline. So your calculation will
inevitably show a huge increase in health care spending.
We don't yet have precisely comparable figures for
subsequent years, but other sources suggest state health
care spending increased around 8 percent in 2021 -- and then
another 7 percent through the first half of 2022.
Do these gyrating numbers tell us anything meaningful about
health care costs? Did we do something right in 2020 and
something terrible in 2021? Obviously not. They merely
reflect the limitations of our year-by-year approach to
health care cost when inflation is high and the economy in
turmoil.
And while it's tempting to shrug or share some patient
counsel about waiting for a return to normalcy, this isn't a
great alternative, as it leaves us blind to potentially
meaningful shifts happening right now. Plus, there's a
better response: with a different set of tools, our
monitoring system for health care cost growth could be made
to work, despite the weirdness of the moment (I won't bore
you but one place to start is to target levels rather than
rates of change.)
I could go on, but unfortunately there are too many
examples. Some of the pillars of state policy were built for
a very different economic world, one where inflation was
mild enough to be treated as background noise and job
creation was a driving challenge. But these pillars are
starting to crack; we'd be well served to fix some and
replace others.
— Evan Horowitz is the
executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis
at Tufts University.
The Boston
Herald
Thursday, November 24, 2022
Question 1 out-raised, outspent all other statewide
campaigns combined
By Matthew Medsger
The choice that was placed before voters on whether to
levy an additional 4% tax on high incomes raised and spent
tens of millions more dollars this general election cycle
than all of the major party statewide campaigns for office
combined.
“Question 1 wasn’t just a regular law,” Fair Share Campaign
spokesman Andrew Farnitano told the Herald. “As a
constitutional amendment, it was a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to create a fairer tax system and fund decades
of greater investment in transportation and public
education.”
According to data provided by the Massachusetts Office of
Campaign and Political Finance, the campaign to pass
question 1, which passed by about 4 points, raised over
$32.2 million and spent about $28.5 million in 2022 to
convince residents taxing incomes over $1 million would
result in better roads and more successful schools.
The general election campaigns of candidates for governor,
lieutenant governor, state treasurer, attorney general,
secretary of the commonwealth and state auditor from the
Republican and Democratic parties raised, between the 11 of
them, just $11.6 million in 2022, according to OCPF.
The campaign against question 1 raised $14.4 million,
according to OCPF, also out-raising and outspending all of
the general election candidates.
“Tens of thousands of union members funded this
campaign with their hard-earned wages because they cared
deeply about improving our schools, colleges, roads, and
transit. And thousands of volunteers across the state spent
nights and weekends talking to their neighbors about
Question 1, because they wanted to see the ultra-rich
finally pay their fair share,” Farnitano said.
Even if the primary participants are added to the equation —
to include businessman Chris Doughty, who spent $2.5 million
of his own money on his bid for the Republican gubernatorial
nomination, and labor lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan, who spent
$9.4 million of her fortunes only to lose the Democratic
nomination — the politicians combined still were out-raised
by the yes on 1 campaign, alone, by over $3 million.
According to figures from OCPF, the 19 Republican and
Democratic candidates who ran in a primary raised $27.1
million.
From its beginning, the coalition of labor, faith and
community organizations behind the Fair Share campaign,
Raise Up Massachusetts, has demonstrated the fundraising and
policy making power of grassroots campaigning, according to
Farnitano.
“Since the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition came together in
2013, we have nearly doubled wages for hundreds of thousands
of working people by winning two increases in the state’s
minimum wage, won best-in-the-nation earned sick time and
paid family and medical leave benefits for workers and their
families, and now, won permanent tax fairness to fund
education and transportation,” he said.
Governor-elect Maura Healey, aside from self-funded Liss-Riordan,
ran the campaign with the most cash, raising almost $5
million in 2022. Her running mate, Salem Mayor and Lt.
Governor-elect Kim Driscoll, raised $1.1 million.
Healey’s campaign, which held funds from her previous
statewide campaigns for attorney general, spent $7.4
million, according to the most recent information provided
by OCPF. Driscoll’s team spent about $860,000.
Their Republican opponents in the general election, former
state Reps. Geoff Diehl and Leah Cole Allen, raised $1.2
million and about $165,000. Their campaigns spent most of
the cash in 2022, according to OCPF.
Healey and Driscoll won the election by a more than 28-point
margin.
Attorney General-elect Andrea Campbell, who will take
Healey’s job as the top law enforcement officer in the
commonwealth in January, raised $2.3 million and spent $2.1
million, managing to win her primary despite just 25% of her
opponents’ funding.
Republican Jay McMahon, who ran unopposed in the Republican
primary for Attorney General, raised about $289,000 in 2022
and spent about $186,000. Campbell beat McMahon by a
25-point margin.
Incumbent State Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who ran unopposed in
both the primary and general election, still raised about
$209,000 in 2022 and spent about $382,000 using funds from
past campaigns, according to OCPF.
Secretary of State Bill Galvin spent almost $1.1 million to
defeat NAACP Boston President Tanisha Sullivan in the
primary and Republican Rayla Campbell in the General
Election.
State Sen. Diana DiZoglio beat investigator Anthony Amore to
take over the State Auditor’s office. Auditor-elect DiZoglio
raised about $521,000, compared to Amore’s about $259,000.
Question 2, which set a floor for dental spending, saw $10.1
million raised for it and $9.5 million against. Over 71% of
voters supported the idea that dental insurers should spend
more of premiums on dental care.
Question 3, which would have changed liquor license laws in
the commonwealth, did not pass, with 55% of voters opposed.
Proponents of the questions raised $1 million, the winning
opponents only $12.50, according to OCPF.
Question 4, which asked voters whether to keep a law passed
this summer, the Work and Family Mobility Act, or to
overturn it. 53.7% of voters thought that people who cannot
demonstrate lawful presence in the state should nevertheless
be allowed driver’s licenses. The law will take effect in
July.
Supporters raised $3.6 million, opponents, who gathered
the tens of thousands of signatures required to add the
question to the ballot, raised just $222,000.
Forbes
Magazine
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Massachusetts Voters Approve ‘Millionaires Tax’
As Californians Reject An Income Tax Hike On High Earners
By Patrick Gleason
In the 2022 midterm elections, residents of California, like
those of Massachusetts, voted to put Democrats in commanding
control of their state government. Yet these two
left-leaning electorates rendered opposing verdicts on
similar tax measures seeking to raise state income tax rates
on upper income households.
With 57% voting No, California voters resoundingly defeated
Proposition 30, a ballot measure that would’ve added a new,
15.05% top marginal state income tax rate applying to income
above $2 million. At 13.3%, California already levies the
highest top personal state income tax rate in the country.
With the defeat of Proposition 30, upper income filers and
thousands of small business owners avoided being hit with a
1.75 percentage point, 13% increase in their top marginal
state income tax rate. According to IRS data, in 2019, the
most recent year for which data is available, more than
86,000 pass-through business owners filed under the
individual income tax system in California and have income
above $1 million. How many have income above $2 million is
not delineated by the IRS data, but it’s likely ten of
thousands of small business owners who would’ve seen their
job creating and sustaining capacity diminished had
Proposition 30 passed.
The ride-sharing company Lyft was the primary financial
backer of Proposition 30, which directed the additional
funding to the buildout of electric vehicle infrastructure.
Had Proposition 30 been enacted, the new 15.05% income tax
rate would’ve raised an additional $3 billion to $4.5
billion annually, according to projections from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D), along with the California
Teachers Association, urged Californians to reject
Proposition 30, in part, because it would make revenue
collections less predictable. “California’s tax revenues are
famously volatile, and this measure would make our state’s
finances even more unstable,” Newsom said of the proposed
income tax hike.
“Proposition 30 is a special interest carve-out — a cynical
scheme devised by a single corporation to funnel state
income tax revenue to their company,” Newsom said.
“Californians should know that just this year our state
committed $10 billion for electric vehicles and their
infrastructure.”
“The election results are an unfortunate setback for the
climate movement,” a Lyft spokesman said the day after the
election. “Millions were spent by the opposition to confuse
and misguide voters, however we are undaunted … we remain
committed to achieving our collective climate goals.”
While Golden State voters rejected an income tax hike on
high earners, in Massachusetts another “millionaires tax”
proposal, Question One, passed with nearly 52% support.
Question One is a constitutional amendment that will move
Massachusetts from a flat to progressive income tax
structure. Massachusetts currently has a 5% flat state
income tax rate and passage of Question One will create a
new 9% rate on income above $1 million dollars.
Question One is projected to raise an additional $1.5
billion annually for state coffers. Whereas the progressive
tax hike rejected by Californians would’ve been used to fund
EV infrastructure, the income tax increase approved in
Massachusetts will use the additional funds to boost
education and transportation spending.
While the state teachers union was a major opponent of
the defeated California income tax increase, they were the
top proponent and funder of the Massachusetts income tax
hike. The California Teachers Association spent $5 million
to defeat Proposition 30. The Massachusetts Teachers
Association, meanwhile, spent $15.5 million in support of
Question One. The American Federation for Teachers also
kicked in $6.7 million to help pass the income tax hike.
While this tax hike was sold to Bay State voters as a way to
make the rich pay more, small businesses will also be hit
with this tax increase. According to IRS data, more than
19,000 owners of sole proprietorships, LLCs, partnerships &
S corporations that filed under the personal income tax
system in Massachusetts in 2019 would’ve be hit by the 80%
income tax rate hike imposed by Question One had it been in
effect at the time.
In Moving From Flat To Progressive Income Tax, Massachusetts
Becomes A National Outlier
Question One marks the sixth time in the past 50 years that
a measure seeking to move Massachusetts to a progressive
income tax has been put on the ballot. The previous efforts
occurred in 1962, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1994. In 2022,
Question One became the first progressive income tax
proposal to receive voter approval.
By moving from a flat to a progressive income tax
structure, Massachusetts is bucking a national trend, as
more states have been moving in the opposite direction,
going from a progressive to a flat income tax. In
September, Idaho became the fifth state in the past two
years where lawmakers enacted legislation moving from a
progressive to a flat state income tax structure. Other
states where lawmakers have passed legislation to move from
a progressive to flat income tax over the past two years
include Georgia, Mississippi, Iowa, and Arizona.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R) has a proposal to move
his state to a flat tax. Until passage of Question One,
enactment of Governor Burgum’s plan would’ve made North
Dakota state number 25 with a flat state income tax rate.
Approval of Question One, however, will reduce the number of
flat tax states by one, bringing it down to 23 currently.
That means enactment of the flat tax proposal pending in
North Dakota would get the total number of flat tax states
back to 24.
One of the now 23 states that has a flat tax, Colorado, had
an income tax cut on the ballot in the 2022 midterm
elections. Proposition 121, which was approved with 65% of
the vote, will cut Colorado’s flat income tax rate from
4.55% to 4.40%. Passage of Proposition 121 marks the second
reduction in the state’s flat income tax rate to be approved
by Colorado voters in the past two years.
There are a number of possible take-aways from the results
of these 2022 ballot measures. It’s clear that it’s very
helpful for progressive tax hike initiatives to have the
teachers unions on board, at least in states as blue as
California and Massachusetts. Another potential take-away
for many will be that, while the 2022 midterm elections went
much better for Democrats than was expected going in, the
results do not appear to represent an endorsement of
progressive policies, even in Democratic strongholds. |
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