State House News Service
Liberals look to revisit income tax cut,
detractors threaten "war"
By Elisabeth J. Beardsley
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JAN. 29, 2001 ... There's a movement afoot
in the Senate to tie the new voter-approved income tax cut to economic triggers -- a plan endorsed last year
by the House but ignored in the Upper Branch -- but threats of "war on Beacon
Hill" are already rising among Republicans.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation last year offered the
trigger plan, which gradually reduced the income tax to 5 percent, but halted the phase-in if personal income growth fell
below a certain level. Hoping to head off Gov. Paul Cellucci's ballot question, the House
incorporated the MTF plan into its fiscal 2001 budget. But the Senate never took it up, and
the plan died during private budget negotiations.
Now, human service advocates and a key member of Senate
leadership say the slowing economy warrants a more cautious approach to the three-year, $1.2 billion income tax cut
approved by 60 percent of the voters last November. And their critics are countering that
senators and advocates "rolled the dice" in a political miscalculation last fall. And any efforts
to weaken the ballot law will touch off a "war."
Health Care Committee Co-chairman Sen. Richard Moore, former
chair of the House Taxation Committee, said senators decided last year not to take up the MTF plan because
"they were really trying to hold the line on any tax cut and didn't want to move
halfway." Senators may want to take another look at the MTF plan now that the income tax cut has
passed and the economy's slowing, he said.
"I don't know that there'd be necessarily any reluctance on
the part of many of the senators to revisit that," Moore said. "I think as people hear more about the economy, that the cries
for it may get stronger. It's not necessarily inconsistent with what the voters approved."
The suggestions to "undo the will of the voters" incited
Cellucci, who is pledging to personally recruit Republicans in 2002 to run against lawmakers who support such a measure,
should it officially surface that soon. Cellucci said the percolating effort reminds him of former Gov.
Michael Dukakis and the Democratic lawmakers of the late 1980s.
"They see what the voters have done, and they want to try to
be cute with it -- 'we know better than the voters, we're going to do it our way instead of their way,'" Cellucci said.
"That's what got us into trouble the last time. The we-know-better-than-you crowd was a
disaster. That's exactly who they sound like."
Such sentiments may be ascendant among rank-and-file senators, but Senate President
Thomas Birmingham (D-Chelsea) rejected the notion. "The voters having passed Question 4,
my very strong predisposition is that we ought to live with what they passed," Birmingham
said. "This is a matter that was fully and fairly debated before the people of the
Commonwealth."
While the House unanimously supported the MTF plan last
year, its leadership is scornful of opponents' post-election conversion. House Speaker Thomas Finneran (D-Mattapan)
laughed out loud Monday when told of the new rumblings. He said there was "profound
disappointment" last year in the House that the MTF plan was "not fully and fairly
considered" in the Senate. Finneran said he suspects that senators ignored the MTF plan
under pressure from the "advocacy community."
Despite its past support for the MTF plan, it's unlikely
that the House would consider any immediate changes to the initiative petition, Finneran said. Members still rankle over
being "snickered at" by both the governor and the Senate, and might want to let advocates stew, he
said. "They take this absolute, dogmatic position and then say, 'oh, yeah, hey, we
rolled all the dice, save us from ourselves,'" Finneran said. "Have some of the dessert. Have some of
what you ordered. I don't want to say enjoy it, because nobody's going to enjoy
it."
The leaders of the opposition to the income tax cut question
bristled at the "rolled the dice" characterization. Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts Executive Director James St. George
said his campaign made a "calculated decision" to lobby against the MTF plan in the Senate
because its passage would have undermined TEAM's argument that the ballot question
would harm social services, he said.
"It was our very clear sense that people were going to vote
yes on the tax cut and if another tax cut passed first, they were still going to vote yes unless we could convince them that
taking that money off the table was risky to things they cared about," St. George said. "We
couldn't make that case if we were already going to take it off the table. If the Legislature
was already taking it off, what plausible case was there for voting no?"
While St. George said the MTF plan was preferable to the
voter-approved income tax cut, he said TEAM does not intend to push for alteration of the ballot question. Neither does the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said President Michael Widmer. Last year's debate
was about "ideas," but now the question revolves around "undoing the will of the voters,"
Widmer said.
While up-to-date figures on personal income growth are not
yet available, Widmer said the MTF plan would probably have resulted in little or no income tax cut this year, compared to
the $400 million or so that the ballot question will deliver in fiscal 2002. "That's much larger
than our proposal now that we've entered a period of slow growth," Widmer said. "We felt
strongly that (the MTF plan) was the better alternative. We think recent developments show
clearly show the wisdom of our proposal. But the voters have spoken."
That's the rallying cry of Senate Republicans, who are
talking about filibusters and other ways to "hold things up." Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees (R-East Longmeadow) said the
voters' overwhelming support for the income tax cut proved that Democratic leaders were
"out of touch." While Lees has never been shy about offering tax cut amendments, he said
Republicans didn't bother to offer the MTF plan as an amendment because Democrats
indicated "they weren't supportive." He said Democrats could have "had their way" by
compromising, but should now recognize that "it's time to fold."
Lees said he has heard the talk in Senate circles about
revising the income tax cut approved by voters. "To turn around and poke our finger in the eye of the public would be wrong,"
Lees said. "I think there would be war on Beacon Hill if that happened."
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, January 31, 2001
Gov rips lawmaker's bid to delay tax cut
News briefs
Gov. Paul Cellucci yesterday accused lawmakers of trying to
"undo the will of the voters" amid reports a key senator had proposed delaying the voter-passed tax cut if the economy
sours.
Sen. Richard T. Moore (D-Uxbridge) said he would propose
stretching out the $1.2 billion tax cut -- by linking future cuts to the state's economy -- if tax revenues continue to
fall.
"It would certainly be on the table if we saw the revenues
dropping and this was going to (cause) significant problems," said Moore, chairman of the Senate Health Care Committee.
"If (Cellucci) sold people the tax cut on the basis that he could cut taxes and there wouldn't
be any pain, then he misled them."
Compiled from staff reports.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 31, 2001
A Boston Globe Editorial
Finneran's grip
AS SPEAKER, Thomas Finneran has made gestures toward elevating
the reputation of the House, hosting prominent guest speakers and delivering an annual oration of his own. All the
while, his tightening grip has been squeezing democracy out of the chamber.
Another ugly scene occurred Monday when Finneran bruised
half a dozen Democrats who had failed his loyalty test.
During Finneran's tenure, every year has seen less debate,
less dissent, less willingness to fight for the public interest rather than the leadership's desires. There has also been a
steady decline in the number of people running for House seats, and some House members believe
Finneran is determined to perpetuate that sad fact by scuttling the Clean Elections Law
that promises to encourage more competition for the Legislature.
Finneran has made the House a very difficult place to work
for anyone with half a brain and an ounce of independence, and the result is that very few such people are there now.
He has not been subtle. Finneran's purges began soon after
he took office as speaker, when he demoted many of the Democrats who had voted for Majority Leader Richard
Voke. It didn't matter that this group included people like Representative John E. McDonough, one of
the most expert legislators in the nation on the crucial subject of health
care. This was an enormous loss for all of Massachusetts and there is only one person to blame --
Finneran.
Many brutal chapters later, on Monday, Finneran demoted five
of the 15 Democrats who had been brazen enought to vote to continue a term limit on the speakership
-- as Finneran himself had supposedly recommended. Also on Monday, Finneran stripped a
chairmanship from Representative Douglas Petersen of Marblehead, who voted to end the term limit but
also said he would not take part in gutting the Clean Elections Law. Still
in some shock yesterday, Petersen said of Finneran, "You disagree with him and you're going to be
punished -- that's the message."
Finneran has achieved an unprecedented amount of power as
the presiding officer in the House, but he is not the ultimate authority. Voters still elect the members and occassionally --
as with Clean Elections -- they take it upon themselves to pass laws.
Clean Elections provides some hope of a return of democracy
to the House. It is a system that has gotten off to a promising start in Maine and Arizona. Finneran should not be allowed
to protect his fiefdom by killing the law. Voters across the state will be watching to see
whether their individual representatives vote to retain the law enacted by the people
and for the people, or whether they vote for rule by one man.
