CLT Update
Monday, May 14, 2001
Boston Globe acknowledges
bait-and-switch scam
Granted, a cigarette tax is regressive because smokers are disproportionately
low-income, and it is generally not good social policy to earmark revenues from a tax
or fee specifically for one service. Moreover, at some point the state might have to
look elsewhere for revenues if the tax is such an effective deterrent that
cigarette sales drop even more.
The Boston Globe
May 14, 2001
Funding health coverage
A Boston Globe Editorial
In today's editorial, even the Boston Globe acknowledged what we've asserted all along: The proposed
Birmingham tax increase on tobacco is only a foot in the door. When the Law of Diminishing Returns
kick in, when the cigarette tax alone fails to provide sufficient revenue, even the Globe recognizes
that this proposed new entitlement program will be funded out of the pockets of all taxpayers.
It's just another bait-and-switch scam on taxpayers.
Thanks to her taking our No New Taxes
pledge, presented by CLT Associate Director Chip Faulkner on April 17, at least we
can count on Gov. Swift's veto. Passage will then require a two-thirds vote in the
Legislature to override it before the tax increase can become the burden of smokers and
inevitably non-smokers alike.
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Chip Ford |
The Boston Globe
Monday, May 14, 2001
A Boston Globe Editorial
Funding health coverage
For all the state's laudable efforts to provide health
insurance to as many residents as possible, at least 365,000 still lack it. Senate President Thomas Birmingham has joined
those who want to expand coverage to at least 75,000 of the uninsured by raising the tax on
cigarettes 50 cents a pack.
In addition to providing better health care to the uninsured, the bill would indirectly pump
much of the $150 million it would raise into clinics and hospitals that have
been providing uncompensated treatment. At a time when two-thirds of the state's hospitals are operating in
the red, this would be a welcome infusion. Also, this 66 percent increase in the state tobacco
tax will offer youths in particular a strong incentive not to become smokers.
Granted, a cigarette tax is regressive because smokers are
disproportionately low-income, and it is generally not good social policy to earmark revenues from a tax or fee
specifically for one service. Moreover, at some point the state might have to look elsewhere for revenues
if the tax is such an effective deterrent that cigarette sales drop even more.
But Birmingham makes a strong case for this increased tax as
a way to bring the state closer to covering all of its uninsured, more than 70 percent of whom are working adults. The
bill would expand eligibility for Medicaid to include parents earning up to 200 percent of the
federal poverty level (their children are already covered) and other adults earning up to
133 percent.
Other funds would assist struggling hospitals, pay for
community health workers, and qualify the state for federal aid on prescription costs of the elderly. With all six New England
states considering major cigarette tax hikes at the urging of the Alliance for a Healthy New England,
cross-border trips for cheaper smokes should be kept to a minimum.
If the bill gets the support it deserves in the Legislature,
the roadblock to enactment would be the veto promised by Acting Governor Jane Swift. She is taking this stand even though as a
state senator in 1996 she supported a 25-cent increase in the cigarette tax that funded a
major expansion of health insurance for children and the elderly.
A Swift spokesman said that the difference between that vote
and her current stance is that she has signed onto the
no-new-taxes pledge of the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform. Before putting her signature on that New Hampshire-like
pledge, she should have asked herself if it was worth turning her back on her historical commitment to Massachusetts
citizens left out of the health care mainstream.
The Birmingham bill would simply extend the 1996 initiative,
which helped sink the incidence of smoking in Massachusetts by 14.3 percent. If Swift does veto the bill, lawmakers should
override it, to bring the state closer to universal coverage.
Barbara comments on the Community Preservation Act
The Boston Globe
Saturday, May 12, 2001
Real Estate
A new tool to shape the future
Tax law gives communities a chance to preserve, build
By Thomas Grillo
Globe Correspondent
[Excerpt]
Barbara Anderson of Marblehead, the executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, said while she is pleased that each community gets to decide whether to support the
[Community Preservation Act] tax, she would vote against it.
"Development doesn't bother me," she said. "The (former)
corn field near my home now has two dozen homes that are beautifully landscaped. For the first time in many years
children are playing in the neighborhood. As long as the people in these homes don't vote to raise my
taxes to educate their children, I'm fine with it. It only bothers me when people are
taking something from me."
Rather than asking property owners to pay another tax,
Anderson suggested that residents who want to preserve open space donate the cash to buy it instead of taxing everyone.
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