Citizens for Limited Taxation Director Barbara Anderson and
her team are furiously working the phones this week, canvassing the GOP caucuses in the House and Senate in hopes of
finding someone to object to Thursday's anticipated passage of a fiscal 2001 deficiency
budget.
While the chambers' versions of the spending plan differ in
the details and the bottom line, both contain provisions to raise the $1.8 billion Stabilization Fund's cap to 10 percent
of budgeted revenues, from the current 7.5 percent.
CLT has long opposed raising the "Rainy Day Fund" cap, which
Anderson says is a legislative ploy to deny taxpayers an automatic tax cut in the event the fund overflows its
statutory bounds.
House Speaker Thomas Finneran was up-front that that was, in
fact, his intention in offering the proposal to raise the cap again.
Anderson said she further objects to both chambers' plans to
set up "mini-Stabilization Funds," an idea that first originated with the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and
that's intended to create a special reserve fund to be tapped over the next two years as a buffer
against hard economic times and the new voter-approved income tax cut.
Finally, Anderson said she's incredulous that all this is
going down in an informal session, which few members attend and which is supposed to be limited to non-controversial items.
"We're objecting to the decline of democracy in Massachusetts," Anderson said.
But lawmakers seem bent on spending at least some part of
the $550 million fiscal 2001 surplus by Friday, which is the date it becomes a "statutory surplus" and must be divvied into
the Stabilization Fund, capital reserve fund and tax reduction fund (although some lawmakers
seem to think there's some wiggle room in the Aug. 31 date, which might be possible to
extend until Sept. 15 or even beyond).
The branches have passed different versions of the spending
bills, but both sides seem optimistic they'll reach a behind-the-scenes agreement by Thursday.
Meanwhile, Anderson said her crew is pinning a lot of hope
on Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth), a longtime strenuous objector to tinkering with the Stabilization Fund cap.
CLT is also grilling every GOP representative and senator to determine why no one objected
to the bills' initial passages.
During informal sessions, an objection from any member can
scuttle action on anything, but such a move in the case of the deficiency budget would be undertaken at great political peril
to the objector, who could face the wrath of colleagues whose pet projects were thwarted.
