Swift also faced sharp criticism for ruling out any
delay to the four-year $1.2 billion income tax rollback she championed alongside former governor
Paul Cellucci in 2000. That rollback was sold on the promise that it would not result in cuts to
state services - a promise that is now clearly being broken, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham said.
"This administration is pursuing, in a straitjacketed way, an aggressive, regressive tax
cut at the expense of education, health care, housing, and a host of other programs," said
Birmingham, a Democratic candidate for governor. "It is a triumph of rigid ideology."
Swift reiterated her support for the tax cut and
said it has become more important because of the poor economy. Some legislators have proposed
freezing the income tax rate at 5.3 percent instead of letting it drop to 5 percent in 2003. She noted
that would produce only an extra $230 million next fiscal year - about 12 percent of the projected
budget gap....
Finneran and Birmingham, who now begin the task of
designing their own budgets, said they will pursue a broader range of options than Swift. Both
mentioned a freeze to the income tax rollback and other new revenue sources as potential options.
The Boston Globe
Jan. 24, 2002
Swift proposes a $23.5b budget,
calls the cuts vital
Swift said her proposal upholds the state's end of
the bargain struck on education reform in 1993: We'll give you more money, school districts were
told, as long as students improve on the MCAS. Since then, the state has poured more than $28 billion
into K-12 education, with increases every year.
"I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for complaints
about cuts in growth, given that other agencies are experiencing real cuts," said James A.
Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education. "I think the governor has gone out her way to protect
education."
But while Swift managed to boost education spending,
the increase is still less than in previous years. Educators around the state say the new money is not
enough for them to cover already-scheduled teacher salary hikes, increasingly expensive health
insurance plans, and skyrocketing special education costs....
Stephen Gorrie of the Massachusetts Teachers Association endorsed the solution being
pushed by many Democrats on Beacon Hill. "I certainly think a good many programs could
be spared if we delayed the income tax cut implementation," Gorrie said.
The Boston Globe
Jan. 24, 2002
Education faces a 'squeeze'
$300m increase called too little
Health care advocates throughout Massachusetts
expressed anger and frustration with Acting Governor Jane Swift after finding out she has proposed
eliminating dental care for 500,000 poor adults and cutting spending for a dozen disease-prevention
programs including breast and prostate cancer detection....
Advocates say Swift can find a way to pay for the health services: add a 50-cent tax on
cigarettes and delay the $1.2 billion income tax rollback that voters approved.
The Boston Globe
Jan. 24, 2002
Health care cuts under fire
Some of her proposals deserve support to meet the
more compelling goal of protecting care for the state's neediest residents. But without a fourth
component - tax revenues - Swift's fiscal picture is only an incomplete sketch....
Most important, Massachusetts should learn from other states, many with Republican
legislatures, that are using a more complete mix of cuts, reserve funds, and tax hikes to right
their listing ships. Lacking that kind of balance, the acting governor's
budget is still taking on water.
A Boston Globe editorial
Jan. 24, 2002
Swift's listing budget
"There is no question that phasing in a large tax
cut when state revenues are falling so dramatically makes the fiscal problem that much more difficult,"
says Michael J. Widmer, president of the Taxpayers Foundation, an independent research institute that
accurately predicted the state's current fiscal problem....
Swift inherited the tax-cutting legacy of the
Weld-Cellucci era. She is forgetting or just doesn't understand that feel-good tax cuts only feel good in
good economic times. When the economy slows, so does state revenue. Lacking sufficient revenue, the state
can no longer pay for a whole range of services the people want, expect, and need. When that happens,
tax cuts lose their appeal and taxpayers think about voting for someone else....
The Boston Globe
Jan. 24, 2002
Sense and nonsense on cutting taxes
By Joan Vennochi
Swift protects the income tax cut she and her GOP
predecessors championed, but she will likely face attempts by Birmingham and others to reduce that
tax cut in the coming weeks....
Swift also protects or boosts funding for programs
serving the elderly, a highly dedicated voting bloc. But elder advocates snubbed Swift's offer, saying
the modest budget hikes aren't enough.
The public outcry is already surging, with social workers and welfare activists protesting at
the State House yesterday, and anti-smoking advocates rounding up hundreds of activists to
protest today.
The Boston Herald
Jan. 24, 2002
Swift rewards some, hits others in budget
This is a budget that makes some careful distinctions between wants and needs and still holds
state taxpayers harmless from further government claims on their own limited resources - in
other words, no new taxes. And that is perhaps the most critical factor of all - and one
lawmakers disregard only at their own political peril.
A Boston Herald editorial
Jan. 24, 2002
A no-frills budget for a no-frills time
Birmingham, a top Democratic gubernatorial candidate, said Swift is sacrificing needed
programs "on the altar of an aggressive tax cut that the governor refuses to give any
rationalization to rethinking." (Big words, but that's how a Rhodes Scholar talks.)
Hey, no sweat, reply Swift and Crosby.
"If [Birmingham] wants to raise taxes," the guv said, let him pass the bill "and put it on my
desk," where she will quickly veto it "and we'll debate it."
Crosby meanwhile insists the Taxpayer Foundation's
Widmer is off on his numbers and is "crying wolf."
The Boston Herald
Jan. 24, 2002
Swift on budget: Steadfast or stubborn
by Wayne Woodlief
The wailing and wringing of hands - "the sky is falling!" -
was effortlessly predicted right here yesterday. What they all have in common is the goal of killing the income tax rollback
by any means available.
"But elder advocates snubbed Swift's offer, saying the modest budget hikes aren't enough," the Boston
Herald reported today, and that pretty much sums it up for a budget proposal
that again INCREASES spending, this time by only 2.7 percent.
That one obnoxious statement demonstrates what we've said so
many times before: "More Is Never Enough!" (MINE) and never will be.
The Gimme Lobby will never rest unless they kill the last
step of our tax rollback ... and can then come back for even more.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
Associated Press
Thursday, January 24, 2002
State budget breakdown:
Distribution of money in the governor's proposed budget
Health and Human Services: 44 percent
K-12 Education: 18 percent
Debt service: 6 percent
Public safety: 4 percent
Higher education: 4 percent
Lottery: 4 percent
Pensions for state workers: 4 percent
Group Insurance Commission: 3 percent
Judiciary: 2 percent
Administration of state government: 2 percent
Aid to cities and towns (excluding education): 2 percent
Elder affairs: 1 percent
Constitutional officers: 1 percent
Sheriffs: 0.9 percent
Environmental affairs: 0.9 percent
Housing and community development: 0.5 percent
Transportation and construction: 0.5 percent
Labor and work force development: 0.4 percent
Legislature: 0.2 percent
Consumer affairs: 0.2 percent
Economic development: 0.1 percent
Comptroller: 0.1 percent
Note: Numbers do not add up to 100 percent because of rounding.
Source: Governor's proposed budget.
* * *
The budgets proposed by governors have increased steadily in
recent fiscal years:
1991: $12.6 billion
1992: $13.6 billion
1993: $14.1 billion
1994: $15.2 billion
1995: $16.1 billion
1996: $16.7 billion
1997: $16.7 billion
1998: $18.2 billion
1999: $19.1 billion
2000: $20.4 billion
2001: $21.3 billion
2002: $22.5 billion
2003: $23.5 billion
Source: Executive Office of Administration and Finance
* * *
Sources of the money in the governor's proposed budget:
Income taxes: 37 percent
Federal reimbursements: 20 percent
Sales taxes: 14 percent
Other taxes: 13 percent
Lottery revenues, other "transfers": 8 percent
Fees and fines: 6 percent (Most are motor vehicle fees)
"Rainy Day" reserves: 3 percent
Source: Governor's budget proposal.
Note: Numbers do not equal 100 percent due to rounding.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
NEWS CONFERENCE
- Excerpts -
Defending cutbacks to present a 'responsible blueprint'
By Globe Staff
The following are excerpts from Acting Governor Jane Swift's State House press conference yesterday on her fiscal 2003 budget plan....
Q. How much are the services that are cut the result of the income tax cut?
A. I will be fully implementing the tax cut in FY03. It will put money back in the pockets of families to the tune of $230 million ... We have a tax policy and a fiscal policy we have developed over the last 10 years that I believe is appropriate. Massachusetts is a very high-cost state. We've had to reduce the cost of living here for families and the cost of doing business in order to provide good jobs for families who live in every geographic region of the Commonwealth. Now is not the time to back away from those commitments.
Q. Governor, you and Paul Cellucci sold that tax cut solely on the basis that there would be no cuts to state programs, and state spending.
A. But we were envisioning a $1.6 to $1.8 billion [surplus], depending on who you...
Q. But the grounds have changed now. Why?
A. And that's why I think it was incumbent on me to look closely at creative ways to make sure that programs were honoring their initial intent, and I think we did that, and I think it is a budget that meets the core responsibilities...
Q. But you're breaking your promise, you're cutting programs...
A. Again, I don't think there's a state in the country that isn't having to curtail and cut back on programs. I take no pleasure in it, but the economic crisis and the fiscal crisis that we're facing require it.
Q. So you were wrong in the year 2000 when you said there would be no cuts?
A. We were not wrong, nor were the voters wrong.
Q. But you said there would be no cuts?
A. I don't think any of us anticipated the events that would so dramatically change the economic circumstances that we're facing. Our job is to respond to that. I am standing up now and saying that continuing to implement the tax cut is the right thing for the citizens of Massachusetts, it's the right thing for our economy, it's the right thing for our families, and this budget that I'm presenting proves that you can do that in a way that minimizes the impact on those who rely on state government for direct services.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Swift proposes a $23.5b budget,
calls the cuts vital
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff
Acting Governor Jane Swift said yesterday she has come up with a "realistic and responsible" approach to the state's fiscal problems that makes necessary cuts, keeps intact services for the neediest, and avoids "sticking it to the taxpayers."
"The choices that we made were certainly tough, but they've been made," Swift said. "None of them are easy, many of them are unpopular, but they are necessary."
Swift's $23.5 billion plan would increase spending 2.7 percent for fiscal 2003, which begins July 1. That would be the lowest increase in 10 years. Her plan would slash spending on public health and pay for expansions in education and Medicaid by delaying payments to the state pension plan and cutting lottery prizes to free up $274 million for cities and towns.
Trying to close a budget deficit of nearly $2 billion, Swift would also tap $750 million from the state's "rainy day" fund - about $250 million more than legislative leaders say is prudent. Her plan also relies on the elimination of 4,000 state jobs through an early retirement program, for savings of $136 million.
Those job cuts would reduce the budget for the state's community colleges by $17 million, a 7 percent drop, and the judiciary by $14 million, a 3 percent decline.
Unveiling her first budget as acting governor, Swift said the plan continues the fiscal discipline of her Republican predecessors.
"I'd like to make everyone happy," Swift said. "It would be nice to be able to say yes to everybody and yes to everything, but this is what I thought represented the responsible blueprint."
Outside of a 3 percent boost to K-12 education and an 11 percent hike in federally mandated spending increases in Medicaid, Swift's budget is spare, with the vast majority of state agencies held to current spending levels. That's an effective cut to state services because salaries, rents, and expenses will continue to rise.
Democrats accused Swift of relying on faulty assumptions in crafting her budget. The Legislature has already rejected some of her ideas for saving money, such as the delay in pension payments, and has shown no desire to pursue other major pieces, such as her proposal to limit lottery prizes.
"She keeps spending propped up by moving money around that should not and cannot be moved," House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran said. "It's political avoidance. It's a conscious choice to avoid tough cuts."
Michael J. Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, agreed, saying Swift predicated her spending plan on a fast economic recovery next year, a projection that allowed her to inflate spending and limit cuts by several hundred million dollars.
"It sets the state up for a major fall after the elections," he said. "It delays the day of reckoning."
Swift also faced sharp criticism for ruling out any delay to the four-year $1.2 billion income tax rollback she championed alongside former governor Paul Cellucci in 2000. That rollback was sold on the promise that it would not result in cuts to state services - a promise that is now clearly being broken, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham said.
"This administration is pursuing, in a straitjacketed way, an aggressive, regressive tax cut at the expense of education, health care, housing, and a host of other programs," said Birmingham, a Democratic candidate for governor. "It is a triumph of rigid ideology."
Swift reiterated her support for the tax cut and said it has become more important because of the poor economy. Some legislators have proposed freezing the income tax rate at 5.3 percent instead of letting it drop to 5 percent in 2003. She noted that would produce only an extra $230 million next fiscal year - about 12 percent of the projected budget gap.
"It will put money back in the pockets of families," Swift said of the full tax rollback. "If you wanted to stick it to the taxpayers, you could use less reserves. If you wanted to stick it to the taxpayers, you could ignore the fact that the Lottery strayed from their original purpose. ... But let's be clear: That has a cost as well."
Swift's deepest cuts came from public health, where she would trim about $50 million from programs that focus on outreach and education. She would cut $29 million of the $48 million Massachusetts is spending on antismoking efforts this year. She also would eliminate regular dental care for poor adults on Medicaid.
Swift would also take $11 million from a range of disease screening and prevention programs, including breast and prostate cancer detection, hepatitis C mitigation, and osteoporosis prevention. Swift said she reduced spending on the awareness and outreach programs so that direct services could be protected, but public health advocates called that approach foolhardy.
"It looks like Department of Public Health programs were singled out," said Lori Fresina, a spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society. "There are better strategies for reducing costs overall. It's so short-sighted."
Her budget would cut several programs that aid cities and towns, said Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. She would no longer return a portion of gas tax receipts to communities, a loss of $43 million that was slated to be spent on road patrols and cleaning, Beckwith said.
Urban school districts would also be harmed under the budget, because they would receive less money to compensate them for students who attend charter schools, Beckwith said.
Swift's budget would free up $23 million for the Clean Elections Law, a voter-approved public campaign finance system due to take effect this year. That money has already been set aside specifically for Clean Elections, but legislative leaders have refused to make it available to candidates.
Finneran and Birmingham, who now begin the task of designing their own budgets, said they will pursue a broader range of options than Swift. Both mentioned a freeze to the income tax rollback and other new revenue sources as potential options.
"It'll be a search for anything and everything that makes sense," Finneran said.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Education faces a 'squeeze'
$300m increase called too little
By Scott S. Greenberger
Globe Staff
Worcester faces larger kindergarten classes and may have to put its new high school on hold. Boston is worried it will get less money for each student who decamps to a nearby charter school. And even tony Sudbury says it will struggle to meet exploding special education costs.
"The squeeze is going to be on," said John McDonough, the Boston schools' chief financial officer.
In unveiling her fiscal 2003 budget proposal yesterday, Acting Governor Jane Swift proudly proclaimed that while "extraordinarily difficult times" have forced many cuts, her plan would raise overall education spending from $4.1 billion to $4.3 billion. Money for Chapter 70, the state's main mechanism for supporting public schools, would go up from $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion.
Swift said her proposal upholds the state's end of the bargain struck on education reform in 1993: We'll give you more money, school districts were told, as long as students improve on the MCAS. Since then, the state has poured more than $28 billion into K-12 education, with increases every year.
"I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for complaints about cuts in growth, given that other agencies are experiencing real cuts," said James A. Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education. "I think the governor has gone out her way to protect education."
But while Swift managed to boost education spending, the increase is still less than in previous years. Educators around the state say the new money is not enough for them to cover already-scheduled teacher salary hikes, increasingly expensive health insurance plans, and skyrocketing special education costs.
Futhermore, some programs will get less money in fiscal year 2003 than they did in 2002. Among them, initiatives to help districts launch more full-day kindergarten classes and cut class sizes in younger grades.
Worcester School Superintendent James Caradonio said Swift's attempt "to maintain a commitment to education is appreciated and noteworthy." Nevertheless, he worries that her budget could create problems in his district.
Worcester could end up spending more time on the waiting list for state construction help, delaying a desperately needed new high school. And a "radical decline" in the compensation for school districts that lose students - and per-pupil state aid - to nearby charter schools could deprive Worcester, which gets about $17 million in state help, of about $1.7 million. That number would go up to $2.5 million if the Board of Education clears the way for another charter school that is planned for the city.
"Charter schools are supposed to foster creativity and innovation in [traditional] public schools," Caradonio said. "But if we lose $2.5 million, that's really going to hurt us in terms of fostering creativity and innovation."
McDonough said the state Department of Education has advised Boston and other districts to come up with fiscal 2003 budgets that are no bigger than fiscal 2002. McDonough guesses that Boston will end up getting between $3 million and $8 million in new state money - but because of rising personnel costs, he said, that won't be enough to cover all the educational programs it has now.
With all the cuts in other areas, state Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said, the K-12 education budget is "the best we could hope for." Not even higher education escaped the knife: All 15 of the state's community colleges would get less in 2003 than they did in 2002 under Swift's plan.
Swift noted yesterday that budgeting is, after all, a zero-sum game: Restoring some funding requires cuts somewhere else to balanced the ledger - unless you increase revenues.
Stephen Gorrie of the Massachusetts Teachers Association endorsed the solution being pushed by many Democrats on Beacon Hill. "I certainly think a good many programs could be spared if we delayed the income tax cut implementation," Gorrie said.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Health care cuts under fire
By Cindy Rodri Guez
Globe Staff
Health care advocates throughout Massachusetts expressed anger and frustration with Acting Governor Jane Swift after finding out she has proposed eliminating dental care for 500,000 poor adults and cutting spending for a dozen disease-prevention programs including breast and prostate cancer detection.
They say the cuts will result in higher costs to treat people who will develop diseases years from now. And though it may seem wise to cut preventive programs rather than reducing aid to sick people, it's a fiscally foolish move that will eventually set the state back.
"It's obvious that we are sacrificing the future for the present," said Rob Restuccia, executive director Health Care for All, a non-profit organization. "Two to five years from now we're going to have a bump in all these diseases."
While it is difficult to put a dollar amount to the money saved by preventative programs, a 1999 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that for every $1 spent on smoking prevention and cessation programs, the state saved $2 in the long term.
"Once a smoker is hooked, it is so difficult for them to quit," said Lori Fresina, of the American Cancer Society's New England division. "We have to invest in tobacco prevention just as we would in a polio vaccine."
Fresina said that if the state continues to spend $4 million each month on tobacco-prevention and cessation programs, it could reduce the $33.7 million a month on Medicaid programs for smoking-related diseases.
Swift's budget calls for cutting $29 million from the $48 million originally slated for antismoking programs. It also cuts $11 million of the $17 million for various detection and prevention programs of diseases including breast cancer, prostate cancer, osteoporosis, colorectal cancer, multiple scelerosis, hepatitis C, renal disease and neurofibromatosis awareness.
An additional $36 million is being cut from the state's dental program for the roughly 500,000 people on Medicaid. Of those, about 100,000 are elderly people, 150,000 are disabled and the rest are poor adults who can't afford dental insurance.
Advocates say Swift can find a way to pay for the health services: add a 50-cent tax on cigarettes and delay the $1.2 billion income tax rollback that voters approved.
They say if the state doesn't pay now, it will pay much more later because the state will be forced to pay health care costs of ailing residents who are poor.
"These cuts are disgusting. I can't think of a better word," said Senator Mark Montigny, Democrat of New Bedford, the chairman of the Ways & Means Committee. "It is inhumane given that these are preventable diseases that lead to lots of pain and even death.
"I don't know how she can stand there, cut these programs and say, 'Don't worry, be happy. The state of the state is fine.'"
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
A Boston Globe editorial
Swift's listing budget
ACTING GOVERNOR Jane Swift looked at a $1.7 billion projected revenue shortfall in her $23 billion state budget and saw three solutions: program cuts, tapping the state's various rainy-day accounts, and squeezing more revenue from existing funds such as pension trusts and the state lottery. Some of her proposals deserve support to meet the more compelling goal of protecting care for the state's neediest residents. But without a fourth component - tax revenues - Swift's fiscal picture is only an incomplete sketch.
The state's revenues began dropping last summer, and the plunge has only accelerated, according to the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The loss of available cash has been made worse, the foundation notes, by Swift's insistence on keeping to scheduled reductions in income tax rates even as caseloads for health, welfare, and human service programs are increasing.
Swift's budget would close the looming revenue gap by offering early retirement to state employees, shifting operating expenses in housing and school construction to the capital budget, which is supported by issuing bonds, and delaying a scheduled payment to the state's pension fund, which would save $128 million. By reducing the Massachusetts Lottery's payout for prizes - now the most generous in the country - she would save $274 million more to hold cities and towns harmless from cuts in local aid.
Some of this budgetary legerdemain could be justified if programs for the most vulnerable - the homeless, the mentally impaired, abused children and frail elderly - were spared. Lotteries, like casino gambling, are imprudent and regressive ways to fund state services in any event. But Swift also forfeits $475 million by refusing to delay the tax rollback voters approved in 2000 in far rosier times.
A more balanced budget would include some slowdown in the tax rollback - or at least support for a 50 cent increase in the cigarette tax - so dental care for indigent adults and other preventive programs such as smoking cessation and prostate and breast cancer screenings need not be sacrificed.
Other aspects of Swift's budget deserve praise. The pernicious "outside sections," which make new laws through the budget process, are limited to fiscal matters. In other years unrelated issues such as the death penalty have been slipped in under the budget cloak.
The state Legislature, chastened by the budget debacle last year, should keep election-year politics out of the process as much as possible and deliver a budget on time.
Most important, Massachusetts should learn from other states, many with Republican legislatures, that are using a more complete mix of cuts, reserve funds, and tax hikes to right their listing ships. Lacking that kind of balance, the acting governor's budget is still taking on water.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Sense and nonsense on cutting taxes
By Joan Vennochi
Globe Staff
GOVERNOR JEB Bush did it in Florida. Now, Acting Governor Jane Swift should do it in Massachusetts.
Last fall, Florida's Republican governor worked with the Republican-led state Legislature to balance the budget in the face of severe revenue shortfalls. Together they cut spending. Together they delayed implementation of a scheduled tax cut.
Jeb Bush is feeling political heat now from Washington, where his brother, the president, is fighting Democrats who challenge the administration's fiscal policy in the face of recession.
"Those who want to revoke the tax cut, basically raise taxes, are those who just don't share my view," President Bush said last week in response to a specific proposal by Senator Edward M. Kennedy to delay the administration's scheduled income tax cuts in 2004 and 2006. Through his spokesman, the president declined comment on his brother's action.
This week Governor Bush's press office put out a statement emphasizing that what happened in Florida "is a delay, not an increase." Bush, the governor, should stop playing word games and tell it like it is. He did the right thing. And you don't have to be a Massachusetts liberal to believe it.
Florida TaxWatch, an independent, nonpartisan research institute, led the fight for the phaseout of the tax on stocks and other investments. Keith G. Baker, the institute's chief operating officer, calls the tax "onerous and medieval" and says it put Florida at a competitive disadvantage. But TaxWatch supports the 18-month delay in implementation for the most logical of reasons: Florida desperately needs the $128 million the tax generates.
"Even though we were the progenitors of the tax cut, we supported the responsible position" to delay it, says Baker. "It's a matter of timing. In a time of recession, given the 9/11 events and the worsening of the economy, the state was in need of additional revenues."
Bask in those words of uncommon common sense, as warm and comforting as a ray of Florida sunshine. Here in Massachusetts, Swift is demonstrating the opposite. The recession is responsible for a difference of $2.25 billion in tax collections, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. On top of that, Swift clings to a $1.4 billion tax rollback, spread out over three years.
"There is no question that phasing in a large tax cut when state revenues are falling so dramatically makes the fiscal problem that much more difficult," says Michael J. Widmer, president of the Taxpayers Foundation, an independent research institute that accurately predicted the state's current fiscal problem.
Why would any governor, Republican or Democrat, choose to decimate public health and human service programs and threaten hard-fought gains in the state's public schools? Why would any governor, Republican or Democrat, want a front-page headline about her plans to take dental care away from the poor? Where is the common sense, especially in an election year, when every Democratic opponent will be whipping every human service advocate into a frenzy over every penny pulled, like teeth, from the state budget?
Swift inherited the tax-cutting legacy of the Weld-Cellucci era. She is forgetting or just doesn't understand that feel-good tax cuts only feel good in good economic times. When the economy slows, so does state revenue. Lacking sufficient revenue, the state can no longer pay for a whole range of services the people want, expect, and need. When that happens, tax cuts lose their appeal and taxpayers think about voting for someone else.
Jeb Bush seems to be realizing that in Florida. He has cut state taxes by $1.8 billion since taking office in 1999, but now he is facing criticism over massive cuts in public education, which he has claimed as a priority.
"Many states are now going through this and are having a very difficult time trying to sort out how they cut their budgets or raise taxes or go through the same process that we went through," he said at a news conference last December, after signing into law a budget that called for $1 billion in cuts to schools, social services, and other state programs.
"If you don't cut anything, you either take down reserves or you raise taxes," the Florida governor explained.
And, if you can, you delay tax cuts until times get better.
That's called leadership.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Swift rewards some, hits others in budget
Analysis
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
In the time-honored tradition of election-year politicking, acting Gov. Jane Swift uses her budget proposal to punish her enemies, reward her friends and curry favor with vote-rich special interests.
In the $23.5 billion spending blueprint unveiled yesterday, Swift protects popular spending for schools and the elderly - programs with motivated constituencies - while levying devastating cuts elsewhere.
Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, the early front-runner in the six-way Democratic primary, took a hit from Swift, who lags badly behind O'Brien in polls. Swift's budget proposes whacking O'Brien's office budget by $30 million.
"Most of these proposals appear to be very political, without any grounding in reality," said O'Brien, a gubernatorial rival. "The budget, on its face, is out of balance."
Meanwhile, Swift protected her own turf - hanging on to all $5.6 million for her own office expenses. And Swift showered budget boosts on the other constitutional officers - even Secretary of State Bill Galvin, a gubernatorial candidate with a weaker poll standing.
Swift's budget also clips $2 million from office budgets for the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature, with which Swift has been at loggerheads virtually since taking office.
Legislative leaders pounced on Swift's budget, shredding its policy points and its fiscal underpinnings - early signs that could foreshadow another bruising budget battle in a year when virtually every politician in the state is hitting the campaign trail.
House Speaker Thomas Finneran declared Swift's plan $1 billion out of balance, and accused Swift of taking the easy way out by gobbling up $750 million - half - of the state's "rainy day" funds.
"It's a political avoidance," Finneran said. "It's a conscious choice ... to avoid tough choices."
Senate President Tom Birmingham said he would renew his fight to freeze the final $450 million phase of the voter-approved income tax cut, which he accused Swift of favoring over education and health care.
"It's an unbalanced, ideologically rigid and extreme budget," said Birmingham, a gubernatorial candidate.
Most attention is focused on Swift's proposed $500 million in cuts, which decimate anti-smoking programs, water and sewer rate relief, DARE, affordable housing and the state pension fund.
Swift protects the income tax cut she and her GOP predecessors championed, but she will likely face attempts by Birmingham and others to reduce that tax cut in the coming weeks.
Swift yesterday acknowledged the political peril of slashing popular programs, and said she's braced for "complaining and finger-pointing."
"I didn't enjoy any of the cutting process," Swift said. "It would be nice to be able to say `yes' to everybody."
But Swift dishes the goodies to Boston Mayor Tom Menino, protecting his pet program - a $3 million summer jobs initiative for city kids. Menino, a powerful ally and a formidable foe, raised a mighty ruckus in the past when pols tried to snatch his jobs money.
Swift also protects or boosts funding for programs serving the elderly, a highly dedicated voting bloc. But elder advocates snubbed Swift's offer, saying the modest budget hikes aren't enough.
The public outcry is already surging, with social workers and welfare activists protesting at the State House yesterday, and anti-smoking advocates rounding up hundreds of activists to protest today.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 24, 2002
A Boston Herald editorial
A no-frills budget for a no-frills time
There are hundreds of line items in the state budget, and just about each and every one has a constituency group, ready and willing to pounce should it be "under-funded" - itself an undefinable term of art.
The wailing sound now being heard on Beacon Hill is the sound of many of those groups protesting their fate in the governor's proposed $23.5 billion budget for the 2003 fiscal year - an admittedly austere document that overall calls for spending growth of 2.7 percent over this year's already tight budget.
In drafting the budget Administration and Finance Secretary Steve Crosby noted the Swift administration made distinctions between "core government functions" which got first call on scarce resources and "things along the margins," which were not protected.
Smoking cessation programs and free prostate cancer screenings "are things that are good to do in good times," Crosby said. But when measured against protecting children in abusive homes or protecting services for the mentally retarded, they are indeed marginal.
Cuts in routine dental services for adult Medicaid recipients were a tougher call, Crosby acknowledged. But then diverting some of those funds so that more dentists might treat children under Medicaid serves a worthwhile goal, one that few taxpayers would quarrel with.
That's the rather delicate balancing act that will be played out in the months ahead as the House and Senate wrestle with these issues.
To head off even more cuts, acting Gov. Jane Swift has proposed tapping $750 million from what remains in the state's now $1.6 billion rainy day fund. That is, after all, what it's there for and she would leave an adequate cushion for the following two fiscal years.
Her budget also includes some $275 million in revenue for cities and towns that would be available only if the Legislature or state Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, who functions as Lottery chief, agree to change the Lottery's payout to gamblers - a figure that has crept up from 45 percent of revenues in 1972 to 63 percent in 1992 and 71 percent today. Bringing that figure back to 63 percent (which would still give Massachusetts the fourth highest payout in the nation) would net that $275 million.
This is a budget that makes some careful distinctions between wants and needs and still holds state taxpayers harmless from further government claims on their own limited resources - in other words, no new taxes. And that is perhaps the most critical factor of all - and one lawmakers disregard only at their own political peril.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Swift on budget: Steadfast or stubborn
by Wayne Woodlief
The painful new recession budget that acting Gov. Jane Swift announced yesterday is a declaration of war on the Democrats who seek her job and a huge gamble on whether she or they are right about what the voters really want.
The $23.5 billion budget is, as usual, more than the previous year's spending plan. Yet it is stunningly austere in some highly visible, vastly popular areas - especially its deep cuts in preventive health care - even as it adds $100 million in education aid.
This budget, the first for which Swift is fully responsible, is fraught with political peril for a governor whose poll numbers already are dropping again. The big question for her in the budget likely to decide her fate is whether she will be seen as steadfast or stubborn.
Will voters in November be more likely to reward Swift for holding fast against proposals to gain more revenue by freezing the final $450 million of the tax cut approved by the voters on the 2000 ballot?
Or will they punish her for not seeing that lots of folks could lose more out of pocket from services denied them while most middle-class and working-class voters get a relative pittance (or so the Democrats claim) from the tax cut?
Now Swift faces months of warfare over the budget with Senate President Thomas Birmingham and House Speaker Thomas
Finneran.
Birmingham and Finneran - the enfants terrible of last year's horribly handled budget - will take center stage soon enough, as their committees begin to scrutinize Swift's plan and craft their own.
But she is the first to face the music on dealing with a revenue shortfall that could come close to $2 billion by some independent estimates.
And so far, the tune is sour for Jane Swift:
An independent fiscal watchdog, Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation chief Mike Widmer, warned that her revenue assumptions are "unsafe and risky," that the budget borrows too much from the state's "rainy day" reserves and that it could wind up from $500 million to $1 billion out of balance.
"It sets up the state for a major fall after the election," Widmer said. By neither cutting deeper nor even considering a tax increase to combat recession now, "It delays the day of reckoning," Widmer said.
Hundreds of tobacco control advocates are expected to rally at the State House today to protest a Draconian cut Swift proposes in the state's smoking cessation program - from $63 million to a mere $19 million.
They claim that will mean mass layoffs in programs that have shown significant decreases in the numbers of people - especially young people - who take up smoking.
Drug addiction and prostate cancer screening programs have taken big hits, too.
It was tough to do, but they are "marginal services," said Steve Crosby, architect of the budget as state Secretary of Administration and Finance and about to become the guv's new chief of staff. He said the money saved from cutting them went into "direct care" - the Swift team's new mantra - including services such as school health care, mental health, etc.
But one man's "marginal" service is another's necessity. And when a case can be made that prevention saves lives - and money in future health costs avoided - expect more howls here.
Birmingham, a top Democratic gubernatorial candidate, said Swift is sacrificing needed programs "on the altar of an aggressive tax cut that the governor refuses to give any rationalization to rethinking." (Big words, but that's how a Rhodes Scholar talks.)
Hey, no sweat, reply Swift and Crosby.
"If [Birmingham] wants to raise taxes," the guv said, let him pass the bill "and put it on my desk," where she will quickly veto it "and we'll debate it."
Crosby meanwhile insists the Taxpayer Foundation's Widmer is off on his numbers and is "crying wolf."
But what if this economy stays in a slump or some unexpected echo of Sept. 11 drives it further down? Then Jane Swift would risk leaving office as ridiculed as Michael Dukakis was in 1990, when his "Massachusetts Miracle" turned to mud.
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