The Boston Globe
Monday, February 4, 2002
Letters to the Editor
Florida isn't a role model
Joan Vennochi nonsensically holds Florida as a role model
for Massachusetts because its governor, Jeb Bush, is delaying a tax cut with the consent of its proponents, Florida
TaxWatch ("Sense and nonsense on cutting taxes," op ed, Jan 24).
Bush, unlike Acting Governor Jane Swift, did not take the
"no new taxes" pledge, and Florida TaxWatch is not a "people" taxpayer group, but the equivalent of the
business-backed Mass. Taxpayers Foundation. The tax cut it has agreed to delay is an
investment tax cut, and was not an initiative petition passed by the voters.
Florida doesn't even have a state income tax. Its total tax
burden, per capita, is 39th in the nation, compared to Massachusetts's ranking of 5th. Despite this, Florida foolishly
increased spending 86 percent between 1990-2000, even more than we did. Bush is also cutting
education. Still want to use Florida as a role model?
Barbara Anderson
Executive Director
Citizens for Limited Taxation
Return to top
The Boston Globe
Thursday, February 7, 2002
Needed: fiscal responsibility
By Joan Vennochi
Would a real, live grown-up please stand up and take charge
of this Commonwealth? ...
Like it or not, some forced political courage was displayed
during the fiscal crisis of 1989 and 1990. Michael S. Dukakis was governor, George Keverian was speaker of the House,
and William M. Bulger was Senate president.
Under these Democrats, the state committed money to the
kinds of social programs liberals believe in and conservatives abhor. As it turned out, it was too big a commitment. When the
banking and real estate industries collapsed, state revenue plummeted, too. There wasn't
enough money to support the political agenda that helped propel Dukakis to become the
Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He lost his bid to be president and returned to a
state in economic free fall.
It wasn't easy, but Dukakis ultimately took responsibility.
He, Keverian, and Bulger fought the grim fiscal reality and one another. In the end, they raised taxes, saving the the state
from bankruptcy and the new Republican governor, William F. Weld, from himself.
As a gubernatorial candidate, Weld backed a silly tax-cutting ballot initiative promoted by
Barbara Anderson's Citizens for Limited Taxation and the Massachusetts High
Technology Council. The voters knew it went too far and overwhelmingly rejected it. In doing so, they -
together with the state's political leaders - saved Weld from the serious
fiscal situation now faced by Acting Governor Jane Swift.
Raising taxes in 1989 and 1990 was the fiscally responsible
thing to do....
Swift makes it clear she will stand behind the income tax
rollback that voters endorsed in 2000, even though it, too, goes too far. She has little choice. Her party is obviously
abandoning her. Her only hope for reelection lies with the knee-jerk instincts of voters who
embrace the words "tax cut," even if it amounts to only enough money to buy a pizza a
month....
Return to top
The Boston Herald
Thursday, February 7, 2002
Tom talks tax hike
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran - citing a "colossal collapse" of state revenues - threw open the door to tax hikes yesterday, sparking Republican warnings of a new era of
"Taxachusetts."
The speaker told acting Gov. Jane M. Swift and a packed House chamber that the economic crisis has worsened so severely that lawmakers can't keep handing out tax cuts without consequences.
"The circumstances are so dire, the situation is so extreme, that I don't think anybody can afford to stand pat in one particular place," Finneran said, following his sixth annual "address to the citizens."
Over the next few weeks, House members will debate a variety of tax hike proposals, aimed at partially filling a $2 billion shortfall in next year's budget, Finneran said.
A growing number of lawmakers are clamoring to freeze the final $450 million phase of the voter-approved income tax cut, as well as hike the cigarette tax and roll back a charitable giving tax credit.
The income tax cut - with the biggest pot of money at stake - is attracting the most attention.
While House and Senate leaders claim a majority would support freezing the tax cut, it's not clear whether two-thirds would vote to override Swift's promised veto - especially in an intense election year....
Noting that Finneran's speech praised lawmakers for creating a business-friendly environment that allowed Fidelity Investment to employ 14,000 highly paid workers, Swift accused the speaker of threatening such jobs by reviving the state's
"Taxachusetts" moniker.
"We don't (want to) increase the cost to families and businesses who are struggling, and destroy the very kinds of jobs that
(Finneran) admired at Fidelity," Swift said....
House Minority Leader Francis Marini (R-Hanson) noted that Swift tried to veto about $270 million out of the budget just passed in December, but the Democratic majority restored most of those cuts.
"The majority has shown an inability to make any kind of cuts whatsoever in any kind of spending," Marini said. "If you read
(Finneran's) budgets, he's a tax-and-spend Democrat."...
Return to top
State House News Service
Monday, February 4, 2002
House chief to towns:
Prepare for 10 percent cut in local aid
Cities and towns should prepare for a 10 percent local aid
cut, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Rogers told his colleagues in a letter delivered Monday.
Rogers says Acting Gov. Jane Swift's budget is so far out of
balance that cities and towns should ignore the "cherry sheets" being prepared by the Department of Revenue. The House
will debate the fiscal 2003 budget in May, following a debate on state tax policies.
He says the House should consider a variety of options to
close a gap between revenues and expenditures he estimates at $2.3 billion in the coming fiscal year.... The gap, he says,
exists in part because the Swift administration is overestimating revenues for next year by between
$800 million and $1.1 billion. The administration is so off the mark in its
revenue estimates and bottom line, Rogers says, that municipal planners should ignore the cherry sheet data to
be distributed later this month.
The cherry sheets, so called because they are printed on
pink paper, detail how much cities and towns can expect in state aid in the coming fiscal year.
The budget balancing options Rogers proposes include
delaying the income tax cut approved in 2000; increasing other taxes and fees; cutting more in spending than Swift proposed;
and allowing cities and towns to raise more revenue than Prop. 2½ now permits.
Rogers tells members that he can't say for sure yet that a
10 percent cut in local aid is coming, but that it would be wise to assume so during "a dreadful period that demands
prudence, resolve, candor and compassion." Local aid is a primary source of funding for
education and public safety services.
Return to top
A CLT
BLAST FROM THE PAST
- 1991 -
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, July 31, 1991
Political Watch
Tax group's $ forecast is hardly a sure bet
By Eric Fehrnstrom
A lot of faith has been put in the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation's $9,232 billion estimate of fiscal 1992 revenues, well above the official $8.3 billion forecast.
The Taxpayers Foundation's estimate was used by liberal
legislators and advocates for the poor to call for the restoration of spending cuts before the ink was even dry on the
$12.9 billion budget.
But the foundation's track record on revenue estimating is
about the same as all others -- poor.
"None of us can exactly put a feather in our cap," said
Suzanne Tompkins, the foundation's vice president.
For instance, the foundation originally forecast $9.856
billion in tax revenues for fiscal 1991, and actual collections were $8.994 billion.
And at the start of fiscal 1990, the foundation forecast
$9.433 billion in revenues, and actual collections turned out to be $8.536 billion that year.
"I could do a better job than the Taxpayers Foundation with
my hand-held pocket calculator," said Barbara Anderson, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation.
Return to top
