For parent Jayne Todd, the most tangible sign of Framingham's budget woes appeared last
week, when her daughter Jennifer came home in tears.
Brought on by the layoff of a classroom aide, the sobs of a fifth-grader served as warning for
the fiscal squall bearing down on Framingham and other Boston suburbs such as Newton,
Natick, and Franklin. Communities throughout the region are being forced
to decide whether they should close fire stations, reduce police patrols, or slash school spending....
"A normal person would start with waste and inefficiency, but the state Legislature starts with
assistance to the mentally retarded and moves from there to state aid," said
[Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation
Anderson]....
Framingham resident Duncan Fuller, a local antitax
activist, said there are still plenty of townspeople who remain behind the income-tax rollback. The
government's fiscal austerity measures, he said, should be viewed positively. "You just can't live
with these unrealistic budget increases year after year," said Fuller....
At town and school offices in Framingham, however,
officials grappling with unbalanced budgets are siding with the Legislature. The selectmen recently
authorized a letter to other cities and towns, attempting to rally support for a freeze in the
income-tax reduction.
The Boston Globe - West
Feb.10, 2002
Democracy's bite
Community's feel pain of 2000 income-tax rollback
Under our three-part system, the Legislative branch,
and especially the House, is designed to be sensitive to public sentiment - not slavishly
obedient to it, but aware and responsive. By refusing to implement Clean Elections, the
Legislature is sticking its thumb in the public eye.
A Boston Globe editorial
Feb. 10, 2002
Finneran in contempt
The liberal goo-goos and their bow-tied allies on
the editorial boards say Clean Elections is sacrosanct, the will of the people. As for the
income-tax cut, that's, well, negotiable.
I don't get it. Either they're both worth keeping,
or they're not.
The Boston Herald
Feb. 10, 2002
Legislators love to hate will of the people
by Howie Carr
Tolman's candidacy will live or die by the fate of
Clean Elections. Grossman is raising his campaign money privately. But both completely support the
public financing system. And though both of them argued against the tax cut at the time --
prophetically warning that our boom couldn't last forever -- each now contends the decrease should go
forward, since the voters decided differently.
Now that's positive consistency. Try it sometime, Mr. Speaker.
The Boston Herald
Feb. 10, 2002
King Tom plays dirty on Clean Elections
by Wayne Woodlief
What a classic example of alleged "objective journalism"
emerged from The Boston Globe's "Globe West" section this day! The report by Christopher Rowland opened with:
We noted yesterday that in Thursday's (Worcester) Telegram
& Gazette, James J. Ford Jr., chairman of the Lancaster Board of Selectmen, said "the money that would be generated by
freezing the rollback is not insignificant; Lancaster would be in line to receive $581,000 for the fiscal year that begins
July 1."
He thinks killing the rollback will provide all the additional revenue to cities and towns?
Barbara pointed out yesterday, just think of what the final phase of our little tax rollback could accomplish,
if only it would go away. Nursing home care for everyone, local aid up the yingyang, dental care for all, the
Medicaid budget-buster busted, Big Dig completed, increased public safety, homeless shelters, affordable
housing ... it apparently could sure stretch a very long way! Stretch, in the imagination
of every faction of the Gimme Lobby with its hand out or in our pockets - because each wants and expects all of it for their
own particular special interest.
After all, if our little $150-$450 million (depending on the
day of the week and who's talking) state/taxpayers (depending on who's speaking) savings can fund so much ... will someone
please tell me why we need a $23 BILLION state budget?
And how about today's Boston Globe editorial? The Globe is
obviously struggling for wiggle room from the blatant hypocrisy we've consistently criticized: "the Legislative branch, and
especially the House, is designed to be sensitive to public sentiment -- not slavishly obedient to it, but aware and
responsive." This, I suppose, translates into "you can kill their tax rollback, but not our Clean Elections"!
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Boston Globe
West Edition
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Democracy's bite
Community's feel pain of 2000 income-tax rollback
By Christopher Rowland
Globe Staff
FRAMINGHAM - For parent Jayne Todd, the most tangible sign of
Framingham's budget woes appeared last week, when her daughter Jennifer came home in tears.
Brought on by the layoff of a classroom aide, the sobs of a
fifth-grader served as warning for the fiscal squall bearing down on Framingham and other Boston suburbs such as Newton,
Natick, and Franklin. Communities throughout the region are being forced to decide whether
they should close fire stations, reduce police patrols, or slash school spending.
"It looks like we will have to cut teaching positions," Todd
said. "At our PTO meeting, I was scared."
Local budget troubles are a flashback to the fiscal
contractions of the early 1990s, when the last recession struck Massachusetts. This time around, there is an extra dynamic in
the mix: irony.
In November 2000, suburban voters enthusiastically embraced
then-Governor Paul Cellucci's statewide referendum to reduce the income tax. Now the state is passing the
resulting revenue shortfalls right back to local communities - where the sudden
scarcity of aid is spurring program cuts and demands for large increases in property taxes.
Tony Matias, an employee in the engineering division at
Bose, was among the 16,176 Framingham residents who voted for the income-tax initiative in 2000. Just 9,397
Framingham ballots were cast against it.
The ballot initiative, Matias said, arrived when the economy
was still going strong, before anyone knew about the dot-com crash and layoffs that would later shock the state's western
suburbs - particularly the Interstate 495 corridor. At the time, Matias said, it seemed like a
great way to put money back into citizens' pockets.
Now, with the economic downturn and budget crisis, Matias
worries how the income-tax cut may be indirectly affecting sports programs in Framingham's schools. The town and the
School Department face a potential shortfall of almost $8 million for the next fiscal year.
"If I had to do it again, I probably would not vote for [the
income-tax initiative]," he said, watching his daughter's hockey practice one evening last week at Loring Arena in
Framingham. "No one was really thinking about what might happen."
The rollback schedule calls for the state income tax rate to
drop to 5.3 percent for 2002 and 5 percent for 2003. Even without the tax cut, the state's ledgers would be awash in
deficits. House leaders are warning municipal leaders to expect a 10 percent reduction in state
"cherry sheet" assistance in fiscal year 2003.
Democrats in the House and Senate are calling for a freeze
in the income-tax rollback, saying the state needs the additional revenue. Delaying the rollback for a year would
produce an estimated $230 million for the state. Thus far, Acting Governor Jane Swift has resisted calls
to delay the rollback, saying the voters' decision in 2000 should be respected.
"The governor's been very clear that now would not be the
time to take money out of the pockets of hard-working families in the Commonwealth," said Swift spokeswoman Sarah
Magazine. With the tax break, she said, "families have a little more income to pay their rent
on time or buy winter coats for the kids."
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited
Taxation - the group that worked hard to win voter approval of the income tax cuts, as well as the local tax cap
measure Proposition 2½ in 1980 - applauded Swift's hard-line stance. Lawmakers have a
skewed set of priorities when it comes to budget cutbacks, Anderson said. That's no reason
to abandon a tax reduction for Massachusetts residents, she added.
"A normal person would start with waste and inefficiency,
but the state Legislature starts with assistance to the mentally retarded and moves from there to state aid," said
Anderson. Towns have had plenty of warning that state aid would be level-funded or worse, and "this is
the year to tighten up," she said. "They've been having a good time spending money, and
they are going to have to stop for a while."
At town and school offices in Framingham, however, officials
grappling with unbalanced budgets are siding with the Legislature. The selectmen recently authorized a letter to
other cities and towns, attempting to rally support for a freeze in the income-tax reduction.
Framingham Selectman John Kahn said there is a clear line
between the 2000 referendum and today's budget woes, but "it's not a straight line. It's a zigzag. It goes through the
governor's budget."
Framingham is among the larger urban municipalities that
rely heavily on state assistance. Wealthier communities that offer fewer services - such as Dover and Sudbury - are not as
dependent on the state. Communities both rich and poor are planning attempts to override
Proposition 2½, which limits local tax increases at 2.5 percent each year. Overrides can be
authorized only by a townwide vote.
"Cutting taxes in the abstract is one thing," said Kahn.
"Going to a pay-as-you-throw trash collection system, or collection every two weeks, or eliminating police officers and
closing a fire station - that's service and public safety, and people are thinking about it that way."
Framingham resident Duncan Fuller, a local antitax activist,
said there are still plenty of townspeople who remain behind the income-tax rollback. The government's fiscal austerity
measures, he said, should be viewed positively. "You just can't live with these unrealistic
budget increases year after year," said Fuller.
Framingham School Superintendent Mark Smith is looking for
$4 million or $5 million, just to cover inflation costs and raises for teachers and staff.
Some observers in town say proponents of an override for
operating expenses face an uphill battle. Voters just last year approved an override for construction of a new high school, and
that involved an enormous fight.
"If we don't get an override vote, there will be catastrophic reductions to the tune of $4
million to $5 million," said Smith. "They would be very harmful to the
community."
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Legislators love to hate will of the people
by Howie Carr
Hands off the state income-tax cut!
It's back to the future at the State House, 1989 all over
again. Legislators babbling nonsense, a governor utterly bereft of credibility, and, worst of all, huge tax increases looming
just over the horizon to pay for more handouts to the non-working classes.
So what else is new, right?
Just don't touch my income-tax cut, you tax-fattened hyenas.
Could it be any clearer how much the Legislature loathes the
referendum process? But until now, the solons have at least paid lip service to the voters' wishes. They were afraid,
basically, of retribution at the polls.
But now 70 percent of them run unopposed, which means they
will pay no penalty for thumbing their noses at their constituents. There will be no paybacks, only payoffs, if they
repeal the income-tax cut.
So right now the Legislature is gearing up to repeal two
voter-approved initiatives - the tax-cut, which received 59 percent of the vote in 2000, and so-called Clean Elections,
which got 67 percent in 1998.
The liberal goo-goos and their bow-tied allies on the
editorial boards say Clean Elections is sacrosanct, the will of the people. As for the income-tax cut, that's, well,
negotiable.
I don't get it. Either they're both worth keeping, or
they're not.
Of course, the tax-and-spenders who want to repeal the
income-tax cut say it's "only" three bucks a week for a person making $50,000 a year. I guess all the media types with trust
funds and plagiarism problems won't miss "only" $150 a year.
Plus, these unrepetent Clintonites took a mini-poll. Half
the people don't want a tax cut, they claim. Let's see, they polled 400 people, and 50 percent of 400 is 200.
Well, that settles it, I guess. Two hundred people in a
"poll" definitely trumps the will of 1,500,000-plus citizens who voted themselves a tax cut 15 months ago.
Tom Birmingham is pushing for the repeal of the tax cut. You
know Tom. He's the Senate president who has been shaking down lobbyists to raise enough money to introduce himself
to the electorate through TV spots.
If Birmingham wants everybody else to take a bullet, why
doesn't he set a good belt-tightening example for the rest of us by removing his wife from the state payroll
controlled by Whitey Bulger's brother?
After all, Mrs. Tom Birmingham "only" makes $148,000 a year.
You won't miss it, Tom.
After they kill our income-tax cut, next they'll go after
cigarettes. They hacks will jack the excise tax up to $1.26 a pack, and by the way, you'll have to pay sales tax on that
excise tax.
Then they'll come after capital gains. The Legislature
traded a capital-gains tax cut in return for a payraise back in '94. Now they're going to renege on their part of the bargain.
The Legislature is like the mob. What's theirs is theirs and
what's yours is theirs.
The only one standing in their way is the toll-crazed acting
governor, Jane Swift. She wants to cut taxes, unless of course you live on the near North Shore or west of Kenmore Square,
in which case, she's salivating at the prospect of doubling tolls - also known as taxes - on
roads, tunnels and a bridge that were paid for a generation ago.
It's very simple. Swift wants to hike the tolls $500 a year
per person to funnel millions of dollars more to billionaire Big Dig contractors, who will then kick back a penny on a
dollar to Swift so she can buy TV time to tell you how much she's cut your taxes.
How stupid does she think we are? Swift has about as much
chance of winning in November as Warren Tolman.
Given her bleak prospects, she's trying to bury as many
bodies as possible before she gets the bum's rush. Despite a "hiring freeze," somehow she finds $58,790 to hire a hack named
LaPlante who was planted in a congressional race. And the MDC hires the driver of a
Waltham maitre d' named Joe Malone, who as state treasurer partied with Rick Pitino as his
top aides were literally walking out of the State House with gold bullion
under their coats.
You have to ask yourself, how much does Joe Malone's driver
know if they feel compelled to shut him up with a $60,973-a-year job? And if Joe Malone's driver knows $60,973
worth of bad news, how much are we going to have to pay Jane Swift's driver to dummy up
come December?
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 10, 2002
King Tom plays dirty on Clean Elections
by Wayne Woodlief
What's with this elected-judges "cleansing agent" nonsense
House Speaker Tom Finneran is spouting as he tries to bully the Supreme Judicial Court from finding a way to fund the Clean
Elections Law?
This is one Finneran surely didn't think through before he
bounced from editorial board to editorial board Thursday, warning that if the SJC keeps trying to tell the Legislature
what to do, it may invite a demand for an elected judiciary, not the appointed system that has worked
quite well.
In fact, Finneran's idea that elections are great "cleansing
agents" and the court may be in need of a scrubbing could backfire on a couple of counts:
If the Legislature ever did get nutty enough to make judges
elected officials, imagine the new competition for campaign money from some 400 judges throughout this state.
And if you're a lawyer, would you rather contribute to your
state rep - or the judge before whom you're going to appear next? King Tom, your members aren't going to like this one.
Besides, this is still an independent judiciary. If
anything, Finneran's crude attempt at intimidation is likely not to cause the SJC to back off, but to embrace something
mighty close to the compromise solution to the Clean Elections dilemma that Justice John M. Greaney
held out at oral arguments Thursday.
Clean Elections advocates had argued that since the law had
been approved 2-1 by the voters in 1998 and since the Legislature earlier had set aside $23 million to launch a
public financing system (but never formally appropriated the money), the court should simply "deem
it appropriated."
No way, said Greaney. That might breach the separation of
judicial and legislative powers. But he asked, "Why can't we enter a (monetary) judgment on behalf of each certified
candidate" who has met Clean Elections standards?
That way, Democratic gubernatorial contender Warren Tolman
and House candidate James Eldridge of Acton - the only two candidates so far certified under Clean Elections standards
- would have a court order to collect what they're entitled to under the law.
In Tolman's case, that would be $811,000 now and perhaps
another $800,000 or so further down the primary road.
As other candidates acquired enough small donations from
enough citizens to qualify for matching public funds, they could go to court, too, to seek judgments against the state.
But the court would not be directly ordering the Legislature to appropriate money.
Greaney's notion made sense to Assistant Attorney General
Peter Sacks, who had argued that the Legislature has the right to fund or not. Sacks said, "It would keep the court within
the bounds of judiciary power."
It was an acceptable foot in the door to reform advocates.
"It seems a fair and workable solution," said David Donnelly, executive director of Massachusetts Voters for Clean
Elections.
But Finneran played Scrooge again, indicating that even if
the SJC goes along with Greaney's idea, there's no way in these tight times that the state can find the money to pay for the
judgments the court might order.
Now, Finneran is on target a lot of the time. He's a perfect
Jeremiah for these fiscally troubled times, warning of huge revenue shortfalls ahead. But he can be downright negative
when it comes to keeping promises to the voters.
So what if they voted overwhelmingly for Clean Elections in
1998 and for tax cuts in 2000? Now the speaker is warning that the Legislature may try to snatch this year's final installment
of that tax cut away from hard-pressed wage earners.
And he seems to have a one-word message on Clean Elections:
Never.
On Friday, House Elections Laws Chairman Joseph Wagner
(D-Chicopee) said he'll file a bill next week to repeal the Clean Elections Law. He'd never have done that without
Finneran's consent.
At least Finneran is consistent in trying to stiff the
voters' wishes. Just the opposite from the admirable kind of consistency that Tolman and Steve Grossman, another Democratic
gubernatorial canddiate, have shown on the tax cut and Clean Election issues.
Tolman's candidacy will live or die by the fate of Clean
Elections. Grossman is raising his campaign money privately. But both completely support the public financing system. And
though both of them argued against the tax cut at the time - prophetically warning that our
boom couldn't last forever - each now contends the decrease should go forward, since the
voters decided differently.
Now that's positive consistency. Try it sometime, Mr.
Speaker.
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