PS. Mitt Romney's new running-mate, Kelly Murphy Healey,
signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in
2000 when she last ran for state representative and our PAC endorsed her. If she does not
publicly retract her pledge -- as with all signers, her continuing commitment is assumed.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's leadership team made its
first public move against the voter-mandated income tax cut yesterday - recommending that it be tied to economic
triggers.
If adopted by lawmakers over acting Gov. Jane M. Swift's
objections, the trigger plan would freeze the income tax cut at its current 5.3 percent level, blocking the voter-approved drop
to 5 percent.
Rep. Marie J. Parente (D-Milford), co-chairwoman of the
House panel given the job of examining the state's credit rating, said there's no other way to dig the state out of a
budget hole approaching $3 billion.
"I almost sent a letter to myself and said don't freeze it,"
Parente said. "But what do we do with the problems we face?"
Originally proposed by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the economic trigger plan
would temporarily halt the phase-in of the tax cut if personal income growth faltered
below a certain point.
The House adopted the plan two years ago, in an attempt to
head off the looming ballot question. But the Senate dug in its heels and the issue was dropped during budget
negotiations.
House debate on tax hikes is scheduled for the week of April
29.
Swift spokesman James Borghesani quickly reiterated the
acting governor's vow to veto any bill that tinkers with the voters' tax cut.
"Taking more money out of consumers' pockets would retard
the initial rebound in the economy," Borghesani said.
But legislative Republicans seem to be peeling away from
Swift's unbending opposition, a sign that legislative leaders could be closer to rounding up the two-thirds vote needed to
override a Swift veto.
House Minority Leader Francis L. Marini (R-Hanson) said he's
willing to consider freezing the income tax cut if the Democratic majority proves it's tried everything else to
balance the budget first.
Marini took the same "no new taxes" pledge as Swift, but he
said lawmakers have to worry about harm to "real, live human beings."
"If everybody bears a little of this burden, working
together, we can get through this," Marini said. "But any tax increase ought to be the last resort, not the first resort."
The House panel also recommends curtailing the state's
reliance on capital gains taxes, and forcing Massport to cough up interest payments for which the state is on the hook when
the agency misses a $105 million Big Dig payment due in December.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, April 4, 2002
Romney leaves Rappaport at altar
by Wayne Woodlief
... And yes, the opposition Democrats are already yelling
that this is just one more reason voters can't trust Mitt to keep his word.
You know, as when he said he'd never run against an
incumbent governor of his own party but then, when he saw Jane Swift's poll numbers plummeting lower than a snake's belly,
decided to take her on after all, forcing Swift from the race.
And how -- after saying all week that any new candidates for
lieutenant governor had to "stand on their own two feet" -- he gave Healy some big shoulders, his own, to stand on
yesterday....
That's why it's imperative that Romney pledge to serve a
full four-year term.
A CLT BLAST FROM THE
(VERY RECENT) PAST
The Boston Globe
Mar. 28, 2002
Romney won't sign a pledge of no new tax
"I am not in favor of increasing taxes," Romney said before
he met with Republican convention delegates. "At this stage, I am inclined to make that position as clear as I can, but
not to enter into a written pledge of some kind, and that's true on this and other issues."
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State House News Service
Wednesday, April 3, 2002
Immigrants tout role in economy,
push for benefits and skills services
State House, Boston, April 3, 2002 ... Hundreds of immigrants
flooded the state capitol today, clogging entrances to the now tightly secured building to make sure lawmakers know
they play a key role in the state's economy.
"It's going to be a tough year, but I think we're doing
well," said Victor DoCouto, director of the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, which leads advocacy
efforts on behalf of the state's 763,513 foreign-born residents. Immigrants make up 12.5 percent of
the state's citizenry.
The coalition supports freezing the voter-approved income
tax rollback and raising the tax rate on investment gains to preserve services that might be cut to balance the budget in
light of revenue gaps.
For many attending today's activities, it was their first
chance to learn about the intricacies of democracy and lobbying for priorities. Program organizers see such lobby days as an
opportunity to expose immigrants to the political process, hoping that some will get more
involved and run for office some day.
Attendees at the 6th Annual Immigrants Day at the State
House laid out the following legislative priorities:
-
Funding for the Citizen Assistance Program (CAP), which
helps immigrants with language skills and to prepare for the federal citizenship exam. The program also qualifies
immigrants for state health insurance and food assistance benefits that the federal government reserves
for citizens. As immigrants are naturalized, they qualify for federal benefits, easing the fiscal
burden on states.
All tolled, MIRA is asking lawmakers to support $45.5
million worth of programs and services.
Immigrants view the programs as necessary to their own
fiscal well being, but emphasized that they play a key role in the economy of Massachusetts, where employers have difficulty
finding qualified workers partly due to the state's relatively stagnant population.
MIRA estimates that workers with less than nine years of
schooling and basic literacy skills earn an average of $289 a week. Those with high school diplomas and strong literacy
skills earn about $493 per week and employees with two-year college degrees earn as much as
$630 per week.
After conducting an interview in Spanish for an electronic
media outlet, Rep. Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford) paused for an interview outside the packed auditorium, where immigrants
listened to elected officials and offered welcoming remarks in their native languages. Before
heading outside to address 150 immigrants turned away from the overcrowded auditorium,
Cabral said, "It's important for folks in this building to see all of the faces that make up
Massachusetts. Their issues should be our priorities."
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, April 4, 2002
State pension abuses alleged
Early retirement benefits questioned
By Rick Klein
Globe Staff
An obscure law set up to benefit fired state employees is
being used by hundreds of former state workers to obtain early pensions even though they left on their own, according to a
review of state records by CommonWealth magazine.
Four former state legislators - House majority leader
Richard Voke, Representatives Francis Mara and Angelo Marotta, and Senator Paul Harold - began receiving pensions before age
55 after leaving office voluntarily, the magazine found. The state retirement board approved
their applications even though the early-pension laws are only meant to cover lawmakers
who are voted out of office.
Other former top state officials, including former governor
Paul Cellucci and Ilyas Bhatti, the former head of the Metropolitan District Commission, also qualified for benefits
under circumstances that appear "dubious at best," the magazine reported. Many employees and
managers appear to have set up paper trails so workers could claim to have been fired or
have had their positions eliminated, according to the report.
"It just seems to go on with a nod and a wink," said Ken
White, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a government watchdog group. "People try to beat the
system."
The review focused on the more than 1,100 state employees
who, since 1990, have received pensions before the normal age of 55. Those laws, which are intended to protect veteran
public servants caught in major shake-ups, allow employees with 20 years of state service to
receive early pensions if their positions are eliminated or if they lose reelection bids.
But Harold, Marotta, Mara, and Voke invoked the 20-year rule
even though they chose to leave the Legislature.
In addition, the law allows anyone with 30 years of service
to get a state pension, regardless of age. That's the provision that
Cellucci, 53, used to tap into $42,573 a year - even as he earns $130,000 as US ambassador to Canada.
Cellucci qualified even though he served only 25 years in
state government. But the retirement board allowed him to tack on the six years he spent as a part-time Hudson
selectman, a post for which he was paid no more than $1,500 a year.
Bhatti began collecting $37,295 a year at age 53 in 1998
after he left his position as an associate project director at the Big Dig, even though the highway department said he was
leaving voluntarily. And Susan Costello, a former Weld administration aide, was given an
early pension at age 42 in 1996; a Cabinet secretary wrote that her "function [was]
eliminated" just two days after Costello passed the 20-year threshold, CommonWealth
reported.
Of the 1,100 early pensions approved by the retirement board
since 1990, one-third were given to workers who were within a year of their 20th anniversaries. About 10 percent were
less than a month removed from that time, raising questions about the legitimacy of their
claims to have been terminated.
The magazine found lax review by the retirement board under
both State Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien and her predecessor, Joseph Malone. O'Brien said new procedures have
minimized potential abuse of the pension system. Employees who lie about
a worker's termination can now be prosecuted, she said, though none have been in the few months since
that policy began.
"You have employers and employees who may be colluding to
give benefits to people that they don't deserve," O'Brien said. "I have to do an even better job of making the employers
understand that that's illegal."
CommonWealth is published by the Massachusetts Institute for
a New Commonwealth, a nonpartisan think tank
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CommonWealth Magazine
April 3, 2002
A CommonWealth special report:
Special retirement deals abound
for lawmakers and "fired" bureaucrats
Former legislators and high-ranking political appointees are
among hundreds of state employees who have availed themselves of special early-retirement deals they may not be
eligible for, a special report by CommonWealth magazine reveals.
Since 1990, more than 1,000 state employees and officials
have taken advantage of a decades-old provision in state law that provides early pensions to public employees with at
least 20 years of service whose positions are eliminated, who are terminated, or who fail "of
nomination or re-election," a feature tailored to benefit state lawmakers who are voted out
of office.
Earlier this year, the Boston Herald reported that four top
administration officials and a deputy to Attorney General Thomas Reilly recently sought this lucrative early-retirement
benefit, raising questions about whether these officials had been dismissed or left voluntarily,
which would have made them ineligible for this special pension.
But a CommonWealth investigation suggests that this handful
of questionable cases may be just the tip of a state pension iceberg. Read the CommonWealth
Special Report.
CommonWealth associate editor Michael Jonas finds that of
the 1,100 pensions approved in the last 12 years under the special retirement statute, fully one-third were granted to
state workers who had passed the 20-year qualifying mark by less than a year. In 10 percent of
cases, employees cashed in within a month of their 20th anniversary in state service.
The timing of these pension applications raises questions
about the validity of claims that the employees were fired. This pattern of conveniently timed dismissals followed by
routine granting of early pensions has been consistent under the two state treasurers who have
chaired the state retirement board during this period, Republican Joe Malone and Democrat
Shannon O'Brien.
In addition, at least four ex-state legislators, including
former House majority leader Richard Voke, have been granted early pension benefits they may not have been qualified for.
Lawmakers who choose not to seek re-election cannot receive retirement payments until
they are 55 years old. But Voke, the former House majority leader, former state
representatives Francis Mara and Angelo Marotta, and former state senator Paul
Harold all began receiving pensions before they reached 55, after they left office voluntarily in the
1990s.
Even among the early-retirement benefits granted properly
under the law, CommonWealth found some surprises. These include the $42,573 a year pension being paid to US
ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci, which supplements his federal salary of
at least $130,000. The former governor qualified for an early pension based on 30 years of
government service, in which case he need not have been fired nor lost an election. Cellucci
had served in state government for only 25 years when he resigned last year to accept his
diplomatic appointment but he was able to credit six years of service from the 1970s as a
member of the part-time board of the selectmen in his hometown of Hudson
in order to qualify for a state pension two years before he turned 55.
"Even by Massachusetts standards this seems extravagant,"
said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, of the lucrative early-pension provisions. "This
defies any logic or comprehension." As for the lax scrutiny some applications have received,
Widmer said, "This is an abuse under the best of circumstances. In the midst of a fiscal
crisis it is an absolute absurdity."
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