PS. To see Jerry Holbert's Boston Herald editorial cartoon
that I raved about yesterday, click
here.
OK, so I laughed at that cartoon too. And much of Chip's
outrage may well be CLT's official position soon.
It is good -- and only fair -- to fire a warning shot across
the bow before taking on the Republican Party, especially when not all Republican politicians have shown signs of weakening on
taxes.
But: until we hear Gov. Swift say, herself -- not through
anonymous sources who may be trying to manipulate her into a bad decision
to stop our rollback -- I think we should
hold our fire.
The
Herald is the only one reporting this, and much of the media was there in waiting last night.
She may be doing what Marini told me he is doing, which is
simply appearing "reasonable" because the Democrats won't give in on all Republican demands so it will be their fault if
negotiations break off.
Having said that, and feeling sillier by the minute by
trying to be optimistic, why does the Governor have to give the Democrats
anything in order to get them to do perfectly reasonable things like her pension plan,
lottery plan, use of tobacco money and reserves, etc., all of which are sufficient
to deal with the spending shortfall?
I think, however, we should judge Republican reps as individuals, support those who don't vote to kill the
rollback, and attack only those who do.
We have two Republicans who just took the pledge in December: Sen. JoAnn Sprague, who has stood by
the taxpayers consistently, and the new Rep. Michael Coppola (R-Foxboro), who
replaced a Republican legislator who is a member of CLT. Some of them have 100% ratings with us.
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
As with Democrats who are fighting Finneran, they don't all
follow their leadership.
It is Patriots' Day weekend. Let's keep the powder dry but
keep our eye on Chip's lantern.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, April 13, 2002
Pols make tentative tax deal
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley and David R. Guarino
Acting Gov. Jane Swift and legislative leaders last night
hammered out a tentative agreement to freeze the voter-approved income tax rollback this year to close an $800 million budget
gap, sources said.
In a rare, four-hour meeting, sources said Swift agreed to
freeze the tax rate at 5.3 percent and lawmakers signaled they would OK her plan to reform the state pension system and free
up more money from the tobacco settlement trust fund.
Other sources cautioned that the agreement was tentative and
could still collapse in the coming weeks.
Emerging from the meeting, Swift and others refused to talk
about specific taxes, but announced they had an agreement that the state faces an $800 million deficit in the current
year.
"We have agreed on the size of the problem," Swift said,
adding that she and legislative leaders, including House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President Thomas F.
Birmingham, will meet again Monday.
None of the participants last night would say what mix of
spending cuts and tax hikes they are considering, adding they wouldn't "negotiate through the media."
Sources said Swift brought to the table a sudden new retreat
on taxes, opening the final days of her lame duck administration to hikes she and predecessors resisted for 12
years.
The meeting included Swift, Finneran, Birmingham, the
Republican leaders and Ways and Means committee chairmen of both branches.
Sources said the meeting followed a series of secret bull
sessions between the three top leaders, though several officials made sure reporters knew about yesterday's session -
held on a day many of the same pols often steer clear of the State House entirely.
Swift led the charge, calling officials into her office for
a meeting that began as state workers scurried home for a long holiday weekend. Administration sources said the governor
intended to lay out a handful of options that included freezing the voter-approved income tax
rollback at 5.3 percent.
The sources said Swift is also open to raising the cigarette
tax by as much as 50 cents per pack.
But implicit in her offerings will be demands that the House
and Senate change their opposition to at least some of Swift's past savings proposals. Top on her list, the sources
said, are plans to cut payments into state pensions and cut payouts to
state Lottery winnings.
"If you're going to provide leadership, everybody has to
realize that all issues have got to be on the table," said Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees (R-East Longmeadow), a Swift
ally.
Republican legislative leaders signaled they were fully
prepared to cave in to tax hikes - if it meant wringing concessions out of Democratic legislative leaders.
Lees said the only way Swift can win on pet proposals is if
she bends on the only issue she really owns. While refusing to specifically name the taxes he's willing to hike, Lees said he
no longer confers sacred status on the income tax cut overwhelmingly approved by voters in
2000.
"It's certainly on the table with me," Lees said. "You have
to be fair."
The GOP could also get behind a politically easy vote to
jack up the cigarette tax by at least 50 cents, Lees said.
While Democrats have vocally supported tax hikes, Republicans have been bound by more
than a decade of the Corner Office's "no new taxes" mantra.
Lees, who voted to hike unemployment insurance taxes, said
he's not suffering any ideological qualms. "I didn't take the silly pledge, which I find ridiculous," he said.
Birmingham, a Democratic candidate for governor, downplayed
expectations as he entered the governor's office that the meeting would produce some blockbuster revelation.
"This isn't budget negotiations," Birmingham said. "This is
an attempt to identify very broad areas of common ground so that we can, in a bipartisan way, get out of '02 and see how it
looks for '03."
Election year politics will be at the center of the budget
debate, slated to officially kick off again April 22, when House leaders unveil that branch's spending plan.
The House budget is expected to include spending cuts well
beyond even those expected by sagging revenue estimates.
House leaders have suggested that such deep spending
reductions, trickled down to killed pet projects throughout the state, will make it much more palatable for lawmakers to
approve tax hikes of any kind in an election year.
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State House News Service
Weekly Roundup - Week of April 8, 2002
STORY OF THE WEEK
Swift's rollback on the rollback
By Craig Sandler
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, APRIL 12, 2002 ... Mitt Romney is arguably
the first nationally known person to run for governor of Massachusetts since Calvin Coolidge, and
Robert Reich makes two. But Romney's fame isn't going to count for that much -
even if he wins - unless a lot of obscure people get elected with him.
Ever since Republicans lost their ability to sustain
gubernatorial vetoes in 1992, Republican governors in Massachusetts have pretty much had to take what they can get
from the Legislature. Nothing has passed the Legislature over the objections of the Democratic
leadership in years.
The major Republican victory in Massachusetts in the past
five years came when the voters approved an income tax rollback. Republicans resorted to a referendum once it was
clear they commanded way too few votes in the Legislature to make a difference.
This week, Acting Gov. Jane Swift broke with a long-standing
pillar of Republican appeal here - insistence on no new taxes. She backed off the pledge she made in writing never to
tolerate a tax hike and implied she's considering halting the rollback....
* * *
TEAM cuts against the grain, so to speak
Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts released a report
Wednesday declaring that, political rhetoric notwithstanding, the problem with Massachusetts' budget picture is insufficient
revenue, not overspending. TEAM's researchers found that state and local revenues as a
percent of personal income fell 8.6 percent over the past two decades in Massachusetts, in
contrast to a 12 percent rise nationwide. Critics said the real problem
is state spending has nearly doubled in ten years.
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State House News Service
Advances - Week of April 15, 2002
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON ... The great House tax debate of 2002 is
two weeks away but the anticipation and negotiations are well underway on Beacon Hill. The dynamic has
changed dramatically in recent days.
First, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Mitt Romney refused to make
any promises about holding the line on taxes. Romney removed one of the major differences between he and the five
Democrats who want to battle him in November by allowing that tax tinkering might be a last
resort after all other deficit-managing steps have been exhausted.
His willingness to consider delaying the next step of the
voter-mandated income tax rollback indicates Romney knows just how far the state's fiscal fortunes have fallen in the past
year. The gap between revenue collections and scheduled spending over the remainder of this
fiscal year and the next one has ballooned to more than $2 billion. And this year's
actual red ink could hit $1 billion.
In a second dramatic turn, Acting Gov. Jane Swift last week
dropped her anti-tax mantra and pled no comment to queries about whether she would veto legislation freezing the
income tax at its current rate. Until last week, she would have adamantly vowed to veto
anything that resembled a tax hike and excoriated Democrats for even considering it.
Swift's seeming turnabout on taxes and contention that she
will negotiate with legislative leaders - they were huddled in a meeting late Friday afternoon - and no longer through the
media may be a direct result of the fact that she is no longer a candidate for governor. Swift
could make life easier for whoever succeeds her in the Corner Office come January.
If Swift does not veto a move to freeze the income tax rate
at 5.3 percent, then lawmakers and her successor will have an easier time balancing the books and will not have to dip as
deeply into existing reserves or programs.
Swift could do her successor a favor - and both business
leaders and liberal advocates are urging her to do so - in much the same way that Gov. Michael Dukakis, Democratic
lawmakers and voters made life easier for GOP Gov. William Weld when he
took office in 1991.
Weld had campaigned in tandem with a ballot question to roll
back the very tax hike now being phased back to its pre-1990 level. Voters rejected the question then and the Weld
administration, which also came into office facing major budget gaps, ended up reaping the
benefits of those higher taxes. The revenues helped him manage through a few tough years,
until tax collections began swelling beyond anyone's expectations.
The opposite is now the case. The House version of the
fiscal 2003 budget will be unveiled April 26 and contain no new taxes. Major cuts in state programs and services are expected
in what Republicans are already calling a "scare document" intended to build support for tax
hikes.
The House is scheduled to debate revenue options the week of
April 29. Those tough votes will come as incumbents and those who would challenge them file nomination signatures for
House and Senate seats. Republicans trying to field more legislative candidates say House
Speaker Thomas Finneran has intentionally scheduled the tax votes after the filing deadline to
avoid rustling up angry GOP challengers - party officials on Friday said they have candidates
in 60 of the 160 House districts and 14 of the 40 Senate districts.
Finneran reportedly says the scheduling theory is absurd.
The budget itself hits the House floor the week of May 6. Finneran has warned that the only way the state can maneuver
itself through the fiscal mess is with budget cuts, increased revenues, and the use of a portion of
state reserves.
With Swift's apparent change of heart, it appears all state
leaders agree with that general assumption but must work out the all-important details.
* * *
Tax Rollback "celebration"
On Tuesday, anti-tax activists will both celebrate and
defend the voter-approved income tax cut, as the Legislature and Acting Gov. Jane Swift have both signaled a new openness to
delaying the final last phase of the tax cut.
Under the law passed by 59 percent of the voters in 2000,
the income tax rate dropped first to 5.6 percent, and then to 5.3 percent. It is scheduled to fall to 5 percent on Jan. 1,
2003.
Business groups have suggested delaying the tax cut until
the economy improves. But activists from Citizens for Limited Taxation say the voters' will should be upheld and the tax
cut honored.
They will stage a "celebration" on Tuesday, the annual
tax-filing deadline. CLT has invited Swift or an executive branch representative, legislators who voted for the rollback
and have promised to preserve it, and candidates for governor and lieutenant governor who actively
supported or did not oppose the rollback and who still support rolling it back to 5
percent. (Tuesday, 2 pm, in front of the State House)
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