The Lowell Sun
Friday, June 14, 2002
Editorial
Don't be fooled
Our hopes that the Senate would correct the misguided work
of the House on the 2003 state budget didn't materialize.
Our worst fears did.
The Senate somehow managed to add $200 million in new
spending, bringing its version of the "fiscal crisis" budget to $23.2 billion. Senate President Tom Birmingham, one of five
Democrats running for governor, pushed party colleagues to vote for an expanded $1.2
billion tax package, with the extra funds going to education and health care.
This all came about after the state Department of Revenue
reported a fifth consecutive month of declining tax receipts.
Two weeks ago, the House approved a $23 billion spending
plan built on Speaker Tom Finneran's $1.06 billion tax package. In the process, the Democrat-controlled House
trampled three voter-approved ballot initiatives Clean Elections, the income
tax rollback and the exemption for charitable deductions.
The Senate mirrored the House on freezing the income tax
rollback at 5.3 percent and wiping out the charitable deductions exemption. But it voted to tap the $23.6 million
Clean Elections account for $9.6 million, funds that will be used to pay off qualifying candidates.
The Senate's action sends Clean Elections back to voters, who'll be asked a
nonbinding question whether they support using taxpayer money for political campaigns.
The different versions of the budget must now be reconciled
in a House-Senate conference committee. No one should expect miracles.
Both the House and Senate proposals exceed the Commonwealth's existing $22.6 million
budget. The House plan is $400 million more and the Senate's $600 million more. This
confirms what we've been saying for months: The Legislature has a "spending crisis,"
taxpayers have a "fiscal crisis."
Obviously, Finneran and Birmingham, the spending architects,
didn't follow the same advice they gave budget managers in cities and towns. Most cut municipal expenses to the bone in
order to level-fund budgets for 2003.
For all the legislative "working" panels dispatched
throughout the state to get the public's input, and all the grand designs for economizing, not one new idea emerged to
either stabilize expenses or generate new revenues. Not one.
While proposals for casino gambling and slot-machines at
racetracks received obligatory debate, they never had a chance. Social liberals raised the age-old fears of creating a vast
pool of gambling degenerates and impoverished losers. So why hasn't this occurred among
the tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents who annually cross the Connecticut
border to enjoy the gaming tables at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun? Have they added to the existing
social ills? We haven't seen it.
Millions of Massachusetts dollars sail across the state
border daily. And thousands of people who could be employed in good-paying jobs (the total payroll at Foxwoods and Mohegan
Sun is 20,000, with health insurance) sit idle in Fall River, New Bedford, Palmer and
Pittsfield all communities that have approved local initiatives for casino gambling.
Is this the type of leadership the Commonwealth wants, or
deserves, in a time of challenge? We don't think so.
Other states (New York, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio)
faced similar or far worse fiscal difficulties than did the Commonwealth, yet they balanced the books by prioritizing
programs, reducing costs, borrowing against future tobacco settlements and refinancing debt.
When all is said and done, the 2002 Legislature will go down
in history for undoing the tax cuts of the past 10 years that gave working families a chance to break even (a
MassInc. report released in April revealed that the vast majority of the
state's middle class gained no ground in personal income despite the economic boom of the 1990s).
The Legislature's only initiative came in raising taxes.
With that mindset, what can taxpayers look forward to in
fiscal year 2004, when a still lagging economy already being predicted once again impacts state revenues?
You guessed right if you guessed tax hikes.
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