The Fall River Herald News
Saturday, July 27, 2002
A Herald News editorial
Read our lips
The Massachusetts Senate voted overwhelmingly to override
acting Governor Jane Swift's veto of its $1.14 billion tax package. The Massachusetts House voted the same way just
days before.
Ouch!
The package will wring $1.14 billion out of a state whose
taxpayers are already bent under a tax burden that is the butt of jokes in many other states.
A billion dollars is a lot of money, but not to legislators
who are desperate to preserve pet pork barrel projects and preserve their own perks.
Legislators are already speaking to the press, being careful
to wrap their spending addiction in a threadbare cloak of rhetoric about not being "able" to cut deeper without "hurting
people."
If legislators expect us to believe that the state is
running at maximum fiscal efficiency, then clearly they don't think we're too bright. Aaaah, but we are quite bright - enough
to notice that the Legislature can't be trusted to make sane decisions about taxation.
In 1989, the Legislature promised to reduce the income tax
rate to 5 percent as soon as the economic downturn ended. That promise went unkept. In 1994, the Legislature promised to
phase out the capital gains tax in trade for an obscene legislative pay raise. That promise was
broken. Even a referendum in 2000 couldn't get the Legislature to honor past promises to
roll back taxes.
Clearly, the Legislature can't be trusted in matters that
pertain to money.
Average taxpayers manage somehow to live on a budget,
continuing to make house payments, buy groceries, save for a rainy day and keep meat on the dinner table. We do this
despite the fact that our stocks are down, our bank account is yielding
interest under 3 percent and we're being taxed to death. We do it because, unlike legislators, we can't use
other people's money to finance our whims and correct our mistakes.
The phrase "taxed to death" is not much of an exaggeration,
either. When this $1 billion tax increase goes through, the phrase will be truer than it is now.
A massive tax increase is the worst prescription for
Massachusetts at a time when salaries aren't increasing but unemployment is creeping upward every month.
Manufacturing jobs are still draining out of the state and
increasing taxes will give the remaining manufacturers one more reason to hit the road for North Carolina or Pakistan.
Workers who pay more in taxes have less money to spend on
goods and services, and that hurts local economies all over the state. Workers who pay more in taxes find it harder to
assemble the down payment on a home, hurting the booming construction industry that is a
bright spot in the state's economy.
We believe the state could cut plenty of fat out of the
budget and we believe that there are still countless state employees who could be laid off without hurting anyone. The
Legislature simply doesn't have the guts to do the job.
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The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, July 28, 2002
Editorial
They call this budget responsible?
OUR VIEW
Legislators only hear what they want to hear from the voters.
Massachusetts legislators are congratulating themselves on overriding Gov. Jane Swift's veto
of the largest tax increase in our history -- an additional $1.1 billion that will come this year
from the pockets of every working person in the commonwealth.
"Commonwealth" is an interesting word that implies we are all in this together. It is an attitude
not shared on Beacon Hill.
There, to those who scuttle through the halls of power, "commonwealth" means your money
belongs to them. It means, in a recession year, a budget increase of between $200 million
and $500 million -- depending on whose estimates of 2003 spending you use -- is "fiscally
responsible." It's the kind of responsibility exhibited by a man who, on learning that he has
lost his job, goes on a three-week bender in Las Vegas.
But no matter. Nothing in the golden domed house of smoke and mirrors is what it seems.
Chief among the illusionists are House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and Senate President
Thomas M. Birmingham. Both supported freezing the state income tax at 5.3 percent despite
voters' overwhelming demand that it be rolled back to 5 percent. Birmingham even wanted
to raise it to 5.6 percent.
How can they ignore the voters? Quite easily. Finneran's standard argument is that the voters
-- all 5,000 of them in Mattapan -- elected him to be a "representative." That is, he must do
what he believes is best for his constituents. The same applies to all the other representatives
who vote in lockstep with the speaker.
But what of the voters' demands to rollback the income tax and to fund clean elections?
Clearly, Finneran has said many times, they misunderstood what they were voting for. Rest
assured that if by some miracle the referendum to abolish the income tax were to pass this
fall, Finneran would determine voters didn't mean that either.
So in the world according to Finneran, voters understand how to grant power but understand
nothing when they try to rein it in.
This, despite attempts to coat it in a veneer of democracy, is nothing but contempt for the
voters. Money is the only source of power for Finneran and Birmingham. Money provides
jobs for relatives, calms those who agitate for more state support and pays for all the
handouts some believe come free.
There is a growing gap between those who must work to pay for ever-expanding state
programs and those who do nothing but take from them.
Finneran, Birmingham & Co. have shown clearly which side of the gap they are on.
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, July 28, 2002
The Buzz
Check, please
One tiny bit of good news in the state budget is that the
Citizens for Limited Taxation, with the help of Rep. Fran Marini (R-Hanson), was able to get a check-off onto next year's
state income tax forms.
This check-off box will allow all the many "advocates" for
human services who claim to enjoy paying higher taxes to put their money where their mouths are - by agreeing to pay their
income taxes at the old, higher 5.85 percent rate, rather than at the current, frozen 5.3
percent rate.
The state of Arkansas made this same offer to its liberal
citizens last year, and raised scores of dollars - maybe even in the low three figures.
As Chip Ford of CLT said in an e-mail of the potential
bonanza of giving from compassionate Massachusetts liberals: "Don't hold your breath. My prediction is: They
wanted OUR money, not to part with theirs."
The early over-under from Vegas on the amount that will be
contributed through the check-off: $790.
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HOME
VALUES TAX HIKE BENCHMARK
The Boston Herald
Friday, July 26, 2002
Mass. home sales buck national downward trend
by Scott Van Voorhis
The Bay State's hot home sales market surged again in June,
even as the real estate activity in the rest of the country cooled.
Massachusetts homes sales jumped 13.1 percent last month,
with condo sales increasing by a solid 7 percent. Prices also increased substantially, with single-family homes posting a
sizzling 17 percent, year-over-year increase from June 2001, bringing the average sale to a
record $369,077, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported.
Meanwhile, real estate sales nationally showed signs of a
potential slowdown in June. The National Association of Realtors reported a close to 12 percent drop in sales of
existing, previously owned single-family homes in the steepest drop since 1995.
"It's amazing, it's absolutely amazing," said Roz Levine,
owner of a Worcester real estate agency and an MAR board member, of the continued Bay State home sales surge. "I
recently had a house on the market for $389,900. It sold in two weeks and it was very close
to the asking price."
And local real estate brokers say sales are holding up this
month, despite the stock market's gut-wrenching, roller coaster ride.
Levine said the strongest demand is coming from first-time
home buyers. With steady jobs and paychecks in a still solid economy, these buyers have not been as affected by the turmoil
in the financial markets as more affluent buyers, Levine said.
Judy Moore, a Lexington broker and an MAR director, said
some buyers are looking at real estate as an alternative investment in light of the misery on Wall Street.
Overall, 5,157 detached single-family homes were sold last
month, a 13 percent increase over May and a slight, 1.9 percent drop over June 2001, the MAR reports.
Condo sales posted a 7 percent increase from May and were up
7.7 percent from June 2001. The average condo sale price hit $255,516, a 5 percent jump from May to June and
17.8 percent over June 2001.
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The Boston Globe
Saturday, July 27, 2002
Making Mass. memorable
By Kevin Graham
Virginia has its lovers and people just love New York, but
until now, no one has had much to say about Massachusetts.
The Bay State hasn't had a catchy slogan to adorn T-shirts
and coffee mugs since "The Spirit of Massachusetts is the Spirit of America" was taken offline because it was too long
and too historic (i.e. boring).
Now, the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism is
looking for a "concise and memorable" phrase to paint a picture of the Commonwealth. Among the nearly 400
suggestions made since the state's travel office began its contest earlier this
month: "Mass is Magic," "Come Share the Common Wealth in Massachusetts," "You'll Relax Fast with a
Vacation in Mass."
"The pressure is on to make sure that we come up with
something that most folks will like and remember," said Paul Sacco, executive director of the Office of Travel and Tourism.
A good slogan "gives a good feeling about a particular state. We want that feeling to come to
Massachusetts."
Contest entries can be submitted through Wednesday via the
office's Web
site.
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