Greeting beleaguered taxpayers;
As we warned, the Legislature is on a spending splurge with all our surplus tax revenues—and we're not the only ones who've recognized the Legislature is building in bigger and more dependence and future expectations.
“This was the very pattern that ultimately led to fiscal disaster in the late 1980s,” even the stodgy Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation recognizes, and they hardly ever agree with us.
So you can see the writing on the wall for what's becoming inevitable, sooner or later—as it was at the end of the free-spending `80s.
It's becoming more obvious every day that our “Rollback the Rate” initiative petition is the *only* solution—the *only hope* that remains for the lowly taxpayer who's expected to keep paying too much, then pay more. And *pay more* it will be—when the economy takes a downturn—unless our ballot question succeeds and we reclaim our surplus revenues.
[ PS. Check out our new campaign logo on the CLT&G web-page! ]
Weld signs off on hikes in spending
By Carolyn Ryan
Gov. William F. Weld, elected on a pledge to slash state spending, yesterday signed an $18.4 billion budget that continues the steady climb of cash shoveled into Beacon Hill bureaucracy.
With Weld's signature, the budget hikes state spending 5.5 percent over last year's plan.
The government now swallows $5 billion more each year than in fiscal year 1991, when Weld took over. During the past seven years, Weld has upped the budget 30 percent—or 50 percent over the inflation rate during the same period.
This year's budget has goodies tucked into it for the Legislature's favorite bureaucracies, including at least 365 new jobs in courthouses. The ever-expanding higher education budget—which feeds the University of Massachusetts and other campuses—will bulge by $50 million more this year, although Weld has reserved half the spending to force cuts in student fees.
Even the MDC—which Weld once boasted of blowing up— will get $3 million more to spend on parks. State zoos, which t one time Massachusetts hoped to turn over to private hands, get $6 million.
Weld, who once relished a battle with legislative leaders, appears to have lost the stomach for the fight, critics say. He vetoed only $8 million in small accounts, less than 1 percent of state spending. He timidly told reporters he hoped the Legislature would agree to cut taxes in the fall, but has admitted he may no longer be governor then.
Weld's surrender has ever some of his regular supporters concerned.
The usually supportive Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation warned the spending plan looks alarmingly like the beginning of the free-spending 1980s. During that decade, lawmakers allowed the budget to balloon during good times, landing the state in trouble when the economy soured.
“You're seeing the beginning of a pattern here which, if unchecked, has the potential to get us in trouble down the road,” said Michael Widmer, MTF president.
Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government despaired that Weld is failing to challenge the Legislature on its spending excesses.
Anderson, a Weld backer for years, said the governor should try to focus public attention on the need for broad tax cuts and less bureaucracy.
“I don't think he's gone as far as he could to use the bully pulpit,” Anderson said. “I think he should have a major, major public relations battle over this.”
The budget Weld signed includes three tax cuts, but they are paltry—totaling only $55 million—and two of them target special groups: homeowners who fix their septic systems to meet state code and poor families who take an earned income tax credit.
Weld said he was disappointed more tax reductions were not included, but said he would not try to slash more spending now. He said he hoped when state revenues are tallied later this fall, taxes on Internet providers and the state's tax on unearned income could be cut.
“At this point Paul (Cellucci, lieutenant governor)and I are keying forward to September,” Weld said.
“We're due for a revision in the `98 revenue projections.
We might be able to afford more tax cuts.”
Weld said the Legislature is to blame for not returning more money to taxpayers.
But David Tuerck of the fiscally conservative Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University said Weld shares the responsibility to enforce fiscal discipline.
“The Legislature, and now with the governor's approval, has exceeded sensible spending limits,” Tuerck said.
“You can't bring about meaningful tax reduction in a climate in which we're pushing state spending to the limit.”
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The Boston Globe
Friday, July 11, 1997
Weld signs $18.4b budget, urges tax cuts
By Adrian Walker
Governor William F. Weld reluctantly signed a new $18.4 billion budget into law yesterday with only three vetoes, but not before vowing to fight again later this year for sweeping tax cuts.While praising the budget for being fiscally sound and in balance, Weld said he still believes more of the state's booming revenues should be returned to the pockets of Massachusetts taxpayers. The budget includes only three tax cuts.
“We hope the Legislature will see our basic point: that the state can afford to cut these taxes and the people can't afford to pay them,” Weld said at a packed news conference.
[ . . . ]
Most of those tax cuts died shortly after they were proposed in January, but the administration believes that the Legislature will face far more public pressure later in the year. State revenues have been much higher than expected all year and could be $300 million ahead of projections by Labor Day.
Fiscal observers remained critical of the increase in spending, arguing that taxpayers will expect new programs to continue in the future, even if there is less financial flexibility.
“Given the current strong tax revenues, the state can certainly afford the proposed additional spending in 1998,” the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation said in a statement. “However, the concern is that we build in a rate of increase— that cannot be met with reasonable annual growth in state revenues, let alone a future recession. This was the very pattern that ultimately led to fiscal disaster in the late 1980s.”
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