Citizens for Limited Taxation & Government
18 Tremont Street #608 * Boston, MA 02108
Phone: (617) 248-0022 * E-Mail: cltg@cltg.org
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*** ALERT! ***

The Barbarians are at the Gate!

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Dear Minutemen (and women):

Your computer has just become a crystal ball. Rarely do we get to see, this clearly, what is coming. In case you missed this blue-print for the future, though it’s pretty lengthy, it’s *so important* that we are sending it in its entirety.

If a sales tax increase (just a penny, folks—but six cents on every single dollar of sales-taxable purchase!) gets past the governor’s veto, we Minutemen will be ready to do an immediate repeal referendum. If the grad tax gets on the ballot again, we will fight that fight for the *sixth* time.

They think this is like a Proposition 2 ½ override—just keep putting it on the ballot and, sooner or later, they’ll wear us down. But that doesn’t always work for them on overrides, either, thanks to local activists.

The following Boston Globe story—unlike recent reports about how the Legislature has changed, "reformed", tells us what it’s really doing: Waiting for the first opportunity to return to those happy tax-and-spend days of yore. We didn’t want you to miss a word of its evolution.

Barbara Anderson
Co-director

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The Boston Globe
Tues., Jan 21, 1997
Metro / Region (page B1)

Liberal Democrats hopeful for agenda
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff

Gov. William F. Weld was concluding a ceremony in the Governor’s Council chamber the other day when he spotted House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, walking without the crutches Finneran used while recovering from a leg injury.

"Ah, Mr. Speaker," Weld called out jovially. "Glad to see you back at full strength again."

Finneran immediately shot back a reply that wiped the smile off the Republican governor’s face: "The Democrats in the House are back at full strength, too, governor."

Chances are, Weld had already noticed that. Tomorrow is looking a lot like yesterday on Beacon Hill, with the phrase "one-party state" regaining a currency it has not had since the late 1980s.

After six years of watching Weld set much of the political agenda, Democrats are preparing to play the strongest hand they have held since they lost the governor’s office in 1990, with implications for state policy that are only beginning to sink in - though Weld, with his State of the State focus on education, and budget proposals that greatly expand human services spending, has already begun moving his feet to the new music.

"There is a new dynamic unfolding," declared Sen. William R.

Keating (D-Sharon). "Too many times in the past, we weren’t as vocal as we should have been. This year, you’re going to see a Legislature that is a lot less inhibited."

Liberal Democrats in particular, emboldened by staggering new Democratic majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and the prospect of retaking the governor’s office in two years, are map-ping plans to revive the progressive agenda.

An assault weapons ban, universal health care, changes that ease the harshest aspects of welfare reform, $200 million in new spend-ing on early childhood education, expanded family leave for employees, even politically explosive tax increases - all are likely to be put on the table during the current legislative session.

Liberals have harbored similar dreams in years past. The differ-ence this year is that Weld may not so easily snuff them. Democrats say that Weld and his Cabinet leaders should be prepared to be grilled at numerous legislative hearings that will challenge admin-istration policies ranging from privatization to insurance rates. Moreover, Weld may have rammed through his last corporate tax break for a while; any future tax cuts will have to target working- and middle-class families to have any chance for success, Democratic lawmakers say.

"There’s going to be a shift to a proactive agenda that addres-ses the needs of working men and women, a Democratic agenda with a capital D," said Sen. David Magnani (D-Framingham).
Though hoping for common ground, especially with the fiscally hawkish Finneran, the Weld administration is prepared to counter-attack.

"If the Democratic Legislature starts passing tax increases and does things that will harm the economic climate in the state, we’ll fight for what we believe in," Lt. Gov. Paul Cellucci vowed during an interview with the Globe. Cellucci warned that the excesses of one-party government brought the state to the brink of fiscal disaster in the 1980s, and could do so again.

Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham and other Democratic leaders say such fears are "greatly overblown," with Birmingham noting that tax hikes are "still anathema to many members" of the Senate. But the Senate president acknowledged, "Ideologically, there is more water between Weld and me than there was between Weld and Senate President Bulger." William M. Bulger, Birmingham’s pre-decessor, guaranteed relatively smooth sailing for Weld for five years.

But it is in the newly energized House where the stiffest chal-lenges to Weld are likely to arise, especially on tax-and-spending issues.

One idea under discussion by liberal House Democrats is a pro-posal to increase the state sales tax by one penny, and dedicate it to education funding. Another is to revive the graduated income tax proposal, defeated at the polls two years ago, as part of a compre-hensive package that aims to make municipalities less dependent on property taxes to fund local schools.

House liberals did get a rude reminder last week that Finneran may put a damper on their ambitions, as the speaker demoted several prominent liberals from committee chairmanships.

But in general, with state revenues up and the economy perform-ing strongly, Democrats are talking more and more about ummet social needs and ambitious spending plans.

Some Democratic lawmakers say the state must spend more to blunt the impact of federal budget cuts, while others say the state should play a much larger role in funding local education, larger even than the expanded role mandated by the 1993 education reform law.

"Education is the responsibility of the state," one Democratic legislator said. "How can the state not rise to the challenge?"

In general, there is little question that for the next two years, Weld is going to be forced to react to the Legislature’s initiatives - many of which will involve new spending - and not the other way around.

The reason is that the partisan field is more sharply tilted against Weld than it has ever been. The Legislature sworn in by Weld on New Year’s Day contains 129 Democrats and a mere 29 Republicans in the House, 33 Democrats and seven Republicans in the Senate. "This is probably the only thing in the next two years I will get all of you to repeat after me," Weld joked as he swore in the lawmakers.

The partisan disparity is so wide that the GOP can neither push through a Weld initiative nor sustain a gubernatorial veto of any bill the Democrats wish to pass.

The election returns on Nov. 5, in which voters elected an all-Democrat congressional delegation and returned Sen. John F. Kerry to office, bolstered the confidence of lawmakers that Democrats are more ideologically in tune with state residents than Republicans, and that the public would support an aggressive Democratic agenda.

Adding to Weld’s woes is that he is seen by many Democrats as a lame duck, despite his recent ruminations about running for a third term, and despite his 13-point lead in a new Globe poll over US Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy 2d, who stands out in the poll as the strongest likely Democratic contender in 1998.

"Bill Weld was a person on the way up, and now he’s a person - despite his recent statements - on the way down," Keating said. "In the minds of the vast majority of legislators, regardless of his popularity, he has assumed lame-duck status."

Others, such as Birmingham and Cellucci, point to the recent history of cooperation on some issues between the legislative and executive branches. And Democrats cannot ignore Weld’s high popu-larity: He registered 70 percent favorability ratings in the Globe poll, published earlier this month.

But it is clearly a new world, or perhaps a return to an old world, for a Republican governor who once hoped to remake Beacon Hill in his image. Things are so different that even Finneran, Weld’s favorite Democrat, is likely to add to the governor’s head-aches, since Weld’s pet issues, such as a new football stadium in Boston, involve a level of state funding for infrastructure that Finneran adamantly opposes.

"Weld is so used to setting the tone of the debate by issuing grand pronouncements," one Democratic lawmaker said. "But from now on, when he floats trial balloons, Finneran is going to take out a gun and shoot them right out of the air."