THE ISSUE
Massachusetts legislators want to spend about half of
a budget surplus on pet projects.
OUR VIEW
The surplus should be returned to the taxpayers who
produced it.
Now that we’ve just finished filing our Massachusetts taxes for
1997, it’s interesting to see how legislators think of the hard-earned
dollars we pay into the state till.
By most accounts, Massachusetts taxpayers will pay $600 million more
in taxes in 1998 than legislators spent in the budget. There has been
much debate on what to do with this surplus money. Some legislators
favored saving it for a rainy day. A few recommended giving it back to
the taxpayers who produced it.
Then legislators did what most of us knew they would do all
along—they put together a spending plan.
The plan contains all sorts of goodies for the legislators’
districts. Here in the Merrimack Valley, we will get $3 million for
pollution control at the North East Solid Waste Committee incinerator in
North Andover. There’s about $2 million for the expansion of the
Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen. Add another $100,000 for equipment
at the William X. Wall Experimental Station in Lawrence.
The same is repeated across the state—goodies for everyone. All
told, the new spending consumes about half of the $600 million surplus.
Legislators are applauding themselves for this behavior.
They call it fiscal responsibility.
They say these are all worthwhile and important projects that either
have been waiting for funding for some time or that the state would have
had to borrow to pay for.
"This is like getting a bonus from your company and using it to
pay off your credit cards," said State Rep. Harriett L. Stanley,
D-Merrimac.
She’s a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which
controls state spending. She initially favored saving the surplus, but
now she’s all for spending it.
So is State Rep. Barry R. Finegold, D-Andover, who said a few weeks
ago the surplus should be returned to the taxpayers. Now, he says
spending on NESWC is a "wise investment."
What legislators fail to see is that most people don’t get bonuses
from their companies anymore. When individuals know they will have to
spend money for some necessity, they must budget carefully for it. There
are no windfalls for the rest of us.
If these projects are as important as legislators claim, they should
be funded through the normal budget process. And the surplus should be
returned to the taxpayers by lowering state income taxes.