The one question that went “our” way is also the one about which I felt most strongly, but we do need to deal with the fallout of the others. This is what I recommend to alleviate the losses.
For Q1 – Make it a sales tax. Gas is currently ~$3 per gallon and I have to admit I love that it’s low as someone who needs to save as much as possible. If I’m not mistaken the current tax is $0.24 per gallon. I would turn this into a percentage, which would be 8 1/3%. Go ahead and make it 8.5% and from there inflation will automatically be factored in because that is how percentages work. I think voters might more readily swallow this because they are already accustomed to sales taxes and understand how they work.
For Q2 – The blowout this question suffered cannot just all be blamed on campaign spending from your big, bad local grocery store. Curbside is a fact of life and I suspect many people would be open to expanding it. Also put recycling receptacles next to trash cans where such beverages are sold, as well as in public areas. We may want to look at regulations on container material.
For Q3 – Watch casinos carefully. I still think there are a lot of regulations and requirements that can be put in place to alleviate the worse effects. Also keep tabs on them so we aren’t caught off guard if they start showing signs of economic weakness.
In other words, there are still plenty of things progressives can advocate for in these areas without directly contradicting the expressed will of the people.
At least for us political junkies, the bright side of losing the Corner Office is that 2018 could be an interesting cycle, whereas if we had won the convention could have been rather ho-hum. Now we know there will be open nominations for Governor and LG and if one of the other constitutional officers tries to make a move up that person’s current office will open as well. One of my favorite political conversations are the who’s in, who’s out variety, so I put to you the question – who will seek either of the top two Dem nominations in 2018? This can be anything from rumors to wishful thinking, and if the person you mention currently holds office, whom do you think might seek the position that person currently holds?
Steve Grossman. He’s positioned himself well. He’s willing to go negative and throw mud. Tuesday showed that without backing from the Party’s In-Crowd the corner office is a tough get, so he has that going for him. His only negative might be age.
He’s not the guy and he’s never going to be the guy.
It’s time for the next wave: Maura Healey, Joe Kennedy, Katharine Clark, Kim Driscoll, Joe Curtatone.
I would agree with all of these. My take on the individuals:
Joe Kennedy-Obviously, Joe is young, good looking, seems like a nice guy and is a great campaigner, and is blessed with the best last name in Massachusetts politics. Not sure he is ready just yet to take on Baker, how severe Kennedy fatigue is, or if he has issues with his left flank. Not to mention, every Kennedy who ever ran for President was a Senator first. No Kennedy has successfully won a Governorship, and it would be interesting if that is a better or worse proving ground for the presidency.
Clark-Knows how to win crowded Democratic primaries, is sitting in the most voter rich district to use as a jumping off point for statewide office, and knows how to win over independents and works well with Republicans in the House. Waiting for Ed or Elizabeth to leave their perches may take decades. That said, if a blue wave takes back the House, she may want to stay. I think whether she-or any other House member runs-depends on how well we do in 2016.
Driscoll-Obviously, now that Moulton has won, the only other job she could move up to would be the Corner Office or one of the statewide offices. She is a capable executive who has helped shore up Salem’s finances and made it a destination city for young professionals once again. In about a decade or so, the property tax base should help stabilize the schools once those folks start sending their kids there. But, the schools currently are a bit of a liability, especially if education is a big issue. But for job creation and economic development, hard to beat her.
Joe Curtatone-Unless your Joe Curtatone, who arguably helped steer Somerville into becoming the trendy city it is today from the Slumaville of old. That transformation makes for great ad copy, he has a great way of bringing blue collar old school Somerville residents and more younger and affluent new residents together. I think he has a unique touch at getting a blue collar, minority, and young liberal led coalition together and would be a potent campaigner and fundraiser. Apparently, there are some ethical issues that may have contributed to his decision to sit 2014 out. But he or Kim would be my top choices for either half of the ticket. Mayors, as Beacon Hill insiders who have proven track records of brick and mortar accomplishments-are probably the best positioned to win.
Maura Healey-ran one of the best campaigns, has won a massive victory, and would have a potent base as a female LGBTQ candidate in a left leaning primary, with the kind of populist campaigns as AG that would win her a general. A woman to watch. But, the losing streak of statewide office holders gunning for Governor is still going strong.
I would add Seth Moulton to that list, as someone young enough, outsider enough, with the resume to win over a diverse number of constituents, and he definitively outperformed two long time area pols and our gubernatorial nominee. Give him four years to pass some bipartisan bills, maybe focused on veterans health, and he will have the statewide recognition needed. Another one to watch.
I like Deb Goldberg and Bump-but I see them staying put. I see Kerrigan fading back to obscurity, and while I love Elridge and Sonia Chang Diaz, I just don’t see anyone going from the State House to the Corner Office for a long time.
Mayors as Beacon Hill outsiders should have an easier time gaining traction.
And I guess I should add Marty Walsh to the list, presuming he wins re-election in 2017. In many ways, I think going from big city Mayor to state Governor is a bit of a step down, but that didn’t stop Kevin White from aspiring to the Corner Office or James Michael Curley from attaining it in the past. I do suspect Walsh, like Menino before him, has satiated his greater ambition, and will be there until the voters tire of him.
I wish there wasn’t this odd track record of AGs not winning for Gov because honestly Maura Healey is at the top of my wish list for Gov in 4 years — and I think many other Dems, progressive or otherwise. She’s a bona fide rock star and she’d be an incredible person to the be the top public face representing Massachusetts. And at the top of the ticket, she would do great things for legislative candidates, too, I would imagine.
I’m obviously a huge fan of Katherine Clark’s — would vote for her in a heart beat for Gov, she’d be terrific. She’d be a tremendous campaigner and is whip smart, engaging.
I like the idea of solid Mayors with impressive records and good campaign/coalition building skills too — like Driscoll and Curtatone.
Ultimately I think we need a Gov candidate next go round who is a very gifted campaigner but who also is very gifted at articulating a clear powerful vision. The good news, I think, is that we have an interesting and fairly deep bench — and time to fully ponder our options.
I would go to bat for Curtatone, Driscoll, or Clark. I strongly hope Clark looks at it-she impressed me with her win, with my interactions with her, and the way she is handling herself in the House. I also get that a lot of women voters may be upset that Coakley wasn’t able to shatter this last glass ceiling, or that we won’t have all our statewide offices occupied by women-but I think Driscoll or Clark will be far more compelling than Coakley was.
I think that the ‘Mayors ticket’ in either order would be a very strong idea. Just look at these two in action, and tell me they wouldn’t make a great team?
that this is an odd track record of AGs not winning for governor so much as it is a track record of former Middlesex DA’s not winning for governor.
It would be nice to break the Middlesex DA-AG-candidate for governor pipeline
My thought, which I haven’t developed in my mind fully, is that she comes out of this very well. She outran Coakley, her boss for eight years, by a good 15 points pretty much everywhere. The map shows many more blue towns than the governor’s map, and where Healey lost she didn’t lose by much. I don’t think she was below 40% in any town. She was in the high 40s in most of the towns she lost. Of course, running for governor against an incumbent would be very different than running for AG (where she’s already worked) against a relative no-name opponent.
As for the statewide officeholder thing, I’d imagine that would hold her down less than it would most people. She won as a young, fresh face and a first-time candidate, not a retread at all. She’s also far less likely to be seen as part of a Beacon Hill insiders’ crew with a Republican governor as opposed to her boss of 8 years running the state. We still have 4 years to see what headlines – good or bad – come out of the AG’s office.
The Beacon Hill insider crew isn’t in the governor’s office. It’s in the Speakah’s office.
But that didn’t stop people from considering a Steve Grossman an insider. Healey’s not tight with DeLeo anyway.
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Good list of names. I’ll add my thoughts based on nothing.
Joe Kennedy has proven nothing except campaigning chops and that he has a certain last name. It was embarrassing what the party did to line up for him for that seat. Seriously, he’s done nothing. It was all a hope he’d have the promise of some of his relatives. On some important votes, he’s taken the wrong side. Frankly, he’s someone that progressives should be watch to primary, not promote. That said, the name and campaigning skills and connections could win a race. He has a lot more to prove before we give him that shot, I think.
Clark – I like Clark. She’s talented and pretty progressive. Has very little management experience, though. She also comes with a lot of Coakley connections/people that could be problematic.
Driscoll – Agree. A clear rising star whose experience makes sense for the corner office.
Curtatone – There is definitely star power there and a good story to tell. There’s also a lot of baggage that Repub operatives would love. Check out some of Chris Faraone’s writing on the issues.
Healey – No question she’s a star. It’ll be interesting to see how she runs that office, especially on issues like casinos. Her temperament seems much more aligned for AG than Guv, but we’ll see. And yeah, the AG to Guv track record is the worst there is.
Moulton – He’s like Kennedy. Hasn’t proven anything but campaigning skills. I don’t trust his progressivism at all. I hope he proves me wrong. I suspect he will get about zero done in the next two years, much like Congress as a whole.
Goldberg and Bump don’t have a chance. Goldberg could spend her way to recognition, but that’s about it.
I doubt Eldridge would run. I’d be much less surprised to see Sonia Chang-Diaz run. I’d back her.
I’d add Lisa Wong from Fitchburg to the list. She might be the ideal LG running mate for someone. She’s popular and comes from an area where Dems could use help.
I’m sure that Capuano will want to leave Washington after the next couple years of disaster in Congress, so he’s always one to watch. I suspect he ran polling before this year and found out that he’d have a good shot in a primary against most anyone . . . except Coakley.
I always wonder about Ayanna Pressley. She’s great, but has passed on some other opportunities. 2018 could be a good time. But, if Capuano decided to give up his Congressional seat, she would be a VERY strong candidate there.
And I agree with drikeo. Grossman is just not the guy. I like him, but he’s not the guy. Third time will not be a charm.
I respected that Joe Kennedy came here and seemed ready to learn from his mistakes. He is an interesting candidate, one who has a lot more to prove in my opinion and the field should definitely not be cleared for him (or any democrat for that matter) the way it was when he ran for Congress. That is not the road to victory-it’s the road to another Baker route.
I forgot to mention Lisa Wong, but would agree that her perch makes her a better LG candidate. I think Driscoll is clearly ready and willing to take the leap, and would do an excellent job. Setti Warren is another name I should’ve mentioned as a Mayor with potential statewide appeal.
I left out Dan Wolf as well. A CEO with a strong record of backing workers and managerial experience while amounting one of the most consistent progressive voting records in the State Senate. There woulda been no Berwick abse had he been in the race, and he’d have made it a real contest. The manner of his exit though, certainly raised more questions about his seriousness to see a race through. And age may be a factor.
Capuano will leave his seat in a pine box at this point. If he couldn’t win a Senate primary, it’s doubtful he can win a gubernatorial one. Even as a great Congressmen with executive experience as Somerville Mayor, I just don’t see it. But agree that Ayanna, Sonia, or Sal Di Domenico have the inside track for his seat if he gives up.
Curtatone’s issues need to be explored more. I personally like a lot of what I see. A genuine blue collar dude with the local accent and a great ability to bridge the working stiff/suburban liberal divide that really plagues our party’s progress. I really see him being that bridge and kicking ass and taking a lot of names in a run, but, those issues need to be decisively addressed.
I know there is little to really base this on other than a gut sense, but I think the issue is that no one can beat Coakley in a dem primary multi-way race. I’d love to see what Capuano saw in the research leading up to a decision not to enter a race, but I suspect it was something like that. She polled at 40ish percent two years ago and stayed there through the primary.
Depending on the opponents, Capuano might be able to do very well in a Dem primary, with potentially huge counts in Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge, a good showing in other more urban areas like Lowell, Worcester, and Springfield, and then some progressive love in the Valley. It all depends on who else joins.
What about a Capuano/Curtatone ticket? First line of business – move state capital to Somerville.
He would have been my pick had he been in this race. I don’t know that he’d have beaten Coakley in the primary, but I wish he had damned the torpedoes.
I’ve got a red flag up about Setti Warren. Running for Senate almost immediately after winning his first mayoral race made him seem like a grasping careerist pol.
I breezed through that Dig series and there’s not a lot of there there. You’ve got some garden variety NIMBY dressed up like an expose. Kind of ridiculous complaining that the process isn’t open when you’re in the middle of a public hearing.
Then there’s the odd attempt to lay all of Somerville’s shady political history (most of which happened before Curtatone hit adulthood) and the actions of every person in the city at Curtatone’s feet. A) I doubt anyone even attempts to do that if he doesn’t have an Italian surname. B) If he actually can crack the whip and control every aspect of his city, then I think he should be made Governor for life (because that would be freakish political talent).
Finally there’s some paranoid alt history with Scooby Doo cartoons that reads like weird fan fiction. I don’t see why anyone is supposed to care. Honestly, my only takeaway is the writers are cut rate incompetents. I guess opponents could try to paint him as a machine politician (because, hey, he is Italian), but when’s the last time cronyism produced a liberal wet dream?
You’d be surprised how much anti-Irish and anti-Italian assumptions are made by the good folks here at BMG on a regular basis. Maria de Carla isn’t doing our people any favors over in Everett though, and obviously the Bulger’s are as locally prominent as the Kennedy’s. It’s not like Massachusetts never had WASP bootleggers or gun runners though,they just came in on earlier boats and signed the Declaration of Independence.
You can’t trust that guy, he might be thinking what I’m thinking. When I get together with my extended family, it just makes my head hurt.
It is depressing how much baggage gets saddled on Italian and Irish pols. I actually think it chases away talent.
Though on Everett, I keep thinking the recent casino indictments end with Carlo DeMaria going to jail. The operators caught up in the indictment have got to roll on someone to save their bacon. The U.S. Attorney and incoming AG surely want come out of this with a big, corrupt fish.
…anti-Irish or anti-Italian assumptions made on BMG with the possible exception of from EBIII.
I’m not arguing against her but I know next to nothing about her except that a lot of BMGers seem to like her. Is there something in particular she has done to become the darling of many progressives?
Salem looks great whenever I’m there (admittedly not often) and I hear it’s become a great place to live. Also whenever I see Driscoll speaking on state issues she comes across as bright and well-versed.
Yet the main thing is I’m a sucker for mayors who’ve taken a post-industrial fatigue city and moved it forward. That’s a massive accomplishment and the sign of someone who actually knows how to lead and make government work.
My family was close to the Harringtons, and has had a presence there for five generations. Grampa unsuccessfully ran for Aldermen there twice in the 50s. Uncle Jon, David, and Bobby still call it home. And they love her. So does my godfather. The only real issues she has yet to tackle are the schools, but turnarounds of that sort take real time, and I think she has laid the groundwork for future success.
Like I posted above, her and Curtatone would be two outsiders who got a hard job done. Either on would be great on their own, together as a team they would be unstoppable IMO.
There’s also this.
…but he will certainly remain active inside the party.
Gas tax:
– SIGNIFICANTLY raise the capital gains tax (excluding the first $250K), and use the resulting increase revenue.
Bottle bill:
– Push the legislature to expand the existing bottle bill to include water, sports drink, and juice containers
Gambling:
– Aggressively pursue EVERY appearance of improper influence, especially by organized crime
– Pass legislation to force lottery and gambling revenue to spent proportionally to the cities and towns that collect it. A city or town that collects 40% of the revenue should receive 40% of the disbursement.
I’m more interested in finding a progressive Democrat to replace Bob DeLeo than in anything that happens in 2018.
The likelihood of this being successful is, of course, zero. Advocates had been trying to get the legislature to move on the bottle bill for years, without any success. They went to the ballot; they got slaughtered. No way the bottle bill is expanding in the foreseeable future.
As in so many other areas, the solution seems to be to change the legislature. More importantly, to change the leadership of the legislature.
A less overwhelming (but still veto-sustaining) majority, with the remaining members far more progressive and far more eager to install progressive leadership, seems to me to be the target we should aim at.
Absolutely. We now have a progressive representative-elect (Steven Ultrino of the Middlsex 33rd) and a progressive State Senator. One real democrat at a time, we will do this.
There are 2 more GOP Senators and 6 (or 7 pending recount) more GOP Reps in this cycle.
The change may not be moving in the direction you think.
Which is why I argued, persuasively I might add, with my brother to vote for the Bottle Bill since it could be modified in the future but killing it now kills any hope of recycling reform. All you ‘single container is already working’ folks should have realized it too. Any movement on expanding recycling or bottle deposits is now dead, dead, dead.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Legislature was absolutely correct in not touching the expanded bottle bill. The people of Massachusetts did not want it. The Legislature would be insane to take up that cause after the humiliating loss it suffered at the polls on the Tuesday.
Rather than try to revive a dead horse, it’s time to find a new ride. Statewide, curbside, single-stream recycling needs to happen. On top of that, every community trash bin should have a compartment for single-stream recycling. Bottle bill advocates are going to need to let this one go and move on to something more productive.
In fact, given how lopsided the vote was, it wouldn’t shock me to see a bottle bill deposit elimination initiative in an upcoming election cycle. Hard to imagine it wouldn’t pass by a wide margin.
On Election Day, I walked past a short piece of woodland on Middlesex Turnpike in Burlington. This is a less-than-80-foot stretch next to the big electrical supply place opposite the fire station. Nobody feels responsible for this patch. It had 18 water bottles that I could see, along with about 3 Dunkin’ Donuts cups (there’s a DD a half-mile up the street.) Burlington has curbside recycling, but inexplicably, it somehow failed to prevent the deposition of all those water bottles in an orphaned bit of woods. Those bottles are never going to go away, because nobody has any incentive to pick them up. If you took your life in your hands and walked along the other side of M’sex Tpke, where there are no sidewalks or buildings, you’d see even more memorials to disposable culture.
Universal curbside recycling will have exactly zero effect on roadside litter. Nobody is deciding to take empty water bottles out of their home and toss them out the car window because they don’t have curbside recycling. Nobody who’s tossing water bottles out their car window is going to suddenly start taking them home because now they have recycling.
The deposit law would have made a difference in roadside litter. Nothing its opponents have done or proposed will make any difference at all.
…more receptacles for both trash and recycling placed in spots like the Burlington land you refer to. Somehow if I were a litterbug (a habit that just defies understanding – I guess just the way I was raised) I don’t think I would hold on to a can because I can get five cents out of it rather than just toss it.
Do you ever walk in undeveloped areas, or do you always drive through them? The scene I described is not in any way unusual. If you visit a roadside that’s not tended by a homeowner, a business, or a DPW, you will see large numbers of water bottles. Because those places are not attended to, nobody’s going to place and tend the huge number of trash cans that would be required to house all those bottles. The litterbugs are not going to stop their cars so they can properly dispose of their bottles, anyway — they’re going to continue conveniently ridding themselves of the things by ejecting them as they go along. The nickle deposit isn’t an incentive for them to change; it’s an incentive for somebody else to erase their thoughtless act.
People who toss bottles out their car window also don’t care about a 5-cent deposit. Water bottle, Coke bottle, beer can (if they’re putting back a roadie) – it’s all going out the window. Those people are beyond the reach of policy. The only thing that’s going to stop them is convincing them to stop acting like assholes. In fact, mark me down as being in favor of a “Don’t Be an Asshole” anti-litter campaign.
If roadside litter is your cause, then I would suggest pressing state and local governments to take responsibility for untended spots like the one you described. I’ve seen plenty of strewn around beer and soda cans/bottles over the years too. The sad truth is no matter what recycling programs/policies we have, we’re always going to need maintenance crews for our roadsides, waterfronts and public forests.
I suspect that if you add up the total tax dollars that must be collected in order to place, maintain, and empty all those receptacles, you’d find that the existing (or even increased) bottle deposit is a far more affordable (to the consumer) approach.
There is a LOT of wilderness in this state, especially if “wilderness” means “areas where a receptacle is more than a bottle-throw away”.
The nay-sayers are really saying that they don’t mind the litter enough to pay the cost of avoiding it.
And — one of the best parts about the bottle deposit is that the people littering nevertheless, and to some extent the corporations peddling the litter, are paying the cost.
I think some of the arguments about how people would throw the bottles out the window anyway come down to that the deposit is not high enough because it hasn’t kept up with inflation. Q2 would have done something about that.
It seems trivial in the big picture, but the trouncing of Q2 is one of the most disheartening things about this election.
Yes, they are. That’s why we make them pay somebody else a nickle to pick up their tossed bottle. Water-bottle litterbugs get a free ride, and we get to pay for cleaning up after them, when it gets done at all.
It polled at like 60-70% before the ad blitz. Up until this year the public was very supportive of bottle bill updating. Why? Because IT MAKES SENSE. Update the thing that we’re already doing.
It lost by nearly a million votes, a 73.5-26.5 margin. And that’s with a host of organizations and prominent pols behind it. It wasn’t the ads, this thing was DOA because way too many scratched their heads and wondered why they should add time and/or expense to do what they already do. Too many people took a lot at how they currently recycle and it didn’t make an ounce of sense.
It’s deader than dead. Q3 had nowhere near the organizational and name support that Q2 did, plus the argument for it was fairly complex (requiring people to understand indirect economic and social costs). Q3 also faced a withering ad blitz. Yet it fared significantly better at the polls, 51% better to be exact. When you get solidly outperformed by the question that everyone knew was the patron saint of lost causes, you can’t blame the opposing the ad campaign.
People understood the case for bottle bill expansion. It wasn’t complex. They rejected it, resoundingly. It’s now on the scrapheap of history. As someone sympathetic to the larger aim of Q2, I hope the proponents have the good sense to move onto something more productive to achieve that aim. Insisting that the bottle bill expansion was popular before it wasn’t isn’t going to win over anyone to the cause.
I’m not trying to win it. I know it’s deader than dead. But the Mad Men can make people buy Needham tap water at a 3000x markup, and they can reverse common sense.
I talked to several Regular People and when I explained what Q2 is, what the bottle bill is, EVERYONE thought, “Duh of course.” But they started out with, “I do’nt get it –it will end recycling? That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
So. You know, whatever. It’s over. Suck it, earth.
For lottery, maybe. For casinos, absolutely not. Host communities are already getting a shitload of money under the casino law. With casinos, 100% of the revenue coming out of the Wynn casino will be coming out of Everett. Are you really saying that 100% of the revenue from Wynn should go back to Everett?
I am saying that the revenue benefit to any community that does not have a casino should be ZERO.
Since the costs associated with casinos (increased foreclosure rates, increased unemployment rates, increased crime rates, etc) are likely to be broad-based, the result will be to help offset the fundamentally regressive bias of casino revenue.
It would have the happy side effect of eliminating any political advantage of casinos — by ensuring that for all but hosting communities, casinos are a net loss.
Wherever that money goes, jobs will impact more than Everett — people in Boston, Revere, Somerville, Malden, Winthrop, and elsewhere will be hired into those jobs. That said, I know people in Malden who voted against repeal because of the “mitigation $” that the City of Malden will receive based on the nearby Everett casino.
make people in towns without casinos feel like they’re getting no state revenue benefit, eliminating any political advantage of casinos
OR
it would make lots more towns line up to build a casino.
If the people who live in a city or town are foolish enough to want one of these crime magnets in their town, than so be it — so long as those people also receive the tax benefits.
One aspect we better start talking about right now is what our progressive posture will be when the casinos fail and these already desperately poor towns face utter collapse. Local unemployment rates will skyrocket. More and more property taxes will go unpaid because locals will be out of work and out of money. Those towns will be looking at layoffs of school teachers, police, and fire fighters because their payrolls are funded by property taxes.
This is going to end ugly. Sadly, the people who will be hurt the most are the people who are already suffering the most.
…which directly contradicts what I was trying to accomplish of achieving similar goals WITHOUT doing exactly what the people just said they didn’t want to do, and of course I am not a huge fan on the merits anyway.
The problem with making gas a sales tax is that oil prices might underpace inflation… How about a law instead that caps the increase in total revenue from the gas tax to 2 1/2 percent a year. Then people can vote for that. Then the leg. can adjust the gas tax to meet the slowly expanding “tax levy” the same way property taxes are adjusted. By saying that people are keeping to prop 2 1/2 the legislators can demonstrate fiscal responsibility
To be a sales tax. That would not provide a stable revenue stream capable of being estimated, and it would exacerbate the impact on consumers of an underlying price hike. It really has to be cents per gallon. The number of gallons sold fluctuates, but not as dramatically as gas prices.
The problem with the 2.5% idea is that, in addition to further validation of the 2.5 concept, the legislature will rarely vote on gas tax increases. They generate all sorts of opposition from anti-tax people. The legislative process takes time and sucks up much of the oxygen in the room. The anti-tax crowd got a big one with Question 1 because it is a win-win for them. First, it prevents increases in the gas tax from happening in the first place. But if one gets through, they can use it against Democratic legislators in the next election. I have no doubt our transportation infrastructure will suffer as a result of Question 1.
We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the voters have felt the pinch. In Maryland, taxes and fees largely killed Anthony Brown’s chances to succeed O’Malley, who would’ve lost had he been on the ballot. Even black voters and poorer voters voted for the Republican there. I know my own family, in spite of my efforts at persuasion, voted against it.
“We are already paying too much, tax those who can afford it” said ma.
“The T *bleeping* sucks. What are already paying for isn’t working, why throw more money at it?”-my bro.
These are emotional responses, and policy wonks like us who study this stuff for fun know that in reality, the T sucks since it is chronically underfunded and needs to be funded more. Like Bob Neer, my brother was very impressed by semi-privatized public transit system in other countries, and is a big proponent of public transit. He is angry that he can’t take a train directly from Wakefield to Lexington and hates driving in all that morning traffic.
So there is a constituency for the T, but perhaps funding our roads and infrastructure with regressive taxation isn’t going to cut it anymore. Money is fungible, funds we raise elsewhere can go back into something else. Since we are stuck with casinos, maybe earmark more of that revenue to general transit funds-especially since the roads nearby will get significantly more clogged with traffic (presuming since we are going to build it, they will actually come). Maybe propose a bold vision for a completely modernized transit system, and then ask the voters to approve one time bond measures and additional tax packages to pay for it. But we should start soaking corporations, universities, and the wealthy who use our roads and benefit from it the most-instead of taxing retirees like my parents and working folks like my brother and sister. They voted against the long term future of the state, and I still fault them for that, but it was unfair the burden fell on them in the first place.
has the advantage of being dedicated exclusively to transportation. On more progressive taxation, we are hemmed in by the constitutional provision on progressive income tax, at least how it has been interpreted for a century.
But last year there was a tax package sent by the Governor, and there was an even better proposal (An Act to Invest) as well, that would have made revenue more progressive. Tom and CMD are right that the nominally Democratic speaker killed that idea and we got the gas tax increase instead. And I bitched and moaned about it at the time. These are the same people who hiked the regressive sales tax rather than do something with the income tax. Going forward it will be a big issue, and a bold transportation vision could well be the vehicle for a positive change, but for at least four years I feel confident more progressive revenue is not forthcoming. We “should” get it from corporations, the wealthy, etc., but we won’t under Charlie Baker.
This has been the vicious cycle since at least the 70s. People are squeezed, mostly by the private sector, so they don’t want to hear about taxes even if the public sector’s woefully underfunded. They vote against candidates who’d raise their taxes, and vote for things like Question 1. Then public services get worse, which only helps those saying government sucks at everything. Democrats are loath to run on, or do, things that are unpopular with voters, particularly the ones who can actually be counted on to show up. They’re equally unwilling to piss off big donors in an era of tremendous wealth inequality and unlimited political spending. All we get is eternal Reaganism.
It’s why, as much as it’s a terrible boondoogle in bed with a terrible organization, I do sympathize with those who feel an Olympic bid is the shot in the arm to fix the T. I happen to disagree, but that proposal is still a proposal and a vision. I don’t see our side doing that, we are still just cowering in a corner saying stop hurting me. Clearly a strategy that failed to save a single red State Democratic Senator.
Bruno Gianelli. He knew his shit, and was great with the snappy dialog.
I am not so sure that people are opposed to taxes under any and all circumstances, period. Some are, of course, but I think that is a marginal view.
People are opposed having their tax money pissed away.
We just spent the better part of a year, in which every morning on the crappy local news, there was a segment about the previous day’s doings in the Probation Department trial, in which it was fairly obvious that taxpayer money was used to give do-nothing jobs to unqualified people who had friends in the legislature.
This didn’t get so much as a mention in the campaign, as did not even merit hearings on Beacon Hill– it is not a priority.
Stuff like that KILLS support for expanded government and tax increases to pay for it.
President Clinton understood this: they were very public about cutting waste– remember the Al Gore paperwork reduction Act?– all the time, and relished the screaming they earned, because it bought a little credibility on the tax hikes, which should have sunk him in 1996, but did not.
Bleating about insufficient funding for X and Y, while doing nothing to convince anyone that new funding will ever find its way to X and Y, is a crappy way to sell tax hikes.
I think you’re right. And I think you’re right that our state government needs to do much better. I even think you’re right that Massachusetts Democrats, as that huge tent group, own it. Even if I don’t think voting for a Republican is the answer.
But it’s always going to be too easy for an anti-tax politician to argue that they’re pissing away your tax money. People see guys on road crews talking as they drive past and they get mad. Well, many litigators work long hours but sometimes they’re stuck chatting outside a courtroom while they wait. There are inefficiencies inherent in any human endeavor.
Those inefficiencies, even the justifiable ones, are exploitable. It’s a given that certain people will always say, no matter what, that the government doesn’t need more money, it just needs to stop wasting what it already gets. And people will evaluate that statement based on gut reaction, or self-interest in keeping taxes lower, or anything but hard data showing that our infrastructure budget has gone way the hell down since the late 70s.
But attempts to exploit those times are easier to brush aside if you have even a little bit of credibility on the matter. Just ask Bob Dole.
I’m on the front end of Gen X and it’s like following a horde of incredibly selfish locusts. Individually they’re fine, but collectively they constitute a plague. I really do think that overpopulated generation is why such inane policies have been able to endure. Ultimately, we get what they want.
As for transportation funding, it’s definitely going to get grim. Just a guess, but vehicle registration fees may be where the state turns to find the money it will need when we no longer can afford to do the bare minimum.
…more of a problem in this context than for a general sales tax?
because prices are generally stable.
Oil prices are not stable.
I think we should just see what happens (that is, who emerges).
n/t
Now that the Governor-elect has his way and the gas tax indexing has been repealed, we should all demand that he implement a revenue plan that is Not Regressive and is Adequate to Our Needs and does not Cut Services Elsewhere Even More.
Gee, maybe something like “An Act to Invest in Our Community“?
The GOP did not kill An Act to Invest in Our Community, Charlie Baker did not kill it, and Charlie Baker will not pass it now.
The perpetrator of that deed was Bob DeLeo, the Speaker of the overwhelmingly Democratic House. It was Bob DeLeo who publicly humiliated Democratic Governor Deval Patrick without so much as a peep from the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
I suggest that our most urgent priority is to get our own house in order (pun very much intended). The rest will follow.
I know and I agree. Wouldn’t it Be Great, Massachusetts, if our Republican Governor could get Act to Invest done? (We already know that he thinks that a True graduated income tax is a HORRIBLE idea!)
If Massachusetts is to get the Act done, then it’s time to stop talking about the Governor and start talking about the Speaker of the House.
DeLeo handedly won his race in a district that encompasses two communities that went 60-40% for Baker. Those voters knew what they were doing, DeLeo has long been a self described conservative Democrat. He was a social conservative as recently as 2004. And it will be progressives I respect like Dave Rogers, Majorie Decker, and Jon Hect that will be voting him in as Speaker on day 1. Breaking up that cycle may require alternative strategies than the status quo.
To quote from his post back when the Act to Invest failed
Bingo. Harmony and others from Progressive MA should honestly consider dumping DeLeo. This election worked out perfectly for him, his own constituents were all too happy to split their tickets, and he knows Charlie is a man he can work with. He got his precious casinos. Time for new leadership. He is no Mike Madigan-nobody depends on him for fundraising or patronage jobs-he really is only as powerful as the people who choose to empower him.
I think rhetorically the Governor shouldn’t be let off the hook on this: he opened the door for revenue by rejecting the the Gas Tax Index and got his wish. So now it’s time to talk revenue again!
But I am 100% in agreement that the Speaker and the conservadems (and the progressives who do what they think they need to to Go Along) are the true problem.
I don’t know enough about the inside the building clusterfuck to understand if it’s even possible to unseat a Speaker, but I’m up for hearing about it. It’s now or 2 years from now, right ?
When the new Session begins in January, their first order of business will be to elect a new speaker.
Guess what. The Democrats will once again enthrone Bob DeLeo. Because at the end of the day, they are gutless wonders.
Thanks
They are elected representatives at the mercy of an individual who can make them completely ineffective with a raised eyebrow to an aide.
Speaking of “gutless wonders”, how do you characterize the portion of the national GOP that we used to call “moderate Republican”? Who is it that continues to vote for John Boehner?
Just how do YOU characterize a Senator (never mind voter) who knowingly puts James Inhofe at the head of the Senate Committee on the Environment?
The current Speaker is term limited by House rules to serve only through 2016. Unless, of course, they change the rules.