Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  2. As noted above, it’s already taxed at the state level as an excise tax, and a sales tax just double dips and passes it on the the consumer.  Why should my beverage of choice be subject to such taxation?  Someone who drinks soda more than I drink beer is going to have more ill effects on their health, and there’s no excise tax on that.

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    p>Reason two: I don’t believe treatment programs should either be funded by or a function of the state.  That goes for gambling, drugs, booze, etc.  Just simply my opinion on the form and function (or supposed function) of the government.  

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    p>Reason three:  Just shifting the tax burden on the poor blah blah blah.  Don’t we hear this shit all the time when hearing about how the state revenue from casinos would be primarily from addicts?  Those poor, poor addicts?  What?  Is it TS for the alcoholics?  Guess so.  

      • And it is a recent tax so it is easy to get rid of and it will help locally owned businesses, particularly taverns and packies. Also once its there I don’t trust the lege with it, they will raise it when they need to fund their pork, just like what happened in IL where a six pack now has a 13% sales tax in Chicago upon it. Certainly made my nights out less memorable (by making them literally more memorable).

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        p>I am going to vote Yes on 1 and Yes on 2. I want my local zoning boards to continue to have their power to look at projects individually and a lot of ‘affordable’ projects, especially in Cambridge, tend to be misguided condo and lofts for yuppies with a few section 8s thrown in to get the label ‘mixed’ or ‘affordable’. My sister is on section 8 so I am not indifferent to creating more affordable housing, but these benefits developers at the expense of local control, not potential tenants and homeowners.

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        p>I am voting No on reducing the sales tax, which is really a push to eliminate it disguised as a ‘moderate’ reduction. Yet at those rates the cost of collection will nearly equal the revenue coming in, and also our sales taxes are a lot lower than many of our peers and we can’t afford any more cuts to social services. So no on that idea.

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        p>So Yes, Yes, and No for me.  

        • As noted above, it’s already taxed at the state level as an excise tax

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          p>We “double-tax” things all the time.  Hotels have multiple taxes, as do car rentals.  When you transfer property, there are multiple fees and taxes associated with it.  Let us not forget that any item you buy you’re paying sales tax — and the business which made it paid all sorts of taxes on labor, materials, their real estate, etc.

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          p>

          Why should my beverage of choice be subject to such taxation?

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          p>Why shouldn’t it?

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          p>

          Someone who drinks soda more than I drink beer is going to have more ill effects on their health, and there’s no excise tax on that.

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          p>No sales tax either, ’tis true.  You’ll recall Governor Patrick suggested that sweet drinks and snacks shouldn’t be exempt from the sales tax.

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          p>

          Reason three:  Just shifting the tax burden on the poor blah blah blah.

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          p>The excise tax is far more regressive than the sales tax.  Why?  The excise tax is per volume of alcohol — so the tax on a $4 bottle of win is exactly the same number of pennies as the excise tax on a $400 bottle of wine.  The excise tax is indeed regressive for that very reason.  A sales tax, a percentage of the retail price, isn’t nearly as regressive because it’s a flat tax.

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          p>

          And it is a recent tax so it is easy to get rid of and it will help locally owned businesses, particularly taverns and packies.

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          p>It won’t help taverns a whit — this is sales tax, not restaurant tax.  As for packies, is there any evidence that they’ve been closing up lately?  I haven’t seen any; in fact, I’ve seen a few liquor stores in my area expand.

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          p>

          Also once its there I don’t trust the lege with it, they will raise it when they need to fund their pork, just like what happened in IL where a six pack now has a 13% sales tax in Chicago upon it. Certainly made my nights out less memorable (by making them literally more memorable).

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          p>Just so I understand, you equate eliminating a special carve-out for packies to be the same as a 13% tax in Chicago (where the sales tax is 10.75?)?  If you use one extreme example from some other place to make your decisions on what you’d like in your own community, I don’t have much for ya.

          • We “double-tax” things all the time.  Hotels have multiple taxes, as do car rentals.  When you transfer property, there are multiple fees and taxes associated with it.  Let us not forget that any item you buy you’re paying sales tax — and the business which made it paid all sorts of taxes on labor, materials, their real estate, etc.

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            p>So, because we already double tax many things, it means we should be accepting of all future double taxes?  Just because a tax exists, that in of itself does not justify its existence.  If I have the chance to shoot down double taxes, well I’m going to do it.  

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            p>

            Why shouldn’t it?

             

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            p>Becauuuuse…

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            No sales tax either, ’tis true.

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            p>Wait, why is that?  

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            p>

            You’ll recall Governor Patrick suggested that sweet drinks and snacks shouldn’t be exempt from the sales tax.

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            p>But it isn’t.  

            • So, because we already double tax many things, it means we should be accepting of all future double taxes?

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              p>We should consider each and every tax on it’s merit.  My point was simply that this idea that a double tax is somehow worse is nonsense.

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              p>It doesn’t matter if you tax $A and $B or simply $C if $A + $B = $C.  If you want to argue that $C is too much, that’s okey dokey.  But to argue that the problem isn’t $C but simply that it’s in the form of $A + $B is arguing the wrong issue entirely.  It’s like arguing that a 12 slice pizza pie is better than an 8 slice pizza pie because it has more slices, even if the 8 slice pizza has a larger diameter.

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              p>

              But it isn’t.

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              p>So why not argue that they should both be taxed?  Having one suboptimal public policy simply because another public policy is suboptimal simply results in worse public policy overall.

              • and love this paragraph……….gonna use the exact same line someday.  

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                p>

                Having one suboptimal public policy simply because another public policy is suboptimal simply results in worse public policy overall.

              • is why alcoholic beverages not having a tax is a sub-optimal policy?  

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                p>Here’s how I look at it:  I drink beer on occasion.  I eat pound cake on occasion.  (no, this isnt hypothetical, it is literal).  The beer gets taxed, because people argue that beer is a dangerous, addictive substance that is responsible for X number of problems in society and X number of deaths, etc.  

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                p>I understand that alcohol can be dangerous if abused.

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                p>Now, I only eat pound cake on occasion.  It wouldn’t really be called a snack food, though.  If I ate pound cake every day, and some people do, I would probably gain a considerable amount of weight, develop many health problems, and get sick.  Diabetes, blood pressure, the list goes on and on.  Obesity is an absolute epidemic.

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                p>No tax on the pound cake.  

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                p>Why is it that alcohol needs to be specially taxed?  (of course, to contrast it to the logo in the original diary, claiming not taxing it would be a special tax break, which is completely erroneous)  I really don’t understand how not taxing it is suboptimal policy.  It’s a beverage that has serious health ramifications and addictive properties if abused.  Soda?  Sugary foods?  

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                p>Look, if this was an across the board tax on beverages, then I wouldn’t object as much.  

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                p>I don’t drink soda at home.  I don’t drink anything besides beer, water, and milk at home.  (20/70/10..not a boozehound haha)  To me, I feel like the state is singling me out as a beer drinker and trying to tell me through taxation that my love of beer is a bad thing.  They do it with cigarettes, so don’t say that doesn’t happen.  

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                p>So to me, by singling out alcohol for a tax IS a suboptimal policy.  It doesn’t solve a problem, stop the demand for what the gov’t percieves as a problem, or do anythign besides add more money to the state’s coffers.  

                • The state “singles out” beer and alcohol in a number of ways, differently from soda or pound cake.

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                  p>

                  • Consumers need to be 21 or over to purchase beer or alcohol. The same is not true for soda or pound cake.
                  • Consumers are not allowed to walk down the street drinking beer or alcohol. The same is not true for soda or pound cake.
                  • Visitors to state-operated parks and recreation areas are prohibited from consuming beer or alcohol. The same is not true for soda or pound cake.
                  • Restaurants need a special license to serve beer and alcohol. The same is not true for soda or pound cake.

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                  p>Like tobacco, alcohol is “a dangerous, addictive substance that is responsible for X number of problems in society and X number of deaths, etc.” (although it is only addictive for some). It is dangerous if abused. In addition, alcohol abusers frequently injure, maim, and kill others. As you observe, “it’s a beverage that has serious health ramifications and addictive properties if abused.”

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                  p>I think you’ll find growing consensus for your proposal to tax soda (and other beverages) along with alcohol. Good idea.

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                  p>In the meantime, given the other restrictions on alcohol, it surprises me that it isn’t already taxed. Instead, it has a special exemption (courtesy of intensive lobbying).

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                  p>Given all this, you’ve already offered the best reason for ending the special exemption given alcohol: the state needs the money.

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                  p>So this contemplated tax increase applies to a substance that is already known to have serious individual and collective consequences, is already heavily regulated for very good reasons, and is currently exempted from the sales tax. This contemplated tax raises revenue at a time when the state badly needs the money, and therefore makes it easier to not raise taxes somewhere else.

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                  p>It sounds to me as though you’ve just articulated why not taxing alcohol is sub-optimal policy.

                • As I wrote earlier, if you want to argue that alcohol shouldn’t be taxed at rate C, go for it.  Fair debate, and interesting too.

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                  p>If you want to argue that alcohol shouldn’t be taxed at C because it’s being taxed at A and B and A+B=C, well I think that’s pretty silly.

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                  p>The argument that it’s double taxed and therefore we should eliminate the sales tax is the part that I think is dopey.

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                  p>Additionally, I don’t think it warrants the exception that food and clothing — necessary for survival — merit.  Now, you correctly argue that pound cake isn’t chock full of life sustaining nutrients either, and you’re right.  Personally, I’m happy to explore eliminating more exemptions to the sales tax when it comes to nutrition.  I worry about the fact that nutrition isn’t binary (things aren’t typically BAD for you or AWESOME for you), but it’s certainly worth looking at.

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                  p>

                  So to me, by singling out alcohol for a tax IS a suboptimal policy.

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                  p>Then you ought be aruging to eliminate the excise tax and to implement the sales tax for alcohol — since that would eliminate alcohol from being singled out twice.  Alcohol is singled out because of the excise tax… but it is also singled out because it doesn’t have a sales tax.

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                  p>

                  It doesn’t solve a problem, stop the demand for what the gov’t percieves as a problem, or do anythign besides add more money to the state’s coffers.  

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                  p>That’s flat out nonsense.  As you increase the price of things, the quantity demanded decreases.  If the gov’t perceives alcohol consumption as a (net) negative social result, then raising taxes — which will certainly result in a decrease in consumption — does mitigate the problem.  Yes, it also does raise revenue, but that is certainly not the only ramification of the policy.

                • In the real world, its much much better to just collect $C from one person than to collect $A from one person and $B from another person. Then only 1 person has to collect the tax, hold it in trust, verify that the amount held in trust is the same as the amount collected, periodically remit the proper amount and file the proper forms, and maintain proper books and records to prove that you remitted the proper amount. Take your pizza example, but imagine that you’re having a get together and would like to serve a pizza. Is it better to have 1 person bring a whole pizza, or to have 8 different people each bring a slice of pizza?

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                  p>And you really need to retire the myth that only “food and clothing” are exempted from sales tax because they’re “necessary for survival.” I went over the list of tax exemptions with you before. The idea that they’re limited to necessities is completely false.      

        • Cambridge, because it takes the responsibility of providing housing seriously, has full control over all proposed developments.  Developers do not have a right of appeal in towns and cities with greater than 10% affordable housing.  

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          p>Voting yes and repealing the affordable housing law would take control away from our cities and towns.  It is much more difficult to amend zoning than it is to approve a comprehensive permit.  Just look at the debacle in Milton where a majority of residents wanted to change zoning to approve the sale and redevelopment of a former temple, but could not because it required a 2/3 vote.  

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          p>Repealing the affordable housing law would take away the best tool our cities and towns have for creating affordable and accessible housing for their residents.

          • Doesn’t the current law benefit developers though since it allows them to bundle their projects into one ordinance? Doesn’t that hurt the ability of cities and towns to decide which projects to approve on a case by case basis?

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            p>See this is why initiative voting is bad, I know absolutely nothing about real estate law and I have been making educated guesses about the policies ramifications. To me a common sense interpretation is that bundling is a bad thing from a zoning boards perspective, but I could be completely wrong. Randolph, or anyone else, can feel free to chime in, and I will gladly move into the undecided column.

            • No, the law does not function by bundling multiple different projects into one comprehensive permit application.  Yes, cities and towns do decide projects on a case by case basis.

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              p>The comprehensive permit means that a development proposed under this law goes before the local Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), and the ZBA makes a decision on the development.  This is a simplification and streamlining of the process because without the comprehensive permit, the proposal would have to go before any number of other local boards and receive decisions from each of them.  

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              p>There is much more information here http://www.chapa.org/?q=chapte… and here http://www.protectaffordableho…

            • There’s no question that 40B is a blunt instrument.  If your city or town is below the threshold, it’s uncomfortable because 40B allows developers more leeway in their development if that development includes enough affordable housing.  The upshot is that once you’ve got your 10%, those leeways no longer apply.

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              p>Keep in mind that cities and towns are perfectly free to develop their own affordable housing (with public tax dollars) and achieve their 10% that way too.

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              p>Personally, I’d like to see 40B tweaked so that when a developer uses 40B to develop a parcel in a way which wouldn’t otherwise be permitted, that developer must build a larger fraction of public housing.  Currently (IIRC) it’s on the order of 15% affordable.  Thing is, if he’s building 15% affordable, when done the town isn’t much closer to the 10% threshold.  If the requirement was more like 25%, then each 40B development would get the town much closer to their 10%, helping them avoid future 40B developments sooner.

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              p>The lege could easily implement that tweak without scraping all of 40B…

                • you don’t want to make the percentage too high — there’s lots of good data which shows that when affordable housing is too concentrated, it completely changes the fabric of the neighborhood, and rarely for the better w.r.t. crime, property values, etc.

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                  p>I don’t know what the optimal percentage is, but the problem is this: let’s say a town has 1,000 housing units, and 50 are affordable: 5%.  They need 10%.  A developer comes in and is going to build 40 units.  If he only builds 15% affordable, that’s 6 units.  If it’s 25%, that’s 10 units.  When he’s done, the town either has 5.38% or 5.77%.  When trying to get to 10%, that’s a huge difference — but only the difference of 4 actual housing units.

              • Developer have been relentless in ‘adjusting’ the affordable percentage to make construction ‘worth their while’.  So now, every 40b puts a community FURTHER behind the eight-ball, as the new unaffordable units outnumber the new affordable ones.

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                p>40b also hinges on building your way into affordability.  The Cape is a tapering sand bar, with water and septic problems NOW.  What can we do, slap up some 20 story cement prison-looking building like the do in East Cambridge to meet affordable quotas?  We don’t have the water capacity to do it!

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                p>It’s time for 40b to go.

                • All of us agree that 40b is a blunt tool. Like all blunt tools, it should be a last, rather than first, resort.

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                  p>The fact that a community is vulnerable to 40b means that its planning policy has already failed. The solution is to find a way to provide more affordable housing.

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                  p>The proposal to, instead, eliminate 40b is another example of how the conservative right-wing GOP throws poor and working-class people under the bus in favor of the self-interest of the wealthy and the wanna-be wealthy.

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                  p>It is no wonder the right wing manipulates the media to lie on their behalf — how else to pander to the fears of working-class people while simultaneously pillaging them.

                • So now, every 40b puts a community FURTHER behind the eight-ball, as the new unaffordable units outnumber the new affordable ones.

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                  p>You’re implying two different things in this statement.  The pre-“as” suggests that the requirement is strictly less than 10%; that a developer could build more than 9 market units per 1 affordable unit.  Otherwise, the community wouldn’t be farther behind the eight-ball.  If, however, ‘unaffordable’ (market) simply outnumber affordable ones (say, 11 to 9) then the development is 45% affordable, and will move the town upward toward 10% if they are below.

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                  p>This is simple math.

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                  p>The requirement for affordable: according to this article from a week ago, the development must be at least 25% of units sold or 20% of units rented to qualify for the 40B exemptions.  Of course, additions of at least 25% or 20% will move a town’s stock upward toward 10% if under that threshold.

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                  p>PP, usually you argue with facts and reality based ideas, but here I can’t see where you’re doing that.  How on Earth could a 40B development move a community farther away from compliance?  Do you have a single example, real or hypothetical?

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                  40b also hinges on building your way into affordability.

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                  p>That’s not actually true.  That’s probably the easiest way, but it’s not the only way.  Here’s another few ways that it could be done (while acknowledging that these are more expensive)
                  * the town could buy market units and then re-sell them with an affordable easement
                  * the town could buy market units and then rent them with the affordable rate
                  * the town could allow a developer to take a large single family or multifamily home and subdivide it into condos, with some percentage of them affordable
                  * the town could subsidize the rent of a rental unit, providing the difference between market and affordable to make the unit affordable

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                  p>I’m not arguing that any of these tools, in and of themselves, are likely to get a town 10%.  However, given the blunt power of 40B, these are all ways in which a town might make a real effort to get closer to that 10%, pulling together different means.

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                  p>As for worrying about infrastructure — I’d note that water consumption for the MWRA district is down 30%-40% from ’96 to ’06, despite the number of people in the MWRA increasing.  It turns out that fixing leaks and the movement toward low flow fixtures and metered irrigation have reduced water consumption.  My bet is that the same holds true for the Cape — so the argument that there isn’t enough water capacity leaves me very skeptical.  Got any evidence that Cape water capacity is less than it was 10 years ago?  My bet is that there’s more capacity now.

                • The Cape is looking at a county-wide six Billion dollar waste water problem – billion with a ‘b’.  The Conservation Law Foundation just filed suit to force sewering and water treatment, similar to the suit they filed for Boston Harbor.  HERE is a link.  The state has no plans to help us.

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                  p>And you want us to build MORE houses???

                • The ugly 20 story concrete building in East Cambridge is in fact the Middlesex County Court building with the county jail occupying the top levels.

              • Having the legislature increase the affordable housing requirements under 40B up to 25% is a GREAT IDEA. That will create affordable homes when building begins again.

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                p>But, in the election, we are presented with a ballot question to repeal 40B or leave it as is.

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                p>Vote NO on repealing 40B. VOTE NO ON 2.

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                p>Without 40B, these local zoning boards will never approve of projects that build housing for working class people, young people, or children with families (especially not families with children.) They only want McMansions built (on HUGE parcels) so that they don’t have to build more schools, and they can collect more in taxes.

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                p>There should be at least some controls on NIMBYism when it comes to housing, and 40B provides at least some control.

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                p>There have to be places for people who are not wealthy to live. 40B makes sure that at least a few affordable places are built. How is the economy supposed to recover if no one can afford to live here?

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                p>And, isn’t it time to ask why a Christian people with a secular government has plenty of $$$$$$$$ to go to war and exchange Sunni Arab rule for Shia Arab rule in Babylon, but we can’t build new water and sewer lines and schools for a new apartment complex?

            • Thank you for taking the time to learn about a complicated issue that is on the ballot.  If everyone put in that kind of effort, then initiative voting would work much better than it does.    

          • 40B is rife with abuse and is unique to MA; we are 47th in affordable housing so of course 40B is not working.  I creates more housing, 75% not affordable.

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            p>Some people feel that a total repeal of Chapter 40B is “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.
            The false assumption implicit in that quip, is that Chapter 40B has good qualities that would be lost if it were repealed. In fact, the contributions of Chapter 40B to affordable housing are paltry and insignificant when compared to the benefits of 40B alternatives like inclusionary zoning.

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            p>If you count the number of units built through 40B that are actually affordable under federal guidelines, Chapter 40B creates far fewer affordable units than is claimed by supporters. In fact, nearly every other affordable housing program in the state produces more affordable units than Chapter 40B.

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            p>The 56,000 units built over 40 years that the pro-40B lobby likes to throw out includes a significant percentage of homes over $350,000 and some even reach $1,000,000. So they are purposefully vague on this number.

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            p>In fact, of the 10 towns producing the most affordable housing in the state, not a single one uses 40B. So not only does Chapter 40B have all the problems that have recently been uncovered, but it doesn’t produce very much affordable housing either. This is why after 40 years of 40B, we are ranked a pathetic 47th nationally in housing affordability, and we are the only state in the country to use a 40B-like system.

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            p>Second, another false assumption is that Chapter 40B can be fixed/reformed. The problem of reform begins with the regulations written by DHCD (many times with input only from developers). As these are regulations, they are not subject to amendments, enactments, or repeals by the legislature. To fix the problems legislatively, the legislature would have to adopt either one giant bill, or dozens of small bills, making each of the individual problematic regulations “illegal”. Now, there have been attempts in the past, hundreds in fact, to use this course of action to fix some of the more egregious problems with 40B. But over the years, not only has all meaningful legislative reform been blocked, but the regulations have actually gotten WORSE and DHCD has widened the loopholes for developer abuse, not only allowing it, but encouraging it. Since 40B cannot be fixed, it must be repealed, rendering the regulations moot.
            Third, there is a misconception that communities do not want affordable housing. In reality, Massachusetts communities produce around 2,000 units of affordable housing each year outside of Chapter 40B (of course, since they are not built through the 40B system, many of these units do not count towards a town’s 10% goal, mandated by DHCD). 40B supporters touted that over the last 10 years, 40B has created approx. 2,300 affordable units east of 495. Well in that same timeframe, communities created almost ten times that number WITHOUT 40B.

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            p>Finally, the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax dollars spent annually on Chapter 40B go towards building projects that average less than 25% affordable units. Wouldn’t it make more sense to take that money and put it into one of the dozens of other state affordable housing programs which create projects that are 100% affordable?

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            p>Currently, there is little demand for 40B units as many go unsold or in some cases, 40B’s were converted to rentals when buyers did not show up like at Palmer Cove in Salem as one example. In other cases, when a 40B fails to sell in 90 days…ooops!….it becomes a market-rate unit and all the affordable restrictions are cancelled with no benefit to the community as promised.

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            p>Reform is not a reality and the law as it stands is based on false assumptions and is promulgated by people who are interested only in lining their own pockets and propping up the construction industry often at the expense of the environment and community values.

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            p>We hope to see this law repealed and see Massachusetts adopt an affordable housing policy that actually creates affordable housing instead of providing a welfare program for developers.

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            p>There are many good ways to make housing affordable and to build affordable housing but 40B is a badly abused tool that had not solved the problem.  

            • 40B is special interest legislation that is bad for the environment, bad for your community and is welfare for developers.   Vote YES to repeal it.  

        • If you see a lot of ‘affordable’ projects in Cambridge filled with misguided codos and lofts for yuppies, it’s the Cambridge zoning board that’s to blame.  That’s because 15.8% of housing in Cambridge is subsidized.  

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          p>So 40B doesn’t affect Cambridge at all, not one bit.  Those misguided projects are planned, approved, developed and built under the EXACT rules that you support.  40B may not be perfect, but voting to repeal it is a huge mistake.    

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