We thought it might be useful to see what Deval Patrick actually said last night, since the press is reporting only very brief snippets. So we asked the campaign if they had a transcript. And they do:
All right. Were telling the truth. The tax to cut is the property tax. If you are a home owner or a renter you feel it. And that has gone up on average 33% in the last few years. It is part of the fiscal shell game thats been played by the current administration. User fees, the kinds of things charged now at schools for extra curricular activities or for sports or to take the bus. And we agree on this. Ill give you credit too [leaning towards MIHOS]. They got to cut. Theyve got to be cut. The only way to cut these is by restoring local aid and chapter 70 support. The only way to do that is to use the surplus at the state level and return it to cities and towns. We cannot afford to do that and roll the income tax back to 5%.
Now, let me clarify. I do think that we can get to a point one day when we can sustain a 5% rate. The only way to get there is by growing the economy. The only way to grow the economy is to invest in our infrastructure. Its right back to the fiscal shell game we have been playing and the way we starve our cities and towns of the resources they need for the services we need. It is as straightforward as that. It is not about today, its not about never. But it is about being realistic about how it is we grow the economy and make this a place where businesses want to be and where our economic opportunities are expanding. Thank you.
The campaign also calls our attention to Patrick’s previous statements on this topic, which – as I said before – are not inconsistent with anything he said last night. (The following was sent to me by the Patrick campaign – I haven’t gone back to the original sources.)
From Text of Speech to Haverhill Chamber of Commerce
July 14, 2006
By the way, if we are serious about sustaining this kind of investment and stimulating our recovery, it is fiscally irresponsible today to roll back the income tax further than we have already. Lets live with a 5.3% rate for a little while longer until we have the growth we need.
And as we restore our support of and our partnership with cities and towns, I want in return better regional and state-wide planning.
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | August 8, 2006:
…Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the Republican candidate, and Attorney General Tom Reilly, a Democrat, both insist we can finish the 2000 tax cut by lowering rates from 5.3 to 5 percent in one year. Independent candidate Christy Mihos, whose signature proposal is a $1.1 billion boost in local aid plus property tax relief through capped home assessments, guesstimates that the income tax cut could be done over two to three years if revenues stay strong.
Deval Patrick, the other Democrat, says the state can’t afford to cut the income tax and fund the priorities he favors, at least not right now.
Gabrieli’s plan charts a careful path to bring the income tax rate back to 5 percent, but in a way that doesn’t impose a python squeeze on state services. Each year, every dollar of real revenue growth — that is, growth above 3 percent, to adjust for inflation — would be divided this way: 40 percent for tax relief, 40 percent for new spending, and 20 percent for rainy-day reserves.
There you have it. Last night really wasn’t a change in position.
While I didn’t have the accompanying pieces you did I just put up a post saying that Deval’s position has changed, it is just a new clarification. However even though Patrick has said as much along the trail I am not sure he has been consistently saying it and that is what made the statement stand out. The times I have heard Deval speak he has always “we can’t afford the tax cut right now.” I always interpreted that to mean not now but maybe someday. As you said, to try and paint this as a new position isn’t accurate.
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… should be hasn’t changed?
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Otherwise, good point!
Thank you.
I don’t think that Deval has never said the he will never cut the tax.
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He has said that he doesn’t want to do it now, that he will not provide explicit and clear criteria when he will cut the tax. In other words, Deval has good intentions.
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I admire Deval for hustling the state, meeting the grassroots, but I want more than good intentions from my governor.
I like your tag line. I agree with you that he needs to come up with some sort of criteria for when and how he would consider cutting the tax. However, I don’t like candidates making such explicit promises that they cannot keep. Healey’s anti-tax pledge is ridiculous. Can she see four years into the future? What if a massive depression in year one of the administration absolutely requires a tax cut in year four? Sure, we can all claim extenuating circumstances create a release from the pledge so then one asks why have the pledge at all?
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No candidate should put him or herself in a straight jacket just to make the voters feel better.
Imagine it…
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… unemployment
… inflation
… perhaps even a national emergency
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You’d actually want to raise taxes? Wow. I always thought the Dems stood up for the poor. But the more I read, the more it seems that Dems just stand up for big government.
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I’m beginning to feel glad I left the party.
Ahh, the old “but how can the Democrats be against tax cuts and supposedly be the ‘poor persons party'” routine.
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A classic.
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To be clear, we’re talking about the income tax here. Massachusetts (nor the federal government, mostly, for that matter) does not require the “poor” to pay income tax. That’s part of what makes the income tax such a great opportunity for progressive taxation.
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Those with no income, pay no income taxes. Moreover, Massachusetts has an income tax “threshold” (about 25% more than the official poverty line) below which wage earners pay no income tax. We also have one of the most generous refundable Earned Income Tax Credit in the nation.
For details on all of this see:
http://www.cbpp.org/…
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Bottom line: Yes most Democrats actually believe “big government” can help society even in a “national emergency”, but it’s still perfectly intellectually consistent to be against the tax roll back and “stand up for the poor.”
for mentioning “national emergency”. Katrina was the best example yet of what you can expect from an administration that doesn’t believe in government. Every single word we say to anyone needs to reinforce the fact that lack of government is far worse than paying a reasonable amount of taxes and having adequate government to assist in times of national crisis.
I’ve never heard anyone link the handling of Katrina to a lack of belief in government.
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But I’ll caution your approach. For as disugsted as I was about the handling of Katrina, there isn’t one ounce of me that believes more money and more government would have improved the response. Using Katrina to justify more spending and bigger government will also remind folks like me of fraud, administrative bloat, and no guarantees of improvement.
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I agree with Patrick that people need to become rengaged in political life. The populace is the ultimate engine that holds government accountable. But this is true at all times — regardless of your belief in “government” or a particular official. It’s the response of his supporters that actually makes this message fall flat for me. Where have you been?
Then you haven’t been listening very hard.
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It’s not about more money or more government – that’s the Approved Right-Wing Talking Points talking. It’s about recognizing that there are things government can do – in fact, must do – well. Disaster relief is one of those things. But the government-hatin’ wingnuts who control Washington DC these days have done their level best to reduce every government operation, bar none, to a combination of jobs for incompetent cronies (cough Brownie cough) and ineffectiveness. It should come as no surprise that people who don’t believe government is good for anything will create a government that, in fact, isn’t good at anything.
At least Tim conceded that more money doesn’t necessarily result in better performance.
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I don’t want to keep going down the Katrina thread because it’s already become fluffy. But I will tack onto your last comment:
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And I suppose that there are those that believe government can be everything to everyone and end up with a government that isn’t good at anything.
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I’m still waiting for a substanative rebuttal. In an economic downturn, how is raising taxes a good thing?
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Everything went according to plan for conservatives who are hellbent on demonstrating the ineptitude of “big government.” Starving “the beast” and leaving folks to fend for themselves — YOYO: you’re on your own — is the modus operandi of the Bush administration.
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Now this is not to say that more money or more government would necessarily be an improvement — the problems as much qualitative as they are quantitative — but this requires a government that actually believes in its responsibility to its less fortunate citizens.
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However, the Bush administration in particular sees government as a burden, except as a vehicle for further lining the pockets of the privileged elites on the backs of the underclasses.
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I get the sense from that statement was akin to laying down a trump card. A strategy. I can assure you it wasn’t. This is a new revelation for me, after distancing myself from the emotional entanglement of party affiliation and allowing myself to think through policy implications.
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Not all poor are unemployed. My choice of the word “poor” was deliberate. I’m not talking about the poverty level. As we all know, you can be working and poor in this very expensive state, and still not meet either federal or state poverty guidelines. Tell me how not lowering income tax will help a recent college graduate who is making $35K, but has student loans, rent, car payments. Or a senior who, in order to afford rent, has found that at 72 they can’t yet retire. Or a family who is trying to save for a down payment, college tuition, or trying to figure out how they are going to afford nearly $1,000 in school fees.
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But rather than tell me how the no-rollback plans will help the poor, you assumed that I didn’t know (1) the topic of conversation or (2) about income tax exemptions. Now that your misunderstanding has hopefully been cleared up, I again extend the invitation to demonstrate how not lowering the income tax helps the poor. You’ve told me that you believe big government can help society, but I’m looking for someone to connect the dots.
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YOU SAY:
“Tell me how not lowering income tax will help a recent college graduate who is making $35K, but has student loans, rent, car payments. Or a senior who, in order to afford rent, has found that at 72 they can’t yet retire. Or a family who is trying to save for a down payment, college tuition, or trying to figure out how they are going to afford nearly $1,000 in school fees… You’ve told me that you believe big government can help society, but I’m looking for someone to connect the dots.”
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I SAY:
1) Let’s see, a college graduate making $35K a year. I’m no tax expert, so bear with me. This person would pay 5.3% on his adjusted gross income. After the $3,575 personal exemption and let’s just say another $1,425 in other deductions (including any IRA contributions, rental payments, etc). So, you would like to see them pay 5% on the remaning $30,000. A 0.3% “savings (your proposed windfall) on $30K is $90 a year.
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2)You don’t give an income for your other two examples so I can’t do even a rough calculation of the benefit of the roll back to them but the average taxpayer saves no more than a couple $100 a year. Even for the somewhat poor (remember, the very poor actually pay no taxes while the very very poor get money back throught the refundable EITC), that’s not a whole lot of money.
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3)Bottom Line I: Your question is more about the value of government to low-income individuals. I think? Roughly, the rollback is projected to cost $500 million a year. The last state budget included $90 million for higher education financial aid for your college graduate. Also included about $400 million in new local aid dollars. Local aid pays to subidize local public schools (mostly) and also for general government functions like police, fire, libraries, etc. The real bottom line though is that the vast majority of the state budget goes towards programs (health, eduction, economic assistance, etc) that redistribute wealth by taking most of the revenue from wealthier people and distributing it to poorer people in the form of a wide variety of government services. All good things as far as I, a “Big Government” liberal, am concerned.
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4) Bottom Line II: Despite the lack of different tax brackets, the state income tax is still a progressive tax. Any rollback (cut) in this tax will primarily benefit upper-income taxpayers and not the “poor.” Those who believe philosopically in “helping the poor” (i.e. wealth redistribution) should all be philospohically opposed to cutting our most progressive tax.
Thank you for the effort, but 1 & 2 don’t answer the question. Instead you asserted that I said the tax rollback would result in a windfall for the individual making $35K. I made no such assertion because I know it to be false. I simply asked how does NOT rolling back the income tax help people. In other words, what will be done with the .3%? It has been said that this .3% will be part of lowering property taxes, but as you mentioned, this year’s budget already includes more in local aid, and yet I haven’t heard of lower property tax bills. Perhaps after this fall reevaluations, hmm?
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As for numbers 3 and 4, you’ve dodged the question. I thought I was pretty specific in talking about people who are “just making it” and do not qualify for the service programs you talked about. Is your answer that if we paid more in taxes, we could expand the sliding scale of eligibility?
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Services are a good thing, and we should all have some ability to determine how much service we want to pay for. I think, however, that it’s quite a different matter to keep calling for increased local aid so that someone else can pay for my services! That hardly seems fair that they are taxed in order to subsidize my choices.