We're looking at a big fat budget shortfall again for next year. Ah well, business as usual — they'll make it work out somehow, right?We've already dipped into rainy-day fund, which leaves us even more vulnerable now that the utterly predictable real estate crash is actually happening, with its accompanying economic slowdown, or outright recession.
It's simple, just as it was in 2003: We pay for it by robbing the future … which rather quickly becomes now. As we know, the investments that we've made in our essentially high quality of life in Massachusetts are literally crumbling.
- The $20 billion/20 year maintenance backlog in our infrastructure didn't happen by accident. It happened because we were'nt willing to pay for it when it need to be paid for. And so, we have a Longfellow Bridge that's ready to tumble into the Charles, a Storrow Drive tunnel that's ready to tumble onto us, and countless other projects across the state that are easy to forget about — until something really bad happens. (And that's not even mentioning potential Big Dig maintenance that may not be paid for out of the Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff settlement.)
- The MBTA is in a death spiral of debt, neglect, and decreasing ridership. The commuter rail has been a particular disaster recently; and in recent years we've seen the Red Line (the purported jewel of the system) break down because of weather; like the country that produces its semi-functional cars, the Green Line continues its shrieking and grinding descent into stylish, “cute” obsolescence; many bus lines remain a cruel, capricious, chaotic farce.
- Massachusetts' new health plan deferred the cost battle for later legislative sessions. The subsidized plans are over-subscribed, which is good and bad: People ought to have insurance, leading to better health and more productive lives; but that money's got to come from somewhere. And meanwhile premiums continued to climb at rates far above our increase in GDP.
- Education: The ante for education has been raised around the world, and within Massachusetts. We are truly sending knowledge workers into competition with India and China, for instance. But more immediately, the high cost of living in Massachusetts makes it more critical to have an education just to make enough money to stay here.
Furthermore, let's be honest: We don't have a public university system that compares with that of California, New York, North Carolina, or the other excellent state systems around the country. Considering how prohibitively expensive education has become on all levels, the public systems have become that much more important.Gov. Patrick's got the right idea on other areas of education: The benefits of longer school days and years could be great, and pre-K education is a slam-dunk positive.
Infrastructure, public transportation, health care and education are tremendous assets for Massachusetts. And they didn't happen by accident, sprung fully-formed from the head of some beneficent Commonwealth-Zeus. We are enjoying the fruits of the ambition, courage, can-do spirit — yes, and hope — of previous generations.
Is it possible that over the last 16 years (at least), we've been underinvesting in our quality of life in Massachusetts? Were we so eager to tear off the “Taxachusetts” label — exploited so well by Lee Atwater in 1988's election campaign — that we neglected to keep up with the times? Are the endless Prop. 2 1/2 override battles an unavoidable condition of living in MA — to the point that we can hardly imagine a world without them?
Sal DiMasi is plainly allergic to new revenues, although perhaps he's getting smart finally by considering cigarette taxes. But that revenue would seemingly all go into the new health care law. Property tax relief is nowhere in sight. He won't allow the local option meals taxes to pass. Verizon still gets a free lunch on its property taxes — allegedly so that we can have wider access to broadband — but in any event, the rest of us pay for their tax break. The legislature remains a tool of the big interest groups, in deed if not in spirit.
In proposing the Municipal Partnership Act, to some extent Patrick challenged anti-tax conventional wisdom. But he diluted his public support by casting his lot with casinos, which seems like a revenue free lunch. Why is a progressive income tax completely off the table? I'll never be able to figure that one out — particularly if it could be couched as a tax cut for the middle class.
Spending is also part of the culture of neglect. The Patrick administration should be banging the drum on a bold cost control agenda. Patrick's proposal for combining health care purchasing is solid and good; but the cost control agenda hasn't really seen much action. This is not glamorous, but could define Patrick's governorship: Does Chapter 58 survive, or wither? Everyone on Beacon Hill will need to confront the demands of special interests — especially hospitals, providers, pharma and insurers — for the health care law to survive. Those folks were considered critical “stakeholders” in the law's passage, since they imagined they had a lot of business to gain from it. There ought now to be leverage with the folks who represent where that health care money's going.
The state's got big challenges. The Governor realizes that, and — whatever the merits of his policy proposals — at least possesses a sense of urgency about it. If the legislature doesn't like being embarassed by the governor, it needs to get off the dime and start dealing pro-actively with the deterioration of our assets. It's not just a matter of dealing with the governor, it's dealing with reality.
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p>Too true.
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p>There’s that. The Governor is fighting an internal viscosity born of rusting gubernatorial machinery and ‘outsider’ unfamiliarity whereas the machinery in the legislature is rather well-oiled and frequently exercised.
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p>Apart from that, there’s also the fact that Sal DiMasi just doesn’t think he’s answerable to the Governor… This is an extra-constitutional clause inserted into his job description some time ago and it’s accrued enough barnicles for people to think it’s part of the ship… That he has the ‘legislative muscle’ to snub the governor at will doesn’t help, but isn’t, in fact, the problem (it’s built into the system for different branches to be able to muscle each other up a bit, when the occassion calls for it. I woudldn’t have it any other way) The problem is his unwilllingness to forgo snubbing the governor when there is no need to do so…
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… is what’s Sal’s incentive to play ball. Does he have an ambitious agenda? Or does he want a status-quo speakership? Does he merely want to be the guy in the middle when the deal goes down?
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p>Does Gov. Patrick have the means to snub Sal? Is there leverage?
Patrick proposed immediate combined reporting with an eventual drop in rate from 9.5% to 8.3%. That was a non-starter because it was a sizeable and immediate corporate tax increase.
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p>But, as I stated here, with a more dramatic drop (I said 5%) in the corporate rate, business won’t object when the Verizon poles are taxed or the multi-states file combined.
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p>Business won’t object that is if the broad rate cut is sufficiently dramatic. Speaker of the House appears to agree with my sentiments:
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Herald
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p>Patrick and DiMasi, by virtue of their respective office, have difference style of compromise. Patrick comes up with an idea, then packages it in some slogan and tries to sell to the populace from the bully pulpit. Then fails because his grass-roots are great for an election vote, but suck when it comes to governance (not their job).
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p>DiMasi just asks the various players what they want and gives it to the Legislature whose job it is to pass what the leader gives them. The shame is that the minority party is too small to alter what the leader thinks.
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p>Minority party obstreperousness, no matter how useful at times, isn’t the sole mechanism for altering what the leader says, thinks or does… Sometimes that leader can simply decide that having power and using power are two separate things. Other times, majority party players can act in the interest of balance rather than party…
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p>Democracy is hard work… Sometimes you have to come in on Saturday…
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p>I’m not certain there are any such material incentives here…
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p>I’m acting on the assumption that Sal’s incentive NOT to play ball is some combo of A) because he can and 2) he’s known no other way… (insert standard ‘IMHO’, ‘been wrong before’ verbiage, ‘YMMV’, yadda yadda…). If that’s the case the only real incentive he has to play ball is sudden fit of democracy where he subsumes his ego and his vision to the institutional processes… Which is just to say: the incentive, for him to play ball are that it’s a game worth playing correctly…
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p>For example, George Washington might well have been president for life had he, himself, not decided that such incumbency was unseemly. He made a truly democratic decision and walked away after two terms. (And no, this is not an argument for term limits… this is an argument for thinking and acting like a true democrat. )
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p>I hope not personally… but as the governor he can use The Veto and the bully pulpit both. And there are limits to how egregiously he can do this… I think Sal maybe realized he was edging on to egregious lately… I dunno.
Governors come and go. The powerful legislators last forever. Less powerful legislaors know that they are screwed if they don’t go along to get along with the more powerful. Because conservatives and liberals are bizzarely fused into a single party here, there is no mechanism, short of insurrection, to challenge leadership from within the party. The rump of the GOP is useless in this regard.
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p>The power of the bully pulpit amounts to little more than “hope.” The threat to use the veto, as noted by Deval’s several immediate predecessors, is a threat to urinate upwind.
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p>This, by the way, is why I thought that the criticisms of Governor Romney, back in 2006, regarding his travels, to be horse manure.
Patrick made his reputation in corporate America by helping big companies – Texaco, Coca Cola, Ameriquest- address troubles that were rooted in and required reforms to their corporate cultures. He seems to have had success in the role – he kept getting the jobs and the big bucks that go with them. To have that success, he would have had to find the levers to move senior managers and opinion leaders who held more organizational power than he did – not so different from the position he finds himself in with Sal and the lege. My guess is that soft power will be much more important for him as Governor than leverage. He needs to work the relationship with Sal, to cajole, persuade, nudge, shame or inspire him and the other legislators to action. I remain optimistic that the Gov has the vision, communication skills and the commitment to make some headway, no matter how much of a dink the Speaker has been.
All along, we’ve been saying ‘something’s gotta give.’ Well, it looks like DiMasi finally realized that… and something gave. Hopefully, this will bring in a new era of Beacon Hill leadership working together to solve our common problems… but I’m going to need to see a little bit more from Sal and Therese before I’m ready to hop on that wagon.
do you need?
compromises would be nice. I’m hoping they’ll lean more toward Deval’s, because those are the ones that will actually raise revenue… but we have biotech compromises to make, educational reform compromises to make, infrastructural compromises to make… and I’m hoping that the legislature will be as willing to engage in the patrick administration as the patrick administration has been willing to come up with big ideas (many of them good ones, too).
That being said—-where did the money go? I would further suggest that Massachutess since 1979 has had it’s spending priorities misplaced and misguided. I would also suggest that we have had a legislature run by iron fisted partisan tyrants who ran roughshod over bleating reps and senators to get what everyone of them wanted, far more than being a decent legislator: being reelected. We entered the age of the professional politician who’s every move and spending priority leads to reelection, not the best interest of his/her constituents. Of course the legislators were aided and abetted by the ignorant electorate who believed every pandering word the politicians uttered, hook, line, and sinker. Moneies were redirected to every special interest group imagineable—-and still are. The jewel in the crown was the “Big Dig”. Every pol, barring few exceptions, had his/her snout in the trough.
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p>Ultimately we have no one to blame but ourselves. Now we are seeing the same thing on the natinal election this very election cycle.
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p>Our governor still seems to think that casinos are the magic bullet, when in fact, manufacturing, R&D, and healthcare will be our savior.
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p>But, Speaker DiMasi, Senate President Murray, et al have different agendas and the don’t involve the Commonwealth, they involve being reelected. I see that Trav still has his fingers in the pie. One of Trav’s “close personal friends” was named to the Massport board today. Same shit—different day.
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You never answered that question but rushed off, carried away by your dramatic narrative.
I never thought that DiMasi would give an inch on the combined reporting thing. I think lowering the corporate tax rate as an ameliorative measure seems reasonable.
DiMasi backs business loophole closings
which proves that Patrick won the framing battle on that one.
Unless he was, the framing battle is about all he won.
We face the irony that our tax dollars are going less far as we can see from crumbling infrastructure and inadequate funding for higher education even as resentment fueled by very particular examples (details etc.) threatens to bring about a radical and unprecedented elimination of the income tax, which could lead to only a few outcomes: extraoridnary increses in property taxes, laying off thousands of teaches and removing hundreds of thousands of residents from Mass Health, or some combination of both
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p>Much of the increase in state spending can be attributed to the effect of inflation, but the biggest increases (at least during the 1990s) came in heatlh care, local education, and public safety. See: http://massbudget.org/wherehav…
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p>Since this time Local Aid (the lion’s share connected with local education) and Mass Health have continued to make up much of the total state budget.
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p>See: http://www.massbudget.org/FY07…
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p>Some ideas for obtaining better services:
more regionalization of costs for items such as public safety and high schools
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p>If a public safety commissoin started from scratch would the commission divide up firefighting or police by existing town borders?
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p>If we wished to provide the best possible education at the best cost would we start by using our existing town boundaries?
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p>Unfortunately the connection between property values and high school test scores provides an extremely strong incentive for more aflluent towns to fight regionalization proposals tooth and nail
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p>Some way (and this is the hardest thing to figure out) to provide high quality health care with cost controls
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p>I’ve been pondering this myself. Does anyone know if a study has been done (either in MA or for other state) that would indicate how much revenue we could expect from this??
Push for progressive income tax
and the idea failed at the ballots a few years back (I think)
I’ve heard before that a progressive income tax is disallowed by the state constitution. I just looked up the references to taxation in that document, and it seems to me that this is the relevant passage:
I don’t know whether salaries and wages are considered to be “income derived from property,” but I assume probably not, so the legislature “may” tax them at a lower rate than income from property. And it seems clear that (for example) someone who rents out half a duplex and lives in the other half, and an investment firm that owns several 100-200 unit apartment complexes, have to pay the same tax rate on the rent they collect. I guess that even if wages aren’t considered “income derived from property,” they’re still considered to fall under the same “all income from the same kinds of sources is taxed at the same rate” clause.
SJC decisions on the subject are pretty clear, at this point. If you want a progressive income tax, you have to amend the state constitution. We should just accept that and get on with it.
But Charley asked the question in the original post, so I thought it would be interesting to go to the relevant language in the constitution, for starters (not to mention faster than digging up the SJC decisions). Indeed, I assumed that the SJC had been clear on this point, since if the constitution hadn’t been consistently interpreted as forbidding a progressive income tax, I imagine we’d already have one — I really doubt that opposition to enacting a progressive income tax, if it weren’t unconstitutional, would be anywhere near as strong as opposition to changing the constitution to allow enactment of a progressive tax (which is as it should be; even when we’re sure we’re right we shouldn’t have an easy time changing the constitution).
All you have to do is win a lawsuit.
It’s actually been put forth as an amendment about once every 10-15 years since WWII. It has failed every time (obviously). But the last time was in the mid-90’s, so it is about time to go for it again. Perhaps we should wait another year or two. It seems more likely to get it to pass in the middle of a recession and a housing market crash, when people are really noticing how bad their property taxes are and how bad the income disparity is.
It was on the ballot years ago… failed.
Strange how the Herald focused on the loopholes, but the Globe paints DiMasi’s “change of heart” as a boon for corporations. Is it a love of strife and controversy, or the Globe wanting to portray Deval Patrick as a loser again?
…”the Big Dig Culture on Beacon Hill”…were written but no one ever noticed them?
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p>Would the phrase have resonanted?
What can I say? You can have a 10% cut of all proceeds from our Big Dig Culture merchandise.
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p>Now we gotta get some Big Dig Culture merchandise.
…let’s get thinking about it. Obviously you didn’t trademark it or some folks would owe you money…you got to get with it man.
You can all of the ceiling tiles you can carry.