Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Question 1 misses its target

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In taking aim at big government, proponents of Question 1, which would repeal the state income tax, are about 400 miles off target.  They blame Beacon Hill for high taxes and government waste, whereas the real culprits reside far to the south, in Washington, DC.

Beacon Hill makes an easy scapegoat for those who like to complain about big government, but the facts show that such criticism is misguided.  With an income tax rate of just 5.3%, the bite that state government takes from your paycheck is modest compared to that of the federal government, which devours 25% or more from the earnings of most working people.  

Moreover, state taxes fund a host of benefits that most residents of Massachusetts enjoy every day – roads and infrastructure, courts and public safety, aid for local schools, a state university system, public health programs, and many others. Though certainly inefficiencies can be found, most would agree that state government delivers fairly well for the price.

Try applying a cost-benefit analysis to your federal taxes, however, and you’ll find much more waste and misallocation of resources. And while great effort is made to convince the public that federal tax dollars are being funneled to welfare mothers and illegal immigrants, without question there is only one true home of big government: America’s massive military establishment, with its annual budget of about $600 billion, controlled by a cartel so powerful that neither political party dares to challenge it.

Interestingly, it is often the same so-called “conservatives” who back ideas such as Question 1 who will enthusiastically support military spending, even though this country’s military budget routinely matches that of the rest of the world combined.

One of the biggest lies in recent American history (and there have been many) was President Bill Clinton’s declaration in 1997 that “the era of big government is over.”  Nobody – not Ronald Reagan, not Newt Gingrich and his band of congressional reformers in the 1990s, and certainly not George W. Bush – has been able to confront the beltway corporate/military establishment.  Indeed, none of these leaders have even tried.

This is unfortunate, because the resources wasted on American militarism are enormous.  With a modest percentage of what we spend militarily, we could address issues such as health care, renewable energy development, and environmental protection.

But it won’t happen by attacking state government, as Question 1 backers propose.  If you think state government is wasteful and inefficient, you should realize that Beacon Hill is a model of efficiency and responsive government when compared to Washington, where participatory democracy is almost nonexistent, the will of the people is often irrelevant, and corporate interests dictate public policy.  

It’s ironic that those who praise the military establishment tend are frequently the same people who preach the wisdom of “the free market,” because the military-corporate cartel has little use for laissez-faire capitalism.  Defense industries, relying on huge government contracts for their revenue, are more akin to wards of the state than swashbuckling entrepreneurs.  And when the contracts become no-bid, cost-plus contracts, as they often do, any pretense of free enterprise becomes absurd.

“Small government,” is a nice idea, but even those in Washington claiming to favor it are crossing their fingers behind their backs. The Cold War is long over and no serious military threats exist anywhere on the globe, yet neither party dares to put forward serious proposals to drastically reduce military spending.  

American militarism continues in part because local communities won’t support military budget cuts if local jobs will be lost as a result. Having grown into a $600 billion behemoth, the defense establishment is in the envious position of having entire communities, industries, and congressional districts dependant upon it for jobs and economic stability.

But perhaps the even larger obstacle to real defense cutbacks is a conventional wisdom in America that military spending simply cannot be questioned, that any politician who seriously questions such spending must be “weak” on national security.  Strangely enough, this seemingly macho militaristic view is reliant on a very un-macho concept – fear.

By propagating continual fear of a world filled with endless dangers and villains, together with patriotism interpreted as American exceptionalism, corporate and military interests can easily manipulate the democratic process.  Surely, no “weak” candidates need apply.  Without this mindset, Americans might find themselves funding schools and healthcare instead of missiles and fighter jets.

In this light, Question 1 can be seen for what it really is – a pointless distraction, akin to a cheap novel or a brainless television show that gets your mind off bigger problems.  Unfortunately, however, those bigger problems aren’t going away, certainly not by deconstructing a relatively efficient and responsive state government.

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  1. Contractors with close to Zero accountability: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Bechtel, Parsons, Halliburton, Shaw, CH2M Hill, Bearing Point, Boeing, Health Net (for taking care of veterans), Raytheon, and others.

    •  They require the highest accountability I have ever seen in sales and purchasing. Very thourough background checks. The Federal Government demands best pricing possible. Failure to do so is considered a Federal offense. The Feds are not like our local in-the-legislator’s pocket soft on crime, part-time work, fulltime pay folks that we have running the state judiciary, courtesy of the legislature. I’m voting YES on 1! Your democratic/communistic state government drove us to this point.

  2. How many federal dollars are returned to this state for education? It is notorious that Massachusetts/Harvard/MIT/ et al derive incredible financial benefit from federal tax dollars neded or not) There are many businesses ie Raytheon
    who’s sole business is DoD. There are many nonprofit educational businesses that derive millions from federal tax dollars. Massachusetts is awash in federal pork dollars. Massachusetts hospitals all receive federal monies, ad do our airports, highways, and ports, harbors. Just about everything we do is dependent federal reimbursement (so called)

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    p>What were you thinking when you posted this?

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    p>Please name a specific weapons program that has been a total waste.

    • with your breakdowns of what “Massachusetts/Harvard/MIT/ et al derive”.  

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      p>It would be good to know.

      • I have neither the time nor the inclination to research every college and universities federal reimbursement and research grants. Anyone that has read a newspaper or watched a Boston television broadcast is aware that the federal doolars flowing into massachusetts educational institutions is considerable.

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        p>Speaking of which. The National Endowment for the Arts. I think we could cut that down by 50% and it wouldn’t hurt a lot of folks. How about WGBH and PBS. How many tax dollars do they get? How about the Mass gas tax and the Federal gas tax that was pissed away on the Big Rip off  AKA the Central Artery/Tunnel Project. You know–that project that demanded that every hack on Beacon Hill had their wives, girlfriends, siblings on Bechtel/Parsons/Brincjerhoff payroll, and Modern Continental etc.  TAX DOLLARS!

    • Most of the US funding for hospitals, universities, airports, harbors, etc don’t come from pork; they come from standard agency spending.  It’s really an important difference — most of the money comes from agencies in charge of balancing the needs of the entire infrastructure system making systematic choices based on appropriate criteria — not a congresscritter’s friend or friendly neighborhood getting a project because of favoritism.

        • and it went straight to the shareholders.

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          p>Oh, wait.  No it didn’t.  It turns out that (a) non-profits don’t have profit, they have budget surpluses, and (b) that money still can’t leave the non-profit system; it has to be reinvested in the programs, and (c) at sufficient levels to maintain their non-prof status.

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          p>So yeah, they had a good year.  But, that money doesn’t mean a big dividend check — it means more investments in public health.  Will they be the bestest investments possible, with the most public health return for the buck?  Doubtful — no agency that big can run perfectly efficiently.  But, to suggest that it’s profit in the Wall Street sense is lunacy.

          • Lehman paid small dividends; UMass paid no dividends.

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            p>Lehman paid 8 figure CEO salaries; UMass pays 7 figure CEO salaries.

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            p>Lehman pays big salaries to execs; UMass pays big salaries to doctors.

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            p>Lehman has “profits”; UMass has “surpluses” (that’s a difference? You’re kidding, right?)

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            p>

            •  Keeps or “Reinvests” it’s money. By reinvesting, I mean more jobs for friends and relatives of our state government.
              $1 million+ for a state job? I get it, you’re kidding back. At least I hope you are.
              UMASS is considered a stepping stone. Their doctors move on to bigger and better, more prestigious positions. I have had 7 doctors take that route. I have a lot of doctors.
              If they have so much surplus, how come their parking prices have increased 67% over the last 3 years? UMASS csets the rate. I wonder who owns Valupark, the vendor?

              • Vote Yes question 1 – UMass raised its parking rates!

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                p>(Personally, I’m glad that the state job worth $1 million in Mass. is for chief of the medical school, not head college football coach as it is in many red states.)

    • The F-22…a long-delayed overbudget plane built for the last war.

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      p>The Seawolf submarines that Congress demanded be constructed even when the Navy said it didn’t want them.

      • I’m thinking particularly of the F-111 and McNamara’s notion of commonality.  Of course, the reverse it true as well… the Navy had to be dragged kicking and screaming to adopt the aircraft carrier, which WWII proved was worth 5 battleships.

  3. Anyone read the Globe article this morning re the consequence of our “Massachusetts Universal Health Care.”?
    ER’s are no more overwhelmed than ever. The “folks” rather than seeing a GP or a nurse practitioner/PA persist in going to the ER and now they are taking their uncles, cousins, and neighbors. Part of the arguement is that there are not sufficient quantity of MD’s and RNP’s, PA’s.
    Duhhhhhhhhh. Anyone remember reading my posts re the fact that Uviversal Health Care, although well intentioned, will kill the system. Have any idea what an ER visit costs as compared to an MD. Right off the top of my head, I suggest it is four times as much and more—-depending on what the patient states is their chief complaint. Four or five times as much perhaps. Care to guess how long this will take before yhe state says, “We need more money—we have to raise rates/taxes?” For what—-for our healthcare dollars to be frivolously wasted. And—-I will bet you a weeks pay that you will find that folks are seeking medical attention for frivolous or simply non medical issues. Another boondoggle out of Pandora’s Box.

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    p>Here is the link to the Globe article:  http://www.boston.com/news/hea…

    • “I will bet you a weeks pay that you will find that folks are seeking medical attention for frivolous or simply non medical issues.”
      You care to throw out some numbers?… never mind I’ve already seen some of the figures you’ve pulled out before.

  4. I find your economic analysis somewhat disingenuous on 2 levels.  

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    p>The first is mostly arithmetic.  The state income tax only raises 25% of state tax revenue, so proponents of the repeal are necessarily making a “my taxes are too high” argument.  They’re making “government probably is 33% inefficient” and “if I can live on less, so can government” arguments.

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    p>I can’t find the citation, but did Carla Howell calculate total state government spending in the Commonwealth at $75 billion (state, local, and “other” taxing entities whose proceeds do not go into the general state coffers.

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    p>Targeting the income tax is clear, understandable, and targeted.  Reform of, say, the MBTA pension is a more difficult story to tell effectively.  

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    p>Hey, what’s $10 billion less?  If we can you it, you can do it!

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    p>The second is philosophical.  I’ll wager if you ask those voters supporting Prop 1 if they’d like their fed taxes reduced they’d all yes “you betcha!”

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    p>So to carp against the fed tax burden in defense of the state burden is a red herring, and silly, too.

    • I bet the answer to the question, “Would you like to pick up your groceries for free rather than to have to pay for them?” would have a similar answer.

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      p>I don’t think one learns anything thereby.

    • If we’re talking about what’s silly,shep, I think the elephant in the room is the “defense” budget that exceeds the rest of the world combined.  MCRD seems to be saying we should be thankful that so much of that money gets spent here in the Bay State, but that argument misses the point.  It’s a ton of money to spend on militarism, and it is a scar on our society.  We could do much better things with that money.  

      • in a very oversimplified manner…

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        p> * helicopter routers and blades are like windmill routers and blades.
        * jet engines are like natural gas turbines
        * tanks are like cars and trucks
        * military supply chain management is like retail supply chain management

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        p>and so forth.  Imagine if the US took just $20 billion a year from the military and put it into green energy in the very same physical locations where they cut the military funding.  What if Boeing engineers became engineers for wind and natural gas turbines, Boeing mechanics became mechanics for those turbines, Boeing factory workers instead assembling those electrical generation devices?  What if TARDEC focused on fuel efficiencies for cars and trucks?  What if the OR folks in the military went to work for CSX and Norfolk Southern to improve their QoS so more freight got shipped by rail instead of highway?

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        p>I understand that not all military spending goes for things like this, and I’m not proposing that the US military simply stop buying weapons.

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        p>But $20 billion a year would go a long way toward reducing this country’s dependence on foreign oil while also reducing emissions, and we could get there using the money and the people currently used to build far too many weapons systems.

  5. traffic cameras have come to my small Assachusetts town.  Looking forward to paintballing these suckers blind.  Confidence in government federal, state and local?  Gone, history, see you later bye.

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