Now what if instead of making a bad bet on Casinos, the legislature actually cut back on giveaways?
Did you know 50% of potential state revenue is lost due to “giveaways, tax breaks for corporations, and grandfathered incentives”? Cleaning that up has real potential. The so-called “Tax Expenditure Budget”, posted on the Department of Revenue’s Website has some real whoppers. Here is where to eliminate the structural deficit. Not new taxes, but cut the cuts to “our” revenues that benefit special interests.
See Kaufman Cites Painful Cuts at Lexington Budget Forum. Kaufman stated that fully 50% of potential state revenues are lost due to these giveaways and loopholes. I heard him; I was there. This article details revenue the Commonwealth could have had, but gave away due to current and past lobbyist efforts and the effects on one town – Lexington. The article is noteworthy because it quotes Representative Kaufman, who is the Chairman of the Revenue Committee and who is heading a complete review of the the so called “Tax Expenditure Budget”. The Tax Expenditure Budget is a list of all the giveaways and exemptions won by lobbyists over the last 40 years, some of them long forgotten but still bleeding the Commonwealth’s budgetThe Tax Expenditure Budget lists all these giveaways, give backs, loop holes, and exemptions These Tax Expenditure Budget items are like permanent sap buckets tapping into state revenues forever.
Did you know that “we” give up 50% of the states potential revenue this way? Give it a look. which of these open arteries bleeding state revenue would you triage and close?
This is absolutely galling when you consider the wholesale dismantling of human services as we know it under this Administration. Funny….I never heard a word about this until you brought it up. Thank you, Amber. I’ll spread the word.
I need my airplane to get from my late summer home in the Berkshires to my early autumn home on the Cape! It’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity just like food and clothing! And if you got rid of the exemption you’d put my pilot and my three personal flight attendants out of work.
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Then these “tax expenditure budget items” would be parasites bleeding away the life giving sap.
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p>If I were a cartoonist, what a great cartoon this would make. Sad, really.
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p>Some of these permanent tax breaks were granted by legislators who not only are no longer on Beacon Hill, but have passed away long ago; the sap suckers & taps keep dripping and live on after the legislators who enact them and the lobbyists who achieve them are dead.
…and it’s so great because it really sticks in your mind. Nice work, AmberPaw. I’m going to remember this.
Check out the Mass Budget and Policy Center’s report on the Tax Expenditure Budget here. The killer quote is
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p>Meanwhile, a couple of months ago,Rep Matt Patrick and 8 other brave souls voted to take on $450 item out of the tax expenditure budget during the House Budget debate
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p>Check out this blog on the ONE Mass site that includes a tree that only needs some transparent root rot.
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p>Important Revenue & Transparency Votes
Posted April 30th, 2010 by Harmony Blakeway
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we need Representatives for reform. The public doesn’t know how many millions are spent on these “give-aways”.
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p>Some of these expenditures are given to IRRESPONSIBLE corporations who, although thy make milions in profits still have employees on our state programs.
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p>As President Lincoln said ” “Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
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p>I will guarantee that I will sign on to this. An online data-base for the budget is key to transparency. This is a main focus of my campaign. It has been something I have been speaking about since I joined ther “facebook” site back in the earliest part of the year.
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p>I need BMG’s help. With 25% of the legislature coming in as freshman, this could be a solid block of people that can make REAL change.
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p>This is OUR chance. Please consider helping my(our) campaign!
Don’t tell the Republicans that the first President of their party said such a heretical thing:)
I bet that the most outrageous tax expenditures, like for purchase of private aircraft, are the ones that would net the least revenue if they were repealed. This is because “rich people” taxable events are the most mobile. Like the case of buying airplanes. What is to stop a rich person from buying their plane in NH? Big ticket purchases are easier to take out of state since they are one time deals and mobile rich people are the parties involved.
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p>Big Businesses often negotiate their breaks when deciding where to locate. If the many tax expenditures were not enacted, then those businesses might be located elsewhere and Massachusetts would receive no net revenue benefit for having declined to grant the benefit. Of course we could have promised long-term breaks, lured business in and then reneged, but I don’t think acquiring a reputation for that kind of dealing would help economic development long term. Sad that individual businesses can break their long-term promises to the government without similar fear of backlash. It’s an asymmetrical relationship.
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p>Conversely, the tax expenditures with the highest net recapture rate, are likely the ones that progressives would want to keep, like the sales tax exemption for food. If you repealed that exemption most people would still buy food here in Massachusetts and in similar quantities to now despite the increased prices. But this kind of tax expenditure is hardly offensive to progressives and few would seek to repeal it.
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p>So the more offensive the tax break, the less lucrative repealing it would be. Not in every instance, but quite often.
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p>I do still think that all tax expenditures need to be examined and actual benefits to the Commonwealth must be demonstrated to justify them.
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p>I just don’t think raising revenue by repealing these tax breaks would lead to easy and automatic state revenue if only we had the guts to take on vested interests.
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p>Businesses ultimately go where there’s qualified labor to be found and where it’s easy and efficient to be there. The reason why IBM, for example, just built a huge campus in the Greater Lowell area wasn’t because of tax benefits. It was because that’s where the talent is and that’s where the infrastructure is for that sort of business.
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p>On the other end of that spectrum, we’ve given tax credits totaling in the tens of millions to Boston companies who said up front that a) they weren’t moving and b) they wouldn’t be growing any appreciable jobs. That doesn’t create jobs.
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p>Know what would, though? Taking some of this $1.5 billion or so bucks and investing it into public higher education. That not only creates jobs at the university, but gets employed into longterm job growth by making more affordable, high quality college education available to our residents… which not only keeps them here, paying Massachusetts income taxes… but attracts businesses and start-ups to Massachusetts because, again, that’s where the talent is found.
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p>As for the “uber rich” being mobile… and needing to give them every tax break on the book to keep them happy… they go where the jobs and talent is, too. Moreover, even if they made their decisions on stupid tax breaks, where will they go? The taxes are higher in almost every state in the region already. They wealthy would pay more in a NY or Con, etc., if they had the luxury of choosing where to live based on taxes alone… but as I said, they don’t really have that choice, either, because they, too, need to be where the jobs are… whether its their own or pools of qualified potential employees.
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p>from the article
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p>”See that really tall column in the corner? That is new companies under 50 employees. What these small companies need is lower taxes, less regulation and strong property rights.”
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p>IBM may be a really good photo op for politicians but they are not bringing a lot of jobs. They are looking for tech specialists which we have. If this state gets as expensive for individuals and corporations as NJ or CA they won’t be here either.
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p>The property exceptions I’m sure applies to IBM as they are a manufacturer. I think every state exempts equipment and tools to make or design products – do away with this “Break” and everyone will leave.
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is great talent, great public transportation, affordable costs and available credit. Taxes have very little to do with it. Regulation, when used appropriately, helps the industry, as opposed to hindering it — as proven by the banking industry.
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p>(Emphasis mine.)
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p>Please feel free to flush all BS in its proper receptacle.
Massachusetts exempts equipment used in manufacturing along with 45 other states. In Massachusetts this includes both excise and sales tax. The idea is that the product will eventually be taxed anyway – and it isn’t fair to burden your firm with costs that your overseas and local competitors don’t have.
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p>My firm (which employees 50) would not have expanded here if it wasn’t for this “Break” and no manufacturer would even think of moving to this state.
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You said “everyone,” though, and that’s BS.
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p>Look, I’m not saying every single tax credit or exemption should be stripped from the state budget. I’m just saying that, on average, they’re less effective at creating jobs and growing industry in this state (small or large) than things like affordable public higher ed, an improved transportation system, including public transportation, and more effort at keeping the state affordable for businesses and people. Imagine what kind of jobs we’d able to create with trains linking NB to Boston and Providence, Springfield to Hartford, and with blue line and green line extensions that people have been pushing over the last few decades.
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p>Imagine what jobs we’d create if UMASS system rivaled the University of California system, or if UMASS Amherst rivaled Berkley. And imagine if our state made efforts to make those universities as affordable to our residents as California makes them for their residents. These are things we could easily do if we took a look at this $1.5 billion in tax credits every year and decided how it could be best spent. I’m sure that there’s some tax credits in there which are worth it, but I’m equally sure that most are not worth the opportunity cost.
who is a manufacturer (and uses capital equipment) – software development no – but everyone else.
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p>The state hasn’t spent it’s current money properly. What makes you think if they got more they would do better. Pension reform (which is still sort of only 1/4 done) was only done in an fiscal emergency. Give the state more taxing authority, you will not just have one Bulger with a 290K pension but 10.
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p>Don’t put Umass Amherst down – it isn’t just budgets that determine the worth of a University. Umass has one of the best Chemical Engineering schools in the world (and a lot of other departments also) – this didn’t have to do with money it was people. Of course I think they have the only Marxist economic department left 🙁
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p>Having high speed rail from Boston to Springfield isn’t going to improve Springfield. Most people commute suburb to suburb. Some of the local regional transit authorities seem to be doing a fair job (other than the “T) Heavy rail is expensive, energy intensive and I don’t believe the future.
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p>First off, I went through an entire paragraph discussing the fact that not every tax credit should be removed. This could very well be one of them that should stay. However, you are providing absolutely not a shred of evidence that “everyone” would leave. That statement is, in and of itself, absurd. You would have to at the very least prove that it would be more expensive to companies to lose that tax credit and stay in Massachusetts, than it would the insane cost it takes to move into a location capable of doing the manufacturing work that company does, then find and hire the employees in that area to do it. It sounds very much like this could be one of those tax credits worth keeping, but you do nothing to prove your statement on the matter that “everyone” will leave without it.
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p>Holy leap to conclusion, batman! I said it would be nice to improve it, not that it wasn’t nice. UMASS Amherst is many great things — it is not UCLA or Berkley, or UNC, or any of the country’s other Ivy-League caliber research institutions. It’s a great school, but it could be a UCLA or Berkley if we funded it adequately. We fund our public state schools 49th out of 50th per capita in the country, so it’s safe to say they aren’t anywhere near adequately funded by our state, which goes to show how very well the UMASS system has done under a state government which hasn’t given it half the credit or resources it deserves. It’s a testament to the system that it is where it is, but that doesn’t mean it is where it should be if our state government fully embraced it.
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p>First of all, I didn’t say there should be a train from Boston to Springfield. I said there should be a train from Springfield to Hartford. I also said there should be a train that links New Bedford to Boston and Providence. If you don’t think those trains in those places would “improve” those areas, you’re a fool. It wouldn’t just improve those places, but it would provide the opportunity for literally thousands of permanent jobs once the trains would be completed. The trains themselves may not improve those cities, but the permanent jobs they bring with them would.
actually Umass have a much better engineering department than UCLA, so I don’t think it’s the funding.
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p>College tuition is out of control and even though the state schools are less expensive they are hiding the cost by tapping into the general revenue streams. Umass Amherst costs 22K WPI 40K – the difference comes out of the general revenue stream. College tuition has been increasing at much great than the rate of inflation and has become unaffordable to the middle class. Subsiding either state schools by general revenue streams or by grants isn’t going to make it more less expensive but more. Reminds me of Fannie and Freddie zero down mortages.
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can be made for the opposing position, but you are correct.
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p>Just as in marketing, some items are price sensitive – gasoline. If the station across the street is a penny cheaper, people will go there.
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p>But most consumers prefer their brand of pizza, jeans, car, movie and will not switch for a cheaper price.
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p>Same goes for business. The other side can always find some industry to point to where lower taxes is a deal breaker, for most it is the qualities you point out. For first they must be able to make a profit, before they worry about what tax they will pay on that profit.
Is estimated at just over $23 billion. Breaking that down, it’s $16.6 billion in sales tax, $5.2 billion in personal income tax, and $1.2 billion in corporate excise tax. Further breaking down the sales tax number, $12.7 billion, is from “exempt not taxable as tangible personal property.” That includes over $9.1 billion in services that are not subject to tax
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p>Looking at the MA tax expenditure budget it becomes clear that expanding the sales tax to certain services is the largest source of potential revenue. Expanding the sales tax to services could allow for a substantial reduction in the rate of the sales tax (or of another tax) while, at the same time, bringing in more revenue. A broader base and a lower rate.
The data provided does not go any deeper than the numbers you provide nor does is go deeper into examples of what services are included in those not subject to sales tax. Without understanding what services are currently included in this category and what alternatives there are to providing those services elsewhere it is hard to make a well informed decision on whether applying the sales tax to them would make sense.
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p>For example, legal fees are not subject to sales tax. If the state were to decide to apply sales tax to legal fees what would stop the law firms from moving to Manchester and Nashua and performing their services from there? If that were to occur we would not only not have the sales tax but would also have significant losses in rent revenue to landlords, loss in employment, etc.
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p>I am not saying reviewing the entire list is not a worthwhile idea, it does make sense to review both what is and is not taxed periodically to make sure the make-up of our economy has not made a prior classification obsolete. I do urge caution to ensure we get the outcome desired.
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p>In the meantime, I would encourage people to ask the legislature, AG, etc. why the state has not applied sales taxes to internet transactions on products subject to sales tax in MA. The current arrangement provides an immediate 6.25% cost benefit to any internet retialer outside the state and places our local merchants at a severe disadvantage. I have heard that we are “missing” out on $213 million in sales taxes on these transactions (I admit that this is a number I heard in conversation so no cite). Making this fair is both good for local business and the state. Let’s start with that item.
What’s to stop attorneys from moving to NH is that their services are highly state-specific. Most MA attorneys don’t have permission to pratice in NH, and even if they did, so what? If you want to serve clients in MA you have to practice before the MA courts, so the state can consider that the point of sale and not lose any tax revenue.
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p>Doctors, engineers, or accountants on the other hand…
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p>I think Neil has a good point. Frankly, we don’t really know which of these are worthwhile and which aren’t. We need more transparency in the tax expenditure budget. My Senator, Ben Downing, was one of the sponsors of Senate Budget Amendment 58, which called for just that. And it passed, so hopefully it survives conference committee. It doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a good start.
That don’t have a physical presence in MA. I think you’re talking about MA bringing it’s sales and use tax laws in line with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, and then waiting for Congress to act under it’s commerce clause jurisdiction to allow states to impose a use tax obligation on non-nexus online retailers. It’s a long process that involves MA passing laws, then several other states passing the same laws, then Congress acting. It’s not just a quick solution at the state house that will bring in a fast $213 million.
It seems to me that if MA can impose a sales tax at the point of registration for a car bought in NH the same principle should apply. There does not have to be the same dealership in MA for that to happen. Also doesn’t stuff shipped into MA get charged a consumption tax even for items from stores that do not exist here. Physical presence seems to be a bad standard. Shipped to MA, taxed by MA seems to be a reasonable standard.
When the buyer fills out his or her personal income taxes he should be paying use tax on line 33 of the MA return. But administratively it just isn’t worth the effort for MA to track down every individual online purchase to try to collect the use tax from individuals. You really only see use tax assessments against individuals if you’re talking about a boat, an airplane, an expensive piece of artwork, or some other big ticket item. Unless MA can force the retailer to collect and remit the use taxes, it often times won’t be collected. The US Supreme Court has said, in Quill v South Dakota that a state cannot impose a sales/use tax collection obligation under the commerce clause unless the retailer has a physical presence in that state.
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p>I don’t disagree with your statement that physical presence isn’t a reasonable standard, but it’s the constitutional standard as prescribed by the Supreme Court.
Small & large businesses pay use tax on everything taxable shipped into Massachusetts. Items that go into Manufacturing are exempt. The Department of Revenue is extremely aggressive on finding business who neglect to pay use taxes.
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p>Looking for revenue, how about applying the state income tax to state pensions greater than the social security max. Call it the Bill Bulger Pension Tax.
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p>I’m not sure how the “Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement” would work, but as the owner of a small business there is no way we could collect sales tax for every jurisdiction in the US. A lot of states have minimum tax bills and filing fees. If you operate in all 50 states you could start your year with a 25K tax liablity even before you shipped anything.
and there is more incentive for MA to actually audit those businesses. The assessment could be high enough if the audit goes for multiple years, and it increases compliance going forward. But that means that the business has a physical presence in MA. I was only talking about use tax assessments against individuals where the seller does not have a physical presence in MA. Those are almost exclusively limited to big ticket items only.
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p>The SSUTA is an effort for states to voluntarily adopt a uniform set of sales/use tax laws to aid the compliance effort for businesses. If each state has substantially similar use tax laws then compliance is easy, you just buy some software and when you plug in the shipping address it’ll tell you the tax. If enough states voluntarily adopt these uniform rules then the next step would be for Congress to pass a law, under it’s commerce clause jurisdiction, that allows states to impose a use tax obligation on businesses without physical presence.
I could see this bill forcing business to file tax returns in all 50 states. The states have gotten very aggressive about “nexus” to the point if you exhibit at a trade show in their state they call you a local corporation and want you to collect sales tax and pay filing fees.
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p>NJ is the poster child for abuse. If you sell anything to the state of NJ you are required to file a NJ state tax return. The state thought they were so smart. We now sell through a local firm who just marks the product up to cover the cost of compliance. All they did was make it more expensive for them to buy product.
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p>I don’t see the SSUTA bill working, look at California every city county and buisness district collects taxes. I don’t ever see them every getting a simple system.
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I agree that there can be unintended consequences and a blanket tax rate across anything not taxed is probably a bad idea, however I don’t fear very many businesses moving out of the state because the sales tax was applied more broadly. Why? It’s the costumers who get taxed, not the businesses themselves. The businesses wouldn’t even have to pass on the cost of the tax to the costumers — the state sales tax does that automatically :P. Given that businesses will go where the people are, especially service businesses (which, you know, have to have people to serve in order to stay in business), there’s actually little risk of a mass move.
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p>An unintended consequences of making the sales tax broader, IMO, is the fact that it’s not a progressive tax. Our state sales tax is more progressive than most other states because we don’t have a sales tax on food and clothes (to a certain extent). That should, of course, stay — though I think it could make good public health sense to tax things like sugared drinks and candy, as the Governor has supported in the past.
Did you know that Massachusetts is 46th in funding public higher education?
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p>I note our governor touts his support of public k-12 higher education (though I do not believe his children were in public schools) but is TOTALLY SILENT about public higher education.
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p>Hint: those who graduate from public community collges, four year colleges, and universities stay here – more than 85%
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p>This is not true of the elite, $50k a year schools. And, as far as I can tell the education from UMASS Lowell does not create the holier-than-thou elite attitude that seems to come out of Harvard all too often.
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p>Unless someone else does it first, I guess it is time for another higher ed post this weekend about public higher Ed, from AmberPaw.
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p>But I ask you, would the Citizens United decision have come out of the USSCT if every single justice were not from Harvard, Princeton, or Yale? One wonders.
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p>The Harvard tribe appears, at least to me, to take care of its own first.
in terms of per capita public higher ed spending, or at least we were for a very long time (and every year in which I spent at UMASS Dartmouth).
if I do say so myself. I know ONE Mass posted some of this stuff early this year, but here it is again.
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p>I particularly recommend that you click on and read this piece from the Center of Public and Policy Priorities and the eye boggling surveys of the states who do impose a sales tax on services at the website of the Federation of Tax Administrators. (I do love these guys. Facts Facts Facts, nothing but Facts.)
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p>I like this from CBPP
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are doing “what” about this problem? Where is the human outcry other than a few people on BMG (not even a large group of BMGers for that matter).
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p>AmberPaw, IMO, this is a great example of why the “Tea Party” movement has arisen and why they are so angry. There are sweetheart deals like this on every level of Local, state and Federal government. We the people have been powerless to fix it since everyone we elect gets amalgamated into the party politics and nobody wants to rock the boat. The Tea Partiers are trying to “rock the boat” but unfortunately get painted as loons by the both established political parties, especially the Democrats.
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p>And when it comes to balancing the budget, look for places where the little people will get hurt thereby inflicting pain to voters with the hope of “raising taxes” to fix the problem.
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p>THanks for bringing this to the light of day and maybe if enough “new blood” candidates get elected in November AND their primary goal on the day after election does not become “reelection”, something might happen (naive but I have “hope”). Otherwise, your research results will go unchanged and these “deals” will go on in perpetuity.
What especially shocked me was how many of these giveaways lived on after their proponents were no longer in government or dead…drip….drip….drip…enacted under Republicans, democrats…both…remember this state was once a single party Republican state, and no better about this issue of eternal giveaways at THAt time.
Republicans and Democrats have done terrible things with serious consequences but the people in charge “today” is what matters. I don’t care if some of the past in this state were done by Repubs, Democrats control the state and can fix whatever they want and carry the burden of fault for NOT fixing things. Obama has been blaming GW and the last 10 year’s Congress for the oil spill well HE has been President since January of 2009 and could have fixed anything he wanted. He had a supermajority in Congress and could have passed any “oil drilling” regulation he wanted. He didn’t and we have a problem so HE owns it (he owns Afghanistan, he owns the deficit, he owns banking regulations, he owns healthcare reform…).
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p>So if you complain about current giveaways in the state system, Democrats carry the full burden.
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p>As for giveaways which the sponsor is out of office and even dead, I assume it is all the heirs who benefit and even plan their activities around these giveaways. I don’t fault them for taking advantage of whatever loophole exists but instead blame the loophole makers and “sustainers”.
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p>So much for “cutting to the bone” on balancing the budget. Just drop some loopholes and keep the pools open!
to say “what matters is the ‘here and now’!”
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p>It almost makes those 16 years we had of Republican Governors making bad decisions feel as though it hasn’t impacted our ability to achieve success, today. We may not have had to raise the sales tax if Charlie Baker, for example, didn’t punt on the costs of the Big Dig in economically risky swaptions while he was head of A&F.
The Republicans of yesteryear are not running for election this year. This year we have the incumbents that we have.
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p>News flash: the Governor of Massachusetts is a powerless figure. I’ve lived here since 1985, and there hasn’t been a governor that could sustain a veto over the opposition of the House Speaker or Senate President in that time. Everything good and everything bad in this commonwealth is 100% owned by the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party alone.
By all accounts, the executive office in Massachusetts is one of the most 10 powerful Governors in the entire country, in large part due to their powers outside signing whatever laws come their way. Yet, even in the legislative arena, the Governor has been able to exert a surprisingly large amount of influence compared to what some naysayers would like to believe.
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p>Some examples include: the education bill that was just recently passed, the five (yes, five) environemtal-reform related bills from the previous year, cost-saving and revenue-building measures for towns (from the meals tax to getting many towns on board with the state’s health insurance system) and, most importantly, revenue-generating proposals for the state — the sales tax being one and the corporate tax loophole removal being another.
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p>Furthermore, the “Democratic Party” doesn’t own the flawed process that results in the House having too much power. That fault lies with the uber-powerful Speaker system we have in this state. The Speaker doesn’t have total control over the state’s Democratic Party. John Walsh didn’t run Speaker DeLeo’s campaign.
There has not been a dime in this Commonwealth’s budget in the last 35 years that wasn’t there with the specific approval of the Speaker and Senate President. Not even when funding was required by the constitution and by court order, but nevertheless opposed by the Democratic leadership in the legislature.
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p>Every governor, from Dukakis through Patrick, has learned that to challenge the Speaker and Senate President is to lose, and be embarrassed, because governors do not wield sufficient power to compete. The only way to get Bulger out was to offer him obscene money from the public sector, and, given his extreme awfulness as Senate President, that was a good decision! By the time Romney and Patrick were in office, the governor’s veto has been about as effective as trying to stop a freight train by placing a penny on the track.
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p>The individuals who have occupied the post of Speaker and Senate President in those decades would make the folks in New York and Illinois blush, and they are Democrats all, duly elected and re-elected by the Democratic caucus in the legislature. The Democrats in the legislature could curtail the power of the Speakah, but yet they do not.
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p>Last time Kerry was up for election, I seriously considered voting for Weld because I thought that a moderate Republican might be a wholesome influence on what the DC Republicans were then becoming, and you guys convinced me that this should be considered a vote for Trent Lott, since any Republican would vote for him in the leadership vote. You were right. In the same way, a vote for a Democrat to the General Court is a vote for the Massachusetts status quo.
I disagree with you that it’s so powerful that the Corner Office doesn’t have an influence on what is passed. I gave examples of things in which the Governor had that influence, in which at least some of those things were passed that wouldn’t have been had the Governor not supported it. You just decided to ignore that.
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p>Now, as for the notion that a vote for any Democrat is a vote for the status quo, I do have to disagree with that notion, too. We have some good men and women up there in the progressive camp that are struggling to get reforms in, and there’s many more of those than Republicans. We’ve been adding to those ranks every election cycle. This isn’t to say I mind a competitive Republican Party in this state, but they have to earn that right on their own.
I suggest:
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p>1. Representative William Brownsberger of the 24th Middlesex
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p>2. Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz of the 2nd Suffolk
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p>Both have been willing to vote their conscience and fight for true reform, in front of and most other legislators, and whether or not Leadership was on board. Brownsberger even resigned a vice-chairmanship over such issues. Both are new legislators and deserve our support in my opinion.
If we had 100 Sonia Chang-Diazes up on Beacon Hill, the world would be a better place, government would be taken more seriously and the political gamesmanship would be taken down to a minimum. It’s been a tough road to get true-blue progressives, willing to stand up against leadership when it matters, but we’ve had some success every year. There have been some disappointments, but the point is we’re making progress. I will be surprised if the progressive caucus isn’t the one wielding the power and gavel in the House by 2016, and shocked if it isn’t by 2020. This is a battle being waged district by district, primary by primary, but we’re winning more than we’re losing.
Stupid comments like “Keep government away from my Medicare” and comparisons of Obama to Hitler will do that. I’ve said before that if many of the Tea Partiers meant what they said they would actually be with US. Unfortunately the movement either can’t or won’t make those distinctions within itself.
There are certainly nut-bag Tea Partiers… some maybe even “certifiable”. However many of them are just regular people who are sick of their money being spent on stupid things (Amber’s post above) and they want some control back. And due to the MSM portrayal of the small minority of Tea Party nut-bags, many people will assign “loon” to you if you said you were a Tea Partier. just watch my favorite MSNBC shows (Matthews, Rachel, ED or Keith) and see how “Tea Partier” will remove ANY credibility from a person. You might even see the same prejudice about “Tea Baggers” here on BMG. Agree?
I’ve heard plenty of people speak from the rostrum at these rallies and a lot of what is said is nonsensical. I DO watch the MSNBC shows you mention and yes, tea partier is a term of derision, as well it should be IMO. They claim to want lower taxes, though taxes HAVE been cut for most Americans under Obama. They also ridiculously compare themselves to those fighting against taxation without representation which drives me absolutely nuts.
Does this work with race, ethnicity, religion, partisanship… or just Tea Party protestors? Know of any other groups with wacky leaders or spokespeople? MoveOn.org…
Don’t tangle yourself up trying to defend this crowd. Just state your own opinions and stay away from this crowd. I’m not going to play the percentage game, but the crowd cheers when a Palin or a Bachman spout their “interesting” opinions. As much as you want to suggest this is NOT just a handful of people holding awful signs among an otherwise reasonable grassroots effort. It is SEVERAL signs and more importantly those with a microphone.
I will defend the Tea Party protestors and any other group I feel like. Not only defend but I would support the TP since they are a grass roots organization whom I agree with (for the most part). You simply disagree with their message and that’s fine. Palin/Bachman aren’t your favs, well neither are so many lefty loon Dems in my book.
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p>Next time there is a local TP rally you and I should go and check how many nuts are there (not counting us of course).
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p>The fact that anyone wouldn’t disagree with a racist, violent “message” isn’t fine. But again, I guess we disagree on that.
Got any links to the “racist, violent message” from the official Tea Party? Not some wackos but the majority TP protestors? Anything?
so
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p>is just peachy? Wow. This is no “small minority” of the tea party. It is the Tea Party.
Are you saying the Tea Party protestors who compare Obama to Hitler are not a small minority? Have you ever attended a Tea Party rally or do you just take your feeds from MSNBC? I’ve been to them and the VAST majority of the people there are regular people who are angry about their taxes and how that money is used. There are crazies there but they do not account for many people… low single digits. Do your self and your party a favor and stop dismissing this large group of people made up of conservative independents. To do so would be foolish.
No MSNBC filter needed. I can hear and understand what’s being said at the microphone just fine on my own, as can Ryan I’m sure.
so I assume all or at least the majority of birds in the gulf are covered with oil.
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p>OR… is just makes sensational MSM news to go find an unfortunate bird and try to portray it as typical of all birds in the Gulf. Same with Obama/Nazi Tea Party protestor who while they have the right to do it, does not represent the credo of “typical” TP protestors.
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p>As I said, you can ignore the protests or continue to mischaracterize the message, but the real toll will come in November.
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p>Have you actually seen a picture of the Gulf Coast lately? Here’s a NASA shot from over a week ago.
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p>http://www.towleroad.com/2010/…
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p>
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p>Uploaded with ImageShack.us
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p>Bear in mind that this wide-spanning Gulf Disaster’s seen-from-space kind of damage is only the damage we see after BP’s extreme use of the more-dangerous-than-the-oil disperant, Corexit. So that disgusting, huge-chunk-of-the-Gulf picture could have looked even worse…
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p>And you have the audacity to try to claim that the suffering and destruction of wildlife and our natural habitats in that region is some kind of crazy media conspiracy? Dude, we’re facing an event which may cause the extinction of many regional species. If anything, the media has been shy from showing anything close to the real damaging and suffering caused by this man-made disaster of epic proportions.
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p>Maybe if you didn’t frequently talk about subjects which you know so little about, you wouldn’t be caught making so many specious and ignorant arguments? I suggest not making arguments based on what Rush Limbaugh told you to say anymore — they don’t reflect well on you and are utterly laughable.
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p>Yes, I look forward to the Tea Partiers grasping defeat from the jaws of victory, as they pushed through likely-unelectable hacks in primaries across the country. Make sure to say hello to Senators Boxer, Sestak, Reid and possibly even Conway come November. I sincerely offer my thanks to your bigoted and utterly stupid movement for helping us keep the Senate in a very tough year for incumbents. Really, thanks.
Why were all the sponsors of the tax expenditure transparency budget amdendment Dems?
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p>Your side hasn’t done anything about this issue in the legislature. Don’t try to claim credit.
…from cosponsoring, or at very least voting for, these bills.
of debating JohnD?
The regulars on this blog are going to need some heavy-duty rationalizations next November to explain why their ideas have not won favor with the American people. Because of arrogance, or call it the cliched word “hubris” some posters have refined whistling in the dark to an art form on this site.
If your only role is to point out how stupid everyone else is, why bother? Be one of us or one of them, but be something.
I’ve been sort of a loner, a weirdo, all my life–too late to change.
is the conflation of policy and politics.
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p>Please, Edgar, go not down that road.
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p>You cannot really believe that everything that’s popular is right.
is not necessarily wrong, either.
I don’t know where you stand wrt TP protestors but I cannot honestly say I am one of them. But the first hand observations have not shown me the kooky side that is portrayed on MSM. I think they really are a grass roots movement of angry fed-up people of all political persuasions. I would also note that “grass roots” as I am using it does not preclude involvement of organizations anymore (example Obama’s election being portrayed as grass roots with many small donations from many average people but openly supported by large organizations as well).
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p>With the brains on BMG I am surprised that they appear to be sucked into thinking it’s just a bunch of crazy racist violent Republicans… it isn’t. Do you think there would be a sense of defeat to admit the TP people are just regular folk?
and all it got us was wars that are bankrupting our country and NO solutions.
Your guy says Afghanistan was the right fight at the right time.
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p>Candidate Obama…
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p>This war is a disaster! When will Obama stop allowing US soldiers to die needlessly? Does the Boston Globe give daily statistics on US Servicemen killed in Afghanistan anymore or does this not support their liberal agenda? Bring our troops home and line them up on the Mexican border so we can keep illegals out of our country.
[Comment not addressed to JohnD]
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p>The whole JohnD-schtick on this thread has been an us-vs-them frame. This generally fits with the heightened level of tribalism among conservatives that a number of researchers have uncovered. It is also tempting for us to think we’re divided into teams and to accept this framework.
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p>But without JohnD around to turn us all into Manicheans, we have more interesting discussions.
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p>Thus, figuring out how to get reforms through the legislature has been an ongoing concern among progressives, and progressives don’t — can’t — view the Massachusetts Democratic Party monolithically. Criticism of Obama has made frequent appearances here as it has on every liberal blog I read — just as criticism of Clinton used to make frequent appearances in liberal publications. No liberal with a two hemispheres worth of brain believed Obama was Messiah, and we shouldn’t get drawn into trying to defend him as such.
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p>I might also suggest that an invitation to “divide into teams” has the negative side effect of making blanket, not-so-nuanced statements about the Tea Party folk. When speaking of the Tea Party, does one mean leaders, protesters, folks who show up at meetings, or people who tell Gallup they support the Tea Party? Those are all rather different.
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p>So could we please not replay this stupid-making us-vs-them game yet again.
If you’ll indulge a short light-hearted diversion this line reminds me of a trap one of my very conservative high school friends walked right into on day. He said to me, “If you had half a brain you would be a Republican.” To which I said, “I’m sure that is true, but having been blessed with a full brain…”:)
Tribal humor.
You are aware that you are factually incorrect right?
I am, frankly, not a good numbers person and struggle with such items; I actually bring in a CPA whenever there are significant financial issues in one of my cases for that reason. Hopefully, I know my limitations.
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p>Given the horrific cuts made to the most vulnerable citizens, these giveaways and loopholes are inexcusable – at least in my opinion. The fact that some of them were put in place in 1910 or earlier (apparently) and …drip…drip…drip…still leaking the financial blood of the commonwealth away…really does bother me.
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p>Is this just institutional drag?
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p>Lack of attention?
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p>I am just grateful Jay Kaufman choose the tough and even politically dangerous job of Chairman of the House Revenue Committee to examine and, I hope, “prune” these leeching taps off the “tree of financial life”.
In a reply above I refered folks to the
Governors excellent budget sitethat not only lists each individual “exemption from taxes” but links to the law passed providing the exemption, and the estimated cost. There are no costs listed for the smaller exemptions like the American flag (but no other countries especially during the World Cup?) and the Bible (which only makes you wonder about the Koran).
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p>I also recomment a plain english briefing on the Tax Expenditure Budget from ONE Mass and a very fine briefing on the need for transparency in the Tax Expenditure Budget from the [Mass Budget and Policy Centerhttp://www.massbudget.org/documentsearch/findDocument?doc_id=710&dse_id=1028.
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p>Of course I think that transparency is only as good as somebody’s capacity to use it to advance positive policy change.
Some of the ones which don;t have numbers listed are that way not due to small size but due to lack of data. The MBPC report mentions the exemption for tools used in manufacturing for example, which was worth $200 million the last time it was reported, but which is no longer known because estimates were based on federal data and the federal government no longer reports the information needed to figure it out.
I would think it would be closer to 1B. Even the equipment for one pharmaceutical plant would hit that amount.
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p>
that is true of many items …………..
The state’s Earned Income Tax Credit program, which, like its federal counterpart, provides low-income Mass. residents with a refundable tax credit each year, and the property tax “Circuit Breaker” for seniors are two examples of progressive tax expenditures.
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p>Maybe a good way to introduce some progressivity into the state’s tax system is to increase the size of these two progressive tax expenditures (and pay for those increases by eliminating regressive tax expenditures) – especially since the minority party so reflexively favors tax cuts and opposes spending programs.
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Tax Expenditures total about $20 million dollars. $1.7 billion of those are for “economic development,” including my favorite, the $300 million given away this FY2010 in “single sales factor (SSF)” tax expenditures to Fidelity/Raytheon/related manufacturing corporations for “job creation.”
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p>http://www.massbudget.org/docu…
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p>Funny thing is, the MA legislature’s conference committee just made another $300 million in cuts to state health care, education grants, elder home-care services, child care for working parents, human services, and other areas of the state budget for FY2011, conveniently putting the blame on our newest senator, Scott Brown.
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p>The other funny thing? Fidelity and others are actually cutting jobs. According to the Boston Globe earlier this month, “Fidelity’s Massachusetts workforce now stands at a more than 9,000 workers, down from 13,000 four years ago.”
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p>As Jill Stein often puts it, these tax expenditures are literally “payoffs for layoffs.” In my opinion, they are also the legalized theft of public funds.
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p>Want to create jobs for the benefit of the entire Commonwealth instead of favored Why not use the tax dollars we’re throwing away on tax expenditures like these to really create jobs by rehiring laid-off teachers, firefighters, librarians, and health care workers?
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p>For the curious, here’s how the “single sales formula” or “tax apportionment” scam works, plus links to sources and references for further reading:
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p>
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p>These arrangements save money for a corporation like Fidelity because its high payrolls and expensive Boston waterfront real estate is excluded from the calculation of its corporate excise tax (a/k/a corporate income tax).
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p>What’s more, these special deal “single sales factor (SSF)” tax breaks for “job creation” continue under the radar year after year after year because the legislature only has to vote for them once, and they live forever unless there is a new law to repeal them.
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p>Raytheon got away with this by firing workers, then raising CEO salaries to increase total payroll expenses. That’s job creation? Sounds more like extortion!
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p>http://mobile.boston.com/busin…
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p>http://www.massbudget.org/docu…
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p>http://www.massbudget.org/docu…
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p>http://www.massbudget.org/docu… item 2.401
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p>http://www.itepnet.org/pdf/pb1…
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p>
Let me start out by saying that I am not a big fan of “tax credits.” Just as Bill Cosby said “Cocaine is God’s way of telling you, you make too much money” tax credits are the way to say that “Your tax structure is screwed up in the first place.”
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p>When it comes to businesses, you shouldn’t have to pay them to do something they want to do in the first place like grow their business or hire an employee. It’s the same theory as why johns pay prostitutes and not the other way around.
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p>In some people’s eyes “tax expenditures” are based on the faulty logic that all money belongs to the government and that any money not collected is thus an expenditure. The exemption of taxes on food or clothing purchases under $175 are not “expenditures.” Equally, the recent City of Boston and Mass State Government deal with Liberty Mutual to hire 600 new employees and build a new HQ building is not a tax expenditure.
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p>In both cases, the city and state will receive three times more in taxes than they will forego. These tax breaks reduce the amount that Liberty Mutual pays. They do not “expend” taxes that others pay.
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p>The same cannot be said of the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Film Tax credit. Those are “refundable tax credits” ie money that is paid out to individuals or entities above and beyond what they owe in taxes. (Film companies can simply sell their tax credits back to the state for cash.)
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p>Here are a few suggestions.
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p>1) Despite what I said above, we have to keep and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and other incentives to the underemployed (Worker training, taxpayer subsidized child care, pre-natal care etc.)so there is never a disincentive to work.
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p>2) We need to eliminate all refundable tax credits to business. No business should receive money from taxes paid by other people.
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p>3) We should eliminate all industry specific tax credits and instead reduce overall tax rates on business and entrepreneurs as to be revenue neutral.
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p>4) In return for the elimination of tax credits on businesses we should declare a 5 year moratorium on any business tax or fee increases.
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p>5) Further, we should require that all existing or proposed regulations on business be subject to a “stress test” or “cost benefit analysis”.
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p>Full disclosure. I am a Republican Candidate for State Representative in the Eighth Suffolk District.