Unlike certain deluded Democrats, Jim McGovern has figured out a basic truth about politics: if you stand up for who you are and what you believe, voters will respect you. The worst thing a politician can do, IMHO, is constantly adapt his or her positions to what seem to be the prevailing political winds.
McGovern doesn’t plan to change his beliefs or stance on the issues in the wake of Brown’s victory, he said. Besides, he joked, he doesn’t have a pickup truck, a spread in Cosmopolitan magazine, or a full head of hair.
“Just because Scott Brown won an election doesn’t mean I should change everything I believe in,” he said. “It’s no secret that I’m a liberal; I didn’t poll any of this stuff, but I am who I am.”
Hear hear. He’s also taking the sensible approach of presenting actual facts to his constituents.
McGovern said voter anger is further fueled by misinformation. He recalled one Worcester man demanding that McGovern name one thing that federal stimulus money has done for that city. McGovern said that he ticked off a list of jobs saved, from teachers to firefighters, and that the constituent was won over.
McGovern is one of the real good guys in MA politics. That’s why we’ve got him on our Act Blue page, and why we urge you to support his reelection.
McGovern was kind enough to chat with me for a few minutes last week about some of the issues of the day. Here’s our conversation (I had been meaning to chop it up into bite-size pieces, but just haven’t had time).
That’s all I wanna know.
I would like to let you know, Congressman McGovern, that you are one of my favorites and I truly hope that you make it through this upcoming election.
When you talk about “deluded Democrats” I think that some are but in the case of the following from the link you provide:
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p>this is actually something all of the Democrats should be fighting to repeal. Why? Because every single person I talk with thinks it’s a hit on the working middle class and that our government takes it from us instead of the wealthy because we are voiceless and powerless and easy to attack. They don’t think that because Fox news tells them to think it. They think it because that’s what it feels like. I agree that many of the things the Dems are moving to the center on are completely wrong: a mandate with no public option, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and other Republican specialties, but this particular talking point is one that every single Democrat should pick up on, and it should be a part of the Democratic ideal anyway. Personally, I never thought of Democrats as people who take from those who struggle in order to give back to those who don’t. When did that become a part of the Democratic platform. That talking point shouldn’t even be a Republican one; it should be a Democratic one.
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p>It could very well be the single biggest thing that Dems can do to help to get rid of the anger on Main St., at least in Massachusetts. But it’s probably too late now. If the Dems did it now it would look like pandering and it would be scoffed at. To be clear, the sales tax barely touches my bottom line. I have no money to buy anything taxable anyway. That is the case for many people. It simply looks and feels bad and gives the Republicans a talking point that should be ours.
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a reasoned explanation for why alcohol should be non-taxable, I’d be happy to listen. Until then, though, I’m not interested. Most items are subject to sales tax; food and clothing are not, because they are essentials. It’s not clear to me why alcohol should fall within either of those categories.
I’m pretty sure that MA doesn’t charge sales tax on gasoline. The EIA site on policy information here (Mar 2010) states that the sales tax “applies to fuels not taxable under the volume tax laws.”
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p>Why not throw in the sales tax on gasoline? It’s exactly like alcohol — a tax on volume, and it too is not an “essential” like food or clothing.
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p>Can anyone provide clear documentation that MA does or does not charge sales tax on gasoline? Anybody got an argument why MA shouldn’t charge sales tax on gasoline?
Well, the case is certainly better for gasoline being an “essential” than it is for alcohol. A lot of people need gas to get to work, for instance.
100% of people need clothing and food.
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p>Nowhere near 100% of people (working adults, even) in Massachusetts buy gasoline, which implies that nowhere near 100% of people need to buy gasoline.
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p>I’d also note that neither automobiles nor bicycles are tax free, despite those being used by people to get to work.
the case is better for gasoline than for alcohol. For some number that is greater than 0 and less than 100% of MA residents, gasoline is essential to getting to work. Whereas alcoholic beverages can reasonably be described as an “essential” item for precisely 0% of residents.
Nobody “needs” a car — people have survived for thousands of years without ’em. The same can not be said about food, clothing, nor medicine.
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p>Essential to getting to work is simply not the the criterion. A car is a tool necessary for some jobs, but the same can be said about ballpoint pens, computers, or mops, all taxed.
but…
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p>Yeah, but the economy, and the expectations of employers, have changed a tad since they became widely available, in case you hadn’t noticed. The fact is that now, in certain parts of Massachusetts, it is not possible to get to work without using a car. Not everyone lives in Brookline.
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p>Well, to use your own phrasing, “people have survived for thousands of years” without medicine.
I’d prefer to have it sales taxed INSTEAD of a separate gas tax, but I certainly don’t want it double-taxed.
Lots of products are taxed in multiple stages of the production.
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p>In the case of alcohol, it’s taxed per gallon (per barrel, but by volume) at a flat rate, and then taxed as a percentage of sales price. For that first tax, 750 mL of the finest scotch and 750 mL of the skankiest potato vodka are taxed the same dollar amount. For the latter tax, the luxurious booze is taxed at 6.25%, just like the headache inducing libations.
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p>Does it matter if you are taxed $5 + $5 or just $10?
If the no-tax price is $2.00 per gallon, then I don’t think when I fill up I should pay both a $0.50 per gallon gas tax AND a 6.25% sales tax. Gas should be treated like any cash and carry product and just be subject to regular sales taxes, IMO.
I’m likely to vote against eliminating this tax, but one COULD reasonably argue that it’s a beverage shouldn’t be treated differently than other food or beverage. I know there is the issue of a controled substance, but soda isn’t great for you either yet it’s exempt. Different things are unhealthy in different ways plus doesn’t red wine have heart benefits?
Alcohol is already “treated differently than other food or beverage” – extremely so. Its distribution is very tightly regulated; you need a special license to sell it; etc. It is in a legal/regulatory class by itself.
The working middle class is in dire straights right now. At a better time, when wages are going up, jobs are a plenty and prosperity is in the air, then sneak in a tax increase. But don’t do it to a struggling group of people when the top 2% and billion dollar corporations are dancing on their tax cuts while working middle class taxpayers are losing their jobs, their homes and their standard of living.
There are other more prosperous place to pull the needed revenue to offset cuts in spending.
Then please see where it was already discussed here: http://www.bluemassgrooup.com/showComment.do?commentId=252626
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p>The idea that only essentials are tax free has no basis in reality. Take a look at the list of “essentials” that I compiled. It’s a nice talking point, but it’s clearly false.
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p>Alcohol is already subject to an excise tax. It hasn’t been increased in a while and it’s on the low end compared to other states, so I could certainly see an argument for increasing the excise tax. But pyramiding a sales tax on top of the excise tax is just bad tax policy, pure and simple. And that’s true, whether you’re “interested” or not.
An interesting discussion. I have a couple of thoughts. First, what is the practice in other states? It appears that many states impose both an excise tax and a sales tax on alcohol, but I can’t find a comprehensive discussion of that point.
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p>Second, as you acknowledge, the MA alcohol excise is very low. We could increase it, but is that really the best idea? For instance, the excise on wine is 55 cents per gallon – that is, roughly 11 cents for a typical 750 ml bottle. Let’s say a typical bottle of wine costs $10. 11 cents is just over 1% of the price of that bottle. So if we want to bring in something like the revenue that the sales tax would get us on a $10 bottle, we’d need to nearly sextuple the wine excise so that we bring in something like 60 cents per bottle.
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p>But wait – now what we’ve done is increase the tax in a very regressive way, because Joe Moneybags who likes to buy $250 bottles of wine is paying exactly the same increased excise (60 cents per bottle) as is Joe Regularguy, who buys $10 bottles. Furthermore, Joe Moneybags is still not chipping in his fair share of tax revenue, because the whole point of increasing the excise was to bring in revenue that roughly approximates the sales tax, and we have failed to do that for expensive bottles. Is that fair? Is that the best way to adjust the tax on alcohol?
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p>I don’t think so. I think imposing a sales tax on alcohol is a much fairer, much better way to do it. Yes, by doing that we are “double-taxing” a triflingly small part of the cost of a bottle of wine – 11 cents, or 1% for a $10 bottle, a much smaller percentage for an expensive bottle. But the amount of the “double tax” is so trivial that it strikes me as an extremely small price to pay for, overall, a much fairer way of bringing the taxation of alcohol into line with other beverages.
It would be so much better if we could make the income tax more progressive and increase it, but we can’t. That’s just too unpopular — even if it is fairer.
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p>So that gives us a choice: horrible slashes in the already too meager state budget or increases in taxes that aren’t very progressive.
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p>The second choice is the better one now.
I assure you that progressives don’t like the sales tax as a policy — it is unquestionably regressive. Furthermore, it strikes me that the lack-of-sales tax on services is also strangely regressive… those with less means spend far less on landscaping, personal grooming and training, lawyers, tradesmen, decorators/designers, etc. than the wealthy. I’m not arguing in favor of a sales tax on services, it just strikes me as this strange dichotomy which just so happens to be implemented on the portion of financial transactions which happen to be more regressive.
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p>Don’t like the regressivity of the sales tax? Lead the charge for a progressive income tax coupled to a decrease in the sales tax. And, while you’re at it, figure out how to get a different source of funding for mass transit, because the sales tax portion would need to be replaced with something else that the legislature would find difficulty raiding…
…why sales (with the appropriate exemptions) is regressive. I know I spend less on taxable items the less money I have, so it seems as though those with more disposable income will buy more taxable items and thus pay more taxes.
The tax-free components make it a little tricky, but consider this: if you don’t make lots of money, you spend nearly all of it on housing, food, transportation, clothing, entertainment, services, and goods. A chunk of that is taxed — exactly how much depends on how big each pie wedge is. If you’re making hundreds of thousands or more each year, you’re not spending anywhere near all of it… and that money you’re not spending (saving/investing), you’re not paying the sales tax on.
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p>I’ve never actually seen a plot of dollars paid in sales tax vs. income… but I expect that the slope gets flatter and flatter on the right hand side of the chart.
…it has to be spent eventually. If someone’s being miserly and not spending he might as well not have the money. Sure it’s collecting interest, but again what good is all the money in the world if you’re not actually using it?
I fear you may be missing a larger point.
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p>The sales tax applies largely to consumables. In addition to the well-understood floor of “consumable” spending that nearly everybody has, there is surprisingly-low ceiling to “consumable” spending — beyond that, “spending” is merely moving assets from one form to another.
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p>If Joe Moneybags decides to spend 3 gazillian dollars on a new vacation home, he doesn’t “consume” anything — that new vacation home has a value of 3 gazillian dollars at the moment of purchase, and that value goes up or down from there.
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p>We don’t charge sales tax on a whole lot of big and expensive capital items (like Joe’s vacation home). Ultimately, one person can only buy so much food and so many toys. When the income — especially passive income — from Joe Moneybag’s wealth exceeds the ceiling I describe above, then it can only accumulate wealth for Joe; he cannot “consume” it. He can give it away, the government can tax it away, he can gamble it away (on companies or horses), but he cannot spend it away (he’ll only convert some portion of some of his assets to another portion of another).
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p>Because of that, a smaller portion of Joe Moneybag’s wealth (or income) is subject to taxation than Willy Workerbee’s.
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p>The sales tax is regressive because it applies to a much larger share of Willie’s wealth (or income) than Joe’s.
I guess that is the part I didn’t realize. I could understand exempting the first X amount on one residence since basic shelter is a necessity like food and clothing, but the way I see it, a house is a physical object that one pays for and uses like a whole host of other things, including cars which are also often paid for through financing, but also subject to a sales tax.
Who says it’s unpopular? It’s not an unpopular idea in working middle class circles. It is unpopular in the higher income circles. So therefore, we can’t touch that one, but we can touch the one that negatively impacts the less powerful. The problem here (and it’s not really a problem) is that these people can vote for free. And now they’ve had it. They were fed up before and that’s what helped to push Obama into office, but since then, nothing has changed and some things have gotten worse. One of those worsening things is these tax increases.
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p>If there had been a progressive tax put in place instead of the ones we got, these people would be more likely to stay home and not feel the need to get to the polls to vote anti-incumbent.
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p>I’m not sure why our elected officials don’t get this, except that maybe the only people they hear talking are the ones at their $1,000 a plate fundraisers.
Jim McGovern is supporting Guy Glodis, the only real Democrat in the Auditor’s race. He’ll definitely get my vote if he runs for Senate.
that McGovern is supporting Glodis. If true, I find it shocking.
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p>And by what criteria is Glodis the “only real Democrat in the Auditor’s race?” Many of us on BMG have stated that we will not vote for him in November if he wins the primary.
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p>What is your distorted notion of a “real Democrat?”
Actually supports the working people. Unlike the other 2, he’s never worked for a Republican. He’s the only one supporting party unity. Guy Glodis would endorse either of the other candidates if they were to win the primary. Neither of them would endorse him, and Lake wouldn’t even endorse Bump.
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p>The McGovern endorsement was in the brochure he’s been sending out. If you’re a Democrat, I’m surprised you haven’t received it yet. Anyway, I’m sure you can call McGovern’s campaign office and they’ll confirm it. It shouldn’t be shocking that McGovern is with Glodis. The other two are Republicans. They’ve worked for Republicans, they represent teh upper classes… Jim McGovern knows what it takes for Dems to win in a tough district.
Suzanne Bump was an aide for her own state representative. Mike Lake stayed on in a very non-political job in the White House. There is no shame in what either of them did. If other Democrats are reluctant to endorse Glodis that probably says more about him.
It is a consumption tax. It isn’t supposed to be progressive. It is supposed to increase relative to consumption.
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p>Evaluating a consumption tax based on its “progressive-ness” seems to me like evaluating a car based on how high it can fly. Yes, it is something that can be measured, but offers zero in the way of meaningful information.
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p>We usually don’t like consumption taxes in America, opting instead for a consumption-driven economy, and a somewhat progressive tax on income. In Massachusetts, Democrats love consumption taxes, but only on sheesh-we-have-to-tax-something grounds.