NEW YORK – Massachusetts tax revenue rose just over 14 percent in September from a year ago, mainly because taxes paid by businesses and corporations leaped nearly 53 percent, the state Revenue Commissioner said on Monday.
“The September collection is a dramatic improvement from September 2009, which was down nearly 16 percent from the prior year,” the Commissioner said. A total of $2.016 billion in revenue was collected.
Two points germane to the gubernatorial race:
- The new Baker ads criticize Patrick for presiding over “deficits.” (In quotes because the budget has to be balanced.) OH NOES! That's what happens when the economy goes bad: Tax revenues go down. The idea that the budget shortfalls were caused by wild n' crazy spending is a joke.
- It would seem, at least from reading here, that some of the dissatisfaction with Patrick on the left has been with budget cuts to certain programs, especially for the most vulnerable. Revenue shortfalls make good news hard to come by, and electeds always want to be bearers of good news.
If it turns out funding can be restored (or that there's the prospect of such), do Patrick's people return to the fold? Do rebounding revenues “shore up the base”?
In any event, it's most welcome. We may be moving out of “crisis” mode to mere “stuck-in-the-mud”-mode economically.
I hope so. The looming (quiet) threat of post-election 9c cuts has had me concerned.
talking point that the tax rate has hurt business. The first quarter of FI 2011 shows the opposite. Yes, people are hurting and we are still recovering from the recession, so Baker could get a Republican business owner to share personal stories. But what we are seeing here is the result of a recovery and the tax rate hasn’t impeded our growth as Baker would have us believe. In fact, we are growing more than foretasted and faster than we did last year at this time.
<
p>Overall, I think this election comes down to the economy and who makes a better pitch to voters. My hope is that those who have been impacted by cuts are aware that everyone was impacted, it’s the result of the global economic recession. I do not believe that Patrick will restore anything prior to the election. I think voters are going to be making that decision in November.
It’s the periphery people around that base that can be the problem. I’ll hold my nose and vote for pretty much any Democrat, because I recognize the fact that the Republican Party is dangerous and promoting one of their members promotes the entire group. But I’m firmly in the base. Others, particularly young people or people who’ve been turned off by politics for years or decades, but agree with the Democratic Party on the vast majority of issues, are the ones in danger of “checking back out again,” to borrow a line from 2006. Groups like Latinos, who’ve widely voted in our favor over the past decade, have been polling less favorably for the Democratic Party as well — for reasons that should be self evident (we can’t count on their votes if we can’t get their issues through, or even have a vote on it to try).
<
p>We understood the problem in 2006 and 2008, when it came time to activating people who had long “checked out,” and were able to get them to “check back in,” but now, suddenly, we’re forgetting what actually happened. This whole “blame the base” notion, in advance of our November defeats, is getting rather tiring.
<
p>I buy into the notion that this is in part an attempt to assign blame before the damage is ever done by the national party, including the President, to prop up the Blue Dogs, Conservadems and Corporatists (which Obama most closely relates to) when they’re the ones likely to lose the most seats on Nov. 2nd. It’s on their clock that these voters have checked back out again, but the base is still going to hold their nose and vote for the President’s Party again, because we don’t want a Speaker Boehner. I just think Obama and the national party has got to stop blaming the base for something that’s their own damn fault, not only for accuracy’s sake, but they may just be able to make perception into reality if they keep trying so damn hard to do it. I swear, between the quotes from the President and VP on the base, it’s almost as if they don’t want us to show up.
<
p>You are quite correct that “the base” (presuming you mean “the progressive base”) is not the problem here. Solid liberals will turn out to vote for Democrats with varying levels of enthusiasm, but they will turn out. That’s why I saw the occasional pot-shots at progressives (e.g. the Gibbs, Obama comments) as somewhat mystifying, particularly given that self-described liberals still give Obama very high approval ratings. Maybe they really are frustrated at certain progressive groups, but these are exactly the people who will turn out this year.
<
p>
<
p>This is where I somewhat disagree. The lower Democratic turnout this year is not “the fault” of Obama and Democratic leadership any more than it is the fault of progressives writ large. The drop-off in interest is inevitable and predictable. (In fact, I’ll predict right now that the 2014 will see lower turnout than the previous Presidential election, as will 2018 and 2022. Additionally, members of the party out of power will have higher levels of enthusiasm than those of the in-party in all these elections.)
<
p>I’m sure we’ll hear incessantly following the election questions like “what did Obama do wrong?!?” and “what could he have done to help Democrats win?”. The answer is pretty simple: nothing. Nothing he could have done would have prevented a drop in Democratic turnout and significant losses in this midterm. It’s not about health care or offending progressives, it’s about predicable voting behavior and the fact that so many Democrats currently represent Republican-leaning districts.
I don’t disagree that fewer people would vote this election than the last — that is the nature of midterm elections. That said, the rate and degree to which that will be the case does have a lot to do with Washington leadership, particularly the Obama administration. Strategic gaffes and moments of sheer stupidity hurt, like deciding it’s a better idea to >>>> take no action <<<< than voting on a vote that they’d lose, but would draw distinctions, particularly the middle class tax cut issue, as well as issues like immigration reform. These are big political winners… if we let them be winners… but ultimately if we don’t show people who care about these issues where, exactly, the two parties stand… they won’t draw those important distinctions.
And let’s just remember, the corporate tax rate is a flat 8.75%. Baker is on the record as being for “5/5/5” – 5% income, 5% sales, 5% corporate tax rate. This would mean an immediate 43% reduction in corporate taxes, which would more than wipe out this 53% increase. (Note, by the way, who gets the largest tax cut by moving to 5/5/5…)
<
p>And in exchange, businesses would have a 4% increase in retained profits, which I’m sure would trickle down to us and cure our 9% unemployment numbers. Right? Right?
<
p>Hello, is this thing on?
national recession. That seems to be Baker’s whole campaign in a nutshell. I don’t buy either argument- but will he fool the rest of the Patriots fans subjected to Baker’s ads last night?