“Question 3 guarantees that government will no longer have the resources to prevent us from doing what we all love. Slashing $2.5 billion from prisons, and state and local law enforcement means that we have a chance to reverse this sad decline in criminal activity over the last few years.
More importantly, slashing social services to the bone will ensure that we have strong and able generations of youth looking into a criminal career long into the future. We can keep the cycle going.
Let’s work together to make sure this question passes, so we can all look forward to days and nights filled with consequence-free criminal activity. Do your best to stoke your neighbors’ senses of entitlement, distraction and greed. Working together we can all make this very important question pass.”
Flemmi reported that the arsonists’ local was particularly excited about the question. “The thought of shuttering even more fire stations will make any sparkplug’s eyes water. The main reason our arsonists do this is for the thrill of watching a house or other locale burn down. With local aid shredded, it will take that much longer for firefighters to respond, giving our members that much more enjoyment. I am confident that their production is set to rise.”
Flemmi had a word of advice for SCUM members. “Some people may try to think of the big picture, and they need to be distracted. Mention Diane Wilkerson or Tom Finneran, or the drapes in Deval Patrick’s office. The last thing any criminal can afford is for people in the community to look out for one another. We need to nip that in the bud.”
If anyone can be called most excited at the prospect of question 3, it would a man introduced as the head of SCUM’s recruitment division, a man who only gave his name as “Ace”. “I’m telling you, this means the best days of SCUM are in front of us! You know how many times we try to bring young people into a life of crime, only to be told ‘nah, my caseworker will throw me into juvie’, or ‘My mom is already on my butt ‘cuz of DCF’? My biggest problem are these social services that keep telling these kids they have a future outside of crime. And schools! Imagine what’s going to happen to the schools! That’s where I can’t get them, the kids. If teachers and other people are telling them about college and making real money with a degree, I don’t stand a chance. Overcrowded, poorly funded schools are a criminal recruiter’s best friend! Anything we can do to make education a dead end gets my endorsement. With Question 3, I can only say that I sure picked a great time to get into recruitment.”
Flemmi shared a conversation he’d had with a staff member. “You know, I didn’t think of the whole cycle until a guy named Roy was talking to me the other day after the endorsement vote,” Flemmi mused. “He asked me to pass something on. Roy is counting on a slashed prison budget to let him out early, and figures with more criminals on the make and fewer cops to watch ’em, he’s gonna have a great time robbing houses. So he says when all of you get your $200 or whatever in savings on the sales tax, make sure to put it somewhere easy for Roy to find. That way, Roy and his buddies can get all the benefits from Question 3.”
“In closing, ladies and gentlemen, Question 3 represents an amazing opportunity for every piece of SCUM in the Commonwealth. I want to personally thank our friends Carla Howell and Charlie Baker for this chance to make crime pay better than ever before. Now let’s go out there and pass this thing!”
but it perpetuates the idea that if Three passes, the only thing to do would be to cut essential services and watch how terrible things get, to say “I told you so.” That would be a very irresponsible way to deal with Three passing. The right way to deal with Three passing is to have the legislature immediately re-set the sales tax, but this time back at 5%, and make up for the $1B loss of revenues with a combination of a higher gas tax and getting rid of useless programs, overpaid academic and medical research and law positions, the film subsidy, things like that.
Sales tax is a regressive tax. The state should be getting its revenue from income tax. Income tax taxes those with higher incomes proportionally more.
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p>Sales tax does the opposite: the poor pay a larger proportion of their income as sales tax than the rich do.
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p>The unemployed, the retired, those on disability, and the working poor pay little or no income tax – which is as it should be.
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p>But those people pay sales tax.
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p>By supporting high sales taxes you are supporting shifting the tax burden onto those who can least afford it.
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p>I also don’t buy the scare tactics that the only thing the state can cut is essential services. That is exactly the problem: as the state takes more of our money – they spend more of it on their priorities – patronage, insider deals, waste – and the first thing they cut is what they seem to cut every year:
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p>local aid, the higher ed budget, libraries.
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p>The real problem is not a revenue problem, but a problem with priorities in the legislature. It would be funny – if it wasn’t so depressing – that the legislature would cut local aid before addressing the rampant patronage at probation.
Again at 7% its at the average for most states, Chicago at nearly 11% is the worst and thats where I’ve lived on and off for five years. But MA is my once and future home and that is where I want to raise my future family. So for that reason I am voting yes. By cutting it to this low level it makes the tax unenforceable and difficult to collect revenue off. A sensible cut would be to 5% presuming we offset by raising a different tax, income on the rich, or the gas tax sounded like fine ideas. And again I agree with the essential regressive nature, one good reason to keep the income tax is to prevent this tax and property taxes from sky rocketing. But this seemingly ‘moderate’ cut is a de facto elimination. That is why its not the time to do this. And frankly the legislators, not the voters, should be making this decision.
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p>Are you voting yes (to cut the sales tax to 3%) or no (to leave it where it is)?
Meant to say voting no, to be clear this is a terrible idea and it should not be supported. Or to be clear in a different way, I am voting yes on continuing funding our essential services and maintaining fiscal discipline in this great commonwealth. A modest sales tax cut could spur the economy a little bit, but this tax cut is radical and would severely damage the state.
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p>The MA sales tax is regressive at some ranges for some people, but it’s not across the board regressive. Why?
* No sales tax on rent or mortgage
* No sales tax on food, clothing, prescriptions
* No sales tax on mass transit
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p>My bet is that the poor pay a larger percentage of their income on those three things than the rich… which means that a larger percent of their expenditures are on tax-free items. Now, it’s true that the poor spend nearly all of their income whereas the rich don’t, so I’m not claiming that it’s never regressive, but this knee-jerk regressive claim deserves a bit more scrutiny methinks.
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p>
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p>I’m all for a graduated income tax, but that would necessarily take years to get passed. I’m all for an increase in gas tax, but that can’t be used to offset general fund deficits (MA Constitution) and simply couldn’t generate nearly enough revenue to be in the ballpark of the revenue loss of a sales tax decrease.
There is no income tax on mortgage or rent either – so that part of it is a wash.
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p>Most people don’t live anywhere where mass transit is an option – especially not the poor who generally have fewer housing options and don’t live near mass transit. Especially the rural poor in Western Mass.
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p>The exemption for food is not comprehensive. It does not apply to restaurants. Most people who work have to buy lunch out for example. Many of the poor eat all of their meals at low cost fast food places.
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p>And there are weird little carve outs for sales tax that benefit primarily the wealthy: tickets to sporting events, to the theater, and the opera. There is no tax on “professional services” like accountants, lawyers and the like.
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p>And of course, the state government has exempted itself from sales tax. All sales to the government are tax free.
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p>More to the point – we are pushing a regressive sales tax on the poor because wealthier people have reached their limit on income tax. Instead of the state solving problems like patronage abuses, state pensions, GIC insurance and the like, they would rather just stick the poor with the bill.
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p>This is on top of another very regressive tax – the lottery – which takes money primarily from the poor.
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p>That’s wrong. Mortgage interest is deductible, for (a) the component of the loan under $1,000,000, and (b) so long as it pushes you above standard deductions. the mortgage principal is not. At the state level, rent is also deductible, but only a very small amount of rent — anyone living in an urban area eclipses that within a few months of the year.
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p>
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p>Wrong again, my friend. MA has a population of about 6.6 million. The daily ridership of the T is 1.25 million. That’s 25% — and you’ve got to figure that fewer than half the people who live in Boston metro ride the T on a daily basis. You’re now at well over 2.5 mil. But wait… there’s also a number of other transit agencies, such as Southeastern RTA (New Bedford/Fall River), Pioneer Valley TA (Springfield), and Worcester RTA. There are about 100 more small agencies, here. The fact of the matter is that the majority of Mass-holes do live where mass transit is an option. As for the subset who are poor, I don’t have any data but for every poor person in the Berkshires there are dozens who live in Boston, Cambridge, Quincy, and so forth. Oh fer two.
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p>
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p>There is not a single person who has to buy lunch out. Balogna and cheese in a baggie can last 5 hours outside a fridge in nearly all conditions. There isn’t a single poor person who eats all of his meals at a fast food joint, though I agree that many people (including the poor) eat too many there. Still, you’re 0-4.
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p>
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p>The tickets is clearly a carve-out; I’d like to see it eliminated personally. As for the “professional services”, that’s not a little weird carve out, that’s a huge policy decision. I have no idea what the numbers are on the usage of professional services as a function of income, and you’ve not shown any data. Call that a push. You’re batting .200 (1-5).
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p>
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p>WTF? Should the state collect the tax on itself? Why bother? That doesn’t even make any sense. We’ll call that a foul ball.
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p>
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p>Again, it’s not clearly regressive on all sections of the poor, and neither you nor anyone else has shown particularly good data here which shows that it’s regressive.* I’m not claiming it isn’t; merely pointing out that the exemptions, carve outs, and other components make it non-trivial to determine if it is, in fact, regressive. As for patronage abuses and state pensions, those are tangential to the tax — they should be fixed regardless of the tax structure, and the pressure to fix them will have nothing to do with the numerical rate of any tax, ever. GIC insurance has been an improvement in the past few years; the GIC has been used to lower costs. Could it go further? Sure. Should our desire for lower taxes be met by tearing up contracts that have been signed with labor? Not in my opinion.
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p>
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p>Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to see increases in income tax at the upper tax bracket, and I’d prefer to see some carve outs on the sales tax eliminated (like tickets, gasoline, US flags, religious books, newspapers, comic books, snacks from vending machines). I’d also like to see a carve out for non-prescription drugs which have FDA or similar approval (bandages, aspirin, toothpaste) and helmets added to the exemption list. All of these sales tax changes are tweaks though and would have a very small impact on the total revenue from the sales tax.
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p>
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p>
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p> * I have seen data of quintiles in MA for total tax burden, but I don’t recall seeing a sales tax portion…
Does it bother you that you are to the right of Steve Forbes on this one? Forbes was for a national sales tax, but he at least would not exempt services and gave everyone back a sales tax rebate to make his sales tax a little less regressive.
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p>I love the whole bit about letting the masses use mass transit and eat baloney sandwiches from a baggie. You and Marie Antoinette as scions of progressive politics.
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p>You clearly know nothing about the realities of life. Let me enlighten you a little. Not everyone works in an air conditioned office. Lots of the working poor do such jobs as house cleaning, landscaping, construction, plumbing, electrical work, etc, where mass transit is not an option.
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p>Have you noticed how Mass transit is set up? It is organized to get suburbanites into the downtown business district. If you live say in Roxbury and need to get to your retail job at the Watertown mall, or any of the other millions of commutes that involve crossing the “hub” perpendicular to the way the subway runs you are out of luck on mass transit.
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p>Clearly you have no children or you would know that for urban people getting their kids to school and then making it to work on time makes mass transit a non-starter.
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p>Taxing goods but not services makes the Massachusetts sales tax particularly regressive – in a way that would make Margaret “Poll Tax” Thatcher proud.
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p>Your typical financial district banker pays much more in services to accountants and lawyers than your typical Dorchester single mother. But she pays the sames sales tax on her kid’s Christmas presents as does Scrooge McDuck downtown.
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p>But lets forget the details and just look at percent of income paid in sales tax by income quintile in Massachusetts. These are numbers from “Citizens for Tax Justice”. They are a progressive think tank dedicated to promoting more progressive taxes.
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p>Percent of income paid in sales tax:
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p>lowest 20% 5%
second 20% 3.8%
middle 20% 2.9%
fourth 20% 2.3%
next 15% 1.7%
next 4% 1.1%
top 1% 0.5%
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p>http://www.itepnet.org/wp2009/…
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p>By the way property taxes are similarly regressive. So as the state shifts the tax burden from state to local the poor get soaked a second time. Count the lottery and its a third soaking.
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p>Why do you hate the poor?
Let me pick just one.
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p>The lie:
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p>The truth:
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p>From, say, Highland Park Ave in Roxbury:
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p>With connection delays, the MBTA estimates 67 minutes.
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p>
Why do you fear the truth?
You write things that are flat out false, I show a single counterexample, and I’m to the right of Steve Forbes? You’re to the wrong side of truth of Bill O’.
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p>
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p>I took no stand on tax on services. Here we go again.
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p>
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p>You claimed that the majority folks don’t have access to mass transit. I showed that you were wrong. You claimed that some people had to go out to lunch every day. I showed that the claim was asinine. Suddenly, I’m holding down the masses? Nonsense. Folks do have access to mass transit, and BMG regulars would certainly confirm that I argue that we should make mass transit faster, safer, less expensive, and more broadly accessible. As for lunch, one need not eat bologna. One is free to mix in other non-refrigerated foods, and if you’ve got access to a fridge and/or a microwave, even better. It turns out that many folks, even in low wage jobs, do have access to those sorts of things. Don’t convert my pointing out of your ridiculous claims to stomv Antoinette. It’s dumb, dishonest, and dopey.
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p>
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p>Clearly not, being the trust fund baby that I am. Oh wait, I’m not. Nevermind then.
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p>
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p>I never claimed that mass transit is always an option. I would point out though that given that more than half of Massachusetts live in homes near mass transit, quite a few houses which have paid cleaning are near mass transit. Same goes for construction… oh, and an even greater percentage of commercial space is on mass transit, so all those tradesmen who work in commercial space have access to public transit. But again, you’re putting entire lines of claims into my fingers which I never typed.
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p>
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p>Clearly, you don’t know me and are just making crap up. My wife is over 8 months pregnant, and we’ve spent the last few weeks touring day care centers, all of which we have to get to — and then to work — without owning even one car. I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to admit that you don’t know what the hell you are talking about, particularly about me or my life.
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p>
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p>You think S. McDuck only spends a few hundred bucks on Christmas presents for his kids? I don’t. I’ll bet he spends more. They’re taxed at the same rate, but there’s no way they pay the same amount of sales tax.
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p>
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p>But now, finally, we get to data. Without the words to go along with the pretty pictures, I can’t comment deeply on it, but this does appear to show that the sales tax is regressive, even though there are progressive carve outs like groceries and clothing. I’m not sure why they cut out gen sales-ind, other sales&excise, and “on business”; without the words it’s not clear how those three interplay.
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p>This is also non-elderly family income, so it’s definitely skewed, as if there aren’t elderly poor, etc. Still, I do appreciate the bringing of data to the discussion, and yes, this appears to show regressivity across the board.
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p>Note how you didn’t need to completely distort my words to do that, nor make asinine assumptions about my family or my life.
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p>
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p>
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p>Why are you unwilling to have an honest or civil discussion?
Don’t take it so hard. Btw. I did nail it on you not having kids. It’s noble of you to want to take your baby to daycare via mass transit. Let me know how that is working out for you a year from now.
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p>Tradesmen and cleaning people need to bring tools with them. You plumber does not show up on the bus – because he’s brining pipes and wrenches. The cleaning woman brings her own vacuum cleaner and a tub of her own supplies. And when you’re on a schedule to clean 10 houses per day you’re not going to get through the day on mass transit.
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p>In our Christmas example, charging the same tax rate at all income levels is the very definition of regressive taxation, because for the poor each dollar is a lot more precious than for the rich. If the tax sales tax burden as a percentage of income were the same for all income groups it would still be regressive.
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p>As the CTJ study shows, Massachusetts sales tax is absurdly regressive, charging the poor 5% of their income, and the super rich 0.5%.
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p>In fact, you nailed nothing. I didn’t write that it was our first child. As for day care, the thing is, we can do math and tell time. We know how long it will take to get from our front door to the station, and from the station to the station, and from the station to the day care, and from the day care to the station, and from the station to work. It’s true, we can’t guarantee how long it will take for the train to come, but we’ll have to build in for that.
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p>We knew that before we got pregnant with this child. We can do math. I’d also add that having a car wouldn’t really make things any faster — traffic lights and rush hour make driving slower where I live.
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p>But you knew that, since you seem to know more about me than I know about myself.
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p>
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p>
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p>You’re only half-right. My wife has dozens of plumbers working for her, and they don’t show up with tools every day; there’s a job box on site, and they’re working the same project for weeks or more at a time. They’re commercial plumbers. The cleaning folks who do the common spaces of my building… they arrive on the T. The tools are kept here. For contractors, it’s a different story — going to a different home every day. But, that’s not all cleaners. Bottom line: lots of things impact the work we choose to take, including education, tolerance for stress and conditions, and transportation alternatives. This is not a remarkable insight, but let me tell you — there are plenty of folks in the lower half of the income line taking mass transit to work each and every day. To suggest otherwise is asinine.
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p>
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p>Actually, no. It is not. Consider:
Adam makes $20,000 a year. He spends $500 on Christmas at a rate of 6.25%.
Bill makes $100,000 a year. He spends $2500 on Christmas at a rate of 6.25%.
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p>Their total tax burden is exactly proportionate to their income — which makes this particular tax scenario neither progressive nor regressive, simply flat. Why? The ratio of tax paid divided by income is exactly the same.
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p>Charging the same rate for all income levels is a flat tax. It is, by definition, not regressive. I’m not arguing that the poor won’t feel the pinch more, but the word regressive is an economic term with a precise meaning. When the ratio of tax paid to income is larger for a poorer income, that’s regressive. The sales tax as a whole may well be regressive because the percent of income which is taxed is higher for lower incomes; but in this particular example of Christmas, without knowing how much the poor person and the rich person spend on Christmas gifts, you absolutely cannot call this tax regressive.
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p>What it comes down to is you not using the economic word regressive correctly. Regressive has nothing to do with “the pain” — it is merely a ratio of dollars in tax to dollars in income.
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p>
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p>Your link certainly suggests exactly that.
Here is why sales tax on goods but not services is punishingly regressive.
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p>Suppose MacDuck hires our single mother as a part time Nanny for $20,000 per year as a contractor ( which is typical ). MacDuck pays no sales tax on this. Saving him a tidy $1,200 per year. If the Nanny is typical of the people in the CTJ study for the $20,000 per year quintile, she pay 5% of that income in sales tax or $1,000
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p>If the tax was reversed, eg. services taxes and not goods, Mac Duck would be paying $1,200 in sales tax, and the nanny would be paying probably less than $200 in sales tax on services.
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p>So in the current structure our Nanny is directly subsidizing Banker MacDuck.
However, are you leading the charge to amend the MA Constitution and institute a progressive income tax scheme? Where do you propose we “make up” the lost revenue from this supposedly burdensome sales tax? Personally I find other things to be much more onerous than taxes, such as utility costs and health insurance.
And that is unique for our state. There are no exemptions in Illinois where I have lived on and off for the past five years, and none in neighboring states like Iowa, Indiana, and Wisconsin. When libertarian Indiana, where gambling, adult bookstores, and fireworks are legal and the roadways are privately owned has a higher tax rate than MA you know we aren’t that bad off. And believe me when you don’t have those exemptions they are sorely missed. My girlfriend went on a shopping spree in Boston since she was so happy clothes were not taxed.
Please offer ONE example — just one — of a tax increase that this crowd has pushed for.
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p>This garbage about “the real problem” is just that — garbage.
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p>The real problem is that a certain segment of the community aggressively promotes tax-cutting all the time, regardless of consequences and regardless of the facts. That segment lies, obfuscates, dodges, and denies to suit its self-centered and dishonest purposes.
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p>Massachusetts has been in the middle of the pack for tax burden for more than a decade. According to sources like this, the bottom ten states, by tax burden, are (2008 data):
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p>Alaska: 6.4%
Nevada: 6.6%
Wyoming: 7.0%
Florida: 7.4%
New Hampshire: 7.6%
South Dakota: 7.9%
Tennessee: 8.0%
Texas: 8.4%
Louisiana: 8.4%
Arizona: 8.5%
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p>I encourage you to think seriously about what quality-of-life issues matter to you, and compare the above 10 states to Massachusetts on those issues. If you truly prefer the quality of life in of the above ten, then why not simply live there?
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p>To suggest that we can further slash taxes while simultaneously preserving our quality of life is simply a lie.
Id rather shop in New Hampshire for sure, but their roads, schools, and hospitals leave a lot to be desired. And their property taxes are through the roof, one of the reasons my conservative cousin is fleeing back to MA.
And utterly not pragmatic. I can easily be persuaded that we should “cut the sales tax in order to increase the X tax”. If that were the ballot question, I’d vote yes.
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p>Instead, we have cutting the sales tax, with no possibility, and no intention of raising anything else. Would Danny Ainge let go of Paul Pierce in order to sign Chris Paul before he had any idea if Chris Paul wanted to play for the Celtics?
We can influence what happens after Three passes. It will be a different atmosphere, there will be valid excuses to raise the gas tax.
Are you telling me there will be a groundswell of popular support for raising a tax — any tax? There were valid reasons to raise the gas tax before the most recent budget, too.
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p>I think referendums should be subject to paygo rules, frankly — if you’re going to advocate slashing a tax rate, put right there in black and white what gets cut. That’s the last thing Carla Howell and Charlie Baker want to do.
It would nullify the current scare tactics. I would say that the savings should come directly from budget cuts to the Probation department, the DMV, and state pensions to elected officials.
And when those cuts don’t come close to $2.5 billion (unless you’re advocating stealing officials’ money they invested in pensions, or closing down DMV branches), what then? That’s exactly why Baker and Howell won’t answer the question.
Replace some of the branches with smaller offices for the more complex procedures, and do the license and registration renewals at kiosks in malls and supermarkets.
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p>30% of our state budget is pensions. Let’s start by eliminating pensions for elected officials.
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p>Lets pass GIC insurance reform. The savings to towns would be substantial. They could then lower regressive property taxes.
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p>Lets cut back funding to the probation department back to where it was 10 years ago. It has doubled in size since then even though the number of people on probation is less than it was then.
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p>Lets repeal union giveaways like the Pacheco law.
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p>There is a lot we can do before cutting essential services.
Dude, I wrote a response to this suggestion already. You read it.
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p>1. The gas tax increase would have to be on the order of five dollars a gallon to make up the revenue
2. It’s illegal. Gas tax money can only be spent on transportation.
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p>I’m all for raising the gas tax; it’s good public policy. However, a significant gas tax increase is not on the immediate horizon, and even if it was it could only pay for transportation.
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p>2. How is that enforced? What is the penalty for spending gas tax revenue on other budget items?
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p>2. Dunno, but it’s never been done to anyone’s knowledge…
It ought to be a federal gas tax increase that is returned to each state, maybe that would get around the constitutional issue too.
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p>And we should definitely tax sporting events, movies, concerts, video games, and other entertainment carve outs, more than just the 5% sales tax.
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p>Let me ask you, if you could set the tax structure yourself (sales/income/gas/flat/progressive/local/federal), without any “political reality” stopping you, how would you set it?
I’d have the federal government take an additional 10% of the estate for every household with a household net worth in excess of $10M — and then distribute half of the result back to whatever states the deceased resided in, according to some formula allocating the state aid according to something akin to the average daily balance of the estate by state and year.
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p>That would go a long way towards addressing the horrific economic consequences of the concentration of wealth in the top 1% of this nation’s households.
And I think the MA elections extreme libertarianism and BrooklineTom’s marxism are reason enough that these decisions should best be left to elected officials. To MA Elections, there is simply not enough money to be cut from pensions and waste to offset the lost revenue without cutting essential services. Your solutions, raising the gas tax, taking away hard earned pensions, would also be politically untenable so we are left with getting rid of a tax and losing essential revenue while hoping the legislature is pragmatic and courageous enough to fix the problem after the fact. And to Mr. Tom that 1% is also home to some of our most productive citizens, I for one would rather we not have a brain drain from America. You can look at the Bolivarian states in S. America or the stagnant welfare states of Europe to see how well that worked out. Are the rich taxed too little now? Certainly. But to tax them that much would be dire for the economy. Basic bread and butter needs should set tax policy, not ideological concerns.
Jeesh.
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p>It doesn’t sound like you’ve read any Marx (at least beyond the title of “Das Kapital“).
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p>”Bolivarian states in S. America”? “Stagnant welfare states of Europe”? Uh huh. Other than ideological canards, do you speak from any data? Are you seriously suggesting that a 10% estate tax on the 1-2% of estates in excess of $10M will turn the US into Venezuela? Which “stagnant welfare states of Europe” are you thinking of? Germany? Does Japan (with a maximum estate tax rate of 70%) count as a “stagnant welfare state”?
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p>The clincher?
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p>Whew. First you flame about “Marxism”, then you draw absurd comparisons, and then you wrap up claiming that don’t like “ideological concerns”.
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p>If you think a $2B FY2012 budget gap for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts isn’t about “bread and butter needs”, you’d better think again.
As long as I get to assume that Massachusetts is an island.
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p>
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p>1. Much higher gasoline tax. In fact, I’d do the following:
a. Remove the sales tax exemption
b. Let people know that the sales tax is going up 2.5 cents per month indefinitely, and that they should plan ahead.
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p>I’d use all additional revenue for non-auto transit. Most of it for mass transit statewide, but also for improvements for sidewalks, curb cuts, bike lanes and paths, smarter carpark schemes, more school crossing guards, etc. I’d also make buses free. Yeah, I wrote that. As it is, fares only make up 25% of revenue, and it’s even a lower ratio for buses. Fare collection for buses slows down the route considerably. Finally, lets face it. The bus sucks. Give the folks who are taking a bus (in part because they lacked the political power to demand a streetcar or subway) a break for once.
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p>2. Progressive income tax. How progressive? Dunno. Hard to say without really wading deep in the budgetary numbers. I would be interested in making sure that the aggregation of property, income, sales tax, etc result in a net progressive outcome, which we don’t seem to have now. I’d like for more people to be paying some income tax, but for the lower half-ish of folks to be paying less income tax.
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p>3. Sales tax. I’d cut it, and I’d change the exemptions. I’d add exemptions for non-prescription meds and health care items like aspirin and toothpaste. I’d create an exemption for helmets. I’d eliminate the exemption on gasoline (see above) as well as entertainment tickets like sports and concerts. I’d eliminate the exemption on US flags, religious books, newspapers, comic books, and snacks from vending machines.
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p>4. Bottle deposit. I’d raise it to $0.10, peg it to inflation in five cent increments, and expand it to all beverages, including juice, sports drinks, water, milk, the works. For alcohol in bottles greater than 0.5 liters, I’d make it 25 cents.
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p>5. I’d change Prop 2.5 to Prop 3.0.
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p>6. I’d eliminate the lottery.
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p>7. Alcohol excise tax. I’d raise it.
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p>8. Cigarette tax. I’d raise it.
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p>Maybe that’s not all I’d do, and maybe there’d be some tweaks, but that’s what I come up with off the top of my head. Note that the gas tax requirement (and others) rely on Massachusetts being an island. Since we’re not, I’d drift the gas tax upward but not make it more than 5-10 cents more than our collective neighbors.