Absolutely, YES, I do.
Over the last few weeks, I have heard that there are over 900 homeless families in our Commonwealth. A teacher told me she knew a boy who kept his clothes in a middle school locker because his family lived in their car.
Our public school systems will not receive promised state aid. Teachers, firefighters and police across the Commonwealth are facing layoffs.
Needed health insurance for my fellow citizens is being cut.
It may take decades to get a rail line from Boston to Fall River and New Bedford.
Our community colleges and state universities have raised tuitions and cut teaching staff.
So Governor Patrick, state Representatives and state Senators, please, raise my taxes and give housing to those families.
I am willing to pay to fully fund our commitment to public education and public safety.
Take a few more dollars a week to keep classroom sizes down and to maintain adequate first response staffing.
Don’t let anyone in our Commonwealth go without treatment for lack of health insurance, I can afford .65% more for them.
If adding this small amount will get rail in our area to increase economic development and expand employment opportunities, I’ll pay it.
My children and I have attended community colleges and public universities. We owe our middle class incomes to the affordable educations we got through these universities. If it takes more revenue to continue investing in the people of the Commonwealth through publicly supported higher education, I owe that debt and I would happily pay it forward.
Let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish. Raise revenue through a modest increase in the income and investment taxes and stop the cuts. As this bill’s name says, it’s an investment in our communities! Contact your legislators and ask them to raise revenue and stop the cuts.
but earning no more from other jobs ala Gloria or Phil, ($160,000) would pay another $500 a year in Massachusetts income taxes if this bill passed. Says my tax accountant.
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p>No it won’t. It will increase by less than .65%. Since the proposal increases the deduction, you’re effective rate will go from t0 to t1, where
t0 < 5.3%
t1 < t0 + 0.65%
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p>a nuance, sure. The increased deduction is an important component though, in that this proposal is actually a tax decrease for low income earners despite being substantially revenue positive.
Actually, given those 2 rates, his tax rate will increase by over 12%
I hope they did so before filing the bill.
not theirs!
if you’re saying what I think you’re saying.
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p>The result of the saying people who want to pay more should pay more and leave the rest of alone is a rhetorical divide and conquer strategy. Even the actions of a handful of individuals won’t significantly impact revenue. It really “takes a village” to raise revenue.
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p>You seem to be suggesting that Rep. James O’Day and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz should be paying extra taxes already if they’re going to propose this bill. The implication, if I understand you correctly, is that otherwise they would be hypocrites if they don’t do so. That’s not really the case as long as they don’t exclude themselves from the legislation they are proposing.
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p>The whole hypocrite thing is irrelevant too. Most, if not all of us, are hypocrites at one point or another. If we refused to entertain bills from hypocrites, we’d have no legislation at all.
Them being hypocrites never crossed my mind. You would seem anxious to provide ‘cover’ if they didn’t, by offering excuses they likely don’t need.
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p>But one question – WHILE the legislation is pending, why not PROMOTE the option? This is the height of tax season. Rather than only file legislation which will take months and miss the 2010 filings, why not ALSO promote the alternative now, given the budget problems we now have?
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p>Is coercion the only way? Solicit volunteers as well!
your mind. It’s an accusation all too often used to ignore the costs and benefits of a proposal. It’s not a tactic I recall you using, but it’s a favorite tactic among some in your camp. Your comment was short enough to leave room for doubt.
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p>It would be interesting to see someone support donating. As I said, however, it takes a village. My giving $50 would be a nice gesture, but hardly useful. It would take a large number of people to make it work.
If these Reps are paying more great, good for them. Personally I’ve never liked this line that always sounds like a taunt. I’d be reluctant to pay more myself if others are not; it almost seems comparable to unilateral disarmament. Of course ideally we’d be allowed to have a graduated system anyway where those earning more would pay more.
who are keen on the bill to trim back the collective bargaining rights of public workers choosing to undergo voluntary drug testing now, as the bill provides?
And I hope that anybody served in the military before voting to deploy troops. And anybody who wants to cut agricultural subsidies was a farmer. And anyone who wants to cut transport funding laid pavement.
Specifically, please raise my income taxes and lower my regressive property taxes.
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p>You could charge more for gasoline too, enough to offset the enormous subsidies for gasoline use.
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p>Use some of the revenues to fund local services with taxes based on income.
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p>Oh, and please do the same for Peter Porcupine and actually for everyone, because that is what would be fair. (A tax is different from a charitable contribution–but you knew that, I’m guessing).
the tipping point between paying more or less happens between 70,000 and $80,000, depending on other deductions/exemptions. I think this is still in the struggling middle class zone and the exemptions should be higher.
It should be around $150,000 for a family, I think. But we probably don’t have the will to change the MA Constitution to allow much higher exemptions (or, preferably a real graduated system).
$70,000 to $80,000 is only struggling middle class in the fantasyland of rich Congressmen who want to imagine they’re poor.
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p>If we’re talking household income, that’s the top 25-30% for the US. If individual, that’s the top 10-15%.
Not super-rich, but anyone struggling on that kind of income is most likely struggling due to poor financial decisions, not due to their income.
In MA, $70-80K (at least for a family) is solidly in the middle. Median household income in MA is $65K. Median household income in Norfolk county is $80K, in Middlesex it is $77K. For a family of four, with one or more children in college, there is very little room to give at that income range. It’s very likely that a family in MA at that income range can be struggling for a number of reasons, none of which may be poor financial decisions (unemployment perhaps?).
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p>$70-80K isn’t struggling in other areas of the country where you can buy houses for less than $150K.
You’re right that median income is higher here.
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p>But $81k is still higher than average. It’s middle class, but not struggling middle class. And $81k, not 70-80k, is the point where this becomes a tax increase. Actually, I’m round up to the next thousand. At 80k, a married couple saves about $2/year on taxes under this proposal. At 81k, they pay an extra $5.
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p>I would say that living in most of Norfolk or Middlesex county counts as a bad financial decision. A large number of those people work in Boston and would be better off living in Boston. They’d also be contributing less to traffic and sprawl if they did so.
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p>You’re right that having kids in college or recent unemployment makes the budget tighter. But not so much tighter that $5 extra per year is going to hurt.
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p>At $90k, it’s an extra $63/year. If they’re making $100k, it’s an extra $128/year.
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p>This does not add a meaningful tax burden for anyone who can reasonably be called middle class.
I agree that a few dollars more would not be that burdensome, but I do think that those in the 70-80K range are middle class. Not sure where the bottom or top of this range would be, but I think that those making 100-120K are still in the broad middle class range in most areas of MA. And some are probably struggling much more than others given family size, ages, etc.
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p>I think we can both agree that it’s the Cleve Killingsworth’s that are contributing much much less than they could or should.
I wonder how different our taxes would look if taxation rates were applied to PPP (purchasing power parity) income, not just raw figures.
Some middle class people do make poor financial decisions. However, most of them are ripped-off regularly just trying to stay warm, keep a roof over their head, pay their health care premiums and send their kids to college. Blaming the middle class for all of this pick-pocketing is pretty much what the corporate elite would have everyone believe. So whose side are you on?
My household income is well below $70-80k and I am far from struggling. Back when I was making $10k/year, I was struggling. So I have some sympathy for a couple with two kids making only $40k/year between them. But $80k? No. Not struggling. They could get by quite comfortably on $60k/year. Would this involve giving up a few unnecessary luxuries? Of course.
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p>You wanna turn this into class warfare? Ok, I’m game. I am on the side of the people who are actually struggling. The people who can’t afford health insurance without state subsidies for MassHealth. The people who can’t afford rent period, or who have to choose between paying rent on time and paying the heating bill. The people who will have to take on massive debts at rip-off rates, or force their children to take on massive debts, for the kids to have any hope of attending college, unless the government subsidizes education. That’s who this tax change helps.
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p>You are on the side of everyone making $80k and above, because you are complaining about a tax change that only increase taxes for them, and only increases taxes significantly for those making well over $100k. You are on the side of the people who are “struggling” because Boston wasn’t good enough, and they just HAD to have a few acres Newton or Brookline. You are on the side of the people who don’t need MassHealth because they get generous pay and maybe generous benefits from their employer. You are on the side of people who could pay college tuition out of pocket if they really wanted to, or who at least make enough money to get loans on very favorable credit terms because banks know they’ll be able to repay them.
who is only pointing out that the middle class has it’s struggles too, and is frequently stuck in that awful donut hole of their kids needing help with College tuition and not being able to get it. Never mind new fees for every extra curricula sport team, zooming food prices and oil prices and gas prices that cut into their promised “middle class life style” they worked so hard to achieve working three jobs.
The cost of living varies so greatly. So many other factors can affect how an income level can be either a blessing or a curse. PatrickLong’s line in the sand
needs a little flexibility, at least imho.
But the “whose side are you on” line is offensive when I’m arguing for revenue to preserve services that low-income people need a lot more than couples making $81,000/year need their $5.
if you hadn’t started your response with BS, proclaimed the middle class to be “in the fantasyland of rich Congressmen who want to imagine they’re poor” and then go on to blame them for the inflated cost of housing, health care, and college tuition.
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p>It may seem like $81,000 is a lot of money, but when you are paying out of pocket for everything, with no subsidies for health care, college, or anything, that money flies right out the window every month. Plus we are bombarbed with regressive taxes, from property taxes to the school bus fee and more, we pay and pay, so it’s not like we are getting off without putting anything into the revenue pot.
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p>I just think this recovery needs a little more time to take hold before families making $100,000 or less a year, or even up to $150,000 are hit with a tax increase.
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p>But beyond that, I appreciate the effort and thought put into “An Act to Invest in Our Communities”. It is on the right track and definitely a step forward for Massachusetts. I really like the increase on dividends and interest, while protecting seniors and moderately incomed people. To me, the low taxes on dividends is partly to blame for our economic crisis, because all investment is being done on Wall Street instead of on Main St.
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p>Overall, I support this bill.
While I don’t mean to unduly criticize either of you, I fear that such exchanges are precisely the goal of the truly wealthy who dominate our tax system.
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p>I’d like to remind all of us that a person with a net worth of $1 B (and there are many of those in Massachusetts) conservatively gains at least 4% per year in returns on that portfolio — that’s a tidy sum of $400,000,000 per year. YUP. Four hundred million dollars. Not to beat a dead horse, but that’s $109,589.04 per day.
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p>So while we argue about whether or not $81 K is or is not a “lot” of money in a year, our overseers take down substantially more than that each and every day.
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p>We need more tax revenue, and we need to collect that money from where it is now.
My bad, the annual take is $40M, not $400M. What’s an extra zero here or there.
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p>The daily amount is the same, $109,589.04.
The idea that people are going to be absurdly wealthy just because their grandparents worked hard and did something useful, while other people start life poor through no fault of their own, is disgusting. I would support a 100% estate tax if that were a viable option.
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p>But it’s not on the table right now, so I’m going to continue to debate the options that are actually available. Convince a state legislator to sponsor an estate tax increase and then we can have that discussion.
but that quote is idiotic.
I don’t care what you think. I totally get that Republicans have contempt for labor.
…is a lot more palatable than yours, even “as amended”.
I thought it was clear from the refference that I support raising the income tax rate from 5.3% to 5.95%. FOR EVERYONE!
In the late 90’s, the Commonwealth saw a large increase in capital gains taxes and as a result cut other taxes such as the income tax. In 2008, capital gains tax revenues collapsed when the markets realized the banksters had looted the economy. Again (see junk bonds, S&L crisis).
So I am proposing a return to the same rate of income taxation as the 1990’s. Despite the constant drumbeat from the corporations and their wholly owned subsidiaries, the media, there are two sides to a budget. Expenditures and REVENUE. I believe that most taxpayers are willing to pay a modest amount more in taxes if the benefits of that taxation are clearly articulated.
is that you don’t discuss the expenditure side of the budget equation.
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p>Since 2000, state spending on core programs has more than doubled after adding back in spending on the School Building Authority and Transportation which were taken off budget. Over that same period, population growth was 3% and cumulative inflation was roughly 25%. Add in the higher costs associated with MassHealth brought on by Health Care Reform and you still have $5-6 billion a year in spending that can’t be accounted for. In fact, the state doesn’t even try to account for it. In the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports there is always $4-$7 billion listed simply as Transfers and Other Uses.
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p>It is the bloated dysfunctional bureaucracy on Beacon Hill and not tax rates that are threatening essential services.
You wrote:
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p>This is pure unadulterated horse puckey.
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p>The commuter rail and MBTA is in chaos because the state hasn’t invested in preventative maintenance or infrastructure upgrades in decades. That is most explicitly NOT because of “bloated dysfunctional bureaucracy on Beacon Hill”. Instead, it is because the legislature refuses to collect and invest the taxpayer revenue needed to properly maintain it.
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p>We are blindly refusing to fund the level of necessary government services needed to sustain the quality of life that makes Massachusetts what we are. I invite those who desire a lower quality of life to move to any of the many “red” states that reflect that desire.
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p>The rest of us — who share the common vision that has made Massachusetts desirable — have an obligation to pay the taxes needed to realize that vision.
The quote you highlight didn’t originate with me. I was paraphrasing line from a Boston Globe editorial. I agree with you that important services are being neglected by our legislature. They are failing to spend it properly but it is not because they aren’t taxing enough.
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p>I made the same point in an NNN interview during the campaign.
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p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
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p>I don’t desire a lower quality of life. I desire a higher quality of state government.
Here is a transcript of your words in the link you posted:
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p>I hear only a repetition of your totally unsupported claims, with no substance whatsoever. You create the impression that you do not know or will not talk about the specific details of what spending is required and how that spending should be funded.
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p>In the comment I responded to, you used the phrase “bloated dysfunctional spending” without quotes as if it were your own; presumably you stand by it regardless of its origin. The clarified origin of the phrase doesn’t affect the weakness of your argument.
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p>You have so far called only for spending cuts. You claim that spending is “too large” while citing only population growth and inflation as benchmarks for comparison. You make no effort to quantify the amount you claim is being wasted by this “bloated and dysfunctional bureaucracy”. You fail to address the enormous investments needed in public transportation and in public infrastructure.
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p>If you truly desire a higher quality of state government, then I call on you to quantify what you think it should cost and, most importantly, how you propose to pay those costs.
And yet the Transportation Reform Bill took ALL the state’s transportation agencies – MassHighway, MBTA, MTA, Mass Aeronautical, etc. – and placed them under a seperate agency called MassDOT. There is no appropriation for MassDOT in the state budget; it is instead entirely bond funded. That is what Brad meant when he said transportation was moved ‘off budget’.
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p>The ‘reform’ bill didn’t really merge Mass Turnpike with the other agencies – it instead merged the other agencies with the failed Mass Turnpike, and placed ALL transportation under the authority of the five member board who oversaw the Big Dig. The oversight and authority ove the Governor and Legislature have been curtailed by this move. And hasn’t THAT worked out well for us in the past.
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p>Point is – the ‘state’ need for investment in infrastructure is now entirely divorced from the income tax. So the tax rate is irrelevant as far as transportation/infrastructure needs are concerned.
You wrote:
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p>That’s an oblique way of saying that the state refuses to invest in transportation. “Bond funded” is an unsubtle euphemism for “borrowed”.
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p>It’s hardly “irrelevant”. Our entire elected government lacks the courage to tell the truth about taxes: we need to collect more tax revenue. You are, literally, playing a three-card monte shell-game with arguments like this. This is akin to a parent who uses credit cards to buy their cars and groceries and then says that the question of whether or not they earn enough money from their job is “irrelevant” as far as their car and groceries are concerned.
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p>Three-card monte is a con-game. Our elected officials are working feverishly to hide the truth from us, rather than admit that we need higher tax revenue right now.
Here and elsewhere, one year ago, I shreiked like a steam calliope that the entire state transit sytem was being undermined by Patrick’s ‘reforms’ and not an eyebrow raised.
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p>Because it was a ‘reform’. It must be good!
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p>Now – transit investment is not a product of tax revenue. So a higher tax rate does not translate into infrastructure improvements. Some reform. But you’ll have to find another example to use to justify tax increases, becasue we aren’t using our tax income to buy our transit bonds – yet. We leave that kind of scam to the Feds.
for roads, bridges and public transportation?
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p>Nobody would miss another 5 cents these days.
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p>Of course my husband would, but he wouldn’t complain because he is already complaining about all the pot holes.
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p>And so are the Mayors
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We need tax increases because it costs more than we are currently collecting to sustain the quality of life we want for Massachusetts. Public transportation and public infrastructure is an enormous part of that picture.
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p>I don’t remember hearing you object that the proposed reform was underfunded. I invite you to offer a comment where you called for increased investment in public transportation.
Clarifying the origin of the phrase shows that I am not alone in making it. While I understand they are far too right wing for you, the Boston Globe is arguably a well respected source of information and opinion in Massachusetts.
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p>Actually I did.
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p>I am rather specific as what the state should have spent in FY 2010 in this short video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
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p>One has to start somewhere as a baseline for comparison. I chose 2000 as it covers both Republican and Democratic administrations. I also chose it as the state was taking in taxes about what it was spending on core programs as defined in the Statutory Basis Accounting Report and the CAFR.
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p>Relative to 2000, the $20 billion in 2010 spending I cite in the video would mean no cut in real spending, no cut in per capita spending, it accounts for the added cost of health care reform and $100 million dollar per year increase in real spending.
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p>In your original diary you list a number of cuts and unaddressed needs. It would seem the state is providing less service in 2011 than it did in 2000 despite spending twice the amount of money and employing 7000 more state workers as expressed as Full Time Equivalents.
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p>According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the private sector of service related industry, productivity gains have allowed employers to provide the same $1.00 in services with roughly 33% fewer workers. As government is a service industry (they don’t manufacture anything) we should have 9000 less government workers today relative to 2000 and not 7000 more.
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p>I understand that government will never be as efficient as the private sector as there is no incentive for it to be.
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p>So I propose this. Let’s only cut the number of state employees back to 2000 levels (less than half what productivity gains would suggest. Let’s only cut state spending back to $24 billion and use the left over $3 billion for the infrastructure improvements and $1 billion to restore service cuts.
Compare state govt with health care (service) and college education (services, cost driven largely by private colleges), and how does that compare with MA from Y2K to now?
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p>Where exactly is the spending that your outline, I don’t see any breakdown, and I would think a state rep would have sufficient access to information to at least identify where $6 Billion goes out of a $25 Billion budget.
I am not a state rep. I ran for state rep and lost. Of course it shouldn’t take a state rep to access that information. It should be available to all tax payers.
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p>My proposed budget level includes the increased cost of health care in Massachusetts. As for College education that is not, in the main a budget item in Massachusetts.
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p>That being said, our state budget in 2011 is $28 billion not $25 billion and if we included the things that have been taken off budget the number is closer to $33 billion.
Can you point to your data sources?
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p>I don’t closely track the state budget, just the Chapter 70 budget, so a few billion here or there could easily escape my attention. But I’d be glad to look at primary data sources.
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p>Apologies for titling you as a Rep, I guess my google search was less thorugh than some .
are at the Mass.gov website. The link is http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=os…
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p>The CAFRs and SBARs will give you historical revenue and spending levels.
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p>On a side note, in an article in today’s Globe, an official with the Massachusetts Municipal Association is quoted as saying that outside of health care, the costs of municipal government have increased 30% on average over the last decade. If the same had been held true for state government we would be at roughly my $20 billion in spending on core programs.
As a proportion of total income in the Commonwealth, taxes have not risen substantially.
Why should taxes as a proportion of total income rise substantially?
I think our diarist has answered that question for me.
The chapter 70 school aid formula levies an implicit 1.46% tax on income which is included in the ‘required contributions’ from local revenues which cities and towns must raise from property taxes to pay for schools.
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p>This is fairly problematic because towns can’t tax people’s income, they can only tax property.
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p>An interesting way to approach school funding would be an increase in income taxes, couple with corresponding changes in Prop 2.5 limits in each municipality that might reduce what each municipality could levy without an override vote by a roughly corresponding amount. The change, thus, could be made revenue neutral.
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p>This would be a great way for Deval Patrick to fulfill his pledge to do something about the property tax, and would result in a considerably more progressive tax code.
Wonderful idea.
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is the legislature would never touch this idea, since they prefer to spend property taxes instead of state revenue wherever possible, and they wouldn’t like to be seen as raising income taxes, even if it was matched by a comparable decline in property taxes across the state.
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p>Anybody up for a ballot initiative? Hmm, probably a difficult sell there, too, to really get across that it is easier to collect income taxes by taxing income than by taxing property.