With a new legislative session coming up, bills are being written and legislators are forming their goals for the next year, at this very moment.
That means now is a good time to talk with your state legislators, but it’s also a good time for BMG to come together and express our goals and ideas for the next year.
Let’s make that a homework assignment. What one or two things do you want to see done this coming year?
It could be big or small, broad or specific, personal or general, on any issue you want to see addressed. The more kinds of responses people write, the better.
If enough people contribute our priorities and ideas, maybe — just maybe — we can make a small difference, and some of our elected officials will listen.
Once you write your comment, let’s give everyone their space to write what they want and leave replies to comments to answer questions or for legislators, staffers or other state workers to respond, if they’re doing something to work on it.
If there’s anything unique about BMG, it’s all our myriad perspectives and incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable people we have contributing here. Let’s use that to our advantage, and give our legislators a space to see what BMG cares about for this year.
…I was considering a separate post on this, but I wanted to continue the theme of this comment regarding what should be free. Here are a few things I can think of which would be exclusively tax-funded in my perfect world. Feel free to reply with others.
Public transit – as the linked comment mentioned almost all our roads are free. Infrastructure is a public good for reasons gone over many times on BMG. They should be linked city to city, state to state, nationwide.
Higher education – K-12 public education is free with occasional fees (which are often waivable for those who need it), so why not postsecondary education? No, I am NOT suggesting eliminating tuition just so we can substitute more or higher “fees”; I mean really free.
Health care – by which I essentially mean single-payer. Nominal copays I can live with, but this has shown to be the most cost-effective AND gets the best results. Basic services such as annual physicals, dental, eye exams, and vaccinations, along with truly emergency services and life-saving procedures really should be free. No degree of poverty should keep you from being healthy.
Utilities – I would argue that the resources used to generate this belong to all of us anyway. Water is definitely necessary for survival and even electricity is essential in today’s world, though I’d like to move to solar, wind, and water which I think strengthens the argument for common ownership.
What do you all think – too communist?:)
There is another reason that hasn’t, to my knowledge, been discussed too much here… In the not too distant future (as far as I can see any distance, that is…) urban sprawl will morph into ‘corridors’ where large stretches of land are as densely populated as ‘major’ cities are now. Boston-NY-DC will be such a corridor and is already being thought of in these terms. Many people already consider LA just such a corridor. It will not be possible to sustain such aggregations of population without public transportation… and, indeed, it is the large outlay of public funds that built the roads (more money was spent on the interstate highway than all the money spent in FDR’s ‘New Deal’) that begin the creation of these ‘corridors’ (sometimes called ‘mega-cities’, though I detest that term…)
Such large aggregations of population will also require significant investment in…
A smart energy grid is the only thing that will make the coming population aggregations comfortable and livable. Todays energy grid won’t do: it will not scale to the size needed and isn’t flexible enough even if it could. Which is why we need investment in energy and in…
All education should be free… really. It pays so many dividends as to be a ridiculously easy call, if you think about it. It is the best investment that it is possible to make.
So, all this is to say that I agree with you, Christopher, in many of your priorities but specifically with public transit, utilities and infrastructure and most particularly with regard to education.
The big issue Beacon Hill has to tackle is transportation, and I want our state to once and for all declare that we will protect and enhance public transportation at all costs.
Given where the demographics are trending, with people moving back into cities and twenty and thirty something families dropping second cars, it’s very clear people want good and strong public transportation.
Low hanging fruit
There have been a lot of issues which baffle me as to why they haven’t been passed years ago, seeming like such low hanging fruit, so I’d like to see them finally finished off this year:
1. Expand the bottle and can deposits to cover all beverages, including water bottles and juice drinks. Seriously, why is this even a debate?
2. Pass a small plastic bag fee so people further shift toward bringing in their own bags. Other cities and regions have done this, especially abroad, and it works. It reduces litter and costumers haven’t really had any issues with it. Some companies like Ikea already do this and have no issues with it.
3. Tax credit reform, so we at least know where the tax credits are going and have detailed accounts of how many jobs they create and how much revenue it brings into the state, to see whether the cost is worth it.
This goes doubly and triply for the Hollywood Tax Credits, which really should just go or at least be deeply reformed, so we’re not paying 25% of Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler’s salaries.
I just read a NY Times article about how Michigan got into the Hollywood tax game – same story, race to the bottom as to which state is going to subsidize movies the most. It’s not worth it at all, and should be the first thing to be cut.
is that the Phoenix just ran a cover story suggesting Hollywood’s filming here has led to the development of a local independent film industry. A friend of mine in that field left Boston 10 years ago because the indie film industry here wasn’t strong enough. Not at all sure, when you measure the costs and benefits, it’s worth keeping the subsidies but wanted to point it out.
I have a different reason for cutting the subsidies, beyond stopping the showering of money we need for important programs on a rich industry. My hope is, with no subsidies, maybe they’ll stop making a movie every six months portraying Massachusetts as nothing but murderous townie gangsters.
…to be honest, Bostons’ murderous, but often lovable, townie gangsters (The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Brinks Job) pre-date the subsidies so there’s not much evidence to support the notion that they’ll stop making them after the subsidies are gone.
And, once you’ve done the washed-up alcoholic lawyer to perfection (The Verdict) and the Civil War (Glory/i>) to a turn, what’s left but to turn on each other in increasingly more psychologically gripping and drastic ways… subsidy or no…
=-)
all of the below please:
1. Remove the sales tax exemption on gas tax, so the 6.25% is tacked on as well.
2. Increase it from 23.5 cents. Other NE and NY states:
ME 31.5 cents
NH 19.6 cents
VT 26.1 cents
RI 33.0 cents
CT 48.6 cents
NY 49.0 cents
How high? Tack on a dime. 33.5 cents. Let’s do it.
3. Now, here’s the kicker. How do we spend it? Something like:
W cents dedicated to public transit — MBTA, other regional transit, and if you got none of that, Amtrak-esque state funding.
X cents state bridges, tunnels, and other major infrastructure which tends to get ignored until it’s about to fall down
Y cents distributed to cities and towns to pay for local roads. Currently, they’re funded through local property tax revenue, and that’s bad form for a number of reasons, and
Z cents distributed to cities and towns to pay for non-motorized transportation infrastructure. Bike lanes. Hubway. Bike trails. Sidewalks. Crosswalks. Wheelchair ramps.
We need a higher gas tax, and we need to migrate our transportation infrastructure for a 21st century. It’ll take money, and there’s no reason not to raise it with a carbon tax on gasoline — a gas tax.
P.S. The current 23.5 cents yields roughly $600M. Roughly $25M raised per penny. At 6 million Massholes, that’s $2/week/person. If the gas tax increased a dime, we’re up to $3/week/person.
I believe that our state is being held back by economic segregation. Most Bay State residents have sorted themselves into communities based on their income level and this has caused a lot of problems which would be easier to solve if there was less segregation.
Why is this an important issue?
* Lumping all the poor people into a few communities which can’t support themselves ensures that we have a cycle of dependency. Bad schools, bad neighborhoods, poor outlook for hundreds of thousands of people in this state. Such problems are harder to solve when they are concentrated.
* Opportunities reduced for non-poor people in the same region. I’m not sure if others in Western MA have noticed this, but we are all becoming a victim of demographics. Compare the Holyoke Malll to malls in Eastern MA or CT and you will find that not only is the selection of stores different, but the selection within stores is different as well. Why? Because the demographics of the entire Springfield area tell the national players what to stock here, and they don’t carry much upscale merchandise because the demographics don’t support it.
* Hampden County has a population of 463,783 – but there is no Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods grocery store in Hampden County. Again, demographics – the wealthier people in the region are spread out in the ‘burbs and there aren’t enough of them in one place to warrant such grocery stores. West Hartford has two Whole Foods stores. Although the two grocery store chains in this area – Big Y and Stop & Shop – have nice, upscale stores deep in the ‘burbs, all stores near the immediate I-91 corridor that passes through Holyoke, Chicopee, West Springfield, and Springfield are downscale – focusing on budget foods, not having as good a selection of higher quality items. The Stop & Shop in Holyoke doesn’t even carry fresh fish.
* There is no critical mass of people in any one small town to spark the creativity and synergy that cities are known to possess. This is causing our young people to leave the area in search of that energy. They are bored with suburban life but won’t accept poor urban life.
* We have an imbalance between cities – built to handle large amounts of population, and towns, which are not. Everyone wants to live in the towns to escape the high concentration of poor people and the poor services provided by the cities. Cities have lots of excess capacity, and towns are being overbuilt, with no infrastructure to handle it. Rush-hour traffic to the towns is basically unbearable because the smaller roads weren’t designed to handle the current population. Meanwhile people drive by houses that are twice as large but are worth half as much as their own houses.
* Suburban communities compete against each other for business by giving tax breaks and incentives to business, leading to a race to the bottom. Nearly every small town has an industrial park which it uses to lure businesses away from other commuities (usually neighboring cities). It does this with the promise of lower property taxes than urban areas, and sometimes even by using tax programs designed for urban areas. For example, Hasbro games used Springfield’s Economic Tax Area incentives for their East Longmeadow plant. Hasbro (as Milton Bradley) fled from Springfield in the 60’s to get more land and lower taxes from East Longmeadow. The ETA program was designed to help urban communities, but is now being used to help communities that don’t have the same problems that spurred development of the ETA.
* Economic segregation creates imbalanced markets making it harder for poor communities to sustain themselves. If a suburban community is paying $70k for a teacher because it can afford to, an urban community can’t pay only what it can afford (perhaps $40k) because this results in an imbalance in quality and high turnover. The urban community is forced to pay more than it can afford in order to keep up. Likewise, if suburban businesses can hire workers at minimum wage because they have a large supply of this labor in nearby urban centers, it doesn’t matter if they offer housing in their own community that people working those jobs can afford.
* Economic segregation requires tough choices: either allow people in poor communities to wither and die, or subsidize those communities via redistribution. Neither is palatable to most people. Instead of trying to treat the symptom, let’s treat the disease – offer both incentives to combat economic segregation (for example, housing policy that isn’t geared toward low-income but is instead geared toward balanced housing stock) and penalties (make it harder for communities to restrict multi-unit housing).
This is a progressive issue that progressives don’t seen to talk about much. Let’s get it out there.
Springfield, the third largest city in MA, fourth in NE only has one Starbucks! But it re-elected the same Congressional representative that has not brought leadership in the tangible forms of innovation or sustainable fiscal support to a region that is literally dying.
Go the NH route of statewide property taxes if we want that to be the revenue source, though I realize that has regressivity issues of its own. Point is that one way or another the state should guarantee a certain baseline of services, though I wouldn’t want to prohibit communities from raising their own revenue to go above and beyond that baseline. There should still be some zoning flexibility. Some people just like a little more breathing room which has nothing to do with snobbery or classism. Not sure it’s possible or desirable to try to do anything about where businesses locate or what they offer; that’s just classic following the market.
I don’t have any problem with what you propose, but it doesn’t work with economic segregation in place – and to be clear, it is precisely snobbery/classism when an entire community says “we just don’t want multi-family housing in our town”. If it was only about more breathing room, then higher-density sections of town would still be permissible, leaving some parts of town low-density but having high-density in others.
Let me show you how the NH property tax plan fails with economic segregation: Let’s say that the state gives all communities funds to have a class size of 20 and teacher salary of $50k. If all communities had roughly the same resources, one community could spend a little bit more to have a class size of 18, maybe by lowering teacher salaries. Another could pay teachers more by increasing class sizes.
However, when one community can support 4x the per-household property tax of another, there is no barrier for that community to lower the class size to 15, increase teacher salary by 25%, and then proclaim themselves the “place to be” because they have a lower tax rate (due to property values being 3x higher), which triggers a race that the other community can’t win. The other community can’t reduce class sizes without lowering salaries or raising taxes above what people can pay. As people leave it, lowering property values, the cycle gets worse.
Do you know that Springfield’s property tax levy ceiling is well below Springfield’s Foundation Budget? The state is saying that Springfield MUST spend a minimum of $321m on education, but the state also says that Springfield can only collect $169m in property taxes. Springfield’s education budget isn’t outlandish based on the job it must do – it is $11,471 per student – but Longmeadow, the area’s wealthiest, most school-focused community has a foundation budget of $8,757 and actually spends $12,563 (which comes to 43% above their foundation budget). Springfield spends $13,361 based on one report and $14,635 based on another – it’s hard to figure out which DOE report is correct, the discrepancy may be due to charter schools.
Think about that for a minute, and why it is such a clear sign of the dangers of economic segregation. Springfield has around 28,000 students. Even going by the Longmeadow figure of $8,757, that comes to $245m in mandatory education spending. Let me repeat: Springfield can only collect $169m in tax levy for all municipal operations. Springfield is wildly insolvent without state aid even though it is taxing to the maximum and keeping services at the minimum.
Now put on top of that the myriad of increased costs that deal with servicing a mostly poor community (higher policing, code enforcement, fire, parks, etc.) and you can see how this feedback loop works. The rich can afford to offer good services which keep their values high; the poor can’t so their values drop and drop.
Here’s another example: ATM machines. There is this thing called the SUM network where all banks in the network waive ATM fees for customers in the network. Here’s the catch: the banks don’t have to offer the waived fee at every ATM. Do you know what I noticed? Springfield has almost ZERO SUM ATMs at the SUM bank branches located in Springfield, but the bank branches in suburban communities are almost always SUM ATMs.
I’m sure there is an economic reason for this, but the bottom line is that if you live in a wealthier suburban community, you can withdraw money from your local ATM for free; if you live in Springfield, you have to pay $3-4 per withdrawal – even though you belong to the same bank!
How about car insurance? Our state rates are done mainly by zip code. This leads to a bizarre situation where, on some streets that are half in Springfield, half in East Longmeadow, people with the same cars driving the same routes but living on the East Longmeadow side can pay 1/2 as much as those living on the Springfield side. Why is this the case? Economic segregation – all the poor drivers are in Springfield and they are more likely to file claims, so the rates are higher for everyone in Springfield.
The answer to all these issues is to combat economic segregation. Reduce the incentive for people to self-segregate by increasing the incentives not to. View every state policy to determine how to reduce economic segregation. At the very least, recognize that it is a serious problem and talk about it!
not just a few savvy CEOs yachts. Raise the minimum wage significantly. Give incentives that promote higher wages and make large profitable businesses pay a penalty for paying a wage that leave their employees in poverty. 2. Lower the cost of healthcare – stop hospitals and physicians from overcharging for services.
Which is only $1000 now. Should be ten million at least.
I was gonna say gas tax, but that one was already taken.:)
Ms. Coakley proposes an increase to $250,000.
Sort of par for the course from our Attorney General. Yes, it’s two hundred and fifty times greater than it was. It’s still pocket-change for most companies. For both the New England Compounding Center and Powers Fasteners cases, legal fees alone dwarf this proposed “penalty”.
It should be on the order of ten million. It should collected personally from the executives/directors. The guilty company should be prohibited from doing business in MA for some reasonable period of time (like ten years).
A legal system that insists on treating corporations as people must also hold those corporations responsible as people are held responsible. With privileges come responsibilities, and with misdeeds must come penalties.
See my comment below. I started wrting before your comment went up. When I’m being told that a million is just a rounding error, that is when jail time makes a difference.
I was chatting with an acquaintance who I met through this campaign. He is employed in the vaccine industry. We had chatted over the course of the campaign about the lack of regulation in the compounding pharmacy industry. We spoke again this week and discussed the fact that jail time is a possibility for the people involved in the most recent problem. My friend commented that when we are talking about fines that it just doesn’t matter. A million he said is a rounding error. Potential jail time will have people more concerned about the consequences of their actions.
I see many great ideas and suggestions upstream and would offer, “ditto” to NoPolitician and many others.
I would add that there must be a shift to public health prevention which includes stewardship and responsible distribution of our natural resources, air, water, agriculture, infrastructure and sustainable energy sources. Humanity, politics, environment and economy are all inextricably linked requiring strong, progressive public engagement and education.
With all the blubbering about the Affordable Care Act, there was no mention of Americans opting for healthier lifestyles throughout 2012! Exercise, nutrition and positive outcome-based public policies are vital components of a healthy, progressive society.
We need to demand (and only consume) information media that is thoughtful, true and balanced.
There are many absurd, unenforceable and unconstitutional laws that remain on our books simply because cowardly legislators are afraid to offend a few simple-minded constituents. But the crime of blasphemy strikes me as being particularly insane. M.G.L. Ch. 272, Sec. 36 states:
In Massachusetts, non-Christians, atheists, and agnostics are advised to remain silent about God, Christ and the Holy Ghost lest they be placed on a public pillory.
It is unconstitutional and unenforceable for a host of obvious reasons, but I like it from a quaint heritage standpoint (while being the first to cry foul if it ever were attempted enforced). Focus on more practical things.
Evidently Christopher would bring back the poll tax and miscegenation laws, only from a quaint heritage standpoint, of course. It’s not very difficult to file a bill which states: “M.G.L. Ch. 272, Sec. 36 is hereby repealed.” And there are many other such laws that need to be repealed in the name of civil rights, which, for Christopher, is not a worthy endeavor.
for all real purposes. Though still on the books, they can’t be enforced because they’re unconstitutional. And I haven’t heard anyone trying to enforce them here.
Maybe the ACLU could make a list, but the legislature has better things to do than to clean up four centuries worth of statute books. To suggest that Christopher’s pro-theocracy or anti-civil rights because of this is just nuts.
is yet another example of a dysfunctional legislature.
I agree that they have no rule of law. Nobody disputes that. Yet, it does suggest a certain dysfunction when the legislature can’t even manage to delete laws which no longer apply.
You ask the ACLU and a few other groups to round up all the crufty laws which are simple and inappropriate. Then, you put together a bill to rescind them all. I would think that, if done right, it wouldn’t need to hold up any other laws from getting passed.
I actually have my own list of statutes that should be repealed. In addition, to M.G.L. Ch. 272, Sec. 36, the blasphemy statute, my list includes:
Ch. 71, Sec. 30 (Requiring the teaching of piety and sacred virtues)
Ch. 71, Sec. 31 (Requiring bible reading in the public schools)
Ch. 264, Sec. 16A (Communist Party Outlawed)
Ch. 272, Sec. 14 (Adultery – Felony)
Ch. 272, Sec. 18 (Fornication – Misdemeanor)
Ch. 272, Sec. 26 (Immorality in Restaurants and Taverns – Misdemeanor)
Ch. 272, Sec. 29 (Disseminating obscenity – Felony)
Ch. 272, Sec. 34 (Committing abominable and detestable crime against nature – Felony)
Ch. 272, Sec. 35 (Committing unnatural and lascivious acts – Felony)
Ch. 272, Sec. 36A (Criticizing sports officials too strongly – Misdemeanor)
These statutes is the low-hanging fruit that is easy to draft and should be easy to pass, but it isn’t. There are several other statutes, but I haven’t included them here because they need to be amended rather than repealed. For example, M.G.L. Ch. 233, Sec. 15 requires that oaths be administered with the hand in the air and the words “so help me God” added at the end. That statute has to be amended, not repealed.
Some, but not all of them, can be included in one comprehensive bill. And, yes, the process is quite simple. It’s getting the votes that is difficult.
…and if the blasphemy law had been repealed I would not call for its return. There’s just a part of me that appreciates our religious heritage (which does NOT equally apply to reasons for anti-miscegination or poll tax legislation) and likes being able to say, “To this day we technically have a law that says (fill in weird outdated provision here)”. It’s not that it’s superdifficult, but if it ain’t broke (and it isn’t)…
I know full well this is more of a gut reaction on my part and that I won’t pursuade you, nor do I really care if I do. If Mel Warshaw chooses to respond again I would be curious as to why the disapproval of my “solution for nopolitician” comment above as well.
I will answer your inquiry by stating that a statewide property tax is one of the worst ideas I have heard in a long time. It is not in any way related to a gas tax. Giving credence to a state-wide property tax is only topped by your belief that it may not be “possible or desirable to try to do anything about where businesses locate or what they offer.”
I did not intend to include the second sentence. Sorry about that.
I’m not necessarily pushing for a statewide property tax, but just offered it as a possible solution for equity amongst communities since the state can redistribute. I’ve been torn by this for years because on the one hand I know it’s regressive without additional tweaks, but on the other hand I have always supported Prop 2 1/2 overrides and debt exclusions in my town because that’s where we find money desperately needed to pay for town services. I even chaired a pro-debt exclusion campaign ten years ago in my town to pay for a new library and police station. (We won with 55% of the vote – unprecedented in my town.)
Just to circle back to nopolitician for a minute, the response to my comment appears well-argued though I confess went a bit over my head. It almost sounds like NP wants to even distribute where the classes live which requires central planning to an extreme I would object to. I’d rather fight to drastically reduce (Is eliminate too much to ask?) poverty as the rates we have in this the richest country on the planet are absolutely outrageous. On the one hand I’d love for everyone to be able to afford half-acre lots, though we should be careful about assuming multifamily means poor since there are plenty of luxury apartments. Yes, that contradicts another thread where some appear to be pro-crowding, but that’s not how I want to live.
I think there should be a recognition that economic segregation is harmful, and it should be a goal to reduce or eliminate it. That doesn’t mean central planning, it means an understanding that our communities are pursuing policies that are immediately helpful to some people, immediately harmful to others, and ultimately detrimental to everyone.
Is it central planning to give communities definite financial incentive to have multi family housing? We already give (rich) communities such incentive to tax themselves more via the CPA – and pay for it with money taken from larger, often poorer communities (flat aka regressive surcharge on deed transactions).
This is supposed to be for “progressive” ideas, right? I’m not seeing any truly progressive proposals; more public transit for Boston, paid for by the rest of the state, is hardly progressive. Neither is removing unused laws from the books. Think large!
And nobody is arguing that it should be *just* for the T — folks are perfectly happy seeing the appropriate fraction of funds go for the other municipal transit agencies too.
Mass transit provides transportation opportunities for the poor. It is less polluting. It is certainly progressive.
-Phase out coal-fired power in Massachusetts. Dirty, deadly, economically failing (really – Brayton Pt. Power Station, NE’s largest polluter, ran @ ~15% capacity this year. Tax base about to collapse w/o community planning) and huge CO2 source. Coal Free Massachusetts
-Fix gas leaks across Massachusetts, which waste $, present risk to public health, accelerate climate change and currently outstrip our total energy efficiency savings.
-Forward funding of public transit, support for regional transit authorities. Public Transit = Public Good.
-Ban toxic chemicals from school supplies & cosmetics; dispose safely of mercury and other toxic materials.
-Enhance food access for urban communities.
-coal
Mount Tom and Brayton Point are all that’s left, and I’d bet Mount Tom is closed within a few years too. Brayton Point will be trickier for a variety of reasons. One way to help it close is to keep it uneconomic. MA needs to keep ratcheting up the building codes, the energy efficiency programs, and the breadth and depth of renewable electricity generation subsidies.
-gas
As things stand now, whenever a road is dug up for any reason, the gas distribution company has to replace all cast-iron and other old pipes with the newer medium density polyethylene yellow pipe. It’s happening slowly but surely. Digging up all that road is expensive and inconvenient. It would be nice, however, for folks to map out the worst 10% of leaks in each community and figure out how to do roadwork at those locations sooner rather than later, including redesigns for pedestrians and bicycles. Rinse, repeat. Each year, plan when you’re going to go after the worst 10%, and adjust the schedules for road work to get at those sooner rather than later.
-public trans
Youbetcha. Giving them a chunk of the gas tax would help, and adjusting that portion to inflation would be even better.