In 1998, voters approved a ballot measure proposing to cut the income tax from 5.95 to 5 percent. The Massachusetts Legislature froze the tax cut in 2002, to 5.3%, but by then a tax cut was in place that would reduce revenue by about $1.5 billion a year by Fiscal Year 2015. The Mass Budget and Policy Center has a clear explanation and excellent charts on tax policy. (http://www.massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=tax_cuts_factsheet.html)
While voters voted for this tax cut, led by then-Governor Paul Cellucci, the (Democratic) Legislature passed tax cuts from 1992 to 1998 that led to almost $600 million in lost state tax revenue, by the following actions: 1992, estate tax cut, -$253m; 1995, Raytheon tax cut, -$61m; 1996, Fidelity tax cut, -$130m; 1998, dividends and interest cut, -$130m. Over the years, the loss of revenue from these tax cuts has only grown, as the people and corporations who most benefited from them have become richer.
Now, the horrific breakdowns and delays in MBTA service over the past two weeks have raised the effects of these budget cuts to the general public, in a way that wasn’t as mainstream as before. Of course, it’s not just transportation that has seen cuts, but almost every single state agency, program, or function that the state provides (check out the MBPC link again).
So what’s been going on at the State House, and across Massachusetts, over the past ten years?
First, almost every legislator is hesitant to raise taxes, in large part out of a fear that raising taxes will lead to defeat in the next election. Even though most issue polling shows that while taxes are of concern to the general public, that they are not a deal breaker in an election, it is taken very seriously on Beacon Hill. Further, most municipal officials, community leaders and business owners have done little to support efforts to, say, pass a progressive tax package.
Second, the public does not properly understand the connection between services and taxes. While it is most certainly state elected officials’ (both constitutional and legislative) responsibility to educate the public about this, more needs to be done by community groups, municipal officials, progressive organizations, and issue associations. It’s critical to remember that there was a time in the 1970s and 80s when the group Mass Fair Share had literally hundreds of activists across the state, educating voters about important issues being considered on Beacon Hill, including tax policy.
Finally, the Beacon Hill culture, infecting not only legislators and constitutional officers, but also many advocacy groups, leads to deferring decisions on state tax policy to a small circle of decision-makers, ranging from House and Senate leadership to business-backed groups like the Mass Taxpayers Foundation. While I acknowledge in politics that compromises occur that often fall short of comprehensive action or reform, the pendulum has moved so far to the right that the state, and the people of Massachusetts, are facing some serious crises.
Why are some referendums more equal than others? Why are tax cuts (2-1/2, 5%) sacred but progressive ballot victories (local aid (1990), public finance of elections (1998)) not?
I read an article awhile back (possibly because it was linked from BMG) that posited that legislators often overestimate the strength of conservative voices even in supposedly liberal Massachusetts. It explains to some extent why so many with Ds after their names don’t act like it. Here in the Merrimack Valley it seems like both voters and legislators often forget which side of the state line they are on.
posted at Progressive Mass
The wording looks very familiar.
New Hampshire, especially southern New Hampshire, is arguably more liberal and more Democratic than the Merrimack Valley.
Ms. Garry, for example, is far to the right of New Hampshire governer Magge Hassan.
The Merrimack Valley hasn’t noticed NH’s trends in the last decade or so, though they see no sales or income tax and think utopia, never mind high property taxes and fewer services. Like it or not Colleen Garry does seem to fit her district well.
Andover is full of people who work at Raytheon, conservative engineers with fat government welfare jobs making Patriot missiles. The regional IRS center is also a very large employer.
Lawrence is kind of a success story at this point due to New Balance. Salisbury and Newburyport are varied kinds of tourist traps, a beach town and a quaint Yankee city.
I’ll be checking Lowell in greater detail when snow goes away to scout the Concord River corridor that is slated to become part of Bay Circuit and I want to get more material on the railroad yards.
There are reasons why some questions are implemented and others are flouted.
2 1/2 – had nothing to do with the state or Legislature. It was binding only upon municipalities, and includes an escape mechanism should a town want to exceed it called the override. My town has one of the lowest tax rates in the county because we DO have a lot of overrides – we do them as debt exclusions, so the project or emergency triggering the need for more cash fades away after the need is met and does not stay on the tax rate like potato chips on the hips after the hunger is sated.
5% – when Dukakis asked for the hike to 5.95, he called it a temporary tax for an emergency. The legislature neglected to lower it all through the ‘boom’ in the 90’s, to the point where the rainy day fund had to be created to avoid returning it to taxpayers. When it became clear that the state would NEVER retire the temporary tax, the voters did it for themselves. HAD THEY KEPT THEIR WORD and lowered the rate during the boom economy, the public would have been far more amenable to raising it again when times got bad – instead, they think the legislature are a bunch of liars that need revenue ripped from their greedy fingers.
Clean elections – this was killed by the supermajority of Democrats. The law was on the books, but the Democrats refused to fund it – except for Mr. Tolman, who got a cool $3 million out of it.
Coming from a community that has been at the Proposition 2.5 ceiling for about 3 years (aided by a tornado that wiped out tens of millions of dollars in property), I can tell you that Proposition 2.5 has everything to do with the state because the ceiling limits even the 2.5% levy increase.
I’ve done a lot of bashing of the Democratic Legislature and the Republican Governor, on other platforms, lately. I’m furious. All of this was predictable and avoidable, with proper investment and upkeep. But the political will isn’t there.
This phrase from Sen. Eldridge’s blog sticks out as something about which I haven’t seen too much discussion:
Are progressive lobbyists/advocates pre-capitulating to the power structure, pre-conceding our positions before even starting? A cynic — or an honest observer — might say ‘yes’.
We all (writ large) have a piece of blame in this mess. Democrats’ willingness to go along with DeLeo’s moderate Republican agenda. MA GOP’s failure to offer an alternative. Baker’s irresponsible #ReadMyLips allergy to new revenue (leaving half his management tools locked away). Voters’ reflexive kvetching about “taxes are too damned high already”. Citizens’ complacency during elections — and critically, after elections. Inside-the-Building advocates’ deference to the power elite, and passive acceptance of their confined sphere of influence.
I want to see all of us do better. Back to the drawing board on revenue.
MA GOP has and will continue to offer alternatives. Like letting the State Auditor look at the MA DOT books instead of their own in-house auditor (Tarr) and other common sense reforms to corrupt management that progressives cravenly vote down to please their slave masters in the Leader’s chairs.
Please cite even one proposal from the MA GOP to fund the investment desperately required by the MBTA. As Ms. Scott pointed out, the information about what those needs are has been in the public record for a very long time. Have you read the the D’Alessandro Report? That was published FIVE years ago. We just went through another election. We know a great deal about what the needs are.
The only proposals I can remember from the GOP are proposals to cut taxes. You have the audacity to talk about auditing the MA DOT books, as if that’s a proposal — that exemplifies the foolishness and the complete absence of meaningful participation that has made the MA GOP as moribund laughing stock.
The clear and obvious desire of the MA GOP is to destroy the system — “starve the beast”. That has been the only apparent goal of EVERY “proposal” from the GOP since at least 2000. Auditing the books is a fine idea, by all means go for it.
Please estimate for us how much money you think that will identify. Be hugely optimistic, double it, and pretend you can recapture every penny and apply the resulting sum to the maintenance backlog. How far do you think it will go?
The D’Alessandro report cites a THREE BILLION DOLLAR “SGR backlog” five long years ago. That acronym, “SGR”, means “State of Good Repair”:
What do you think the SGR backlog is today? Do you think it is larger or smaller than it was five years ago?
How far will your optimistic savings from the audit you suggest go towards addressing that? Oh, and just to keep us all honest, please be sure to calculate the cost — lost wages, lost business, lost tourism — of shutting down the MBTA.
Honestly, if you and the MA GOP want to be taken seriously, make a frigging proposal. A real proposal. Where do you propose to get the money? If you continue the GOP habit of refusing to answer that question, then you are advocating the dismantling of the MBTA.
THAT decision will take more money out of the pockets of our residents than ANY tax increase. In particular, it will take out of the pockets of those of us least able to afford it.
Confidence that would be necessary to build public support for additional funding. If you read my FB wall you would know that a large portion of the MA voting population views the MBTA as a wasteful money pit. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know, but that perception is part of the reason the MBTA is where it is at today.
In the legislature the GOP works around the edges (and in places where they know bi-partisan support exists)- that’s the only way they can hope to have an impact given their numbers and the rules.
Why would the GOP legislators spend months of work crafting an MBTA proposal when they know it would never make it our of committee?
Fine, auditing increases confidence.
Spare me the whining and rationalizations about why the GOP doesn’t offer any proposal for FUNDING public transportation and hasn’t (at least that I recall) for the 40+ years I’ve lived in Massachusetts.
The fact remains that we seem to agree that, for whatever reason, the MA GOP has NOT offered any proposals. Not even ONE.
I think the point here is that the MA GOP has offered nothing.
If the MA GOP feels that “the public” will not support investing in the current agency, then the MA GOP can put forward a PROPOSAL to dissolve it, FUND a replacement, and move forward with the replacement.
I’m not advocating this approach, I’m simply observing that explaining why the GOP doesn’t propose anything is not responsive to the problem at hand.
That is allegedly what happened in 2009. And GOP suggestions were largely shot down at the time, from what were only about 19 representatives back then.
Do you think the solution is for the Democrats to make promises (since the super-majority DOES absolutely control the purse), dissolve the agency, and re-boot every 5 years?
I want to know where the MA GOP proposals for INVESTMENT FUNDING of our priorities are. I’ve heard about WasteFraudAbuseCorruptionKillUnions. I’ve heard about CUTS and TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY.
None of these are ideas for investing in the systems we already have/use/need/require/want/enjoy, let alone setting them up for a robust future.
Several years ago they got significant Federal funds to create a database with inventory and repair needs. 5 years later they haven’t finished it and consequently do not have a list of prioritized repairs that need to be made.
So here is a GOP suggestion – why don’t you find out what needs to be maintained before just spending the money?
That list has been made, several times. For example, my own brief Google search returned sites like Transit Asset Management Pilot Projects: MBTA Initiatives and Lessons Learned You seem to be more interested in attacking the MBTA (and public transportation) rather than funding its repair.
No amount of chaff, handwaving, and mis-direction will avoid the central question: How do you or the GOP propose to fund the needed investments?
All we hear is “No new taxes” — the same GOP answer to EVERY substantive question of public policy.
–after you point to me the MA GOP plans for INVESTMENT FUNDING.
You know, NOT “wastefraudabusecorruptionunionbusting” or “cuts” or “taxed enough already”.
Baker has been office a month. The last administration was in eight years. The GOP hasn’t controlled the MA legislature for decades.
the same guy that friend to blame Mayor Walsh for the failings of the MBTA and the entire metro road system during the snow storms, even though he has nothing to do with those jurisdictions? On Feb 4th, you made four posts trying to hang blame on him.
What kind of GOP troll are you? Does the word start with “st” and end in “upid.”
He’s like a lunch truck passing by to peddle right wing platitude mush without even so much as a bit of salt to give it some flavor.
But only as a response to the MBTA Baker’s fault.
The difference that is so apparent here is that if it’s a Republican, he’s at fault, if it’s a Democrat, then he/she gets a pass.
For many people here that’s the BMG way.
While this particular rabbit hole has been about the GOP, the originating comment talked about “plenty of blame to go around.”
In case it was not clear, let me make it clear now: the lion’s share of responsibility for the failure to properly maintain and invest in ALL of Massachusetts’s infrastructure, services, needs, falls right at the feet of the Legislature, and the individual members who kowtow to a center right “No Taxes” ideology.
We crystal, Merri?
There’s a window, RIGHT NOW, for SOMEone to be a Cut Thru the Bullshit leader, to say, we did this to ourselves by starving the beast, and now it’s time to fix our past mistakes AND make sure we are preparing for the future.
MA Dems/Legislature could do it. Charlie Baker could do it. MA GOP could do it.
Will any of them?
No one on this board is ever going to vote for him…. and he’s been in office a month. No one in any job goes that far out on a limb when they’re new.
PS. Plenty of blame to go around? Anyone blaming GM Scott? She is today’s hero according to BMG. Baker’s been getting at least 50% of the blame and he wasn’t even in government after 1998.
I think I’ve been clear about putting the blame on the Democratic Party in general and on Bob DeLeo specifically.
Like it or not, Charlie Baker created the plan that put Big Dig debt on the MBTA. He wrote the memo, for crying out loud. That alone sucks 25% per year out of the MBTA operating budget. Fix that, and we go a long way towards at least starting to fix the maintenance issues.
Presumably Mr. Baker will appoint somebody to replace Ms. Scott. I eagerly await your commentary on Mr. Firefly’s performance.
I didn’t say Baker WOULD try to ACTUALLY fix the problem. I said he COULD.
This is the MA Dems win to fuck up — especially given Baker’s No New Taxes pledge.
And, clearly, with DeLeo at the helm, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
This MBTA thing is spread over a number of threads.
forcing the leg to comply with open meeting laws is the first and most important step to fixing our state. Get rid of closed door meetings and the entire dynamic changes – because at least the leg has to explain itself and individuals can be kept accountable.
I think I linked to that article a few months ago as well, this is because vocally anti-tax voters make that their single issue and pound their legislators offices with letters, emails, and phone calls until they get their way.
We have to make progressive taxation our single issue. Yes it requires changing the constitution-but so does banning Roe v Wade, so does banning gay marriage, so do all of these other issues that animate conservatives. Let’s not throw up our hands and preordain our defeat. Let us fight for this, and maybe if we get close to success, we can break the bipartisan anti-tax fever that has afflicted Beacon Hill for too long.
I think the most accurate description is also the most advantageous politically:
We have to make income and wealth concentration our biggest issue.
We don’t have to amend the constitution to raise the capital gains tax or the estate/gift tax. We can raise the personal income tax — and personal exemptions — anytime we choose.
The problem we face is income and wealth concentration. The handful of us who have far more than they need have already shifted the bulk of the tax burden to the 99% of us who have far less than we need.
We need to clawback and redistribute that wealth, and taxing the very wealthy is the best way to accomplish that. A graduated income tax is one tool among many.
While I agree that, in the fullness of time, we need a graduated income tax, I think that right now we need an IMMEDIATE response to an IMMEDIATE crisis.
But I’d be concerned about raising the estate tax, and would even be interested in running some numbers to see whether we could capture more revenue from it by bringing the exemptions and rates more into line with those in competitor states.
The problem with the estate tax, specifically, is that high-net-worth seniors who aren’t quite among the super-wealthy have a powerful incentive now to establish primary residence in low-estate-tax jurisdictions like Florida, and anecdotally at least, a very high proportion of them do that. And in my own experience, the majority don’t necessarily want to leave Massachusetts. They’ll buy a place in another state and live there the minimum number of days necessary under the tax code. Working adults don’t do this, for the most part, so we don’t have the same practical concerns with other taxes; but an astonishingly high percentage of the retirees I know who would have taxable estates are taking this route, and the holdouts are pressured by their friends and advisors every single week.
Which makes me wonder whether there isn’t some tax rate at which we would be raising more revenue by reducing incentives for tax exile than we do by keeping the estate tax relatively high. I don’t pretend to know the answer to the question, but I do know that at least some money is certainly being lost now: we wouldn’t have to come near matching Florida’s zero estate tax to keep some of these folks.
They magically become MA residents again when they have protected all their ‘sacred savings’ so they can have Medicaid pay their nursing home bills.
I remember Bill Weld wanted a 1 year residency in MA before qualifying for Medicaid to prevent this ploy, but was shot down by the Feds because while they cannot dictate what is covered (NH doesn’t pay for nursing home care while we do, for example) they do determine eligibility.
The ones I’m aware of aren’t going to be relying on Medicaid for nursing home bills, unless there’s a huge economic cataclysm. The reason I’m fretting about revenue loss is that they’re the people whose net worth is such that they’d be contributing to our estate tax revenue if they were still taxable as Massachusetts citizens. I don’t know whether this is a genuine Commonwealth-wide issue or whether I happen to know an unusual cluster of cases, but if it’s something where there’s enough information to do some real analysis, I do think it would be worth checking on the off chance that we could pick up some extra money from reform.
They USE it.
By placing real estate in a trust with a life estate for use so they keep control, by putting all the cash into insurance policies like a Variable Life so it goes to the heirs without taxes, by deliberately impoverishing themselves ON PAPER – the VERY well to do get to live free in nursing homes on the dime of the taxpayer. I live on Cape Cod where this is a cottage industry. There are SEMINARS on how to beat the 5 year look back! There are ads on WBZ on how to avoid paying ‘outrageous’ nursing home fees.
That is why talk about illegal immigrants driving up Medicaid drive me batty. It’s YOUR DAMN GRANNY who is leading the charge, just one more way my baby boom contemporaries are screwing their grandchildren…only THEIR grandchildren will be fine, since all the money is squirreled away.
for more http://www.margolis.com/Our-Blog/bid/80943/What-is-a-Life-Estate-and-Why-Would-You-Want-One-Massachusetts
And I know about the planning seminars, and the continuing tennis match between the anti-abuse rules and the creative shielding of assets. It’s simply that the people I’m talking about are not doing this with their tax planning. They’re doing something, certainly (and to be honest, I try not to know what precisely the something is, because I hate talking about other people’s money), but they appear to be doing it while simultaneously making plans for buy-ins to upscale assisted-living communities, and home care, and et cetera. I’m not arguing that the folks you’re talking about aren’t real; they’re just not exactly the same people I’m talking about.
Sheltering their money so they can buy into high scale assisted living and be eligible for medicaid ?
Just plain tax cheats no doubt signing petitions telling Government to keep their hands off Medicare and voting against 2 1/2 over rides for schools.
Let me introduce the immigrant Grannies in my neighbor hood who cook all day for their sons and daughters who work two jobs each and dress their grandchildren for school. No SS, no medicare, no income at all.
Sorry mimolette, I know you only were intending to be kind and respecting privacy of others.
She was a frugal facilities manager for Digital for her prime earning years and moved to Florida upon retirement where she left a moderately complicated estate.
My stepdad watches over it all now. I am a modest beneficiary, getting a few checks a year that fall well below taxable gift limits. I don’t think she gamed the system up here with a dual citizenship. But I imagine it happens.
I was offered her place when I went down there to help with funeral arrangements, a funny double wide in an elder colony on the Gulf Coast south of Tampa.. I said.. “naah we’ll just sort it out when the time cones.”
I couldn’t stand Florida for the brief time I was there, let alone owning anything. It is a bleak, hot malaria swamp half stomped by a complex patchwork of sketchy and often repulsive real estate speculations.
If people are willing to put up with that, more power to em, but I’ll live out my days here and solve the problem by staying poor.
Gee, why are the checks carefully below the taxable limit? Gee, why was the buy-in into the assisted living unit in the name of a trust?
They were all frugal, careful, nice people who happened to buy real estate that has appreciated 400% over the decades, and only wanted to set things up so their children would always be comfortable with some tax-free, off the books, money. And they are all, all, honorable men.
.
If we had universal health care or however you want to call “socialized medical care” in this country, so many things like estate trusts and the like would be minimized.
The only positive thing I can recall about our stupid medical care in the USA is that without it, Breaking Bad would never have been made.
For example, the GIC does not offer insurance for nursing home care. Instead, they enable the poverty charade of asset hiding. This will continue until we have asset testing for Medicaid – but that will just trigger another round of avoidance seminars, like the change from a 2 year to 5 year look-back did.
I do not understand why this is on Medicaid at all – why not MediCARE? It is for seniors by and large, and special provision could be made for those under 65 with a disability for nursing home care. It merely blurs the real number of poor who are on the system. But, since not all states cover it at all, the Federal program punts it back to the states via their universal care which, by their own admission, only covers about 70% of expenses which necessitates the purchase of Medicare supplement policies by those who can afford them (and the GIC has really CHEAP ones). I imagine this would be carried forward in that national system you speak of – supplements for those who can pay, and big bills for the others.
Why have private insurance as the primary control? I can see the possibility of private medical insurance for some, in the same way I can see the need for bodyguards for some who want more than police protection, but for 99.99% of us….eliminate the added cost of a private insurance company and it’s useless overhead.
…30 – 50 % of your medical bills without insurance, be my guest. And hope you never need surgery or have a chronic illness.
Not out of pocket.
One short answer is to do the same at the national level.
My point is that we have slashed these generational transfer taxes, in comparison to their historic levels in the US, and as a result are recreating precisely the English class system here that our founders fought vigorously to prevent.
It is ironic that the push to accomplish this comes from the same political party who claims to revere those founding fathers so much that it treats their words as infallible scripture.
and the value of nothing. In politics, as in life, you either pay now or pay later.
Senator Eldridge is right on the mark again. Our tax policies have been penny wise and pound foolish and now we are reaping what we sowed.
Why don’t we all commit now to use this latest transportation fiasco as a teachable moment and re-dedicate ourselves to speaking out loud and clear for progressive economic policy starting with raising the income tax rate back to 5.95% ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
We’ve been down this road. The legislation and text is already written.
Our first step should be to put forward Deval Patrick’s 2012 budget proposal. After Mr. Baker vetoes it, override the veto.
ACT NOW!
It’s simpler and achieves the same ends. It’s already (re-)filed.
Pressure needed to get it out of committee so it can see light of day (which it never has). One strategic problem of the 2013 revenue failure, as I saw it play out w/ my legislator, Rep Garlick, is that it was easy for Legislators to say, “oh the complex elimination of deductions in the Gov’s proposal would hurt too much!” — and the proposal WAS complex/confusing enough that this could shut down whole conversation.
Act to Invest is simple. Raise the rate, raise the exemption. The wealthier will pay slightly more, everyone else stays vaguely the same or slightly better. [see charts]
It also increases the capital gains.
As written last session, it would have raised $2 Billion dollars. From the wealthiest.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. And it would have the benefit of being authored in the Legislature — another butthurt problem with the Gov’s plan last go-round.
The political Win is right there for Democrats to seize. I really wonder if they have the chops to make it happen.
This exchange I had on twitter w/ Sen Downing was disappointingly hedging. And typical of most encounters I’ve had with legislators on the question of progressive revenue over the last several years now.
Frustrating. Take a page from Elizabeth Warren, people!
I think that last go round with revenue, the coalition was too scared to talk in the kind of stark terms that we know works. I know that the messaging was poll tested, but at the end of the day we didn’t win.
The campaign focused on the message of investment: We need revenue. We have needs. We should fund it. Yes yes and yes.
But we need to also address the middle- and working class and poor citizens where they’re at right out of the gate, which is a legitimate complaint, “I don’t think I can afford to pay more.”
Let’s be plain about what we’re talking about. Making it fair because it’s not now, and it’s the Rich who are getting away with it:
I agree that we should be talking about changing the income tax rate. The lege should start with repealing the auto roll-back, even if it is only to move surplus revenue towards pensions and retiree health care debt reduction. Those unfunded liabilities are a major cause for our less than perfect credit-worthiness according to the bond rating agencies. And please, legislators, no more rebates when we do not fund basic services.
I would be very happy to see an increase in the income tax. But let’s not tie ourselves to the 5.95% figure. It is a weird number and does not reflect our needs. Let’s first determine how much revenue the Commonwealth needs and then set a rate.
I’ve been talking about Governor, We Have a Revenue Problem!
Aside from people who are ideologically resistant to or financially threatened by a tax increase, I think there are TWO problems that face progressives: 1) most people don’t understand what the state budget pays for (I have people in my town who don’t realize that much of our budget is funded by state aid) 2) it’s been so long since anyone talked about tax increases that progressives have to start from the beginning.
Thanks, Senator. I hope you enjoy working with my friend Eric Lesser!
Personally, I don’t think that this is, strictly speaking, true. But even if it were definitively true, I’m compelled to ask ‘so what?’ It’s a bit of a political catch-22: if the intent of getting elected is merely to continue to get elected then they are not actually executing on representation and would thus end up deserving to be ousted pro forma, if the electorate was capable of testing for that specie of sincerity.
The other catch-22 is just this: if legislators used one term to make changes for the better, than changes for the better would, I daresay, help them to a second term. If they make changes for the better during that second term, then they may find themselves coasting to a third… As it is, it appears that many spend so much time resisting change for the better out of fear of losing that next term, that they have that much more to claw and scratch and struggle during the election for that second term. Why would they want to get a position that affects change and not affect change for fear of losing that position? Swing for the fences, I say.
Note, I’m not accusing you, Sen Eldridge of holding this view. But you did bring it up and I am just replying to your thoughts on the subject with my thoughts on the subject.
We need to sell the idea of a tax increase. Republicans and the right have been successful selling the idea that taxes are at best, a necessary evil and at worse, theft.
So how do we sell taxes as good and how do we do so in simple terms that anyone can understand?
I can think of a few ideas off the top.
We all know that there is no free lunch. The money that we are saving in highway funds is showing up on the repair bills for our car’s suspension and tires. The money that we saved with low taxes and austerity for the MBTA is showing up with what we have today. We keep cutting taxes in Massachusetts and each time we do, we wind up paying more in the end.
Taxes are an ounce of prevention.
to wrap your head around throwing more money at a dysfunctional authority. Every few years, we are treated to more media stories about mismanagement, waste, nepotism, and the like. This coming on the heels of the ever increasing costs of taking the T/commuter rail. I think the authority needs a PR makeover first. Here’s one of the latest: http://www.wcvb.com/news/team-5-whistleblower-says-safety-issues-fraud-political-favoritism-at-t/27223748 And this is old news here at BMG – here’s a piece from 2009: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2009/04/time-to-reboot-the-mbta/ and there’s been no “reboot” in the interim. I recognize it’s an authority, If we want an “ounce of prevention” by providing tax dollars, then let’s reform this broken agency first.
We have made great strides in addressing the corruption issues in the MBTA that we discussed in that thread.
We have done NOTHING about the debt service issue (in fact, we’ve made it worse by deferring it), and NOTHING about the investment in maintenance and safety.
Ms. Smith said, several times in her interview, “it’s not about me”. She’s right. It’s also not about THIS agency. If the agency needs to be dissolved and replaced, then lets put that on the table and discuss it.
Doing nothing is not an option. “Reforming this broken agency first” — especially a PR makeover — strikes me as synonymous with doing nothing.
What we MUST do is FUND public rail transportation. Now.
They closed the loop on double dipping – but the issues with the MBTA go far beyond the pensioners going for another bite of the apple.
Report says agency could have saved $11 million dollars…from April 2014:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/17/report-alleges-mbta-wasted-millions-station-renovation-projects-through-poor-planning/OTALOAxAOuTKT4tyW5kCVP/story.html
If we don’t address the management issues, the waste issues…well, then it’s still hard to wrap one’s head around tossing more money at the MBTA.
Take another look at the annual debt service the MBTA is burdened with. The budget is here, page 11 is where you’ll find the answer.
Let me help you out:
Your talking about $11 M in an FY 2015 budget with $1.93 B in total operating expenses. That’s 0.5%. Try that number again: ZERO POINT FIVE PERCENT of the budgeted expenditures.
Please, get serious.
Try wrapping your head around what happens to the state if the MBTA is shut down. Was traffic on the highways in and out of Boston better or worse this week? Was gridlock in the city better or worse this week?
The compelling force that drove the Big Dig was the reality that all of the alternatives were more expensive. Doing nothing was not an option, the Central Artery was falling down.
The MBTA is falling down. You’re talking about $11M — look again at what doing nothing (which is your proposal) will cost all of us.
Is still a lot of money and dismissing the very real public perception that the MBTA is a wasteful, dysfunction authority won’t make the public clamor to invest in it when they’re not being good stewards of the funds they have. I am far from suggesting doing nothing. I am suggesting that the “business model” under which the T operates is inefficient and in need of reform. It needs to be accountable.
Please — offer an alternative “business model”.
Ignoring a failing authority’s financial and managerial failings and tossing more money won’t fix the problem.
The business model needs to be calibrated to the city. what works efficiently in one city won’t necessarily work in another. But for starters, I suggest a delayering project, followed by a transformation/turnaround project. That’s how they’ll get the right business model. The T needs help and it’s Board doesn’t have the political will to do the job. We can do better and our citizens deserve better.
I followed a prior link to see what the points were. It is moderately specious crap.
There are objections to rail expansions that overlook the role Fed support played in that expansion. They also whine about the Big Dig remediation costs and flogged Greenbush for a bit.
There was the predictable sullen jealousy about pensions from those good for nothing mooch unions and the disgusting tendency to add employees.
There was a little plug for privatization of more bus route with sub contractors.
All in all, it’s your basic run of glibertarian assertions tidied up a bit to seem rigorous and presentable.
That was particularly cute as they betray little understanding about how much it sucked to have that route controlled by a CSX dispatcher at their Selkirk headquarters instead of from the T.
That’s the point where you discover that they really don’t know jack about system issues and cooked it all up to have something to sell to comparable ignoramuses.
A report from the State House today in part from the State House News.
And the reality is that until there is a widely respected public leader who can lead a statewide campaign to build public support in every state rep and senator’s district for comprehensive tax reform, or even a clever small revenue source like eliminating sales tax exemptions and target it to the T or to education, or to state parks we have to do with what we got and even defend that!!
…and which I pulled out to highlight earlier:
Advocates willing to stay inside the comfortable boundaries set forth by Leadership. Pre-concessions.
We have the Leader we have — potentially for another 10 years or more. WE need to MOVE the Legislature. Not wait for the Legislature to be predisposed to move toward us.
Sorry, I fundamentally disagree with this.
it’s starts at home Harmony. With all of us.
We are organizing, grassroots-style, and communicating with our delegation. Is your question, “Have you succeeded in getting Rep Garlick to betray the Dear Leader?” If so, then No, I have not.
Is there more to the question?
and convince them to support new revenues, besides organizing ennough of your neighbors and friends to communicate their support for new revenues to them.
I’m happy to have answered your question then.
I don’t care how we do it.
The most important reality is happening all around us: our public rail transportation system has collapsed. It has collapsed because of DECADES of under-funding.
The fact that our Governor and the Speaker of the House are STILL blathering about “No new taxes” says to me that each has his head buried deeply in the sand.
I see no evidence of reality-based thinking (never mind anything else) from our political leadership. We MUST change that.
I leave the specifics to the political professionals, they’re supposed to be good at that. RIGHT NOW is the time for those political professionals to show us how to solve our leadership problem.
Those same political professionals brought us two inexperienced dudes riding a wave of ‘hope and change’ and ‘transforming politics’, who ended up having no idea how to harness their grassroots supporters to act as a third party check on their own legislative allies let alone mitigate against their foes. Deval had a first rate precinct level door knocking operation that sat doormant for 8 years, OFA was a national version of that.
So no, no more political professionals. Let’s create a grassroots progressive movement that can get it’s voices heard in the corridors of power, get primary challengers at the state legislative level, and sweep away the dust that has settled on Beacon Hill at all levels-not just the Corner Office.
Frankly, I am resigned to the fact that we are unlikely to beat Baker in 4 years. We are either likely to nominate another boring establishment pick like Coakley who loses, or an exciting nominee like Eldridge, Curtatone, Driscoll, or Chang-Diaz-or somebody totally different-will face the same hurdles Deval did and be a lone wolf slamming their head against a desk for 4-8 years.
Fuck the Corner Office. Let’s take back our ‘Democratic’ majority.
I love the idea of grassroots progressive movement. Sadly, I’ve loved it for a long time and the election of Elizabeth Warren is our high-water mark so far.
I think we need folks like Judy Meredith working the inside while we work the outside. She and I have our differences, but she knows the turf far better than me.
I think that even Judy agrees that what we’re seeing today — a resounding “no new taxes” from Mr. DeLeo and an equally resounding “I’m outta here” from the most qualified MBTA director we’ve had in decades — is a disaster for the governance.
I think we need all the help we can get, from everywhere it’s offered.
I’d call it a cesspool
Organize and mobilize grassroots campaigns to raise revenues, that turned out to be top down lobbying campaigns by lobbyists of organizations who were unable to organize their own base/members to lobby their legislators for new taxes. And I confess, including low income people on taxes for the rich who hoped they might be someday.
I’m serious, we need a powerful public figure to help local opinion makers convince local residents ..to support new taxes before we even think about “moving our legislature.” It’s not Republicans, it’s not big money, it’s our family members, our neighbors, it’s us reform before funding good citizens.
Just do nothing until they want something done.
The general public here has always been a lot shrewder than the various handlers and managers think they are.
It’s the Harvard disease and years, hell decades, of it has made the public pretty immune to this expertise that rarely had the decency to just ask them instead of telling them or making assumptions.
Maybe it’s twilight of the duds and the people will come around if the various experts can finally shut up and start asking instead of telling, as with a certain international spectacle thingie that is probably now doomed.
for Godot after I read the play in 1976. LOL
There are few, if any, “widely respected public leaders” in MA today. Leaders are made, not born, after they have gone through the heat of battle. Your defense of legislators who are content to play the insider game you excel at guarantees that the lege will not produce a leader. No fight = no leader, but good mayor, member of Congress or DA has a chance at gaining trust.
Capuano wants it but I would prefer McGovern and would be happy with Curtatone.
Deval was such a leader in his campaign until he blew it in the first two months of his administration by ignoring his closest allies who brought him past the primary.
Today presents a different game. We all need to privately and politely squeeze legislative progressives, and publicly excoriate them if they do not stand with us. Polite discussions about why liberal Reps should not be held to account are just more inside baseball, which is the antithesis of grassroots democracy.
From Sen. Eldridge, advocates who are “…deferring decisions on state tax policy to a small circle of decision-makers…”
That hasn’t worked. We’ve had the Top Down coalitions. We’ve elected more of our friends.
The pose — “Welp, DeLeo has pulled a Baker and said, #ReadMyLips, No New Taxes! Now we must fight for and protect our scraps and crumbs, because there isnt’ enough for everything!” — is pathetic. Or, if your goal is ONLY to keep the scraps, and nothing more, fine. Have at it — but that doesn’t seem like a great long-term game to me.
I’m not inside-the-building. I’m a citizen, and my tools are my voice and my relationships and my vote and my ability to call into my legislators. I do those things, and then I do more, organizing my community to do the same, consciousness-raising when/where I can, trying to amplify.
The game has to change. The revenue has to change. I’m not content saying, “I’m going to sit back and wait for it to change. I hope it does!”
Why can’t the t supporters simply refuse to support their colleagues projects and wishes? Why is this a one-way street that we have to do all the begging and pleading ourselves?
represents a multitude of interests and since very few put the MBTA as their first priority, it suffers during the agenda setting process. If Rep Smith puts tobacco control in the first post, she might trade off her support for a larger T budget. If Sen Jones puts enviro protection in the first slot, he might hold back on pushing hard for the T.
There are a multitude of caucuses committed to various issues in the lege. Some are successful but most objectively exist to provide cover for legislators who want to “prove” their commitment to an issue, especially when they are not willing to go to the mat for that issue. Denise Provost, who is wonderful but not held in especially high esteem on the Hill (she is too principled to be valued by the deal makers), is a rare exception for the T.
I have written here, extensively, about the “culture of corruption” in Massachusetts government.
That one line — “[Denise Provost] is too principled to be valued by the deal makers” — says it all.