The State Senate began debate on the annual budget today, and lo — it came to pass that the Senators voted (29-11) to adopt an amendment that will raise additional revenues and will do so in a progressive way!
The amendment freezes the state income tax rate at the current 5.15 percent, repealing a formula enacted in 2002 that automatically reduces the income tax rate when certain fiscal benchmarks are met. This formula has reduced the income tax from 5.3 percent to 5.15 percent since 2002. (Our friends at MassBudget have prepared this excellent analysis of the reasons that this formula compounds the problems of recent declines in state revenue.)
The amendment allocates some of the new revenue resulting from the income tax freeze to increasing the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit program, which helps low-income individuals and families meet the high cost of living in Massachusetts. The amendment also increases the personal income tax exemption, which benefits all taxpayers. Pending some more number crunching, I’ll speculate that for most taxpayers, the increase in the exemption will offset the freeze in the tax rate. The taxpayers for whom the increase in the exemption is least likely to offset the freeze in the tax rate are those at the upper part of the income spectrum.
So, good on the Senate. Will the House go along when the Senate and House meet to reconcile their respective budgets? As of now, the signs are not so good. Speaker DeLeo is vexed at the Senate for even debating tax policy when, in his view, the House did not relinquish its sole power to originate what our State Constitution calls “money bills.” He’s even threatening to go to court over the whole thing. For real. Details here.
In any event, it’s a sure thing that the Speaker won’t go along unless his members convince him to do so.
(Cross-posted here).
HP, in my dotage I forget whether there is a parliamentarian for conference committees. Do you know if it is the House or Senate Clerk, or is there no such position? I don’t think this is in the JRs but it may have been subject to ruling(s) by the chair. Note that joint sessions of the lege are presided over by the President and the parliamentarian is the Senate Clerk.
If the House Clerk is the parliamentarian, then he will rule in conference the Senate action is a violation of the Constitutional requirement that money bills originate in the House. The Senate Clerk would rule otherwise. If there is no parliamentarian, then this fight branches out in multiple directions from the conference committee.
We should assume that the House and Senate leadership and Clerks have each run through a dozen scenarios about how to stop/protect the Senate gambit, starting with refusing to admit the Senate budget to the House floor and on to refusing to admit a conference committee report that includes tax language, along with other strategies ending in the final item which is House determination of the details of the final tax package and at what price to the Senate leadership. Heck, I am not even in the MA game any more and saw this coming on day one. Mind you, I agree with the Senate proposal and the general strategy, but you have to play the other side’s hand also.
The editor’s note “Senate 1, House 0” is a glib and useless observation. This is not volleyball and it sure ain’t beanbag. We don’t always need editorial commentary. In this case it sets an unwarranted expectation of who is “winning.”
…but it’s a sure thing that the tax issue will play out in the conference committee negotiations. I’d expect that the House position in conference to be — our members did not take up any tax measures, so we won’t agree to the Senate proposals in conference.
Here’s what I don’t get: the House-Senate agreement (the one that has been in effect until just a few weeks ago, apparently) that a money bill “may either reduce general state tax revenue or increase state tax revenue” gives the House pretty close to complete control over when tax policy is the subject of discussion. The House position now seems to be that only bills that raise taxes are money bills. So the House wants to win this battle by ceding a lot of its present power? Odd bargaining position.
I just hope that the Senate’s action yesterday succeeds in getting the House to take another look at the state’s tax policy — soon. Whether it happens as part of the annual budget or through some other vehicle, our tax policy has to be changed to alleviate the growing problem of income inequality. It’ll take some political pressure for that to happen, but at least the Senate has gotten the conversation started.
I was not aware of the previous House-Senate agreement on the definition of money bills, but my recollection is that the historic understanding was that only initiating tax increases was off limits to the Senate, although I cannot recall any instances where the Senate tried to reduce revenues when the House had not initiated a money bill.
Between Noah, David Sullivan, St George, Braude and Charlie Flaherty, you certainly know someone who can answer this. I am out of the US and out of the MA game so the ball is in your court if you want to get a jump on how this plays in conference.
And I agree 100% with your final paragraph.
Let me first say that I enthusiastically support this measure. The state needs every penny it can get, and taxes on what’s left of our vanishing middle class and working class (including our working poor) are already too high in comparison to our upper 20% and in particular our upper 1% (and above).
Still, this measure is, like the minimum wage bill passed last year, barely a baby step. The language of this post distorts reality. I understand why, I would do the same if writing it, and such hyperbole is sadly necessary in today’s dysfunctional Massachusetts political climate. But it is a distortion nevertheless.
This bill does NOT “raise additional revenues”. It instead blocks anticipated income tax cuts. The increased EITC payments are a great idea — this proposal does not fund them, any more than eliminating the film tax credit would fund a similar expansion. If both this proposal and the film tax credit elimination came to pass, I’ve heard no proposal that the EITC expansion be doubled. We could just as accurately argue that EITC payments are being funded by not increasing local aid.
While I support this measure, the hyperbole about it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s too much like a slumlord who reluctantly, after much whining and wailing, agrees to put buckets under the leaking roof and bait the rat traps more frequently. Both steps are necessary, and neither step addresses the underlying problem.
that the Senate amendment “blocks anticipated tax cuts.” But those tax cuts are going to happen unless the law changes. And if the law does change, the state will have “additional revenues,” so I think what I wrote is true as well.
(But, as usual, you make an important point.)
Like I said, I support the proposal and it is certainly necessary.
I didn’t mean to say that your statement isn’t factual, it’s more like one of those times when “fact” and “truth” are at least dissimilar, if not outright different. If I’m on a contract that stipulates a cut in an out year, and was informed that the contract is changed to eliminate that cut, I’m not sure I’d tell my family that I had received a raise. I’d welcome the change, but for me at least avoiding a salary cut is different from getting a raise.
To me, the sad part is that we’re quibbling like this when I would rather be discussing genuine tax increases for the wealthy and very wealthy.
ST wrote:
I would rather be discussing genuine tax increases for the wealthy and very wealthy.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the 2018 election cycle. Talk on BMG is easy but the best that will happen during the Baker-DeLeo years is exactly of the sort that Sen Downing has proposed (and you kinda trashed in your first response to HP). Incrementalism is the rule in public policy under most circumstances, especially when there is a balance of power as we now see. Elections have consequences.
And, despite the commentary of a few BMGers here within the past two weeks, the notion that Baker has no power is complete BS and could only be written by people with no experience in the State House.
What power does Baker have that Deval doesn’t to move this agenda? Other than the center-right orientation and general priority alignment he shares with DeLeo, who will move the whole House his way? What parliamentarian tactics can the Governor exert? And is it clear he would be opposed to this kind of switch? On the one hand, seems like an easy way to balance the budget without raising taxes to me. On the other, I am sure his right flank wouldn’t be for it.
I get that you have a lot more experience than most of us on the inside, some of us would jump at the chance to work on the inside, but for now, most of us are on the outside. Providing us that education is something you claim to be qualified, and would do well to help the rest of us provide the understanding you seem to think we lack.
Once again, you are fabricating what I wrote. I wrote “the notion that Baker has no power is complete BS” and you twist my simple comment by throwing Deval into the mix. Not nice and once again, incredibly dishonest, just as in our last go round. Stick to what I write and don’t fabricate words on my behalf.
So let me explain what power Baker has. This is not about “parliamentary tactics” as you ask (reminder: he is not a member of a parliamentary body). This is about executive power. He has it, in spades. He has personal power in spades also, like Weld and Deval, and unlike Swift and Cellucci.
Baker has the power to write the budget. Most obviously, he used that power to propose the film tax credit/EITC tradeoff, instantly undercutting DeLeo and the progressive legislators who are his committee chairs with the activist Democratic public. He gained against House Dems who let DeLeo tell them their position. Ouch. But I am sure Baker did not know at the time the level of acrimony between the two branches this would generate even while it plays to his advantage.
He controls capital spending. This is fucking huge and it alone destroys the notion he has no power. The lege leadership curries favor with rank-and-file members by letting them add special interest projects to capital bond bills. As a result the legislature has authorized far more capital spending than the markets will accept, by a margin of three to one the last time I checked. That means the Gov chooses only those capital projects he wants, or uses to pay political debts and rewards. Everything else sits and awaits his approval.
We have already seen Baker use his bond authority to stop the BCEC expansion, crunching the Dems strongly expressed desire to expand. Baker was being fiscally responsible (the BCEC sucks but it has become part of the Dem establishment) and he put on the brakes. Good for him, good for the taxpayers, bad for the Dem lege leadership. It is also a real sign to the rank and file that no matter what was promised by the leadership in either chamber during bond bill debates that the press release they sent to the hometown newspapers means shit.
If the B2024 bid goes forward you will see this power used in spades. No state funded capital project based on borrowing can go forward without his sole approval.
Baker has Executive branch regulatory authority. He jumped on that power with an overly broad statement about a stem to stern review/repeal process that pissed off the left for its obvious failings, but his team is not so stupid as to actually pursue the shit he wrote. Each of the regulatory fixes he truly pushes will please a larger group than dislikes it. Look at the Sen Chandler amendment from two days ago to see how pissed the Dems are at Deval for f-ing up his regulatory obligations.
Most importantly, Baker has the bully pulpit allowing him to set the agenda. There was a problem with the MBTA this winter, you might recall, and he handled it masterfully. He kept his powder dry, appointed his own commission to study the matter and they came up with the results they were supposed to: labor and management (Deval) are at fault. There has been no serious public discussion about his role in f-ing the MBTA with debt during his tenure during the Weld years, no serious discussion about state under-investment in either the MBTA or transit in general. Instead we have a debate about just how much absenteeism the employees exploit.
While he was doing that, he got DeLeo to muscle the House membership into voting against organized labor on the privatization issue. Now the two chambers will fight and give Baker a result he can live with, as the MBTA governing body means nothing as long as he is in charge. See my earlier post on this subject for more details.
He has the power to pick and choose his partners, alternating between DeLeo and Rosenberg as he sees fit and in ways they cannot contest. DeLeo has no vision, no intellectual curiosity and like most Speakers, a shocking inability to understand what the members face with their primary constituencies. He is incompetent at delivering a message and Seth Geitell was a reporter, not a message manager in his previous career. DeLeo is also less TV friendly than any recent leader in memory. Rosenberg is a smart progressive but too nerdy to connect with a mass base. Personally, he does not want to fight anybody.
Baker knows how to work with his GOP and independent base and can safely ignore the Tea Party crowd since the media agrees with him that they are crackpots. He looks good to normal people when he politely demures in engaging with them.
He has veto power. He has not had the opportunity to use it but when he does during the budget wrap-up, he will spin it far better than the legislative leadership will.
And since YOU mentioned Deval, Baker did not fuck up in his first few months in office the way Deval did, so he is incredibly popular with the public. Deval was always going to be resented by the Beacon Hill establishment as a rookie interloper and he demonstrated that to be true even while he pissed off his legislative supporters. Baker came into office with Democratic legislators afraid of him. That makes for an enormously different dynamic.
I will stop there on the issue of Baker’s powers. If you want to learn more, get into the ring. Don’t ask someone you insult to train you. Don’t tell us you want to hold office before you have earned it. And don’t ask people to hand you the keys to power. This is a democracy.
I tend to share your view that increased taxes on the wealthy and very wealthy aren’t likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
I think that, in itself, is an indictment of our current political system. I don’t care whether the governor or legislature is “Democrat” or “Republican”, and I don’t care (beyond voyeuristic cheerleading) about the balance of power between the governor and the legislature on matters like this.
What I care about is that the my adopted home of more than forty years and the state I love is hurtling further and further into disaster, and our government simply refuses to even admit — never mind solve — the problem. An MBTA that is shutdown — not delayed, but SHUT DOWN — is catastrophic. I don’t care why — the fact that, as you observe, we and our “leaders” are debating the absenteeism rate instead of asking how we solve this before next December is itself catastrophic.
The problems we face are not going to be solved until we solve the income and wealth concentration problem. The symptoms of those problems are not going to be addressed by nickle-and-diming “incremental” changes that remove a bit of crud from the silverware beside the plate in the Titanic dining room — and we’re already listing hard.
I respect your commentary, just as I respect the commentary from jconway. I wish you were as passionate in your desire to at least discuss these issues are you are to defend the status quo of how the legislature does or does not work. What do YOU think the government should be doing TODAY to allow the MBTA to stay running next winter?
The bottom line is that our government and governance is failing. I think we need all hands on deck, working together rather than arguing with each other, to change that.
where you get the notion that I am defending the status quo of the legislature. I think that I have been more detailed and more brutal in my descriptions and criticisms of the lege than pretty much anybody else here. But don’t mistake detailed description and analysis for support of the status quo.
I suspect you, jconway, and I agree on far more than we differ about.
which is why I frequently update both of you, but I am at a complete loss as to why you would characterize me in your previous one as a defender of the status quo in the legislature. Again, I offer more detailed criticism of the lege than anybody else here, although I generally don’t take the easy shot at DeLeo since everybody else has that ground covered. And that is not a complaint.
It was the last paragraph of your Thursday comment that I (over) reacted to. I interpreted that as overly harsh response to jconway. I didn’t read his answer (to which you responded) as an insult, and I bridled a bit at what I interpreted as not only a slap on the face but also a suggestion that he is unqualified to even run for office.
As I wrote upthread, I like your commentary and read it with the same enthusiasm that I used to have for my favorite columnists in the Washington Post and Boston Globe when those were real newspapers. I respect your wisdom, experience, and scar-tissue. My own desire is mostly to remind you that I suspect jconway is at least as qualified as any other rookie candidate or legislature (more so than many), and that old-farts like me have to constantly remind ourselves that we, too, were rookies once.
I’m very happy with my state rep (Denise Provost) and my national rep (Mike Capuano). If I lived in a different city or town, I’d happily vote for jconway today. In my view, he would be a welcome change from just about anybody who voted to keep Mr. DeLeo in power.
Now if Mike Capuano was to run for Governor or perhaps junior Senator, and Ms. Provost was to replace Mr. Capuano in Washington, I’d welcome the chance to support jconway as my state rep — I’d help him find one of the vanishing affordable properties in Somerville (there are still a few, if you know where to look).
One of the things I like about BMG is that there at least one or two other frequent contributors — if not more — that I would eagerly support and even work for if given the opportunity. I suspect they even know who they are. 🙂
I, of course, meant “rookie candidate or legislator”.
There’s a certain truth about the result of my typo that I like, though. 🙂
You are one of the many great progressive I have met through BMG that I will be sure to enlist in any future campaign. And again, I have nothing against TBD’s commentary at all and am honestly confused at how he or she has misread some of my comments. I do hope I clarified where I stood, and if there is still a beef, so be it. After all, you and I were once heated sparring partners and look where we are now.
I would love to live in Somerville, and the fiancee liked it a lot more than Cambridge for what it’s worth. Many of my Class of 06′ CRLS classmates are calling it and Medford home. Some exciting changes may be approaching on the career horizon that may send me back sooner than planned. We shall see and I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted.
…by which Cambridge and Somerville could be part of the same district.
My old neighborhood got put into Jehlen’s district, and Toomey has always had East Cambridge/East Somerville as his. And Somervillian Mike Capuano represents my (former) chunk of Cambridge and East Cambridge (where his office is), while the also excellent Katherine Clark represents most of the rest. And for little leaguers the Mayor’s Cup was the highlight of the season, and we are now sensibly high school football rivals as well (everett made little sense, and they always cleaned our clocks!).
ST, thank you for your very thoughtful message.
As I previously wrote, you are probably correct that you, conway and I agree on a lot. But agreement does not constitute permission to personally attack and lie about the other when you disagree. Hence my increasingly frequent objections to conway’s accusations and fabrications of what I think. I encourage readers to challenge my ideas, but putting words in my mouth or accusing me of things like his comments:
“you are saying it’s a bad thing and making the conservative point” in reference to support for social spending;
“You’re the person making the conservative talking point;” and
“I bet you think Jonathan swift really wanted Ireland to eat it’s babies too, huh?”: and
“We’re on the same side and I didn’t defame you, ”
or in a discussion of taxation on the elderly throwing in the nasty insinuation
of being anti education:
“Should I read your comment as opposition to school funding?”
If you can find three people outside of Boko Haram who are opposed to school funding then I might be willing to consider his comment as anything other than a pathetic attempt at a smear.
Conway does not understand that if you make up an accusation about somebody being anti-poor that it is a gross smear. I have no axe to grind against people who i disagree with. But he has used a string of small distortions and then outright lies to attack me in areas of my activism where he has done nothing.
My final paragraph which you indicate is a problem for you was in response to his invitation/taunt:
“Feel free to educate us”
and his comparable complaint that he deserves power now,
“we feel ready and we don’t like kissing anyone’s ass or waiting our turn. We want the keys now. “
There are thousands of people who have earned positions of leadership in CBOs and in government over the past half century. jconway thinks he gets to jump over those people who have earned community trust regardless of who has actually done something to advance the cause of social justice before he decides it is time to return to MA and claim his crown (is this a replay of season 3 or 4 of Game of Thrones?).
I would never vote for a person who shops for a district to live in and an office to run for. Anybody who thinks my community needs an outsider to come in and lead us deserves a serious beatdown. Really, Tom, you must know people in Somerville who have done good work and deserve office before a blow-in claims to be your leader.
It sounds to me as though a caucus is needed in a Somerville establishment, including you, jconway, and me and whomever else wants to attend. I’ll buy the first round. In a different time, I could also provide the cigar smoke to fill the room, but those days are gone.
I’ll wager that, even though I’ve not met either of you, the three of us could walk away friends and mutual supporters — I’ll grant that several rounds might be needed.
This medium has a unique way of inflaming false passions, in part because writing that accurately communicates both content and humanity is extraordinarily difficult — few of us are professional writers and even professional writers generally require multiple drafts and edit passes to even come close.
I can walk to pretty much anyplace in Somerville that we choose any evening we like. What say you … shall we “caucus”?
One of the few bars in the area that makes a proper old fashioned without mucking it up with some unneeded innovation. I am definitely down for that caucus!
Baker does NOT write the budget.
‘In the building’, the Governor’s budget is widely regarded as a memo/wish list which the House can look at when it writes the REAL budget. If they feel like it.
you know I was referring to H.1 and not the final budget, just as I know you were not suggesting that the House writes the final budget (which is what you wrote). Those kind of word games are usually beneath you. For those not familiar with the process, the budget runs from
Gov
House
Senate
conference committee
House acceptance
Senate acceptance
Gov for amendments and vetoes
House for veto overrides and dealing with amendments
Senate for veto overrides and dealing with amendments
Gov for further action on amendments
House for possible veto overrides
Senate for possible veto overrides
Gov’s signature
H.1 is the agenda setter for the fiscal year. That was my obvious point about gubernatorial power.
What do you call it?
A door stop.
“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
-Bobby Kennedy
I fail to see how we get change if we tell activists they can’t ask this question or shut up and only let the insiders with decades of experience do the talking. If you sincerely believe that’s how it’s gotta be done, then you really don’t understand the mission of BMG.
That said, I liked your analysis and appreciate your experience, I sincerely mean that, it contributed to a reality based discussion of what is and isn’t possible. I have no idea why you’ve consistently been grinding your axe against me since you’ve started posting here but I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way. I think you misunderstood my purpose here. Perhaps my perception that you have a cliquey “I know so much better than you all” attitude is a similar misconception. So maybe we can recognize our strengths and limitations and work together and move past this?
Here’s what he said in a post-election interview:
That’s a quality his precedessor was not so good at.