(How Trumpism might play out in Massachusetts. One of a probably lengthy series.)
Governor Charlie Baker, back from a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, held a press conference yesterday to offer his first extended remarks after the presidential election.
If, like Attorney General Maura Healey, you were hoping for a forceful denunciation of the presence of a white nationalist in the West Wing, you were disappointed: Governor Baker is willing to hold the record open for more evidence against Steve Bannon before issuing a judgment. On most other subjects Baker took refuge in the comparatively comforting words of Mike Pence (!), who called for a “very deliberate and significant dialogue,” yada-yada.
Baker’s strategy of not confronting the President-elect was, if not courageous, probably fiscally prudent. After all, more than one-quarter of revenue for the state’s annual budget ($39 billion this year) comes from federal reimbursements. Much of that federal funding supports our universal health care plan. That health care money was on a track to expire, but fortunately four days before the election, the Baker administration was able to secure a commitment from the Obama administration to provide nearly $60 billion over the next five years. Good news for sure — although it’s quite alarming that the feds’ promise is now reliant on a president who in the past has considered defaulting on the nation’s debt as a nifty solution to budgetary problems.
Health care is not the only program under threat from Trump administration policies. Our state Earned Income Tax Credit Program, which helps more than 400,000 families in Massachusetts who earn $50,000 or less, is, as a practical matter, in jeopardy as well. Governor Baker is a big supporter of the state EITC, and an increase to that program (the first in 16 years) was one of his first year policy successes. The state EITC program is still a modest one even with the increase (the average benefit will rise to $500 per family this year), but it’s nevertheless a step toward reducing income inequality, a disorder that Massachusetts suffers from in the extreme.
The tax overhaul that Trump is proposing is especially generous to the wealthy and especially hard on lower-income families, including those who receive the Earned Income Tax Credit. His plan would entirely eliminate the head of household filing status and the deduction for dependents, both of which help to reduce the tax burden owed by EITC families.
The Trump tax proposals, to take just one example from the Tax Policy Institute, would increase the federal tax bill of a couple with four children making $50,000 a year from $210 to $1090. That result would swallow the benefit of the family’s state EITC several times over.We’re looking, in other words, at the prospect of a state EITC program that in many cases no longer helps low-income families directly but instead simply goes to help to pay their (newly-increased) share of federal taxes. How many things are wrong with that picture?
I wonder how much federal funding is still required for the GLX.
When the new administration takes office, I think all bets are off for anything that benefits Massachusetts.
Too bad Hillary never ran an ad attacking it.
I spent much of September and October in Montgomery County MD, just outside Washington DC.
I saw and heard many ads from Ms. Clinton attacking the Donald Trump tax — this information was out there, at least in MD. Those ads may not have been as visible here in MA as they were there.
I think comments like this miss the point. I am convinced that there was no media strategy available to Hillary Clinton or the Democrats that would have made any measurable difference in the outcome.
In my view, the voters who turned out to vote for Mr. Trump were immune to ANY media information that came from the Democratic Party or the Hillary Clinton campaign. The voters who chose not to show up were similarly not going to influenced by media campaigns.
In my opinion, the issues we face are not going to be solved by different ad content.
I’m under the distinct impression that the media market in Gaithersburg MD includes northern Virginia, eastern West Virginia, and southern Pennsylvania.
I heard lots of ads from each candidate. I met and spoke with lots of Donald Trump supporters.
In all candor, nearly all of them that I met (dozens) were cast from the “good ol boy” mold I knew so well from growing up there. I’m not talking about the caricatures of country music or the “Dukes of Hazard”. I’m talking about real people, nearly all white men, that I met fishing on the banks of the Potomac river, or sitting on the front porch of a country store waiting for the afternoon to cool off a bit, or pushing a broom with me on the janitorial crew of the local Montgomery Wards during the summer, or mowing greens with me on the public golf course I worked on one summer.
These men barely tolerated Barack Obama (they were shocked he was elected, and never had much use of “colored” anyway) and absolutely despise Hillary Clinton (just another ball-buster).
Old-time
Modern-day
I get that it’s not PC here on BMG to verbalize this reality about this segment of Donald Trump’s supporters.
I’m just saying that the bromides I hear us talk about — GOTV, media campaigns that “go high”, outreach committees from the DNC — roll off the backs of these guys like water from a duck.
They are NOT going to vote for a woman for president, EVER. They are NOT going to vote for another black for president, EVER. They do NOT want to spend a nickel helping “colored”, or women, or “wetbacks”, or anybody else. They are NOT going to listen to “libruls” about anything.
Like it or not, these are the men (and most of them have wives and girlfriends that feel the same) that Mitch McConnell pandered to when he promised to bring down Barack Obama. These are the men that Donald Trump pandered to in his “birther” madness. These guys show up at Tea Party rallies.
These guys are real and they are not going away. This is Donald Trump’s “base”. The rest of us need to deal with it.
You are describing the Dixiecrat who long ago became a Republican and who was Romney’s base as well as Trump’s for the same reason. Of course they like their dog whistle shouted from a bull horn, so they were more excited about Trump.
But let us not pretend the Republican Party hasn’t been their home since the Civil Rights Act. That does a disservice to the blacks abandoned by the Party of Lincoln for nearly two generations now, as it has embraced people like this. These have always been deplorable, and they were always the GOP base.
I am talking about the Rust Belt voter who went for Obama twice and went for Trump today because they want ‘change’ and ‘sticking it to the system’. The folks I met at bungalows with Proud Union Home who also had ‘I’m Pro Life and I vote’ or NRA decals on the door or on their pickups. These folks voted for Obama twice, I saw plenty of pickups with both stickers on it in 2008 and 2012 when I campaigned in the Rust Belt. Many of them voted for Trump this time, especially my own Irish Catholic tribe. And it wasn’t because Obama is black or Hillary was a woman, it’s because he promised to save their jobs and punish the elites who profited off their towns demise.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-ohio-town-voted-for-obama-by-huge-margins-then-it-flipped-to-trump-heres-why_us_582c9e20e4b099512f804de2?google_editors_picks=true
I bet lots of these guys and their families are low-income taxpayers likely to be hurt by the Trump tax plan.
I think you’re absolutely right about that. I have to tell you that right now, in my own anger and fear about whatever comes next, my reaction seems to be evolving towards “You broke it, you own it.”
I think that perhaps some “tough love” from we Democrats is in order for America’s heartland. Perhaps after things get many times worse under our president and the GOP, our agenda may be more welcome.
Another auto plant announced they were not leaving.
If you’re talking about the Ford plant in Louisville, KY, then perhaps I might remind you that Ford never said anything about the plant moving in the first place. In fact, there was no impact at all.
This is just more GOP fake news.
…which means ads run were probably mostly targeting Virginia and maybe a bit of WV. I don’t suppose there’s a good answer to why in the world there are still so many with racial and gender attitudes like you describe in 2016. That feels soooo 1950s!
n/m
This should be the top priority for every politically active progressive in this state for the next two years.
Also the state could gain net jobs and money under Trump since we have an unusually high concentration of defense contractors. Bad for the country and the planet but good for the Bay State.
Sen. Birmingham kept shutting them down because he didn’t want to address other items on the agenda there. And some of them will likely recur.
It isn’t a law, it’s baked into the Constitution, ironically by a generation of goo-goos 100 years ago, who wanted to make sure we WOULDN’T have a progressive tax rate as it is too easy for the rich to move assets. The flat rate was proposed so the rich would have to pay SOMETHING.
In May the ConCon voted 135-57 to allow the constitutional amendment to go forward — 50 votes were needed. I’d bet another ConCon will happen in 2017 or 2018, and another 50+ yes votes will put the question on the 2018 statewide ballot.
David has argued more than once that the prevailing interpretation of the relevant constitutional clause is not necessarily and absolutely the right one.
David has argued, but the SJC has already ruled on this issue. Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, Inc. vs. Secretary of Administration, 398 Mass 40 (1986). Its settled law.
Had Hillary Clinton simply said this during the debates, I think she would have won.