This according to today’s WBUR polls on the three ballot initiatives next fall to raise taxes on millionaires, lower the regressive sales tax, and guarantee paid family leave for all residents. All polling with comfortable majorities. Paid leave af 82%, Millionaires Tax at 69%, and the Sales Tax Cut at 69%.
You might even call those numbers supermajorities, which is why it’s still shocking to me these had to go to the ballot in the first place. The silver lining is numbers like these are just a starting point as the campaign begins in earnest after January, and if they hold through November, they will be impossible for future legislative supermajorities to ignore.
Putting money in middle class pockets, providing young growing families with an extra layer of security, and soaking the rich a little more to pay for all of it is a win win. Helping ordinary people save money at the cash register is a nice bonus.
Are these binding? (Not that the Legislature cares.)
The millionaires tax sucharge would be binding because it’s a constitutional amendment. The others are mere statutes that could be tinkered with (marijuana) or repealed (clean elections)
It’s complicated.
If the sales tax cut passes along with the millionaires tax surcharge, the result will be a $1 billion or greater hit to state revenue (for areas other than transportation and education, where the revenues from the surcharge go). Would a family be better off by saving money at the cash register or by maintaining close to current levels of state spending?
And what if the millionaires tax surcharge is knocked off the ballot and the sales tax cut passes? Then the size of the hole in our state revenue grows by $1 billion or more a year with no additional revenue for transportation and education.
(Also, another complication: if the sales tax cut passes, retailers, who are now getting squeezed by tax-free e-commerce, will be happy, but if either or both of the paid leave and $15 minimum wage questions also pass, their costs will increase, offsetting some of their gains to the benefit of families who don’t have paid leave or work at jobs at the current minimum wage.)
If only there were a body of elected officials with the power to consider all these issues and make responsible decisions for the welfare of the state as a whole.