The Democratic Primary campaign is quickly turning into a battle of consultants desperate to get paid for doing something, anything. Just don’t ask us to win! Volunteers are hard to find. Maybe enough will materialize in time to form the human speedbump for Charlie Baker’s land rover this November.
But here is something that could change the direction of the campaign. The Trump tax cut has resulted in massive increases in collections for state governments:
With just two months left in fiscal 2018, tax collections of $22.7 billion are running 8.1 percent above the same 10-month period in fiscal 2017 and are outpacing benchmarks by $809 million.
In addition, Trump is coming after our state by limiting the State and Local Tax deduction (SALT).
The exploding economy is resulting in a grudging good feeling for millennials, leading to crashing numbers for Democrats nationally.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/democrats-lose-ground-with-millennials-reutersipsos-poll.html
In addition, right track/wrong track polls are trending Trump’s way, which is leading to a tightening of the generic ballot for control of Congress in 2018:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/386982-democrats-lead-is-slipping-in-generic-ballot-poll
Where are you, Blue Wave? The answer, Democrats, is to zig when they zag, and propose tax cuts to free the individual from the grip of the corporate beast, and keep our state competitive and growing. It should be easy for a candidate to break out the pack this way. Why allow those mean Republicans to take our tax money and give it to Billionaires? Why are we collecting all this money at the state level just to give it to Amazon and Jeff Bezos? Cut taxes, Democrats!
There you go again
Yes, cut taxes! Cut short the school year. Cut the size of the police and fire departments! Cut the budget of the DPW! Cut back on government safety inspections of compounding pharmacies!
Yeah, that ought to turn out just fine! I mean, what could go wrong?
Don’t cut the police, we’ll have to pay more imaginary overtime.
“The exploding economy is resulting in a grudging good feeling for millennials, leading to crashing numbers for Democrats nationally.”
Let’s see — your argument is that because the GOP has wrought such wonders with the economy that millennial support for Democrats has softened.
Neither is true. Life is precarious for young people and they are not about to flock to the party of racist old white men who so obviously are in it for … only old white men.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/17/sometimes-you-dont-feel-human-how-the-gig-economy-chews-up-and-spits-out-millennials
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/24/millennials-are-significantly-more-progressive-than-their-parents/
Every Democrat for governor is running on a tax cut for working people and a tax hike for millionaires, it is called the progressive income tax and doing so will increase the money we use for services and decrease the income taxes working people pay while eventually increasing local aid to reduce property tax burdens as well.
I don’t think the proposed “millionaire tax” will reduce state taxes for anybody. I think it will raise taxes on the wealthy. We don’t know, because I don’t think the ballot question is nearly that specific.
Here is the text:
I know of no proposal to reduce income taxes for anybody (other than the ill-advised automatic reductions already in place). I would not support such a measure even if it were offered.
In my view, all candidates and all voters must understand that we MUST raise taxes and that all of us must pay our fair share. The current state taxes paid by working people are appropriate as they are. Our wealthy residents should pay more.
I also note, again, that this new tax applies only to income.
The only effect on our wealthiest residents will be to very slightly increase the fees they pay their portfolio managers to make the necessary adjustments to keep their annual income at whatever level the wealthy taxpayer deems acceptable.
The wealthy play by different rules from the rest of us. So long as we focus on income, that will not change.
Right now everyone pays the same flat rate, under a progressive system, folks on the lower end of the scale will pay less than that flat rate percentage. I crunched the numbers awhile back for Progressive Mass. By no means will everyone get a tax cut under that proposal, and the main selling point is to increase aid to schools, fix the T, reduce in state tuition, and provide a better government for everyone.
The critical thing is we will all benefit from better funded schools, better funded transit, and better funded local services. As Governor Patrick used to argue, if we can increase local aid it would also reduce local property taxes and more revenue to government can significantly reduce the many fees Gov. Romney and other austerity minded Republicans imposed on the states working families.