budget

Mass. Budget Chief: #NoNewTaxes, But Challenging Year Ahead -- Budget Hearings Begin

Matt Murphy in the State House News Service reports here on the message from the Admininstration -- delivered on Thanksgiving Eve.


THE STATE HOUSE — Heavily into planning for next year’s state budget, Administration Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez on Tuesday said the Patrick administration plans no new broad-based tax increases in fiscal 2013, and will have to find ways to cover surging demand for social services that is expected to outpace revenue growth.

“Even though tax revenues are growing modestly, and we may have more resources next year, the demands in our safety net programs and health care costs generally, the rate of growth in those areas exceeds the growth in resources,” Gonzalez told the News Service during a 20-minute sit-down interview in his office.

Through mid-November, tax collections of just over $7 billion since the start of the new fiscal year in are up 5.8 percent over the same period in fiscal 2011 indicating that the Massachusetts economy continues to rebound from the recession that began in 2008 and forced rounds of budget cuts.

“Tax revenues have been growing and we expect them based on economic forecasts to continue to grow so I think next year’s budget will be bigger than this year’s budget, but probably only modestly,” Gonzalez said.


Summer Campaign on Vacation?

Sometimes it seems like the whole world is on vacation in late August, and even the developments in Libya or hurricanes headed for Haiti seem far away. Never mind discussions about tax reform.

Yesterday while reading two Boston Globe articles I couldn’t stop thinking about the role of government in our communities and what we value in them, and how we decide to participate in government and pay for it. 

Certainly the current national deficit debate has revealed that different views of government’s role has fueled a hot debate about how government should work.
 
One Massachusetts Network Members would argue that an increasing income gap among our fellow residents does not create an environment of prosperity needed for all to thrive in this society. Industries need to have the proper public and human infrastructure to be successful such as an educated and healthy workforce, a steady legal system, a good telecommunications system, among many others. All these variables need resources to exist and be maintained.
 
On the article Between haves, have-nots, an ever greater gulf we learned about the growing financial disparities between the east and west sides of the state.
 
The study paints a stark picture of two commonwealths, in which the gap between rich and poor, east and west is growing. For example, the inflation-adjusted median income of affluent families in Greater Boston has grown 54 percent since 1979, to $230,000 from $150,000 a year, largely due to high-paying technology jobs.
 
In Berkshire County and the Pioneer Valley, where decades of plant closings have left hollowed-out economies, the inflation-adjusted median income of the poorest families fell 24 percent, from $21,000 a year in 1979 to $16,000 - on par with some of the most impoverished parts of Appalachia.

From some of the richest, two cheers for higher taxes

Warren Buffet raised the profile of the discussion of taxing higher incomes ($1 million and above) at higher rates.  He also focused the discussion on the type of income and the tax rates - wages versus investment income where investment income (including hedge fund managers income) currently carries a lower tax rate. 

So, what do some of  the wealthy in Mass. think about Mr. Buffet's revenue/tax/budget proposals?

“It serves to set an example that some people who can well afford to pay more are paying more,’’ said Cummings, a local developer and founder of the Cummings Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in Massachusetts...Jack Manning, chief executive of the real estate finance company Boston Capital Corp.,  "If more tax revenue is needed to tame the deficit, he said, it should come only from those with deep resources."...Others are less enthusiastic or put caveats on their comments.  [Full Article:  The Boston Globe]

Coalition campaign will press Brown to hike taxes on wealthy

A coalition of unions and liberal groups plans tomorrow to unveil a mobile billboard urging Senator Scott Brown to support higher taxes on the rich and on corporations to help solve the nation’s budget crunch.
 
The coalition sponsoring the billboard includes the Service Employees International Union 1199, Massachusetts Teachers Association, Mass Senior Action, and MoveOn.Org Greater Boston - groups that traditionally support Democratic causes and candidates. [Full Article: Boston Globe

Lawmakers: Group-home deaths merit 'harder look'

What would it take for us to come together as a community and discuss how to fund all the services and programs that we need.  Things like this shouldnt happen for us to understand that we need more revenue to properly fund programs such as these ones: 

Several of the area's state legislators are questioning the Patrick administration's plan to close four of the state's six institutions for people with developmental disabilities in the wake of a report over the weekend that two developmentally disabled men died in state-run group homes in Tyngsboro and Tewksbury.
 
Although some argue that the cost of keeping open such state-run institutions for the severely developmentally disabled, such as the Fernald Development Center in Waltham, is astronomical, "it's not a dollar-and-cents issue," Donoghue said. It's a complicated question, she acknowledged, adding, "Let's look at how the state can best care for people who are the most vulnerable in our society." [Full Article: Lowell Sun]

John Crisp: Are we taxed too much?

Great article talking about what taxes pay for which sometimes we might get as granted:

For example, a few miles from my house I can ramp onto Interstate Highway 35. To the south lie Austin and San Antonio; to the north are Dallas and connections that will take me virtually anywhere in the U.S. via a series of carefully engineered, safe superhighways and secondary roads. This system, perhaps the best in the world, cost many billions of dollars to build and much more to maintain. Yet we use it as often and as much as we want - for free! Of course, it's not really free; we pay for it with taxes. Still, our fine highways are such a significant part of the ordinary psychological infrastructure of our lives that it's easy to forget that they exist because we decided to combine our money to build something that would benefit everyone, which is, I guess, one of the most basic definitions of civilization. [Full Article: Wicked Local - Northborough - Southborough Villager]

State Treasurer: Mass. Has A Shot At A Credit Upgrade

Good news for Massachusetts if our economy only relied on state finances. Unfortunately, the federal financial crisis affects us all. 

Grossman says as a precaution, the state will stop borrowing this month and, if needed, until October, when the new federal budget kicks in. Despite the uncertainty, he says the state’s debt status and revenue are in good enough shape to receive what the U.S. Treasury didn’t — a higher Standard and Poor’s credit rating. [Full Article: WBUR]

The Environmental Shrinking Pie

While reading an article from Mass Audobon about the most recent budget cuts in the environmental field I couldn’t stop thinking about what needs to get done for elected officials to understand that level or under funded programs should not be the rule in the state.

This conversation is not just about percentages, numbers, and dollar amounts. While dollar amounts pay for the services and programs we care about they don’t offer the human face of what under funded programs mean for the community: seniors without proper elderly services, children taking classes in crowded classrooms, youth without summer jobs, less police enforcement and firemen walking our streets and less environmental programs that protect our natural resources, the quality of our air and water and our endangered species just to name a few.

Hospitals in Massachusetts to see additional $275 million thanks to health care law

Massachusetts gained this time at the expense of other states, sometimes it doesn't. Hopefully we could have a budget structure that make all states winners in fields such as health care:

Hospitals in Massachusetts will reap an annual windfall of $275 million due to a loophole enshrined in the new health care law. Hospitals in most other states will get less money as a result. [Full Article: MassLive]

Pole tax revenue provides relief

The 2009 repeal of a state law that exempted telephone companies from paying property taxes on telephone poles and wires over public ways continues to reap financial rewards for cities and towns across the state. But while the extra revenue is helping to offset a recent round of cuts in state aid, the money isn’t enough to completely alleviate municipalities’ ongoing monetary headaches, say officials in cities and towns across the western suburbs “I suppose it’s not much, but when the town is struggling, that’s an employee or two, so that’s good,’’ said Stow's Assessor Dorothy Wilbur. [Full Article: Boston Globe]

Syndicate content