February 18, 2011
Beware: Drumbeat for higher taxes is just beginning
At least one of our top legislative leaders keeps saying more taxes are off the table.
Maybe. But don't get lulled to sleep. Given Massachusetts' history, this is the time to hold onto your wallet.
That's because it's all a rhetorical game.
Gov. Deval Patrick doesn't have any reluctance to raise taxes — he is only reluctant to call them taxes. He wants to tack a $2.50 "surcharge" on every auto insurance policy. He wants to expand the state's bottle bill to add a 5-cent "deposit" on containers for water, tea and juice. He wants to eliminate the property tax "exemption" (sometimes he prefers the poll-tested, pejorative term "loophole") on telephone poles and wires, so cities and towns can collect millions more from telecom companies — which will then be passed on to consumers in higher "rates."
Hey, they won't be taxes. You'll have just as much money to spend as you did before you paid all those surcharges, deposits and rates, right?
So far, House Speaker Robert DeLeo is pushing back. In what at the Statehouse was a stunning display of honesty, he actually called all those euphemisms what they are, declaring, "As far as the House is concerned, the budget that will come out will not have any new taxes, no additional fees or any new gimmicks in terms of raising additional revenue."
"Gimmicks," the man said. How refreshing.
Still, if you look closely, there is a bit of wiggle room in there. All of this is only, "as far as the House is concerned ..." Indeed, DeLeo doesn't control the Senate or the governor's office.
We already know where the governor stands — raise taxes without calling them taxes. Senate President Therese Murray isn't making any official comment. Which are both good reasons for you to be concerned.
What should make you even more concerned is the drumbeat — just beginning now but sure to get louder as the new fiscal year approaches — of how the sky will fall on the poor, elders and especially the children, if the state is forced to live within its means.
The accompanying drumbeat is that you're really under-taxed, as well.
Yes, you got hit with a 25 percent increase in the sales tax 18 months ago. Yes, the "promise" 21 years ago that the income tax would return to 5 percent has never been fulfilled. Still, you should be ashamed to think that government should continue to "give" you as much money as it does now.
This past week, the Patrick administration was feverishly spinning a report by the Tax Foundation's 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index, contending that it showed the Massachusetts sales tax is lower than that of 31 other states, when local sales taxes are included.
They left out some other information, of course, which is that Massachusetts ranks 32 out of the 50 states — right on the edge of the bottom third — in having a tax system that encourages business growth, which is the real engine of job creation and tax revenue.
But the government is staying on message: You're not paying too much in taxes. You're paying too little.
Add to that the parade of human services advocates who are already filling their crying towels with tears for those they claim will suffer if the state doesn't raise taxes.
This is really all about the paychecks of the adults whose jobs are with the state welfare system. But it is presented, as always, as being about "the children." Did you know children are our future?
Or, in the words of state Rep. Kay Khan, D-Newton, "If we don't focus on children and families now, it's going to be a disaster."
As always, the word "taxes" never crosses anyone's lips. As Khan put it, "I know it's not easy to talk about raising revenue because people are struggling, but it's a conversation that has to happen."
Right. Just a "conversation." With Khan, that would be a very one-sided affair. Khan has apparently not needed much conversation, since she has already sought to raise the excise tax on alcohol and reinstate the sales tax on alcohol that voters repealed last November.
In other words, when voters try to have a conversation with her, she doesn't listen.
She has also signed on to a bill that would raise the income tax from 5.3 percent to 5.9 percent.
All this noise will reach a foam-at-the-mouth roar as July approaches. If it doesn't co-opt DeLeo, it will probably drown him out.
But none of it would be necessary if legislators really cared about the children. If they did, they would think about the fact that in a decade or so, these children will be getting stuck with billions in bills for all this overspending.
If they cared about the children, they wouldn't have spent more than $1 billion in federal stimulus money over the past year maintaining the status quo. Instead, they would have set some of it aside for the coming year.
The real money, as they know, is in pay and benefits for public employees. If they cut them even half as much as the pay and benefits of those in the private sector have been cut, they could do more, or at least as much as they are now, with less.
Don't hold your breath. Hold onto your wallet. By July, taxes will be going up. You know, because they have no other choice.
http://www.salemnews.com/opinion/x1405847559/Taylor-Armerding-Beware-Drumbeat-for-higher-taxes-is-just-beginning
