Crossposted at One Massachusetts, BlueMassGroup
As a legislator, you never want to hear about plants closing or jobs being lost in your district. Twice this year, I’ve received a call letting me know that a major employer in my district was shutting its doors, eliminating hundreds of jobs in the process. First it was Evergreen Solar, in January, and this week it was Fidelity Investments.
The real frustration with both of these closings, however, is that over the years our state has given millions of dollars to each of them — tens of millions in the case of Fidelity – with the stated purpose of creating jobs. We’re still giving Fidelity money even as they eliminate more and more jobs. They took our money and then moved the jobs elsewhere – and in both cases, the state will be able to recoup little if any of what we gave them…
Fidelity’s decision has become just the latest in a long line of reasons why we need much greater oversight and accountability for our economic development spending. For far too long, elected officials have made economic development agreements and passed big tax breaks for corporations that have left taxpayers – the ones paying for those subsidies and tax breaks – at a disadvantage.
We’ve given companies subsidies to create jobs with no real strings attached: no monitoring to make sure jobs are actually being created, and no requirements to give the money back if they aren’t. We’ve passed tax breaks for companies, such as Raytheon and Fidelity, with the understanding that a certain number of jobs would be created in exchange – but we didn’t build in any protections for taxpayers when those tax breaks were passed, no clause to say if you eliminate those jobs, your tax break will end.
This “corporations over taxpayers” mentality needs to end in Massachusetts. At a time when we are cutting vital services left and right, it’s time we start demanding that our economic development dollars are spent as efficiently as possible. That means more transparency in economic development spending – from tax incentives to subsidies to tax increment financing (TIF) deals – and more accountability for how that money is used and what results it creates.
Representative Carl Sciortino and I have introduced legislation this session – An Act to Promote Efficiency and Transparency in Economic Development¬ – designed to increase the efficiency of our state’s economic development agencies by improving transparency and strengthening our state’s clawback authority to get taxpayer dollars back if a company breaks its job creation promises. [More information]
The bill would require companies to make firm job commitments in exchange for economic development support, and would cap the amount of money the state could give a company at $35,000 per permanent, full-time job. (That number is based on the federal CDBG guidelines.)
It would require enhanced reporting and monitoring, to make sure job creation commitments are truly being met. All of this information would be made public, so taxpayers – and legislators – can see how the state’s money is being spent.
Most importantly, it would significantly enhance our clawback authority: if a company failed to live up to its commitment – as Evergreen Solar did — it would require that the company give us our money back.
We can’t change the bad deals that have been made over the past 15+ years. But we can act now to ensure that any economic development agreement we make going forward includes these important transparency and accountability protections for taxpayers. I hope we do it soon – quite frankly, I don’t want to hear about any more companies leaving my district, taking taxpayer-subsidized jobs with them.
Each year at about this time, Senators meet with the Senate Ways & Means Chair to discuss the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year (FY ’12). This is a chance for us to explain what our priorities are: what programs and budget line items we feel are most important our district and the Commonwealth, why we believe they deserve prioritization, and at what level we want to see them funded.
We’re facing an extremely tough budget situation this year, probably the worst I’ve seen in my nine years as a legislator. Most of the stimulus funding from Washington has dried up, and although revenue is on the rise as the economy grows, we’re still looking at a budget deficit of approximately 2 billion dollars. That means that our schools, local aid, and emergency and health care services are all facing deep cuts this spring — this on top of the serious budget cutbacks we’ve already made over the past few years.
It’s for that reason that I began my meeting yesterday with the new Senate Ways & Means Chair, Senator Stephen Brewer, by reiterating my support for raising revenue this session.
The fact is, our communities can’t afford more cuts, especially to the tune of two billion dollars. This is the time to invest in our communities, to keep the quality schools and services that make our state a good place to live and do business.
Everyone has programs and services they want the government to spend money on, but very few want to talk about how those services are paid for – with tax dollars. We all need to do a better job of being honest about the reality of our budget, and what we do and do not value as a Commonwealth.
For me, that means starting any conversation about spending with a conversation about revenue – and in particular, about more progressive ways of raising revenue. When advocates for certain programs come to my office, or constituents call to ask me to supporting funding for certain services, I ask them to join the growing chorus of people advocating for new revenue as well.
Until we do a better job of connecting the dots between the services we care about and the way those services are funded, deeper and deeper cuts are all we’re going to see in our state – because unlike the federal government, Massachusetts can’t print money, and we’re obligated to balance our budget every year.
I’m supporting a revenue package proposed by Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz that would raise $1.2 billion annually by asking more from high income households and investors who received large windfalls from the Bush tax cuts, while raising the personal exemption as a way of holding down any tax increase for middle-class families. Under this package, most people in Massachusetts would actually see a modest tax cut.
Of course I have ideas about how we should be spending that $1.2 billion, which I also laid out in my meeting with Senator Brewer.
Most importantly, we need to protect local aid and Chapter 70 education funding for our cities and towns. This funding keeps police and firefighters on the streets, our classroom sizes small, and our property taxes down.
We need to maintain funding for vital social safety net services, particularly in this economic climate. This includes emergency housing assistance for the homeless, food stamps for low-income families, intervention services for at-risk children, and support for the elderly and those with disabilities. I believe protecting that social safety net is one of the core missions of government.
I also advocated for preventing deeper cuts to environmental protection, infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, water treatment, etc.), and transportation. A clean environment, strong and safe infrastructure, and a reliable transportation system are all incredibly important in supporting and strengthening our economy and, ultimately, creating jobs. Cutting back in these areas now would be shortsighted, crippling our economic growth for years to come.
Finally, there’s one area of the budget I’ve long believed needs more scrutiny – our economic development tax incentives and subsidies. Each year, we give away hundreds of millions of dollars to corporations. In exchange, these corporations are supposed to create jobs. Sometimes they do, but far too often – as in the case of Evergreen Solar in our district – they take our money and then don’t create jobs, sometimes moving out of state or to China. When that happens, I believe we should get our money back.
At a time when we will be making extreme cuts to programs, we need to be sure that every penny of the public’s money is being spent effectively, which is why I have and will continue to advocate for increased transparency and accountability for our economic development spending.
I’ll continue to keep you updated, through this blog and my email newsletter, about this year’s budget process. If you have questions, or would like to tell me about what your priorities are for this year’s budget, I encourage you to contact my office at 617-722-1120, or by email at James.Eldridge@MASenate.gov.
You can also follow me on Facebook or Twitter at @JamieEldridgeMA for frequent updates, and sign up for my e-newsletter in the box in the upper righthand corner of my website.
Crossposted on BlueMassGroup
Yesterday’s announcement by Evergreen Solar that it was closing its manufacturing facility at Devens, laying off over 800 employees, is deeply disappointing — and brutal news for a lot of families in my district. It’s also yet another sign that it’s time for Governor Patrick and the Legislature to take a hard look at Massachusetts’ current job-creation strategy of giving large tax breaks to big corporations, and reassess whether it’s a wise one, especially at a time of deep budget cuts that are such a drag on the economy.
Our state government made a substantial investment — nearly $60 million dollars — in Evergreen Solar. We all were hopeful that it would lead to the creation of hundreds of permanent jobs.
It didn’t. It was a public policy failure. We can’t go back and change the past — but we can, as a state, commit ourselves to figuring out what went wrong, learn from our mistakes, and do better in the future. This is the time to change the way we approach economic development as a state.
At a bare minimum, we ought to ensure that every economic development deal our government makes includes a strong clawback provision. (Although there were some clawback provisions in the Evergreen Solar deal, they weren’t strong enough — and as a result, it seems we’ll be getting very little of our initial investment back.) If a company promises to create a certain number of jobs in exchange for a subsidy, and they fail, we should get our money back. This session I will be re-filing legislation to do just that.
(It should be noted that Governor Patrick deserves credits for improving transparency and strengthening clawback agreements through the Life Sciences Center and the Economic Development Incentive Program — but more can and should be done on this front.)
But the truth is, we probably shouldn’t be giving these big subsidies to corporations in the first place. Time and time again, we’ve seen that they just don’t work — companies take big subsidies to create jobs they would have created anyway, or take big subsidies and then ship jobs to China.
The “tax breaks for corporations” economic development strategy is not new, and in fact this approach exists in almost every state across the country, resulting in a “race to the bottom” that forces states to compete against each other to attract big name companies, all the while often giving away millions of dollars in tax revenue that is rarely recouped by the revenue generated by these very companies. In Massachusetts, this approach really ramped up the 1990s, resulting in new tax breaks for the mutual fund industry, manufacturers, and more recently alternative energy, biotech and the film industry. (Learn more from the fine folks at Good Jobs First.)
While I acknowledge that these tax breaks have attracted some new companies to come to Massachusetts, and others to stay, the big question is whether this is the wisest use of taxpayer dollars, compared to other investments we could make.
In Massachusetts today, there seems to be a status quo consensus that giving big tax breaks to companies is a good economic development strategy. But if the state is using precious taxpayer dollars to create jobs at a massive subsidy rate at a time when local aid, human services, health care, environmental protection and infrastructure investments are being cut back, isn’t it the responsibility of public officials to revisit this strategy? While a group of progressive Democrats have led the fight over the past few years to increase corporate tax credit transparency, the status quo still persists.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts invested almost $60 million in state grants, tax breaks and subsidized loans in Evergreen Solar to create approximately 800 jobs, translating into about $75,000 in taxpayer dollars being spent for every job. And of course now even those 800 jobs are gone, and we aren’t getting our $60 million back.
Perhaps even more egregious, the long-awaited DOR report on the Film Tax Credit came out yesterday. This report found that in 2009, the film credit created a whopping 222 net jobs for local residents — at cost of almost $325K per job. (Jobs that pay about $51K per year on average, by the way).
Why so low? In part because, as the report points out, when you’re calculating the new jobs in the film industry created by the tax credit, you have to offset that with the jobs lost in the public sector, when state spending is diverted from, say, human services and local aid to the film industry. (At least if you’re going to be intellectually honest about it.)
What if this money for Evergreen Solar and the Film Tax Credit had been used to invest in universal pre-kindergarten programs, or to expand commuter rail service, or to improve water infrastructure? These programs and services, in addition to providing a direct service to the people of Massachusetts, also play a critical role in economic development. And they can’t just walk away from Massachusetts as Evergreen Solar is doing right now.
Just as we observe how corporate special interests dominate the national agenda and determines what does and does not get passed in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts residents, and elected leaders, need to wake up to the fact that these same interests have far too much influence in Beacon Hill’s agenda.
As the 2011-2012 legislative session begins, it is my hope and plan to generate as much discussion as possible about the wisdom of investing tens of millions of dollars in a risky economic development strategy that could leave us as Evergreen Solar did yesterday – taxpayers holding the bag, and economic devastation that has hurt hundreds of Massachusetts families.
Cross-Posted on One Massachusetts
These days I’m spending a lot of my time going door-to-door, talking with constituents about their concerns. It’s a great way to connect with people – both so I can hear what is on their minds, and so I can answer questions and provide them with information about their government and how it works.
One thing I’ve been particularly struck by this year is the immense disconnect that seems to exist in most people’s minds between the government services they need and demand, and how these services are paid for.
Over and over, I hear voters tell me – in the same breath – that their taxes are too high, and that the state needs to do more for education, or for our veterans, or to fix our roads and bridges. For whatever reason, they don’t seem to be making the connection between the taxes they pay and the government services they like.
In just one recent day on the campaign trail, I heard this theme three times. In Shirley, it was from a voter who wanted her taxes to be cut – but also wanted to see more funding for summer jobs programs for local children. In Hudson, a group of young men thought government spending was too high – and yet one was looking for help from the government with job training, and the other relied on MassHealth coverage following a car accident. Finally, in Harvard, I heard a citizen complain that government was too big and spent too much – but also wanted my help in securing state funding to fix his road.
When I take the time to have a conversation with these constituents about the connection between the taxes they pay and the services they need, most do start to understand — but it does take that conversation before they get there. It’s clear to me that we have a lot of work to do, and that we all need to spend a lot more time having real conversations with our friends and neighbors about what we want our government to do, and how we pay for those things.
The Massachusetts State Senate passed two bills today designed to modernize our debt collection laws and provide important protections for those struggling with debt from unscrupulous debt collectors – An Act to Remedy Unlicensed Debt Collection Activity, which I sponsored, and An Act Further Regulating Debt Collection, which was sponsored by Senator Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville) and which I was proud to co-sponsor.
According to a May 14th report from the Administrative Offices of the US Courts, bankruptcy filings rose 30% in the past 12 months, with more than 22,000 Massachusetts businesses or individuals filing for bankruptcy.
Even in these difficult economic times, the reality is that most Americans pay their bills on time. Most folks who do fall behind are current with their payments until some sort of catastrophe such as illness, unemployment or disability. These people, and their families, deserve to be treated fairly.
No one wants to be in debt. When people fall on hard financial times, it’s generally because of circumstances out of their control, like those I’ve already mentioned. However, right now, financially-distressed families struggling with debt are susceptible to unfair, abusive tactics at the hands of debt collection agencies. Seniors, people with lower incomes and the disabled are particularly at risk.
The bill I filed, An Act to Remedy Unlicensed Debt Collection Activity, is one step towards preventing these unscrupulous tactics. By specifying that unlicensed debt collectors shall be liable to victims for restitution, the act ensures that victims of unlicensed debt collection are assured of a remedy and that violators will not profit from their unlicensed debt collection activity.
(A second bill I’ve filed, An Act to Regulate Debt Collection Activity, would go further to protect consumers from abusive practices; that bill is currently before the Judiciary Committee.)
The second bill that passed today, Senator Jehlen’s An Act Further Regulating Debt Collection, will update and modernize our general laws regulating debt collection by increasing the value of property, earnings and savings exempt from seizure during debt collection. Because our current debt exemptions are decades out of date, families struggling with debt are often left with almost nothing to live on – making it difficult for them to maintain a job to continue paying their debt. This bill would deal with the serious unintended consequences of the current law.
Key provisions of the bill including updating the law to allow a debtor to keep $2500 in a bank account (up from $500) at any one time – a provision of particular importance for seniors, who often receive their Social Security checks directly deposited into their bank account. It would also help debtors continue to be able to work by including child care in the definition of basic necessities and increasing the value of an exempt car from $700 to $7500.
In addition, it would increase a number of other living expense exemptions, such as raising the rent exemption from $200 to $2500 per month and increasing the utility allowance from $75 to $500 for month, so that no family has to choose between accumulating more debt and paying for heat.
As I’ve met and spoken with people throughout the district, I’ve heard from so many who are struggling to make ends meet or to find work at all. These two bills are exactly the sort of relief people need from economic woes, and I look forward to working with my colleagues toward its passage. As always, if you have any questions or concerns about this issue, or any other, please feel free to contact my State House office at james.eldridge@state.ma.us, or by calling us at 617-722-1120.
Earlier today I was proud to file legislation to respond to the Supreme Court’s reckless decision in Citizens United v. FEC. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been working on this bill along with Representative Cory Atkins, Representative William Straus, Common Cause, Mass Vote, Mass PIRG and Free Speech for People for some time. Today we filed the bill, the Massachusetts Corporate Political Accountability Act.
Read the bill summary Read the bill You can also listen to an interview I did with Radio Boston on WBUR this afternoon.
Last January, on a 5-4 vote, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court struck down bipartisan legislation that had limited corporations from spending their general treasury funds on political advertisements during the months preceding an election. The Court overruled two of its own precedents and reversed law that had stood for decades. The decision also invalidated similar provisions of state law across the country, including a provision of Massachusetts law that had been in place since the beginning of the last century.
Now, for-profit corporations may spend unlimited amounts to influence elections at all levels of government.
The danger is real: if ExxonMobil had spent just 2 percent of its 2008 profits in the last presidential election, it would have outspent McCain and Obama combined.
And the danger of undue corporate influence isn’t only for national elections. Indeed, the biggest danger to our democracy might be at the local level. A large developer seeking a change in a local zoning law, for example, could spend tens of thousands of dollars to influence a board of selectman race – small change to the company, perhaps, but a substantial amount of money for a local race. A selectman who opposed the company could never compete financially with the flood of advertising.
Corporate lobbyists and other powerful special interests will be able to threaten public officials at all levels with the possibility of unending negative campaign ads if their agendas are not supported — and the voices of ordinary citizens could be drowned out of the electoral process.
As President Obama noted in his State of the Union Address, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC could “open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”
Today we filed the Massachusetts Corporate Political Accountability Act, by far the strongest and most comprehensive legislative response to the Citizens United decision put forward anywhere in the country. This bill is about protecting the integrity of our democratic system from the corrosive influence of profit driven electioneering.
If passed, this legislation will:
In addition, we also filed a resolution calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to overrule the Citizens United decision and protect free speech for people. You can learn more about that effort here.
It’s clear we need action on the national level to deal with this far-reaching Supreme Court decision, and we need it quickly.
But regardless of what happens at the national level, we also need to take action here in Massachusetts to protect the integrity of our elections. By enacting these reforms we can get closer to ensuring that elections are truly decided by “we the people,” and not corporate special interests.
A packed house filled the Gardner Auditorium in the State House today for a public hearing on the proposed Senate gambling bill.
I’ve been a long-time opponent of expanded gambling in our state, and I was there, with several of my colleagues and many citizen activists, to express my opposition to the bill.
Here is the testimony I delivered at the hearing today:
I have been, and remain, opposed to bringing casinos and slot machines to our state because of the negative, costly impacts I think it will have on small businesses and local communities.
I also believe that expanding gambling is a short-sighted and ineffective economic development strategy. It drains money from local economies, hurting local businesses. Quite simply , we can do better: there are better strategies for creating jobs and promoting economic growth in the Commonwealth that don’t come with the significant downsides that casinos bring.
These downsides and costs to local communities include:
o Increase crime rates and public safety costs. Crime, including embezzlement, robbery, DUIs, aggravated assaults and domestic violence rates, increases 8 – 10% right after casino is built, and continues to increase after that — and local communities have to pick up the tab.[1] Local governments also bear the costs of significant increases in emergency service calls and casino-related traffic problems requiring police oversight.[2]
o Impact on local restaurants, hotels and arts and entertainment businesses. Money that would otherwise be spent at locally-owned small businesses will instead be spent at casinos owned by out-of-state corporations, and little of that money is being reinvested in the local community. Our downtowns will suffer as a result.
o Impact on small businesses up to 30 miles away. When discretionary income is spent on gambling, local businesses suffer. Consumers have less money to spend on clothing, electronics, furniture, automobiles, or any other locally-sold product. A study on the costs and benefits of casinos found that for every $1000 in increased casino revenue, businesses up to 30 miles away lost $243. [3]
o Development-related problems: Our state has been a leader on Smart Growth initiatives, but whether it’s traffic, infrastructure costs or environmental impact, resort casinos are often in direct opposition to those goals.
Local communities will feel the impact of increased traffic and gridlock, and mitigation for highway and local roadway traffic impacts within and beyond the host community will be necessary. Ledyard, CT saw a 245% increase in traffic in the years after a casino came to town.
There will certainly be an impact on the local natural environment as well, including the loss of open space and stormwater management issues across municipal borders.
And there will be various infrastructure costs required to support a proposed development, such as road/bridge improvements, utilities, upgrades to water/sewer facilities, water quality/quantity issues, etc.
o Social costs: Problem gambling leads to distressed families, child neglect, suicide and bankruptcy. Domestic violence rates go up, as do foreclosures.[4] Local communities will need support and additional funding for social services to deal with all of these negative social problems caused or exacerbated by expanded gambling.
The effect of casinos is regional, not just on host community: It’s also important to remember that it isn’t just the host community that bears the burden – all of the above mentioned costs and impacts will be felt by the bordering communities and beyond.
In my opinion, any benefits we may get from casinos are not worth the costs – the loss, including jobs lost, for small businesses, the negative effects and costs it will impose on local communities, and the harm it will cause to tens of thousands of Massachusetts families.
That said, if the Senate DOES decide to go forward with proposals to expand gambling, I want to strongly urge that all of these costs are taken into account, and that an effort is made to:
o Give local communities the ability to “opt out” of having a casino in their area
o Mitigate the costs to local communities as much as possible and
o Require the industry that is causing the problems (i.e. the casino industry) picks up the tab for these costs.
Some specific proposals would be:
o Regional Referendum: Before a casino is sited in a community, a regional referendum should be held, giving the local communities – host community AS WELL as abutting communities – the opportunity to “opt out” of having a casino in their backyard.
o Cost Mitigation: A Community Mitigation fund must be set up to help local communities – both host and abutting communities – cover the costs caused by the casinos, including the ongoing impacts on the environment, transportation, municipal services, social services, and public safety. We must make sure that we dedicate enough money to this fund to adequately cover all of these costs. Local communities should NOT be left on the hook.
o Requiring casinos to cover the TRUE costs their product has on local communities. At the end of the day, if we expand gambling in this state, the casino industry will make billions in profit off of Massachusetts residents, sucking money away from local businesses while increasing costs for local communities and harming many local families.
And although many of the costs, particularly the human costs, can NEVER be “mitigated” by money alone, we can at the very least require casinos to cover those costs that can be quantified. I would urge the Committee to look at tax rates and fees that are adequate for covering those costs.
Let me be clear: I think no matter what we do, expanding gambling in our state will be a bad deal for Massachusetts.
But if we’re going to do it, let’s at least ensure that the people of Massachusetts are getting the “least bad” deal possible.
[2] Baxandall, Phineas and Bruce Sacerdote. “Betting on the Future: The Economic Impact of Legalized Gambling. ” Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Dartmouth College. Policy Briefs, January 13, 2005
[3] Grinols, Earl L. Gambling in America Costs & Benefits. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pg. 77.
[4] National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report, commissioned by the United States Congress.1999
Today the Senate scored two substantial victories for policies that promote the public interest over corporate interest during the Senate budget deliberations this afternoon, and I wanted to take a moment to let you know about these successes.
Responding to Citizens United – Corporate Political Expenditure Disclosure
First, the Senate adopted an amendment I filed that would subject corporate sponsored political advertising to the same disclosure laws that apply to other political spending, and require CEOs to “stand-by-their-ads” by appearing in their ads to say they “approve this message.”
This amendment, which I wrote with Secretary of State Bill Galvin, was proposed as an initial response to the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizen’s United case, which gave corporations a constitutional right to unlimited campaign spending and electioneering communications.
I’m currently working with Common Cause, MassPIRG, MassVOTE, and some of my colleagues in the Legislature to craft a more robust and comprehensive response to the Citizens’ United decision, which we intend to file in the coming weeks.
But today’s amendment is a good first step towards a more comprehensive solution — because at a minimum, we should all be able to agree that corporations spending money in political elections should have to disclose those expenditures to the public. When someone stands up to speak at town meeting, the first thing they say is their name and where they’re from. Corporations seeking to influence an election should at least be held to the same standard.
Corporate Tax Credit Transparency
The Senate today also passed an amendment to the budget that would bring more transparency to our tax credit programs, requiring public disclosure of the results of refundable or transferable tax credit programs, including the identity of the corporation receiving the credit.
This is an issue I’ve been working very hard on this session. It’s an important amendment, one that will promote greater accountability at a time when we need to be examining where every single public dollar is going, and what impact it is having.
The final amendment the Senate adopted was not perfect, and there were some changes made to the language that I would have preferred were not adopted. The legislation will require companies to report on the results of the tax credit program, including the number of jobs created – which is a very important piece. Unfortunately, those job figures will be reported in aggregate for each tax credit program, rather than by each individual tax credit rewarded.
I do believe that this change will make it more difficult for the public – and the Legislature – to analyze the effectiveness of each tax credit program. Aggregating the data makes it difficult to see if there are individual companies taking a tax credit which are not creating jobs, which I believe would be valuable information to have in evaluating the overall effectiveness of a program. I also believe that it is, in the end, the public’s money these corporations are receiving – and therefore the public should have the right to see what they are getting for their money.
We will live to fight another day on this front. Ultimately, I supported this compromise amendment because it is still a giant leap forward in providing greater transparency of the spending of public dollars. I applaud my colleagues in the Senate for unanimously supporting this legislation, and look forward to seeing the amendment passed in the final budget. (As Rep. Sciortino recently blogged the House also passed a tax credit transparency provision in their budget.)
Together, these two amendments make a strong statement that the interest of the greater public – in transparency, in accountability of the spending of public dollars, in the disclosure of who is spending money to influence public elections – should take precedence over the interests of big corporations. Those looking to take public benefits – in the form of refundable tax credits – should at the very least have to account for what they are doing with those benefits, and those looking to influence our elections should at the very least have to disclose that they are doing so.
The Senate Ways & Means Committee issued their draft of the FY11 State Budget last week with the matter set to be debated and voted on for several days, starting tomorrow.
The budget proposal cuts more than $750 million from the level required to maintain state services in FY11, with those spending cuts plus the use of federal recovery act funds being used to close a $2.85 billion budget gap. The proposal would cut local aid by $159 million from FY2010, level fund 154 line items and reduce spending in 321 other line items from FY10 levels.
Over the last few days, my staff and I have spent hours analyzing the budget and talking with advocates and constituents about the budget proposal, and what impact the cuts will have on our district and the people of the Commonwealth. As a result of this work, I have filed some amendments to the budget — to increase line item funding in some cases, and to make no-cost changes to the law in other cases. You can learn more about some of those amendments here.
We’ve heard a lot over the past few years — from both elected officials and candidates for office at all levels — about “doing more with less.” Looking at this budget proposal and the numbers before us, the truth is that we’re going to be doing less with less — and no amount of rhetoric will change that.
We will have fewer teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers working in our communities.
We will have fewer resources available to help those among us who need help the most – including those with disabilities, mental illnesses, substance abuse problems, as well as those who are homeless and in poverty, or just on the verge of losing their homes.
We will have fewer enrichment and mentoring programs for our kids, and fewer supports for our seniors. Our libraries and community and senior centers will be open for fewer hours, if they don’t close altogether.
We will have fewer resources available to protect our public lands, water, and air from pollution and destruction, and longer wait times to access government services big and small, from the judicial system to the RMV.
All of this — and more — is the truth of our fiscal situation this year, and I feel strongly that we shouldn’t try to sugarcoat it for you, our constituents, or to pretend the situation is better than it is.
I have in the past been an advocate for raising more revenue (through more progressive means) as a way of mitigating the impact of these cuts. I know times are tough for everyone, but some of the cuts we are making, particularly to the programs that help the most vulnerable among us – are, to me, untenable, and unjust. I do believe that we, as a society and a government, can do better.
I am, unfortunately, among the minority with that viewpoint in the Legislature right now – and because the House decided against any revenue-raising measures, the Senate is constitutionally barred from adding any broad-based revenue measures to our budget, either.[1]
As a result, we will work with a pie of limited size this year, with no way of increasing that pie. We will do much less — because we have much much less.
Yesterday, the Massachusetts State Senate passed a number of important pieces of legislation to make our Commonwealth a better place – for our youth, for families, for homeowners, AND for renters.
In addition to giving final approval to a bullying-prevention bill that was largely based on a bill that I filed at the beginning of this session, and that I have been working on for many months, the Senate passed a series of consumer protection laws designed to protects residents from mortgage fraud and unsolicited loans, protect tenants in foreclosed properties from arbitrary evictions and help people stay in their homes.
The foreclosure crisis has had a serious impact on many communities in my district, hurting both homeowners and tenants and destabilizing neighborhoods. Over the past year, it’s only grown worse, with the number of affected units in the district growing by 15%, according to the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.
Before I was elected to the Legislature, I served for several years as a public interest attorney with Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell, a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to the poor and the elderly in the areas of housing, unemployment, disability and domestic violence. In this position, I sometimes worked with families who were struggling to keep their home from being foreclosed upon. Many of these families had been talked into bad loans and mortgages they couldn’t afford by unscrupulous mortgage companies looking to make easy money. Many more were being evicted from their homes, with little or no reason or warning, because the house or apartment they rented was being foreclosed upon by a bank that didn’t want them to stay.
Foreclosures and unfair lending practices are a problem affecting tens of thousands of families across the Commonwealth. I’m pleased the Senate is taking action on it, and I was proud to support this legislation.
Major components of the bill, S2407, An Act to Stabilize Neighborhoods are:
Campaign Constituent
I met with 2 constituents today in Marlborough, disgusted w/ influence of corp power in state & fed govt; we need campaign fin reforms NOW #
