Long Live the Liberal and Democratic
Kingdom of Taxachusetts
 
© David Burton 2008

     We who reside in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are blessed with a state government that taxes its citizens more than nearly all other states, is not known within the business community as being particularly friendly to business, and does not consider the electorate sufficiently sophisticated or intelligent to be able to decide for ourselves what we want.

     According to the Washington-based Tax Foundation, which uses U.S. Census Bureau data to compare tax burdens year to year and state to state, “Massachusetts' per-capita state and local tax burden is fourth highest in the country, and 22.5 percent above the national average. This is determined by dividing our state and local taxes among every man, woman and child in the commonwealth, showing for comparison purposes, that each of us pays $5,419. The national average is $4,422.” (Ref. 1)

     ”In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a referendum that called on the legislature to cut the state personal income tax rate back to its original 5.0 percent rate. In 2002, in the middle of a fiscal crisis, the legislature postponed the voter-approved tax rollback by freezing the rate at its current 5.3 percent, ignoring the will of the voters (emphasis mine). At that time, lawmakers also cancelled a voter-approved income tax deduction for charitable giving . . .” (Ref. 2)

     ”Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Deval Patrick (now Gov. Deval Patrick), who is vying for the Democratic nomination (for governor), was the only (candidate) who fully opposed the tax rollback from 5.3% to 5.0%. . .” , (Ref. 3)

     Following his election as Governor of Massachusetts, Gov. Patrick has continued to refuse to reduce the state income tax to it’s original 5.0% level as voted upon by the residents of Massachusetts. ”Despite state revenue again being up over past historical revenue, it's still not enough. It never will be, of course, until the Gimme State has every cent we in the People's Republic possibly can earn. After all, they know better how to spend what was once our money better than we do.” (Ref. 4)

     The newly elected Democratic Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, and the permanently and overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature continue the Liberal Democratic policy of increasing spending and increasing taxes. However, in Massachusetts, taxes are not raised in the ordinary fashion, instead, there are mandates on business, “reviews of the corporate tax code”, and ignoring of voter initiatives to return the state sales tax to pre-Dukakis levels. These maneuvers allow the Governor and Legislature to claim that they have not “raised taxes”. The tax bills of the state’s citizens and corporations, as well the cost of living and the cost of doing business in the state say otherwise.

     ”A year ago the legislature passed a broad economic stimulus bill to encourage business investment and job growth in the lackluster Massachusetts economy. No, just as the provisions of this law are being implemented, a commission created to study corporate taxation recently recommended by a slim 8 - 7 margin to again increase taxes on Massachusetts employers. The two initiatives are at cross purposes.
     “In Massachusetts, the goal of reviewing the corporate tax code is to raise revenue.
     ”. . . more tax hikes on corporations - coming of top of $1 billion in business tax increases over the past four years - will continue to stifle job creation and exacerbate the state’s fiscal problems.
     ”According to Moody’s Economy.com, Massachusetts’ total business costs are the second highest in the nation.
     ”Massachusetts had the second highest rate of job loss in the recession of 2001 - 2004 and has badly trailed the rest of the nation in the economic recovery. Only Louisiana, Michigan and Ohio have worse job creation records over the past four years.” (Ref. 5)

     Working to provide lower cost services to its citizens and more open business competition is not necessarily high on the list of priorities for the Massachusetts legislators. "The year isn’t even half over. And yet some House lawmakers can say with near-certainty that they won’t {emphsis mine} be able to complete work on a bill that would make it easier for telecommunications companies to break into the local cable TV and broadband Internet markets.” (Ref. 6) As the Herald editorial points out, without the passage of the bill, there is no choice. And without choice, there is no competition and consequently no reduction in consumer cost or improvement in programming quality or better service.

     Commenting on the new Democratic Governor’s plans for Massachusetts, we have the following, “When you have a wish list the size of Deval Patrick’s and your piggy bank is virtually empty, you have to get creative. That’s nearly always bad news for taxpayers.
     “In less than six months, Patrick has already proposed more than $6 billion in social programs, ‘free’ college tuition and other new spending. That’s $1 billion in new spending a month - above and beyond the usual hikes in payola, graft and corruption.
     “All those social programs may sound swell . . . but where do you think the money is going to come from?” (Ref. 7)

     And the beat goes on - The newly elected Democratic governor of Massachusetts has now proposed allowing some “50,000 state workers to get one paid day per month to volunteer at senior centers, hospitals or non-profits, serve as school committees or chaperone school field trips.” (Ref. 8)

     “State Republican Party spokesman Brian Dodge slammed the program as ‘a get-out-of-work-free card’.
     “‘State employees are paid to do the people’s business,’ he said. ‘We need to make sure we’re getting the value out of these people first and encourage volunteerism on the weekends and after hours.’
     “There also may be potential conflicts. The list of approved non-profits is filled with groups headed by Patrick supporters who collectively gave $7,625 to his campaign . . .” (Ref. 8)

     “Really, are there no limits to the attempts by this administration to reach into our wallets?” (Ref. 9)

     Business has great hesitancy in remaining in Massachusetts, let alone coming into the state because of the high cost of doing business here and the high cost of labor. So what does our newly elected Democratic Governor and hugely Democratic legislature do? Why they raise the cost of doing business here by “closing tax loopholes for business”. Businesses already face the highest worker compensation rates in the country and unemployment benefits are provided for a longer period of time than in just about any other state. Welcome to Taxachusetts!

     Boston has surpassed New York as the most costly metropolitan area in which to do business, primarily due to the highest labor costs in the nation, according to a study. Massachusetts had the highest cost of doing business among states.

     ”Boston's business costs were 36 percent above the national average, and Massachusetts' were 25 percent higher than the average in 2003, according to the annual analysis of business costs by Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa., forecasting firm.
     "‘The area has high living costs, and because of that it has high wages," said Gus Faucher, senior economist at Economy.com.’”(Ref. 10)

     According to an Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) report prepared by Ernst & Young, “Massachusetts business paid 45 percent more in state and local taxes in fiscal 2007 than they did in fiscal 2002, compared to 33 percent growth in non-business taxes.” (Ref. 11)

     ”Clearly businesses pay an enormous share of the state’s tax burden. If we hope to win back the thousands of jobs lost this decade they need a predictable, simple and fair system of taxation. The [Governor] Patrick administration’s plan to simply jack up corporate taxes doesn’t get us anywhere close.” (Ref. 11)

     Another contributor to the high cost of living and of doing business in Massachusetts is the cost of medical care. “Medical care in Massachusetts is the most expensive in the country {emphasis mine} - $7,075 per resident every year, compared to the national average of $5,313.” (Ref. 12) This means that annual cost of medical care in Massachusetts is some 33% higher than the national average. On July 1, 2007, the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law becomes effective. This law requires every Bay State resident to have health insurance. The effect of the law is very likely to be a further increase in health care costs.

     Health costs are not the only high cost contributor to the state of the economy in Massachusetts. “New Jersey's administrative {highway} costs were the nation's highest at $68,352 per state-controlled mile, . . . Massachusetts was 49th at $60,807.” (Ref. 13)

     “. . . the cost of housing {in Massachusetts} . . . consumes about 25 percent more of our income here than the national average , . . . our utilities are more expensive than just about anywhere else.” (Ref. 7

     One would think that in return for high taxes, a high cost of living and what many perceive as a hostile business climate, the left-leaning liberal citizens of Massachusetts would at least have the benefit of an increased say in the democratic process and in determining their own affairs. Ha! Fat Chance!

     Without any choice on the part of its citizenry, Massachusetts is the only state in the country to legalize gay marriages. That was the result of a split judicial decision by the state’s unelected Supreme Court. Subsequently some 170,000 citizens of Massachusetts signed a petition for the right to have a constitutional amendment voted on that would define marriage as one between a man and a women. It would in no way prevent equal benefits for civil unions or for domestic living arrangements. But, the newly elected Democratic governor successfully lobbied and arm-twisted the Democratic legislators to vote against allowing the petition to be placed on a state-wide ballot, i.e., they denied the people of Massachusetts the democratic right to vote on the issue. The Governor and the Gay Rights proponents were aided and abetted in this denial of fundamental civil rights by the national Democratic Party who did not want to muck up their bid for the White House by having a gay marriage question debated and showing up on Massachusetts ballots during the 2008 elections.

     The first time around, the House and Senate, which together periodically meet in a Constitutional Convention to vote on statewide citizens’ initiatives, adjourned without taking a vote on the gay-marriage amendment. Governor Deval Patrick (illegally) urged the Legislators to continue to ignore the voters by refusing to take a vote on the issue. It required the State Supreme Judicial Court to remind the legislators (and the governor) that they are constitutionally required to vote on initiative petitions.

     “American democracy, as we once knew it, is dead in Massachusetts, replaced by an aristocracy that, while elected, has shown no indication that it is working any longer to advance the interests of those who elected every member.
     “The most recent case in point of Massachusetts’ descent into a banana republic was the vote in the Statehouse denying the people of the state the right to vote on the definition of marriage.” (Ref. 14)

     “Whatever happened to democracy in our state and the idea that the people have a right to preserve and protect the institutions that make up our society without governmental interference?
     “The worst part of what transpired here last week was watching lawmakers in their moment of glee after the vote, breaking their arms while patting themselves on the back for their ‘courage’.
     “Courage?
     “Switching votes on an issue because you were offered a chairmanship that carries a $7,599-a-year bonus or because someone agreed to give a relative a hack job doesn’t constitute courage in my book. Nor does switching a vote to avoid possible recriminations.
     “Normally, it would take courage for lawmakers to continue to defy the will of the people, but not here in Massachusetts. Not anymore.
     “The people in this state would vote for a brain dead monkey in a coma if it had a ‘D’ after its name . . . we do continue to elect Ted Kennedy to the US Senate every six years, after all.
     “Real courage is continuing to live in this state, despite the fact that we have become the Cuba of the Northeastern United States simply because we grew up here and have considered it home all our lives.
     “Real courage would constitute throwing everyone out of office who felt that it was all right to defy our will and alter the very fabric of our society without our consent.
     “Real courage is what has been missing in this state for nearly 50 years now and we’re not likely to see it again anytime soon.” (Ref. 14)

     ”It’s an old and once-proud concept known as ‘the consent of the governed,’ one of the two founding principals of American democracy. The other is ‘the rule of law.’ Everyone this side of the Taliban and, alas, Gov. Deval Patrick) understands this.
     ”When Patrick spouts the ‘citizens shouldn’t vote on civil rights’ nonsense, he’s embarrassing both himself and the constitutional law department at Harvard.
     ”When he took the even more radical step of urging the Legislature to violate the Constitution in order to stop any vote on the marriage amendment, Patrick committed his own civil rights violation. After all, what civil right is more basic than the right to cast a legal vote?” (Ref. 15)

     ”The idea that our laws should be handed down to us from On High may be popular in Saudi (Arabia) . . . But supporters of constitutional democracy understand that the ‘divine right of courts’ is no more appealing for Americans today than the ‘divine right of kings’ was in 1776. (Ref. 15)

     ”Four unelected judges might have the power to make same-sex marriage legal, but they don’t have the power to make it legitimate. That can only come from the consent of the governed. Because supporters of same -sex marriage continue to reject the rights of the governed (i.e. ‘you and me’), every gay ‘marriage’ in Massachusetts is, and will remain, a sham. A fake. Less than the real deal”. (Ref. 5) Our fellow (but much less liberal) New Englanders in New Hampshire took the more realistic and fair route by passing a civil union law that guarantees all the rights and benefits of a conventional heterosexual marriage. That would be much too conservative and radical for the liberal elite of Taxachusetts.

     Others have raised questions concerning the pressures brought to bear on and the incentives offered to legislators to get them either to continue to oppose the same-sex referendum or to switch their vote on it.”Opponents of gay marriage are sharply questioning a budget filing by a supporter Gov. Deval Patrick that offers $737,000 for the district of a state lawmaker who switched his vote to help kill a proposed constitutional ban on gay weds”. (Ref. 16)

     ”The vote during the June 14 Constitutional Convention defeated a ballot initiative seeking to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
     “The proposal fell five votes short of the 50-vote threshold needed to put it on a statewide ballot in 2008. {NOTE: the initiative would simply allow the people of Massachusetts to vote on their definition of marriage.}
     ”Seventy-seven percent of the Legislature said the people are not sophisticated enough on . . .(the) amendment.
     ”‘Now it appears as though the sophisticates in the State house are continuing to provide rewards for those who opposed the amendments.’“(Ref. 16)

     While some may believe that the nanny state is a purely Massachusetts phenomenon, many more believe that it is a guiding principle of the Democratic (and/or Liberal) Party. “As the Party that believes that the government has a solution for every problem, in order to maintain their power Democrats need as many people as possible to rely on the government.” (Ref. 1)

     Surely the same-sex marriage issue must be an abnormality. The state government in Massachusetts must abide by the votes of its citizens in other matters. After all, Massachusetts is a democracy and not a monarchy. But is it really? Many years ago, the state instituted the ‘Dukakis” tax hike. The state personal income tax was 5%. With Governor Michael Dukakis in office, the state finances had gotten out of balance, i.e., the state was spending more than it was taking in. The governor and the legislature voted to ‘temporarily’ increase the tax to 5.75% until such time as the crisis was past. Well the crisis has been over for several years, but the Democratic legislature has been reluctant to give up the cash cow. This past year, the citizens of Massachusetts voted to return the sales tax to its original 5%. What did Governor Patrick do about this? First, he stated that the citizens of Massachusetts didn’t know what they wanted and since then has refused to lower the tax rate. Welcome to the Kingdom of Taxachusetts! Long Live King Deval Patrick!

     Massachusetts is hide-bound, with an entrenched bureaucracy that must be dragged screaming and kicking to modernize. The philosophy for decades has been to increase income, higher taxes, rather than to modernize and to raise efficiency. Politicians are normally elected for life or are given state employment after leaving office. Retirement benefits are extremely generous. Why get off the gravy train?

     An example of staying with the status quo is the toll collecting system employed on the 150 mile long Massachusetts Turnpike. ”About 25 percent of toll revenue goes to collecting the tolls (on the Massachusetts Turnpike)”. (Ref. 17) Why waste money on toll collection. Instead, adopt the solution recently proposed by Michael Graham - eliminate the tolls and replace the revenues so-generated by increasing the gasoline tax in Massachusetts by say 10 cents a gallon. Such a move provides several benefits, which include:

• Elimination of toll takers and their associated benefits - sick leave, vacation, retirement pension, etc.
• Elimination of the costs associated with toll collection - toll machines, toll booths, transponders, maintenance, etc.
• Elimination of toll booth collection - speed up flow of traffic, eliminate toll booth accidents, etc.
• Reduction in fuel consumption by elimination of congestion and start-stop driving at toll booths
• Elimination of the administrative functions and costs associated with toll collection
• Elimination of double taxation produced by both a gasoline tax and tolls
• Greater energy conservation and reduction in pollution through discouragement of unnecessary driving by increasing the cost of gasoline.