This week's announcement of 1,000 state employee layoffs and $1 billion in budget cuts may just be the beginning, as financial forecasters say that Governor Deval Patrick's predictions of revenue shortfalls are as much as $500 million too low.
The reason: the continuing plunge in the stock market is dragging down capital gains taxes that have kept Massachusetts flush in the boom times. The state has already factored big projected losses into this week's budget cuts. But if the stock market continues its downward slide, the state could face an additional deficit of more than $400 million to $500 million in capital gains and income tax losses, state officials and specialists said.
Thus far, Patrick and legislative leaders have avoided any talk of imposing fees or new taxes, such as an increase in the gas tax, to help balance the budget. Observers say this is because the governor and lawmakers don't want to risk angering voters who will be asked in a Nov. 4 ballot question whether they want to eliminate the state income tax - which generated $12.5 billion last year. --more--"
Yeah, they will wait until AFTER the election for that!!! Of course, the TAX HIKE will get us spending even less!!!!
And how many times I gotta post it, readers?
Of course, "flushing . . . millions of dollars away supporting a highly profitable industry" when it comes to $300 million in taxpayer dollars for Hollywood is o.k., even as the price of a school lunch rises; paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker, even as my poorer-than-dirt district "has been struggling to close a $2 million budget gap."; the lottery shelling out "millions of dollars" for sports tickets for "lottery officials, their family members, and friends" is fine, even as schools are closing; making interest payments to banks to the tune of "a staggering $22 billion" for the Big Pit, as we call it around here, is required, even as bridges are neglected across the state; and again, paying off banks like UBS, who can "demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January" while also receiving a "$179 million payment," while the state pension fund loses $1 billion dollars -- which still didn't stop the executive director from carving himself a nice "$64,000 bonus on top of his $322,000 annual salary."
Oh, and did I not mention the $1 BILLION dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical corporations, even though "it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech?" Flush that money away, too, taxpayer. Of course, the war looters were next in line for a handout. And should the state be appropriating money for a "multimillion-dollar reconstruction" of golf courses?
Nor is it RECKLESS to BORROW the STATE INTO OBLIVION so they can PAY INTEREST to BANKS while SITTING ON $2 BILLION DOLLARS!
Need one final insult, Mass. taxpayers?
See: Massachusetts Gives More Money to Hollywood
Yup, but they are going to CUT JOBS and SERVICES while telling us we need to keep the income tax!!
Don't you just get SICK of the BULLSHIT?!!!!
Of course, here are where the cuts go (almost as if they want to agenda-push retention of the income tax, huh? How come Globe never spotlight what I just did above? Just goes out the window, doesn't it?):
"Where the cutbacks might hurt the most" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | October 17, 2008
FITCHBURG - Home care is the kind of crucial social service, viewed up close, that is jeopardized by the $1 billion in budget cuts Governor Deval Patrick announced Wednesday afternoon.
Patrick's cuts targeted services for troubled teenagers, the mentally ill, and the disabled, as well as to local police grants and much, much more. People who could be affected by the cuts can be found all over this economically troubled city, from the elderly strolling past the boarded-up storefronts downtown to the students trying to build careers at local colleges.
A cut to the after-school program would add to the burdens already inflicted on the Cleghorn Center by the faltering economy. The food pantry is virtually under siege by residents; about 80 families came last month, four times more than normal. Staff members are no longer reimbursed for gas mileage as they travel to help families around the community, according to Dolores Thibault-Munoz, the center's executive director.
The biggest cuts statewide, nearly $300 million, will be to Medicaid payments made to healthcare providers, possibly including the 150-bed HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster that serves Central Massachusetts. Counseling programs, homelessness support services, and adult education courses all will see cuts.
More than $1.6 million is being subtracted from services for the blind. Nearly $1 million is being eliminated from emergency assistance funds for family shelters. More than $1.5 million in HIV/AIDS prevention funds will be cut, along with at least $8.1 million in substance abuse programs. More than $15.2 million will be cut from the Department of Social Services alone.. --more--"
Seems like HOLLYWOOD'S GIVEAWAYS could cover that alone!!!!
Yup, TRILLIONS for WARS and BANKS and BILLIONS for ISRAEL, but NOT a DAMN PENNY for YOU, Americans!!!!
Need more?
State budget cuts will hit two of the state's safety-net hospitals particularly hard. Boston Medical Center has been notified it will not be reimbursed $64 million for care delivered to low-income Medicaid patients last fiscal year, and Cambridge Health Alliance will lose out on $40 million it had been expecting, state and hospital officials said yesterday.
An executive at Boston Medical, where 150,000 Medicaid patients receive care each year, said the hospital will be forced to cut services. Tom Traylor, vice president of federal and state programs, said the hospital is mulling which programs for low-income patients would be cut; options include interpreter services, transportation to the hospital, and asthma, diabetes or primary care.
Traylor said the cut is in addition to $12 million the hospital will lose this year as part of the sweeping reductions announced Wednesday by Governor Deval Patrick to close a $1.1 billion budget gap. The governor's decision to cut Medicaid spending means Massachusetts will lose matching federal money.
Then CUT HOLLYWOOD, guv!!!!
In other healthcare cuts, the Department of Public Health is trimming nearly $6 million from its immunization program. Massachusetts has long been a national leader in buying vaccines for children and then distributing them to doctors, a policy that yielded the highest vaccination rates in the United States.
Yeah, FUK the KIDS, too!!!!
Actually, maybe it will be a good thing; kids not getting poison in their arm.
In an interview, John Auerbach, the state's public health commissioner, said his agency has not decided how much of the spending reduction will be carved from childhood immunizations and how much from adult programs, although he said all could come out of the adult program. The state had committed about $51.5 million for immunizations this budget year, with the federal government kicking in a comparable amount. --more--"
