Mass Voters Opt for Slavery
Hate to say I told you, but I....
"Taxes rise, spirits fall as state OKs local rates; Some bills higher despite real estate market slump" by Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | December 7, 2008
To the rash of bad news about the state and national economy, add this dispiriting blow: Homeowners across Massachusetts are about to receive higher property tax bills, even as the real estate market sags.... With few exceptions, the numbers tell the same story in community after community: Home values went down, but taxes, and tax rates, on the new bills are going up....
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The new bills will not be mailed in most communities until the end of the month, but many taxpayers are already feeling beleaguered. Voters rejected overrides in five out of six communities on Election Day last month, and property tax concerns figured heavily in a successful $7 million campaign to fight anti-income tax Question 1. Opponents of the question warned that eliminating the income tax would trigger property tax increases.
Yup, you VOTED DOWN the REPEAL of the INCOME TAX and your PROPERTY TAXES are GOING UP ANYWAY!! I'm SOOOOO GLAD you Massachusetts simps BOUGHT the AGENDA-PUSHING BS!!!!!
Meanwhile, strained Massachusetts cities and towns - which are more reliant on property taxes to balance their budgets than communities in most states - are hoping for continued levels of state aid and are looking for new ways to raise taxes.
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?
"Town officials... are trying to decide how much of a property tax break to offer and how they can secure state funding for infrastructure improvements.... although it could take several years for the studio to realize its potential"
Also see: Hollywood, Massachusetts
Hollywood (East) Disses Veterans
More Mass. $$$ to Movie Makers
Sorry, that wasn't it:
"$5m in tax breaks going to IBM for Littleton project
The Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved $5 million in state and local tax breaks for IBM Corp., which recently began a $63 million expansion in Littleton. IBM vice president Bob McDonald said the company plans to create 42 jobs at the site over the next decade. McDonald said the computer giant, based in Armonk, N.Y., has already begun renovating a building and hopes to move into it next month. McDonald said the tax incentives were important, but the company would have gone forward with the expansion without them. IBM has 4,000 employees in Massachusetts, including about 2,000 in Littleton (Boston Globe October 30 2008)."
Yup, but PROPERTY TAXES have to RISE!!!!!
Massachusetts "liberals' are SO DUCKING TOO-PID!!!!!!!!!
Communities have not fully recovered from slashes to local aid made in the last recession; this year they will receive $566 million less, adjusted for inflation, from the state than they got seven years ago, according to the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When home values were soaring, many homeowners accepted upward pressure on property taxes as a fact of life. But now, with assessment reductions coming at the same time that the stock market tanks and unemployment ranks swell, taxpayers are confronting stark reminders about municipal finance: Namely, that decreased assessments and a struggling economy do not mean decreased taxes and that Proposition 2 1/2 does not mean individual taxes cannot rise more than 2 1/2 percent a year. The 2 1/2 percent refers to the overall tax collections, not individual tax bills.
So WHO gets the BREAKS? HOLLYWOOD and CORPORATION!!! And the STATE goy AROUND 21/2, too, huh? What SCUM!!!!!!!!!!!!
"People are frustrated. We're just tired," said Ann Buxton, a Framingham resident....
Framingham's new tax rate has not yet been finalized, but Buxton is bracing for another increase. She works 65 hours a week in two jobs, with a catering company and at a supermarket, and may seek an additional part-time job to make ends meet.
WHERE?
With a raft of rising expenses and a commute of a few hundred miles a week, Buxton, who is 53, said the reprieve of lower gas prices feels only temporary. In addition to a tax increase, she is worried about toll increases on the Massachusetts Turnpike. "People are struggling," she said.
At the local level, assessors try regularly to educate homeowners that municipal budgets, not home values, determine the amount to be raised through taxes, with property assessments the means to spread that tax levy throughout the community. Nevertheless, the sting of an increased tax bill coupled with a reduced assessment can produce frustration and confusion....
Translation: If the GOVERNMENT WANTS MONEY, it is going to TAKE MONEY!!! That's how this nation ended up DUMPING TEA in the HARBOR, folks!!!!!!
On Beacon Hill, lawmakers accustomed to hearing property tax concerns from constituents in good years find that a strained economy has intensified calls for change, which could produce legislation offering municipalities cost-saving measures and alternative revenue sources. Proponents say that would relieve pressure on property taxpayers.
"We're hoping for some pretty aggressive action in the very early part of 2009," said Stanley C. Rosenberg, the Northampton Democrat who serves as Senate chairman of the Legislature's Special Commission on Municipal Relief.
He's my state senator, and he's you typical liberal (and a Jew, too). I didn't vote for him, either, readers.
Governor Deval Patrick, who campaigned in 2006 in part on property tax relief, previously filed many of the ideas that the commission is reviewing, such as allowing communities to institute their own meals tax or increase the hotel tax and enabling them to collect property taxes from telecommunications companies for poles and wires that run over public ways.
Hey, what's another BROKEN CAMPAIGN PROMISE, 'eh, guv? Am I ever sorry I voted for you! As for the relief, INCREASING TAXES is NOT the WAY!! We have a HARD ENOUGH TIME NOW getting tourists to come to our bum-f*** county!
Although many of the components in Patrick's Municipal Partnership Act met roadblocks in the Legislature, lawmakers now appear more willing to consider those proposals, a reflection of the economic downturn and pressures they are feeling from constituents....
That is NOT the kind of pressure the CONSTITUENTS are applying! NO MORE TAXES!!!!
Massachusetts ranks eighth in the country in average property tax bill per household, according to fiscal 2006 statistics compiled by the Tax Foundation, an organization based in Washington, D.C. And while cities and towns nationally generate less than half of their local revenue from property taxes, Massachusetts communities rely on property taxes for 73 percent, according to Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
Then WHERE is that $$$ GOING?!! We KNOW WHERE!!!!
Without legislative relief, "communities are faced with the choice of either increasing the property tax or cutting services, and going in either direction is unpleasant," Beckwith said. "Many communities are doing both."
How does sucking on s*** appeal to you, Mass. resident? Sluuuuurp!
Meanwhile, the original proponents of Proposition 2 1/2 are calling for legislation that would make it more difficult for overrides of the tax cap to reach the ballot. The law, which voters approved in 1980 and which took effect in fiscal 1982, has two main features. It prevents municipalities from increasing the total amount collected from all property taxpayers by more than 2 1/2 percent annually, not counting taxes on new development, without a ballot override. It also prevents a city or town from collecting a total tax levy that exceeds 2 1/2 percent of the community's collective property value.
Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, said the group wants to limit overrides to biennial state elections. Local override proponents have timed their elections for unusual months or days, leading to lower turnout and higher likelihood of support, she said.
Translation: the VOTE is RIGGED!!! What, here in 'liberal" Massachusetts, land of fairness and tolerance?
And LOOK WHO got the TAX BREAKS on THEIR LAND?
Rare is the community in which property taxes drop for homeowners, but that's the case in Wilmington. Among other factors, significant new development in the commercial and industrial categories lifted some of the burden off residential taxpayers, who saw their single-family homes drop in value from an average of $402,698 to $381,505. The average single-family tax bill for the year is nearly $48 lower.
Oh, the RICHERS had their TAX BURDEN DROP, huh?
In 16 years as Wilmington's principal assessor, Humphrey Moynihan had told homeowners that was possible, but he'd never seen it happen before. Although the bills reflecting the new values and rates will not be mailed until the end of the month, Moynihan is already finding himself in an unusual position among assessors: fielding feedback from thankful homeowners.
"The response," he said, "has been very, very positive."
Yeah, I'M SURE it has been!!!
