"User fee hikes urged to aid towns and cities; Legislative panel to present plan today" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | May 7, 2009
Dining out at restaurants, registering your car, and even watching satellite television would get more expensive under a plan that will be recommended today by a special legislative panel hunting for new revenue to aid cities and towns.
I don't think I will be eating out any time soon, I'll ride the bike more, and tv?
Pffft! Click mean anything to you?
The commission's report contains a potentially big money maker for municipalities. It says local officials should have the option of raising meal taxes by 2 percentage points and increasing taxes on hotel rooms by 4 percentage points.
That is NOT GOING to HELP the EMPTY RESTAURANT I was in last week!
And PLEASE DON'T COME HERE, readers! Go ANYWHERE BUT HERE!!!!
Fuck these taxaholic assholes that toss our tax monies away to special interests!
Related:
Pigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Hollywood S***s on Massachusetts
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
How many times I gotta put 'em up?
The increases, along with a variety of other taxes and fees, would raise at least $409 million to benefit municipalities as state lawmakers are reducing local aid payments. It would be a crucial boost for struggling cities and towns, panel members and city leaders said.
So they calculate. It'll come up lower; it always does.
The report recommends raising the state's $29 car registration fee by $6, which would raise $27 million annually for community policing and State Police training.
Why don't you go get the money from profit-making Hollywood instead?
It would add a 5 percent tax on satellite dish services like DirectTV, raising an estimated $25 million, which would probably be collected through viewers' monthly bills, the report said. Such taxes are already imposed on cable users. The money would go to the state, but it would be set aside to benefit municipalities under the plan. Cities and towns would also be able to directly impose their own taxes on telecommunications companies for telephone poles and wires.
That is their answer to EVERYTHING around here! RAISE TAXES!
The state currently assesses a 5 percent tax on meals, which is the same percentage as the statewide sales tax.
Not for long: Taxachusetts Auctioning Up Sales Tax
And I will DEFINITELY not be going out to eat ANYWHERE!!!!
The legislation being filed by House and Senate lawmakers would give local communities the ability to raise that tax by 2 percentage points. If all communities voted to levy the tax, it would raise about $250 million. The communities would get to keep most of the money, although about $15 million would be placed into an account used to promote regionalization.
"We're trying to encourage regionalization of municipal services, everything from public safety to public health, from education to libraries and road maintenance," said Senator Stanley Rosenberg, a Northampton Democrat and cochairman of the Special Commission on Municipal Relief. "We have 351 cities and towns, and most of them are well under 30,000 people."
Yeah, right, REGIONALIZATION is the key, Stan!!
"The state has offered incentives in the past, but has not always fulfilled the promises it made to communities that regionalized. Wachusett Regional, which was formed in 1955 and enrolls students from the towns of Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, and Sterling, never received all of the state money promised for increased transportation costs, said Cynthia Bazinet, a School Committee member there. Such experiences could deter other communities from regionalizing, she said. "Out transportation costs are enormous," she said. "And we've never been reimbursed in the manner promised."
And WHAT ELSE is my GARBAGE SENATOR up to?
"Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg, Democrat of Amherst, is listed in official documents as bringing the amendment to the floor. But Rosenberg said in an interview that he did not author the amendment and does not know who did."
WTF?
Doesn't even know what is happening in his own committee -- or is he just lying?
The commission also makes several complex changes in healthcare payments for municipal employees, which local officials are planning to oppose. "The health insurance piece is worse than doing nothing; it would be a major step backward," said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. "We've told the commission we respect very much their efforts, but we feel the plan they've developed on health insurance would actually be a step back, not a step forward."
Welcome to Massachushitts!!!!
--more --"
You know what I think the answer is to our health care woes, readers -- and no one would need worry ever again.
