"Sales tax reduction question weighs on gubernatorial candidates; Some say rate of 3 percent too low" by Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press | February 15, 2010
When Massachusetts residents cast their ballots for governor in November, they will probably face another decision in the voting booth - whether to lower the state sales tax rate from 6.25 percent to 3 percent.
That's a big yes (or no, depending on the wording).
It’s a question that is making those running for the state’s top political office nervous....
The sales tax cut would be a big hit to the state’s coffers - about $2 billion a year at a time when Massachusetts is still struggling to rebound from the lingering economic fallout of the recession.
Governor Deval Patrick is in a stickier position. Although he didn’t propose the increase, the Democratic incumbent signed the state budget that included the sales tax hike.
And don't think we have not forgotten.
Related: "Leaders.... have suggested they would ignore the result even if voters approved the question"
Also see: I Made Forbes Magazine
Why are we voting again?
A spokesman said Patrick favors rolling back the sales tax once the economy rebounds....
Too late to try and apologize, sir.
“He understands the burdens on and concerns of working families, and shares their commitment to fund our public schools, local public safety services, and health care,’’ said Alex Goldstein, press secretary for Patrick’s campaign. “Cutting the sales tax to 3 percent would mean gutting support for these critical services.’’ Goldstein said the loss of revenue also would drive up property taxes.
Only if VOTERS APPROVE IT because of Prop 2 and 1/2!!
Related: The Massachusetts State Budget
Yes, do you SEE where your INCREASED TAXES are going, dear fellow residents?
Community organizer Grace Ross, who is challenging Patrick for the Democratic nomination, said she opposed raising the sales tax to 6.25 percent because she said it disproportionately hurts people who work for a living and spend what they earn.
Whose this?
Maybe I will SWITCH the REGISTRATION and VOTE AGAINST Patrick in the primary!
But Ross also said 3 percent is too low.
Maybe not.
And Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein said she also backs reducing the sales tax rate to 5 percent and possibly lower - as long as the wealthier pay more.
I used to think that way; however, after seeing all the looting and lying in government and where the tax loot actually goes (what crumbs you get), I am convinced that as many taxes need to be abolished as possible and they need to be simplified.
Then watch this economy take off!
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So what is with the challenges to his highness here?
Their answers and, in state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill’s case, reluctance to answer were telling, as the candidates try to capitalize on one of the most significant downsides of Patrick’s incumbency: Faced with a lingering budget deficit, he will potentially be forced to lay people off and decrease the services residents receive at the same time he is asking for their vote....
He's done anyway: Cahill the Conservative
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
Baker the Bozo
Again, good ideas!
Just because the pro-Patrick, agenda-pushing Globe doesn't like them....
He acknowledged that his five ideas would not close a $2 billion budget gap. But he said the proposals were just a sample of those he has been talking about; he joked that he could keep discussing reform plans for hours....
Except he wasn't really joking and he is just what we need.
Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate, said she would eliminate tax incentives for corporations, including those for
Good luck with that one. I agree, but.... campaign ca$h.
She said she would freeze corporate tax rates, which are set to fall under state law.
We have too many taxes as it is!
Related: Slow Saturday Special: State Defies the Fed
Not by halting payments to banks (that gets you ousted like Blagovich), but by RAISING TAXES!
And she vowed to eliminate tax incentives for the film and biotech industries, which she argued have not been cost-effective.
Meaning we have LOST LOOT on the DEAL, taxpayers!
See what INTERESTS our government SERVES?
--more--"
Related: State budget: Tax cigars and pipe tobacco
Legislature should end tax break for soda, candy
I told you the pro-tax Globe was pro-Patrick.
Of course, the Glob doesn't want to end the tax breaks to Hollywood, biotech, or green tech losers.
So what else is out there for Patrick?
"Poll has Patrick up on gubernatorial rivals
Despite an unfavorable rating of 50 percent, Governor Deval Patrick maintains his edge over a crowded gubernatorial field, according to new poll results, which also show support for casinos and for two major tax cuts possibly headed for the ballot.
Oh, a comforting poll from the pro-Patrick paper!
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Patrick's Invisible Approval
Boston Globe Bubble Will Not Burst
Think I'm going to believe their polls when they had Marty Coakley beating Brown by 14 percent?
Going to be disappointed and feel let down by the Globe again, Democrats?
But, but, the Globe said... sob.
According to the Suffolk University/7 News poll, Patrick registered support among 33 percent of the 500 registered voters surveyed, compared with 25 percent for Republican Charles Baker, 23 percent for state Treasurer Tim Cahill, and 3 percent for Jill Stein, with 16 percent undecided.
Are those the rigged totals that are going to be submitted from the machines?
Do we get a run-off?
The poll pegged Patrick’s unfavorable rating at 50 percent, with 38 percent viewing him favorably and 60 percent saying it is time to let someone else be governor.
He is not winning anything, readers. He tops out about 40%, and that would constitute the hardcore Democrats in the state.
The poll also showed support for reducing the sales tax from 6.25 percent to 3 percent at 49 percent to 44 percent, and support for eliminating the new sales tax on alcohol at 54 percent to 39 percent. Casinos were favored 57 percent to 34 percent, with 9 percent undecided (State House News Service)."
Remember, those are ALL RIGGED RESPONSES so support to reduce the sales tax is far more (especially in this economy where prices keep rising); everyone is for the alcohol tax repeal (because we need a drink living here); and the casino thing is 50-50 (better than house odds).
That is how you read an agenda-pushing poll.
Time for one of those sickening photo-ops for which Patrick is famous:
"Patrick courts girls soccer team for votes
How do you know it’s election season? When Governor Deval Patrick takes time out of his day to more or less encourage a bunch of high school students visiting the State House to vote for him.
Popping out of his fourth-floor office on Wednesday, Patrick went down to a third-floor hallway where the championship girls soccer team from Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton had gathered before they were honored on the House floor.
This is what you are paying looting and negligent legislators to do, huh, taxpayers?
Patrick greeted the girls, and told them that state law allows them to register to vote as long as they will be 18 before the next election. He repeated a frequent refrain that citizens get the government they deserve, and if they don’t get involved, government will be run by “professionals’’ who may not have their best interests in mind.
What a stinking little shit!
We already have that thanks to you and the stinking f***ing legislature!!!!!!!!!!
Wrapping up his gauzy pitch for civic participation, Patrick, who is facing a tough road to reelection in November, then leaned forward a bit from his podium and told the girls with a smile, “I’m not telling you who to vote for - necessarily.’’
After posing for a group photo with the girls, he was off, back into his executive office on the fourth floor, polishing his pitch for the next batch of State House visitors.
So THAT is what he does all day, huh?
No wonder this state is such a mess.
Oh, I am so sorry I bought the Boston Globe crap four years ago.
Never again.
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And how can he be ahead when his core constituency is bailing, Glob?
"Unions’ support is no lock for Patrick; Budget woes strain relations" by Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff | March 8, 2010
First in an occasional series.
Of all the daunting challenges facing Deval Patrick this reelection year, there is one that would have been especially difficult to imagine more than three years ago when he became the first Democrat in 16 years to assume the governor’s office: unrest in the ranks of organized labor, particularly among public employee unions.
See: The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
Yup, YOUR PUBLIC SERVANTS, Massachusetts!
You see whom they are serving, right?
Their grievances are many, and mostly a product of steps taken by Patrick, usually in conjunction with the Legislature, to wring savings from a state budget beset annually by a series of shortfalls in a tumbling economy. In Massachusetts, where most public employees belong to labor unions, the measures have created cracks in the longstanding alliance between labor and the Democratic Party.
Police are irate over deep cuts in incentive pay for college degrees and the onset of civilian flaggers on state road projects. Many teachers are upset by elements of a sweeping education law that could result in firings at underperforming schools. Unions at the debt-ridden MBTA are in court fighting rollbacks of their benefits, and employees at agencies consolidated under a transportation overhaul are worried about jobs and benefits as their former departments are combined. Workers at four residential facilities slated for closing by the Department of Mental Retardation fear the loss of hundreds of jobs.
If the tax loot wasn't going for interest payments to banks and as handouts to corporations we wouldn't mind your looting so much, "public servants."
Many of these changes were pushed unsuccessfully by Patrick’s Republican predecessors, who failed to win approval in the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature or abandoned them in the face of stiff political resistance.
Related: The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Problem
The Perils of One-Party Politics: Massachusetts' Democracy
I guess you can see why the special interests dominate this state, huh?
“The public employee unions are used to getting their way on Beacon Hill, and this is a broad array of issues in which they’ve sustained setbacks,’’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. “The governor has shown leadership in taking on a host of issues that are near and dear to the hearts of public employee unions. Whether the public will give the governor credit is an open question, but the vast majority certainly support these initiatives.’’
Yeah, those are the UNHEARD TAXPAYERS funding it all.
Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said union members have sacrificed during tough economic times but are “frustrated because Democrats who we’ve supported, who are supposed to be the party of workers, have gone after our basic right to collectively bargain . . . . We’ll look to any candidate from any party for any office who will stand up and fight for workers.’’
Patrick’s labor problems are concentrated in the public-sector unions. Last month he bailed out of a scheduled address to a gathering of state labor leaders in Plymouth after learning that some planned to honor a picket line of police protesters outside the hotel. An informal Globe survey of several leaders in private-sector unions in the building trades and service sectors showed that Patrick enjoys at least cordial, if not warm, working relationships with them.
The governor vigorously defends himself against the complaints and seemed wounded by the insinuation that he is anti-union....
Related: The Boston Globe Censors Patrick's Past
Yeah, he's a real union man and champion of the people.
What a FRAUD!!
Labor support was only one element of a broader grass-roots coalition that helped to easily sweep Patrick into office in 2006....
Yeah, I was duped, too!
Under Patrick, thousands of public employee jobs have been preserved through federal stimulus money, including more than $26 million in discretionary funds used to retain 230 firefighters in 85 communities and 83 police officers in 35 municipalities, his office said.
Why are our public servants looting you, taxpayers?
Formal union endorsement proceedings are not underway yet, and officials said they could not predict the outcome. But union members may have difficulty finding a more palatable alternative in the race....
Yup, nowhere to go.
Even if Patrick were to succeed in persuading unions to support him again, the special US Senate election last January has called into question the ability of union leaders to deliver their membership’s votes to favored candidates.
Yeah, they are nothing but dues-sucking relics that -- like every other damn institution here -- cares about their own pocketbooks.
A poll commissioned for the national AFL-CIO showed that more union households supported Republican US Senate candidate Scott Brown than Democrat Martha Coakley, who had the state AFL-CIO’s endorsement.
Oh, LEADERSHIP out of sync with RANK-and-FILE just like POLITICIANS are out of step with VOTERS?!!!
The unions that are most incensed with Patrick are the police, who have seen Quinn Bill incentive pay cut this year by more than $40 million and their take-home pay further depleted by the replacement of police details with civilian flaggers on many state road construction projects.
Actually, I agree with the cops on that one.
I WANT an OFFICER STANDING there in case there is an emergency and because HE is a DETERRENT to BAD DRIVERS! If drivers just see a guy with a reflecting orange jacket on they are not going to give them the same respect or slow down.
And as a taxpayer, I'm willing to pay for that one, but not subsidize Hollywood to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
“I talk to members all the time and they feel like they’re whipping boys and girls here,’’ said David J. Holway, president of the Bay State-based National Association of Government Employees, whose membership includes many police union locals. “We had 16 years of dealing with Republican governors and there were expectations we’d be treated a little better than we had, and those expectations weren’t met.’’
Awww, the poor public looters, hey!!
The Quinn Bill has always had critics who argue it’s too generous, but there has never been a serious attempt to cut the funding. The state has long reimbursed cities and towns for half of the cost of the program, which provided an average of more than $10,000 a year for those officers who pursued a degree in law enforcement, criminal justice, or law.
Gee, UBS gets a $70 million dollar interest payment every month.
This fiscal year’s budget cut the state’s more than $50 million appropriation to $10 million; in his proposed 2011 budget, Patrick wants to reduce that to $5 million. Patrick has also filed legislation that would exempt communities from being forced to pick up the state’s share of the bonus program.
You know, I actually would like the cop to know the law.
This ain't Alabama, is it, smug s***ters?
The flagger provision, which went into effect in October 2008, has produced only a modest savings on state road and bridge projects because the law requires the payment of union-level prevailing wages, and the Legislature did not require cities and towns to hire flaggers....
Yeah, there are always tons of loopholes because the special interests write the bills and send them over for a vote.
Patrick has also faced criticism from teachers unions over parts of the landmark education reform enacted in January, which granted sweeping new powers to superintendents over staffing and workplace rules at failing schools and increased the number of independently run charter schools that can be created without union approval in Boston and other districts with the lowest standardized test scores.
Where they going to go?
Related: No Apple For This Teacher
And they are closing schools and laying off teachers at the same time?
“Portions of this bill we view as antiunion and anticollective bargaining,’’ said Thomas J. Gosnell, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the smaller of the two statewide teachers unions. “Collective bargaining is not the impediment to student achievement, and there is no data, no proof given to show that this is going to benefit kids. . . . We’re the most unionized state in the nation, and students in Massachusetts score number one in the country on national tests and we score number one in the world in science.’’
No one cares what you guys have to say.
And it looks like Patrick is getting desperate:
"Governor turns up the heat on Baker; Patrick jabs rival over rising health care costs" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | March 11, 2010
Governor Deval Patrick yesterday took some of his most pointed shots yet at Republican gubernatorial rival Charles D. Baker Jr., accusing the former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of doing nothing to stop dramatic increases in health care costs that he said are crushing small businesses and families.
Obvious who he fears the most, Cahill.
“Every time there is a hard decision, every time something has to be done with some urgency, putting something on the line for regular people, the challengers — and he’s one of them — are missing in action,’’ the governor told reporters after testifying in support of a bill he filed to cap increases in health care premiums. “And he’s missing in action today.’’
Sigh. You have been missing in action for three years!
Moments later, Patrick’s campaign, in a fund-raising pitch to supporters, relayed the governor’s jab at Baker, a move that suggested the attack was premeditated by his political team.
Do you know how sick I am of POLITICS and the people driving them?
“Today’s events represent a clear example of the choices Massachusetts voters have before them in this election,’’ said the appeal from Patrick’s campaign manager, Sydney Asbury. “Governor Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Murray care about working people and take on entrenched and powerful interests on their behalf, while other candidates are either beholden to those interests or too timid to do anything about the problems facing our Commonwealth.’’
I'm tired of the disingenuous insults, you?
Is that what ALL the TAX INCREASES were for?
What an asshole!!!!!!!
Patrick’s aggressive tack seemed to mark a new, more heated phase of the campaign, on the same day a new poll showed Baker gaining ground on Patrick.
And the pro-Patrick Globe blared this from the front page of the Metro section for him!
Baker’s campaign manager, Lenny Alcivar, said in an e-mail:
“The governor had 3 1/2 years to take action on health care costs, but he didn’t,’’ Alcivar said. “For 3 1/2 years, Deval Patrick had the existing authority to do something, anything to address this problem, and he wouldn’t. Today, hours after waking up to polling results that show his reelection prospects dwindling by the minute, Governor Patrick was forced to testify on a proposal aimed more toward salvaging his political career than helping small businesses.’’
Yeah, that was the feeling I got.
Patrick’s comments were notable, because he often passes up opportunities to directly engage his challengers, particularly when at the State House. But he seized the chance yesterday....
Pfffft!
The Rasmussen Reports automated telephone survey of likely voters showed Patrick earning 35 percent of the vote, compared with 32 percent for Baker and 19 percent for state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who is running as an independent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 1/2 percentage points. A Rasmussen survey in November showed Patrick at 33 percent, Baker at 28 percent, and Cahill at 25 percent.
Baker the only one on the up, huh?
And it is only going to continue, folks!
Political analysts said Patrick is trying to more actively define Baker in the minds of voters before Baker can introduce himself on his own terms.
Pffft!
How about doing a decent job GOVERNING the STATE for once, s***ter?
“Given the Rasmussen poll today essentially showing a dead heat, it’s clear that Governor Patrick really has to step up and go on offense more, not only touting what he’s done, but go on offense against his real challenger in this race, and that’s Charlie Baker,’’ said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic political strategist. “It signals a stage in this race, and it shows you we’ll see an even more aggressive Deval Patrick going into the spring and the summer.’’
And down will go his poll numbers because we don't want to hear it anymore.
He had his chance and he blew it.
The voters of this state made a mistake in 2006 and they know it.
They won't do that again.
The Patrick campaign has been honing two main lines of attack against Baker as it looks toward the November election. One is to tie Baker to the exorbitant cost increases of the Big Dig, whose finances Baker helped oversee as the top budget aide to governors William F. Weld and Paul Cellucci in the 1990s.
Yeah, and it was Ted Kennedy who poured all that federal loot into it and secured the funding for that debt-inducing sink hole.
Also see: Massachusetts Democrats Keep Making the Same Mistakes
But he is criticizing the other guy?
It's called hypocrisy, and it sure does stink!
The other is to portray Baker as a health care executive who bears some responsibility for rising costs for families.
Because Partners was charging them 3x the going rate?
“They talk about why it is they can’t help but charge double-digit increases every year to small businesses and families,’’ Patrick said. “Those small business and families don’t have a voice at the table. They have my voice at that table.’’
Yeah, except they have been getting clobbered under you, puss bucket!!!!!!!!!
And which mansion would that be?
See: Gov. Patrick's Party Palace
Globalist Governor Has Got an Agenda
The table at the second home worth $2 million?
Yeah, this guy is looking out for you, taxpayers!
Did he screw himself on the mortgages like he did the minorities when he worked for the mortgage company?
Baker’s running mate, Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei, Republican of Wakefield, joined Alcivar in dismissing Patrick’s comments as a political ploy. “The governor is really electioneering, instead of taking a more thoughtful approach,’’ he said.
Oh, yeah, WE CAN ALL SEE IT!!
Also see: The Boston Globe is Way Out in the Woods
They are shameless!
Someone insults you all the time and then they want something from you!?!
Pfffft!
