Health & Fitness
Tax Increase Bill Is Misnamed and Misrepresents Facts
Our Analysis and Evaluation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts's recent tax increase package
From William Heck and Joshua Norman
Although we at the Newton Taxpayers Association prefer to focus our fiscal responsibility watchdog efforts directly on the City of Newton, we are aware that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts's laws governing municipalities have created a need to keep an eye on statewide fiscal issues as well. With the recent tax increase package passing the Legislature, here is our evaluation of the tax increase that Massachusetts taxpayers will be bearing.
Our legislature passed a $600M tax increase package in late July. This tax increase package was framed as a “transportation financing bill.” As part of this tax increase package, our gas tax jumped from 21 cents per gallon to 24 cents and we’re paying a new tax for computer services. The fact is that
approximately 70% of the new taxes from the “transportation financing bill” will go to the general fund, not to transportation.
Newton representatives Ruth Balser and Kay Khan enthusiastically supported misrepresenting the tax increase package as a “transportation financing bill,” knowing that nearly 70% of the tax funds – two pennies out of every three pennies collected – would NOT pay for anything related to transportation.
We, the taxpayers, already pay plenty of taxes and tolls for roads and bridges, but Balser and Khan vote to spend these monies elsewhere. Good god almighty, how many times do taxpayers need to pay for the same road and bridge projects?
Is this new tax money even going to fund roads and bridges or is this going to fund lavish salaries and benefit packages for government union workers at the MBTA and transportation bureaucrats at the Department of Transportation? I suggest it is time to un-elect Balser and Khan. They don’t get it; they never have and never will.
Speaking of not getting it, do you know that the City of Newton now has over $1 billion of debt ($222 million in bonded debt, $244 million in pensions and $602 million in retiree health benefits)? Did you know that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now has over $84 billion of debt ($44.3 billion in bonded debt, $23.6 in pensions and $16.3 billion in retiree health benefits)?
