It’s a tough time to talk about taxes in Massachusetts.  The House Speaker has asserted his opposition to any tax increases to deal with the state budget shortfall and echoes of the anti-tax rhetoric of the recent Senate campaign still ring in the public mind.

And tax conversations are never easy.  As Charles Pierce lays out in his excellent piece in the Globe Magazine this weekend, Americans have a love-hate relationship with taxes:

“Quite simply, if you love a particular government service -- that your bridges are repaired, for example, or your emergency calls answered -- you ought to love the taxes that pay for it. That, however, is rarely the case.”

And our conflicted relationship with taxes is about more than money:

“Taxes have become the way we define ourselves as a political commonwealth, or a way of determining whether we still see ourselves as such at all.”

But a recent vote in Oregon shows that talking about taxes in a productive way is still possible.  On January 26th Oregon voters approved two tax increases that had been passed by the legislature and were being challenged at the ballot.  Along with painful budget cuts these two tax measures helped to address a severe state budget shortfall.

Secretary William Galvin has issued a new opinion on the lobbying law which adds clarity to certain key issues that have concerned many non-profits in the past few months.  In a January 21, 2010 opinion rendered to attorney Roger Donoghue, Lobbyist Section Director Alan Cote stated unequivocally that a communication with a covered executive or legislative official IS required in order to meet the statutory provisions for registering as a lobbyist.  In other words, back-room staff, who never talk with legislators, are not lobbyists.

To those of you who have been following this issue, Cote, in an October letter to attorney Carl Valvo, failed to answer this same question.  In this new letter to Attorney Donoghue, he references the previous letter and states that the office, "now finds that absent a direct, personal communication with a covered legislative or executive official by an individual, the participation of that individual in strategizing, planning and research activities does not trigger registration.” (emphasis in the original)

This new interpretation is consistent with Common Cause's view of the statute and that of Governor Patrick’s former chief legal counsel Ben Clements, who chaired the Governor's task force on Public Integrity and wrote the original legislation along with other members of the task force.  Attorney Clements is mentioned in the letter.

The opinion also clarifies the issue of whether non-profit board members who lobby on behalf of their non-profit have to register as lobbyists.  It states that when a Board member is not compensated by the non-profit, despite being a salaried employee of another corporation, he or she does not have to register.

The wellbeing of our communities across Massachusetts hinges on our ability to work together with our government in finding ways on how to support the public structures we have built and maintained for decades. Public education, clean water, public security, clean streets, snow and trash removal, prevention programs among many others are some public structures that we all value and seek to continue funding. These public structures are what make Massachusetts competitive.

As residents of this state we need to continue participating in the decisions our elected officials make on our behalf. Our elected officials as our representatives are accountable to our communities. We are the ones electing them to make decisions that have an impact on all of us. Recent government scandals have undermined the faith many have in our government and in our ability to work together to solve the big issues of our time. Government transparency and accountability play an important role in restoring the public’s faith in the mission and purpose of the Legislature, and government as a whole.

In an article dated on January 26th, State Representative Will Brownsberger talks about the lack of transparency in certain activities of the state Legislature. Representative Brownsberger particularly discusses the lack of transparency around how funds are spent in certain legislative accounts and about hiring patterns in the House leadership. The article rightly states how these indiscretions "obscure real recent accomplishments like pension reform, ethics reform, transportation reform, and education reform, not to mention producing a timely budget in a deep recession" that state government has accomplished recently.

The Governor's budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which starts on July 1, 2010, along with some severe cuts, is proposing some modest new revenue streams that will help us address our structural deficit.

The Governor's budget proposal (House 2) continues budget cuts from the prior two years and recommends further cuts in several areas. It also generates revenue by reducing three business tax breaks and by extending sales taxes to cover soda, candy, cigars and smokeless tobacco. In addition it relies on continued significant federal assistance and on other temporary revenues including a modest withdrawal from the state stabilization fund.

A Preliminary Analysis from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center describes some of the major cuts and other initiatives used to balance the budget

As one of the long time community activists organizing to strengthen our neighborhoods and our communities through the Coalition of Social Justice and the Coalition against Poverty in the various South Coast cities and towns, I can tell you first hand how low and moderate income people have been carrying more than their fair share of the pain imposed by past budget cuts.

As members of ONE Massachusetts, we've been learning a lot about the various tax credits offered to corporations, especially the Film Tax Credit. We've studied reports from DOR and Mass INC, and are not convinced that we get a good return on the dollars we invest by paying 25% of the enormous salaries, the likes of Tom Cruise.

The Governor has taken an important step by imposing a temporary cap on the film credit although it still allows $50 million dollars in credits for FY11 and FY12. We'll be supporting this proposal, and may even be suggesting more!!!

Today, Governor Patrick will release the state budget, setting in motion a process of give and take that will unfold over a minimum of three months. During that period, many of us will be advocating against cuts -- to our programs, our favored line items, to the local aid that keeps our communities afloat.

ONE Massachusetts is offering trainings designed to help you make the case for more revenue in the state budget. We're asking the Governor and Legislature to take a balanced approach to the budget deficit, combining new revenues with federal and reserve funds to avoid cutting critical programs.

Much rides on how convincing our arguments are. How compellingly can we convey the critical importance of funding our communities. 

Our trainings will enable you to make the case for more funding and at the same time remind your audience of the critical role government plays in keeping our communities safe and healthy, fostering economic growth and expanding opportunity for everyone.

On Feb. 2, join us for a training at the Boston Teachers Union in Dorchester from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. On Feb 3, join us for an Insider Budget Briefing at our 30 Winter Street office from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Contact yawu@realclout.org to set up a training for your staff, board or colleagues.

We would all love to fully-fund each and every great public and nonprofit program that folks in our state work so hard on, and that make our state a better place to live. Unfortunately, each budget season, we find ourselves competing for a limited pool of funding for the good of our programs.

Lew Finfer, ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team member and Director of the Massachusetts Community Action Network, goes a step further. He integrates support for additional revenues into each of his budget requests.

Here is an example of a request Lew recently made to his network of advocates working on youth violence prevention and teen jobs programs:

The things that make Massachusetts a great place to live – including the public structures that many of you are fighting to support – are things that we are not able to do as individuals. In order to build safe, healthy communities, we must all work together to support our state.

Due to decades of deliberate tax and budget decisions, along with the national economic downturn, our state currently faces a $2-3 billion budget deficit. Because states are not legally allowed to run deficits, our state leadership must balance the budget using more cuts, tax increases, or a combination of the two options.

Last year, we saw big budget cuts across the board, but many cuts were reduced or avoided because they also raised the sales tax from 5% to 6.25%, bringing in over $700 million each year in new tax revenue.

The next time you set a meeting with your legislators, it is likely that they will ask you how they can justify voting for an increase for teen jobs and youth violence prevetnion programs (or even spare those items from cuts) in the face of a $2-3 billion deficit. They may even ask you what programs should be cut instead of the one for which you are advocating.

By Lee Ketelsen, ONE Massachusetts founding member and guest blogger

Governor Patrick's decision to retain the moratorium against new waste incineration is the right decision.

He has committed the state to green solutions that protect public health, promote energy and resource conservation, and create green jobs. Recycling creates more jobs and saves more energy by far than waste incineration.

Instead of destroying discarded resources in incinerators, we need to make the most of them through reuse, recycling, and composting. Recycling saves three to five times the energy that can be captured by incineration, and without the harmful impacts on public health and the environment.

By ONE Massachsuetts Guest Blogger Rep. Carl Sciortino

Medford - It’s not a secret that our state economy is in bad shape. The economic troubles plaguing the nation are having the same impact on the state budget as they are on the budgets of businesses and families across Massachusetts.

Why We're Part of People First

By ONE Massachsuetts Guest Blogger Al Norman

The Mass Home Care Association represents 30 agencies whose mission it is to keep elders and individuals with disabilities living in the community, at their highest level of functioning. More than 55,000 people a month count on home care help to live independently. It is their civil right to avoid unjustifiable segregation in an institution.

The “People First” campaign is all about addressing the needs of these vulnerable people—first. The state budget is the expression of what our state Constitution refers to as a “social compact” to ensure all individuals with “the power of enjoying, in safety and tranquility, their natural rights and the blessings of life.”

The needs of our people to be safely housed, fed, and cared for is not diminished in a recession. In fact, it gets worse, as more people become eligible for public programs. The fortunes of the low-income do not rise and fall with the stock market. Government looks after these people because the Marketplace will not.  Greed in the Marketplace—not the need of our people--caused a precipitous drop in revenues to sustain our social compact. Despite these hard fiscal times, there are still people and corporations in this state who are doing very well financially. We need to turn to those who have, to help those who have not. [Keep Reading...]

An article in Saturday's Boston Globe shows the reciprocal relationship between the investments we make in public education, job training and public higher education and the businesses and jobs that make our economy thrive.

As the article points out, many high-tech businesses are refusing to relocate to states where wages are 20 to 30 percent lower because the Massachusetts workforce is better trained and more skilled:

“Among the reasons that we have continued to expand is we have access to high quality, educated employees, many with biotech and pharmaceutical backgrounds,’’ chief financial officer David Arkowitz. “Our intellectual capital resides here in Massachusetts, and it’s too precious to relocate.’’

This article also underscores the importance of investing in the state's educations system, k-graduate school.