The things that make Massachusetts a great place to live - good schools, clean water, safe streets - are only possible due to our shared, ongoing support. Unfortunately, a decade of tax cuts and subsequent years of declining revenue have left Massachusetts with a multi-billion dollar structural deficit – forcing our elected officials to make difficult decisions in order to balance our budget. The wellbeing of our communities depends on us. It is time to decide whether we want more cuts or more revenue!

On Yawu’s blog “Bad Breaks” NoPolitician rightfully said:

“I think we owe it to the governor to, when people complain about cuts or taxes, to make them tell us what they would do instead. For example, if you don't like the candy/soda tax, then tell us what you would get rid of to save the $61.6 million that will be lost by eliminating it.”

Based on NoPolitician comment I would like to share some talking points that the team at ONE Massachusetts put together that can be used when calling or meeting your state representative or state senator. These talking points are prospective revenue proposals that would promote a more adequate tax system in Massachusetts that minimize cuts and increase funding for our programs and public structures. We, as a community, can not afford to lose more funding for our programs. Urge your state representative and state senator to take a balanced approach to filling the budget gap by drawing on federal stimulus funds, wise use of rainy day funds, judicious cuts and closing costly tax loopholes.

REMEMBER TO SAY THANK YOU! It’s not all bad news – it is important that we take the time to thank our legislators for their support of the Sales Tax increase last year. Without the $750 million in revenue that it raised, there would have been even more cuts. Your friends and neighbors across the state also worked hard to defeat Question 1 in 2008, which would have cut the income tax and taken away 40 percent of the state’s revenue. We are already organizing a campaign and will work hard to defeat the ballot referendum on cutting the sales tax to 3 percent, since that would cost us $2.5 billion.

MAINTAIN YOUR BALANCE. We urge the legislature and the governor to take a balanced approach to filling the budget gap by drawing on federal stimulus funds, wise use of reserve funds (rainy day fund), judicious cuts and closing costly tax loopholes.

EVALUATE ALL OF YOUR OPTIONS. These are just some of the short-term revenue options that can help bring balance to our budget:

• Film Tax Credit: Repealing this credit can save as much as $150 million per year. [Governor Patrick's Proposal]
• Dividends and Interest: Restoration to a 12 percent rate would raise as much as $500 million a year. An exemption could be added for the first $5,000 of income – exempting middle-income folks.
• Life Sciences Tax Credits: Limiting this credit can earn Massachusetts $5 million per year. [Governor Patrick's Proposal]
• Aircraft Sales Tax Exemption: Repealing this exemption can save $4.5 million per year. [Governor Patrick's Proposal]
• Cigars and Smokeless Tobacco Sales Tax Exemption: Removing can earn $10 million per year. [Governor Patrick's Proposal]

BROADEN OUR BASE. Next year, we will face an even greater challenge as federal stimulus funds run out, and while all of our options are worth careful consideration, it is important to push for adequate, balanced, and stable ways that we can all support our state together: • Services Tax: Currently, Massachusetts exempts all services from the Sales Tax, forgoing $9 billion a year in revenue. By carefully selecting certain services for taxation, we can add an additional, progressive source of revenue.
• Increase the Income Tax Rate: A 1% increase in the income tax rate would raise $800 million a year. Combined with an increase in personal exemptions, this would allow us to raise revenues without increasing taxes on families earning under $100,000 a year.

For more information about how you can use the information together with tips on how to set a meeting with your legislators and talk more effectively about government and taxes visit the following links:

• Talking Points on Our Revenue Options [PDF]
• Guides to talking and writing more effectively about government and taxes
• Guide to Organizing a Legislative Meeting [PDF] from Massachusetts Community Action Network

Today's and yesterday's Boston Globe highligt an estimated $25 million a year the state gives in questionable tax breaks to businesses aimed at economic development.

The Massachusetts Economic Development Incentive Program is part of $1.7 billion in tax breaks the state gives out every year that are aimed at economic development (for more on these breaks, check out the Mass. Budget & Policy Center report).

While Legislative leadership has been reluctant to raise revenues, it's hard to fathom how our cities and towns will absorb the cuts that will come from an expected 5 percent reduction in Local Aid.

In communities across the state libraries are closing or scaling back their hours, police and fire fighters are facing lay offs, and the essential city services that keep communities functioning are imperiled.

Legislators have been working to make the businesses that receive tax credits from the state more accountable. Last year, the Revenue Committee passed a bill that would have required businesses receiving tax credits to issue annual reports detailing the job creation they commit to when applying for the tax credits.

While the bill did not pass this year, there is growing awareness of the numerous loopholes in the state's tax code. Now more than ever, our elected officials must weigh these tax expenditures against the cuts they're making in our communities.

Dedicated to those who wish to limit or suspend the film credit. You couldn't make this up!!

TALLAHASSEE — Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a "family-friendly" tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.

The bill would prohibit productions with "nontraditional family values" from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn't define what "nontraditional family values" are, something the bill's sponsor had a hard time doing, too.

"Think of it as like Mayberry," state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. "That's when I grew up — the '60s. That's what life was like. I want Florida to be known for movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?”

This week parents with toddlers protested planned cuts in services, fee hikes at the State House. Last week the Environmental League of Massachusetts released a report that highlights the deep environmental spending cuts that have taken place in Massachusetts. While in the Environmental League of Massachusetts report environmental officials said that they understand that the current state fiscal crisis has forced spending cuts, both advocacy organizations evaded the tough question that legislators are facing today: cut these programs further, take money away from other programs to fund them or raise new revenues.  

“A healthy environment is the result of decisions we make together through our government through different policies, initiatives and decisions that keep our water clean and protect our green spaces.”

“Young children thrive when we support policies that create a network of support to help their families overcome their childrens’ health challenges.”

While everyone would agree with the above statements and would support funding these government initiatives, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there are many other worthy programs in our state that also contribute to the overall health of our community. In fact the State House corridors are packed everyday with hundred of single issue advocates lobbying for their worthy programs to be protected from cuts.

The public debate about these programs should not based on whether a program is more important than another one or which one is getting cut the most but on how we all as a community decide how to support all these structures by providing them with the necessary funding to keep them functioning and servicing our communities.

In good economic times we have cut taxes in the state to bring money back into “people’s pockets”. In bad economic times, we cut taxes to “re-active the economy and create jobs”. We can not have it both ways and expect to have the same level of services and programs.

We need to continue our one issue advocacy but add a revenue message to protect the entire range of important programs that we value in our communities.

Or is it?

Larry Bartels of Princeton shows that more often than not average Americans side with businesses and the wealthy in tax debates--voting for tax cuts they will never receive and against tax increases they will not pay:

“What is most remarkable is that this massive upward transfer of wealth has been broadly supported by ordinary Americans, despite a good deal of public suspicion that the benefits would go mostly to the rich. For example, a CBS News Poll in April 2001, shortly before the first big tax cut was passed, found that 51% of the public favored President Bush’s tax cut plan, while 55% said that “rich people” would “benefit most” from it.

“A Harris Poll in June 2003 found that 50% thought the 2003 tax cut was “a good thing,” while 42% said it would help “the rich” a lot and only 11% said it would help “the middle class” a lot. An even more recent survey in which respondents were reminded that “President Bush and Congress have made two major cuts in federal income tax rates” found that 54% of the public approved of those cuts, while only 37% disapproved.”

For many in Massachusetts and across the nation, Scott Brown’s January 19th victory is being widely hailed as a victory for anti-government, anti-tax crusaders. Brown won big in suburbia and Dedham was no exception (55 percent).

But on the same ballot, Dedham voters also voted by a higher margin (60 percent) to increase their property taxes. The reason voters chose to override the Proposition 2 ½ levy limit? Dedham chose to invest in their schools.

As we look at the status of the Massachusetts budget, it is easy to forget that we are not alone in making some very important decisions about our state and our communities.

Not only can we learn from the consequences of our own state's historic budget and revenue decisions, we can learn from other states working through the same issues!

Sunday's Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune Op-Ed, "The case for paying higher taxes, happily," laid out a scenario that was all too familiar - a state facing a structural deficit, another round of budget cuts, and advocates calling for even more tax cuts for big businesses. The authors, though push back, calling for a more balanced look at the effect of tax cuts:

What's good for General Mills usually is good for Minnesota. And despite the state's gigantic revenue shortage, some proposals at the Capitol to give further tax cuts and credits to businesses deserve a serious look.

But the assumption that more tax cuts are the only way to strengthen the state's economy is just plain wrong. It misses the truth on the flip side: What's good for the public also is vital for business in the long run.

The letter lays out a list of the ways those tax dollars would get spent that benefit large and small businesses as they do individuals throughout the state:

• ...Courts and the rule of law are essential not just for public safety but also for conflict resolution and contract enforcement for businesses.
• Delays and deteriorating roads -- due to the state's fast-growing congestion and crumbling transportation infrastructure -- build higher costs into the prices of products produced or sold here.
• Our public schools are being forced, in effect, to loan money to state government. Students at Minnesota's two-year colleges pay the third-highest tuition and fees of all 50 states. And Minnesota faces a growing achievement gap between white and nonwhite, and between affluent and poor households. These trends represent an erosion of Minnesota's educational advantage, the bedrock of our economic success.
  

As we move into the season where state legislators will decide on what gets funded in the state budget and what gets cut, we wanted to share various organizing materials for your use.

The most important single thing you can do during the next 5 months when the budget decisions are made is to organize a local meeting with your state representatives and state senators. Here you can tell them why these programs are important to you, why their funding must not be cut and cuts made should be restored, and the tax and revenue options that could enable this.

Each of your legislators will be meeting 1:1 with the powerful House and Senate Ways and Means Chairman during the next two months to tell them what their budget priorities are.

So when you meet with your legislators, you have a specific "ask" or proposal for them, namely, will they make funding the specific programs and at what funding level you care about be one of the budget priorities they make in their meetings with the Ways and Means Chairman.

You decide, based on your priorities which specific programs you want to bring up at these meetings. For example, as a youth violence prevention and teen jobs advocate, I will be bringing up programs like Shannon, DPH Youth Violence Prevention Program, Teen Jobs--YouthWorks and School to Career, ASOST, and/or Mentoring.

Remember that potential allies may be wary of promising support for our priorities while our state operates under a $3 billion deficit. They are forced to build budget priorities in an environment in which many worthy programs are competing against each other to be spared.

If we come to the table with suggestions on how to face our ongoing budget issues, options like reforming our current tax breaks, utilizing our Rainy Day Fund, and raising new, progressive taxes, then our credibility in asking for programmatic funding, or rolled back budget cuts is vastly improved. 

We wanted to share these documents for your use from a statewide training we did at the beginning of February:

1. Understanding the State Budget: how we got a deficit, what combination of cuts, savings, taxes was made last year, and what could happen this year.
2. Organizing meetings with legislators: A guide to setting meetings with your legislators, talking to them about your budget priorities, and what you can say on revenue if they say, "there's no money".
   

The wellbeing of communities across the Commonwealth relies on our capacity to work together through our government to continue building and supporting our public structures that provide quality education, public health, stable legal systems, safe recreation, clean water, and much more. We work through our government to protect these services when we elect our representatives, become civically engaged in our communities, and pay our taxes.

In a Globe article dated February 14th, Jennifer Fenn Lefferts reported how Concord is considering creative ways to reform its revenues to make its tax system more equitable. With an average property tax bill of $10,128, Concord has had trouble retaining lower-income and elderly residents and working farms.

The proposal calls for lowering the property tax and imposing a 2 percent tax on income. This means that each person would contribute a more equitable share of his or her income to the local community, making the overall local tax system more progressive.

Some other cities and states in the country, including New York City, allow the implementation of local income taxes. The Massachusetts Legislature would have to amend the state constitution to allow cities and towns in the state to implement and collect this new source of revenue.

It is interesting to note that Concord is considering a progressive local tax proposal at a time when some elected officials say there is no interest for more taxes. In addition to statewide revenue reforms, like the five previous ballot attempts to build a more progressive tax structure, maybe it is time to help communities like Concord create a tax system that sufficiently funds the needs, programs, and structures we all value and rely on in our own communities. Through these local initiatives we can demonstrate to our elected officials that our state as a whole needs real solutions to address our budget gap and the lack of resources needed to maintain and rebuild our public structures.

Through our elected officials - at all levels of government - we shape our economy. This happens through the decisions we make today, policies we implement for tomorrow, and the outside factors that continuously change around us.

Our public structures, such as the legal framework that regulates our property rights and courts, and the structures that educate our workforce and keep it healthy, have only developed through careful, long-term planning and effort. We invest in these structures through our government to promote healthy communities that attract businesses and build vibrant communities.

That is why we must make sure that Governor Patrick, Senate President Murray and House Speaker DeLeo understand that we are all interconnected and that they need to work together. Striving together, they can achieve policy decisions that positively influence the economic well-being of every community in our state. They could more easily foster economic development, building and implementing joint policies like the Governor's recently announced incentives for small businesses, and Senate President Murray proposal to create one-stop shops where all information about state programs and services would be available.

Together, we can influence how public policy works for the well-being of all.