Voters: Tax the Rich and Big Corporations, Invest More in Transportation

Anybody who has ever waited in a station for perpetually delayed trains, driven through potholes, or sat in traffic congestion for hours on end knows that we have a transportation problem.

Indeed, a report earlier this year found that Boston had the worst rush-hour traffic of any major city. But this isn’t just a Boston issue: voters across the state think that transportation should be a higher priority for the Legislature.

According to a new survey from WBUR and MassINC, 77% of voters support raising new money to invest in the Massachusetts transportation system, with similar numbers across regions.

So what can we do about it?

The WBUR/MassINC poll tested various proposals.

WBUR Poll 2019 Transportation Revenue

The two most popular proposals for raising revenue were value capture and the Transportation Climate Initiative. In the former, the state would collect contributions from real estate development projects near highways or public transportation to help pay for that transportation infrastructure: in other words, the private developers are making a profit due to public investments, and the public deserves to share in that prosperity. Under the TCI, Massachusetts (and other participating states) would charge gasoline distributors a fee based on the amount of pollution their fuels produce.

What do these have in common? They’re taxing corporations. In a Gallup poll from two years ago, 67% of Americans said that corporations were paying too little in taxes.

Those at the bottom — a 15-cent gas tax increase, a hike in RMV fees, and adding tolls for driving to Logan — are directly felt by individuals. We can debate how regressive a gas tax is (the poor are much less likely to spend *any* money on gasoline), but what is clear is that it is not a politically sustainable foundation for revenue by itself.

The Fair Share Amendment, or “millionaire’s tax,” won’t be on the ballot until 2022, but we already know that this 4% surtax on income over $1 million is popular. The latest polling showed it had 69% support.

But we can’t wait until 2023. There are a variety of other ways that we can raise money from corporations and the rich right now.

Raise Up Massachusetts, for instance, is advocating for two in particular. First, we can tax GILTI (Global Intangible Low Taxed Income). Many multinational corporations who do business in MA use provisions of the federal tax code to shift their US profits to offshore tax havens. The federal tax code has provisions to tax some of that income; our state tax code should as well.

Second, many large corporations who do business in MA use various tax breaks and loopholes to pay only the existing corporate minimum tax of $456 per year. That’s right: only $465. We can–and should–create a tiered corporate minimum tax so that that larger corporations pay a minimum in proportion to the size of their business in MA.

Moreover, debates about corporate taxes often suffer from a lack of hard numbers–and that’s because of how evasive corporations are. Stronger rules around corporate disclosure would help identify bad actors in the business community and allow us to measure the effects of the loopholes in our existing corporate tax rules.

But why stop there?

If we’re talking about transportation, we can eliminate the absurd tax exemption for the sale and purchase of airplanes. It makes sense to exempt necessary goods from the sales tax, but last I checked, airplanes aren’t necessary personal goods.

We could also raise the capital gains tax. The highest-income 1 percent of households receive approximately 80 percent of capital gains income in Massachusetts, while the bottom 80 percent of households receive only 3 percent. And these high-income individuals clearly reap a benefit from our infrastructure investments: without them, how would they or their employees get to work or to meetings, and how would the goods and services on which their incomes depend get to market?

MassBudget has even more ideas, which they spelled out earlier this year here.

Overall, though, the message should be clear. We need to start investing more in our infrastructure, and in a wealthy state like ours, the rich and big corporations need to pay up.

What Do Raytheon, Staples, and GE Have in Common? They Don’t Pay Enough in Taxes.

The bad news: Train derailments. The certified worst traffic in the country. Underfunded public schools. Tuition hikes at public colleges and universities. A growing statewide affordable housing crisis. Every day, we see new examples of how Massachusetts is in dire need of new revenue.

The good news: This is a problem that we can fix.

The MA legislature has made numerous public commitments to raise new revenue this coming fall. It’s a promise we need to hold them to.

But business groups and corporate lobbyists have been meeting with legislators to push for regressive taxes that take the burden off them and put it on working people.

That’s not right. Because we know that these large corporations are not paying their fair share.

So it’s time to make our values heard by the Legislature.

With our partners around the state in the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, we’ve launched a quality call campaign, asking activists to call their legislators and make perfectly clear what our expectations for any revenue package are:

  1. Any near-term revenue proposals must include a commitment to move the Fair Share Amendment through the legislative process.
  2. Fair: Economically progressive, to bring the share of income paid by higher-income people more in line with that paid by lower-income people. 
  3. Sustainable: Supported by the public and capable of surviving attempted repeal, so that we can count on the revenue to make necessary investments. 
  4. Adequate: Raises enough revenue to meet the Commonwealth’s needs.

Having technical difficulties and unable to use the tool above? Please email info@raiseupma.org or text 857-242-0412 with the outcomes of your call, including:

  • Which legislator did you call?
  • Did you talk to your legislator or an aide?
  • Did your legislator commit to supporting progressive revenue? 
  • How would your legislator suggest we raise revenue?

We Can’t Keep Shortchanging Our Future

Yesterday, US News & World Report ranked Massachusetts #1 in the country in education. That’s all well and good, but that hides more than it reveals.

That’s because we have one of the most unequal education systems in the country: the children in Lawrence and Brockton are not getting the same quality of education as students in Dover and Weston.

The question is not whether we are doing more than other states but whether we are doing as much as we need to–and as much as our students deserve.

The answer there is a clear no. Four years ago, the Foundation Budget Review Commission found that Massachusetts is shortchanging local aid to public schools by up to $2 billion a year because of outdated calculations of the cost of health care, special education, English Language Learner education, and closing income-based achievement gaps.

The picture isn’t any better when it comes to higher education. Due to misguided tax cuts from almost twenty years ago, we’ve been disinvesting from our public colleges and universities, leading to deeper cuts, higher tuition, and spiraling student debt.

We can do better. And we will demand that our legislators do better.

That’s why we’re proud to join the Fund Our Future coalition today for a rally in support of the PROMISE Act and the CHERISH Act today at 5pm at the State House. There will be actions starting at 1 pm, so if you can make it earlier, even better.

Will we see you there?

Fund Our Future Rally

And If You Can’t Make It…

If you can’t make it in person, then you can still call your legislators in support of the PROMISE Act (S.238/H.586) and the CHERISH Act (S.741/H.1214).

  • The PROMISE Act would fix our outdated school funding formula to more accurately and equitably distribute resources – giving all schools the funding they need to deliver high-quality education.
  • The CHERISH Act would commit the Commonwealth to funding public higher education at 2001 levels, adjusted for inflation.

You can check if your legislators are already co-sponsors of the PROMISE Act here.

But Wait…There’s More…

The Senate is voting on its budget next week. And your senator has the opportunity to support raising new revenue and investing more in our students. 

Let your senator know that you support these amendments:

  • Statutory Charter Tuition Reimbursement (Chang-Diaz, #323): Would invest an additional $90 million in struggling school districts that are losing money due to charter school growth by closing corporate tax loopholes
  • Funding Low-Income Student Undercount (Chang-Diaz, #320): Would add more money for struggling school districts that have been shortchanged due to a flawed methodology for counting the low-income student population
  • Corporate Tax Rate Restoration (Rausch, #53): Would raise the corporate income tax back up to 9.5%, raising $375 million in additional revenue
  • Aircraft Prats (Eldridge, #46): Would close an absurd tax exemption for sales of luxury planes, raising $21 million in additional revenue
  • Single Sales Factor (Eldridge, #37): Would close a corporate tax loophole that lets corporations get away with not paying taxes on property and payroll, raising $143 million in additional revenue

Can we count on you to call your senator?

CommonWealth: Don’t let corporations limit our policy ambitions

PM Issues Committee chairman Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial for CommonWealth on the need for the MA Legislature to be bolder in its policy ambitions, especially around taxes and housing. Read the full piece here and an excerpt below:

LAST SESSION, one of the only significant bills that Massachusetts legislators passed before budget season was sweeping legislation to raise their own pay. By contrast, this year, the Legislature has already passed important bills to lift a retrograde welfare cap and ban the homophobic and abusive practice of conversion therapy.

This could be a sign that the Legislature is interested in being more proactive this session, and that would be a welcome change indeed.

There are plenty of issues that the Legislature can—and should—tackle this session, all of which require bold and comprehensive policy solutions and all of which face the same risk: that the Legislature lets the business lobby set the limits of its ambitions.

CommonWealth: How Progressive of a Budget?

 “House Progressives get some action on budget priorities” — Andy Metzger, CommonWealth (4/26/2019)

Jonathan Cohn, who chairs the Issues Committee for Progressive Massachusetts, an outside advocacy group, said he wants the House Progressives to reach higher, and keep pushing for progressive increases in state revenue – which could come in the form of higher taxes.

“We always want the House Progressive Caucus to be bolder than they often are in their asks,” Cohn said. “I think that they’re all good causes to fight for, however a lot of budget asks end up feeling like tinkering since without adding to the size of the budget in a meaningful way it will just be very important but small programmatic increases.” ….

Legislative leaders have said they will begin deliberating about proposals to hike revenues later this session, and Cohn wants the Progressive Caucus to keep up the pressure on that front.

Whose Side Is Your State Rep On?

Massachusetts House votes on its budget, the House will have an opportunity to decide what type of state Massachusetts is.

Are we a state that invests in our future and stands up to the bigotry of the Trump administration, or are we fine with crumbling infrastructure, underfunded schools, and complicity in a racist mass deportation agenda?

Investing in Our Future

While we will continue to fight for the passage of the Fair Share Amendment, or “millionaire’s tax,” our schools, regional transit authorities, and crumbling infrastructure can’t wait until 2023. The legislature can act RIGHT NOW to begin building the fairer tax structure that Massachusetts voters want.

Raising the tax on unearned income, for example, would put us in line with states like Vermont and New Jersey and raise more than $1 billion to invest in our Commonwealth. Approximately 80% of income from stocks, bonds, and similar financial assets goes to the highest-earning 1% of households in Massachusetts, while the bottom 80% of households receive only 3%.

Rep. Mike Connolly’s Budget Amendment #1357 (Long-Term Capital Gains) would provide provide much-needed funding.

Although 97% of capital gains go to the top quintile of earners, the Connolly amendment has an exemption for low income households to ensure they aren’t hurt by the change.

Standing up to the Trump Administration’s Bigotry

Massachusetts has been complicit in Trump’s racist mass deportation agenda. The Department of Correction and four sheriffs’ offices in the state have contracts with ICE to house persons who are in deportation proceedings and to deputize their employees as federal immigration agents. These contracts provide for the state offices to be reimbursed by ICE for the housing, transportation, and other costs they incur, but it has proven very difficult to determine how much reimbursement money ICE has been paying and whether those amounts cover actual expenses.

Rep. Tony Cabral’s Budget Amendment #1250 (Transparency in Spending) would be a check on this shameful collaboration with ICE.


This amendment would require the Department of Correction and the sheriffs’ offices with ICE contracts to provide the
cost, revenue, and reimbursement figures associated with those contracts for the past three fiscal years and for FY 2020.
This past fiscal year, the state has provided nearly $900 million in funding for the Department of Correction and for the sheriffs’ offices with ICE contracts. We deserve to know whether their contracts with ICE are covering the expenses they incur.

Whose Side Is Your State Rep On?

Is your state rep siding with the overwhelming percentage of voters who want to invest more in our schools and our infrastructure, or siding with the top 1%?

Is your state rep standing up for immigrants’ rights, or standing with the likes of Sheriff Hodgkins and Donald Trump?

Give them a call today to find out.

📞📞📞📞📞📞📞📞📞

Happy Tax Day! Your Legislators Have an Opportunity to Make a Fairer Tax Code.

TL;DR: Do you believe in funding our schools, our infrastructure, and all of the services that make our commonwealth strong at the levels we deserve? Of course you do. So please call your state rep in support of Amendment #1357 (Long-Term Capital Gains) to the budget, which would raise the capital gains tax to provide much-needed additional revenue.

Year after year, as legislators craft the latest budget, tough decisions have to be made. A big part of the reason for these tough decisions is that Massachusetts lacks the revenue to fund things, like good schools and reliable transportation, that are most important to our communities. But not having sufficient revenue isn’t inevitable; it’s a choice.

The Fair Share Amendment, which routinely polled at around 80%, was kicked off the 2018 ballot after a lawsuit from well-funded business groups. The Legislature has the opportunity to advance it to the 2022 ballot via a Constitutional Convention next month. But we can’t afford to wait another four years to invest in our Commonwealth.

The legislature can act RIGHT NOW to begin building the fairer tax structure that Massachusetts voters want.

Raising the tax on long-term capital gains from 5.05% to 8.95%, for example, would put us in line with states like Vermont and New Jersey and raise more than $1 billion to invest in our commonwealth.

The highest-income 1 percent of households receive approximately 80 percent of capital gains income in Massachusetts, while the bottom 80 percent of households receive only 3 percent.

Can you call your state representative and ask them to CO-SPONSOR Rep. Mike Connolly’s Budget Amendment #1357 (Long-Term Capital Gains) and STAND for a vote?

Although 97% of capital gains go to the top quintile of earners, the Connolly amendment has an exemption for low income households to ensure they aren’t hurt by the change.

This is a step that you can take right now. But there are other steps to raise progressive revenue to fund our priorities now that deserve your consideration and your vote throughout the session—from placing a surtax on multi-million homes to increasing the corporate minimum tax so that all corporations pay their fair share. And we plan to keep beating that drum throughout the session.

PS: Curious to read more about the graph above? You can here.

Taking Stock of the 190th Legislative Session

In January of 2017, Progressive Massachusetts unveiled our legislative agenda for the 190th legislative session — 17 items for 2017 (and 2018). As we near the end of the year — and the start of the next legislative session, it’s the perfect time to take stock of how the various bills fared.

Clear Victories

Reproductive Rights

The ACCESS bill, which updates MA’s contraceptive coverage equity law to require insurance carriers to provide all contraceptive methods without a copay, passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and was signed by the Governor.

Democracy

Massachusetts became the 13th state to adopt Automatic Voter Registration. In this reform pioneered by Oregon in 2015, eligible voters who interface with select government agencies (here, the RMV or MassHealth) are automatically registered to vote unless they decline. With more than 700,000 eligible citizens in MA unregistered, AVR will increase the accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness of voter rolls.

The bill also enrolls Massachusetts in Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states founded by the Pew Research Center that enable states to synchronize their voter rolls. ERIC has increased the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the voter rolls in participating states.

[Note: The original bill included smaller social services government agencies as well. The final bill allows for their later inclusion but focuses on the two largest sources of possible new registrants.]

Steps Forward

Criminal Justice Reform

The comprehensive criminal justice reform bill passed by the Legislature in April incorporated some elements from our priority bills (Read our write-up here):

  • Eliminating most mandatory minimums for retail drug selling and drug paraphernalia and limiting mandatory minimums in school zones to cases involving guns or minors. [Note: PM and advocates had sought the elimination of all mandatory minimums. The bill, however, left in place mandatory minimums for Class A drugs (like heroin), expanded this definition to include opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, and created a new mandatory minimum for assaulting a police officer, an overused charge wielded as a threat against protesters.]
  • Raising the felony-larceny threshold from $250 to $1,200 [Note: PM and other advocates had sought $1,500.]
  • Reducing fines and fees [Note: PM and other advocates wanted probation and parole fees fully eliminated.]
  • Establishing a process for expunging records, especially for juveniles convicted of minor offenses

There is still work to be done–from raising the age of criminal majority to severely curtailing (or outright abolishing) solitary confinement. That said, the bill, despite its shortcomings, was a step in the right direction.

Fight for $15

At the start of the session, we supported legislation to raise the minimum wage from $11 to to $15 by 2021, raise the tipped minimum wage from $3.75 to $15.75 by 2025, and require the minimum wage to increase with inflation starting in 2022.

The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition’s ballot initiative was slightly more modest in its ambition, extending the full phase-in date one year (due to a later start) and raising the minimum wage for tipped employees to only $9 (60% of the minimum wage) by 2022.

What passed in the ultimate “Grand Bargain,” an effort of the Legislature and the Governor to avoid three ballot initiatives ($15 minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, sales tax reduction) was more modest still. It raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2023, raised the tipped minimum wage to only $6.75, and dropped indexing. Unfortunately, the Legislature included a further concession to the business lobby, agreeing to phase-out time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays. Although the bill is a net win for workers in Massachusetts, it’s possible that, due to the phase-out of time-and-a-half, some workers will be left worse off.

Fight for 15 Original Bill vs Ballot Initiative vs Final Grand Bargain Text

Paid Family and Medical Leave

The version of paid family and medical leave passed in the aforementioned “Grand Bargain” was less robust than the original legislation and the ballot initiative text, but still more robust than the programs that exist in other states.

PFML Senate Bill vs Ballot Initiative vs Final Grand Bargain Text

Senate Victory, House Opposition

Several of our priority bills succeeded, or made partial progress, in the Senate, only to flounder in the House amidst fierce opposition from the conservative House leadership.

Fully Funding Our Schools

Massachusetts’s 25-year-old education funding formula is short-changing our schools $1-2 billion per year due to outdated assumptions about the costs of health care, special education, ELL (English Language Learners) education, and closing racial and economic achievement gaps.

The 2015 Foundation Budget Review Commission recommended a path forward for fixing it. The Senate unanimously adopted a bill to implement them. The House, however, insisted on leaving English Language Learners, Black and Brown students, and poor students (not mutually exclusive categories) behind.

Protecting Our Immigrant Friends and Neighbors

Despite Massachusetts’s liberal reputation, our Legislature has been historically hostile to strengthening protections for our immigrant community.

The Senate included four provisions from the Safe Communities Act, a bill that our members fought strongly for, in its FY 2019 budget: (1) a prohibition on police inquiries about immigration status, a prohibition on certain collaboration agreements between local law enforcement and ICE, (3) a guarantee of basic due process protections, and (4) a prohibition on participation in a Muslim registry. The amendment was a win-win for both rights and safety, but House Leadership opposed its inclusion in the final budget.

Bold Action on Climate Change

Many elements from our priority environmental legislation were incorporated in the Senate’s impressive omnibus bill:

  • Building on the Global Warming Solutions Act by setting intermediate emissions targets for 2030 and 2040
  • Establishing a 3% annual increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to accelerate our commitment to renewable energy
  • Prohibiting a “pipeline tax” on energy consumers
  • Instructing the governor’s office to develop carbon pricing for the transportation sector by the end of 2020, for commercial buildings and industrial processes by 2021, and for residential buildings by the end of 2022 (not as strong as a revenue-positive carbon pricing scheme, but still in the right direction)

However, the House proved a roadblock yet again. The ultimate compromise energy legislation included only a 2% increase from 2020 to 2030, after which it would fall back to the current 1%. This would take us to only 56% renewable energy by 2050 instead of 100%.

Loss…But a Battle Not Over

Revenue & Reinvestment

Progressive Mass members played a major role in the signature collection for the Fair Share amendment (or “millionaires tax”), which would have created a 4% surtax on income above $1 million (inflation-adjusted) to fund education and transportation investment.

As a citizen-originated ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment, the Fair Share amendment had to receive the support of at least 25% of the Legislature in two constitutional conventions. It secured well more than double this amount, but the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot this June.

Inaction

Medicare for All

Although the Senate took modest steps in the direction of single payer, passing legislation to create a public option (a MassHealth buy-in) and require a study of whether a single payer system would save money relative to the current system, the House took no such action.

Housing Production

Although the Senate passed a comprehensive zoning reform bill to increase housing production in the suburbs last session, no such action was taken in either house this session.

Debt/tuition-free Higher Education

The cost of higher education has grown a lot in Massachusetts, and the Legislature continues to punt.

In Conclusion: We won some, we lost some, and we’ll keep on fighting.

Budget 2017: What Does Beacon Hill Value?

A budget is a statement of values. And the recently released House Ways & Means Budget shows that too many on Beacon Hill are content with the status quo of austerity and underinvestment.

Massachusetts lawmakers have fallen prey to the pernicious conservative ideology that taxes–our collective investment in our values and priorities–are always politically toxic. Instead of substantive conversations about how we invest in the infrastructure, services, and institutions that make Massachusetts a great place to live and work, our legislators instead year after year refuse to raise revenue — and leave the people of the Commonwealth begging for revenue crumbs of an ever smaller pie.

Yet, every legislator on Beacon Hill knows that Massachusetts has a revenue problem: when we do not take in enough revenue, we must cut budgets. Because of ill-conceived tax cuts over a decade ago (to the benefit of the wealthiest in MA), Revenue projections continue to fall short, leading to damaging cuts to vital services.

Those tax cuts have cost all of us over $3 billion each year. Each year! Our schools, the MBTA, roads, human services–think of what $3 billion a year could be doing to invest in job growth, education, public health, housing, transportation, and environmental protection.

Next week, when the House begins to vote on the budget, representatives will have the opportunity to take necessary steps to turn this around and to commit to the investments we need to make a Massachusetts that works for all.

Particularly, in the Age of Trump, where hostility to progressive values and policies is pervasive at the federal level, it’s more important than ever to make clear that the status quo is not working. Massachusetts needs to step up its game.

And to get legislators to start stepping up, we’re going to need YOUR help.

Call/email your representative by Monday morning to urge them to support the following ten budget amendments. The sample script is below; more info on each amendment appears after.

SAMPLE SCRIPT

I’m ___ from ___ . I’m calling to urge Rep __ to support budget amendments that support a strong Commonwealth. While these amendments would make a difference in the short term, I also want to urge my rep to fight for MORE REVENUE in the long term, including taxes on the wealthiest in Massachusetts.

Please support:

  • Amendments 42 and 43, which increase badly needed revenue
  • Amendments 780 and 382, which support housing assistance
  • Amendments 1003 and 1172, which invest in children and youth
  • Amendments 822 and 1182, which invest in equitable justice
  • Amendment 1196, which helps protect our environment
  • Amendment 151, which supports women’s health and family planning

Please share my concerns with the Rep. I will be paying attention to how s/he votes on these issues. Thank you.

Budget Amendments

Revenue

Amendment #42 (Rep. Denise Provost): Income Tax Rate Freeze.

This amendment would freeze the personal income tax rate at 2016 levels. From 2012 to 2016, we had four automatic income tax rate cuts, resulting in almost a billion dollar reduction in state revenue. These income tax reductions disproportionately benefit the super-rich, rather than working- and middle-class families: indeed, 20% of the rate reduction tax cuts go to the top 0.05% of Massachusetts residents.

Amendment #43 (Rep. Denise Provost): Educational Opportunity for All.

This amendment would subject any private institution of higher learning that has an endowment fund with aggregate funds in excess of $1 billion to an annual excise of 2.5% of all monies in aggregate in said endowment fund. The fund will be used exclusively for subsidizing the cost of higher education, early education, and child care for lower-income and middle-class residents of the commonwealth.

Affordable Housing

Amendment #780 (Rep. Paul Donato): MRVP funding

This amendment would restore funding for the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program to $120 million from $100 million. This will increase the number of vouchers available, help preserve affordable housing developments, and restore the program to its 1990 funding level.

Amendment #382 (Rep. Mike Connolly): MRVP Improvements

This amendment makes technical changes to the way Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program funds are allocated, making the program more useful to people from a range of incomes in today’s very expensive housing market.

Education & Youth

Amendment #1003 (Rep. Alice Peisch): Early Educators Rate Increase

This amendment would increase the funding for the Early Education Rate Reserve, which increase reimbursement rates for subsidized early education and care providers, to $20 million from $15 million.

Amendment #1172 (Rep. Paul Brodeur): Youthworks

This amendment would increase the funding for the Youthworks program, which provides skills and training to young people through state-funded employment, to $13.5 million.

Legal Assistance & Jobs Not Jails

Amendment #822 (Rep. Ruth Balser): Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation

This amendment would increase funding for the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, which ensures that low-income residents of Massachusetts have access to legal information, advice, and representation, to $21 million.

Amendment #1182 (Rep. Mary Keefe): Job Training For Ex-Prisoners and Court Involved Youth

This amendment would increase funding for crucial programs to combat recidivism and create opportunities from $250,000 to $2 million.

Environmental Protection

Amendment #1196 (Rep. David Rogers): Department of Environmental Protection Administration and Compliance

This amendment would increase the operations budget for DEP from $24.4 million to $30 million. Recent budget cuts have forced staff reductions of 30% at DEP, crippling its ability to protect our to ensure clean air and water and enforce environmental laws. Given looming cuts to the EPA on the national level, we cannot afford such cuts anymore.

Public Health

Amendment #151 (Rep. Carole Fiola): Family Planning

This amendment would fund the family planning services line item at $5.8 million. Family planning funding helps providers offer a wide range of affordable preventative series, including critical screenings for breast, cervical, and other cancers; birth control and STI testing; and treatment for both men and women. With such vital services under the attack on the national level, it’s vital that Massachusetts push forward.