CUT TO THE CHASE: Take me to the SAMPLE SCRIPT! 

INTRO--How did we get here?

ACTION--Call your Reps: Sample Script

AMENDMENTS--

--Revenue

--Affordable Housing

--Education and Youth

--Legal Assistance; Jobs Not Jails

--Environmental Protection

--Public Health

Cutting Past the Bone: How did we get here?

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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During his State of the State speech last Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker congratulated himself on his commitment to addressing the opioid epidemic. He also congratulated himself on curtailing public spending in order to reduce the deficit without raising taxes. These priorities, however, are in fundamental conflict.

In December, in an act largely buried by the news around the presidential transition, Governor Baker unilaterally cut $98 million from the state budget, taking the axe to a wide range of programs. Among the agencies hit was the state Bureau of Substance Abuse Assistance (BSAA), which faced cuts of nearly $2 million. This money is neither an abstraction nor a rounding error: this is money that would be used to hire treatment and prevention coordinators, as well as to fund various treatment and community programs that directly combat addiction in local communities.

I know that most of us here in Massachusetts are still reeling from the results of the Presidential election, but I feel compelled to share some thoughts on the outcome of the vote to raise the cap on charter schools.

On one hand I am delighted by the result of the vote. The voters of Massachusetts have spoken and they absolutely oppose any attempt to expand charters at the expense of traditional school districts. But on the other hand, I am utterly outraged at what the corporate education reformers have put our kids, our teachers and our school districts through over the last ten years given how little electoral support we now know that these champions of privatization have across the state.

Clear Message to MA Legislature

Consider this: Question 2 only passed in 16 out of 351 communities in the Commonwealth.

• Seven of these communities are located in one single state rep’s district on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
• The other nine are spread across six other state rep districts.
• And the only other district where a majority of voters voted 'yes' is in Education Committee Chair Alice Peisch's district in Metro West.

(click here for larger image; click here for original image source at WBur/Edify)

This means that the 'yes' side only carried two of the 160 state rep districts in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It was even defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in Speaker DeLeo's district of Winthrop/Revere.

PM Member Mike Connolly invites the Progressive Mass community to Saturday's forum on Transit and Traffic in the Cambridge Corridor. RSVP, on Facebook or this website. 

For the past few months, I have been working with members of the Mass. Budget For All coalition and the Cambridge Residents Alliance to organize a public forum on transportation issues in Cambridge and Somerville. The event is being co-sponsored by Green Cambridge, 350Mass. Transit Group, and the Fresh Pond Residents Alliance.

"Solving Transit and Traffic Issues in the Cambridge Corridor" will be held this Saturday, April 30th, from 2 to 5 pm at the Cambridge Senior Center (806 Mass. Ave in Central Square). Everyone is welcome to join us for conversation, light refreshments, and opportunities for public input on a topic that is vital to our future.

You worked so hard to gather signatures to put the Fair Share Amendment on the ballot.

And I have a terrific update for you --

Not only did we collect 157,000 signatures statewide, we have recently learned that the progressive income tax amendment has enough certified signatures to move on to the next step! We made it!

Thank you, and congratulations to everyone who helped gather signatures. You organized, and you mobilized, and you go this done. 

This was a big first milestone -- and we did it! But the fight for progressive revenue to fund our communities is far from over...

What's Next

Progressive Mass volunteers are collecting signatures with RaiseUp Massachusetts for the Fair Share graduated income tax amendment!

>> Learn more about the Fair Share Amendment Campaign here! 

The best way to help working families and build a more progressive Massachusetts is through quality public schools for our children, affordable higher education and a transportation system that gets people to work and customers to businesses.

We need to ask our highest income earners to contribute a little bit more, so that we're ALL putting in our fair share. Getting signatures is the first step in amending the state constitution so we can once again invest in our communities.

It's going to take all of us working together, and there are many ways to help! Just let us know how you'd like to pitch in! 

Massachusetts Sets the Bar on Sick Leave

President Obama, at the Boston Labor Breakfast yesterday, announced that federally contracted employees are now to provide sick leave for their employees. The policy sounds very much like the “Earned Sick Time” law that Massachusetts voters passed, overwhelmingly, in 2014.

Indeed the President praised that legislation in his remarks, putting Massachusetts in the spotlight again as a liberal leader for the nation.

There are other similarities -- political ones -- too, between the President’s executive action and the Massachusetts referendum that passed the sick time legislation. Both actions were taken because the Legislators refuse/d to legislate.

Progressive Mass member James Conway takes a deep dive into our state's revenue problem -- and what we can do to fix it. 

It’s Always Been a Revenue Problem

1. Investment and Big Ideas

2. Austerity Massachusetts

3. We Get What We Put In

4. Our Flat Tax

5. WHO is “Taxed Enough Already”?

6. The Commonwealth Constitution: A little history and shaping the future

7. Beat L.A.? Let’s Lead, Massachusetts!

8. Time to Invest in Massachusetts, in Our Future

9. Take Action

10. More Resources

This essay originally appeared in Boston Globe West  - March 22, 2015. 

Does the state need to adopt additional tax increases to address the problems of the MBTA and its overall transportation needs? 

Yes

By Robert Fitzpatrick, Newton attorney, member of Progressive Massachusetts and secretary of the Newton Democratic City Committee.

None of this is new. In 2009, a similar commission appointed by Governor Patrick found that the MBTA’s “Forward Funding” scheme adopted in 2000 was based on unrealistic cost and revenue assumptions and concluded that the “Outlook Is Bleak.” Even with five fare hikes since 2001, the T runs at a structural operating deficit and has taken on significant additional debt.These are tough times for Boston commuters. Record snowfall totals this winter created massive traffic snarls and shone a harsh spotlight on the MBTA’s deficiencies. In February the T’s general manager resigned and Governor Baker appointed a commission to study the agency’s problems.

This essay originally appeared in Boston Globe South  - March 14, 2015. 

Should we increase taxes to fix the T?

YES

By Kevin Loechner of Hull, member of Progressive Massachusetts, Democratic activist and daily mass transit commuter.

If you have ridden public transit lately, you know how frustrating it has been. The experience on our roads hasn’t been much better. Traffic on Route 3A has increased due to major delays and breakdowns on the MBTA’s Greenbush Line and ice in Hingham Harbor. The unusually brutal winter has magnified the underlying structural problems within our transportation infrastructure.

A 2009 report identified more than $3 billion in deferred MBTA maintenance costs. These costs have probably gone up since then. The Federal Highway Administration in 2014 said more than 50 percent of the state’s bridges were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Clearly these issues need to be fixed, and due to the costs involved we will need to increase some taxes in order to pay for them. The recent winter breakdown of our transportation system is a stark reminder that we need a comprehensive funding plan.