IT'S BEEN A YEAR, this 2017. And as a community, we have risen to its challenges. But, it's not enough to fight back: we must lead a progressive path forward. While we fight, we must also create and nurture the infrastructure to be stronger the next round (there will always be a next round).

Progressive Mass started as a group of organizers--old hands and many, many newbies--who saw how much valuable time and energy was wasted rediscovering wheels and reduplicating work, over and over. Our conclusion: progressives lacked an infrastructure to support grassroots organizing and activism--and an umbrella organization to produce and share resources, research, plans, infrastructures, coordination, tools. It's not flashy, but it's important. 

And so, 

• If you believe that local neighborhood teams, regular people, are driving big changes, and that this power, when coordinated and focused, is stronger together...

• If you've found valuable any of these--the scorecards, the drill-down analyses (eg, this), the legislation tracking, the calls to action at critical junctures, the endorsements and candidate questions, the tweets, the information, the resources, the convenings and conference calls, the connecting and the camaraderie...

• If you're tired of Top Down political parties that barely fuss around the edges and think we need a people-powered revolution in politics....

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

The snowstorms have highlighted the dangers of slashing budgets -- things fall apart. We can do better. Help convince the Massachusetts Legislature -- it's time to invest in MA. 

The transportation debacle at the MBTA, after the historic snowfalls, has people talking about what happens when you don’t invest in infrastructure. Even the media have started paying attention.

But this story is bigger than just the T.

The system’s collapse foreshadows what is in store for ALL our public services and infrastructure:

> Our cities and towns are losing crucial local aid money

> In some places, the quality of our education system is dropping, while we are siphoning money to for-profit charter schools, many of which cost more and provide no benefits over the public schools they are replacing

> We have a substance abuse crisis in the Commonwealth, and too often those most in need are denied beds, or diverted into the criminal justice system, which only exacerbates the problem.

> Public higher education is becoming increasingly unaffordable for the middle class, saddling more and more young people with crippling debt.

After over a decade of cutting budgets to the bone, we need significant reinvestment in Massachusetts, and that takes revenue.  We CAN raise revenue to reinvest in Massachusetts, simply by asking that everybody pays their fair share--and right now, the wealthiest in Massachusetts are not.*

With just a small increase on taxes for those earning over half a million dollars a year, which ensures everyone pays their fair share, we could raise over $2.1 billion dollars in revenue, and revitalize our Commonwealth.

This MBTA crisis crystallizes what happens when you don’t invest, and it should be an object lesson for all our public sectors. 

Now is the time for political leadership, but we know that Beacon Hill has passed on opportunities to lead in the past. The grassroots must insist that that the right message is heard -- and that legislators act on it.

We can do so much better, and now is time to reach out to your legislators and start working with them to create bold economic and social change (review our 2015-16 Shared Prosperity Legislative Agenda here). And we must continue to work on this message until there we see political leadership and real change.

Use our SAMPLE LETTER to send to your State Representative and State Senator, to urge them to invest in Massachusetts. Or adapt the message and make a phone call! Let us know what you find out! 

Find your legislators: wheredoivotema.com

Click here to find all their contact information (including social media!) and send along. 

Sample letter

Dear Senator/Representative __________,

The spectacular collapse of the MBTA should have taken no one by surprise. This is what happens when we run our Commonwealth on the cheap, and we have been slashing budgets for over a decade.

It's time to talk about re-investing in all the systems we've been neglecting -- not just the MBTA or transportation more generally, but also education, public health, human services -- in short ALL of the public services and infrastructure that are necessary and make Massachusetts a good place to live.

I am sorely disappointed to hear Speaker DeLeo make the same promise as Governor Baker -- "no new taxes". This is gravely irresponsible.

I hope you will push your colleagues, and your Party, and your Leadership, to move away from this frankly untenable position. We must raise revenue, and we can and must do so fairly.

As you know, some Massachusetts residents are not paying their fair share. The poorest residents pay 9% of their income in state/local taxes, while the richest pay only 6%.*

I understand the political challenges inside the building, but I also know that their is broad citizen support for investment in our local infrastructure and services.

CITE LOCAL EXAMPLE OF WHAT COULD BE DONE WITH MORE REVENUE.

Look all around us. From education to homelessness to infrastructure, Massachusetts is falling apart, and it's because WE are not funding investments.

I look forward to working with you and supporting your efforts to raise fair and responsible revenue so we can take care of all of the Commonwealth's needs. Please be in touch to share your leadership and advocacy in these areas. Thank you. 

Sincerely,

 * http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=income_tax_primer.html

On November 4, Massachusetts voted to defund road and bridge repair, by eliminating the 'indexing' on the gas tax, part of the flawed and inadequate "Transportation Funding Package" passed in Spring 2013. Jim Aloisi rightly points out in the Boston Globe that this is an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and get transportation funding right this time: 

ON ITS FACE, last Tuesday was a bleak day for anyone who rides a train or a bus around Boston. Massachusetts voters overturned a new law that would have ratcheted up the state’s gas tax at regular intervals, and they installed in the governor’s office Charlie Baker, who doesn’t want to backfill the hole the gas tax repeal will leave behind. This should be a recipe for more broken trains, fewer buses, shoddier transit service, and ever-worsening traffic in and around Boston.

But it’s also a blessing in disguise. The gas tax repeal took the stuffing out of a weak transportation finance package that the Legislature enacted last year.

Beacon Hill now has a chance to take a second run at the issue, and get it right this time. 

Over the summer, we are highlighting aspects of our Shared Prosperity Agenda. Our members are sharing their experiences and expertise on Education, Healthcare, Housing, Jobs and Wages, and Progressive Revenue.

This week we are focusing on Jobs -- Within five years, every job in Massachusetts should pay at least $15/hour, and everyone should have access to safe, affordable transportation; a good first step would be an increased minimum wage, indexed to inflation, and earned sick time.

Lizzi Weyant is the Advocacy Director at Transportation for Massachusetts.Transportation for Massachusetts is working with the Committee for Safer Roads and Bridges, formed to defeat Question 1.

A good transportation system drives our economy. We need choices about how we get to work, school, and job training, and employers of all sizes need to be able to move people and goods efficiently and effectively.

Consider these facts: every $1 billion we invest in transportation infrastructure supports 36,000 jobs. And every $10 million we invest in public transportation generates $30 million in increased business sales.

I don’t know about your portfolio, but most investments I read about don’t have a 3:1 rate of return in job creation and economic development. But transportation does!

ARCHIVE: CAMPAIGN FOR OUR COMMUNITIES (Progressive Revenue Reform, 2012-2013)

- Campaign updates
- Goals
- Gov. Patrick's Revenue Proposal
- An Act to Invest in Our Communities
- Changes in Tax Share under Governor's Proposal
- Changes in Tax Share under Act to Invest in Our Communities
- Legislation
- Compare Governor's Plan and Act to Invest
- Background: Why do we need more revenue?
- Take Action
- Toolkit
 

UPDATE 4/9/2013: On Apr 8, the House passed Leadership’s flawed and inadequate Joint Ways and Means (JWM) Transportation Funding bill. However, it did not pass with a veto-proof majority, meaning, what the final revenue package looks like is very much still in play. Gov Patrick has promised to veto if the bill, in its current form, reaches his desk.

On Thursday 4/11/2013, the SENATE votes, and we believe that the progressive position –vote no–  has a decent chance of prevailing… if we continue to contact the Senate, pressuring those on the fence to vote “NO”, and thanking and encouraging those Senators who have shown their commitment to a “no” vote already (the politics are rough! let’s give them our thanks and support for sticking it out!).  Your calls and emails and other conversations* with your State Senator are just as important as ever. Keep it up. And thank you.

Our Goals:

The Campaign for Our Communities is committed to improving the quality of life for Massachusetts families and strengthening our economy. We need to make smart investments in our people and communities.   To fund those investments we support tax reforms that will raise substantial new revenue while holding down increases for low and middle income families.

• Our families and our communities need investments in the services, schools, and infrastructure that make Massachusetts a great place to live and work.
• In order to make the necessary investments, we will need to raise significant* new revenue
• That revenue should come primarily from the highest income earners.

*Significant means around $2 billion, the amount necessary to address MBTA, education, restore budget cuts to services, spurred by tax cuts in the 1990s and the Great Recession. A smaller amount will only be a temporary stop-gap, and we’ll continue going from crisis to crisis and continue to need to cut programs, raise fees, and raise taxes again. Let’s do it right the first time.

An Act to Invest in Our Communities

We need to invest in our communities and keep middle-class families working and earning!  “An Act to Invest in Our Communities,” legislation filed in January 2013 by Rep. Jim O’Day [HD 1359] and Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz [SD 555] does just that.

By allowing us to invest in education, innovation and infrastructure, this proposal builds on our state’s strengths, making life better for our families today and into the future.  By asking more from high income households and investors who received large windfalls from the Bush tax cuts, while raising the personal exemption as a way to hold down the tax increase for middle-class families, the bill raises needed revenue primarily from those who can best afford to pay.

With that revenue, we can keep the quality schools and services that make our state a good place to live and do business. [more information below]

Governor Patrick’s Revenue Proposal

In his State of the Commonwealth address in January 2013, Governor Patrick outlined a bold and exciting new proposal to raise revenue through raising the income tax while cutting the sales tax. The Governor’s plan is ambitious and follows the same core principles as the “Act to Invest In Our Community:” that investment in our infrastructure and education is imperative to our economic vitality now and in the future, and revenue should be raised progressively, with vulnerable citizens protected.

Legislators Can Demonstrate Commitment to Our Values

Over the course of the next few months, both the House and the Senate will consider the Governor’s proposal and other revenue bills and proposals.  The climate seems ripe for new revenue but a strong grassroots case must continue to be made and pressure exerted on reluctant legislators.   We continue to urge legislators to co-sponsor ACT TO INVEST, or make their support for new revenue public.  Doing so will demonstrate a strong public commitment to the Governor’s aims and needs and values of all Massachusetts voters.

Details/Background on An Act to Invest in Our Communities

[ATI Fact sheet - PDF] [PDM Fact Sheet - PDF]

Massachusetts State and Local Taxes are Regressive

That means that the wealthiest Massachusetts earners have been paying far less in taxes than their poorer counterparts.

 Provisions in 'Act to Invest'

Functionally obsolete — but not structurally deficient!

Scary scenes in Washington state yesterday when an Interstate bridge collapsed, but perhaps even scarier is the fact that the bridge was not even among the bridges in advanced disrepair — just merely “functionally obsolete”. Meanwhile, we have 493 structurally deficient bridges in Massachusetts.

We need to invest in our infrastructure, but that takes revenue – yes, “taxes.”

Awaiting rescue in Washington’s I5 bridge collapse.

Republicans have blocked infrastructure spending at the national level. And at the state level, Massachusetts legislators, controlled by Democrats, have rejected infrastructure investment spending, most recently in the April 2013 vote on new revenue (review the Governor’s “Choose Growth” agenda), capping off a decade of revenue shortfalls and budget cuts.

If our government officials cannot muster up the will to take invest in repairing our infrastructure, citizens need to start demanding it. Although yesterday’s accident was miraculously without casualties, we know from Minnesota 2007 that we cannot always be so lucky.

Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007 killed 13 people.

UPDATE…

The Boston Globe weighed in today (5/29) with an editorial echoing our reading of the Seattle and Minnesota collapses as a warning bell to the Mass. Legislature. 

Lots of maneuvering but substantially less drama over the last few days as the Senate discusses procedural matters and leadership works to sweeten the revenue bill which came out of the House so as to attract more members.  In case you are keeping score, here’s what we know:

1) Progressives are holding strong and working together to improve the bill.

2) Calls are continuing into swing Senators to shore up our support – and every call matters.

3) The Senate President put a new proposal on the table a few days ago.  It adds some money but still falls short of our key principles – substantial new revenue, progressively raised, focused on more than transportation.   Check out T for Mass’ analysis of how this proposal still falls short on Transportation.

4) The debate will begin at 10:00 am tomorrow, Saturday, April 13 – unless the Republicans move for a delay.

5) We will update our blog post progma.us/JWMSenateVote with the vote count as we learn it.

One thing that is clear from this week’s work in the Senate – when Progressives work together, when they are supported by your calls and tweets and facebook posts, we can get a better bill.  We have power to influence the argument.  And now the Senate President is on record supporting other important progressive policies like the minimum wage.

Today, the Senate overwhelming voted for an improved revenue package for transportation.  The “yes” votes included those progressive Senators who have worked hard with their partners inside and outside the State House over the past week to improve the bill.   Right after the vote, progressive Senators  (Chang-Diaz, Clark, Donnelly, Eldridge, Montigny and Wolf) released a statement saying:

“Through both the work of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and the amendment process, the transportation finance bill passed by the Senate today reaches a level of revenue that allows for meaningful investments in a fiscally-sound, 21st century transportation system. It is for this reason that we vote yes on this bill today.

We look forward to the bill continuing to the joint House-Senate conference committee. Should the bill be reported out of the conference committee having lost the revenue gains we made, it will also lose our support. We are grateful to all of our partners in the legislature, the Governor, advocates, and constituents across the state for their tireless work in crafting solutions to one of the most pressing issues in our Commonwealth.”

While these improvements are notable, the bill still falls short.  As our colleagues in the transportation coalition said immediately before the vote:

“…it does not provide sufficient funding to move our transportation system into the 21st century. The bill’s revenue projections are too optimistic and the total funds insufficient. It will burden drivers and transit riders with unreasonable fare and toll hikes. It will take a long time to realize the revenues projected from the legislation, leading to further delays in important safety and public transportation investments.”

We urge the conference committee to do better and support progressive senators’ decision to withhold their backing should the bill that emerges from Conference Committee move us backward.

We remain disappointed that the legislature has not addressed the other revenue and investment needs of the Commonwealth specifically education and human services.  We hope that these needs will be addressed in the budget process in a progressive fashion.  While we recognize other social benefits for gas and cigarette taxes we remain concerned about their regressivity and disproportionate impact of low and middle income families.

SENATE VOTE COUNT

To Navigate, place cursor in the spreadsheet and use up/down arrows to move through the data. (spreadsheet may not load properly on iPads/iPhones; click here to see in separate window.)