Needham Letter to Editor: Pay now or later?

Over the last 12 years, Needham has lost 40% in local aid from the state, translating to significant cuts in services and education. This is a direct result of two things:
1) ill-conceived tax cuts in the dot-com 1990s, when legislators couldn’t imagine the good times ending, and
(2) the good times ending and the Great Recession.
Due to this loss of revenue, the Commonwealth now has a structural deficit of roughly $1.5 billion dollars.
Governor Patrick and other legislators (through the legislation ‘An Act to Invest in Our Communities’) have proposed plans to raise roughly $2 billion — enough to address our structural short fall and restore some of the cuts to our services (like health care, disability services, more) and education and transportation/infrastructure.
These proposals differ in their details, but both raise the income tax and increase the personal deduction, which has the net effect of keeping taxes level for half of MA income-earners (the poorer half) while effecting modest increases on the other 50%.
GRAPH: Proposed Plans Raise Revenue Fairly

In other words, it is a progressive tax increase, which many believe is the fairest kind of tax to fund those things we do together through government. These plans were endorsed last week by 57 Mass. economists.
These are bold and courageous plans, and unfortunately, Beacon Hill as a whole has not yet risen to the demands of our moment. Instead, Speaker DeLeo has signaled he will propose a much smaller revenue package, which would effectively only cover the MBTA crisis — and leave the other fiscal fires to be put out another day (and another tax battle for another session).
Take Action – Send Your Letter to the Editor
Last night Governor Patrick called for new revenue. The day before, Representative Jim O’Day and Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz re-filed An Act to Invest in Our Communities.
Write a Letter to the Editor of your local paper.
As the Governor said:
The future belongs to those who prepare for it.
That is why we invest in education, in innovation and in infrastructure.
We invest in education because well-prepared young minds and mid-career talent is our global calling card and our economic edge.
We invest in innovation because, with a workforce like ours, enabling and encouraging new ideas is the best way to take advantage of the knowledge explosion happening in the world economy today.
We invest in infrastructure because rebuilding our roads, rails, bridges, expanding broadband to every community, building new classrooms and labs and more affordable housing gives private initiative and personal ambition the platform for growth.
Education, innovation, infrastructure. It’s a strategy proven through history. And it’s working for us today.