In The News: Public Finance

After examining the nine states without income taxes, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation concluded that Massachusetts would have been forced to raise sales and property taxes, shifting the tax burden from higher earners to middle- to lower-income earners. "Plain and simple, the nine states without the income tax turn to other taxes, primarily the sales and property tax," said foundation president Michael Widmer.

Michael Widmer, director of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Association and a Question 1 opponent, said ballot questions give too much power to special interest groups. Because voters vote with a simple yes or no, ballot questions often oversimplify issues and leave no room for compromise, Widmer said.

Health insurance costs for city and town employees increased 63 percent between 2001 through 2005, according to a 2005 survey by the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The figure was nearly double the state's annual increase in health costs.

MA Taxpayers Foundation's Michael Widmer says people need to learn how to deal with the upcoming round of cuts, wherever they hit, because it's not the last time we're going to hear it.

"It's going to be a triple whammy," said Michael Widmer, executive director of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "Homeowners will see their property taxes go up, the value of their homes go down and their services will be cut."

Indeed, it would help - enormously. In Newburyport, Mayor John Moak estimated it could have saved taxpayers about $500,000 a year. Statewide, if every municipality had joined the GIC, they could have collectively saved $100 million this year, according to a report by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

Massachusetts cities and towns could have saved as much as $100 million this year, $750 million in fiscal 2013 and $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2018 if they all joined the GIC this year, according to a report jointly released in August 2007 by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, echoed the sentiment. "This is another pension excess that is causing increasing outrage to taxpayers," he said. "You have these thousands of employees who earn legitimate pensions and then these kinds of abuses undercut support for the entire system. It is past time for the Legislature and the governor to close these kinds of loopholes."

MTF President Michael Widmer says retailers weren't hit as bad in the previous recession because home prices were rising quickly, and consumers could tap into that newfound wealth. Of course, that's not the case today, with local home prices suffering percentage declines in the double digits since their peak nearly three years ago.

 

"In an economic recovery, 100,000 jobs was a modest goal," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Boston. "In a recession, it's an impossibility."