Income Tax

``Absolutely the effect of it is double-dipping,'' said Michael Widmer of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. ``It's understandable there may be a per diem for travel from western Massachusetts into the State House that the state provides. But then there is this huge benefit that the federal government provides on top of it.''

Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation president Michael J. Widmer said that the state constitution prohibits local income taxes and that a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed them was rejected by voters in the 1990s.

Lawmakers heard from the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Cathy Minehan, and Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Several emerged from the meeting saying it had darkened their view of the state's fiscal condition.