This is the second installment of the MTF Competitiveness Index, which is designed to provide residents, employers, and policymakers with a holistic assessment of how Massachusetts compares to our regional and economic competitor states across 27 different metrics in four categories of competitiveness:
On July 4th, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law. The massive tax and spending bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the nation’s debt by $3.9 trillion over the next ten years, and includes myriad policy provisions touching many aspects of the state/federal partnership.
The federal government spends more than $6 trillion each year through its annual budget. The federal budget process shares some similarities with the state, but it also differs in many ways.
This resource provides a basic outline of that process and how it might affect Massachusetts.
Important Basics:
Chairman Michlewitz, Chairman Rodrigues, members of the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on House Bill 55, An Act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2025 to provide for supplementing certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects, also known as the surplus surtax supplemental budget.
The purpose of this chartbook, and MTF’s follow-up research, is to contextualize the potential impacts of federal action on Massachusetts.
In this introduction, we provide a rubric for how to think about those federal impacts, including the potential forms action could take and the aspects of the Commonwealth’s public sector and economy most likely to be affected. Future publications will assess specific areas of possible impact and will provide updates on actual federal actions.
On January 22nd, the Healey-Driscoll administration filed its budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. The $62.07 billion spending plan increases spending over the FY 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) by $4.3 billion (7.4 percent) and over the administration’s estimated spending level of $60.26 billion by $1.8 billion (2.1 percent).
In May of 2024, Steward Health Care announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection; beginning a process through which the for-profit health system looked to restructure its debt and sell or close assets, including seven Massachusetts hospitals. The bankruptcy announcement, as well as the potential harm that Steward’s collapse would have on the state’s health care ecosystem, necessitated the development of a process to facilitate ownership transitions for Steward hospitals.
As the work of the 194th General Court gets underway, MTF is publishing its 2025 – 2026 Legislative Session Preview. The preview includes 101 primers on the Operating Budget and Capital Investment Plan development processes, as well as seven topic-specific policy briefs that cover a range of public finance and policy issues.
As we begin a new year and look towards a new Legislative Session, I am pleased to share the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation’s 2024 Annual Report. This brief report does not capture all that we accomplished over the last year, but we hope it demonstrates MTF’s fundamental role in the Commonwealth. We strive to produce high-quality and unbiased research that engages our members and policymakers, and that drives a more equitable and sustainable economy for all Massachusetts residents.
In spite of unanimous passage by both the House and the Senate, in the final days of the legislative session a compromise economic development bill failed to reach the Governor’s desk. While the two versions of the bill differ significantly on policy proposals, the framework for both bills is the same: authorizing capital spending that supports the state’s five-year economic development plan, continuing the state’s successful life sciences initiative, and creating a similar initiative for climate tech.
