Is the Legislature Unable or Unwilling?

As the Senate unveils its budget they demonstrate — like the House — that they still don't get it (or don't want to).

By Lou Langone
May 23, 2003

The inability of the Legislature to cut spending will weigh heavily on taxpayers later this year. The Senate spending plan unveiled this week on Beacon Hill - a Byzantine collection of cuts, fee increases, funds transfers and cost shifting - will likely induce many municipalities to try to raise property taxes or seek local option taxes to replace the state dollars that they got last year. Much like the House budget, the Senate leaves the state apparatus largely intact and will push the pain to 1) the local taxpayer, or 2) the consumer. Guess what? That's you!

By cutting some programs but expanding others the Senate, again like the House, the plan fails to reduce state spending in any appreciable fashion. With the rising costs of the state's Medicaid funding program and the drop-off in revenues, the state is in dire need of serious restructuring. By raiding transfer funds and selling public lands they are playing a cruel shell game. These are one-time quick fixes and will only put us in a deeper hole next time around.

In what has become a typical of the position taken by cities and towns, Massachusetts Municipal Association director Geoffrey Beckwith said the Senate is proposing "massive" cuts that will cause cities and towns to cut services and raise property taxes. He predicted thousands of layoffs. "That state budget debate does put taxes on the table - unfortunately, it's the property tax," said Beckwith. He also said lawmakers should consider "fairer and less regressive taxes" as part of a solution.

Never trust anyone who uses the words fairer and taxes in the same sentence. Such overt threats towards taxpayers expose the fact that none of our municipal leaders are willing to make the hard choices. But neither are the legislators. At least the city and town managers, mayors, etc are more reachable. The people on Beacon Hill are so insulated from competition these days that they can play these games with impunity.

Rather than do the hard work of restructuring the state bureaucracy and imposing real fiscal discipline into the system, we find ourselves repeating the mistakes of the past decade. The only difference between last year's fiasco and this year's is that this year we will hit the brick wall several months earlier. Of course, last year everything crapped out late because it was an election year and the brave souls in the House and Senate dodged the tough decisions until after the election was over.

Elected officials must begin NOW to make REAL changes in the way we manage this state's fiscal apparatus. At least Governor Romney seems to understand that much. If they did the restructuring this year we might still have a similar spending number. But by next year we could start to reap some of the savings.

Under any type of restructuring, it takes time to reap the benefits. But most of these people have never worked in the private sector. They have never been down sized, reorganized out of a job or forced to work 60 hours a week on a 40 hour salary. And you can bet they'll fight like hell to avoid it.

The saddest part of all is that too many people in this state will start to feel the pain of the cuts and give in to these extortionists. Wednesday night on a local news program it was reported that almost half of the voters polled said they would support a 5% higher income tax rather than cut services. Men overwhelmingly opposed an increase in taxes while women overwhelmingly supported the idea. Women respond better to fear and intimidation and the politicians know it. That is why the gloom and doom of spending cuts is always their first response

The public is being manipulated in the cruelest way. We are mortgaging your children's futures and we're doing it out of fear. The state budget is like a condemned building. It is only a matter of time before the walls come tumbling down.