In response to Entropic's comment:

Your NUTS.

Hopefully, not every member of the Legislature is as clueless as da Speakah. These guys have to run even though Coupe won't be.

First: This State was run on a 5% income and 3% sales tax for half a century;

Second The income taxed now at over 5% (with a 6.25% sales tax) applies to much higher incomes in recent years than ever before;

Third State "government" now does lots of things it has no business doing (energy company subsidies, studies and commissions on everything and a State Legislativ and State Executive Branch that are both bloated with duplicative staffing agencies and too many elected officials.

That's three strikes folks. Plus, the great and generous court arrogantly ignored the people's vote to lower taxes and now would raise them at the urging of a soon to be former governor? I doubt it but if they do it remember that the legislature and govt people here say they want to cit back isn't everybody except your rep. It's your rep.

In response to redbarchetta88's comment:

If you got a 2% raise the State would already get more money at the current rate.

In response to Entropic's comment:

A Governor not running for re-election is willing to propose spending more and raising taxes. What a profile in "courage"!

In  true liberal ideology, Governor Patrick is quick to call for an increase in taxes while spinning his political spin by calling it an investment. However, he say when it would start, or be completed. He also didn't talk about fixing governmnent waste. This is what should be his priority. The state of Texas has a part time legislature and it's several times the size of Massachusetts. Does that tell you anything?

If they got rid of the hacks and corruption we'd be able to cut the income tax and the sales tax and improve our infrastructure.    We are already a high tax state with a high cost of living as well.  Pigs feeding at the government trough is the problem - we do not have a revenue issue. 

No EBT reform but lets hit the poor working class even harder! We get exactly what we deserve by allowing one party rule. This is like taxation without representation because the house is just a rubber stamp. Oh they will allow the reps from the more conservative districts to pretend to be opposed but it's a joke really, a joke on us! You are delusional if you really believe that the Democratic party supports the middle class.

One doesn't have to look far to see wasteful spending in Mass. Why not address these issues first? My state trooper neighbor drives his patrol car home and parks it on private property. Why not have him drive his own car to work (like the rest of do) then pick up the patrol car there? That way we would need far fewer expensive patrol cars. Just one example of waste.

Has anyone even bothered to look at their paychecks since Jan 1st?

Mine has gotten smaller and now this dope wants more?

DEVAL, JUST LIKE HIS BUDDY THE "BIG O" is so far to the left that one could cry......  Wake up Massachusetts & America, these lib/left/soc/rad/moonbats are making SUCKERS out of all of us !!!!   Deval, is another one like Kerry & Warren that need to be told when "to come in out of the rain" !!!!

This makes me fee real great getting up at 5:00 AM and hitting the road at 6:00 AM along with thousands of my fellow commuters of the working class knowing that we are going to get hammered with higher income taxes, while those who are not working or working under the table are getting a tax break with lower sales tax.  Classic redistribution of wealth scheme for the liberal voting base.

I have a proposal, how about the Commonwealth of MA start taxing the governament retiree's income received from MA pension plans? Now that public sector salaries are comparable with private sector salaries and private sector retirees pay MA income tax on their retirement income, it is only fair for the goverment employee to do the same. 

 

 

 

This post has been removed.

Brilliant!  I am so impressed that Patrick has the courage to propose this tax overhaul.  It makes perfect sense to increase spending on education and transportation by raising funds in a way that does not burden the working class and poor. 

This post has been removed.

Do I like higher taxes? No, who would? Does something need to be done about the infastructure in this state, absolutely. Can we expect the commonwealth's government to save our way into propserity? I doubt it.

For those who keep quoting the tax foundation, that's fine. Take a closer look though. Stack rank the average income by state, after the local tax burden, against each other. Guess where MA ranks against NH? Higher. Why? We make more. Do other cost of living factors such as housing play into this? Of course. But the fact is our tax burden versus our level of success (average income) is decent. Would I challenge the government to do more with what they already have, without a doubt.

I'd like to see a compromise come out of all this. Every state agency should be asked to trim the fat, in times like this, just as every private company is being asked to do. Deval's speech did paint a vision, but I'd of liked to see it as a leaner, more efficent Mass. And that doesn't necessarily mean we have to take away services. Why can't the Pike be upgraded to more technological tolling without these Billion's of dollars? The economic cost of idling cars waiting to pay tolls and ridiculously designed entrance/exit ramps to accomodate merging into toll plazas is a huge burden on Boston as a region. High speed tolling should have been a priority a long time ago and the current toll dollars/toll taker salary savings by doing this should be enough to pay for it.

Additional train service? Okay, but l disagree with priorities being made for Bedford and Western MA. To come even close to breaking even, which I believe the only public transit system that does is NYC, you need density. Expanding within 128 and perhaps a few areas within 495 is where this will make the most sense. The orange line to Reading perhaps? Blue line to Salem/North Shore. Those things are going to help reduce cars on the road and if you can get a smooth running service people who use it will be willing to pay for it.

I like parts of the vision, improving intersections along 128 is a dire need. Replacing bridge decks is becoming a necessary part of life here. But calling for more taxes without really focusing on trimming out what can be done now is a mistake. The people deserve better! Back to the drawing board, we need more out of our governer right now.

Brave would be doing it when he had something to loose. He is not running again. How is that brave?

In response to Entropic's comment:

Transportation infrastructure repaiors should be paid for by raising the gas tax.  Then people who use the roads pay for the roads.  And lets scrap these trains to nowhere.  California just went through a very expensive boondoggle exactly the same.

Is "tax overhaul" the Globe's euphemism for "tax increase"? Because I'm sorry, no matter how much you try to sell this proposal, it's still a tax increase during an economic recession, on top of the federal tax increase we already got... and apparently for the purpose of funding programs that don't even sound necessary, creating a few temporary construction jobs, and placating unions.  

I'm not opposed to spending money on infrastructure, I don't think anyone is. If roads or bridges need to be repaired, repair them. But now is not the time for "ambitious transportation projects" like expanding rail service to areas that don't even need it. Those aren't necessary expenses, they're pet projects- projects you would undertake if you had a budget surplus, for example. And it's infuriating that Patrick thinks he can just dip into our already-decreasing paychecks to fund whatever strikes his fancy, without making any effort to curb his government's already-wasteful spending. Why anyone should trust this man with our money, given how he's spent the rest of it, is completely beyond me. 

 

So thanks to Obama and now Deval my family will owe an extra $3,000 per year. That at least 3 months worth of groceries. Thanks for taking food out of my kids' mouths to pay for trains to nowhere built by union thugs. That's on top of my property taxes which have risen almost 50% since 2005. So much for the property tax relief we were promised.

And I simply love the idea of reducing the sales tax. He just raised it a year or two ago? What happened? The EBT crowd must have complained that their money wasn't going far enough. So now we'll soak the poor saps who get out of bed in the morning and go to work so the shiftless layabouts can get another mani-pedi every week.

 

Stockpilling...it's called saving, so we can take responsibility and pay for our childrens' education and retirement rather than depend on others to that for us

In response to P-X's comment:

Wow, give me a break "Governor".  This is the worst governor we have had in over 100 years.  Yes, go to the public trough and try to steal more money.  And the sad thing is, with his "slick" teflon speeches people actually believe that more money is needed.  NO!  What we need is for the GOVERNOR TO RESIGN (And take that train wreck - I mean car wreck lieutenant governor with him).   So, you want more money "governor", well how about this:

-Lab scandal, letting prisoners go free with no supervision of employees and wants $30 million to fix.  Where is the state supervision for the last 4 years on this?????

-Probation department hiring scandal

-Housing authority mismanagement with folks getting paid over $400K per year to do nothing

-Parole board lunacy and incompetency

-Big Dig fiasco - tunnels falling apart

-State DCR can't even handle simple pool inspections, letting bodies float in the water

-Paying for lawyers fees & sex change operations for convicted murderers

-Welfare for people that don't deserve squat, and in-state tuition for illegals!

-MBTA supreme mismanagement!   Well, we don't need to collect fares

-And on and on it goes

So "governor" (if we really even have one in this state), you want more money?  Go pound sand.  You are loaded; use your own checkbook to cover deficits.  By the way you want to go to the presidents inauguration?   Who's paying for that, me and others that actually work and pay taxes?  Doesn't sound like state business to me.   Resign immediately you incompetent stooge.

 

It's really embarrassing. But true colors shine when the burden of re-elections fade away...

How about we start with, oh I don't know:

- Real EBT reform? The amount of money that corrupt system is hemmorhaging is staggering.

- Finally ending police details

- Attracting new businesses (and I don't mean casinos)

- real public employee pension reform

Deval's just put a bullseye on the 2014 Governor's race. Everyone knows he's a radical liberal but this is really beyond the scope of reality. Unfortunately it's not that he and his pals are clueless to the corruption and ignorant to its intricacies. It's that he's in on it. And anything he successfully implements he will casually wave goodbye to on his way down to DC in 2014....

Sad. But this will not stand.

The right wingers are angry on here and frankly, I'm not too happy either with these tax increases and waste. However, anger and name calling aren't going to get you far. That's why your candidates tend to lose in Massachusetts. If you ran reasonable, likeable candidates with reasonable, common sense proposals, they might actually win. Anger and extremism turns off the electorate.

Here's 1 for you 19 for me.

 

I am in favor of lowering the sales tax because it is a flat tax that disproportionately hurts low income populations. I do wish the state would adopt a progressive income tax so that high income individuals pay more than low income individuals.