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Spend the Stimulus

Spend the Federal Stimulus Funding as it’s Intended and Raise New Tax Revenues to Prevent Severe Cuts to Vital Services!

Action Alert

 

(Prepared by our ally, Coalition for Social Justice)


Call Your State Representative


Let them know you favor spending the federal stimulus money and the money allotted from the state rainy day fund to help protect badly needed public services like __________________, ________________, and ______________________. And, since the federal stimulus funding doesn’t plug the entire gap in the budget, let them know that we still need new tax revenues to prevent severe cuts to vital services.
 

 

Summary – Governor’s Proposed Budget

For the 2009-2010 State Budget, covering July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010 (FY   2010), we are facing a huge budget gap of $3.5 billion. 

This is a result of:

  1.  An increasingly severe national recession and
  2. Frequent tax cuts made in past years, many primarily benefiting people with high incomes or large corporations, leaving the state in a structural deficit (suffering from an inadequate tax base for funding essential services.)

 

      The Governor in his Budget (“House 1”) is suggesting the following strategies for addressing the deficit: 

  1. $587 million in new revenues – increased hotels and meals taxes, eliminating the property tax exemption for telecommunications companies like Verizon, eliminating the sales tax exemption for candy, sweetened beverages and alcohol, expanding the bottle bill, and increasing fees at the motor vehicle registry and for nursing homes
  2. $586 million from the stabilization (“rainy day”) fund
  3. $711 million in Federal Recovery Aid (original estimate of assistance to be given to Massachusetts as part of the stimulus package)
  4. $1.63 billion in cuts and savings
 
 

We are very concerned about the $1.63 billion in cuts and savings.  This is on top of continuing shortages in many areas resulting from cuts that were made back in 2001 and 2002.  While some money can be saved through governmental reforms, most have a direct impact on essential government services.  Most of the $1.63 billion is cuts.

The good news is that the federal stimulus package turned out to be larger than projected in the Governor’s budget – Massachusetts will likely receive at least $500 million more in FY 2010 than the House One budget counted on.  But this still leaves a gap of hundreds of millions of dollars -- even if the Governor’s revenue ideas and rainy day fund withdrawals are approved.

There are many good features to the budget.  Rather than taking a scalpel to everything, the Governor has, in most cases, protected important services protecting vulnerable populations e.g., public housing, welfare, rental subsidies, health insurance. 

 

 

The Governor’s proposed revenue increases are welcome and necessary, but we need to urge legislators to spend the Federal stimulus funding as it’s intended because we can not afford for it to go into reserves. In addition, we need to advocate for a stronger revenue package to come out of the House to fully fund essential services.   

 

To contact your state representative, call 617-722-2000 or call the numbers below

 

To find out who your State Representative is, go on www.wheredoivotema.com

 
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