If there’s a silver lining to the current economic crisis, it’s that there’s no money in the budget for the usual pork-barrel spending and apparently little interest in new taxes to pay for them. At least the liberal leadership in Massachusetts’ Legislature doesn’t have the appetite for it, although the rank-and-file are still seem hungry for it.
DeLeo’s bare-bones budget has had one predictable outcome, whetting the appetites of rank-and-file lawmakers for a broad-based tax hike. State Rep. Brian Wallace (D-South Boston) said there is a growing acceptance of some kind of tax increase in the Legislature, because it’s the only way to restore their pet projects.
Said Wallace: “We’re going to have to do something with taxes, I think. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”
Or you could, you know, do without. When times are tough and there’s not enough money for everything we want, a normal family cuts not only luxuries but even necessities that can be deferred. But not the Massachusetts Legislature. they couldn’t possibly do without, say, the Quinn bill, a boondoggle that gives raises to cops for going back to school, yet the programs are essentially diploma mills—no real school work required—and results in law enforcement officers getting lifetime raises of 10, 20, or 25 percent. Raises that also inflate their eventual pensions.
Or, for example, studying the winter moth caterpillar. I could be convinced to see the value of studying this pest so we can prevent infestations… when we can afford it. But right now even $150,000 is too much to pay.
How about something potentially even more devastating, like $850,000 for homosexuality indoctrination programs in public schools? On Friday, MassResistance reported that funding for these programs had been cut from the budget, but then later updated the report to say that amendments have been filed—at the urging of the homosexual lobby—to restore the funding. I won’t lie to you: Even in the best of times this is a bad use of money, but now, there is no excuse for it. Morally, we can’t afford it ever. Financially, we certainly can’t afford it now.
But the tax-and-spend crowd have forgotten what it means to do without. They have become gluttons at the taxpayers’ expense and blindly propose new taxes that will force us ever deeper into an economic depression to satisfy the lobbyists’ and pressure groups’ desires to re-engineer our society at any cost and to keep the money spigot flowing to their political friends and campaign funders.
It’s time to say No. But has the Massachusetts taxpayer had enough? Can anything wake them from their slumber before it’s too late?
Tax & Spend.
We are going through the same thing in New York.
There is no money at all in the budget, but the politicians keep on spending.
We are being taxed to death!
Taxes on everything, including transportation.
The N.Y. gov. is even considering putting tolls on bridges that have never had tolls before.
Yes – the taxpayers seem to be fed up.
But, they keep on voting in the same darn people who are causing this burden.
Who can explain?
The thing that bothers me is that they don’t seem to realize that this is classic Hoover economics. If you tax during a downturn to compensate for lower revenues, you will suffocate the economy. I’m 25, and I often wonder if I would be better off in a place like Singapore which has a more pro-family, pro-capitalist environment which is projected to have an actual economic future in the long run, unlike the US.