In 1630, John Winthrop crafted a sermon on board the Arbella for an early wave of Massachusetts Bay colonists from England. “We must be knit together . . . in brotherly affection,” and “make others’ conditions our own,” he preached. Invoking Moses, Jesus, and the prophets, he held high for the colony an image from the Sermon on the Mount: “We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
For almost four centuries, that vision has continued to animate American public discourse; and today, Winthrop’s words are pertinent to the renewed debate on raising new revenue in Massachusetts. We faith leaders in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization congratulate Governor Patrick for initiating this debate, and we call upon our fellow citizens to be guided once again by our first governor’s vision of a Commonwealth grounded in justice, mercy, and provision for future generations.
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I suspect the Pastors will feel differently when the donations dwindle and they are not able to heat the churchs. Shortsightedness.
A slight caveat on the numbers. I believe that Mass. ranks 25th among all states when we measure taxes as a share of the economy--not in per capita terms. That doesn't change the story in any big way, but I thought it worth mentioning. http://massbudget.org/846
Thanks for the correction, Mass Budget; does you credit. Also, I think MA did rank 25th relative to personal income, but has dropped to 11th.
Checked latest data, new in for 2010. Now we're 4th per capita, 8th re. personal income.
Maybe we should start taxing churches.
Amen. I don't know about other faiths but the Catholic Church operates like a corporation. They had plenty of dough to save themselves during the abuse scandals. Look at the palatial living at the Vatican and archdioceses. Something tells me that's not Jesus had in mind.
I have never seen what cutting taxes below a certain point did not create budget shortfalls and the inability of a govt. to maintain programs that are needed to keep a society in balance. It is always easy to be for tax cuts because all you have to do is say "cut the fat", a simple way of saying hey the paper found a misuse of funds. Regretfully it costs money to keep a civil society civil regardless of what "libertarians" believe. No one likes tax increases, I didn't like castor oil as a kid, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
My friend turk, do we need rail to Springfield from Boston and to New Bedford from Boston? I am all for maintaining infrastructure but this is not the time for "Big Dig" type projects.
Cut the fat.
lets tax the free loaders in this state: non profits who are in fact making profits, and paying thier ceos and college presidents large sums of millions of dollars in salaries. then lets cut the fat out of state govt-excessive staff, probation dept corruption, housing authority corruption where they pay themselves what ever they want, etc...
Shall we talk only of tax increases (called revenue in the article) without talking about better management of the activities of the various state and local goverments in MA? Activity based budgeting efforts should be started on a large scale. Let's examine what activities governments do and where and how best to do them.
We know jobs go to family and friends rather than qualified candidates, we know there are no-show jobs, we know supervisors and inspectors don't supervise nor inspect, we know projects take forever to complete, we know contracts are let to unqualified suppliers, we know folks get pensions that are not actuarily sound, we know government employees are expected to work for and donate to their supervisors re-election, etc..
Throwing money at nice to have projects is not the answer to a healthy government.
Right on!!!!! I find it irresponsible of our good Govenor to talk only of raising revenue without cutting expenses such as Ferg36 mentions above and many others too. This is the same issue that Democrats and Republicans cannot discuss civilly at the Federal level. Other major expenses that HAVE TO CHANGE are the huge retirement benefits that city and state employees get. Private industry employees are required to contribute to these expenses as a result of the changing economy. These same private industry retirees and workers pay for the generous benefits that the government retirees currently enjoy. NEEDS TO CHANGE. TAXES ALONE ARE NOT THE ANSWER GOVERNOR PATRICK. WAKE UP.
A wonderful article? I was unfamiliar w. Winthrop's sermon. I commend the Interfaith leaders for showing us the continuing relevance of Winthrop's vision.
Article is wrong: Massachusetts ranks 4th, not 25th, in per capita state and local tax burden, according to census bureau data. I doubt these authors checked this themselves; they probably got it from Gov. Patrick, who consistently gets it wrong. Don't Globe editors demand cites anymore?
As I noted in an earlier comment, Mass. ranks 25th among all states when we measure taxes as a share of the economy--not in per capita terms. And we think that's the better measure of the overall tax rate. See http://massbudget.org/846 and http://massbudget.org/855
I wouldn't mind paying for the cadillac if that''s what I'd get, but once the legislature gets its hands on the money.........
I cannot believe the level of idiocy, patronizing, and rank self-pronounced holier-than-thou-ness of this article. To follow its economic preachings is a sure bet that ALL of us will share in the results of the vow of poverty taken by some of these writers.
Sad part of it is, we will be forced to share the consequences, even without taking the vow.
But perhaps the authors will take comfort wrapped in their cloak of sanctimony........
You are correct about the need to make investments in education and transportation. Unfortunately our government, both state and federal, has lost the confidence of its constituents that taxes being paid today are being used correctly.
You can't ask people to dig deeper into their pockets until you prove to them that what they're already paying is being put to good use. This could easily be done by making government's spending transparent to we taxpayers. Have a location on the Department of Revenue's website that shows the state budget and explains the mission of each department and agency that we're funding. We have a right to know where our dollars go. The fact that government has chosen not to do this leads cynical people like me to believe there's a lot to be hidden and to question any need for additional revenue.
To the Governor and the faith leaders who have penned this piece I say: excise all the corruption and waste from State Government, create complete transparency and justify each line item in the budget. Then and only then should you "initiate this debate" about tax increases to repair infrastructure.
Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. If we wait until our government is completely free of corruption and waste before we fund our public facilities, then we shall have no public facilities. Also, the starvation of government tends to make corruption worse, rather than better, as the few remaining players resort to desperate and illegal measures to keep their piece of the shrinking pie.
What utter blather. All the focus on the $2.5 billion of tax cuts since 1998, no mention of the tax increases, and no discussion of what the state plans to do with all the money that it intends to extract from working people in Massachusetts. The buses that go between Boston and Fall River and New Bedford are nearly empty but Deval Patrick wants to build a train extension when it would be cheaper by far to give every person commuting between Fall River or New Bedford and Boston a limo and a driver. A train from Pittsfield to NYC? Has Deval ever even been to Pittsfield? I have. The entire city of Pittsfield has a population of 45,000. The number of people going to NYC on any given day? Approximately zero. People in Pittsfield looking for a little urban flavor typically drive to Albany or Springfield. The authors are truly godly men which is to say that their hearts are in the right place but their reasoning is weak, and taking a 400 year old quote out of context from a religious text to support a current public policy debate is specious to say the least. If we are going to defer to John Winthrop, and his position on modern tax policy is by no means clear, we should consider also that he opposed granting the vote to nonbelievers, did not oppose slavery and he was a homophobe.
Good article - thanks.
www.winninginc.sandler.com
I am sure many people are in the same boat as me. If my taxes go up the money has to come from some where in my case my charity donations will be going down. Right now I give $10 a week to a food pantry as well as money going to other causes. I might be picking up at the food bank instead of dropping off. Number 2 I will not be going out to eat so the tips the waitress usually gets from me goes away. My purchasing power goes down so retail suffers. Please explain how this helps the state. Was there any where in there where pay raises for the governor goes down as well as for the legislator. Of course not they will raise their pay and the pay of their relatives to cover any increase. All this so there can be a train going to New Bedford.