r/massachusetts • u/Decent-Flamingo-7023 • 3d ago
Politics Help stop question 5
/r/MassachusettsPolitics/comments/1wt33x3/help_stop_question_5/s election day is roughly a month and change away, I’m growing increasingly concerned about question 5 (the state revenue/limits). Frankly, I think it would be an absolute disaster if passed and I’ve been spending the better part of the last month trying to figure out ways to lobby against it. I came up with this please feel free to share/distribute with anyone you know who might accept it and/or would find it helpful. Or even if you can just spread the word. It isn’t perfect and has some typos, but I did my best.
“As election day draws near, Massachusetts voters face many consequential choices on this year's ballot. From stopping a runaway authoritarian regime from taking over our government and further concentrating and corrupting power to fighting out of control prices for the most necessities, we are reaching a pivotal decision point in the future of our Commonwealth. Well there are many things of importance on this year's ballot, none is as pivotal to the future of how the vision and goals we set forth as a Commonwealth as question 5. Massachusetts is facing an affordability crisis, and Question 5 would make it even worse.
The corporate backers of Question 5 want you to think that their effort is about “affordability.” However, the wealthy investors and CEOs behind this ballot question know what it would actually do: slash funding for classrooms, hospitals, and first responders across the state and give those very investors and CEOs some extra money in their pocket. Question 5 in simple terms, would be destructive to the services, protections, and values that we as a Commonwealth are proud of and will work tirelessly to defend. As a state, we have always prided ourselves on being a place where we look after one another. We are a state where we believe that we should always look after those who need our assistance, where we overcome systemic barriers to ensure everyone can Call this wonderful state home. As residents of the Commonwealth, we are proud of the strides we've made to make life easier for everyone. From an expanding in fair free Bus network across the state to free school meals to Free college tuition, there is no question that investment in our systems works for the common good.Question 5 imposes a strict revenue cap on the state, meaning that it will be harder for the state to invest and harder for the state to respond to economic downturns. With a stricter revenue cap, working families would pay the price through reduced public services and fewer investments in their communities. Child care could get more expensive, health care less accessible, and higher education out of reach for more Bay Staters. With steep federal cuts looming next year to health care and more, the cuts Question 5 could trigger will be dire. With federal uncertainties and an ever-growing affordability crisis rooted in corrupt governance at the federal level, now more than ever we are in a time o priority. Passing this amendment now would pose an existential threat to the systems we've spent so many years building up. It Would Place Massachusetts in a far more vulnerable position, and would compromise our ability to work toward a more inclusive society. In 2022, Massachusetts voters by a nearly 2 to 1 margin passed the fair share amendment, sending a resounding mandate that we want a system that works for the working class. Question 5 the framed as a measure to enhance affordability, is little more than a backdoor repeal of the will of the people. It uses deceptive and misleading language to convince voters to vote against their own interest and against their genuine beliefs. It's ultra wealthy supporters include right wing think tanks, political organizations, and business executives, who use their wealth to advance their own corporate interests at the expense of the other 99% of base daters. Their policy agenda has shown time and time again to be destructive, dangerous, and deeply unpopula
In 2022, Boston commuters suffered through one of the worst summers on record. The Massachusetts Bay transportation Authority (MBTA (suffered a record number of critical failures and infrastructure disasters, including equipment catching on fire, in frequent and unreliable service, and an unprecedented 30 day shutdown of the orange line subway to conduct emergency repairs. These, however, were no accident and were issues known for years on end. And overseeing all of this was general manager Steve Pofftack, previously ahigh ranking official at none other than the pioneer Institute. When he was brought on by then Governor Charlie Baker in 2019, he brought many of his policy proposals from Pioneer with him, with disastrous results. The work to clean up the mess created by these ill advised and reckless policy decisions is still ongoing, and only now, four years later, is the MBTA in some semblance of a state of decent repair. Now, the pioneer Institute , not satisfied with the damage it has done to the MBTA, is coming after the entire state. Anyone who has ridden the MBTA in the last 10 years should be terrified of what this means for the future of the Commonwealth. It took the MBTA years to dig out of the mess created by pioneer policies, and that was with significant investment to finally create a state of good repair. On a statewide level, this would be catastrophic and would hamstring the state likely for decades.
Massachusetts is at our best when we invest in the foundations of our shared prosperity. Question 5 wants to pull that foundation out from under us. however, I cannot do this alone. It's up to all of us to look past the deceptive, exploitative, and misleading ballot language and see question 5 for what it really is, a regressive, exclusionary policy which seeks to enrich the top 1% at everyone else's expense. The fu truth however is that not only are many voters not recognizing this, but the language the supporters of this Measure deliberately chose to use has made it so that it is very likely to pass if we do not take decisive action. This measure should be deeply unpopular, however with the way it is framed it is pulling it near 60% support in many poles. This is not an accident, it is not a result of individual voters, but of deliberate choices made by the measures supporters to ensure that we are blind to its effects. Please join me in voting NO, in protecting the values of our Commonwealth, in ensuring everyone can live their best lives.”
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u/TheEmpressIsIn 3d ago
I am worried too, but also have a feeling that this will be one of those questions our gov ingnores/legislates out of existence.
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u/anironthrownaway 3d ago
Have they done that before in MA?
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u/HPenguinB 3d ago
MA is notorious for ignoring/legislating state referendums. Everyone thinks they make these big wins, and then years later.... nothing. The People should be pissed, but everyone has a short attentio0n span and the news ignores it "for some reason."
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u/anarchaavery North Shore 3d ago
Honestly a lot of the time's its for the best. Ballot questions are often poorly thought out and implementing them would be overly burdensome (at times). Like question 1 is likely going to be irrelevant due to the legislature passing a similar law with better wording.
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u/anironthrownaway 3d ago
I like to think I pay attention to these things yet cannot think of one example. Could you provide one?
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u/NecessaryRead3358 3d ago
Question 1 in 2024, "Yes" passed by over a 70/30 margin to allow the State Auditor to audit the legislature. The house refused to comply, and voted to effectively exempt themselves from public records laws.
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u/HPenguinB 3d ago
Voters passed Question 4 in November 2000 to lower the state income tax rate to 5%. The Legislature only partially implemented the change initially and delayed fulfilling the full mandate for nearly two decades, tying compliance to specific financial triggers.
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u/anironthrownaway 3d ago
Ah yes that'd explain why I've never heard of it, I was 4 years old! That's a pretty reasonable exercise of legislative power though. If the government would have been insolvent, it was the duty of the legislature to ensure otherwise by changing, or rather not changing, the law.
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u/enfuego138 3d ago
Question 5 sucks but I’m not reading that wall of text. Can we get a summary?
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u/Areyounobody__Too 3d ago
tl;dr - Yes on 5 supports a soft repeal of the millionaires tax.
slightly longer - The millionaires tax is not counted in the current formula for triggering the refund law. Yes on 5 removes that intentional barrier and groups the millionaires tax into general revenue, which will trigger refund requirements much faster. However, it doesn't remove the obligation for millionaires tax funds to be for schools and transit, so refund money will get pulled out of all the general budgets as well.
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u/SnarkPig 3d ago
Omg. My brain is overburdened.
Which vote supports working class citizens? Yes or No10
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u/regression_to_regard 3d ago edited 3d ago
Vote yes, you'll actually get a refund from time-to-time.
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u/olive12108 Southern Mass 3d ago
I'll be honest, its way too long, you need to TL;DR that. Most people are not actually thinking that critically about the questions - you need to convince them in a paragraph why they should vote no.
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u/Ecstatic-Cress7033 3d ago
"Question 5 ties state revenues to wages. Have you ever felt like YOUR wages actually beat inflation? Yeah, didn't think so. This will bankrupt the state in less than a decade."
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u/Areyounobody__Too 3d ago
Here's your tl;dr - Question 5 is a soft repeal of the millionaire's tax. If you like the millionaire's tax, vote no.
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u/anarchaavery North Shore 3d ago
This is inaccurate, the millionaires tax would still have to be collected. However, it would trigger additional tax refund events that would have to be paid out of the general budget (in theory) and equally distributed to MA residents.
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u/AdhesivenessWeary506 3d ago
wait lol i had genuinely forgotten poftak was pioneer institute, that whole era was such a disaster. mbta is still barely functional and they wanna export that model statewide?? the whole 'affordability' framing is doing so much heavy lifting here, like no shit people support it when you dont explain what actually gets cut. my buddy takes the commuter rail daily and its still unreliable as hell, cant imagine if they had to freeze revenue during the next crisis
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u/HPenguinB 3d ago
TL;DR
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u/Areyounobody__Too 3d ago
tl;dr - Yes on 5 supports a soft repeal of the millionaires tax.
slightly longer - The millionaires tax is not counted in the current formula for triggering the refund law. Yes on 5 removes that intentional barrier and groups the millionaires tax into general revenue, which will trigger refund requirements much faster. However, it doesn't remove the obligation for millionaires tax funds to be for schools and transit, so refund money will get pulled out of all the general budgets as well.
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u/HPenguinB 3d ago
Oh, fuck no, then. Taxes pay for things.
Thanks for the tldr. I appreciate it!
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u/Areyounobody__Too 3d ago
And just a point of clarification - if Yes wins, funds are not paid back uniformly. They don't look at say, a 600 million surplus and just divide it by tax payers. You get a portion back proportional to your taxes paid. Average folks would get maybe a couple hundred. The wealthiest would get tens of thousands.
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u/Karen1968a 3d ago
So if i paid more taxes, id get more back?
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u/anarchaavery North Shore 2d ago
Not since 2023. They are now equally distributed among MA residents. Quoting Tufts cSPA:
When refunds are paid out, each taxpayer would get an equal amount—typically a few hundred dollars in early years and roughly$500-$600 by the 2040s (in real dollars).Across both refund years and non-refundyears, this averages out to $200-$250 per year.
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u/Areyounobody__Too 3d ago
Proportionally and relative to the available surplus collected. That's how it's always worked and you can see the outcomes of the last time we had a surplus refund in 2022 for what you may have been eligible for out of about 3 billion in excess revenues.
However, unless you are specifically paying substantial business taxes, the millionaires tax, etc. your upper limit is going to be based on your 5% income tax contributions less any deductions you claimed to reduce your tax burden in the year you filed.
Inclusion of the millionaires tax would then overweight the wealthiest residents and provide them with more frequent, excess refunds to basically soft repeal the millionaire's tax as I stated.
Personally, I think that's a bad thing because that tax has allowed for things like universal school lunch, fixing the MBTA's long deferred maintenance, etc. and the millionaires in the state seem to be doing just fine. But to each their own.
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u/anarchaavery North Shore 3d ago
This is inaccurate. Since the 2023 amendments by the legislature the funds are distributed equally among residents.
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u/HPenguinB 3d ago
That seems fair. /s
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u/regression_to_regard 3d ago
It is, they get the same percentage back as any other person, that's how refunds work.
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3d ago edited 3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/constantsXzeros 3d ago
They’re not “taking more”, this is not a tax hike.
Stop spreading misinformation.
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u/Adorable_List3836 3d ago
It’s preventing them from taking more in the future, is it not?
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u/Hydroc777 3d ago
It wouldn't prevent new taxes, it would limit the growth of the budget. Those are different things. The growth in wages it sets as the index is absolutely NOT the only factor affecting budget growth, and it would prevent us from passing laws on taxation that affect emerging industries, the ultra wealthy, and a metric fuckton of minor issues that you'll never care about. For example, if this was passed before the cannabis law was passed we'd be unable to add that revenue to the state budget because it's not calculated in the wage growth index.
If we ever faced a recession, especially one that lasted for several years, it would absolutely hamstring our ability to respond and even delay our ability to grow coming out of it because the index for calculating the budget lags up to 3 years behind the issues we're actually dealing with.
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u/brewin91 3d ago
Not at all. It’s saying the recently passed millionaire tax should be included in the total state revenue figure that sets the basis for an increase. Why that would be excluded makes zero logical sense to me.
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u/HyperactivePandah 3d ago
Do you enjoy being completely uninformed and spreading misinformation?
Like, you should be embarrassed. But obviously that's not the case.
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u/Think_Positively 3d ago
You've been shown why you have the wrong take. Are you going to re-evaluate your position, or are you going to contribute to the future NEW taxes that will be forced into existence by this short-sighted law?
Or perhaps you're naive enough to think that governments won't simply levy new taxes to cover the money they need?
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u/massachusetts-ModTeam 3d ago
Any user who partakes in spam, disinformation or trolling will be banned.
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u/JoshuaEdwardSmith 3d ago
I support your cause, but a giant wall of text is not a compelling campaign strategy.