Both are appealing. Who doesn’t favor more affordable rents or lower taxes?

But both are bad ideas even though they attempt to address real economic challenges posed by the state’s high cost of living. Like most simple answers to complex problems, they would only make matters worse.

The rent initiative, backed by labor unions, would discourage new construction, which is essential to keeping a lid on lease rates. It would also decrease property values, putting a strain on municipal budgets.

The tax cut, pushed by business groups, would take a large bite out of state revenues, forcing difficult decisions about which services to eliminate.

Here’s a quick primer.

What it would do: Filed by Homes For All Massachusetts, a coalition of housing groups, the initiative would peg allowable annual rent hikes to the rate of inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index), with a cap of 5 percent.

Landlords would be barred from raising rents after a tenant leaves. Owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units would be exempt, as would new buildings during their first 10 years. Cities and towns couldn’t opt out.

The initiative would “protect tenants from big corporate investors who unreasonably increase rents, while allowing local landlords to earn a reasonable profit and enabling new construction to address housing shortages,” said Carolyn Chou, executive director of Homes for All Massachusetts.

Several big labor unions have endorsed the measure, including the SEIU Massachusetts State Council and the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Why it won’t work: Backers designed the proposal to sidestep the obvious flaw of rent control: that it chills new construction. Hence the 10-year exemption for new buildings.

But most apartment projects in Massachusetts take years to finance, permit, and build. Developers calculate their payoff over several decades, and a rent cap waiting at the end of year 10 changes the math.

The deeper problem is high rents in Massachusetts are a supply problem. There are not enough apartments and rental homes.

Not only do rent caps discourage new construction, they may encourage landlords to convert rental units to condos or reduce their investment in existing properties.

Moreover, evidence shows rent control can have unintended consequences.

A working paper examining St. Paul, Minn.’s 2021 rent control ordinance, which was less severe than the Massachusetts proposal, found that property values fell 6 to 7 percent. The losses were driven largely by lower expected future rents being priced into valuations.

That kind of decline ripples through municipal budgets. Cities facing shrinking tax bases typically respond by raising rates, cutting services, or both.

“It would be catastrophic for the economy,” said Tamara Small, CEO of NAIOP Massachusetts, a commercial real estate trade group.

What it would do: Reduce the state levy on personal income to 4 percent from 5 percent, phased in over three years.

The initiative would put money into people’s hands and make sure the government is not growing faster than residents’ ability to fund growth, according to Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a business-supported think tank that filed the measure.

“This is about making Massachusetts a place where people want to stay,” he said. Pioneer estimates the tax cut would lead to the creation of as many as 48,000 jobs and spur economic growth that would offset the loss of tax revenue within a few years.

According to backers, which also include the Massachusetts High Tech Council and the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, the net annual revenue impact during the three-year phase-in period would be about $680 million. Following full implementation, state revenue growth would increase as an economic boost from lower taxes kicked in.

Why it won’t work: Tax cuts can modestly boost growth as consumers and small businesses spend the extra money. According to a report by the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, the median household tax bill would shrink about $1,250 each year.

But the economic boost won’t fully recoup lost revenue. Claims that cuts “pay for themselves” are not supported by the weight of economic evidence.

According to the Tufts report, the tax cut would result in a much bigger hit to state revenues than estimated by the initiative’s supporters: $5.1 billion a year when fully in place, or about 10 percent of total state tax receipts. The state Department of Revenue issued a similar estimate.

“A cut of this size would more than offset the revenue gains from the millionaires tax and imperil efforts to balance the state budget and sustain core government programs moving forward,” the Tufts report said.

Massachusetts has a real cost-of-living problem, and voters aren’t wrong to demand action. But these ballot proposals offer short-term gratification without fixing the underlying problems.

Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.

Six people were taken to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries after a floor collapsed at a wedding venue in Tamworth, New Hampshire, around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office said.

The collapse happened while a wedding party of about 140 people were present, according to a joint release from the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department and the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The office confirmed there were no fatalities and said late Saturday that four of the people treated at the hospital had already been released.

A phone call to the venue, the Preserve at Chocorua, was not answered. Tamworth, a town of about 2,800 people, is around 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Concord, New Hampshire, near the western border of Maine. Phone calls to the MaineHealth Memorial Hospital went unanswered Saturday night.

The Fire Marshal’s Office said while more than 100 people gathered in a building called the Sap House at the venue, the floor buckled creating a 20-foot by 20-foot opening and sending about 70 people into the basement. Several people were trapped by the fallen beams and by farm equipment that had been stored on the lower floor.

An office spokesperson said in a release late Saturday that before first responders arrived, other guests and staff helped some of the people who had fallen climb out of the basement with the aid of ladders, and were rendering first aid to people with minor injuries. It was unclear how many people were treated at the scene, and investigators are still determining the extent of injuries.

A photo from the Fire Marshal’s Office shows a chandelier and white bunting decorating the ceiling above the buckled floor boards, as well as stacked benches that had been used for seating for the wedding before the collapse.

The Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the collapse along with the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department, a spokesperson said Saturday. Investigators believe the building “was over capacity” prior to the floor collapse, a spokesperson said in a release.

A first responder who arrived on scene shortly after 911 calls came in described half the floor of the building where the wedding ceremony was set to take place as having fallen into the basement over scanner traffic listened to on Broadcastify. He asked for more first responders to talk to witnesses, saying there were about 145 people present at the event. The responder also said they were carefully pulling people out of the building basement.