Massachusetts
CLINE: If You Live in Massachusetts (Or New York or California), Every Day is Tax Day – NH Journal
Since 2021, half of U.S. states have cut personal income taxes. Only three states—Massachusetts, New York, and California—raised them. Guess how those three states are doing now?
All are shedding population and tax revenue.
In Massachusetts, state revenues fell for seven straight months through February. In January, Gov. Maura Healey announced $375 million in budget cuts to begin covering a projected $1 billion revenue shortfall. And don’t forget the historic population decline as residents flee to lower-cost states.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget fills a $4.3 billion deficit even as it projects deficits of $9.9 billion over the next four years. She proposes a $6 billion, 4.5 percent spending increase, and still projects future deficits. Last year, New York lost 112,000 residents.
California is even worse off. Facing a stunning $73 billion budget deficit, lawmakers last week voted to trim spending by $17 million, just for a start. California lost 75,000 residents last year after losing about half a million from April 2020 to July 2022.
Yet advocates of an aggressive and lavishly funded welfare state regularly hold up those states as ideals of good governance.
New Hampshire, we’re regularly told, is falling behind more enlightened states like Massachusetts, New York, and California because our taxes and spending are far too low.
The opposite is true, though. New Hampshire’s economy and people are thriving precisely because of our low-tax, low-spending culture that values self-reliance and personal responsibility over government dependency.
For starters, New Hampshire’s tax revenue this fiscal year is up, not down. State revenue through March is up $130 million over the same period during the last fiscal year.
Business tax revenues are down by $27 million compared to the same period last year. But that’s not because of business tax cuts, as some have suggested. (Business tax revenues have surged throughout the years of state business tax cuts.)
Businesses have to pay taxes quarterly, and those payments are based on what they estimate they’ll owe by the end of the year. If a business winds up overpaying, it used to be able to claim the entire overpayment as a credit toward the next year’s tax bill. Starting in 2023, legislators capped overpayment credits at 500 percent of the year’s tax bill. Anything over that would have to be refunded to the business.
Those overpayment refunds account for 46.4 percent of all business tax refunds so far this fiscal year, or $60.3 million. That’s more than double the $27 million by which business tax revenues have fallen below the previous year.
So it’s likely that the forced refunds are the cause of this year’s drop in business tax revenues. Those revenues are $27 million below the prior year but only $5.6 million below this year’s budget. Legislators clearly anticipated a drop in business tax revenue caused by the forced rebates.
New Hampshire’s revenues are very stable compared to New York’s, Massachusetts’, and California’s. That’s by design. Instead of relying heavily on personal income taxes and consumption taxes, New Hampshire relies on tax collections from business, property, insurance, real estate transactions, and alcohol and tobacco.
Our tax structure keeps spending relatively constrained and forces state government to operate more efficiently, which is why the state ranks as No. 1 in the nation for taxpayer return on investment (ROI) and has for years, in WalletHub’s annual survey. The site also ranks New Hampshire sixth in overall government services.
For government services, effectiveness, and value—not total spending—are the metrics that ought to matter. Keeping taxes low forces the state to do more with less.
Progressives don’t understand that the better measure of success for a government program is not how much it spends, but how well it spends. New Hampshire spends its money very well, at least relative to other states, because it has to get more out of every taxpayer dollar.
This doesn’t mean that New Hampshire doesn’t spend. Revenues for the current two-year state budget were projected to be $868.7 million, higher than the previous state budget. That fueled record state spending. The 2024-25 budget is 16 percent bigger than the 2023-24 budget. New Hampshire lawmakers definitely know how to spend when they have money sitting around.
The difference between New Hampshire and the profligate states of Massachusetts, New York, and California is that New Hampshire lawmakers lack the revenue-raising tools their counterparts in those big-spending states have. Without an income tax, New Hampshire legislators can’t simply “raise taxes on the rich” whenever they want to spend more money. Without a sales tax, they can’t raise hundreds of millions of additional dollars by nudging the consumption tax rate up a bit (for the children, of course).
All four states in this discussion are required by their constitutions to have balanced budgets. But only New Hampshire regularly avoids the drama of huge spending binges followed by huge budget cuts because only New Hampshire has a tax system designed to minimize government revenue and maximize economic growth.
In contrast with many other states, New Hampshire’s tax structure is well-suited to promote economic growth. It incorporates many features recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for generating economic growth, including low corporate and personal income taxes.
Though progressives say otherwise, tax increases do reduce GDP.
Former Gov. Mel Thomson’s famous saying that low taxes are the result of low spending is true, generally speaking. But it’s also true that keeping taxes low discourages overspending. New Hampshire does this pretty well.
One question to ask yourself on Tax Day is whether you’d rather live in a state that overtaxes you to build a lavish welfare state and wastes billions of dollars in the process or whether you’d rather live in a state that taxes you less but wastes relatively little and provides high-quality government services in exchange for what it takes.
That ought to be an easy answer.
Massachusetts
New Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
Frankli
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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