The millionaires tax is becoming a slush fund for Democratic leaders
When it was before voters, the millionaires tax sparked a debate about whether it would scare rich people and businesses away. That's still a real danger.
But there was always another, subtler risk that came with the surtax: that it created a multibillion-dollar slush fund that the Legislature could abuse. And some of the Democrats' latest maneuvers are evidence that the tax is doing just that.
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Senators put the finishing touches on a millionaires tax spending bill this month meant to allocate a $1.3 billion surplus from the surtax. At the 11th hour, leading Democrats passed $10 million in earmarks in a so-called corrective amendment, which is meant for technical errors. The corrective amendments included $1.6 million for Spilka's district, which,
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The House version of the bill wasn't innocent either, with Mariano claiming the award for largest earmark at $25 million for a 500-spot garage in his hometown of Quincy.
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'It's certainly not what I was out there knocking on doors for,' one supporter of the millionaires tax
The projects are transportation and education related — though Mariano was stretching the definition pretty far with the parking garage. That's not the issue. The issue is the backroom way Democrats are divvying up the tax revenues.
Still, if you didn't think the Legislature would handle the bonanza behind closed doors and to the benefit of leadership, you haven't been paying attention. And while it isn't unusual for leadership to use corrective amendments to add earmarks, the timing and magnitude of this one raises red flags.
'Business as usual at the State House,' Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance president Paul Diego Craney told me. 'What makes this [amendment] a little more egregious is that it's going to the leaders. It didn't require debate, it didn't require a roll-call vote.'
Not only are the leaders abusing the trust that voters placed in them in 2022, but their fiscal flippancy is also inconsistent with Democrats' economic fearmongering. Under Spilka's leadership, the Senate launched RESPONSE 2025 to 'counter federal threats' from the Trump administration,
But if federal policy is on the verge of wrecking the state economy, wouldn't it make sense to return some state money back to 'your businesses, your employees, your families, and your bottom lines' instead of putting it into pork projects? It's easier for state Democrats to bash President Trump's policies than to exercise any restraint of their own.
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Meanwhile, progressives are proclaiming vindication on the economic impact of the tax policy itself before all the evidence is in. The progressive Institute for Policy Studies published a
There is almost no chance of repealing the millionaires tax, which would take a constitutional amendment. Maybe that's why Democratic leaders feel free to pig out from the proceeds. It seems like the tax revenue is helping education and transportation indeed — educating voters about how Massachusetts Democrats took them for a ride.
Carine Hajjar is a Globe Opinion writer. She can be reached at
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