Healey hit over taxes, transparency
Transparency and tax cut promises continue to plague the attorney general turned chief executive this week.
The governor was clear and frequent in her promises to cut taxes if she won the Corner Office and she maintained that position even after winning November’s election.
However, in perhaps a perfect example of how you can’t please everyone all at once, criticism over a plan to raise the estate tax threshold to $3 million and ease the short-term capital gains tax to 5% came almost immediately.
Gov. Maura Healey’s tax reform proposal, offered this week to the tune of $859 million, was greeted by scathing backlash from progressive groups and politicians, with one labeling the plan “incredibly regressive.”
“We are deeply concerned that proposed changes to the estate tax and shortterm capital gains tax rate would deliver an enormous windfall to the richest members of our society, while depriving the state of hundreds of millions of dollars in much-needed revenues,” the group responsible for the state’s new millionaire’s tax said.
Vatsady Sivongxay, executive director of the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance — Education Fund, praised Healey’s $55.5 billion budget proposal, which was filed Wednesday with the tax relief plan, for its investment into the state’s education system, but also expressed concern at the cuts.
“By spending hundreds of millions of dollars on permanent tax giveaways to the wealthy, the Governor’s budget proposal limits the state’s ability to make even greater investments in public higher education today, and threatens the state’s ability to fully fund public education from preK through college in future years,” Sivongxay said in a Thursday statement.
Healey was with the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce yesterday morning attempting to sell both her budget and tax plan to the state’s business leaders, just days after the Chamber’s president expressed concern with the long road ahead before the state can be competitive with other jurisdictions.
“It’s all part of one package,” the governor told the Chamber, and the end goal is what matters.
“We have two. Dealing with real issues of affordability and folks struggling across this state — we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen with the numbers and inflation — but right now as we sit here, we know that too many families are dealing with skyrocketing costs, employers are as well, but we’ve got to deal with affordability,” she said. “The other component is competitiveness.”
As for transparency, The Boston Globe’s assertion that Healey failed to provide them with requested records is not accurate, according to the governor.
“The Globe got that wrong,” Healey said.
The governor was responding to a listener’s question during an appearance on GBH’s Boston Public Radio with hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braude, when she was asked why she hadn’t carried through with a campaign promise to be as transparent as possible once in office.
Healey, during a December stop with Eagan and Braude, asserted she would exempt herself from a state law allowing the governor’s office to refuse response to records requests.
However, according to an article published by the Globe in mid-February, their ask to view Healey’s correspondence with legislative leaders, phone records, travel logs and calendar events was answered with incomplete records marked by redactions.
According to the governor, she’s turned over plenty, at the very least far more than previous chief executives were willing to disclose.
“We produced our travel logs and our calendar entries. There are certain exemptions that may apply in a given instance,” she said. “I think public access is very important and I’m going to do everything I can to be as transparent with the public as possible.”