Fear not, the millionaires tax is bearing fruit
As a millennial, I've become accustomed to seeing friends move out of Boston, then out of the state entirely, due to the high cost of living. If you want to buy a home for a decent price or find affordable child care, good luck. We are losing people because affording the high quality of life we tout is getting farther and farther out of reach.
Advertisement
By supporting massive investments in education, from prekindergarten through college, and in transportation infrastructure that will enable new housing production across the state, Fair Share is addressing the real drivers of outmigration. New policies such as free school meals, free buses, and free community college are making the state more affordable for middle-class families.
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
I hope our neighbors in Rhode Island join us in building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.
Jonathan Cohn
Policy director
Progressive Mass
Boston
Fair Share's foes taking their scare tactics to R.I.
Opponents of the Fair Share Amendment continue rehashing the same tired arguments that failed to persuade voters to reject Massachusetts' new millionaires tax ('The millionaires tax: A cautionary tale for R.I.').
Advertisement
When Fair Share appeared on the ballot, a few wealthy businesspeople spent millions of dollars trying to convince voters that it wouldn't generate much money because all the millionaires would leave, and that the money wouldn't really go to transportation and public education. They were wrong on both counts.
The new tax
And in just two years, Fair Share has already made an enormous difference for the people of Massachusetts. It's funding universal free school meals, free bus service with expanded routes and service hours, and tuition-free community college. It's funding school building repairs and state aid to local school districts, road and bridge repairs throughout the state, and massive repairs at the MBTA.
That's a tale Massachusetts should be proud to tell.
Harris Gruman
Executive director
SEIU Massachusetts State Council
Somerville
The writer was a cofounder of the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
10 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Originalist sin
But the opinion in Advertisement This is important: The Constitution's Equal Protection Clause prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, and challengers argued that the law is unconstitutional because it bars certain treatments (for example, hormone treatments) from being given to trans youths while allowing them to be given to cisgender minors. Advertisement But according to Roberts, the law contains no sex classification at all. The only classifications he finds on the face of the law are for age (applying only to minors) and 'medical use' (banned for gender-affirming care but OK to treat other conditions. I'm sorry — what?! What happened to the text saying what it said when it was said? But Roberts's approach allowed the court to dodge its obvious constitutional inconsistency. By pretending that the law doesn't classify by sex at all, Roberts avoided having to decide whether laws that discriminate on the basis of gender on their face require a higher level of scrutiny by courts in order to stand. Sex-based laws would require a state to prove it has an important government interest in enacting the law and that it is substantially related to serving that interest. We legal heads call that 'intermediate scrutiny.' If it's not a sex-based law, a state need only demonstrate a rational basis for passing the law — a much lower legal hurdle to clear. In the court's view, Tennessee cleared that hurdle. It doesn't matter that the conclusion that this is not a sex-based law defies all credulity. (It's so silly, in fact, that even Justice Samuel Alito in his concurrence declined to join that aspect of the court's reasoning.) The downside of this ruling, aside from the fact that it endangers trans kids in Tennessee and other states with similar bans: The justices opted not to use this as an opportunity to rule that laws targeting trans or other LGBTQ folks must meet a higher constitutional standard, just as any other sex-based classification. Advertisement The upshot: The majority did not hold that laws targeting trans or other LGBTQ folks never get intermediate scrutiny. But here's the chaser: Three justices — Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Alito — would have held that transgender status never triggers heightened scrutiny. The court is two votes away from that being the law of the land. Given that you can't spell transgender without gender, that makes no constitutional sense. That's not originalism. It's terrifying. This is an excerpt from , a newsletter about the Supreme Court from columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at
Boston Globe
15 hours ago
- Boston Globe
How should Mass. lawmakers spend the money from the state's millionaires tax? We asked around.
Write to us at . To subscribe, . TODAY'S STARTING POINT Call it the $1.3 billion question: How should Massachusetts spend the extra money that its so-called millionaires tax raised? First, some background. In 2022, Massachusetts voters approved a 4 percent surtax on annual income over $1 million. The constitutional amendment that created it requires that the money go to transportation and education initiatives. Last fiscal year alone, the tax raised more than $2.4 billion, or about $1.3 billion beyond what officials budgeted. This year, revenue has again The amendment left the Legislature with a lot of leeway to decide which initiatives to fund, and lawmakers have been Advertisement This week, lawmakers Advertisement More for the T The Legislature's compromise proposal would give $535 million to the MBTA. But some argue that the T, which has languished with insufficient funding and a backlog of repair work for decades, could use more. Amy Sutherland, a Charlestown resident and Starting Point reader, framed it this way: 'Making the T work at a 21st century level would solve traffic, economic, social, and climate problems in Boston and the surrounding metro area,' she wrote in an email. Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass, a liberal advocacy group, suggests using some millionaires tax revenue to expand efforts to make MBTA buses and trains free to ride. Other transportation needs The MBTA isn't the only transit service in the state that could use money. There are also Another possibility, Wilson said, could be to expand so-called Advertisement The federal funding gap But paying for transportation needs alone would leave little for other challenges — including ones that didn't exist when voters first approved the millionaires tax, like the Trump administration's efforts to cut federal funding to states. The administration has moved to 'Resources should be allocated to protect the schools impacted by these attacks,' Dominic Copeland and Davian Pagan of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, a faith-based organizing collective, wrote. Jessica Tang leads the state branch of the American Teachers Association, which supported passage of the amendment. Tang said that $690 million — about half the Legislature's compromise proposal — could support low-income students and students with disabilities, as well as cover the Medicaid reimbursements that schools use to provide speech therapy, nursing, and more. The administration is also pushing legislation in Congress that would cut federal student aid, which helps low-income What's next? There's no shortage of ideas about what to do with the money, but the debate over the millionaires tax may be unfolding on borrowed time. Some business leaders remain staunchly opposed, arguing that the tax is a drag on the economy and will cause wealthier residents to leave the state. Research groups that support the tax recently reported that Advertisement Even if it stays in effect, it's unclear how much the tax will raise in the future. The surtax is tied to inflation, which means its income threshold has risen. In effect, the millionaires tax may Still, any repeal effort would likely take years. And for now, the tax continues to bear fruit, raising more than state officials expected. Wilson, of Transportation for Massachusetts, sees a long list of possibilities. 'There are a lot of needs across the state,' he wrote. 🧩 9 Across: 83° POINTS OF INTEREST A black bear chewed on a garbage container in Wolcott, Conn., back in 2006. Steven Valenti/Associated Press Boston and New England What do we do now? The Karen Read retrial may be over, Beth Teitell writes, but Filthy animals: Rats in Boston are spreading leptospirosis, Struggle to survive: Amid tough tariffs and harsh immigration policies, Connecticut bears: Encounters with humans are happening so frequently that some lawmakers want to start a bear-hunting season. ( Vermont visitors: Tourism businesses in the north are feeling the impact of Trump's rhetoric against Canada as Quebecers start to boycott US travel. ( Trump administration Iran options: President Trump's announcement that he could take up to two weeks to decide whether to attack Iran not only buys him time, it also gives him several new military and covert options. ( The Tok isn't really Tiking: Trump delayed the ban on TikTok by another 90 days. The new deadline for a sale is Sept. 17. ( Silent treatment: Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president. But yesterday, he said nothing about the holiday. Instead, he complained on Truth Social that there are 'too many non-working holidays in America.' ( The Nation and the World Israel and Iran: The countries Social Security rush: Worsening finances and claims of fraud are prompting nervous recipients to take their retirement payments earlier than planned. Adding insult to injury: NFL widows who struggled to care for ex-players who had the devastating degenerative brain disease CTE say a new study is insulting and dismissive of their experience. ( Rout: The Indiana Pacers rolled to an easy Game 6 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, forcing a Game 7 Sunday night. ( VIEWPOINTS The Globe's Opinion pages featured two different takes on Israel's war with Iran. Matthew Levitt, director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, made the case that Ankit Panda, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned that the US Meanwhile, the Globe's editorial board weighed in on the Karen Read verdict, Advertisement BESIDE THE POINT By Teresa Hanafin 💘 Blind date: He's a data analyst whose family immigrated; she's a teacher who used to work in immigration law. 📖 Contradictions: Jen Hamilton, a nurse with 4.2 million followers on TikTok, picked up her Bible a couple of weeks ago and 🦁 The next 'White Lotus': Travel writer Christopher Muther tried to have a non-working vacation. But when he entered the Mahali Mzuri 📺 Top TV picks: From 'The Better Sister' to 'Forever,' here are Chris Vognar's 💦 A watery escape: Of the Charles River's 80-mile journey from Hopkinton to Boston Harbor, the last 6 miles are a pure delight. Here are 🧒 Keeping kids busy: Here's a sample of 🌮 Keeping kids fed: And after all that excitement, Kara Baskin suggests some stress-free and delicious Advertisement Thanks for reading Starting Point. This newsletter was edited by ❓ Have a question for the team? Email us at ✍🏼 If someone sent you this newsletter, you can 📬 Delivered Monday through Friday. Ian Prasad Philbrick can be reached at
Boston Globe
18 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Brick thrown at Brookline kosher grocery store highlights antisemitism's rise
This act was, simply, antisemitic in the way it blamed a Jewish individual in America for the actions of the Jewish state in Israel. Advertisement As a state that values every resident, we must emphasize clearly that antisemitism is wrong and antisemitic actions can't be tolerated. We must work to change a culture where slogans that can be perceived as violent threats against the Jewish people — like 'globalize the intifada,' a reference to the often violent uprisings by Palestinians in Israel — are considered acceptable discourse. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up While the brick was thrown when the store was closed, any attack on a Jewish individual can spark fear across the entire Jewish community. That is especially true after two lethal attacks recently. In Washington, D.C., two Israeli embassy staffers Advertisement Earlier this month, an Egyptian man was charged with Attacks against Jews are nothing new in the Boston area. In 2021, a man was The The Massachusetts Legislature formed the Commission cochair state Senator John Velis (D-Westfield) says one challenge is the tendency to see antisemitism as someone else's problem. 'People on the left see it on the right, people on the right see it on the left,' Velis said. 'Antisemitism today shape-shifts, it mutates, it's ubiquitous. It's moved away from being only on the right or left, it's everywhere.' Advertisement Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, attributed antisemitism's rise to a culture that lets progressive groups conflate criticism of Israel with language that demonizes Jews. 'The use of Zionists as a slur has been normalized,' Burton said. 'There is this willingness to absolve and minimize a rhetoric which tolerates, if not promotes, violence against Jews anywhere, as if no harm might come from that.' There are real debates about the distinctions between anti-Zionism — opposing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state — and antisemitism. Activists have every right to criticize Israel, its government, and its military. A robust debate about Israel's prolonged and deadly military campaign against Hamas in Gaza is warranted. But the Butcherie is not a political institution; it's a store that sells food to Jews who adhere to religious dietary laws. The brick was thrown through a window displaying a winery map of Israel that depicted the disputed West Bank as part of Israel. But holding a Jewish-owned store responsible for actions of the Israeli government has no justification. It would strike most people as obviously bigoted — and ridiculous — to protest for a 'free Tibet' by throwing a brick through the window of a Chinese grocery store, even if it displayed a map that included Tibet. Yet too many Americans can't bring themselves to understand that it's just as wrong to inflict violence on Jews or Jewish institutions to protest Israel. Advertisement Brandeis University Professor of American Jewish History Jonathan Sarna said historically, domestic antisemitism rises when tensions rise between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Sarna said what struck him was the premeditation involved in writing a message on the brick, which implies not sudden anger but a statement of power. 'This incident, in addition to trying to make Jews fearful … is also about an expression of power, a reminder to Jews that we, whoever the people are who threw the rock, are stronger or at least are able to inflict lots of fear upon you,' Sarna said. That's a message our society cannot accept. Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
