Keller: Healey cutting some red tape for businesses but people on both sides want more
The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global.
Gov. Maura Healey is cutting red tape for businesses in Massachusetts, saying it will keep the state competitive but people from across the political spectrum want her to do more.
The time and expense of dealing with bureaucratic red tape is a nightmare for many businesses.
Eliminates old business regulations
And on Wednesday, Healey fed a batch of state regulations to a paper shredder, saying it will help keep the state competitive.
"Who doesn't love the striped pole outside a barbershop?" she said. "State law required a barbershop to actually hang a frickin' pole right outside the thing."
No longer. Just one of scores of archaic business regulations being discarded by the Healey administration. The message: "These changes are going to save businesses time, they're going to save businesses money, and you know who's gonna benefit? Customers," said the governor.
The shredding drew praise from some business leaders. "Your two predecessors - one Democrat [Deval Patrick], one Republican [Charlie Baker] - also announced regulatory reform efforts at the beginning of their terms. Sixteen years later nothing had occurred," recounted Jon Hurst, head of the Massachusetts Retailers Association.
Groups want Healey to do more
But to Chris Anderson, CEO of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, Healey's shredding party is "a good news story, however it's really marginal at best." He says it's far more important that Healey ease unemployment insurance costs and the burden on taxpayers of rising state spending.
"What the governor should be leading right now with the support of many of those who care a lot about Massachusetts is to rein in the rate of growth on state spending to a rate that is more equivalent to what taxpayers are seeing their paychecks do from year to year," said Anderson.
By contrast, Viviana Abreu-Hernandez, head of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, wants Healey, who backed the so-called Millionaire's Tax, to support economic growth with a new tax on foreign corporations doing business here. "If we have seen progressive taxation to bring enough revenue to the state to make significant investments in transportation and education, why are we not promoting more progressive taxation at the corporate level?" she asked.
As she did when she ran the first time, Healey wants to find the middle ground that made Baker so popular, supporting some tax cuts and cutting red tape while also backing other tax hikes and expanding the budget. She hasn't said yet if she supports that new corporate tax, but with all sorts of red lights flashing on the state's fiscal dashboard, that will likely be an election-year moment of truth.
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