Sign on to Massachusetts State Representative Carl Sciortino's petition to his colleagues in the state legislature: We Need Bold Solutions for MA Education & Transportation.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick made a bold proposal for investing in our state's future. After decades of cutting and passing the buck by a timid, short-sighted legislature, the Governor sided with a growing minority within that legislature and used the much bigger soapbox of his office to kick off a real conversation about revenue, investment, education, transportation, and fairness.
In Choosing Growth in Our Communities, Governor Patrick proposes serious, significant investment in transportation and infrastructure, public health, and education and early childhood support.
He proposes funding this with a more progressive tax system, by:
- Raising the state income tax from 5.25% to 6.5%,
- Doubling the personal exemption (the portion of income that is not taxed by the state), and
- Cutting the sales tax from 6.25% to 4.5%.
The result would be a fairer tax that takes less from people of low income and more from those who can afford to pay more, while providing $2 billion in additional revenue those priorities. This is why we elect Democratic Governors.
Today, the Massachusetts Legislature is debating, and perhaps voting on, a cop-out of a counterproposal. As Blue Mass Group's David Kravitz writes, "Speaker DeLeo and Senate President Murray have decided to nibble around the edges of fixing MA's transportation infrastructure, and to ignore education all together."
Progressive Carl Sciortino, a member of the Massachusetts House and part of the core group in the legislature that wants real investment and fairness, posted today: "We Need Bold Solutions for Transportation and Education." He calls on the legislature to scrap the current legislation and work with Governor Patrick.
Help Carl out: Sign his petition on Signon.Org, and send this to people you know in Massachusetts!
