The term “Taxachusetts” is generally believed to have been coined in 1990, which coincided with a serious recession that left Massachusetts drained of revenues.  To ward off serious cuts and prevent a shut-down of state government, the Massachusetts Legislature raised the income tax rate from 5.75 to 5.9 percent. The increase was called “temporary” but critics seized upon the move as the symptom of an out of control tax-and-spend Legislature. Governor Weld assumed office in November of 1990, the first Republican Governor to hold the corner office since Republican Frank Sargent lost to Democrat Mike Dukakis in 1974.  Weld had run as social moderate/fiscal conservative, promising to roll back the tax rate.  Weld’s tenure began a decade of tax reductions and level-funding for human services, policies that were continued by Weld’s successor’s Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift.  During this period, tax revenues increased dramatically as residents’ stock portfolios bulged, corresponding with a record market performance on Wall Street, and the technology boom of Massachusetts-based companies. Despite years of tax decreases and program cuts, amounting to an annual operational state budget decrease of $3.6 billion, fiscal watchdog groups and their allies in the Governor’s office garnered enough support to place a referendum on the 2000 statewide ballot, asking for a further reduction in the income tax rate to 5 percent.  The referendum passed, and served as a mandate regarding the will of the voters.  In 2002, the bottom fell out from under the stock market.  Suddenly, cash that had been flowing into state coffers through capital gains dried up, causing a 15 percent reduction in overall tax revenue from the previous year. The residual effects of the tax rollback (to 5.3 percent), paired with the Wall Street crash, resulted in a “perfect storm” of available revenue, prompting elected officials to propose even deeper cuts that would decimate human service programs along with local aid and C70/766 school aid to cities and towns.  The proposed cuts for FY2003 meant DMR could no longer remain level-funded but actual services would have to be terminated – specifically, 584 people receiving residential supports would be forced to “move home with families” as a result of a proposed $28.2 million cut, 1,311 people would have to “stay home” as a result of plans to reduce by $8.4 million and $2.3 million respectively, the DMR Day/Work, and the DMR transportation accounts. To stave off the loss of services, The Arc of Mass. asked people served by the Commonwealth, their families, and staff to travel to the State House to protest.  In the words of the late Steve Collins, Executive Director of the Mass. Human Services Coalition, “We may indeed be tilting at windmills - but someone has to!”  The resulting rally attracted thousands of people and shut down traffic on Beacon Street in front of the State House for hours.  Elected officials took notice.  While $725 million was cut from the overall state budget, some of the most draconian measures eyed for human service accounts were avoided.  To accomplish this, the Legislature spent most of the state’s $3 billion “rainy day” reserve account, approved $1.1 billion in tax increases, froze the rollback at 5.3 percent, and boosted taxes on long-term capital gains and cigarette sales. Today, some officials call for a resumption in the tax rollback to 5 percent.  Some would ask why, if the recession is over, we shouldn’t do this?  The answer: after nearly a decade of cuts and/or level funding, most human service accounts such as salary reserve have still not recovered to pre-recession levels, particularly when cost of living increases are factored in.  The Arc, along with many other private groups and business organizations, argue that a rollback at this time would be unwise and unsustainable. A September 2006 report by the non-partisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, entitled The Long-Term Mismatch Between Available Resources and Important State Priorities, A Five-Year Fiscal Analysis, concludes “the state’s leaders will soon have to grapple with a large and rapidly growing disparity – potentially in the billions of dollars – between likely revenues and the amounts needed to address economically important initiatives such as greater local aid, additional spending for higher education, and increased capital investment.”  Commenting specifically on a proposal to roll back the tax rate to 5 percent, the report went on to state “The situation is further complicated by proposals to cut the income tax rate from 5.3 to 5.0 percent, with an annual revenue impact of almost $700 million. The more accelerated the tax cut, the greater the impact on funding for various priorities, including providing relief to hard-pressed local property taxpayers via the Foundation’s recommendation to dedicate 40 percent of tax revenues to cities and towns.” The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, an independent economic research non-profit, claims that at the present time, “Every dollar that the Commonwealth would fail to collect because of a reduction in the personal income tax rate is a dollar that policymakers would be unable to use to restore the millions of dollars in spending cuts adopted during the fiscal crisis that are still in place today. For instance, between 2002 and 2004, Massachusetts reduced real per pupil spending on K-12 education more than any other state in the nation. Other areas, such as higher education, public health, and environmental affairs, have been reduced by more than 20 percent in real terms since 2001. Moreover, an annual loss of $600 million would almost certainly imperil the Commonwealth’s efforts to expand access to health care.” A tax rollback assumes the state’s human service system is providing adequate resources to vulnerable populations – the homeless, people with mental illness, substance abuse, intellectual disabilities i.e., and thus there are excess, surplus funds.  It means no new FY2008 EOHHS salary reserve for cost of living increases for direct care workers who make $10.67 /hour. According to President Bush’s Committee on Intellectual Disabilities report, A Charge We Have to Keep, a Roadmap to Personal and Economic Freedom, “People with intellectual disabilities want and need health care, support services, and homes with friends and family, just like all Americans. Often, getting these basic human freedoms and rights requires help from other people and the community.”  This simple charge cannot occur if funds are cut and workers who provide the most intimate care for people with intellectual disabilities cannot retain a living wage. Towns and cities, a powerful political force competing with human services for state dollars, have stepped up their lobbying efforts to increase local aid to offset rising property tax hikes, enacted to protect municipal operations and schools hit by a decade’s worth of diminished state reimbursement and school building assistance. If, as it has been suggested by some legislators, a tax rollback could be predicated on criteria demonstrating the improved fiscal health of local cities and towns, The Arc would ask why a similar “trigger” should not be established to gauge the health and safety of individuals served by human service agencies?  Unfortunately, human service advocates do not possess the same political clout as voters who care about the condition of schools, roads and local infrastructure. The November 7th election will be a crucial factor in shaping the future of human services in Massachusetts.  We encourage everyone to participate and make your voices known.  We encourage advocates to communicate with candidates officials that the implications of future tax policies will have a significant impact on people with disabilities, their families and the staff who serve them.  For more information or if you have any questions, contact The Arc.