Baker: sales tax reduction not in the cards
Photo | State House News Service
Gov. Charlie Baker
Gov. Charlie Baker gave voice Monday to a potential "grand bargain" addressing issues raised by ballot questions, but leaders of the House and Senate said reducing the sales tax, the topic of one question, is not in the cards this year.
"I don't think our bodies are going to agree on a lowering of the sales tax. We're concerned about revenue," Senate President Harriette Chandler said after a meeting with Baker and other legislative leaders.
"In the last couple of months, I do not see that as an issue that will come before the House," said House Speaker Robert DeLeo, whose House rejected a bid to lower the sales tax during its April budget debate.
Baker last weekend declared his support for reducing the sales tax, an idea he campaigned on in 2010. As his re-election contest ramps up, Baker lately has begun portraying Democrats as tax raisers, and contrasting them with Republicans who he says do not want to raise taxes.
"I said all along that my hope is that we end up finding a way to work with a number of the folks who have ballot questions pending to come up with what I would describe as sort of a grand bargain between and among all the players," Baker told reporters Monday after his meeting.
Baker said discussions about ballot question alternatives will "get more poignant" as lawmakers get closer to the July 31 end of formal sessions. The deadline to come up with legislative alternatives to ballot questions is early July, but it would not be unprecedented for a deal to be struck after the question has been placed on the ballot.
Baker has said he supports a sales tax reduction without saying if he supports a ballot question backed by the Retailers Association of Massachusetts to drop the tax rate from 6.25 percent to 5 percent.
Tax collections 10 months into fiscal 2018 are up $1.7 billion, or 8.1 percent, over the same period last year. The Senate plans to release its fiscal 2019 budget bill on Thursday.
Two other ballot efforts opposed by the retailers association and supported by the group Raise Up Massachusetts would establish a paid family and medical leave program in Massachusetts and gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association is also pushing a question to impose staffing mandates in hospitals.
Democrat leaders may have opposed the idea of a sales tax cut on Monday, but most years they have supported a sales tax holiday weekend during the summer. Baker wants to make the tax holiday an annual event.
"We'll take a run at them on the sales tax holiday for the summer, though, sometime between now and the end of the year, and see if we can make any progress on that," Baker said.
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